( by Private Notice ) asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what action she is proposing to take in respect of the declared intention of members of the nursing profession to withdraw from the NHS and whether she will make a statement about her recent meeting with their representatives.

I met representatives of the Staff Side of the Nurses and Midwives Whitley Council on 29th April and a deputation, 44 strong, from the Royal College of Nursing yesterday. At both meetings the need for an independent inquiry into nurses' pay was urgently pressed upon me. The Royal College asked for an answer to its request in three weeks' time and told me that unless a satisfactory reply was forthcoming it would have to advise its members, after giving proper notice, to terminate their contracts with the NHS. I agreed to meet the Staff Side in three weeks' time to give them an answer to this request.

The Royal College warmly welcomed the Government's decision, already announced, to accept the main recommendations of the Briggs Report, and asked me to proceed as quickly as possible with its implementation. I told its representatives that I proposed to make a further announcement as soon as possible about the time table.

Will the right hon. Lady accept that right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House share the welcome which the Royal College extended to the Government's announcement of their intentions in relation to the recommendations of a Briggs Committee? Nevertheless, will the right hon. Lady appreciate that there is widespread concern about the present situation? Can she say whether it is true, as The Guardian reports today, that any extra money to meet the claims being made by members of the nursing profession will have to come out of the present National Health Service budget? If that is the case, does not it demonstrate the unwisdom of this Government's decisions to distribute such large resources indiscriminately for the purpose of food subsidies or the commitment to the abolition of prescription charges, and does not the situation further underline the importance of maintaining a machinery based upon the Pay Board for the examination of relativities which would secure for the nursing profession the independent inquiry for which its members ask?

The situation underlines that the critical condition of the nursing profession stem from the actions of the previous Government over three and a half years. It was my Labour predecessor, Mr. Richard Crossman, who last gave the nurses a substantial increase of 20 per cent. in February 1970. It was my Conservative predecessor, the right hon. Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph), who sat on the Briggs Report for two years and failed to announce any Government intention to accept its principles. I explained to the nurses that we had already shown our good faith to them by not only accepting the recommendations of the Briggs Report but allocating a sum of money to proceed immediately with the first steps of its implementation.

As for the remainder of the right hon. and learned Gentleman's questions, he will be well aware that in a situation of this kind it is right for him to wait, as the nurses are prepared to wait, for the Government's answer in three weeks.

Is my right hon. Friend aware that it ill becomes the Opposition now to jump on this bandwagon when it was they, as long ago as the early 1960s, who made the nurses the first victims of a wages policy by restricting them first to a 2½ per cent. wage increase? Nevertheless, will my right hon. Friend assure us that she accepts that an early and substantial increase for the nurses is absolutely essential if the National Health Service is not to break down? I am sure that she realises that the nurses are more militant today than I have known in my political lifetime, and that unless we can deal with this present situation as expeditiously as we dealt with the miners we are heading for very serious trouble.

I agree with my hon. Friend's comments, and he is right to say that the mood of the nurses as a result of their experience of the past three and a half years is quite different from any previously known in this country. I can give him an assurance that the Government are considering urgently and sympathetically how they can deal with the nurses' claim for a special review.

May I declare an interest here? As the right hon. Lady will know, I am a member of a regional health authority. But I have another very personal interest in as much as my wife has recently undergone a major operation in Guy's, and, more than being a health administrator, I have had a greater opportunity to see the work of nurses in the sophisticated treatment that they have to give someone in post-operative conditions. I thank the right hon. Lady, as I am sure the whole House does, for giving so long to listening to the nurses yesterday—I think some three hours. But I am sorry that she has introduced overtones of political thought into this because they do not balance well with what she did in listening to the nurses yesterday.

What struck me most critically last week was this: is the right hon. Lady aware that there are more patients in our hospitals and fewer nurses giving the more sophisticated treatment that they now need than at any time before? One point that surprised and concerned me most was that cleaners in hospitals earned more than staff nurses. Will the right hon. Lady take that matter into account as well?

First, I should like to wish the hon. Gentleman's wife a speedy and complete recovery.

I was not seeking to introduce a political note into this tricky situation. I have met the nurses and promised that the Government as a whole will sympathetically consider their claims. I think that I should at least be allowed time to report back to the nurses.

The hon. Gentleman's substantial and constructive point about staff-patient ratios and more sophisticated treatment in hospitals was brilliantly set out in the lengthy report presented to me by the Royal College of Nursing. It is important for the House to realise that nurses are concerned not merely with pay levels but with wider issues such as the educational structure outlined in the Briggs Report, better bed utilisation and other matters in hospitals. Yesterday I promised the representatives of the Royal College of Nursing that I was not only taking those aspects equally seriously but considering ways in which I could sincerely and constructively follow up the organisational points that they made.

Is my right hon. Friend aware that the shortage of nurses, particularly trained nurses, in many parts of the country is so acute that certain wards and facilities cannot operate fully and properly? Is she also aware that the nursing situation generally is aggravated by the employment of agency nurses? While I admire the committee that has been set up to consider the position of consultants who do not have full-time contracts in the National Health Service, may I ask her to do something about nurses who do not work full time for the National Health Service?

My hon. Friend is quite right about the increase in the use of agency nurses in certain areas in the National Health Service, particularly in London. It is a localised problem. This was one of the points dealt with in the report by the Royal College of Nursing about the future management of the Health Service. We can deal with this problem only in the context of a more realistic approach to all the demands that the nurses are responsibly making.

Is the right hon. Lady aware that the very comments that we are now making about the nurses are precisely the same as hon. Members on both sides of the House have been making for many years, including the period 1964 to 1970—namely, that nurses, by the very nature of their essential employment and dedication to it, are extremely reluctant to use the strike weapon that is so readily wielded by other workers and that their bargaining position is further weakened because they are in essence civil servants working for a monopoly employer? Is it not time that we did justice to the nurses' claim? Is not the time for inquiries long past?

I agree that there is a danger that society as a whole will always be ready to exploit the nurses' sense of vocation and anxiety always to put the care of the patient first. It would be wrong for us to exploit the dedication that they have shown. However, I remind the hon. Gentleman that, because of that situation, my predecessor, the late Richard Cross-man, introduced a big boost to nurses' pay in February 1970, from which they have since fallen back. It was Richard Crossman who set up the Briggs Committee, the report of which the nurses very much welcome as providing a long-term solution to their needs for greater status, better education and better clinical support. I repeat, that report had been mouldering in the Department for some time when I took over. I have taken not two years but only two months to announce the Government's acceptance of it in principle. I shall shortly be reporting to the House the timetable that we propose for carrying out the recommendations in that report without further delay.

I hope that in three weeks my right hon. Friend will be able to tell us that a substantial increase will be made available to the nurses. Will she consider another group of people who work and are partners with nurses in hospitals, namely, the paramedical profession whose situation is equally as depressed? Will my right hon. Friend consider the pay, recruitment, conditions, and promotion prospects of physiotherapists, occupational therapists, speech therapists, radiographers and other technicians, as they are all part of the total team?

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend that they, too, play a vital rôle in the National Health Service and that they have fallen behind. There are certain groups in the professions supplementary to medicine to whom the willingness to grant a consent, announced on 6th May by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment, will also apply. It is traditional for them to follow closely what is negotiated for the nurses.

Is the right hon. Lady aware that Governments of different political persuasions realise that nurses and junior hospital doctors have not received their proper due? But this situation is not helped by pretending that the services that they render are free. It is the shortage of resources, not the shortage of recognition of the justice of their claim, which has held them back under both Conservative and Labour Governments. Will she therefore do everything in her power to bring home to the community—for example, by retaining charges—that these valuable services are not free and that nurses, junior hospital doctors, radiographers, occupational therapists, the lot, suffer from propagating the view that the services are free when they have a just claim on our resources that cannot be met except by sacrificing other resources?

I agree that there are not enough resources currently available for building the National Health Service that we would like. I think that the whole House agrees that we would like to see more resources devoted to this area. However, it is possible to allocate the available resources with a better sense of priorities. To the extent that resources are limited, I believe that it is more important to spend them on people than on buildings. It is no use having new buildings it we have not got a properly remunerated staff with a high sense of morale and the ability to carry out their high standards of care with professional pride.

As for charges, we have never argued that the National Health Service is free. It must be paid for by all of us. The point is whether it should be free at the point of use. That is the belief of all serious professional opinion.

Do not the exchanges across the Floor of the House today indicate to my right hon. Friend that within the National Health Service there are many areas of enormous concern and, indeed, frustration among those working within it? Is she aware that the profession—I refer to nurses, administrators and all people working within the National Health Service—is well aware that much of its difficulty stems from the reorganisation of the health service that was pushed through the House by the previous administration, because there are large areas where no appointments have been made, where no job specifications have been handed out, and where people do not know what they are supposed to be doing?

As regards available resources, does the Labour Party's policy on reducing the amount of money spent on defence indicate to my right hon. Friend both a source of new revenue for the National Health Service and a means of using it when we have obtained it? On every aspect of Government policy where she has power to do something, will she press forward most urgently?

I entirely agree that there is a sense of frustration in the National Health Service. That has been vividly expressed to me during my meetings with the staff side and with the Royal College of Nursing. I also agree that the reorganisation of the National Health Service has caused an upheaval. There are still gaps in the completion of the arrangements as the reorganisation was not brought to a finality. That should have been done by 1st April when the reorganised service was introduced. My hon. Friend has suggested a way in which we could get more resources for the National Health Service. She will be aware that a reduction in the defence budget is part of the Government's policy.

Will the right hon. Lady now invoke the social compact to settle this dispute?

What dispute? I suggest to the House extremely seriously that it would be most unwise to anticipate what are as yet hypothetical developments. I have explained to the House what was said to me earnestly and reluctantly by the nurses yesterday. My answer, as I told the House, was that I shall meet the Staff Side again in three weeks' time. I suggest that we none of us says anything which might endanger a successful meeting.

I beg to move,

I quote briefly from one letter that came to me a few days ago from someone in Pollokshields. It reads:

We who support this measure understand that there is some opposition to it. I for one respect the sincerity of those who object to it. However, I believe that such a Bill as I am now recommending will command majority support among the Scottish people.

This is one of several attempts that have been made over the past few years to bring Scottish law on divorce broadly into line with the law now prevailing in England. The Law Society of Scotland in a letter of 11th May 1973 said: Scotsman said pretty much the same thing, namely:

I shall not bother the House with the detailed provisions of the Bill. I just want to say that the basic principle enshrined in it would be that irretrievable breakdown of the marriage would be the sole ground for divorce. In general the Bill would be different only in detail, although in important detail, from the Bills introduced in earlier years both by myself and by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes). I shall quote two examples. First, in the earlier Bill there were rather complex provisions for divorce in cases of incurable mental illness. Those provisions have now been dropped after deep consideration by the Scottish Law Commission and, I understand, by the Scottish Office. The second example is that there will be a tightening up of the provisions relating to the maintenance of children. When a marriage breaks down it is almost invariable that the children are the main sufferers, with, of course, the wife.

It is right and proper that these matters have merited, and have been given, profound thought by the people concerned. Some hon. Members' views on the whole problem may well be determined—and they have indicated to me that they would be—by the effectiveness of the part of the Bill to which I have referred. That is a Committee point, as are many others, which I cannot possibly hope to deal with now. I hope that in those circumstances the House will give me authority to bring in the Bill.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. William Hamilton, Mr. Hugh Brown, Mr. Rifkind, Mr. David Steel, Mr. Reid, Mr. Robin F. Cook, Mr. MacArthur, Mr. Sillars and Dr. Miller.

Divorce (Scotland) Bill

Mr. William Hamilton accordingly presented a Bill to amend the law of Scotland relating to divorce and separation; to facilitate reconciliation of the parties in consistorial causes; to amend the law as to the power of the court to make orders relating to financial provision arising out of divorce and to settlements and other dealings by a party to the marriage, and as to the power of the court to award aliment to spouses in actions for aliment; and for purposes connected with the matters aforesaid: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 14th June and to be printed. [Bill 44.]

The Opposition are using this Supply Day not for any party purpose but to enable the House to debate a matter which I think everyone will agree is of major importance for the nation; namely, the health of the British Press. To do so when we are under no immediate threat, no daily threat, of the closure of a particular paper is an opportunity to examine the matter broadly, with all its implications, without being under duress. As I have no doubt that all hon. Members have views about this subject which they are willing to express, and as some of those views are held with greater or less degrees of passion, I shall try to put my points as briefly and succinctly as I can to enable as many other hon. Members who wish to speak to do so.

The main purpose of the debate so far as I and, I hope, others are concerned is not just an analysis of the problems and certainly not to censure those concerned in the industry. My main purpose is to secure action, which is urgently needed. The Prime Minister has set up another Royal Commission on the Press, which itself is a sure recipe for avoiding action for a number of years. So far in his period of office the right hon. Gentleman has set up three Royal Commissions, an average of one a fortnight under the present administration. I do not begrudge him these little idiosyncrasies but a Royal Commission on the Press—[An HON. MEMBER: "What are the three?"] I understood that there are to be one on corruption, one on television and broadcasting and one on the Press. Anyhow, he has set up a Royal Commission on the Press; let us confine ourselves to that.

There was a Royal Commission on the Press from 1947 to 1949, and another from 1961 to 1962: we had the Economist Intelligence Unit Report in addition to them. I have already said in the House that all the information on the Press is available. All the recommendations of previous Royal Commissions are available and are well worth re-reading. Nothing has basically changed, except that we are 12 years further on, 12 years more out of date as far as the industry's organisation is concerned, and just as far from achieiving a permanent solution to these basic problems as ever we were.

If it is felt that some inquiry is necessary—I have already expressed my doubts about this—we must in the machinery of government find some other way of doing it quickly, and not through the admittedly cumbersome machinery of a Royal Commission—either some small group working full time, which can take all the information so widely available and the recommendations of previous studies, or some Committee of the House like those which have dealt with Green Papers, both being given a dateline by which to report.

If that were done, so much information is already available that the main purpose of any such report should be to set out the options available to Government and Parliament and the implications of the consequences of each, so that Parliament. the Government and the public can judge what is in the interests of the country and of a free Press.

The reasons for the present interest in the state of the Press are as follows. It is now well known that the Press is entering yet another period of economic difficulty, the reasons for which I will discuss later. There are some who believe in Fleet Street that this period of difficulty may lead in the coming year to the disappearance of three or four of our national newspapers.

The second reason is criticism of the standards observed by the Press in dealing with our national and personal affairs. This of course raises at once questions of the freedom of the Press and of the responsibility of the Press, both of which have been emphasised by events across the Atlantic, which have shown the need both for vigilance and for fairness of treatment of these matters by a free Press.

I personally regret the attitude of a limited number here whose admiration for the real achievements of part of the American Press is so great that they feel that they simply must emulate them in some way and find something equivalent. I find it somewhat odious that others spend a considerable time pontificating to another great democracy across the Atlantic about how it should run its affairs in the troubles which beset it. I should have thought that a little restraint might not come amiss in such matters where we have no powers and very little influence.

I must emphasise here the connection between the economic health of the Press and its freedom and responsibility. Without economic stability it is difficult for the Press anywhere to maintain either its true freedom or a proper responsibility of approach to its coverage of news and information. The pressures for circulation in order to survive can lead to distortion and to outside influence playing its part upon the Press. I do not believe that this is what the Press itself wants, but it is the danger of not having an economically strong position in its own right.

It is necessary to distinguish here between the national Press and the provincial Press. The problems with which we are confronted concern mainly the national Press, printed either in London or in Manchester. The provincial Press, there seems to be general agreement, has a much healthier economic situation. Last year it made a good profit, and this year is making a reasonable profit. In part this is because there is now only one evening paper in each city or in each area outside London. Within the United Kingdom, apart from London, there is only one evening newspaper covering each city. The only other place in the British Isles that is like London is Dublin.

This is not dangerous from the point of view of influence of newspaper opinion or the extension of monopoly views. The other media which are now available—television on a number of networks and radio on more and more networks—prevent this danger, which was considered by the two previous Royal Commissions. Also, many evening papers are linked to morning provincial papers, so the financial position is balanced.

On the whole, also, many in the House would say that provincial papers are balanced in their approach, coverage and editorial discussion. One of the reasons perhaps is that they are less influenced by the goldfish bowl in which we in Westminster, Whitehall and Fleet Street spend so much time swimming.

I should like to examine the immediate reason for the economic difficulties. There is, first, the decline in advertising revenue, which keeps pace with the economy and is bound to move with the economic cycle. It is not, therefore, something for which permament remedies have to be found outside the industry. It is something with which each industry has to cope, no matter what its nature, and with which the newspaper industry itself should be able to deal.

There is, second, the increase in the price of newsprint, which, like the price of many other raw materials, has been considerable. On 1st June 1970 newsprint cost £78 per ton; on 1st March 1973 it cost £92 per ton; on 14th February 1974 it was already £139·60 per ton; and the price has already been notified for 1st July next, when it will be £159·60 per ton. It has therefore doubled since June 1970, and in the last 15 months the rise has been very rapid.

But, again, all industry has had to cope with large and rapid rises in the price of raw materials, so this is not something we should take as peculiar to the newspaper industry. It is something with which it should be able to cope itself.

Incidentally, it was brought to our notice just before we left office that the industry is particularly feeling delay by the Price Commission in dealing with the increase in the price of newsprint among its allowable costs. Those in the industry feel that when they have already been notified that as far ahead as 1st July there will be this substantial increase of £20 per ton they should not be limited to claiming for increases in cover costs until they have received invoices at the new price. Such a delay would mean a considerable loss to individual newspapers.

As I understand it, the orders which have been laid by the right hon. Gentleman's right hon. Friend will, in effect, make the situation more difficult. If I understand the orders aright, it will not be possible to have an increase in price in less than three months. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to look at this particular aspect of the newspaper industry in which there are economic problems. We want to ensure the maintenance of a free, economically healthy Press. This is one aspect which justifies examination and, if necessary, modification of the Price Code.

The other aspects of the industry's economic difficulties at the moment ought to be accommodated by the industry itself in the normal way under the Price Code. I do not believe that they justify a subsidy of any kind. We ought to look, as Royal Commissions have done, at the underlying weaknesses of the industry. These have been emphasised by everybody in the industry by Royal Commissions, by the Economist Intelligence Unit and by all observers.

What is the underlying basic problem of national newspapers in Fleet Street? First, the problem is one of out-of-date plant and machinery with which the newspapers are functioning. There is general agreement on this. In a limited number of cases the process of replacement has begun. It is immensely expensive but some newspapers have embarked upon it.

The other basic problem to which everybody has drawn attention is the gross overmanning of existing plant and the fact that this overmanning remains even where up-to-date technological plant is installed.

The third aspect which has been commented on by every Royal Commission involved is the weakness of management in not uniting to handle these two particular problems—first, reinvestment in the industry, and, secondly, the present overmanning which still continues where replacement of plant has taken place.

Modern plant and modern technique of processing are essential for the national Press in this country if it is to carry out its responsibility effectively. It is not economic for newspapers in Fleet Street to install new processing as long as the present manning situation is maintained. Even then the problem arises whether the industry at the moment has the resources to replace its existing plant and machinery were it to be assured that the manning schedules to accommodate the machinery would not be the existing schedules.

If the manning problem could be solved the chances of the newspapers being able to equip themselves with up-to-date processing would be that much greater. Successive reports have given details about overmanning but, as far as I can ascertain, little change has taken place, in a comparative scale, over the past 12 years. There is general agreement that the national Press is overmanned by at least 25 per cent., and many people would argue that it is overmanned by between 30 and 40 per cent.

One national paper in London employs 4,000 people. It could operate just as efficiently, if not more efficiently, with 3,000 people and in the process could save between £2 million and £3 million a year. I am told that the high-speed letterpress machine requires seven men for its effective management. This figure of manning applies in many other countries—it applies, for instance, in New York—but in various parts of the United Kingdom the manning is 10 men, in Manchester it is 12 and in London it is between 17 and 21. This is the degree of overmanning which exists today. The machines are designed to produce 50,000 copies an hour but in some cases are allowed to produce only 20,000 copies an hour.

One national daily paper installed a modern typing machine, yet produced no reduction in manpower. The newspaper was unable to bring about any reduction in manpower, which means that there are 340 people without effective employment who are still employed in that particular case.

Many other examples can be given, and have been produced by examinations of the Press which have been carried out. If one takes 40,000 employees in Fleet Street and Manchester with a minimum figure of 25 per cent. overmanning, there are 10,000 unnecessary employees, which by even modest criteria are supernumerary, and with average earnings of £80 a week this gives an unnecessary addition to the wage bill of £40 million a year. This burden cannot be carried by the industry; neither should it be carried at public expense or by any device which is, in effect, a form of public expense.

The problem does not really arise outside London. No doubt many provincial newspapers would say that they could reduce manning yet still be effective, but the problem does not, comparatively, exist on the scale it does in Fleet Street and Manchester.

Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that part of the problem of overmanning is due to the fact there is a real fear on the part of trade unions about house practices? It may be that the industry has been more successful in the provinces because management has been a little more realistic, and more basic, and has been prepared to respect the methods of working in plants.

There may be an element of truth in what the hon. Gentleman says. I shall come to that in a moment when I shall propose action which may be taken.

The position in Fleet Street, and perhaps in Manchester, has been brought about to a certain extent by the power of the unions and differences between the unions in their attitude towards employers.

Wages are high by British standards but one would not criticise that. I have always supported the doctrine of a high-wage and low-cost economy. If there were to be productivity in the national newspaper industry of the sort one could get from proper manning standards, no one would begrudge high wages or arrangements to produce improvements in earnings. What is lacking is the necessary productivity.

A saving of £40 million a year has to be achieved by the industry by putting its own house in order and not by the Government being asked to come to the aid of the industry. Those who propose subsidy of one kind or another—as far as I am aware the whole of the newspaper industry is opposed to any form of subsidy—are proposing the paying out of public money to assist an unjustifiable and untenable economic position. Subsidies of any kind would only perpetuate that position. The right answer is to deal with the basic problems of the national newspaper industry. This can be done only by employers and unions working together and, if necessary, being brought together by the Government, either through the Department of Employment or by somebody outside whom the Government wished to use for the purpose.

Royal Commissions on the industry have always commented on the lack of unity among the industry's employers. We all know that in the past there have been particular employers who have broken away for their own purposes from time to time, the latest example being IPC, but when the employers have taken a recommendation of a Royal Commission and studied it together, which admittedly has been rarely, they have been able to produce some change in the situation for a time. They now need to be able to work together to get their own house in order.

As far as unions are concerned, I have always been one of those who wish to see the TUC play a much more important rôle, not confining itself to wage negotiations but taking part in conjunction with employers and, if necessary, with Government Departments, where involved, in considering the wider aspects of the industry.

Here there is an important job for the TUC to do, and it is one to which it should put its hand. Trade union leaders, most members of the General Council, and the great majority of trade unionists want to see a free Press in a healthy British democracy, and they can contribute to it by using their own influence on the situation. Many people think that if the unions in the industry could merge that would help in dealing with the problems of overmanning and the industrial unrest that comes from demarcation disputes.

A characteristic of this industry, unlike many others, is that once a day's production has been lost it cannot be made up later. If a day's newspapers are not produced on that day they never will be, and that is a loss on the industry. In other industries it has been found possible to make up a large proportion of production that is lost because of industrial unrest, and that can contribute to the prosperity of the workers and the firm—which is no justification in itself for industrial action—but there is a basic difference between losses in the newspaper industry and losses in the rest of manufacturing industry.

I take the point that in some industries, if there is an industrial dispute, it is possible to catch up with production, but the point that is often made about disputes—and the most recent example is that of the car industry—is that they cost the country millions of pounds in lost production. If that is true, there should be an adjustment to the figure, or a recognition of the argument which the right hon. Gentleman is putting forward.

Those adjustments are made in all the statistics that are produced.

No.

They are, and perhaps the hon. Gentleman will study the figures. Losses in the newspaper industry can never be made good, and therefore there is a permanent impact on the industry.

The question that arises is how overmanning and the installation of new plant can be dealt with. This has to be worked out between employers and unions. It has been suggested that there should be a scheme so that employment in the industry can be reduced by about 10,000 as a minimum, on the basis of that organised under the Conservative administration for the docks between Lord Aldington and Mr. Jack Jones.

That proved to be an expensive scheme. The net result was that more people left the industry than was required or justified, and since then the industry has had to look at its manning requirements again. Therefore, if there were any suggestion that there should be a scheme of that kind for the newspaper industry it would need the most careful analysis and construction.

I am told that the National Union of Journalists is asking for one month's pay for every year's service, and it is said that their average earnings are more than £5,000 a year. Any scheme based on that figure would be enormously expensive for the industry to carry, and one in which any Government contribution, if based on the docks scheme, would again be very heavy. This is a matter which has to be looked at very carefully indeed, and it is one which ought fundamentally to be dealt with by the industry itself. Newspapers are not in a similar situation to the docks, and employers ought to deal with the problem.

Where the Government have a responsibility is as an intermediary in bringing employers and unions together, if that cannot be done by the industry itself, and in looking after the retraining and re-employment of those who are made redundant. There is a definite responsibility of government.

I suggest that this ought not to await—indeed, cannot await—the publication of a Royal Commission's report. It is action that requires to be taken now, and a specific period—say, two years—should be laid down by employers and unions for dealing with the problem. The docks scheme was a shorter one in which we aimed at six months, and in all it took eight months, but if one took two years to work out a scheme for the newspapers the industry would know where it stood. The employers would be able to see the savings that would be made and the expense that would be required either for increased redundancy payments or for investment in up-to-date equipment.

I agree with much of the right hon. Gentleman's analysis and hope to say so if I have an opportunity to take part in the debate later tonight. The right hon. Gentleman began by saying that nothing had changed since the 1967 Economist report and the 1962 Royal Commission. If nothing has changed over all these years it is probable that nothing has changed in the last 10 weeks. If there is now a need for urgent action by the Government after only 10 weeks in office, why is it that the right hon. Gentleman's Government took no action?

Because the present economic anxieties of the industry stem from two things. The first is the rapid decline in its advertising revenue, and the second is the rapid increase in the cost of newsprint.

But this has happened over a year.

The latest rise is due to come into effect on 1st July. This is, therefore, a matter which justifies the attention of the Government, and we should not wait for whatever period would be required for a Royal Commission to report—I suppose about two years if it is a fairly rapid operation.

I hope that the Prime Minister will ask his right hon. Friends to direct their attention to this as a matter of urgency and to do so before we are faced with a particular newspaper crisis. The pressures at that time are such that we never try to deal with the basic problems of the industry but, instead, produce an immediate temporary solution that will tide us over the situation that has arisen.

If the basic problems are not dealt with, the alternative will be to see newspapers disappear, which nobody wants, and to see unemployment created in the industry, as we saw in Glasgow, with unemployment for 1,800 people because of the tranfer of the printing of some of its papers and the closure of one. All that would be available would be normal redundancy pay, and we should be faced with all the problems that arise from sudden unemployment without the opportunity of re-training or re-employment elsewhere.

I have dealt with the economic aspects of the Press, and I wish in conclusion to say a few words about another matter which concerns the House and the public, and that is the freedom and standards of the Press.

I firmly believe that full freedom of the Press is essential for a healthy democracy. I believe, too, that the standards of the Press have to be maintained by the Press itself. However much thought one gives to it, I have found no way—indeed, I cannot believe that it would be desirable to find a way—in which those standards can be maintained other than by the Press itself.

The Press would be in a better position to do that if it was economically strong. In part, the Press reflects the society in which we live, its moods and its attitudes. In part, too, the Press influences them, but public opinion can influence the standards of the Press. I sometimes wonder whether the public as a whole realise how susceptible to its postbag many of our national newspapers are. I sometimes regret that the Press, which rightly maintains that it must have freedom to criticise, is itself so sensitive to criticism from outside.

I must add that, personally, I have never been greatly impressed with the activities of the Press Council. It may be that if it were provided with more resources from the industry itself it would not need to wait for complaints to come to it but could study the state of the Press as a whole and, through a body on which the Press was represented, make its views known. Alternatively, one of our universities could of its own volition, and with funds available to it, make a study of our national and provincial Press and comment upon them at the end of each year of its study. Those are methods which could be used in a free society, and they would be valuable, but, basically, the Press must be responsible for maintaining its own standards.

Despite the failings—and I suppose that there is no Member who could not point out what he believes to be failings—I remain firmly convinced that any interference with the Press, or any arrangement which made the Press beholden to any Government, of any complexion, would be damaging to our society and to our democracy. I believe any arrangements for subsidies would be in that category, as would any arrangement for the distribution of advertising between those papers which can attract advertising and those unable to do so would be a deterrent to an efficient and effective Press. Above all, it would damage the—to use the technical term—quality newspapers of this country which are the newspapers of record. Any scheme which tried to shift advertising from one paper to another would, I believe, make the Press beholden to the Government of the day and at the same time be a deterrent to efficiency and would, above all, damage the papers of record which must be maintained.

Already the reference of newspapers to the Monopolies Commission is something which can be dangerous to the freedom of the Press, and there are some who would interpret the setting up of a Royal Commission at this time as being an atttempt to make the Press behave itself during this present period and to have well in mind that anything which happens will be referred to the Royal Commission and that the Royal Commission will be asked to adjudicate upon it in its recommendations.

It is essential that the Press should be able to stand up to influences of this kind, to the pressure of advertisers, if they should try to bring it; and this used in earlier times to be one of the main worries about influences on the Press, though I believe successive Royal Commissions have said that this influence can be overestimated. The Press must also be able to stand up to pressures that have recently developed over employees of the Press attempting to influence the nature of the advertisements they publish and the editorial policy of individual newspapers. The Press must have the right to be a free Press even in the face of its own employees if it is to be a genuinely free Press and to be what is required in a free, democratic society.

There are, of course, other matters of great importance to the Press but also of importance to our society. There was the Younger Report on privacy. We all know that it provides very great problems for its implementation. There is a very narrow dividing line between what it is necessary to inquire into as a matter of public interest and what others may be interested in purely because they wish to put their noses into other people's business. It is a very difficult line to draw, particularly when we are thinking in terms of legislation.

There is the Phillimore Committee's report on contempt still to come, to which again the Press, quite rightly attaches great importance. There is the Franks report on official secrets, which we have already debated in this House. This, again, produced many of the difficulties of implementations of which those who have been in government have known for a very long time. Personally, I have always hoped that it would be possible to reach some kind of agreement between the Government and those who are responsible for our national Press about the Official Secrets Act. I myself made one attempt to procure a greater understanding of the problems of government among those associated with the Press. I cannot tell the House that I achieved any success whatever but that does not mean that another attempt ought not to be made.

It is all very well to speak of open Government but it is necessary to be clear on what open Government means. It means open for Governments and for those who serve Governments to discuss a wide variety of matters and policies amongst themselves before coming to conclusions which they wish to pursue further and on which they wish to present options to Parliament or the country. I do not believe that open Government means that any ideas which might enter into any civil servants head should be promptly fed to the Press as something for which the Government is responsible and which should be treated with all the seriousness with which the Press can treat it. Nor is this the attitude the Press will adopt when it deals with its own proceedings. Any idea that anyone sitting in an editorial conference is free to go out and tell the world at large what went on at that conference and why decisions have been reached is absolutely abhorrent to the Press, and rightly so.

What is required is a much greater degree of understanding on the problems of government and the responsibility of the Press to report to the citizens of the country the policies and the options which are open. We all know the sensitivity of the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister to what appears in the Press, whether a personal, party or Government matter. I believe that it is quite unjustified. We have heard a great deal since the last General Election from the Prime Minister about what happened. I cannot really believe that his advisers did not bring the Daily Mirror to his attention every day as to what the Daily Mirror was doing during the last election. It seemed to me that it went to depths not known since the Daily Mirror's campaign against Mr. Churchill and "Who's finger on the trigger?" It was a matter for the Daily Mirror and for those who took part in the election to judge.

I have never seen anything agreeable about myself in the Press at any time, though I will go so far as to confess that some sailing and musical correspondents have been slightly more generous than other correspondents. But whether I look back to my period as Chief Whip, the negotiations in the campaign for Europe, retail price maintenance, five years in opposition or nearly four in government, it has not made much difference. I have never found anything which was to my satisfaction, and I do not believe I am alone in this. But there is is. We have a free Press, and the Press can decide what it does. There are many suggestions we could all make on where we would like changes, where the balance should be different, what views should be changed, and so on.

That is not really the matter of this debate today. The plain fact is that a free Press is the surest safeguard of the individual citizen's freedom. That is what matters today. That is why I believe action must be taken to restore health to the national Press, and I hope the Prime Minister and his colleagues will consider with owners and unions how best this can be done.

4.36 p.m.

May I first say to the right hon. Gentleman that the Government welcome this opportunity to have this debate. May I also say to him that we are grateful for his even-tempered and analytical approach to a subject which I know is of very great interest to all sides of the House.

May I say to him straight away, that one of his anxieties as he expressed it—that the decision by my right hon. Friend to establish a Royal Commission could, as it were, stand in the way of necessary earlier action to deal with particular problems of the Press—is misplaced for two reasons. First, certain of the immediate problems of the Press are receiving attention by myself, the responsible Minister, with my colleagues who are also involved. Secondly, as he may well remember, when the Royal Commission was set up my right hon. Friend mentioned that it will be free to submit interim reports or recommendations on certain matters. If there were one or two points which were in the right hon. Gentleman's mind on which it would be useful to have the view of the Royal Commission at an earlier date, ahead of its full report, I see no reason why we should not request that from the Commission, or ask it to consider such a request.

I shall comment during the course of my speech on a number of the points the right hon. Gentleman made, but I feel that his approach to this whole subject was a little more relaxed—I might even say a little more complacent—in considering some of the dangers and problems arising out of the economic pressures on the Press than I believe the circumstances warrant.

Having said that, let me start with an opening proposition which commands support on all sides—that we all recognise the crucial importance of the Press. When my right hon. Friend and predecessor as President of the Board of Trade—of course I am the Secretary of State, too—opened the last major debate on this subject some seven years ago, a debate in which the right hon. Gentleman himself took a major part, he said,

I must say straight away I whole-heartedly endorse those sentiments. If there is a danger to the freedom and variety of the Press today, and if there has been a danger, as there has been, in the post-war period, it comes, not from the threat of Government control—certainly not in this country but from the pressures—sometimes the inexorable pressures—of the market economy.

This danger was made real to me within days of taking office. One of the first matters brought before me was the crisis that had developed in Beaver-brook's operations in Glasgow. As the House will recall, the Beaverbrook paper the Evening Citizen and the whole Beaverbrook printing operations for the Scottish Daily Express could no longer be sustained by that group. The immediate consequence was to throw some 1,800 of its employees out of their jobs.

I do not want to repeat all I said to the House at the time. But some pointers stood out sharply. Management had found itself confronted with a very serious situation and had decided that drastic action was its only course. But there had been blatantly a less-than-realistic attitude towards the conditions of its production and costs and a disastrous failure of communication, with charges and counter-charges about whether management had conveyed to its employees the true position and whether the employees had understood what management had said.

One lesson I drew was that a situation like this, with the loss of a newspaper and of many jobs, should not have developed unnoticed until the last hour. It should certainly have been made known to Government sooner. I need hardly say that I hope I never see another case like it. But it would be blind to pretend that there are not other potentially dangerous situations in the industry, because many of the underlying problems which faced Beaverbrook and its labour force in Glasgow face other proprietors and their workers today.

I want, and I am seeking, a much closer relationship with newspaper interests so that I shall know how they stand and, if acute problems threaten them, shall be able to make sure that these are being tackled promptly and effectively. Of course, there are deep and long-term problems. I shall turn to those in a minute. But the immediate will not wait—I agree with the right hon. Gentleman about that—and I want to make sure that, where these problems exist, management is effective, employees are fully involved and communication does not fail.

Before I turn from Glasgow, I must also recall that some of those who worked for Beaverbrook there have put forward ideas for using the plant to produce a new Scottish newspaper. Various interests have been examining the feasibility of this and the Lord Provost of Glasgow has chaired an advisory committee. I understand that studies of various aspects have been made and that these are now being drawn together. What the study will conclude I do not yet know. As regards Government assistance, I have always said that we would be ready to discuss any serious proposal. But we obviously cannot take a view unless and until we have a proposition.

The most serious of the immediate problems the industry has faced over the past year, as the right hon. Gentleman rightly said, has been the supply and price of newsprint. The shortage developed in the middle of 1973. Hon. Members will have seen that if projected price increases—the July increases—are realised in the next few weeks, this will mean an increase of 100 per cent. within 12 to 18 months. Newsprint represents approximately one-third or even more of total costs of production. World supplies are traditionally cyclical, but this time, almost certainly, a change has come for a substantial period ahead.

The Price Code, which again the right hon. Gentleman very properly stressed, is, I know, seen as a further constraint imposed on these underlying difficulties which bites particularly hard on the circumstances of the newspaper industry. Its provisions for allowable costs for wages, for reference levels of profit margins and for calculating return on capital employed are seen as particularly out of line for this industry's practical conditions. If I may quote a specific example, an increase of 1p to recover profitability could carry the industry above the ceiling imposed by the code.

The House will recognise that both the newsprint problem and the Price Code were there when we took office. I noted what the right hon. Gentleman said. We are, however, giving urgent consideration to these problems and I am in close touch with my right hon. Friend who has responsibility for the Price Commission.

The problems of the Press are not simply those that have arisen in so acute a form during the past 12 months. Even if the price of newsprint were to drop dramatically, and even if the controls of the Price Commission were no longer in place, the underlying pressure on our national newspapers would remain. Since the Royal Commission reported in 1962, one daily and one Sunday newspaper have been squeezed out and others have been running at a loss and have found it increasingly difficult to survive. Market forces are putting viability of our national newspapers under increasing threat.

As we all know, in the same market the newspaper with a large circulation is more profitable than the newspaper with a smaller circulation. Its overheads and the cost of news gathering and preparation do not go up in proportion to circulation. But its revenue both from sales and advertising does. Thus amongst those newspapers serving any particular sector of the market the natural tendency is for the strong to get stronger and for the weak to come under increasing pressure.

Of course, this is not fundamentally different from the situation in other industries. Rationalisation and variety reduction are often a desirable route to more efficient production. In the case of newspapers, however, the degree of variety reduction which might be judged correct by purely economic criteria would almost certainly be socially undesirable.

Now, what can be done? The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition, and no doubt others in the House, will maintain that the large part of the remedy lies with the newspapers themselves. The right hon. Gentleman is consistent in this matter, because this was the theme to which he spoke in the debate in 1967. Certainly it is true that much can be done to make our present newspapers more efficient, but in saying this, it is no good putting the blame—the right hon. Gentleman, to be fair to him, did not say this—on any particular group involved in the newspaper industry. In particular, the temptation to blame all its troubles on the unions and their restrictive practices and overmanning should be resisted. There is legitimate, worry about job security among the workers involved.

We should never lose sight of the fact, when we consider the relatively high pay of those employed, that those who work in the newspaper industry have the many disadvantages, through continuing night-work, of a continually disrupted family and social life. This is a fact of life in the newspaper industry.

But this does not mean to say that the unions have not a large part to play. Considering that, until the recent newsprint increases, wages and salaries rarely accounted for less than half of total costs, the unions clearly can do much to further the viability of particular papers.

Even more important, management has to improve itself. As the Economist Intelligence Unit Report of 1966 made clear, and indeed as my own recent experience as Secretary of State has confirmed, many papers are still in the transitional period from the direct command of the entrepreneur owner, the old Press baron, to a new régime of modern corporate management, a management which includes and requires adequate financial control. Some papers clearly have got stuck in the transition phase. Of course, we all know that the editorial flair and the quality of the journalists employed is a necessary condition of a newspaper's success.

So clearly there is a rôle for self-improvement. Here I agree with the right hon. Gentleman. I will certainly do what I can to encourage those in the printing unions, management and the editorial staffs, to indulge in the necessary constructive self-criticism to see what they can do to improve their mutual co-operation. With the development of new technological possibilities, to which again the right hon. Gentleman referred, such co-operation is essential.

But will this prove to be enough? I am sure I am not alone in having a major doubt. Certainly our experience of the Monopolies and Mergers Act, whose provisions are now embodied in the Fair Trading Act of last year, does not indicate that this will prove to be an adequate safeguard. Its powers can certainly stop an undesirable merger of two viable newspapers. But what its powers cannot do is to save a financially weak paper from extinction.

The trend towards concentration is powerful, and in addition there is the special feature of Press economics—the rôle of advertising—to which the right hon. Gentleman referred but the importance of which he did not fully bring out. What is virtually unique about the newspaper industry is that all newspapers have a gap between the cost of their production and the revenue from their sales. They do not, through their sales, pay for the cost of production. But the gap is, of course, closed by advertising revenue which appears to range from below 30 per cent. of total revenue in the case of our mass circulation newspapers to over 70 per cent. in the so-called quality papers.

This means, of course, that newspapers are subject to changes in advertising budget—changes which are quite outside their own control. The right hon. Gentleman referred to that matter. But it means also that not only are they vulnerable to changes in total advertising expenditure but they have to compete with the claims of other media on advertising revenue—with commercial television and now commercial sound radio—which could well have a strong impact on local and provincial papers, as well as with direct selling techniques and other forms of sales promotion.

It means, too, that the economics of newspapers are very heavily influenced by advertising strategies and calculations. So long as advertisers assess the value of newspapers by the purchasing power of their readers, it follows that there will be a strong tendency for national newspapers to be forced into two main groups—the quality papers with relatively modest circulations and very large mass papers which make up in the numbers they reach for the low assessment of their readers' purchasing power.

I do not want to over-simplify this matter, but newspapers in the middle, between these two groups, even when they are attracting substantial circulations, are bound to find, and do find, it increasingly hard to pay their way. The problem we face, therefore, is this: that the economic forces at work on the newspaper industry are tending to reduce the number of papers and to concentrate ownership and control into fewer hands. If that is so and if, as I firmly believe, our community interest is to promote more, not less, choice in newspapers and a greater variety of viewpoints and opinions, how are we to deal with this problem?

I am sure that we are all fascinated by the figures that my right hon. Friend is giving. Is this the reason why the mass circulation newspapers, which depend to a greater extent on sales, developed the cheesecake technique and banner headlines stretching halfway down the page? Has this kind of hysterical situation arisen because they are battling for readership rather than purveying information?

That is a more general point about the effects of competition on the presentation and content of papers rather than a point arising out of the specific rôle of advertising which I was trying to develop.

Is not part of the logic that the right hon. Gentleman has been deploying in his arguments about possible closure of newspapers and diminution of the media of communication that the Royal Commission on the Press would have been more appropriately a Royal Commission on the news media, so that the existence of both radio and television as media of communication and purveyors of news could be taken into account in this context?

I have some sympathy for that point of view. There will certainly be great benefit if some, at least, of the evidence and, perhaps, even some of the personnel of these two committees—the Royal Commission and the Committee of Inquiry on Advertising—could in some way overlap. What I am saying is that, from my analysis, there is certainly a need over this range of issues for serious debate and inquiry. That, of course, is what the proposed Royal Commission will permit.

I shall not read the terms of reference because they are well known. But they are very wide and will allow for a very full investigation of all the economic effects which operate on the Press today. The terms of reference, while heavily weighted to economic factors, also include a reference to editorial standards and to the rôle of the Press Council.

I am sure it was right to include them. The Press both reflects the opinions and values of our society and helps to shape them. There is a great power here for good or evil and we would all wish that it be exercised responsibly.

The House will have seen the recent opinion poll that appeared in The Times. Those interviewed were asked whether they had "a great deal of confidence" in those running the Press. Only 19 per cent. had such confidence—a fall from 34 per cent. as measured in a similar poll a year ago.

This is part of a general malaise which affects most British institutions today, and the opinion poll tended to confirm that. Nevertheless, it is a matter for concern—not least, I am sure, to those editors and journalists who write our daily papers. There is much to be said about the conduct of the newspapers, but I shall confine myself to two matters which I think are of particular importance.

First there is the whole question of investigatory journalism. No one can doubt that newspapers both here and in the United States have done a valuable service by bringing to light malpractices of Governments and of other institutions. The rôle of the Press in the Watergate affair needs no stress nor, nearer home, does the exposure of the Rachman housing scandal some years ago. Only a week ago I paid tribute to the work of The Guardian on the conditions of black South Africans employed by British companies. But, as we all know, there have been other occasions on which both the objectives of such inquiries, and the methods employed, have been at best sensationalist and at worst malicious.

This is not an easy area. The difficulty is that there have been occasions on which, as many if not most people would agree, newspapers have crossed the line that divides legitimate investigation into matters of public concern from what may be regarded as an unacceptable invasion of privacy.

Where is the line to be drawn? That is a difficult and extremely sensitive question. It is most difficult to find the answer. But I am sure that the Royal Commission is the right forum in which such a question should be discussed.

That brings me to my second point, which is the strong political bias of much of the Press. I am not referring merely to direct support or attack on political parties, although the bias here is self-evident. If we look back over the last seven years, the Leader of the Opposition may not feel that his virtues and good deeds were adequately recorded by the newspapers, but I must say that his Government were given an extraordinarily easy run. Looking back over the past seven years, it would not be unfair to say that, whereas the majority of the Press saw its task as to magnify and exacerbate the problems of the 1966–70 Labour Government, in the past three and a half years it saw its duty as that of sustaining the Government of the present Leader of the Opposition. The Press picked our scabs and it bathed his wounds.

Did the right hon. Gentleman say "scabs"?

Yes, I did.

But the bias is broader than that and goes further than direct party politics. The Press, when it is not entertaining and informing, has in a democracy the serious responsibility of raising matters of public importance and discussing them in a thorough way. I give two examples. First, I believe that the discussion of industrial relations in this country, for many years, has been quite inadequate. The reservations, doubts and criticisms that were widely felt by a large part of the nation about the previous Government's industrial relations measures—criticisms, I may add, that were wholly justified by events—were given insufficient attention. Indeed, they were almost totally ignored. I do not think that any service was done to our society or to the previous Government by the Press not doing its proper job in that respect.

My second example is the Common Market. There has been no issue in postwar years to rival in importance the question of British entry into the EEC. It was debated, often fiercely, in the House during much of the past three years. The majority of our people, as we all know, were opposed to entry, certainly on the terms negotiated by the last Government. However, the viewpoint of the British people was not reflected in any one of our national newspapers, certainly not after the Daily Express abandoned its opposition in September 1971. Thereafter the Press presented a united front, acting for the most part as propagandists for the Common Market, to which so many newspapers, proprietors and journalists were committed, while Parliament was shackled, and with it the British people, in a way almost unknown in our history. The watchdogs of freedom neither barked nor growled.

The point here is not that the newspapers attacked the Government but that they climbed into bed with them and they denied the country the important national debate that was undoubtedly needed.

The Secretary of State said that we all knew that the overwhelming majority of the people were against the Common Market. However, 18 million people voted for two parties that supported the Common Market at the last election and, after all, the Press was only supporting that policy as it had when the then Prime Minister, who is now Prime Minister again, was advocating entry into Europe.

The right hon. Gentleman is not taking the point seriously. I cannot recall, and I doubt whether many people in public life can recall, a major issue on which there has been such a consensus of Press opinion and comment, and as a result of which serious arguments and difficulties for this country were simply not put in the way they should have been.

Each newspaper is entitled to its own political position, and I would not seek to argue otherwise. But what must concern any fair-minded person is that the legitimate concerns of millions of people, as the two examples I have given demonstrate, often go unvoiced because the newspapers follow the consensus line. There is no obvious solution, but it is clear that more and not fewer newspapers, and more and not less variety of opinion within them, is in the interests of us all.

Certainly all these considerations argue a strong case for a new Royal Commission. My responsibility in the Department of Trade is for newspapers as an industry. For my part, however, I regard the Press as much more than that. It is also a public service. We must not treat it as just another business. We cannot leave its future simply to be determined by market forces, certainly not if that were to lead to an unacceptable reduction in the number of newspapers and a further concentration of Press ownership.

Governments, however, must not just blunder in with ill-considered, if limited interventions. They must not do so, because public interest requires not only variety in the Press but independence from Government. It is only if we can achieve both variety and freedom that we shall secure a Press in Britain which is true to itself and which also serves the broader needs of a democratic community.

5.5 p.m.

In making my maiden speech I begin with a word of thanks and tribute to my predecessor, whom I am delighted to see in the House today. He was the Member for the old Isle of Thanet constituency for the previous 21 years and is now the hon. and learned Member for Thanet, West (Mr. Rees-Davies). He is my partner on the political bicycle made for two which the boundary commissioners created for us. I do not know whether my hon. and learned Friend and I would be considered a stylish marriage, but at least we gave birth to two healthy majorities, and I am pleased that we have been able to keep Thanet as just about the only island in the country which is still safety in Conservative hands.

My constituency of Thanet, East consists of the two seaside towns Ramsgate and Broadstairs, and these have some historical links which are particularly appropriate to today's debate. They have for long attracted among their residents a distinguished collection of communicators. The first of these was St. Augustine followed later and rather more irreverently by George Bernard Shaw, Charles Dickens and Lord Northcliffe. A link with today's newspaper industry is provided by the present Lord Rothermere who, as Mr. Edmond Harmsworth, was Thanet's Member of Parliament from 1919 to 1929. Today Broadstairs is proud of being the family home of our former and, I trust, our future Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath). By chance his home is situated only a few yards from the second home of the trade union leader Mr. Hugh Scanlon. It is a most bizarre outcome of the election result that in spite of the Conservative defeat Broad-stairs should still be housing the man who is giving the orders about how Britain should be governed.

I shall return in a moment to the contribution made to the present state of the newspaper industry by Mr. Scanlon—unless in the meantime I am offered an anonymous donation—but first may I turn to the matter of declaration of interests. I have been working in the newspaper industry for some seven years, starting in the inglorious rôle of assistant tennis and funerals correspondent on the East Anglia Daily Times, moving to the editorial staff of the Evening Standard and then becoming a management executive with Associated Newspapers. But I moved down the road from Fleet Street to the City in 1972, and since then, although remaining a member of the NUJ. I have had no professional or financial interests of any kind in newspapers. Therefore, apart from the possibility that I may have a drop of printer's ink circulating in my veins, I can declare a complete non-interest in the industry, and I hope that this will enable me to contribute to the debate with even greater detachment.

The industry today is facing the gravest crisis in its history, which will probably result within the next 12 months in the closure of at least two national newspapers. The fact that has precipitated this crisis is the dramatic rise in the cost of newsprint. As my right hon. Friend has already given detailed figures on this matter I do not wish to cover the same ground. But, however crippling the rise in the price of newsprint may be, that is not the fundamental cause of the mortal illness which is now spreading through Fleet Street. Nor does the idea of a newsprint subsidy offer any sort of miracle cure. If there are any such cures they lie within the industry itself, and they must be prescribed quickly. The trouble with the Royal Commission is that it puts Mr. Justice Finer in the position of a doctor who has been instructed to prepare a diagnosis on a patient who will be dead before the diagnosis is ready. If we are to save some of our newspapers, we must look to immediate and internal solutions.

Quite apart from newsprint costs, the newspaper industry has for some time been declining into a serious economic mess. Historically, the main responsibility for this must lie at the door of weak and ineffective managements. Although much-needed reforms are now being implemented by a new breed of professional newspaper executives, Fleet Street is still suffering grievously from the expensive legacies of its past. These date from the Press barons who founded the modern national Press—Northcliffe, Beaverbrook, Rothermere and Camrose, men who were editors and propagandists first and managers a very poor second. So anxious were they to get their messages across to mass circulations that they were prepared to sell their papers at artificially low prices, and to accede too readily to pay demands from their workers.

Of course, these old proprietors could afford to do that in those profitable days, but their editorial evangelism led them into tolerating many appalling industrial abuses such as overmanning on machines and in editorial offices, making payments to ghost workers, granting grossly inflated salaries to production employees and turning a blind eye to a staggering range of restrictive practices.

In this environment of proprietorial permissiveness, unions can hardly be blamed for leaping on to the gravy train and helping themselves to what they can get. As a result, many of these same abuses and restrictive practices are still being exploited, and newspapers remain heavily over staffed with the highest paid workers in British industry.

Today rewards on the London scale of prices range from £200 a week earned by some linotype operators in the composing room c the Financial Times down to the £60 basic paid to unskilled male cleaners in Fleet Street offices. There is, in short, a built-in extravagance in the salary structure of Fleet Street. It is this which is in urgent need of rationalisation.

To some extent this rationalisation is beginning to happen, largely because, as Dr. Johnson put it, when a man is about to be hanged, it concentrates his mind wonderfully. Faced with the prospect of imminent bankruptcy, managers are at last behaving like managers and displaying the realism they should have shown a long time ago. The unions, too, are beginning to respond responsibly to the present crisis. There has been a certain amount of co-operation with managements in reducing manning levels and ending demarcation absurdities, particularly on those newspapers which are in serious trouble.

But, having said that, I feel that there is still a quite unacceptable level of industrial action in the industry. Beaverbrook Newspapers alone lost £750,000 last year as a result of industrial action, about half of which was due to stoppages quite unconnected with the newspaper business but made entirely for political purposes.

I refer particularly to those strikes staged by the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers in protest against the Industrial Relations Act. Here my famous constituent, Mr. Hugh Scanlon, has a lot to answer for. His members amount to less than 1½ per cent. of the total newspaper work force, yet their political strikes have jeopardised the livelihoods of tens of thousands of other employees. Last week's one-day Scanlon stoppage cost the newspaper industry £300,000. If it had lasted for a week, as it might well have done, two papers and 12,000 employees, if not more, would have been put out of business for ever. Until Mr. Scanlon and others stop kicking the newspaper industry around like a political football, the survival prospects for several papers are even bleaker than the gathering economic storms already indicate.

If managements remain weak, or unions continue to be militant in their wage demands, or political stoppages continue, it will be clear that Fleet Street has indeed brought on itself a death wish which will shortly be granted.

But, on the assumption that this death wish does not emerge triumphant, there are two ways of putting the newspaper industry on a secure footing once again. The first method is by implementing the new technology that is now available to newspapers. For example, if computer type-setting were used Fleet Street's wages bill could be cut by about 30 per cent., and all the newspapers now making losses would be breaking even again.

I have here a copy of the first newspaper in the world which was type-set by computer, the New York Daily News. Its issue of 8th May, only a few days ago, was revolutionary because it made history by cutting out all hot type metal work and all manual composing. The type is simply set automatically by a machine known as a type perforator, which resembles a large electric typewriter which can be easily operated by any journalist or any secretary. These machines are just starting to be installed in Fleet Street offices. Unfortunately, they are likely to make many hot metal printers and composing room staffs redundant. No doubt they will even provoke some of the Luddite reactions we have seen in the past few days in New York, but, however distressing these redundancies may be, this new printing technology could be the saviour of all our British newspapers, and with them most of the jobs in the industry.

One other method of saving Fleet Street newspapers from closing has already been touched on. It is by reviewing the operations of the Price Commission on the Press. I was delighted to hear the Secretary of State for Trade say that this would now happen. If ever there was a good argument for a return to free market forces, it is the Alice-in-Wonderland approach of the Price Commission towards newspaper price rise applications. Under the statutory requirements of the Price Commission, newspapers have to lose money first before they can qualify for a price rise. As the White Queen put it, "Sentence first, verdict afterwards."

Moreover, less than one-third of newspaper wage costs are allowable as evidence on which to base a price rise application, and these applications can be made only once every three months. We have heard it said that a week is a long time in politics, but three months is an age, long enough to cause bankruptcy to news papers.

Because of the Price Commission's attitude, Britain's newspapers are still priced far too low, at half the price of equivalent American or European papers. Until Fleet Street is allowed to charge the public a fair price, the industry will remain in dire economic straits.

It is most regrettable that the Royal Commission's terms of reference include no reference either to the technological changes which are about to revolutionise Fleet Street or to the artificial price restraints imposed by the Price Commission, because those are the two vital areas of reform which could make all the difference between survival and closure for some newspapers. The fact that the Royal Commission has neglected those lifelines and has instead been instructed to give priority to such matters as investigating editorial standards makes one suspect that at least a part of this Royal Commission may have been conceived in Prime Ministerial pique.

I have no wish to follow the Secretary of State in picking scabs, but I go so far as to say that the Royal Commission should be better employed by investigating not editorial standards but certain political standards towards the Press, such as the manipulation of managed news through the Lobby system, the abuse of the Official Secrets Act, and the issuing of libel writs as a news-suppressing device. Those are the real areas of concern to those who care about standards of editorial freedom.

Finally, we must not lose sight of the fact that the fundamental reason why the Press is in peril today is inflation. Newsprint costs, wage costs, distribution expenses and office overheads are all soaring because of the savage inflationary spiral, which is destroying our way of life in high street, side street and back street just as much as in Fleet Street. We now know that Britain's inflation rate is running at about 20 per cent. a year. It is a sombre thought for all of us politicians to remember that no nation in the world, with the exception of Iceland, has ever suffered a prolonged period of 20 per cent. inflation without ceasing to be a democracy.

Alas, at present the Treasury bench is occupied by a collection of economic Neros, fiddling about with commissions and subsidies while Rome burns. Unless the Government are prepared to grasp the political nettle of currency debasement and bring forward the highly unpopular policies which will make money honest again, I for one gloomily predict that we shall see the twilight of the political classes, with power passing into more authoritarian and autocratic hands.

Who knows? Some contemporary Cromwell may emerge to cure this country of inflation. If something like that comes to pass—and it is not entirely fanciful to suggest that it may—it might be salutary to recall that when Cromwell strode into this Chamber and removed the Mace with a cry of "Take away that bauble", he made the politicians obsolete, but the pamphleteers, journalists and newspapers survived and flourished.

5.18 p.m.

I am pleased and honoured to follow the maiden speech of the hon. Member for Thanet, East (Mr. Aitken). It was not without controversy and it was certainly witty. I liked his references to the newspaper industry. The hon. Gentleman was revealing about the former Prime Minister's neighbours. In fact it was a very good speech, and I think I speak for both sides of the House when I say that we welcome the hon. Gentleman.

I hope that the debate will be continued very much in the way it started, with wide knowledge, competence and experience of hon. Members in relation to the newspaper industry being drawn upon. I have been a member of the National Graphical Association for 30 years. I am chairman of the Labour Newspaper Group, which has given me some insight into the delicate relationship existing in the newspaper industry. I cannot help feeling that the central feature of the industry is that of viability. Both management and trade unions share in this important aim. The question for them is: will the Press be continuing in its present form, and how? Equally vital is the need to expand and increase the variety of publications in Britain.

On this question of privacy, the war that is constantly and inevitably waged between politicians and editors is not the immediate issue nor the most urgent concern. I will not follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Stepney (Mr. Shore) in his examples and references to the Common Market. We all have strong views on many subjects. The central issue is how can we maintain the viability of the newspaper industry and ensure that those newspapers which are in danger are given some relief before they reach crisis point.

I was satisfied when the Prime Minister answered my Question in the way he did last week by announcing the setting up of a Royal Commission. The cause of the present crisis and the possible remedies will be found by looking at the events not of the last 20 frenetic days but of the last 20 years. The Leader of the Opposition, who has unfortunately left the Chamber, referred to the need for trade unions to merge. This is not a new subject. I can assure hon. Members that the National Graphical Association and other unions in the industry have had talks extending over a number of years to see how best this might be done.

Mergers have taken place. If we compare the number of trade unions in the printing industry today with the number 10 or 20 years ago it will be seen that there has been a steady but definite reduction in numbers. We cannot rail-road unions together in this way, because they share different experiences, crafts and skills. I served a seven-year apprenticeship but many others in the non-craft unions are required to serve much less. We are mixing a number of people with different experiences. While in the short term it may appear to be a ready solution to some of the problems faced by the trade unions, I do not think that it is the only one.

Over the past two decades there has been a tendency towards an agglomeration not only of newspapers but of all the various branches of the communications industry. The fate of the Press, television, magazines, films and books hangs together. The fate is such that we need to look at the question of the Press in relation to the wider communications industry. tion within the resulting giant combines.

If, as the terms of reference also state, there is a need to inquire into the factors affecting editorial standards, usually an area best left to the journalists to look after, it can be only as a result of such trends. One other reference for the Royal Commission was

When the same formula is applied to the media industry it results in a stifling of variety which may prove fatal. For newspapers it means less space, fewer correspondents, less background material and increased dependence on a few news agency sources. Reference was made to the likely hazard of two newspapers being killed before the end of the year. We can be specific and say that the Evening Standard is one of our London newspapers that is certainly in difficulties—not because it failed to make a profit, if we use the criterion so often used by Tory Members. The Standard did rather well last year. It made £100,000 profit. Unfortunately newspapers are seen by some as part of a conglomeration of industry, as part of a whole series of decision-making processes which go far beyond asking whether it is viable or desirable to have a newspaper. It is now, alas, being looked at in a quite different light by entrepreneurs who have absolutely no connection with our interest in the industry.

The Evening Standard is sitting on a very good property site. It is worth about £40 million. It is not surprising that the Beaverbrook organisation has acquired a man of property to serve on its board and it is not surprising that the NGA fathers of the chapel have come to me and said "Look, this is worrying. We are quite prepared to believe that management wants to look at manning practices, and we are prepared to help to make the plant more effective, but we are concerned about job security."

The whole question of conglomerations and the way in which newspapers have become part of a general company strategy is well worth the attention of the Royal Commission. I feel certain that it is possible to take account of this within the terms of reference.

Furthermore, the overall tone of the Press becomes blander in an effort to avoid offending as many potential readers as possible. This point has already been made. The way that monopoly capitalism generally restricts the choice of product to the consumer is bad enough, but in the communications industry the effects go much deeper. When the range of ideas, opinions and beliefs which can be extracted is limited to those which are profitable, the need for an intellectual independent Press must surely be greater than the need for a financially free Press.

We have had many discussions in the last few years about how we might assist the Press. The Royal Commission should take account of one or two other specific ways. Before doing that it is necessary to answer the Leader of the Opposition, who raised the question of the £40 million for wages and salaries within the industry which needs to be reviewed if we are to make the industry viable. It is an astonishing figure and some of us will give it close attention and will probably want to question the right hon. Gentleman further. He should understand, along with many others who have only fringe interests in the industry, that many of the anxieties of trade unions in the industry arise because of fears over job security.

I am sure that the colourful references made about machines not being used or being overmanned could be looked at much more realistically if a serious attempt was made in Fleet Street to have more effective management which understood that there were ways of removing house practices by having an intelligent dialogue with the unions.

We come to the question of how to aid some of the low circulation, vulnerable newspapers. The immediate problem is the doubling of the price of standard newsprint in the past seven years and the fall in advertising revenue of 6 per cent. so far this year with the promise of a further fall to 20 per cent. These are problems which have to be dealt with immediately. A mere stopgap solution will not do. The long-term answer might be to have the whole communications industry contributing to the cost of the newspaper business, including the establishing of new publications. This turns on the question "How?" I believe that a subsidy on newsprint could be financed out of the advertising revenue received by all media. The newsprint could be procured and sold by a central agency.

Publications making a substantial profit would pay the full price but a subsidy would be made available to less fortunate newspapers, perhaps on a basis such as the following. First, only newspapers and magazines which are primarily organs of news and opinion on local, national or international affairs would qualify. Second, the applicant newspaper would need to prove that it had used all its own resources to continue publication and was no longer able to provide revenue from its own resources. This is not a difficult thing to do. It would not lead to abuse because accountancy checks could be devised to ensure that claims were genuine.

Third, it would have to be proved that the newspaper was using production methods technically efficient by contemporary newspaper practice. This is certainly something which my own union would very much welcome and share in. Fourth, the application for renewal would have to be made annually and would be subject to the submission of operating figures and/or an accountancy check. I am again stressing the importance of constantly putting newspapers in the situation of proving that they need the subsidy. Fifth, if a newspaper receiving the subsidy began to make a profit the subsidy would cease, although not necessarily immediately or totally until it was established that the improvement was permanent.

Sixth, the subsidy would apply only up to a specified maximum number of pages, so that there would be no encouragement to excessive paging. Seventh, the subsidy would cease if it were used wastefully in buying circulation by excessive promotions. Eighth, only solus newspapers would qualify for the full subsidy. Newspapers belonging to a group would qualify for a subsidy at a lower rate if, for example, accountancy checks showed that they were loss-makers even when sharing group expenses.

Paradoxically, any Government action to promote genuine freedom of the Press is seen by some as a threat to the so-called freedom that currently exists. I have no doubt that before the end of the debate we shall hear voices from hon. Members who feel that to give financial aid would somehow manipulate and influence editorial content. Yet we can look to examples elsewhere. In Sweden and Norway, which have democratic traditions and institutions, successful schemes have been introduced for Government aid to the Press. Such plans are best implemented by a control and administration body which is free from direct Government control. Its members could be drawn partly from trade unions and publishers and partly from outside—from the universities and so on. The functions of such a body have proved to be effective in those countries. Its functions should be entirely administrative and it should have no right of interference in the political, economic and social policies of the newspapers receiving assistance.

A particularly critical problem faces the magazine section of the industry. I hope we shall not ignore what might be termed the fringe areas. The increased cost of magazines makes it increasingly difficult to safeguard the printed word. The impending increase in postage charges will have a deadly effect on publishers of books and magazines.

As an example of the inequitable nature of the proposed postal rate structure, the postal charge for an average book weighing 24 oz. is 22½p. It is excessively penalised, as is the average issue of a magazine of between 6 and 8 oz., the postage rate for which varies from 7½p to 9p.

Given that the Post Office needs more money it should obtain it by other means, perhaps by bridging the gap between first-class and second-class postage rates rather than by making it more difficult for people in this aspect of publishing to continue to exist. It now costs more to post an 8-oz. magazine of 60 to 70 pages from London to Basildon than it does to edit, set, print, bind and wrap the magazine. To compare that postage charge with the postage charge for the same distance in other countries, in Spain the cost would be one-ninety-sixth and in France one-twentieth of the United Kingdom cost. We do not have VAT on books and periodicals as other European countries have, but we ought to be able to make a distinction between the rates applying to the printed word and other articles to prevent the destruction of the magazine sector.

Reform of the Press should concentrate on four main objectives. The terms of reference of the Royal Commission go some way towards that. My first priority would be to ensure that there is equitable treatment of all potential readers, including minority readers who are not so attractive to advertisers. I have given some indication how that is to be done.

Secondly there must be an opening up of the vast areas of monopoly, especially in the regional and local Press, to competition from new publications. The Leader of the Opposition referred to the success of regional and local newspapers. That is often the result of new printing techniques and the co-operation of the very trade unions which are often criticised. Some of the success is due to links with radio and second newspapers, often an evening paper with small circulation—and very profitable they are. Thirdly, unfair obstacles to the success of publications with a small circulation must be removed.

Finally, we need a clearly defined policy which does not ignore but takes into account generally the communications industry. We would be accused not only by Fleet Street but by almost every rational person in the country of being in "Noddyland" if we had a debate on the Press without referring to the influences that affect the Press. I hope, therefore, that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will take account of the fact that the Press has to be seen in terms of the influences and the financial structure of television, radio and the general communications industry.

5.34 p.m.

My main criticism of the latter-day Press concerns the enormous importance it attaches to a Member of Parliament making his maiden speech as soon as possible. I was hoping to be awarded the wooden spoon on that score, but having been a journalist I could not allow this opportunity to pass without speaking. There was a time when a new Member of Parliament could let his maiden speech mature like good wine, but now the practice is to make it as soon as possible. Asquith took three and a half years to make his maiden speech, but most new Members to this Parliament have made theirs well within three and a half months.

It falls to me to pay tribute to my predecessor, Sir Robert Grant-Ferris, who was a distinguished Deputy Speaker and served during the 1960s on the Speaker's Panel. He loved—and loves—this place very much, as was evidenced by the speeches he used to make in his constituency on the subject of the procedure of the House. It was quite touching to hear him talk on that subject.

Many new Members have difficulty in paying tribute to the beauty of their constituencies, but I have no difficulty in doing so. My constituency stretches almost from the Potteries to the Welsh border. It includes beautiful country and two ancient salt towns, Middlewich and Nantwich. Even the new Liverpool overspill town to the north, Winsford, is beautiful to my eyes. My constituency contains more cows than constituents. It contains a great many angry cattle farmers who have so far remained unmollified by any Government—but that is my problem.

I have to declare an interest in the Press. I worked for seven years on the Daily Telegraph as economic leader writer and before that I was on the Financial Times. I have no retainers from those newspapers now, so I can speak with reasonable objectivity.

Fleet Street in many ways is an exciting place in which to work, from the point of view of the sheer variety of people one meets, the hurly-burly, the clash of events, the deadlines and so on. During the 10 years I worked there I saw a serious deterioration, not so much in the working conditions of the average journalist but in the ambience and ethos in which journalists operate. The buildings deteriorated because capital was not available to improve them. Conditions generally were depressing. Strikes were called at a moment's notice. I shall not apportion blame for those strikes; there were many faults on both sides. Large newspapers are often disrupted almost at the drop of a spanner. The disputes often start between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m., the time when the maximum number of copies is likely to be lost. That is a situation which cannot be allowed to continue for much longer.

One of the most unfortunate aspects of the present situation in Fleet Street is the large amount of modern, technical equipment which is not being used because of bad management and restrictive practices. I will not give chapter and verse, but there are newspapers where the interest charges on capital equipment which is not being used make the difference between a loss and a profit. Even where the more successful newspapers make profits, those profits could be much larger were the equipment properly utilised and staffs not so inflated.

Another aspect which I find depressing is the restriction on entry to Fleet Street. That applies not only to the printing unions but also to the editorial side of newspapers. When I first went on to the Financial Times in 1959, bright young men could go there straight from university. The great reputation of the Financial Times was partly built up by the recruitment of staff with good degrees from universities. That is not impossible now, but it is extremely difficult. A special case has to be made for a man who, for instance, has a First in economics.

There has been a good deal in correspondence in The Times on this subject. There are arguments for requiring every journalist to be farmed out to the Wolverhampton Chronicle or to some other distinguished newspaper to learn how to report a wedding. The argument against that is that the brilliant graduate with a First or Upper Second degree who has the opportunity to go to the Treasury or the Foreign Office or to take a good job in industry will probably take one of those jobs rather than work for three years on the Wolverhampton Chronicle in the hope of coming later to the Financial Times, the Daily Telegraph, The Times or The Guardian. This is a serious aspect of the present situation and I am sure that Fleet Street is losing potentially great editors as a result of this restrictive practice.

I do not take too tragic a view of the prospect of further concentration in Fleet Street, a process which has already gone some way. If we go too far we shall end up having one or two daily newspapers, and this would be tragic. On the other hand, we are a great nation of newspaper readers. Until recently we have had a far greater variety of newspapers than is the situation in almost any comparable country, but there is a danger that if the present trend continues at least the news reporting side of Fleet Street will be replaced by television. This would be a very sad state of affairs.

The problems of Fleet Street are now so urgent that I would add my voice to those who say that if the Royal Commission is to achieve anything it must act quickly and come up with practical proposals.

5.42 p.m.

I should first like to congratulate the hon. Member for Nantwich (Mr. Cockcroft) on an eminently sensible and admirably brief speech. I am glad that he got in before the wooden spoon is awarded, but his speech was effective and was recognised as such in all parts of the House. I hope that we will hear more from the hon. Gentleman and we look forward to that pleasure.

We on the Liberal benches feel that the view that there is a need for a Royal Commission is as wrong as is the idea of choosing today to debate this subject. There must surely be more important subjects which an Opposition could have chosen for debate. The Leader of the Opposition complained that newspapers were unkind to him, while the Secretary of State for Trade said that the Press "picked out scabs and bathed their wounds". I speak on behalf of a party which, when not patted on the head patronisingly, has been steadily kicked in the unmentionables by the Press. But I do not see what these matters have to do with the debate.

We are debating the Press and the Royal Commission and it seems pretty clear to everybody, especially to those who have spoken in the debate, that what the Press now needs is for cover prices to go outside the control of the Commission and for the manning of newspapers to be reduced by around 35 per cent. But both matters would no doubt take as long to complete as would the work of the Royal Commission. I believe that unions and managements have already arranged a meeting and by the time the commission has reached its conclusions and published its reports, including no doubt minority reports, much of the work it might have suggested will already have been achieved by other organisations. The Press also needs concessions on pricing and acceleration of tax write-offs. We consider that the Royal Commission is not only a waste of time but an enormous waste of paper. Its brief is not brief at all; it goes on and on.

It is probably only fair for me to declare my interests. I have over the last 20 years worked contractually for the Daily Herald, the Sun, the News of the World, the Sunday Telegraph, The Observer the Daily Telegraph magazine, the Financial Times and the Daily Express. This is not so much megalomania on my part as the fact that until recently newspapers paid contributors so very badly that a man coming into this activity late in life, as I did, had to work for three or more publications in order to make a living.

I believe passionately in the survival of the fittest in Fleet Street. There are now nine national dailies and eight Sunday newspapers. I believe in choice and in a free Press and I believe in democracy. I think that all this could be achieved very well with a smaller number of papers. I would hate to see anybody in Fleet Street lose his job, but there is a great deal that can be done in Fleet Street outside the publication of national newspapers. Many newspapers which have survived this vast economic crisis have done so because they have diversified intelligently. Many provincial newspapers are making money by taking in jobbing printing and by looking round to see what their labour force can profitably do.

If we look at the paper for which I currently work—which is not the most profitable, although not necessarily for that reason—it will be seen that the Beaverbrook group, perhaps like Crystal Palace football club, felt that it could buy itself out of trouble. It is a good illustration of the serious problems which beset Fleet Street at present. It is full of good journalists who are fighting for non-existent column inches because Beaverbrook Newspapers have always been wasteful in manpower. They have not diversified their interests, with the exception of Price Brothers of Canada, and so are totally dependent.

I very much hope that the Royal Commission will look not only at the current newspaper situation but at the peripheral matters such as the lunacy of having a Press Council with only weak powers of persuasion. I hope that the commission also examines the salaries of journalists which go up irrespective of the quality of the work produced. I notice that newspapers do not feature in the Government's cost of living index. This presumably means that they are inessential. I am not certain why we are spending a whole day discussing something that is inessential in the Government's eyes, but perhaps we shall be told in the winding-up speeches.