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

It is many years since the Member for Uxbridge had the good fortune to secure a high place in the Private Members' Ballot. Certainly none of my three predecessors in the last 30 years had an opportunity to introduce a Private Member's Bill. After only 17 months as a Member of the House, I am naturally delighted to have secured third place in the Ballot.

I have given a great deal of thought to my choice of subject for my Bill, and of course, there were many possibilities. I also had to bear in mind that the present Session of Parliament may be short. I decided, therefore, to sponsor a Bill which I hoped would command support from all sectors of the House, in making a useful addition to our planning legislation with the aim of improving the surroundings in which we live. This, then, is an environmental Bill. It will, I hope, provide an opportunity today for the House to consider the conservation of our heritage, the enhancement of our towns and villages, and the maintenance of our historic gardens. I hope that hon. Members will find these subjects more attractive than some of the more solemn measures which we have been debating this week.

I am especially glad to have the opportunity of introducing a measure substantially along the same lines as that introduced in the previous Parliament by my hon. Friend the Member for Seven-oaks (Sir J. Rodgers), who, unhappily, is unable to be present in the House today as he is carrying out a long-standing constituency engagement in Canterbury Cathedral. As the House will know, the Town and Country Amenities Bill was before Parliament prior to the General Election, and such was the enthusiasm for the Bill in all parts of the House that it completed its Committee proceedings in one sitting. However, other matters intervened and that Bill was a casualty of the dissolution of Parliament.

I should like to express my thanks and appreciation for the generous help which my hon. Friend the Member for Seven-oaks has given me in encouraging the efforts which have resulted in this Bill being before the House again so soon. I should further like to extend my thanks to the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Environment and his colleagues, who have given the Bill their ready support.

The Town and Country Amenities Bill has not, at any stage, been the subject of political dispute. On the contrary, the Bill has enjoyed—and, I trust, will continue to enjoy—all-party backing and Government support. When the former Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks was before Standing Committee C on 6th February, the hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. Oakes), now Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, was generous enough to say that as the Bill had enjoyed an unopposed Second Reading and completed its Committee Stage in one sitting, it placed an obligation on both sides of the Committee to bring in the provisions of that Bill even if a General Election should take place and interrupt its progress. If that was either a prophecy or a promise, it is being redeemed today.

I am able to inform the House that consultations have taken place with the local authority associations, which of necessity are interested in the Bill. I have consulted representatives of the London Boroughs Association, the Association of Municipal Corporations, the County Councils Association and the District Councils Association. I should like to place on record my thanks for their constructive approach and helpful advice. They readily responded to my invitation to discuss the Bill in its formative stages. I do not, of course, expect them to agree with every one of the provisions of the Bill without occasional reservations, but the way in which they have given the Bill a fair wind has encouraged me greatly.

There are also the national preservation societies and local environmental groups which have taken a keen interest in the Bill. I am particularly grateful to Mrs. Jennifer Jenkins, wife of the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Stetchford (Mr. Jenkins) the Home Secretary, who is secretary of the Ancient Monuments Society, for her help, support and encouragement.

Finally, I want to express my very sincere thanks and appreciation to Mr. Peter Robshaw, of the Civic Trust, for giving generously of his time, energy and enthusiasm. He has put a great deal of work into the Bill and is entitled to be considered as almost a joint architect of the proposals I now present to the House.

The Bill is a logical successor to the Civic Amenities Act, which was also a Private Member's measure, introduced by the then right hon. Member for Streatham, who now sits in another place and who has given me much encouragement. The Civic Amenities Act, which has now been substantially integrated into the Town and Country Planning Act 1971, established the concept of the conservation area.

It had become too painfully clear by 1967 that the protection of individual buildings by the planning mechanism was not enough. The listing of buildings was not a sufficiently strong defence by itself against the erosion of our historic and architectural heritage. Whole areas, perhaps in cases where the individual buildings were not of listable quality, needed to be afforded a measure of statutory protection if they were to withstand the ravages of time, traffic and decay. So the Civic Amenities Act established firmly the concept of the conservation area.

Since 1967, conservation areas have become major growth points in the planning business. When the Town and Country Planning Bill enjoyed a Second Reading on 25th January, its then sponsor claimed that there were 2,750 conservation areas designated in England, Scotland and Wales. Today, less than four months later, the figure is about 3,000, five of which are in my own constituency. I can assure the House that any one of them is well worth a visit by any hon. Member who passes that way. Just one example is the delightful village of Ickenham were I was born, with its ancient church of St. Giles set like a sparkling gem in the centre, surrounded by beautiful trees, mellow buildings and a wall of outstanding charm.

Not only has the number of conservation areas increased, but the powers and resources available to local authorities to secure the preservation and enhancement of these conservation areas have also been extended. The Town and Country Planning (Amendment) Act 1972 gave local authorities powers to bring the demolition of selected non-listed buildings within the scope of planning control. That Act also made provision for grant aid to assist the promotion of schemes to enhance the character and appearance of the outstanding conservation areas.

Today the Historic Buildings Council has recognised 143 conservation areas to be of outstanding quality and, in spite of our current economic difficulties, £1 million a year is available by way of conservation grant, in addition to £1½ million for repairs grants on individual outstanding listed buildings and town schemes.

It is against this legislative background that I think we now need to go a step further. The designation of conservation areas is not an end in itself. Designation is really no more than a necessary administrative preliminary. Designation itself in fact is no more than the identification. The real object is the preservation and enhancement of the character and appearance of that area which, by definition, is one of architectural and historic interest.

The year 1975 is European Architectural Heritage Year. Many schemes of enhancement are being put in hand in our historic cities, busy towns and quiet villages. Buildings are being cleaned and restored. Traffic-free precincts are being created. Landscapes and townscapes are being improved. History trails are being organised. Heritage weeks are being planned. Awards will be made for conservation schemes, both here in Britain and internationally.

All this adds up to a considerable effort locally, but I am concerned that we should take the opportunity afforded by European Architectural Heritage Year to re-examine our conservation practices and to fashion come legislative advances which will continue down the years. One-year campaigns are, of course, excellent for focussing attention on desirable objectives, and European Architectural Heritage Year enjoys my full support, but I hope that out of it we can gain some environmental benefits which are permanent. I believe that public opinion is behind us in these matters.

This Bill can, in a sense, be regarded as just part of Parliament's contribution to European Architectural Heritage Year.

I turn now to the Bill to describe quite briefly what the effect of its clauses would be. Clause 1 is intended to bring the demolition of non-listed buildings in conservation areas within the scope of planning control. Provision already exists in Sections 8 and 9 of the Town and Country Planning (Amendment) Act 1972 for bringing selected non-listed buildings under control, but I believe that we need to go further than that Act provides.

To begin with, the identification of buildings by the local authority under the Sections 8 and 9 procedure is a time-consuming business, and the notification to owners of such buildings of the demolition constraints and penalties applying in the event of non-compliance adds extra administrative burdens on to local authorities which choose to exercise their powers under the 1972 Act.

Secondly, the Sections 8 and 9 powers work in an arbitrary way. Some local authorities have been quick to bring the demolition of non-listed buildings under control. Others have been less energetic. To be fair to them, the local authorities have had many other problems to contend with in the past two years or so since the Act became law. It is probable that not many more than 300 directions have been made to control demolition in conservation areas, but there are 3,000 conservation areas.

The demolition of certain buildings can and does diminish the character and appearance of conservation areas, while the demolition of others may positively enhance conservation areas. But if all non-listed buildings are subject to control over their demolition, everyone knows where he stands. The local authority will grant or withold consent according to the circumstances of each application. Each building in respect of which an application is submitted will be considered as to the visual contribution it makes to the scene. The owner will know where he stands if demolition control is made universal in conservation areas.

Some provisions need to be made to exclude either certain buildings or categories of building from the need to secure consent to demolish. It would, for example, be nonsense to free local authorities from the bureaucratic procedures of carrying out surveys, seeking a direction from the Secretary of State in respect of selected buildings and then notifying each owner and occupier of the effects of that direction, if at the same time planning committee agendas were to be cluttered up with applications to demolish garden sheds, coal bunkers and the like.

Accordingly, the Bill contains powers enabling the Secretary of State to make directions excluding specific buildings or types of building from the scope of Clause 1.

The clause also provides for applications made by local authorities in respect of non-listed buildings to be made to the Secretary of State. Hon. Members will recall that Clause 1 is intended to bring non-listed buildings within conservation areas within the ambit of planning control, at any rate where there are proposals to demolish such buildings.

Clause 1 also proposes powers for the Secretary of State to designate or withdraw designation from conservation areas.

Let me say at once that I hope that these powers will not need to be used. They are included only as a long stop, but I believe them to be necessary. Although the overall record of local authorities in designated conservation areas has been good, there are a number of places which, for one reason or another, have not yet been designated. With the reorganisation of local government, districts have a duty to designate and, concurrently, the counties have powers to designate.

The Secretary of State has powers to grant-aid practical enhancement schemes in outstanding conservation areas. As things stand, a local authority, for whatever reason, could, by its failure or refusal to designate, veto the application of conservation grants on an enhancement scheme by a local civic or amenity society in one of our potential conservation areas of national significance. That is stating the position in extreme terms. I hope that such a situation would not arise.

As a safeguard, the clause would give the Secretary of State power to designate after due consultation with the authority concerned. It also requires local authorities to review the performance, in practice, of their predecessor authorities in the designation of conservation areas. We must try to get a comprehensive and national list of our architectural and historic treasures in their settings by the end of European Architectural Heritage Year 1975.

Those who are anxious about extending the powers of the Secretary of State over the local authorities will know that they are given the first opportunity of designating and that the Secretary of State will be able to designate only after consultation and when the local authority has failed to designate.

In addition, the clause makes it plain that designation is not enough. It provides that, having designated the conservation area, the local planning authority will be under a duty to publish proposals for improving and enhancing the character and appearance of the area. I hope that that means that the public will be encouraged to respond to the conservation process.

Conservation involves us all. If it is apparent that the local planning authority is taking the business seriously and is putting forward positive ideas to improve the appearance of our conservation areas, public response should be that much better than if the local authority's responsibilities were to end once the area had been formally designated. I know that a number of hon. Members on both sides of the House are exercised about this matter. The Bill provides that when the local authority goes public with enhancement proposals there should be a public meeting to discuss them. This provision meets the views that were so well expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Wiggin), who has made representations to me on this subject.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend not only for giving way in the debate but for introducing this important provision. I hope that in Committee we can discuss the exact position of the public meeting. However, the principle is established and I am most grateful. Through my hon. Friend I thank the parliamentary draftsmen for the clear way in which the Bill has been redrafted. It is much easier to understand than its predecessor.

:I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I hope that we shall have another look at this matter in Committee. It is a further extension of the idea of public participation in planning. I hope that it will go some way towards establishing a climate of opinion locally which is conclusive to conservation and that it will encourage a greater public response and interest in the quality of the environment.

Clause 2 makes the same provision for Scotland as does Clause 1 for England and Wales.

Clause 3 is concerned with advertising control. It represents an amendment that was made in Committee to the Bill's predecessor by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Griffiths), who was then Under-Secretary of State for the Department of the Environment. Advertising control is a complex subject. I do not propose to detain the House with a detailed explanation of the mechanism of control which now exists. The clause in my Bill extends the scope of advertising control by giving the Secretary of State the power to make special regulations to control the display of advertisements in conservation areas.

It would be absurd to try to ban advertisements entirely in conservation areas. Some such areas have within them a thriving commercial centre. It is equally absurd to allow advertising in areas of special architectural or historic interest to detract from the appearance of such an area.

Advertising control, like so many other things in conservation areas, need to be applied with sensitivity. I hope that such sensitivity can be achieved by the Secretary of State, who, with an eye on the way in which things develop in the future, can make the necessary regulations to ensure better manners in advertising within conservation areas alongside the powers that he already has in respect of areas of special control.

Clause 4 refers to applications which may involve the settings of listed buildings. Many of us are familiar with the situation in which a new building, by virtue of its scale, texture or design, offends against a listed building alongside which it is built or on whose setting it impinges. We have seen Georgian houses dwarfed by office blocks. We have seen churches diminished by cooling towers, blocks of flats or industrial plant. We have seen new buildings in the modern idiom cheek by jowel with fine buildings of the past, resulting in the robbing of such buildings of their proper setting.

Clause 4 is important and is somewhat similar to the provisions which already exist for the advertisement of applications which may affect the character or appearance of conservation areas. The effect of the clause is that a local authority would be required to advertise a planning application which, in the opinion of the local authority, would be likely to affect the setting of a listed building. That would enable the public to make representations regarding the planning application. The local authority would be obliged to take due action on the representations that it received before proceeding to grant or withhold consent.

Clause 5 makes provisions for local authorities to be able to recover any costs that they incur in carrying out urgent works to unoccupied listed buildings. The Civil Amenities Act 1967 gave local authorities the power, for the first time, to undertake urgent works necessary for the preservation of unoccupied listed buildings. However, if a local authority does so, it now has no means of recovering its costs. It has been argued that one reason for local authorities not being enthusiastic about using their powers under the Act is that they have to meet the costs entirely from rate-borne funds.

If the new clause results in more local authorities undertaking urgent repair works on listed buildings, a great deal of effort and resources may be saved in the long run. Work such as making premises secure and buildings wind and weather tight may prevent accelerating deterioration of the fabric of a listed building. The result would be that the eventual restoration of such a building might prove to be less expensive than it otherwise would have been.

Hon. Members will know that the clause as drafted gives to the owner of a listed building on which the local authority carries out urgent work the right of appeal to the Secretary of State on the grounds that the cost of the works was unreasonable, that the payment of such costs would cause hardship or that the works were unnecessary in the first place. There is a considerable degree of protection for owners.

Clause 6 seeks to change the basis of compensation on the compulsory aquisition of a listed building for the purposes of preservation by the local authority. As things stand, when a local authority compulsorily acquires a listed building in order to preserve it, compensation is assessed as if listed building consent would be given for the demolition, alteration or extension of the building. In other words, compensation may be assessed in relation to the redevelopment value of the site rather than the value of the building that the local authority is seeking to preserve. I think that the House will agree that that is a palpable nonsense. The effect of Clause 6 is that the local authority would pay for what it gets—that is, the value of the listed building. It would not be required to pay for some arbitrary and quite artificial site value in circumstances in which the local authority would not be disposed to grant listed building consent for the demolition of the building.

It would be offensive to most people's sense of justice, however, if the local authority were able to give itself planning permission to demolish non-listed buildings in a conservation area which it would withhold in any other case. The clause was not included in the Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks, but I feel that the issue is one of sufficient importance to justify adding it to the original Bill.

Clause 7 was not included in the Bill considered by the last Parliament. At present, a local planning authority is obliged to apply to the Secretary of State for consent only if it owns the listed building in question. Clause 7 would require any application for listed building consent to be made to the Secretary of State, whether the planning authority owned the building or not.

Clause 8 would enable the Historic Buildings Council to make grants towards the preservation and upkeep of gardens or other land which appeared to the Secretary of State to be of outstanding interest. The Historic Buildings Council has for many years had power to make grants in respect of gardens but only in circumstances where the gardens were associated with a building which was of outstanding architectural or historic interest. If, for example, the building has already disappeared or if the garden is of outstanding historic interest but the building with which it is associated is not, the Historic Buildings Council is not able to make a recommendation for grant-aid to the Secretary of State. Clause 8 is intended to remedy this deficiency, and I believe that it will be welcomed by garden lovers and many others throughout the country.

Clause 9 is the formal technical citation clause which integrates the Bill with other relevant planning legislation.

I have no doubt that, if the House is disposed to grant it a Second Reading, the Bill will be further improved by amendments in Committee and in the other place. I have resisted the temptation to rewrite our planning legislation, though there are many desirable changes which could be made, given sufficient parliamentary time—but that, of course, is always at a premium.

It seems to me that, if the Bill is approved and given any necessary amendment by Parliament, it could represent a limited but useful statutory advance in planning. Without doubt, it will place additional responsibilities on local authorities, but it will also, I believe, strengthen our conservation defences as we approach European Architectural Heritage Year. I commend the Bill to the House.

11.32 a.m.

I must apologise to the House in advance and say that, if the debate is prolonged into the late afternoon, I shall have to leave, unfortunately, to attend another meeting. However, as with all Private Members' Bills, I have no doubt that the promoter hopes that speeches will be short and favourable, and that is what mine will be.

I start as a sponsor of the Bill by congratulating the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby) not only on the drafting but on his admirable speech in presenting it to the House. I shall not go again over the ground which he covered so well. What appeals to me in the Bill is that it is a further step in the direction of taking the protection of good architecture out of the museum atmosphere. We are moving away from the idea that it is enough to preserve one Adam House looking rather forlorn and pathetic in a sea of concrete, and we are coming to the idea that we should try to preserve and develop areas taking into account their architecture and their whole position and setting.

I shall not go into this in detail, but Covent Garden is one place where that type of problem is clearly apparent. For my part, the sort of thing which I find difficult to swallow, but which I know many people approve of, is the idea that one can knock out the middle building of a terrace—in this case, by removing Coutts bank and putting up a large glass structure—so long as one preserves the rest of the terrace which is said to be by a better architect.

The Bill moves away from that attitude. This is of particular importance in Scotland where, although there are many fine single buildings, a great deal of the quality and human scale of our achitecture lies in the fact that it is reasonably small in scale and depends a great deal upon the site and surroundings. Indeed, our Scottish towns have marvellous sites, but so many have been wrecked or been misused. One has only to look at the piecemeal destruction of Edinburgh terraces and streets which is going on now to understand what I mean. Therefore, I wholly welcome what I take to be one of the main intentions of the Bill.

I am rather worried about finance. All good causes are desperately handicapped by inflation, and the cost of preservation —let alone conversion or development—is becoming astronomical. I am not at all sure that there will be enough finance available generally to do what is necessary. In particular, I hope that the Government will have a word with the architects' professional bodies and others. concerned, because I feel that the whole profession of architecture needs examination. Apart from the fact that most of the buildings which they put up are appallingly bad, architects do not seem to me to give much attention to developing methods of building and restoration which are reasonably economic. To give one example, I am told that in developments being undertaken not by a wicked landlord but by the Scotish Special Housing Association in the island of Unst, each house now costs £20,000. Moreover, where certain restoration works are going on or projected, the expense is astronomical.

I hope also that as much opportunity will be taken as possible when the Bill comes into effect to use buildings for domestic purposes where that it reasonable. There is a tendency to feel that historic buildings must somehow be used for special purposes. I rather like to see them being used for ordinary living. Again, places such as Covent Garden and Bloomsbury come to mind. I want people to live there. I do not want them to be dead monuments or a museum filled with libraries or even worthy clubs or whatever it might be.

In Scotland, there has been a difficulty very often in establishing the ownership of decaying buildings. I do not know whether this happens in England, but it is not uncommon in Scotland to be told that the local authority cannot find out who owns buildings which are falling into disrepair. Sometimes, this is a genuine difficulty, but sometimes I suspect that it arises because those concerned want the buildings to fall into such an advanced state of disrepair that they can then be regarded are irrepairable. This is a great danger in Scotland, at least, and I hope that it will be watched.

Again, with reference to Scotland, may I put in a slight plug for the activities for the National Trust for Scotland, of which I used to be secretary, in preserving groups of buildings—as in Culross —under what is called its Little Houses programme. This is exactly the type of development, restoration and protection which the Bill is designed to advance.

I wonder whether the time has come to look at the remit given to the Depart- ment of the Environment. It does excellent work in maintaining ancient monuments at a certain point in their life, usually one of advanced decay. It stops them at that moment, it surrounds them with gravel and nicely cut grass, and it has expert people to look after them. But is this the ideal way to go about it? I do not want to take this matter too far, but at the present time I have in my constituency a surviving First World War gun site which is to be preserved in a state which rather reminds me of the Temple at Thebes, with the concrete blocks half down, and so on. In many ways, it is quite interesting, but I feel that, if one is to preserve a gun site, it would be a good idea to have the gun and let children play about with it. Also in my constituency, there is a lot to be said for roofing over the Earl's Palace in Kirkwall and making use of it. I am not very keen on ruins in the middle of towns. I often find them faintly depressing.

In Lerwick, there is an old fort which is of some architectural interest, though not of tremendous distinction. I feel that it could be used by, for example, having a place at the front of it where people could sit and look over the whole of Lerwick harbour.

I should like consideration to be given to encouraging the Department of the Environment to take powers in conservation areas not only to preserve but actually to rebuild and make use of some of the buildings which it possesses.

Again, I congratulate the hon. Member for Uxbridge upon the Bill. I join him also in saying a word of thanks to our former colleague, then the right hon. Member for Streatham, Mr. Duncan Sandys, whose founding of the Civic Trust and whose general work in this area has been of great importance throughout the country.

11.39 p.m.

I welcome the privilege of following the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond), who spoke so well in support of the Bill. I noted that he extolled the virtue of brief speeches, and I hope to emulate his contribution in that respect. Equally, I have much sympathy with his view that historic buildings ought not to be dead monuments. I shall certainly give serious consideration to the points which the right hon. Gentleman made, particularly those regarding ancient monuments being given a new and more active rôle in community life.

Having said that, I wish to join in the congratulations to the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby) on introducing the Bill. My congratulations are sincere. The Bill gives the House another opportunity to consider the proposals which he rightly explained were put foward in the last Parliament by the hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Sir J. Rodgers) in a Bill which fell as a consequence of the Dissolution of Parliament, but which had received widespread support from both sides of the House. I wish to make clear that the advent of a Labour Government has not altered the position regarding the support which this present Bill will receive. I assure the hon. Member for Uxbridge that my Department will seek to take an active and helpful interest in the Bill as it proceeds through its parliamentary stages.

I emphasise that the Government are mindful of the obligations of this generation as custodians of the nation's heritage for future generations and therefore welcome the provisions of the Bill which are designed to preserve, protect and enhance crucially important areas. It is not merely for the benefit of the people who live in these delightful areas that they should be preserved and enhanced. People from all areas can and do go to these conservation areas and enjoy the ancient monuments and historic buildings, and it is right and proper that those who live and work in densely populated urban areas and cities should be able to visit and appreciate these delightful features of our environment.

I do not wish to go over the provisions of the Bill in detail. These have already been most ably described by the hon. Member for Uxbridge in his eloquent speech in presenting the Bill. However, I should like to mention one or two points which are particularly important.

Many would regard the additional control over demolition as the most important part of the Bill. I am aware that the hon. Gentleman commented on this particular point. Nothing is more unsightly than the vacant plots which appear overnight in some of our cities. These cannot always be avoided. I am mindful of what the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland said about the Edinburgh terraces. Even with reasonable forward planning there is bound to be delay between demolition and redevelopment. We should try to ensure, however, that in our best areas—the conservation areas—the period of delay is reduced to the minimum. I am afraid that the law cannot achieve a great deal here, but it must help considerably to require anyone wishing to demolish a building in these special areas to obtain consent before doing so. I am glad to see that the Bill would enable demolition consent to be obtained with planning permission. That should cut down the paper work and mean that there would be no great additional burden placed on developers or the planning authorities.

Conservation areas, as will be well known, are areas of special architectural or historic interest. I noted the point made by the hon. Member for Uxbridge regarding there being almost 3,000 conservation areas. I was delighted to learn that the Civic Trust has this morning announced the establishment of the 3,000th conservation area and I was equally impressed that that area is the Gladstone Pottery in the City of Stoke-on-Trent, which most people would not regard as a particularly fruitful place for establishing conservation areas.

Conservation areas very greatly in size. Some are quite small, restricted to perhaps a street or two along with the village green, while others take in almost the whole of an historic town. The areas vary in quality, as they are bound to do. Some are of national, and even international importance, while others will never be well known outside their immediate locality. But they all have something in common—they help to establish our national heritage, a heritage which we must not allow to be destroyed. They are places which merit special care and attention—care with proposals for development which could possibly alter or destroy the character of an area, and attention in producing schemes for enhancement and preservation, which many local authorities have already produced and are putting into effect. Conservation is not the fossilisation of an area, but great care and attention is needed to ensure that the character of an area is not destroyed or irreparably damaged.

The encouraging and growing awareness of the need for conservation has brought with it an increase in activity, officially and unofficially, for its achievement. An outstanding and welcome development has been the growth of local and national amenity societies which have been involved in fostering awareness of the value of local areas, in bringing important issues into the forum of public debate and in materially assisting the work of conservation.

I was delighted to hear the hon. Member for Uxbridge refer to the contribution made by the Civic Trust and other amenity societies in bringing the Bill forward. I noted with pleasure the hon. Gentleman's comments regarding Mrs. Jennifer Jenkins. I warmly endorse his acknowledgment of the contribution which these organisations and so many other individuals have made in seeking to encourage conservation of the environment in which we all live. Although amenity societies have a growing part to play, the major rôle must inevitably fall to local authorities. It is they who control development, carry out highway improvements and erect what I can best describe as street furniture, and do a host of other things that have an immediate effect on the environment. The Bill would greatly assist them and would considerably strengthen the law affecting conservation areas and listed buildings.

While some planning authorities have a good record when it comes to designating conservation areas, others have not designated as many as some of us had hoped for—the hon. Gentleman referred to this—and I hope that the Bill will encourage those authorities to examine their areas with great care and designate many more.

I also welcome the provision—which I know is also most welcome to local authorities—which would remove the assumption that a listed building could be demolished, even where it is being purchased by a local authority for preservation. It cannot be right to require a local planning authority to pay a price for a building which reflects full development rights where the authority is anxious and willing to save it. The provision would not deny an owner his development value where it is properly payable but it would not be payable automatically as it is at present.

At present a local authority may, on giving seven days' notice, carry out emergency repairs to an unoccupied listed building, but it cannot recover the cost of the repairs from the owner or occupier, so, quite understandably, local authorities have been reluctant to take such action. As the hon. Member for Uxbridge explained, the Bill enables such cost to be recovered, but it will also provide safeguards for the owner against an unreasonable claim by the authority. The House may remember that the Preservation Policy Group chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, recommended that the recovery of such costs should be possible. Subject to the safeguards written into the Bill, the Government are happy to accept this provision.

The sensible provisions of the Bill are particularly welcome. They must strengthen the hands of those who are working to improve and preserve the best of our environment. Other matters have been suggested for inclusion. One which I should like particularly to mention is trees. There is general agreement that there is need to strengthen the law on the protection of trees, which form such a vital part of our environment. We have just bad a campaign designed to encourage the planting of trees, the slogan of which, " Plant a tree in '73 ", will be known to all. I am sure we all agree that the protection of our existing trees is as important as the planting of new ones. It is important that felling in conservation areas is brought more under control, perhaps by a system requiring notice to be given of any felling proposal. I hope that the House will have the opportunity later to discuss this suggestion and other provisions about trees.

It is appropriate that the Bill should come at a time when the eyes of all Europe are turned towards the efforts being made in conservation as we prepare for European Architectural Heritage Year in 1975. The practical measures which the Bill seeks to introduce will provide a lasting and far-reaching contribution to the preservation of our architectural heritage. I conclude by emphasising that the most important contribution that can be made will be the solid and enduring achievements of local authorities, private bodies and individuals in preserving and enhancing our conservation areas and historic buildings. On that basis, I warmly support the Second Reading of the Bill.

11.53 a.m.

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on the Bill and to support my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby), whom I have known for some time. He is a personal friend of mine and I am therefore delighted to support him.

During my four years' service on a planning committee I was constantly reminded that planning officers and planning committees were not arbiters of taste but were responsible only for certain restricted elements in the preservation of listed buildings. The Bill will make it easier for local authorities to preserve our heritage.

The Automobile Association produced an interesting book called " Treasures of Britain "—an excellent title. The introduction to that book referred to this island being the storehouse of achievement, invention and beauty. The Bill moves in the direction of enabling us to retain those characteristics. However, the book only scratches the surface of what is there and available. We often do not realise the historical importance of buildings which we pass.

Regrettably, we have in the past destroyed much that is valuable. I recently went into my local Smith's bookshop and bought a pictorial book about the history of Reading in which was depicted the facias of some of Reading's buildings many years ago. If only they had been kept, what a difference it would have made to the town.

The Bill will help to stop the erection of concrete jungles. I was interested in what the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) said about the pulling down of Coutts Bank, as both the hon. Member for Chiselhurst (Mr. Sims) and I were employees in that bank at one time. It is, therefore, a double sadness that it should be pulled down.

The Bill highlights what has to be done. In his campaign to draw to our attention the beauties of our environment, Sir John Betjeman has done valuable work. As he said, we must be careful not to destroy buildings that seem to be of bad architectural design, because in a few years' time there may be a change of view and we may find that we have destroyed a building that we should have kept.

I welcome the Bill's reference to gardens. There has been a tendency to preserve a building and to develop the garden, so that the building sits on its own surrounded by other properties, which is a pity.

I welcome the provision for consultation with the public. I was a supporter of the Skeffington Report, which did much to highlight the importance, in all planning, of consultation with the community. One of the weaknesses in our town planning system is that the only way one knows that a house is to be pulled down and the site developed for a factory is by buying the local newspaper. That is wrong. We in Parliament should do more to make sure that people are informed about developments.

I have a personal cause which I urge my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge to consider—the preservation of the heights of certain bridges over canals. We may find when the waterway system is opened up that, because the hump has been taken out of a bridge, the bridge has become flattened to such an extent that boats cannot get underneath it. The value of the waterway will, therefore, be destroyed. During the Easter Recess I had the experience of trying to get a boat under a bridge at Guildford. The top of my boat is still all right, but I had only 2 inches to spare—the bridge is all right, too.

If I have any criticism of the Bill, it concerns Clause 5, which allows only 28 days for an objection to be made. That period should be longer. Ancient buildings may be unoccupied, the owner may be abroad or far away in this country, and 28 days may be too short a period for objection to be made.

I welcome the provisions on advertising. I was involved in a long drawn out battle about an advertisement which included the words "finger-lickin' good" in 6 ft. letters. There was a public inquiry, and I am thankful to say that that advertisement does not appear in my home town.

I make these few contributions in support of my hon. Friend, and I hope that future generations will not say, as Shakespeare said:

12 noon.

I am pleased to support the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby) and the Bill he has introduced to the House. I want to speak briefly. The last time I addressed the House on a measure of this sort I spoke for over an hour, at 1 am. I am in even better voice today, but I shall resist the temptation to go on for very long. On that occasion I ranged over the need to preserve our heritage and archaeology and architecture in this context.

In this debate I want to deal with one limited matter on Clauses 5 and 6. Since it is the " done thing " to declare one's interest, I must tell the House that I am a member of the Redundant Churches Fund, for which one needs very good credentials indeed since one has to be nominated by two archbishops to the Prime Minister and have Her Majesty's approval. I am also a member of the Newark and Notts Archaeological Society and a Fellow of the Ancient Monuments Society. Although I am the Second Church Estates Commissioner, I do not necessarily speak in that rôle today. Since I live in a listed building, I am very interested in this subject.

Last Friday I visited 11 redundant churches taken over by the Redundant Churches Fund in the Ely Diocese and the Cambridge and Norfolk areas. The Redundant Churches Fund is financed by Parliament to the extent of £40,000 a year and the Church Commissioners—another body of which I am a member —put up the same amount of money. Therefore, I speak with some knowledge of the problems which face churches of all denominations in respect of listed buildings.

Church denominations exist for a very different purpose than merely to look after buildings. When church buildings and buildings associated with church organisations become redundant, they have few alternative uses and this brings special problems. I have been approached by the Secretary of the Churches Main Committee, a body representing 27 denominations covering a wide spectrum, including Quakers and Jews, many of whose buildings are not covered by the legislation on redundant churches. I refer to the Redundant Churches and Other Religious Buildings Act 1969, which authorises the making of grants by Parliament to the Redundant Churches Fund and excludes certain provisions of the Town and Country Planning Act 1968 in relation to the demolition of redundant places of public worship and provides for the transfer to the Minister of Housing and Local Government or the Secretary of State of certain such places.

The Secretary of the Churches Main Committee, Mr. Sandy Parnis, has been in touch with me and I understand that the committee is concerned about Clauses 5 and 6. Although this is not the occasion to debate these provisions in detail, I think that what I have to say is of importance and might be considered at later stages in the Bill.

Clauses 5 and 6 are likely to have some serious consequences for churches which are listed buildings. The effect of Clause 6 is that, if buildings are compulsorily acquired, the church authorities will receive only their existing use value, without any allowance for the development value of the site. I believe that my hon. Friend the Minister has already referred to the values in such a situation, and that it would not be the full value. Clause 5 will mean that the person or persons concerned locally who own the building may be forced to keep unoccupied listed churches and church buildings in good repair at their own expense even though the listed buildings had ceased to be any value for their work.

One can appreciate the situation when the population of a district has moved away, sometimes because commercialisation has taken place, with the building of industrial complexes and the rest of it, so that the church and associated buildings are no longer required for the original purpose. The reason for the concern expressed by the churches is that they are not in business to preserve and maintain listed buildings. The Church of England alone has about 11,000 such buildings. The Church exists to do the work of God and this, of course, is its main purpose. It depends how one construes that solemn and weighty function, but surely that must be the overriding objective. In many cases these buildings are the only secular assets which the Churches possess. If the development of work in the area or shifts in population require some buildings to be given up and others to be provided elsewhere it is essential that the Church should receive the full current value of its assets, including development value for the premises.

In some cases of compulsory acquisition the churches are entitled to compensation on the basis of equivalent reinstatement under Rule (5) of Section 5 of the Land Compensation Act 1961. The exact effect of Clause 6 of this Town and Country Amenities Bill on Rule (5) is difficult to see and will need clarification at a later stage. But if for one reason or another compensation on an equivalent reinstatement basis is not appropriate—and Rule (2) applies—and compensation has to be assessed on market value of a church, Clause 6 will be a grievous blow to the future work of the Church concerned. It will be deprived of the value of the site in which most of the value may reside. In that event the acquiring authority will get the whole property, site and all, for practically nothing.

It should be understood that Churches do not acquire listed buildings; they, as others, find themselves saddled with them. I make that statement with no disrespect to listed buildings because I feel that much legislation in the past—and, indeed this applies to current legislation—is not strong enough in respect of listed buildings. Churches of all denominations find themselves in difficulty if they inherit buildings. I have spent many hours in committees of the Church Commissioners when we have discussed the problems of vicarages, bishops' houses—which used to be called bishops' palaces—and deaneries in Durham and elsewhere.

The visitor finds some of these listed places of great interest and historic importance, and we agree that they should be maintained, but it must be stressed that for the owners who have to be custodians of those buildings, many prob- lems have to be faced. In some cases in Durham, for instance, buildings may date back to the twelfth century. It is all very well to look at these buildings and say what lovely sights they present, but it is a very different situation when one has to cope with the difficulties associated with their preservation and all the rest of it. Furthermore, those who own them cannot get rid of them or fob them off or pass them on to other people. The alternative uses are limited indeed and this in itself represents a real problem.

Contrary to general belief, church buildings are owned by local persons or trustees representing congregations and they have no money to maintain listed buildings as historic monuments or to take advantage of the capital value which they represent.

I know that it is common to say that the Church Commissioners have millions of pounds and can find money for almost every purpose, but they are concerned only with the Church of England and, as such, are trustees of the endowments and inheritances of many previous centuries. Our funds are limited in their use. The income is derived from a very limited use of commercial and other investment, from agricultural land, and so on. The funds derived each year have to be used for paying clergy stipends and pensions, and with the rising cost of living it is difficult to ensure, each year, that the pay and pensions of the clergy keep pace with inflation.

In the Free Churches there seems to be no pastoral legislation such as that which covers the Church of England. I do not know what happens when a Quaker building, a synagogue or a building used by one of the Free Churches becomes redundant. It is an enormous burden for the local congregation and the Church. The alternative uses are limited, and since John Betjeman has been around, far more buildings have been listed. Many Victorian churches and other buildings used by churches are being listed, and they present a real problem.

I am not a Philistine in these matters; I am amongst those who want to see such buildings maintained, but regard must be had to the ability or desirability of those who are the present custodians to maintain them to the levels to which we think they should be maintained.

I understand that the Department of the Environment has been approached by the Churches Main Committee on some of these matters, and therefore it is very important that consideration should be given to all these aspects. A number of precedents have been given to the Department for exempting churches and charities from penalties of the kind envisaged in Clauses 5 and 6 of this Bill. If relief can be agreed in principle, it should not be difficult to find ways and means to achieve it.

That apart, we might consider a measure such as the one that we have for the Church of England in the Redundant Churches and Other Religious Buildings Act. with the authority to make grants to the Redundant Churches Fund. That might be considered for other churches.

Churches are in a very special category, and the funds available to them are limited. Although Section 4 of the Redundant Churches and Other Religious Buildings Act contains power for buildings to be transferred to the Minister, in the past the Ministry has not been too anxious to acquire some of these buildings. I say that with respect to present and past holders of ministerial positions in the Department.

I have already questioned the basis upon which acquisition is made, the rate of compensation and so on, and the cost of maintenance after a take-over. But these buildings have few alternative uses for the Churches which own them. If a Church organisation or denomination no longer needs to use a church building, possible alternative uses would include that of a library, museum or meeting place, but the uses are very limited, and certainly they do not bring in enough money to maintain the building in the manner in which it should be maintained. This contrasts with the position of other buildings, such as houses, which may be used as offices and for other purposes if they are redundant for their original use. I think that these are matters which must be considered at a later stage, although they do not lessen my enthusiasm for this measure.

Over the years there have been far too many cases of houses and other buildings being allowed to deteriorate. We can all think of cases where the penalties for not maintaining a building have proved inadequate. It used to be £100. Whatever it is now, it is far too low. If the owner of a listed building allows it to deteriorate to the point where it must be demolished, he is left with a site ripe for development and can get a much greater reward for allowing the building to deteriorate. At the moment, local authorities have the right to acquire these buildings or to do work on them, but they have no power to reclaim any of the cost involved. Even if local authorities had the right to reclaim the cost of maintenance of some of these buildings, the public pressed by increasing rates, might not consider this one of the top priorities for local spending. Then again, when planning considerations apply the public may not always be aware of what is intended. Reference has been made to a notice in the local Press which few people will see. It might be a good idea to erect a post with a notice on the site informing the public that planning considerations are involved so that they may be better aware of what is going on.

These matters are just a few of those that we shall need to consider. I could speak at length about the value of European Heritage Year next year and about the need to draw the attention of both local authorities and the public to the importance of maintaining listed buildings. Tribute should be paid to the tourist authorities and other civic amenity societies for the work that they do.

I suggest that this measure should receive the wholehearted support of the House provided that there is a willingness on the part of the hon. Member for Uxbridge and the Minister to look carefully at the matters I have raised and those which other hon. Members will be bringing up later on. There is a great fund of good will throughout the country through many bodies, including the Friends of Friendless Churches, and individuals who show enthusiasm for the maintenance of these buildings which are so important to our heritage.

I hope that we can make progress with this measure and get it on to the statute book as soon as possible, subject to some of these matters being considered at a later stage.

12.18 p.m.

It is perhaps a little unusual to be able to agree so completely with those hon. Members who have spoken already in support of the relaunching of this Bill by my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby). Unlike so much of what has been going on in the House in recent weeks, it is reassuring to know from the Minister the complete absence of change of Government attitude to this subject. It contrasts sharply with some of the forecasts and intimations of changed attitudes which have been made from the Treasury Bench.

It is a happy coincidence that this Bill is introduced on the day that the Civic Trust has announced the designation of the 3,000th conservation area, and it is in anticipation of next year's European Architectural Heritage Year that this measure must be considered. Incidentally, I find it particularly reassuring to hear from the hon. Member for Newark (Mr. Bishop) the commitment to Europe which is intimated by taking this fact into consideration.

I welcome the Bill in almost all its aspects, and perhaps I might briefly mention one or two of them.

I welcome the replacement of the controls on the demolition of buildings in the shape of the provisions prohibiting demolition in a conservation area without listed planning authority. Taken in conjunction with that, I welcome the duty imposed on the new local authorities at district and county level for the formulation and publishing of their proposals in this area.

Turning to Clause 3, I must declare an interest. I am a director of an advertising company. However, I welcome the restrictions and regulations on the display of advertising material in conservation areas, though at the same time echoing a need for the application of those regulations with a reasonable degree of sensitivity.

I should like to draw particular attention to Clause 4 and the extension of the requirements for the publishing of special publicity so that those who are interested in these aspects of their environment. the countryside and amenities know what is going on. In the same way as my hon. Friend the Member for Ux- bridge has been so deep in his consultations with the various authorities interested in the Bill, so I welcome this extension of the requirement for publicity at all levels.

On Clause 5, I think that we must be wary that, while encouraging that work should be undertaken on buildings which are falling into disrepair by relieving local authorities of the ultimate burden of the cost of those renovations, we protect owners from any unfair burden which may be placed upon them to this extent. I join my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, North (Mr. Durant) in questioning whether 28 days are sufficient for this to take place with fairness.

I should like to echo the reference to the need for consideration of trees within the context of the Bill. It was somewhat depressing how little effect we saw during the "Plant a Tree Year" in 1973. I think that it would be appropriate, within the context of the Bill, to send out an invocation to plant more in '74.

The Bill places added responsibilities on local councils, but I believe that in their new forms they are well capable of executing them and working with the growing number of amenity societies and local interest and pressure groups which are concerned about the amenities and environment of the areas in which they live. It is particularly important in its application to the South-East where, to a degree unmatched anywhere else in the country, so many people rely on the amenities of country areas, villages and towns outside the great conurbation of London.

The Bill stands well with the Ashdown Forest Bill which was debated on that otherwise rather traumatic day of the Budget debate. I add my suport to Second Reading of the Bill which I suggest should require as little amendment as any Bill that is to be debated in this House during this Session.

12.24 p.m.

I give the warmest possible approval to the Bill and congratulate the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby), first, on the contents of the Bill and, secondly, on his good fortune in having the opportunity of bringing it forward.

When I made preparations for today I looked up the debate on 25th January when the hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Sir J. Rodgers) said that he had waited 24 years for the opportunity of bringing forward a similar Bill. The hon. Member for Uxbridge told us that he waited 18 months. I hope that he has more success with his Bill than had his hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks. The latter's problem was that the election intervened.

With the benefit of two months reflection we are discussing broadly the same Bill. It has the same aspirations and I am sure that it will have all-party support because its main aim and emphasis is to improve the environment, to preserve our heritage, and to encourage people to take an even greater interest in their country and countryside than they have taken in the past.

The hon. Member for Uxbridge and I serve on the Prices Bill Committee which is not free from controversy. I suggest that when a Committee is established to consider this Bill there will be far less controversy—in fact, virtual unanimity—on the objectives and aims that the Bill seeks to achieve.

I should like to pay tribute to the former right hon. Member for Streatham, now Lord Duncan-Sandys, for all that he has done not only in connection with this Bill, but in the whole sphere of environmental improvement and, more important, in trying to stimulate people to take an interest in living history. We owe a great deal to the noble Lord and the hon. Member for Sevenoaks and, from now and for a long time to come, to the hon. Member for Uxbridge.

I should like to deal briefly with another angle which is germane to the way in which the concept of the Bill will work out in practice. It is right that the House should support ideas for preserving historic monuments, towns and cities which are known in the history of the land. Reference has been made to York, Bath and Lincoln, places in which there are cathedrals, castles, and often what we term as the ancient stately homes of England.

The Bill has relevance equally to the countryside and villages and to the urban areas of this country. I represent Edmonton in north London. By the good fortune of the London Government Act, Edmonton is joined to Enfield and Southgate. In the mix created by the marrying together of three disparate constituencies we see the way in which the concept of the Bill can apply on a much smaller scale than was painted by hon. Members today.

I took the opportunity of asking the planning office in Enfield to what extent we had been able to make progress. The hon. Member for Uxbridge was pleased to tell us that a number of conservation areas—I think he mentioned six—had been established in his constituency. I am advised that there are nine in the London Borough of Enfield. Compared with 3,000 throughout the country, I think this may be taken as a reasonable start. Of course, it is only a start.

Attempts have been made to designate areas which, in the view of the people of Enfield, Edmonton and Southgate, are worthy of conservation, and I should like briefly to mention one or two to illustrate how the ideas behind the Bill can improve the community.

First, in Winchmore Hill Green, which is part of the constituency of Southgate, there is an ideal old village green. At one time it was the village green of Winchmore Hill. It lends itself ideally to the conservation concept, it has been designated, and it is very much appreciated by the people in the area.

In Edmonton itself, in the Church Street conservation area, the environs of the parish church have been improved and given special attention.

In the Forty Hill area in the borough of Enfield there is Maidens Bridge, where it is alleged Sir Walter Raleigh lay down his cloak and stopped Queen Elizabeth from putting her royal foot right in it, whatever it was.

Not far away from Forty Hill there is Whitewebbs Park where, in Whitewebbs House, the local history library says, Guy Fawkes and the plotters tried to do some of their dirty work—or was it?—so many hundreds of years ago.

In the eastern part of the borough there is Turkey Brook, which is conserved, and in this heavy residential area it provides a little bit of country, a little bit of relaxation and something that is visually attractive.

We have designated a place called Wright's Flour Mill, an ancient mill which is still working. This is a good example of the way in which a single item is enhanced by designating an area, because if one building is listed, conserved or preserved but all round it goes in other ways the value of that building is reduced. If people talk about Ponders End, which is part of the London borough of Enfield and borders on Edmonton, and if one thinks about history one realises that this is part of the history of the place and is therefore worthy of conservation.

A conservation area may include a town. I am thinking of Enfield town centre. It is difficult to preserve an area which is made up not only of fine houses and green spaces but of roads, traffic, and so on. If such an area is designated because one may wish to control what goes into it one is faced with the problem of what is already in it. We are also intending to move towards making Trent Park, an area of hundreds of acres on the edge of the borough, into a conservation area.

These are places not which people go to visit, but places in which people live and work every day. I warmly welcome the opportunities given by the Bill to local communities to look at their environment and say that they will do their best to conserve their past history. I give a warm welcome to the emphasis which the Bill seeks to place on public participation. We have all had varying experiences of public participation, and one of the sad things is that even now, despite the emphasis that has been given to the laudable objectives of conservation, there is still a general malaise among people to wake up before changes which happen literally overnight strike down a building or an area.

I pay tribute to the part that can be played in the conservation process by local newspapers, because it is right and proper that the local authority, whether it be the officers or the councillors, the preservation society, the civic society and the residents' association should collectively try to stimulate interest in their area. We, as politicians, know that the most potent weapon in the hands of those who wish to influence local opinion is the local Press.

In the London borough of Enfield, which includes Edmonton, there has always been the closest attention to what one might call civic amenity conservation issues, partly because we are on the edge of the green belt, and partly because we have people who are involved in the business and can readily appreciate that these are important matters. In Enfield and Edmonton we have had many opportunities of giving publicity to the establishment by the local authority of study groups in which, happily and fruitfully, local people, together with council officers and others, have been proving their value. One value of the newspapers is the letters column which provides an opportunity for those who may not wish to be involved in the actual formulation of the plans to comment, and those comments and observations are picked up by those involved.

My only other comment—I am grateful for the opportunity to declare my full support for the Bill—is on the question of advertising and the effects of it inside these areas. I declare an interest, but not that of being involved in the profession. For many years I was chairman of the planning committee in the London borough of Enfield. It was always on what one would call the small but visual issues that people got hot under the collar. One could designate an area for housing or draw up a town map or plan which went over people's heads, but if one wanted to knock down a tree, to alter the use of one building or to intrude into an area, then, quite rightly, the people who were vitally affected by that took up the matter. I therefore welcome the strengthening of the provisions in the Bill to ensure that advertising which, in the view of the local community, represented by the council, is deleterious to the area will be given much greater scrutiny.

I conclude by once more congratulating the hon. Member for Uxbridge on an excellent speech in support of an excellent Bill, and I wish it well.

12.38 p.m.

May I add my comments to those that have been made today and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby) not only on the quality of his excellent address but on the preparation of his Bill.

The measure will receive widespread support throughout the country, not least from the National Trust, which so often has been the last bastion of preservation in this country, and many other societies. The local authorities, too, will welcome the Bill.

Over the years one has felt that individuals and societies have tried to preserve buildings purely on their own, and big problems are involved not only in enlisting the support of the electorate but in fighting off the local authorities. In my constituency, about 10 or 12 years ago two wooden cottages which had been there for several hundred years were threatened with demolition by the local authority. A group of young people created so much awareness of the situation that they succeeded in preserving these white wooden cottages, and they are still an outstanding feature of the area.

The clause which I specifically wish to highlight is that which refers to restricting advertising in conservation areas. People go away for their holidays into areas of outstanding beauty only to be greeted by advertising in the form of various slogans and hoardings. Too often over the past few years local authorities have had no specific lead from the Government. Such advertising has snowballed. The Bill goes a long way towards overcoming the problem, and I welcome that.

Local authorities will be given a tremendous shot in the arm by the Bill. I hope that the Government will do all they can to encourage awareness of the position not only among the public but among all local authorities. I hope that the Minister will urge the Secretary of State to do all he can to initiate a great deal of activity by the local authorities, which should be made aware of their new responsibilities once the Bill is on the statute book.

The importance of trees has been emphasised this morning. The ravages of Dutch elm disease over the past few years have highlighted the need for a repetition of the 1973 campaign to plant more trees. It is vital that the Government promote tree planting as hard as they can throughout the country.

It is important to preserve buildings which have so often been ignored by local authorities. Local authorities and the public must be made aware of the need. The hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Graham) spoke of the importance of creating such awareness through local newspapers and local societies. But I urge the Government to give local authorities a reminder to make certain that they are aware of their responsibilities and of the needs in this area.

I am sure that my constituents will warmly welcome the Bill. I earnestly hope that the House will give it an unopposed Second Reading, because it goes a long way towards overcoming the glaring weaknesses which have existed over the years. The Bill certainly has my support. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge once again on his most interesting speech and the great clarity with which he introduced the Bill.

12.22 p.m.

I join the procession of hon. Members congratulating the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby) on introducing the Bill. I am sure that he is embarrassed by all our kindly remarks, but they are well meant.

The Bill seeks to replace Section 277 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1971, which is limited in scope, and to give local authorities much wider powers. I am sure that all hon. Members join me in welcoming that very much. One of the important clauses in the Bill is that requiring local authorities to review their functions. I suspect that a number of local authorities, having made one or two conservation areas, are sitting quietly on their oars and letting matters slide by. The clause will be helpful in preventing that. The Bill is clearly designed to encourage conservation areas, and in that respect it is very important.

In my constituency there are some telling lessons to be learned about legislation that came too late and did not contain wide enough provisions. We have the Brontë shrine at Haworth. There are five conservation areas within this literary area, which is visited by 150,000 to 160,000 people every year. Yet at one of the most famous points, Topwithens, which is said to have inspired Emily Bronte to write Wuthering Heights, is an old farmhouse which is not in a conservation area, so far as I know. Over the past 20 years it has fallen into virtual ruin. Photographs taken 10 to 15 years ago show that it was then complete and much more attractive. At the back there is a shed with a corrugated iron roof—this in an area visited by people from all over the world.

Clauses 5 and 6 would enable local authorities to do something about that sort of building. Unfortunately, the building has now reached an advanced state of disrepair. It has been patched to make it a sort of permanent ruin, but it was not a ruin that inspired Emily Brontë; it was a farmhouse. Now it is far too late to save it. Such a situation could, and hopefully will, be prevented by the Bill.

Probably the farmhouse is now owned by the Yorkshire Water Authority. It would probably give many of my constituents extreme pleasure if something were done about the building and the authority were sent the bill, because it has been sending out such shocking bills recently that it would be a case of the biter bit.

We could also extend the question of conservation beyond such places as Haworth, which are fairly obvious places to conserve. Haworth is a tourist centre and olde worlde, and so it is preserved. We must look wider than that, and I hope that the Bill will encourage local authorities to do so, and to take action against owners who are not preserving buildings.

Building is moving very rapidly. If we are not careful, the centres of attractive towns and villages can be taken out by well-meaning people. What they create is nothing very special; it is an extension of London suburbia. That sort of thing is in the process of happening in a village in my constituency which is not a tourist centre like Haworth but is an attractive, small, stone-built Yorkshire village. Many people regard stone-built houses as superior to brick-built and pebble-dash houses.

The village has the characteristic dourness of Yorkshire, the grit and determination which we like to think inhabit the people. We also like to think that those characteristics are reflected in the buildings. But if present proposals for the village of Denholme go ahead, the centre will be virtually ripped out and replaced by buildings of a nondescript character such as can be seen for mile after mile when one drives out from London in any direction.

The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) said that villages should be lived in. I agreed. Conservation areas should be not living museums but places which are preserved because they are attractive. I believe that that is true of Denholme. In the West Riding in 1973 more houses were destroyed than built. It is not just a question of preserving attractive and pretty villages; it is also a question of preserving houses for people to live in, because they are in such need and because there has been a decline in the number of dwellings available.

There is also the question of cost. Some hon. Members have taken issue with the opportunity given to local authorities by the Bill to repair designated buildings, but as it is concerned with buildings that are lived in and used, that might well be better than knocking down buildings and putting up new ones, if only on grounds of cost. In Denholme the 30 buildings that are to replace in the first phase the 200 expected to be demolished will cost £326,000—more than £10,000 a dwelling. All that involves interest payments. Hopefully, the cost of preserving existing buildings, provided they have reasonable amenities, would be far less.

Many people like the village. They like its aesthetic qualities. They do not want to be bulldozed out of an environment which they know and in which they have lived for many years.

If the Bill helps local authorities to look afresh not simply at the old historic sections of communities but at living villages which have aesthetic appeal and charm, and are lived and worked in, it will do a good deal to help the community.

Advertising is a bone of contention. It seems that advertising executives who are very enthusiastic about advertising take care to live in areas where there is not much of it about. We probably have common ground in the House about that. I tend to think that the Bill's provisions on advertising are not strong enough. It is true that the Secretary of State has powers to ban advertising in conservation areas, and that those powers will, one hopes, limit the mass of hoardings and invidious advertisements which abound in the sort of conservation area we are discussing, but it is worth reminding ourselves that the legislation governing this sort of thing is in many cases totally inadequate for local authorities to enforce such control.

For example, if a person wants to exhibit an advertising sign, he can simply put it up. Someone may then complain to the local authority that there is a big, unsightly sign on the side of an olde worlde Tudor cottage. The local authority says that it must be taken down. The man puts in a planning application and until that is resolved he has the right to maintain the sign. If the application is refused, he can appeal, and there may well be a public inquiry before a final decision is reached. Thus, the period of time between a person putting up a sign and the final decision being made following a planning inquiry or being referred to the appropriate Minister can be years.

In these circumstances, the landscape can be scarred for years on end, and. indeed, there may well be a legalistic argument about the size of a different sign. If the first sign is taken down and another erected in its place, the second sign can be subject to the whole procedure again. In Committee it might be useful to give local authorities greater powers in conservation areas immediately to get rid of advertising signs which come within the jurisdiction of the Secretary of State and the powers of the Bill.

Would the hon. Gentleman confine that suggestion to conservation areas? Would he not extend the law throughout the whole country if he feels that this aspect is in any way disputed?

The Bill is concerned largely with conservation areas and, naturally enough, under the eagle eye of the Chair, I was not extending the debate beyond that, but I accept that there is great need for this sort of legislation to be considered for the whole country. But we are considering in the Bill places of special aesthetic appeal, and if we could set standards for such areas I hope that we could extend them to areas which have rather less aesthetic appeal but in which people live. We want to make sure that advertising does not encroach on our lives as it does all too often.

I welcome the Bill. I hope that local authorities will apply it and that from our discussions we shall see good results in improved conservation areas. I add my congratulations to the hon. Member for Uxbridge on bringing it in.

12.45 p.m.

I am glad to be able to speak for the Opposition at the end of this debate, because it gives me the chance to welcome and comment on so many valuable speeches. We have heard today a number of valid points which we must consider in Committee.

I was happy to hear the contribution by my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, North (Mr. Durant). He seeks to enlarge the scope of the Bill. He also made a plea that not all architecture should be condemned as being bad. He was educated at Bryanston School, and I remind him that Lord Portman, when he returned from abroad to find that Norman Shaw had completed his big house, asked him, How much would it cost to pull this lot down? " Now, of course, we cherish Norman Shaw's work and we look forward to the completion of the work being done, prior to House of Commons occupation, on his Scotland Yard.

I was also glad to hear the contribution by my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Mr. Rathbone). His predecessor, Sir Tufton Beamish—now Lord Chelwoodmade a notable contribution to this place and I am sure that this Bill will have an ally in him in another place. I do not intend to give a scholastic catalogue, but my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, and the incomparable architecture of that place has clearly had its influence on him. Cardinal Wolsey, the original architect of the scheme, left a legacy which is still being worked on after nearly 500 years. The buildings are not yet complete, and we see there the new taking its place with the old. The point is that these are living buildings, and that is what we are trying to preserve and enhance by this Bill.

My hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. MacFarlane) knows of the importance of community politics and the way in which local amenities loom large. His election to this House indicates that the electors of Sutton and Cheam now realise who are the real friends of amenity, and my hon. Friend is certainly one of them.

We have heard from the Opposition benches several spontaneous and most useful contributions—I did not know that my hon. Friends were going to speak—for a Friday, and we obviously have large and untapped resources which we shall be able to bring to bear on this subject.

But it would be churlish of me not to thank hon. Members opposite also for their valuable contributions. I know the hon. Member for Newark (Mr. Bishop) very well. He and I used to serve on the Bristol City Council many years ago. I well recall the hour-long speech he made about historic buildings. He made it in the middle of the night, in the House. That speech was designed for other parliamentary purposes, but we are all fully aware of the continuing interest which he takes in historic churches—an area where much needs to be done. It is a delicate matter, but all is not well with ecclesiastical architecture.

The hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Graham). with his charm and enthusiasm, added much to our debate, as, indeed, did the hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer). Perhaps we shall find ourselves all together on the Standing Committee in due course. There has been a fund of good will, and many practical suggestions have been made in the debate.

I am sure that it is superfluous for me to say so, but I think I should add formally, from the Opposition Front Bench, that the Conservative Party is strongly in support of the Bill and is most grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby) for using his most precious place in the Ballot to reintroduce the Bill, which my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Sir J. Rodgers) introduced in the last Parliament, when it fell because of the General Election.

This Bill is yet another in a series of Private Members' Bills which Conservatives have introduced, designed to enhance the environment. One recalls the Local Authorities (Historic Buildings) Act introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, West (Mr. Channon) as a private Member, and we have already had references to the Civic Amenities Act. I suppose that I might make Lord Duncan-Sandys blush if I mentioned him yet again, but let me add that we all look forward to the work he will do in another place in conjunction with his allies in the Civic Trust, whose work is so greatly appreciated. It is no secret that the Civic Trust has had much to do with this Bill.

I am sure that the Bill will be of considerable help to preservation, conservation or amenity societies, whatever one calls them, both national and local, and will do much to keep national and local government up to the mark in this area. It is frustrating for them to meet with the response that lack of effective powers makes remedial action impossible.

Our armoury is certainly strengthened by the powers outlined in the Bill. In particular, local amenity societies and the neighbourhood societies will find that less of their heroic work is in vain in future. They will find that the local authority is far more likely to act if it has effective powers. Certainly local authorities' powers are made more effective by what is proposed.

A question of local preservation or conservation can touch far more intimately the lives of many more people than some of the great national questions. The saving of a single building of merit in otherwise dull surroundings can raise the whole quality of future developments. The local societies have sprung up—and their total strength is formidable—because of past failures in communication between planners and people. Obviously, the more public participation in planning, in the early stages in particular, the better. The Conservative Party can claim some credit here. During the previous administration we tried to open up planning to people. I am sure that the Minister will continue to do his best to continue that progress. I am glad to see him nodding assent to that.

The Bill makes for greater publicity for many of the actions of the planners. I do not think that any of us are quite happy with the provisions of Clause 4, where we have the phrase as sensible as they might be. We shall want to look again at that matter in Committee. I am sure that the Minister will be working on that problem.

It may be asked, why the need for the procession of Acts of Parliament? It did not take legislation to create our architectural heritage or the largely manmade landscape that we now seek to preserve. It is surely the ugly pressures of the twentieth century—population, roads, power lines, ports, airports, pipelines and tunnels; even underground there is a threat. If all that were not enough, I would mention for the first time today estate duties and taxes generally.

This is not a Finance Bill debate. I do not intend to digress in that direction. But we now have the prospect of a wealth tax. I know that the Secretary of State is mindful of the possible dangers of what has been proposed. The Government's final proposals are not formulated, but whatever tax proposals any Government introduce, they are likely unwittingly to have an effect on the subject in which we are interested. I hope that the Minister will work with his right hon. Friend to see that no unintended blow is struck at those things which we seek to assist.

The previous Government went some way, indeed, a long way, to preserve chattels within historic buildings from the effects of penal taxation. The question of buildings in their settings was also very much the concern of the previous Government. Surely, financial reliefs and not penalties should be the keynote when considering those who attempt to preserve our buildings. The Gowers Report pointed the way, but that was a quarter of a century ago and the suggestions have not been taken up by any Government with, perhaps, sufficient enthusiasm.

I am sure that the Government await with interest—as indeed we do—the Cornforth Report which is due to be published later this year. That will be more human in scope and up to date. It will provide an assessment of the future of the best of our architectural heritage, and that will give the Government of the day the basis for thought and, I hope, further action.

Much of this was foreshadowed in the Duke of Grafton's speech at the Royal Academy, which did not receive wide publicity. I hope, however, that the Government will consider what he said. Despite the fact that we await the conclusions of the report, the message will surely be along the lines that the State cannot cope with it all and that it must be a partnership between the State, private individuals and trusts of one kind or another. Thus we can preserve listed buildings for the future and keep them as a living part of our environment.

Tourism has been mentioned. It is fast becoming a major revenue earner. But we may ask, why do tourists come? That is not a question which is often asked by those concerned with tourism. Why do they come? It is to enjoy our history and our scenery. The history is exemplified in the living architectural heritage. That is a major element.

The Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science—the hon. Member for Putney (Mr. Jenkins)—if he were present today, would speak up for the theatre as being a major British attraction. We know his devotion to that cause. It was from this Dispatch Box that he welcomed the former Bill on behalf of the then Opposition when that Bill was introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks. The hon. Gentleman welcomed it partly because of what he hoped it could do for theatres. But this Bill does not single out theatres—though theatre buildings will have the same chance as other buildings of architectural merit. I do not believe, however, that the Bill can be the vehicle for the sort of support for the living theatre about which the hon. Gentleman spoke.

Indeed, we all want to see the living theatre flourish. The Under-Secretary of State responsible for the arts will find out, if he has not found out already, that his eight-point plan for the arts, including the theatre, has to he fought for against many other competing interests. I wish him well in his battle, but it will be a tough battle. I expect that my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. John-Stevas) will seek to explore the hon. Gentleman's mind on some other occasion.

I return to the central theme of the debate. The references to European Architectural Heritage Year have been considerable. I do not expect the present Government to unveil just now further plans for the celebration of this coming year of rededication, but they or their successors will wish to show that Britain can lead Europe in the appreciation and display of a national architectural heritage. Plans are well advanced, but more still could be done by Government. The example set by the late administration in schemes such as the cleaning and restoration of Whitehall and the restored public access to Somerset House have set a standard that must be maintained. Arising out of this debate has come much concern about our ecclesiastical architectural heritage to which any administration must now address themselves.

The case is made out for the preservation and enhancement of those precious legacies to which the Bill refers. We may differ on points of detail but we have a common aim. The Bill is a small but valuable step forward on the eve of European Architectural Heritage Year, and I commend it to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Standing Committee, pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).

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

I shall be brief, so that other hon. Members may make their contributions to the debate. As the former Youth and Community Bill was discussed so recently and had reached the complicated Committee stage, I shall not dwell heavily upon this Bil.

I want to make it clear from the outset that the Bill is similar in all respects to the previous Bill, sponsored by the former Member for Middleton and Prestwich, Mr. Haselhurst, and given a Second Reading on 1st February this year. It would also be proper for me to declare that I am not an expert on the content of the Bill. But I was moved to present it to the House because of the great desire in the country, and the unity of opinion found in the House, for such a Bill.

I should like to apologise to all the organisations and associations which have written to me about the Bill offering me advice and possible amendments which I declined to accept at that stage because time was so short. I relied upon the great researches made by Mr. Haselhurst over the previous year. I have told the organisations of that fact and that the consultations that Mr. Haselhurst had with them have helped me in drafting the Bill.

Therefore, my purpose today is to seek approval for the Bill and to get it through Committee and on to the statute book. Powers similar to those sought in the Bill are contained in the Education Act 1944. It says a great deal that in the 30 years which have elapsed since the passing of that Act very few local authorities have chosen to avail themselves of a permissive power. We now seek to make it compulsory for local authorities to take action.

Since the 1944 Act there have been two major reports—first, the Albermarle Report and, secondly, the report on " Youth and community work in the '70s " which was produced by the Youth Service Development Council, which is now to be disbanded. Although the Secretary of State in the former Government declined to accept that committee's recommendations, we have extracted some good ideas from the report and they are incorporated in the Bill.

The Bill provides another opportunity to update Sections 41 and 53 of the Education Act 1944. It will render mandatory what is at present permissive.

On Second Reading of the Youth and Community Bill on 1st February 1974 Mr. Haselhurst said:

Clause 1 provides for a getting together of the voluntary side and the statutory side to discuss schemes which, under Clause 2, must be submitted to the Secretary of State for approval. In his Second Reading speech on 1st February 1974 Mr. Haselhurst said:

Clause 2 will empower local education authorities to prepare and submit schemes. Subsection (2)(a) will provide for the provision of social education. This term in the Bill is new. It is defined in column 749 of the OFFICIAL REPORT of the debate on 1st February 1974, but I will not weary the House by repeating it. It deals with the training of people outside ordinary education in the matter of their status in the community and encouraging them in the acceptance that this is one of the ways in which they can have full adult participation in society.

Subsection (2)( b ) deals with the provision of facilities and, if the Bill reaches Committee, we may add " and equipment ". We may have the facilities, but if we do not have the equipment we cannot do much except stare at one another.

Subsection (2)( c ) deals with the appointment of youth and community workers. This is an authority duty—a duty prescribed by statute if the Bill becomes law.

Subsection (2)( d ) deals with unattached workers. In column 750 of the OFFICIAL REPORT of 1st February 1974 Mr. Haselhurst defined what is meant by the unattached worker. An unattached worker is a person who goes into a community and searches for members of youth within our constituencies or society who are unattached. The job of such a person is to care for the welfare of such people.

Subsection (2)( e ) will bring about coordination between the local authority and the youth employment service. Under the terms of the Bill, it is not enough that only the local employment centre should give advice on career structures. There is also the local education authority and the youth employment service which should get together to provide, through the youth community service, a career service.

Subsection (2)( f ) will provide powers to arrange international youth exchanges. Everybody will accept that, if a youth community service is laid down statutorily together with voluntary bodies, what has been happening already should be continued and there should be interchanges between the youth of the world.

On subsection (5)( a ) I have received a letter from the Association of District Councils. I will read the letter because, if the Bill reaches Committee, we may have to propose an amendment to put right what the association says is wrong with the Bill. The letter states:

Clause 3 lays down the regulations covering youth assemblies. Clause 4 defines the requirement to provide services. Clause 5 deals with the need to ensure the provision of accommodation for the young. That is new. If the Bill reaches Committee, it may well be that we shall consider putting that provision into Clause 2. It also means that we shall probably have to have discussions with the local authorities and their housing committees.

Clause 6 is framed so as to encourage youth to offer service to the community. Clause 7 relates to finance. I recognise the difficulties which were faced by the previous Government when the Bill's predecessor was introduced and which now face the present Government. The present position is that we face Government cuts of about £1,200 million. It is obvious that we cannot get from the Government a rate support grant for the services that we have in mind.

I believe that voluntary organisations together with the local authorities could raise individually within their own areas the money that is needed to keep going until the time comes when Government fully realise their duty towards this Cinderella and make some financial provision.

Clauses 8 and 9 relate to the interpretation and the title of the Bill. I am conscious that there is a great need for the organisation that is proposed to come about under statute. Government have a prime duty to help such an organisation to come about. As a magistrate I have seen juvenile delinquents. I have seen the struggle of some of the clubs in my constituency. There are a number of good clubs but some are struggling. A local authority committee attempts to deal with the problem but there should be greater co-ordination. There should be legislation so that everyone is covered. In this changing world we have a responsibility for the youngsters.

I have a university in my constituency as other hon. Members have universities in their constituencies. There is a fast-growing number of young teenagers within the universities and there are many 16-year-olds still at school. Further, there are those young people who have gone into the factories and workshops Wherever they are, there is a need to prepare the young people so that they are ready to become the citizens of tomorrow.

Some of the young people to whom I have referred will become the leaders of the youth and community services about which we are now thinking. More important than that, they are the fathers and mothers of tomorrow. If we want a good society and if we want to pass on a solid heritage, one of the ways of achieving those aims is to allow the Bill to proceed. The Bill gives an opportunity for our aims to be realised.

1.24 p.m.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Sir E. Brown) on salvaging this measure which otherwise would have lapsed because of the General Election which was called on 28th February.

My hon. Friend has paid tribute to the tremendous amount of work that was undertaken by Mr. Alan Haselhurst, who was the former Member for Middleton and Prestwich, a constituency in the North-West. I, too, represent a constituency in that area. I know that Mr. Haselhurst had worked on his Bill for many months. He had consulted a gigantic number of people and organisations.

The need for a Bill of this sort is undeniable. It would have been a parliamentary tragedy if the intervention of a General Election caused Mr. Haselhurst's Bill and all the work that had gone into it to be wasted.

The Bill takes a positive view of the position of youth in the community. Too often in the past the provision for youth has been far too negative, despite the commissions and committees that have met to consider the problems of youth within the community. During the years since the war the level and the standard of youth and community provision has varied dramatically from one area to another. I pay tribute to the many authorities who make generous provision for the young people in their areas, but there are areas which are served badly, in that the local authorities make poor provision for youth services.

The objectives behind the Bill are to ensure that the areas which are not now well served will be well served in future. Mr. Haselhurst contacted many bodies and discussed with them the various problems that apply. In the limited time that my hon. Friend the Member for Bath and I have had to prepare our short speeches for this second of Second Readings, we have repeated some of the approaches that were carried out by Mr. Haselhurst. For example, I have been in touch with the Association of County Councils, with the Association of Metropolitan Authorities and with a number of voluntary organisations. One paragraph of a letter which perhaps many right hon. and hon. Members have received from The Scout Association says:

There are obviously those who have reservations about the Bill. Perhaps they are right to have such reservations, because the Bill places a financial burden upon local authorities. Of course, any scheme put forward by a local authority would not be eligible for rate support grant. I come from a county constituency and I am more than well aware of the dramatic increase in rates that my constituents have experienced in recent weeks. However, I still believe that the Bill should go forward.

When the Government consider the Bill in Committee I hope that they will feel able to offer the possibility of Government finance being directed to schemes that are put forward under the Bill by local authorities. So often hon. Members—especially my right hon. and hon. Friends—make reference in the House to the problems of delinquency, hooliganism and vandalism. Too often, when we talk about the provision for young people, we take a negative approach. Too often, we say that we want clubs and sporting facilities merely to get young people off the streets. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. van Straubenzee) and the Minister of State for Education and Science will agree that there is far more to this question than just getting young people off the streets. That is a negative approach. We must get them involved in the community, and I believe that the provisions in the Bill will enable that effort, so to speak, to flower, enabling young people to feel that they are part of the community, that they can work for the community and be involved in it.

Several clauses call for special commendation. I refer here to Clause 5, which deals with the provision of housing to meet the needs of young people, especially those in temporary difficulty. This is a most desirable provision. Indeed, it deserves a Bill on its own, quite apart from the other provisions which are made. I believe that there is no present obligation on the welfare services to provide this special type of accommodation, and such accommodation is sorely needed, since leaving home may so easily be a traumatic experience for a young person. Indeed, it is not something which one would ever wish to encourage, but we need to cater for it.

I think that I should prefer the relevant passage here to be reworded, so that it left it open to authorities to provide accommodation without necessarily running to the expense of separate buildings, which would involve capital cost, wardens and the separation of sexes and age groups, quite apart from maintenance and other expenses.

What we look for is groups of people or individuals who are able to provide accommodation for young people in temporary difficulty, who for instance, have fallen out with their parents, or whatever it might be. Unless there is suitable accommodation for them—not just hostel accommodation—such young people could start on the slippery slope, which is always downwards, and we might never be able to bring them back to lead a full life in society again.

We look, as I say, for groups of people who have spare accommodation in their own homes. They would be people experienced in dealing with the young, and they would not, I suggest, look for reward for doing the job of putting up young people on a temporary basis, although they could, perhaps, be paid the basic costs involved. That would be cheap—though I am in no way seeking to do things on the cheap—and I am certain that there are people who would be ready and able to undertake the job. In that way. we could either get the young people back to their parents or find suitable alternative accommodation for them, offering some temporary sanctuary and protection, for if they are to be put on the streets, the problems which both Parliament and the community will face in the future will be the more serious.

When I spoke on the Second Reading of Mr. Haselhurst's Bill on 1st February, I drew attention to the excellent work being done by the Duke of Edinburgh's Award scheme. I happen to be one of the two parliamentary members on the advisory committee of that scheme. I shall not repeat what I said on 1st February, but I remind the House of the vast amount of voluntary help which is directed towards young people through that scheme. I am sure, from my own experience as chairman of a county youth sub-committee, that there is in this country an untapped supply of people who would help where young people are concerned but who at present, owing to the interpretation of statutory obligations, are not encouraged to do so.

The Bill would set up a committee on which the voluntary bodies would be represented equally with elected members of the local authority. They would not, I know, have the power to spend money, but they would have the power more than just to advise. They would have power to draw up a scheme which, in turn, would have to be approved by the education authority and the local authority. In this way, we would give teeth, as it were, to people who hitherto have not felt that they had the necessary teeth to do what they wanted to do. I need hardly add that I have not yet come across one person involved with young people in the community who does not commend the Bill and all it stands for.

I hope that the Minister will tell us that the Government are prepared to support the Bill, although, no doubt, they will wish in Committee to introduce such amendments as they think necessary. I hope, however, that the objectives of the Bill will not be lost. I hope that the teeth which it could give will not be lost in Committee. It is an important measure, supported widely in the country, and I once again express my support to my hon. Friend the Member for Bath who, though speaking briefly, introduced the Bill very much along the lines that Mr. Haselhurst did on 1st February. It is not necessary to add to the excellent contributions made by hon. Members on both sides on that occasion. I look forward to the Bill's having an unopposed Second Reading today and to its going promptly to Committee.

1.35 p.m.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Bath (Sir E. Brown) on his good fortune in the Ballot and on choosing a subject of great concern to us all. I am sure that we all endorse the aim of making further provision in respect of the youth services, partly because we suspect that there is a section of our youth who are disenchanted and who do not feel that society has much feeling or care or, indeed, place for them. Any effort to produce some solution to a difficult and long-standing problem is therefore to be welcomed.

However, although much of the Bill contains a good deal that is commendable, I feel that Clause 2(3) deserves special examination and a certain amount of criticism. I do not like legislation which refers directly to or provides for people of

Will my hon. Friend assist me? I have come in late, for which I apologise, and I am not quite sure of the provision to which he is directing attention.

It is Clause 2(3). I am pointing out that if we give general powers, in effect, to discriminate, and to discriminate in a particular way, albeit with the best of intentions and the kindliest of motives, we may well bring into disrepute all the rest of the Bill.

I recall that soon after I was first elected to a local authority, one alderman wanted to pick out certain council tenants and send them to a section of the authority's housing which he thought would he better for them. Naturally we argued against that on the ground that it was, in effect, a criminal sanction proposed to be applied by a local authority and that a local official would have opportunity to pick someone out and say, "Down you go to B block or C block"—to the ghetto—with the result that both the children and the wives of the council tenants involved would be tarred by the brush applied by a local authority official.

I see the force of the point which the hon. Gentleman makes, but he will note that Clause 2 makes it clear that any scheme submitted must have the consent of the joint body, including the voluntary side as well as the statutory side, and if there is disagreement no such scheme may be implemented. There must be complete agreement on both sides. However, I take the point and I acknowledge that it looks a bit bad that in subsection (3) we have those concluding words

I think that we might well have separated that in order not to give rise to the implication which the hon. Gentleman rightly suggests may be drawn

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for pointing that out. I take it from his remarks that he will be amenable to some modification during the Committee stage. Modification may be necessary because if the clause were to go through unaltered it would mean that people would regard the Bill as a worthy cause but would view this part of it as being merely a device to keep people of a criminal or disreputable attitude occupied. Other people may thus be reluctant to engage in the activities envisaged in this part of the Bill. I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman accepts and understands this point.

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman upon Clause 3. The clause refers to the idea that a local education authority should establish a youth assembly and goes on to delineate the powers of the assembly. Such an idea should be encouraged in all aspects of our life. One reason we are discussing the Bill is that many young people feel totally disenchanted with society because they have no opportunity for participation. Far too often young people are treated merely as a section of the commercial market, to be manipulated by anti-social advertising and marketing forces and not to he treated as people with rights, duties, obligations and dignity.

The clause is most commendable. The powers proposed may be limited, but probably that point that I made could be usefully examined in Committee. The principle of having a youth assembly to discuss the way in which youth work is to be organised is to be welcomed. It reminds me vivdly of some experiments taking place in free schools in which the school curriculum and discipline are determined by the pupils themselves. If the Bill becomes law we can at some future stage assess how this sort of assembly is progressing, with a view to introducing it in a much wider context.

One of the startling features of the youth service is that often young people are sent to educational institutions that give no degree of democratic participation to the students or the staff. It is worth reminding ourselves that in some schools, members of the teaching staff can talk about education and participation but face an autocratic headmaster who has a great deal of power over them. He can provide them with good references—or with bad ones, if they choose not to support his point of view. He determines their hours and so forth. A teacher often has no practical opportunity to participate democratically in decision making and thus it is difficult for him to communicate that idea to the children under his control.

Would my hon. Friend care to comment on that section of the school population forced to stay at school beyond the age of 15? Surely that situation bears particularly hard on young women who wish to go to work and who are, in same cases, already working outside school hours in the evenings. The attitude which my hon. Friend mentioned has been met by me in the past in my capacity as a school governor and is quite common.

I accept that entirely. One difficulty with the Bill is that it will seek to invoke some democratic participation at a rather late stage in the life of young people, even though they will be only in their mid-teens.

As has been pointed out, education is now compulsory to the age of 16. The Labour Party long maintained that this should apply. The idea has virtue, but unfortunately the raising of the school leaving age was done far too hastily and consequently a number of young people are tapped in a system in which they are forced to go to school when they do not wish to do so, and the school cannot cope with them because the teachers may be: accustomed to academically orientated children and may not be trained to deal with young people who are motiveless.

In my constituency a number of young people have been suspended from school. They fall into a no-man's land in which they cannot get a job, nor can they go to school because the school does not want them. Idle hands lead to mischief and often young people end up in the criminal courts partly as a result of the environmental influences which bear upon them.

Does not the hon. Gentleman agree that, historically, the date upon which the school leaving age was to be raised was fixed by his own party?

I am grateful for that inter-mention. I accept that the Labour Party has been committed to the raising of the school leaving age. I am saying that preparations for that were not adequate and I am suggesting that we should have a greater degree of flexibility in its application until such time as we can accommodate the extra young people involved. In this context I would also like to insist on better day-release facilities for young people who left school before the present compulsory leaving age became effective.

Provision envisaged in the Bill might well be helpful to young people who are in the limbo world of which I have been speaking. I should make it absolutely clear that these young people represent a tiny minority of the school population. The vast majority of young people are hard working, good members of the community. But we are concerned with this minority because they are beyond being usefully occupied at school yet cannot be employed outside.

The Bill reminds me of something that many schools are not yet adopting. Many secondary schools, for example, have smoking rooms for sixth formers. Fifth formers who now have to stay on at school are not allowed to smoke. Had they left school they might well have been in jobs in which they could smoke, but at school they look across the corridor and see sixth formers smoking in the smoking room, and they rightly feel resentful.

Schools must look at matters such as these with a view to altering rules and arrangements. A useful precedent could be set in this respect by instituting the excellent idea which Clause 3 proposes. If the clause goes through it could lead to youth assemblies or councils which would have some degree of power and some teeth and which would not be merely consultative bodies to which the headmaster would listen for a few moments before dismissing them. If there were participatory assemblies in schools we would then have a fair basis for later in life when young people would take part in the sort of community activity and youth assemblies which the Bill envisages. We cannot expect young persons who have left school to participate in a youth assembly when they have not been trained to it during their early more formative years.

I should like to see democratic participation extended right across the board, not only in education institutions but in industry. It is not much good if young people who are used to democratic participation in youth assemblies go out to work only to find the blank face of the boss who tells them precisely what to do at every turn. That happens far too often in a mass-production society where the work is often soul-destroying. If we are to have democratic participation within the framework of the youth movement, let us consider also democratic participation in a wider context, at work, where most of us spend the greater part of our lives.

We spend a fair amount of time here and people who work in factories, offices, shops and railway premises spend an enormous proportion of their lives at work. They should be given the opportunity to take part in assemblies so that they have some degree of participation in decision making. Too many people are treated merely as pawns.

The Bill contains many good ideas. I am pleased that my contribution has led to the proposer agreeing that modification is necessary to Clause 2(3). Clause 3 contains many useful provisions. I hope that the Bill will set a precedent for the youth movement that can be followed simultaneously by educational institutions and at work.

1.52 p.m.

The hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer) has drawn attention to some possible difficulties. I think he will concede that they are relatively minor difficulties which can be taken into account in Committee.

I welcome the Bill as a praiseworthy attempt to put on the statute book a measure which will ensure an improvement in youth provision and—even more important—a greater measure of uniformity. I pay tribute to the excellent work that is done throughout the country by youth service officers and youth and community workers, who have to carry out their work with limited resources, limited back-up and, all to often, a limited degree of support and understanding from the community. They might well feel that they should receive a greater degree of understanding than they get.

The Bill is entitled the Youth and Community Bill, and our first reflex on approaching it is to examine what young people are doing in the community. Their requirements vary from one part of the country to another. My constituency happens to be a relatively affluent area, and the need is to wrench people away from the tyranny of the ping-pong table and get them out into society to face the realities of life outside. They go to visit hostels for nomadic families and meet physically and mentally handicapped ESN people. Those activities are extremely beneficial for both sides.

Many young people get a tremendous degree of satisfaction from taking part in projects of that sort. Often, when they start out they are extremely cynical and need much encouragement. They need support from adult leaders and from slightly older young people who have themselves been through this process comparatively recently and who can say, "Go on, give it a try, it is worth doing." Such efforts give society at large a warm glow of satisfaction. We sit back and rejoice that all these young people are doing splendid work for the community, but I would pose the question: what is the community doing for these young people?

In a similar debate in the previous Parliament we were told that in the year 1972–73, 1·2p in every educational pound went on the youth service. The youth service surely qualifies for an award as the Cinderella of the educational service—probably by several light years. The expenditure of 1·2p in the pound does not compare with the vast sums which are spent, rightly, on higher and further education. We need the expertise developed by young people in further and higher educational establishments, but they are only the top 10 per cent. of the population. Are the other 90 per cent. worth only 1p of the educational pound?

It is too convenient to lay the blame at the door of central Government, or even local government. It goes much deeper than that. Far too many parents have switched oft totally in their attitude to young people. Parents say to their 10-year-old child, "Here is 50p and a bag of crisps. Go and amuse yourself somewhere." When the child has reached 17 or 18 the parent says, "How about taking a job? I will pay for your driving lessons. You go and pass the driving test and then I shall not need to come out in the middle of the night to collect you."

There is an acute shortage of adult leaders in youth work. A few hours a week only are required. More leaders would ease the burden on the hundreds of voluntary workers who are slogging themselves almost to death. Adult leaders do not need to be qualified. All that is required is for them to give their time to help young people.

In that context the only difference between a so-called affluent area and a so-called poorer inner city area is that in the affluent area there is a waiting list of young people queueing up to join a particular youth organisation. Both areas suffer from an acute shortage of leaders. In my constituency there are waiting lists for the cubs and the brownies, because there are not enough leaders, and the number of young people who can be enrolled is controlled by the availability of youth leaders.

I appeal to all parents everywhere—particularly in the part of Surrey that I represent—to consider giving up a few hours a week to help. Parents are often only too glad to put down their child's name for enrolment in a local youth organisation without stopping to consider that they themselves have a contribution to make. They may be able to give a few hours a week to this important work.

The question may well be asked: at what age do young people become young people? The age of 14 is mentioned in the Bill in terms of membership of youth assemblies, but we know from various surveys that delinquency tends to set in, if I may use that phrase, from the age of 12. We tend to think of young people coming into the orbit of the youth service too late. We should drop the age limit for the sub-teens and make provision for young people to be involved from the age of 12 or 13.

The problem is particularly acute in the inner city areas. I was for some time a member of a youth committee in Brixton. In that area detached workers operated and gained the confidence of gangs of young children, black and white. The degree of alienation from society among those youths has to be experienced to be believed. Those detached workers are operating on what I may call the fringes of civilisation, as we know it, and we must recognise the crucial importance of this task.

In recent months there has been much talk in this House and outside it about special cases—including, for example, nurses and others in respect of salary or wage increases, but I submit that youth and community workers must have a high claim indeed. We are at present over 600 qualified workers short, and every year only 150 of these workers are being produced by the six recognised training agencies. We must attend to this problem now. It is no good in later years wringing our hands and saying, "How did the people in the 1960s and 1970s let this happen? ", because the catastrophe and tragedy of the resulting situation will then be upon us. We can draw on American experience if we want to learn about the flight of the middle classes from the inner cities. When I was in the United States last year I was impressed by the efforts made by neighbourhood councils and settlement houses, especially in reclamation work involving high school drop-outs. These young people were being encouraged, helped and tutored to take up studying again and these efforts were having a high degree of success.

The message must go out from the House today that this is a problem for everybody in society. It is not a problem which the youth service, the local council or the Government will solve. It is a problem for all. If we pass by on the other side of the street we shall take the consequences in the years to come. Young people are a vital part of our hopes. They can work with us, but we must show that we want to work with them. In the inner city areas we are sitting on a time bomb. If it explodes, the flames from London will certainly be seen as far out as Weybridge.

2.4 p.m.

I am sorry that, because I did not come into the Chamber until shortly after the hon. Member for Bath (Sir E. Brown) had begun his speech, I missed the first part of it, and I apologise to him. However, he might like to know that I shall be happy to support his Bill in principle, although I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer) that there are some points which might well be improved in Committee.

I speak as the president of a youth council in my constituency. Only a fortnight ago I had the special privilege of presenting prizes at that council's annual prize giving. It is only when one attends such functions that one begins to appreciate the great importance of the youth movement. I agree with the hon. Member for Chertsey and Walton (Mr. Pattie) that the youth service is—as he described it in a somewhat unoriginal phrase—a Cinderella service. There are other aspects of the educational spectrum which can also be described as Cinderella services and I shall mention them a little later in my remarks.

The Cinderella nature of the youth movement was illustrated in my constituency by the situation which arose during the electricity cuts last winter where, almost overnight, the activities of the official youth movement, the local authority youth service, were stopped instantaneously because of the need to conserve electric power, while clubs, pubs and social life were allowed to carry on. The youth movement was stopped stone dead. I am glad to say that the resulting uproar from the ordinary man in the street led to that most unfortunate decision being rescinded. This shows that there is a tremendous interest and demand arising from below.

Indeed I have been struck on a number of occasions at the way in which officialdom often seems to fall behind the demands made by the public. I come from Wales, where our tradition in education is largely one of self-help. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, up to the 1870 Education Act, there was a deep feeling for self-help in education which has continued to this day. This still manifests itself, for example in non-vocational adult education, which is another Cinderella service, where there are twice as many Welsh students in the field of liberal studies, as a proportion to the size of the population, as in England.

The same point applies in terms of the pre-school play group movement. It is remarkable that 10 or 15 years ago a small group of ordinary housewives banded together and that their efforts led to the present situation when the Government are doing everything in their power to help them. That movement, which now embraces hundreds of thousands of children, did not spring from the efforts or lead from educational administrators or officials but from ordinary people. The same sort of thing happens in youth work, although not perhaps to the same degree.

I was pleased to see in Clause 1 an effort to bring together the efforts of official and voluntary bodies which can well benefit from contact with each other. The underlining of this association can do nothing but good. There is a certain amount of spin-off since the shortage of those who are prepared to take part in voluntary service to some extent will be eased by the joint support of one by the other.

My hon. Friend the Member for Keighley made a good point about ethnic minorities. I hope however, that the idea behind the terminology will not be lost sight of. I am not thinking in terms of the ethnic minorities which the framers of the Bill no doubt had in mind, but of the point of view of organisations such as the Welsh League of Youth, which does a great deal of work not merely for youth as such but for a cultural minority. The expression " ethnic minority " may not immediately bring to mind the cultural minority. This is an improvement which could be looked at in Committee and possibly incorporated into the Bill.

The Welsh League of Youth, which does a great deal of first-class work with both non-Welsh and Welsh-speaking youth, has decided views about the fixed age limits and considers that there is a need for more flexibility.

It gives rise to a number of problems. I draw attention again to the need to get people of a more mature age to take part in these activities. The upper age limit from the point of view of grant aid is 20. If that were done away with and if greater flexibility were provided, there would be more chance of persuading people to continue in the service who otherwise would leave it at the age of 20. The same applies to the lower age limit of 14.

The Welsh League of Youth has sent a memorandum to the Secretary of the National Council for Voluntary Youth Services in which it says,

The hon. Member for Chertsey and Walton referred to the Cinderella nature of the service and to the 1·3p in the pound spent on it. Much the same argument applies to the provision for non-vocational adult education. The order of expenditure is about the same. If we look at the social situation facing us. not just in this country but in many of the developed countries, I feel that we have become exclusively preoccupied with education in the sense of its being a utilitarian function. We are educating in a modern sense. We churn out physicists, computer experts, advertising copy-writers, solicitors and clerks, and we are beginning to forget any concept of education that we might have had in the sense of educating for democracy. Today, when we need all the democratic disciplines at their best, we would be well advised to concentrate more on this aspect of education. That is one of the most profound arguments for the kind of service now provided in the youth movement and which this Bill will help foster and develop.

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will look at Clause 2(2)(a), which deals specifically with this matter. We consider that it is very important to look not just at the material side of youth provision but also at social education, and this features very strongly in that provision. I hope that the hon. Gentleman accepts that.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. It was my intention to say that the two aspects of the Bill which struck me on my first reading of it were, first, the bringing together of the voluntary and the statutory, which is eminently healthy and, second, the aspect of social education. It is for those reasons that I am very happy to support the Bill.

2.15 p.m.

It may be convenient if I make a brief intervention at this stage, and I am sure that the House will be grateful if the Minister of State, whose attendance we appreciate, indicates the Government's general attitude to this important but small Bill.

I echo the sentiments of hon. Members on both sides of the House when I say that we congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Sir E. Brown) not only for taking up the Bill but for the skilful and detailed way in which he explained it to us. We are also grateful to those hon. Members who have given it a very warm welcome.

Throughout the discussions on the Bill, mention has been made over and over again of the help of Mr. Alan Haselhurst, for whom hon. Members on the Opposition benches have a very special feeling of respect. We regard it as a matter of time only before he rejoins us.

It is common ground that it was Mr. Haselhurst's pioneering work and great care and skill which enabled the original Bill to receive a Second Reading on 1st February. The credit must go to him for his initial pioneering work, though obviously we are grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Bath for taking it on from there.

I intervene only briefly because a similar measure to this Bill has already had a careful examination by the House and because I do not want any words of mine to endanger the passage of the Bill and therefore its consideration in Committee. I draw attention to the fact that my hon. Friend the Member for Bath went out of his way to make it clear that there might be detailed points for consideration in Committee. What is more, if the Minister of State has detailed reservations about certain aspects of it, I am sure that he will be the first to recognise that they can and should be discussed in a non-party political sense in Committee.

My own judgment is that, despite the fact that we are in fairly close situation in terms of the timetable, it ought still be possible, with good will on both sides of the House, to get the Bill on to the statute book before we rise for the Summer Recess. I am sure that we all wish to encourage that.

This is an exciting Bill, and we must all bring to it our personal experiences. My own derive from experience of the boys' clubs movement immediately after the war, when a group of us were asked to open such a club in what was then a difficult part of London. My association with that club, as its honorary secretary, continued for a very long time. I remember gratefully the support and help that we had from the appropriate local authority.

One feature of the Bill that appeals to me is that it provides a framework for the further bringing together of the voluntary and statutory bodies involved in youth work. In some parts of the country. it is sad, negative and petty, but still true that—I do not apportion blame to the statutory or voluntary bodies—there has been a misunderstanding and sometimes a positive hostility between the two. This has lost sight of the essential purpose of the exercise which is the welfare and the care of the young people committed to the charge of both. It is a situation which has improved over the years, and the improvement is due to many factors.

When I was a Parliamentary Private Secretary at the Department of Education and Science I regularly attended the early meetings of the appropriate committee in those days, now long past, which had its part to play. Common sense has prevailed in many places. The truth is that the Bill carries the process one stage further. If for no other reason—there are many other reasons—I welcome it for that.

The Bill raises some fundamental questions which we must answer. This proposed legislation may not answer all those questions. It would be surprising if a private Member's Bill were able to answer all the fundamental questions that arise.

The Bill questions the rôle of the youth service as we have known it. It questions the implication that that service carries for the training and qualification of those in work. It also questions the rôle of education outside the school. I go a long way with some of the remarks made by the hon. Member for Brigg and Scunthorpe (Mr. Ellis) about what some regard as the limited requirements of education.

The Bill goes into the question of the resources that should be allocated to a form of education which goes well outside the confines of school. It questions whether we have got right the divisions —not party divisions—between education and employment. It is not easy. Changes were made by the last Government—changes in which I played some part, but it would be a bold man who said that we had got the matter right.

The Bill also questions whether service to the community might become a more major element in a young person's life both during and after school years. My impression is that the much maligned younger generation—they are much maligned in the sense that they come in for a great deal of uninformed criticism—have a more developed sense of service to the community than their fathers and mothers had—and I speak as a member of that generation of fathers and mothers. This is both good and healthy. It is something of which we can be proud. The younger generation do not wear their service on their sleeves; they do not want to parade it out in the open. The problem is how to harness this real spirit of service—to use an old-fashioned word—that exists in our young people in such a way that it does not cause embarrassment to them or to anybody else. The Bill makes a conscientious effort towards progress in that direction.

How far should we go in for power sharing with the young? Having spent 17 months in Northern Ireland, I know something about power sharing. Happily, in this context it is of a less controversial nature.

My reservation about the youth assemblies is whether we shall be able to bring to their service people who, perhaps because of the failures of society, tend to create difficulties in our various constituencies. I do not know whether we would he able to bring to the work of the youth assemblies that type of person. However, that is no reason for not trying or for not starting with those who are prepared to work the system.

Does my hon. Friend feel that some of the political youth movements—the Young Socialists, the Young Conservatives, the Young Liberals and, perhaps, even the Young Communists—could get together and form an important section of these youth assemblies? Is it not amazing, despite their political philosophies, how much good all these groups can bring to the community? We see it in rather fragmented ways at this time. Does he agree that those groups could form part of the youth assemblies and would have a great deal to contribute to the community?

My hon. Friend has made the kind of important point that ought to be considered in Committee. I agree that those young people who find their outlet, partially at least, in youth activity in the political parties are to he warmly commended. I could hope that they were all Young Conservatives, but I must accept that in a balanced society that is not possible. The important point is that they all take part in the process which has brought us into this House. They all believe, except for perhaps one of the organisations that he mentioned, that these matters should be debated in a democratic way rather than be achieved by force. Again, my recent experience in Northern Ireland is highly germane to that aspect.

I am anxious to make clear that I am far from pouring cold water upon the concept of youth assemblies envisaged in the Bill. It may be that I had given my hon. Friend the wrong impression. That was not my intention. I was simply asking myself whether, in the early stages, it might be possible to bring to its service young people who at the moment do not work through political organisations and are outwith the social practices and sometimes the law that hinds the rest of us. However, as I said, that is no good reason for not trying or not starting, and it is no criticism of anything contained in the Bill. I want to make it clear from this bench that we warmly support the Bill's having a Second Reading. We very much hope that the Minister of State will also support it on behalf of the Government.

I realise that at times of stringency—I do not seek to avoid my share in the stringency for which the previous Government were responsible—it is not possible to devote that measure of financial assistance that all would like to see. By giving the Bill a Second Reading and sending it to a Committee so that it may be closely examined, I believe that we shall be taking one step further forward in the provision for young people that hon. Members on both sides regard as of immense importance. We also make a further contribution to the wellbeing of future generations.

2.28 p.m.

I cannot claim to be a maiden either in this House or at the Box, but I have been through a period of what might be described as enforced chastity for the past four years, brought about by the electorate. Therefore, it might be appropriate, before turning to the Bill, to say how much I hope that the House will again see the presence of Dr. Anthony Trafford, my successor and predecessor in my constituency—a man of intelligence and percipience, who had a detailed expertise in certain areas. Perhaps I might emulate the hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. van Straubenzee) who said that he hoped that the House would see Mr. Alan Haselhurst here again on the Opposition benches. I express the same feeling with regard to Dr. Trafford.

I extend a warm welcome to the Bill on behalf of the Government and congratulate the hon. Member for Bath (Sir E. Brown) on introducing it. Indeed, my only regret is that the hon. Gentleman was unable to find sponsors for the Bill from both sides of the House.

Perhaps I may point out that as some hon. Gentlemen have this afternoon revealed themselves as being in favour of the Bill there is still time, if they let me have details afterwards, to add their names to it.

I am glad to know that. It seems that where the principle of a Bill is in no way controversial it is always desirable that it should be introduced by hon. Members representing every section of political opinion in the House. I admit that it is more difficult in this Parliament than in most to have representatives of every section of political opinion, but perhaps the hon. Gentleman will try.

Earlier on I quoted from a letter from The Scout Association. The writer gathers that the Bill has the support of the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Miss Leston) and the hon. Member for the Isle of Ely (Mr. Freud), so we have here representatives of all the major political parties in the House.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that comment.

When I say that I warmly welcome the Bill, it will not surprise hon. Members if I go on to say that I have reservations about some of its provisions in detail, and I was glad to hear the sponsor of the Bill and some of his supporters suggest that they would he amenable to amendments in Committee.

I am in total accord with the view that we must devise an appropriate means to enable young people—this is one of the important principles underlying the Bill —to be consulted about their needs and how best those needs can be met. I am in total accord with the notion that we should encourage young people to participate in the bodies which make provision for their education and their leisure activities.

I think that any general notion of participatory democracy would receive a warm welcome from this side of the House, and I was glad to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer) suggest that the provisions of the Bill may be a precursor—almost an experiment on which we might seek to develop the participation of consumers or users in the control of other aspects of the education service. If that be a major object of the Bill, there can be no dissent from it.

Equally, we welcome the notion that young people should be encouraged to participate more actively in the life of the community in which they live. I was glad to hear the hon. Member for Wokingham suggest that the present generation is much maligned, that it is a generation which, perhaps more than many of its predecessors, is willing to help the disadvantaged, the elderly and, indeed, any group to which it can offer help within the community.

There is much evidence to support that view. Unhappily, the energies of young people are often not channelled in that direction, simply because no such channel exists locally, and the reason may often be a shortage of adult workers who can provide the guidance and help that is necessary.

It is no secret that the youth service, proud as we are of its achievements in the past, now needs some additional stimulus. Even if the Bill had not been brought forward—it is a happy accident that it has been—we should have been prepared to initiate consultations with bodies interested in the youth service—not only the local education authorities, but others, too—about the development of the service, and as we have the Bill it gives us an opportunity to initiate exploratory talks about its provisions before we proceed to wider-ranging consultations.

In that context, perhaps I ought to mention the report of the Youth Service Development Council of 1969, "Youth and Community Work in the 70s", a report in which my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Small Heath (Mr. Howell) was so heavily involved, and I pay tribute to the work that he did in producing it.

Although that report is now five years old it may offer fresh guidance for the development of a youth service. Despite the passage of five years the report is still relevant and valid, even though we have to recognise that society changes more rapidly now than ever in the past and that what was written five years ago inevitably dates.

Dealing with the comments that have been made about the Bill, may I first refer to the intervention of the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) about the involvement of political groups in youth assemblies. I can see both advantages and disadvantages in that, and this is one of the matters which we may wish to discuss in Committee.

There is the advantage in the sense that we all believe that anything that can be done to broaden the social and political education of the young—I say "the young", but in this group we include voters—is to be encouraged. Equally, we must beware of committing the youth assemblies, if they are so called when they are set up, to be taken over by political activists, because that might have the effect of driving away the broad mass of young people with strong social interests but less direct party political interests. We ought to recognise that those who have strong party political feelings are perhaps a minority in the community, and if we consider the younger age group I think we would be unwise to assume that most of them are party activists, even in the making. That is the kind of issue that we shall have to examine in more detail.

Does my hon. Friend agree that there is an enormous depth of idealism in the community which can be sparked off and which, even in a political context, merely needs to be found and encouraged?

I agree with my hon. Friend. I was not denying that there was a strong band of idealism. I was suggesting that it should not always be channelled into party political directions as that may have the effect of driving away some young people who have a strong social conscience and idealistic approach to the community in which they live.

Clause 3(2)(a) says that representatives of particular organisations can never total more than one-twentieth of the total number of members. Even if there were three, four or five political organisations as part of a youth assembly they could never dominate it, because no one organisation can represent more than one-twentieth of the total number.

I had noted that, but what disturbs me is not so much the proportion as the degree to which that group would be more articulate and more vociferous than any other. Those who are committed to party politics have a habit of going on at some length and drowning the voices of those who are not.

My hon. Friend the Member for Keighley rightly drew attention to the contribution which the youth service and the provisions of the Bill could make towards the problems of those whom we have come to regard as the unwilling stayers-on at school since the school leaving age was raised. Perhaps I may dissent slightly from what my hon. Friend said, in the sense of suggesting—and it has been said before from this Dispatch Box—that we ought to delay any discussion of the raising of the school leaving age for a year or two more before we condemn or praise.

Nevertheless, I am sure that my hon. Friend is right when he suggests that there is a special problem with those who do not fit in to the school milieu, who may not even fit in to the further education milieu, but who may have a deep idealism and willingness to serve the community, and certainly a willingness to learn from their peers when they cannot or will not learn from their elders.

That is one of the great values of the youth service, which is participatory in another sense than the sense of participation in control which we have been discussing. It is also the service in which. with guidance from older people, young people teach themselves. That is why it is very properly part of the education service.

Does my hon. Friend agree that part of the problem with the extra year in school arises because of our almost exclusive attention to the functional education of which I spoke, and that perhaps not quite sufficient emphasis is placed on this other kind of education for democracy, which I, and am sure many other people, agree is becoming increasingly important?

I imagine that every hon. Member will agree with what my hon. Friend said.

It is the more disturbing that today, despite the reform of local government and changes in the relationship of central and local government, we find that more and more people are becoming alienated from our democratic institutions—often, I suspect, because they do not understand them, because they have never been encouraged to take part in a democratic assembly to see the pressures and cross-pressures that operate in a democratic assembly at whatever level. For that very reason, we should encourage participation as the Bill suggests.

I should like to make one final comment on the raising of the school leaving age. The hon. Member for Wokingham suggested that the date was fixed by my party when it was last in power. That is true. However, I half suspected that the hon. Gentleman was trying to place some of the blame for any difficulties that have arisen in the past few months on the Labour Party. I scarcely need remind the House that the original date—alas, subsequently postponed was fixed by the Conservative Party when in power long ago, and that the responsibility for the provision made in anticipation of the raising of the age was also that of the Conservative Party when in Government.

We need not delay the House on a non-controversial matter, but to get the record absolutely right I should say that the date originally fixed was postponed in 1968. It was then said that that was " to allow devaluation to work." I do not want to make the hon. Gentleman squirm, but that was the phrase used. Thereafter, both Governments successively were responsible for the resources necessary for the raising of the school leaving age. The only point I make—one with which I think the hon. Gentleman will agree—is that successive Governments thought ahead and made resources available, and teachers and everyone else made extensive preparations, and both Government and Opposition are totally committed to the principle of the raising of the school leaving age.

That was the only point on which I wanted to get agreement. If this were a less pleasant occasion I should have said that that devaluation seemed to work rather more successfully than the one carried out by the hon. Gentleman's Government—but we must not make party points on an occasion like this.

I welcomed the contribution by the hon. Member for Chertsey and Walton (Mr. Pattie). I was glad that he drew attention to the problems of affluent areas as well as those of non-affluent areas, in that even there it is not always easy to obtain the number of voluntary workers required if the youth service is to operate as efficiently and effectively as we should all like. We should not make the mistake of thinking that it is purely a problem of the deprived areas, although, clearly, their problems are more acute.

I turn to some of the objections to the Bill. I can be brief, but I should state some of the objections to the detailed provisions in summary form at this stage, so that the House is not misled before the Bill goes to Committee.

I draw attention, first, to the financial provisions. Clause 7 provides that

Does not the Minister agree that there never is a right time? That is why we must get this proposal off the ground. It seems that no Government, including my own, are prepared to look at finance. But if we get the scheme off the ground there will come a time when the pressure builds up, through the organisations that the House knows all about, and that will finally bring one Government or another to make financial provision. Therefore, the hon. Gentleman's argument is no reason for not continuing with the Bill.

I should never disagree with any hon. Member who says that there never is a right time. I was merely suggesting that some times arc more difficult than others, and the present is perhaps the most difficult of all. If we want to avoid an adverse reaction from local authorities we must be very careful about the financial provisions.

Secondly, I note that Clause 2 requires every local education authority to prepare a scheme for a comprehensive range of services for young people in its area and submit it to the Secretary of State. Before the Bill goes to Committee, the hon. Member for Bath might consider whether he thinks it desirable that a scheme prepared locally—and, we hope, in a participatory fashion—should then be submitted to the Secretary of State.

It is true that there is a similar provision in the Education Act of 1944 with regard to schemes of further education, but anyone who can now remember what a scheme of further education looks like is a better man than I. That provision is now almost defunct. Whilst I am happy to see schemes made and regularly revised, I doubt whether it is sensible to provide in an Act that they shall be submitted to the Secretary of State. If such schemes were submitted, and the Secretary of State amended them substantially, we might be destroying part of the purpose of the local participation, the encouragement of local democracy which the hon. Gentleman has built into the Bill.

That is the type of objection I have. I shall not go into further detail, but the House can see that in Committee we shall have to look together at the desirability of some of the provisions of the Bill, in the form in which they are expressed, although I am sure that we all warmly welcome the principle of the Bill.

Is not the submission of a scheme to the Secretary of State in fact a democratic safeguard? The joint committees to be set up will comprise an equal number of representatives of the voluntary organisations and local government representatives. The local authority might not ultimately submit a scheme which is acceptable to the voluntary organisation, and that organisation could then make representations to the Secretary of State, pointing out the inadequacy of the scheme.

I take the point, but if we are going to have schemes of this kind we do not want there to be an obstacle course, otherwise we may end up with no scheme at all in many areas.

The Government are entirely behind the aims of the Bill. We believe in the establishment by local education authorities of effective consultative machinery—which is what we have been talking about—to enable young people and their organisations to advise the authorities about the exercise of their functions in relation to youth. We believe that local authorities should be responsibile for the preparation and publication of schemes to facilitate local planning provision for youth on a participatory basis in the preparation of schemes. We, too, would like to give added emphasis to the importance of voluntary community service for young people. With these aims, the whole House is in agreement. and the Bill should have a fascinating Committee stage.

The question whether the Bill reaches the statute book, as the hon. Member for Wokingham has suggested it should, may turn on what happens with amendments to another Bill in Committee upstairs. We can only wait and see.

2.52 p.m.

I add my congratulations to the sponsors of the Bill in bringing forward such a non-partisan measure, which has commanded support on both sides of the House and from the Government. I also pay tribute to Alan Haselhurst who sponsored a Bill similar to this one in the last Parliament.

As this is a Second Reading debate, I do not want to look too closely or critically at the provisions of the Bill because they can be dealt with in Committee. But reference has been made in particular to Clause 2(3). I, too am a little perturbed by its wording. The first part is unobjectionable, possibly down to the words,

First, we have to consider difficult area of mental and physical disabilities one may get into great difficulty. No doubt this aspect will be discussed in Committee.

Then we get the phrase "ethnic minorities". I have not been able to discover the meaning in any strict sense of the word "ethnic". Are Welsh people an ethnic minority in England and Wales? Who is to say? Are English people in Wales an ethnic minority? I understand, I believe, what the sponsors mean. I suspect that they mean black people and black young people. But I would rather it was not spelt out in this way in the Bill because it might create some kind of ghetto mentality or segregation which I would not want to see.

Then comes the phrase about young people who are

I do not think that the hon. Gentleman's description of youth assemblies would fit any of us in this House.

I take the point. I think one knows what is meant by these phrases, but in an Act of Parliament we have to reach a certain amount of precision. I think that we could leave out most of these words and merely make it clear that a local education authority must have regard to young people with particular and special needs, leaving it at that and letting the authority decide which special needs it wants to deal with in its own area.

Clause 7 deals with the rate support grant. I, too, am sorry that it is provided that the expenses should not attract rate support grant. Since the Bill aims to remedy various local injustices, I would have thought that the areas that can least afford to make provision are precisely those where these injustices exist. The very affluent areas do not have the problems at which the Bill aims. It is the poorer areas which will want to make provision, and they will not have the necessary finance in terms of local rating to carry out programmes which otherwise they would wish to carry out.

It is fairer that the money should be raised from central taxation, so that the more affluent parts of the country could contribute towards assisting the poorer areas. We have many areas in Wales, and no doubt there are areas in the inner cities of England, which would benefit by assistance through the rate support grant.

But one cannot have one's cake and eat it. The simple situation is that if the Bill did not contain Clause 7, the Government—whichever party they represented—would resist it. Absence of Clause 7 would probably cause the downfall of the Bill. Clause 7 has to be included in recognition of reality. The hope is that, at some stage in future, when things are better, some financial provision will be made.

I accept that entirely. My hon. Friend the Minister of State also made this criticism. Whether implied in that criticism was perhaps a veiled suggestion that the Government might want to assist, I do not know. As my hon. Friend criticised Clause 7, however, perhaps the Government are taking the view that they might want to assist in this way. I should not like to put words into the Minister of State's mouth, but he specifically chose Clause 7 as one of the clauses about which to be mildly critical.

I am always happy to be of assistance to any hon. Member, but if my hon. Friend is talking about resources I fear that I cannot commit my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer on that matter.

I appreciate my hon. Friend's difficulty. All that I was saying. however, as he was critical of the fact that the Bill was not to attract rate support grant in respect of its provisions, was that possibly he felt personally that the Government should assist in some way. But I say no more about that matter.

I come, thirdly, to a small matter. Clause 8(2) defines the words " local authority " as including county councils, the Greater London Council, district councils or London borough councils. I wonder whether that is sufficient. In my constituency there are no longer any district councils. They are all borough councils. From a statutory point of view, can district council be read as including a borough council? Many district councils have now applied for borough status. We find boroughs proliferating all over the country in areas where no boroughs existed previously. That is a small point, but no doubt it will be made in Committee.

Reference has been made to the age limit. The definition of "young people" in the Bill is

I welcome the Bill, as one who was once a member of the Welsh League of Youth—which you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, would call Urdd Gobaith Cymru. That is a first-class youth organisation. I am not making a Celtic or a Welsh point, but it is an organisation which is not confined merely to sporting activities but deals also with the whole sphere of cultural activities for youth in Wales and gives young people education in a wide sense. Having benefited from that kind of organisation, I welcome the Bill.

The Preamble to the Bill states that it is intended to make provision for the gation, this divorce between the young and the rest of the community.

I welcome the emphasis in the Bill on the fact that young people must be part of community development. We see time and again that commercial organisations are exploiting young people as though they were a separate group and somehow different. The young have different tastes, to some extent, but they are still part of the community. If people try to exploit this small difference between the young and the rest, they will make things much more difficult. It is important that the young should play a part in community life. I welcome the fact that the Bill stresses this matter of participation by youth in community development.

I am sure that the Government will assist the passage of the Bill so that it can reach the statute book. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister of State will look again at the matter of rate support grant to see whether, as there is all-party support, the Government could make some commitment to assist in providing the necessary finance to make the Bill, when it becomes an Act, successful.

3.4 p.m.

I am grateful for the opportunity of contributing to the debate. The House will recognise that in a debate of this sort one is bound to become repetitive when dealing with the question of youth and the community. In that sense, this is a very small Bill. I intervene to highlight a particular problem concerning youth in the major conurbations.

As has been said, there is great intolerance and lack of sympathy for the problems of modern youth. There is a grave imbalance about the approach of the Press to these problems. Some skirmishes on the beaches of the south coast involving 30 or 40 young people attracted banner headlines because the behaviour was considered to be, as it probably was, anti-social. At no time did I see in the Press at about that time an attempt to highlight the problems facing modern youth. The Press has engaged in a conspiracy of silence and has not drawn these problems to the attention of the public.

I was born in an area which was considered to be the most deprived area of Liverpool. The area had more than its fair share of slums, unemployment and all the social deprivations which abounded in the 1920s and 1930s. However, even at that time there were in that community six theatres, six or seven cinemas, four or five swimming baths, several bowling greens, schools which were open in the evenings, and a wide range of activities in which young people could become involved. Even though there was real and desperate poverty inside homes, life outside the homes was far richer than it is today.

Most of the people who lived in such environments in cities such as Liverpool have since been moved to large corporation estates under urban redevelopment.

The Bill seeks to define priorities. There is a danger in trying to identify areas of high priority. It is generally accepted that in Liverpool the inner city has many social problems, but it is in that area that there is some semblance of a community and some facilities of the type to which I have already referred. On new council estates such as Toxteth, which I represent as a city councillor, and Netherton, which is part of my constituency, there is an almost complete lack of facilities for youth. Obviously on such estates there is a relationship between the lack of such facilities and the high degree of vandalism there.

Consideration must be given in Committee to the problems arising on council estates. The mistake was that when these estates were created these facilities were not provided. A massive exercise will have to be mounted to rectify the resulting problems, so that youth, which is starved of spiritual, social and physical outlets, can live a decent life. On these estates, once children leave their homes they are confronted with a barrenness which must be seen to be believed.

We are facing a great danger. We see the development of youth that is cynical towards the society in which it lives. That can be overcome only if we give meaningful attention to the problems that youth faces. Finance is not the all-important factor, although obviously resources will be needed if the aspirations of the Bill are to be met.

In many localities many social assets are not used to their fullest extent. I want to see the Bill encourage local authorities to open to the community public buildings that are under their control. In many council estates there are schools which have swimming baths, indoor stadiums and other similar facilities. They are used only during the normal school day and they are not available when youth is seeking the recreation that is an essential part of its life.

We have heard reservations expressed, but I congratulate the promoter of the Bill. This is not a measure that will attract the banner headlines of the national newspapers, but it is important for youth's future. I want it to be seen as part of a greater involvement by the House in the important matter of making provision for the next generation, Britain's youth of tomorrow.

3.12 p.m.

At this time of day, and especially on this day of all days, the Government Whips turn towards the clock. I give my word that I shall be as concise and as lucid as possible. I accept the Minister's view—and it is unfortunate that he is not present—that the Bill is a happy accident. This may be a modest measure but it is a good Bill. I understand that the Government are giving it their blessing and that they will give it any help that they can offer.

The Minister said that youth today is much maligned—I wonder. Certain sections of youth are maligned. My thoughts turn towards an article in The Guardian earlier this week about a famous block of flats which was built many years ago by an international architect in St. Louis in the United States. It was built with high hopes.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Garston (Mr. Loyden) has said, we have vandalism, damage and destruction of public buildings. However, I hope that we shall never see happening in this country what I understand is happening in St. Louis. The authorities of St. Louis have recognised that the experiment of building high-rise flats with many facilities has not been a success. They are now bulldozing what was a magnificent experiment. It was undertaken in an effort to get black youth out of the ghettos in the down-town parts of the city and into the magnificent new blocks. Let us hope that we shall never have that experience in the United Kingdom. I say in passing that I am in favour of fewer high-rise flats. I value far more what I see as I come by car each day from Wimbledon to this place—the four or five-storey buildings which are being put up in Battersea and Wandsworth. I have no votes in Battersea, but I am glad to have this opportunity of saying how much I value what is being done there and in Wandsworth. I am sure that it is far better to have dwellings in a building with a far lower profile, with people living more or less in a terrace where they can talk to the next-door neighbour on the level, so to speak, and go in and out as we did in the villages.

My hon. Friend the Member for Llanneli (Mr. Davies) spoke earlier about our village life, where we knew one another and we were an integrated community. Indeed, in the so-called bad old days before the National Health Service, the mothers of some of us were the village midwives, the Florence Nightingales of the village.

Let us get back to less dominant buildings, let us have fewer high-rise blocks, so that the atmosphere and circumstances of our towns will be far healthier and better for the young.

I fear that the hon. Gentleman is speaking of an ideal society. We all know about high-rise flats—as a former representative of a London constituency, I know the circumstances only too well—but the problem now is one of availability of land in relation to a growing population. In present circumstances, it is impossible to think in terms of a sprawling mass of houses and the possibility, even, of having what amounts to one continuous town, each community connected by built-up area with the next.

I accept that in theory, but I must remind the hon. Gentleman that in Battersea and Wandsworth hardheaded men who have been a long time in local government, men as idealistic as the hon. Gentleman or myself or anyone else, are now turning, wisely in my view, to blocks of flats of only four or five floors. In my humble opinion, this is far better, and I am sure that those men will reap a good harvest in future.

I turn now to what is done in the Communist States in relation to youth movements, youth participation and youth organisations. As many of my colleagues do, 1 go overseas and I see there what these new societies are doing with and for their youth. When I return to Britain, I feel quite ashamed to see the few buildings run by Toc H and the one or two youth centres, the Boy Scouts, the Girl Guides and the like, run in our old-fashioned conventional English fashion.

The Communist States, on the other hand, with their new civilisation, are carrying out what they say in their textbooks—which would be a new thing for us. They realise that the wealth of a nation lies in its youth and in the hands of its young people. It is their capital for the future, and they are developing their capital in this sense. Hence, these new societies put us to shame.

Here is but one example. A year or two ago—it was a classic occasion—the European Games were held in Athens. Who won? The East Germans, after the magnificent work they have done in their youth movements and in their schools—both boys and girls—turned out a superb team. They are a nation of fewer than 18 million people, yet their flag flew at the top. And against whom?—the Soviet Union, second, with well over 200 million people, and, of course, below the Soviet Union came the United Kingdom with its 50 million or so.

That is what can be done. The same is happening in the developing nations of Africa and elsewhere. Youth has idealism. If we can harness that idealism, we shall have enormous dividends in the future.

I agree with a great deal of what my hon. Friend is saying, but I am sure that he would wish to say that it is more desirable to have a free society, with freedom of speech and freedom of worship, than to live in a Communist society with a million youth centres.

I was speaking in the totality. I was giving an example. There are other examples which could be given concerning developing nations—such as Kenneth Kaunda belonging to the Church of Scotland and Julius Nyerere of Tanzania who belongs to the Catholic Church. In these newer, younger developing nations or in Communist or other countries more attention is paid to youth than is paid in our decadent, tired West. That was the point which I was trying to make. Perhaps it was my fault if the point did not get over as clearly as it was in my mind.

We heard earlier about the so-called good old days when we were poorer, whereas today we are affluent. But when we were poorer, youth was more satisfied. Is youth satisfied today, where there is more affluence and more money? I wonder whether that is so. In considering whether youth is satisfied we can take association football as an example. Who is to blame for the behaviour of youth at Wembley? Do we blame television? We are told that television consists of the old films being shown to us in our homes, but does it?

The films which we saw in the past and which were made in Hollywood 30 or 40, or dare I say 50 or 60, years ago were about parts of the world where we had never lived. Those films always had a moral—the "goodies" beat the "biddies". What was put over in those films was like something from the Bible or something which we learned in the old-fashioned elementary schoolbooks, or in the Welsh villages which we heard about a few minutes ago. Those films gave us in our adult life a continuation of the good education which we had received in the village schools as youngsters.

That is not the case with television today. It shows young people how they may behave or misbehave in public. It goes beyond that—it shows situations not in the world at large, or in places far away, but in young people's own environment. I have in mind "Softly, Softly" and other programmes, some of which depict, for example, the pavements in Liverpool. Young people see on television the areas in which they live. They see what goes on in those areas and say, "If this can be done, some of us will copy it." In many ways television depicts life as it is today and some of the advances made in society may be seen as a good influence on youth, but is it as simple as that?

I fear we are getting somewhat off the subject under discussion, but would my hon. Friend prefer television in this country to show the sort of programmes shown in America—a diet of pop and quiz shows—which do not appear to have much influence on juvenile delinquency in the United States?

My hon. Friend and I know one another fairly well and I am sure that he does not think that that is what I meant. I was asking for more selectivity and higher standards in television programmes for our youth. as that would complement what is proposed in this excellent Bill.

In discussing youth one also thinks of organisations such as Toc H, boys clubs, or boxing clubs, such as we have in Hull. Boys from those clubs win championships covering not only Yorkshire but, in some cases, the whole of the United Kingdom.

Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that he is saying that example is the best teacher and that if in schools, in the newspapers and on television and elsewhere good discipline and a moral example are shown by those in positions of responsibility, that will be what is wanted, to a certain degree, for our young people?

As the hon. Gentleman was speaking I closed my eyes and almost imagined I was listening to Samuel Smiles way back after the Boer War. We all subscribe to platitudes and adages, but it is our job to carry them out. If the Bill is enacted it will help youth leaders and it will enable us all to work for a better environment for young people. 1 am sorry if I have confused the hon. Gentleman. I am simply saying that there needs to be much more selectivity in television. Many wonderful documentaries are shown, but some programmes can be very dangerous, and often are.

The Bill is aimed at using the idealism which is just below the surface in all our young people. In all societies there are some people who will always be antisocial. Why that should be I do not know. Our young people today are basically good, and the Bill will give them a chance to achieve a fuller and better life when they become adults.

3.25 p.m.

I understand that the Bill represents the first legislative attempt for 30 years to improve youth services. It is a sad commentary on the priorities of successive Governments that for 30 years we have been content to leave improvements in the youth services to be carried out under the Education Act 1944—a policy that has met with a conspicuous lack of success.

I welcome the Bill. In my constituency are the usual young peoples' organisations and, thanks partly to the progressive policies of the former West Bromwich County Borough Council, there are several youth centres. Hon. Gentlemen on the Opposition Benches may smile, but I was not a member of the former West Bromwich County Borough Council. I had the pleasure of visiting these youth centres two or three weeks ago, where I found the young people of West Bromwich creating their own activities among themselves.

Before going into one youth centre 1 visited a school. As I was touring the school, I went into the toilets and found that the graffiti artists had been hard at work. On the back of the lavatory door PJ swore his undying love for LT, and so on. In the youth centre, which was in the school grounds attended by the same young people, graffiti artists were conspicuous by their absence. That is an illustration of how young people, if they are treated as adults in the right surroundings, will behave like responsible citizens.

West Bromwich has a thriving YMCA, which has developed over the past three or four years. It shortly hopes to provide approximately 200 rooms for young people and facilities comparable to a good-class hotel. Clause 4 provides for financial assistance for organisations like the YMCA which at present have to go cap in hand to local authorities and other people to raise finance for their eminently worthwhile work.

The British are great non-joiners. Those of us who try to organise political parties find that although the British people are usually prepared to contribute assistance they dislike the idea of joining an organisation. Under Clause 2, what has been referred to as the untapped wealth of talent will be utilised for the assistance of the aged and the handicapped, and to give help in hospitals.

The hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) referred to the younger elements in the political parties, such as the Young Socialists and the Young Conservatives. There is a great diversity of opinion between those two groups. I sometimes think that Young Socialists join their organisation to boot out those of us in the ageing ranks of the Government Benches, whereas members of the Young Conservatives join, occasionally, to enhance their marriage prospects. However, I am sure that the two combined could do a great deal of work in social matters.

I refer to Clause 3. Reference has been made to ethnic minorities. I have in my constituency a fairly substantial coloured population. I believe that under the provisions of the Bill young people, black or white, can do far more to bring about the sort of society we should all like to see. Therefore, I particularly welcome the provisions of the clause.

I turn to Clause 5, and wish to draw particular attention to the plight of the homeless—a subject which I have not yet heard mentioned in the debate. Many young people, on reaching a certain age, desire independence and wish to leave home, but many local authorities make no provision for this state of affairs. One appreciates their difficulties, because of the problem of homeless families and long waiting lists for council houses, but surely something should be done—and under the Bill I believe that something can be done—for the young homeless person.

I was careful in my speech when dealing with this topic, because great expense could be incurred in the provision of hostel accommodation. In the proceedings on this legislation in the previous Parliament emphasis was laid on the burden which could be placed on towns in which universities and polytechnics were situated. These matters must be borne in mind, and we must be careful in terms of the liabilities and responsibilities placed upon local authorities in making provision for young people who fall out with their parents and find themselves in temporary difficulties. Will the hon. Gentleman comment on that situation?

I heartily endorse that comment. I referred a little earlier to the YMCA in West Bromwich. If that organisation were given limited local authority help, or, indeed, help from the National Exchequer, it could provide the sort of facilities which I am sure the hon. Gentleman and I wish to see. That was why I drew particular attention to Clause 5.

The hon. Member for Bath (Sir E. Brown) said that no hon. Member present in the House today could claim to be remotely involved in the age group covered in the Bill. I ought to say that if I had been elected to this House six years ago, I might well have had to declare an interest under the age rule, if not in terms of financial benefit.

I welcome the Bill, but give advance warning to the Minister that I shall seek to cross swords with him or anybody else if the right sort of financial provision is not found to implement principles lying behind the Bill.

3.34 p.m.

I should like to pay tribute to the hon. Member for Bath (Sir E. Brown) for introducing this Bill, which he took over from Mr. Haselhurst, whose debate on this Bill in the previous Parliament we followed with interest. This is a valuable measure and deserves the support of the House. I hope that it will be given a speedy passage through all its stages.

I remember the publication of the Albemarle Report nearly 14 years ago. That was an excellent document, but little action was taken on it. I believe that there is a real need for some direction from the centre and for more encouragement by the Government, but not interference. One thing that young people demand is the independence to do things for themselves. But they do need some direction and guidance from central and local government.

Sections 41 and 53 of the 1944 Act made some provision for youth services, but there has been no uniformity of application, and there are still far too many areas where too little is done.

I am not one of those who believe in " the cult of youth ". Young people are part and parcel of the community as a whole, like those in other age groups, and they should be so regarded. But they have their special needs and this Bill will help to provide some of them.

No generation of young people is like the one which preceded it. Each has its own standards and its own outlook. My generation tended to be more disciplined. We were disciplined by our parents and in school, and on the whole we were much more obedient. We were also much less well off financially. That is one factor which has to be taken into account. The generality of young people today are financially better provided for than we were.

You and I, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and many other hon. Members, spent a great deal of our time in church and chapel. I recall that I had to go to chapel three times every Sunday, then on Monday to the prayer meeting, on Tuesday to the Band of Hope, on Wednesday for scripture lessons, on Thursday to another church meeting, and very often on Friday to singing lessons. In those days we learned in our churches and chapels something about speaking in public and, if we had the talent to sing. as almost every Welshman other than myself seems to have, we were taught that as well.

The decline in church and chapel attendance has been a significant factor in changing the habits of our community. I believe in the importance of church attendance, and I hope that it will revive. But it is not something that we should force upon young people. However, it created an independent and thoughtful community in Wales for many decades.

The urban areas have their special problems, and they are acute. We have heard a great deal about them in this debate. The behaviour of some groups of young people at football matches has been mentioned, and it must be a matter of concern. Psychologists who study these matters say that these manifestations are tribal and primitive. But clearly it points to some basic defects in our education system. We hear of teachers whose classes are uncontrollable, and widespread hooliganism must reflect some sickness in our society. What the causes are, it is difficult to analyse, but we must be acutely concerned about it.

Rural areas have their problems as well. In villages in Anglesey and in other parts of Wales, I find that young people who come to my meetings complain that they have nothing to do. During the Easter Recess, this complaint was made to me by the young people of Llanfairpwllgwyngyll. They asked me whether I could provide them with a playing field, a discotheque, and other activities, and I had great sympathy for them. But I was powerless to provide the things that they wanted and obviously needed, and I felt very frustrated. That is why it gives me such pleasure to be here to support a Bill, which is designed to meet some of these needs.

The youth clubs, which are mainly in the towns, perform a very good job on a financial shoe string. The scout and guide movements and in Wales the Welsh League of Youth— Urdd Gobaith Cymru —to which my hon. Friends the Members for Llanelli (Mr. Davies) and Wrexham (Mr. Ellis) referred, have a first-class record. I recommend that further assistance be given to those movements.

We have heard of the cultural and sporting activities of the Welsh League of Youth. It has been criticised in certain quarters for fringe political activities, but I believe that these are on the decline. We must welcome that, because it is a national movement which is not connected with any political party and if it is to flourish it must eschew party political activity. The League engages in sporting and cultural activities, as my hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli pointed out. It also has its anual eisteddfod, an event of which we in Wales are proud. This event might be studied and copied in other parts of the United Kingdom. The majority of young people, however, are still outside the movements that I have described and the Bill is primarily designed to help them.

I agree with the proposal in Clause 1 that education authorities shall establish joint committees with voluntary organisations. This is the right way to proceed. Now is the time to carry out that proposal because the reorganised education authorities are now setting about their tasks.

Again, notwithstanding what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli, the proposal for bringing in handicapped young children is constructive and ought to be encouraged. Recently I was privileged to open a sheltered workshop for handicapped young people in Anglesey. I was deeply impressed by the work being done there. However, we need to get all young people involved so that the handicapped can feel that they are part of the entire community.

The financial implications of these proposals are obviously difficult at this time. My area is heavily burdened by rates, especially the iniquitous water rate. But help can be given by the more imaginative planning and building of new schools and by taking account of the needs of the community when existing schools are being remodelled. The concept of schools as part of community centres is right. It could solve the problems of social activities in the village and the small town most effectively.

My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Garston (Mr. Loyden), who made a thoughtful contribution, referred to the problems of the large corporation estates in the great cities. I accept that there are great difficulties. There is a certain aura of bleak inhumanity about some of those developments and a lack of imagination which I hope that Government will seek to correct by thoughtful planning.

The idea of a community centre where all age groups can pursue their various activities and which includes the local school is an ideal solution to the problem in the countryside. I hope that the Minister of State will take that into account when future plans are being considered for approval.

The present generation of young people is as good as, and in some respects better than, any that has gone before. The future of this country depends on their aspirations, ideals, integrity and independence of spirit. Our young people are a good investment. I hope that the Bill will be supported by the Government as one measure to encourage and guide them to useful and constructive lives.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Standing Committee, pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).

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

It gives me great pleasure to introduce the Bill to the House. It is one of a number of attempts to convey to people who live in council houses the right to purchase their own house. I pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Mr. Gurden) and Cheltenham (Sir D. Dodds-Parker) who pioneered this work.

I should like to say something about what is in the Bill, and also why it is necessary, and I begin with the latter point. We all accept that there is a widespread and in some places a growing, need for the provision of homes built and rented by the local authority, but the effect over the country as a whole is that as the years go by the proportion of houses owned by the local authority continues to increase.

The House will understand why that is so when it recognises that many of the major works of slum clearance or redevelopment are undertaken by local authorities, which necessarily means that they purchase large areas of towns and in so doing take into ownership areas which were previously privately owned. As a result, the area which is available for private tenancies diminishes, and home ownership depends very much on the building of new houses on the outskirts of the town and on certain occasions on in-filling. A growing proportion of many of the large towns is falling into the hands of local authorities. The overall position is that they own 31 per cent. of all tenancies in this country, while in Manchester—my area—the proportion is about 30 per cent.

We know that large numbers of people are anxious to have the opportunity to buy their own homes and it is the purpose of the Bill to give them that chance. We know that that is so because from time to time the opportunity has been given to them to do so and they have taken advantage of it.

Taking Manchester as an example again, in about 1970 the local council asked people living in council houses whether they wished to buy their own properties and about 4,000 households took the first step towards doing so. If one takes the national figure one finds that when the opportunity is there considerable numbers of people wish to take advantage of it to buy their own homes.

Under the previous Conservative administration we reached the stage at which we, as a Conservative Party, at the same time controlled a number of local authorities. That provided the national Government and local government with the opportunity to act together and put people in the position of being able to buy their own homes. At that time, in 1972, no fewer than 62,000 people exercised their right to buy their own homes.

Since then, however, for a number of reasons, but also because of the attitude of local authorities, the number of people able to exercise that right has diminished. I tabled a Question asking for the latest figures, and I was told that in January and February of this year the number of council houses sold was only 2,000. That compares with 10,536 in 1973 and about 5,000 in 1972. There is, therefore, clear evidence of pressure being applied by local authorities to prevent people who would otherwise be willing to do so from undertaking the right to become the owners of their homes.

We are not talking about people who are doing anything anti-social. The view is sometimes expressed, particularly by Labour Members, that council houses are available for those who are less well off. In fact, that is not so. The figures in the Family Expenditure Survey show that 27 per cent. of householders in council houses earn £20 a week or less, compared with 49 per cent. in privately-rented accommodation. At the other end of the scale, we find 38 per cent. of council tenants earn more than £40 a week, compared with only 28 per cent. in privately-rented accommodation.

I have shown that in council estates there are people who are willing to buy their homes and who are perfectly able to do so. There is a continuous demand.

When the right to buy a council house is taken away, a great deal of bitterness and unhappiness is created. I have already spoken of what happened in Manchester, where 4,000 people took the first step towards buying their own houses and were subsequently stopped. That produced a great deal of bitterness. They had thought that they were on the road to doing something that they had set their hearts on—a most honourable thing for a father to seek to do for his family. They were stopped in their tracks, which seems to me a most depressing thing.

I cannot say much more about that, because the people concerned feel so angry that they have brought a court case, which is still pending. Anyone who knocks on their doors to find out how they feel will find a pent-up bitterness and anger.

It is sometimes said that we must prevent council tenants from buying their own homes because those homes are wanted for other people. That is a fallacy. The turnover of council tenancies varies from area to area, but it is seldom very great. It is between 2 per cent. and 7 per cent. a year. If a council refuses to sell to a tenant, he does not go away, and the house does not become available for someone else. The only thing that matters to a person on a waiting list is that another tenancy becomes available.

I am so keen to get the Bill through that I shall not make a party point. If we examine the availability of houses over the whole period from 1951 to 1971, taking account of those that have been knocked down and those that have been built, we find that we have been adding stock at the rate of about 230,000 a year. If we want to shorten the waiting list, we increase that number. We do not do it by taking away from people who have the ability to buy their houses the right to do so, because the house will still be occupied.

I come quickly to the Bill. Most of it is perfectly clear, and because of the shortage of time I shall not go through it. But I draw attention to the fact that we recognise that there are circumstances in which houses should not be sold. There may be other such circumstances which hon. Members wish to put before us, which do not go to the root of the Bill but which we shall wish to consider in Committee. Clause 6 contains a number of conditions under which a local authority may refuse to sell to council tenants. One concerns houses specially designed for the elderly or disabled. A local authority with particular problems relating to the elderly may wish to erect buildings, with a warden present, which it would not wish to sell. The same may apply in certain cases to provision for the disabled.

We are also excluding certain circumstances in which the local authority wishes to retain some houses for the purpose of keeping together an area it needs for redevelopment. That is also eminently sensible. We are prepared to go even further, to meet those who feel that there are unforeseeable needs which a local authority may wish to meet. I have put the figure in the Bill at 5 per cent.—that is to say, where a local authority does not own more than 5 per cent. of the properties within its area, it should be exempt. I include this provision with a heavy heart, but there are certain circumstances which it might cover.

Such are the purposes of the Bill. We are most anxious to have an opportunity to consider it in Committee, to develop our case and take it a stage further. It is something for which I and many of my hon. Friends have campaigned for years. Let us make no mistake about this: the Bill would fulfil a long-felt want. It concerns not imaginary people but people who have the ability and the money to buy their own houses and are most anxious to do so. I see that the Minister is in his place and I yield at once to him. I hope that he will simply nod his head and say that he would like the Bill to be given a Second Readng now.

3.57 p.m.

I spent the first four years of my working life as a civil servant in the Ministry of Housing and Local Government from 1962 to 1966. I was opposed then to the sale of council houses and I am opposed to it now, root and branch. For two years at that time I worked as private secretary to the then Parliamentary Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish), now described in the House by the Labour Party as the Chief Whip and by the Opposition as Patronage Secretary. I have not had a chance to ask the Chief Whip today whether he is still as opposed to the sale of council houses as he was then.

At that time, the Minister of Housing and Local Government was the late Richard Crossman. His gut reaction was that he, too, was opposed to the sale of council houses, but, as with everything else he did, he wanted a rational case argued before he would make his views public. The rational case was argued before him, and he came down solidly against the sale of council houses.

The rational case against the sale of council houses is tied up with the desperate shortage of housing in virtually every town and city in the land and, indeed, in most of the rural areas. It is tied up with the need for local authorities, if they are to make any impact on solving their housing problems, to maintain as large a housing pool as possible, and within that pool to maintain as large a variety of housing types as possible.

Does not the hon. Gentleman agree that if a local authority sold a group of houses it would get a lump sum which it could put into building a further group of houses? I have no idea how the hon. Gentleman's idea is going to enlarge the pool of houses, which we all want to achieve. Perhaps he could explain.

I can quite understand that hon. Members opposite want to give expression to a genuine and powerful desire in the country for home ownership. and. as the debate proceeds, if I get the time, I shall spell out how that desire can best be met and how the Labour Party is doing more to help its fulfilment than the Conservative Party has done.

But I left out one very important rational argument against this Bill. That is the need which will arise, in some cases in five years' time, in some cases in 10 years' time and in some cases in 15 years' time—

It being Four o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.

Debate to be resumed upon Friday 14th June.

Object.

Second Reading, what day? No day named.

Object.

Second Reading, what day? No day named.

Object.

Second Reading, what day?

Friday 14th June.

Is the hon. Gentleman not the Member in charge of the Bill?

I am a sponsor of the Bill. Mr. Deputy Speaker.

I thank the hon. Gentleman.

Second Reading deferred till Friday 14th June.

Object.

Second Reading deferred till Friday next.

Object.

Second Reading, what day? No day named.

I am glad to have the opportunity to raise this very important matter on the Adjournment. I asked my three right hon. Friends, the Secretary of State for Education and Science, the Secretary of State for Social Services and the Secretary of State for Employment to make sure that their Departments were represented on the Front Bench today. I am delighted to see there two of my hon. Friends, but I am very sorry to see no one there from the Department of Education and Science, because the matters that I wish to raise, as I shall hope to indicate, concern the Department of Education and Science as much as those of my other right hon. Friends.

As these matters are in fashion, I ought to explain that I am married to a nursery nurse.

I must be assured of my hon. Friend's complete support in that case.

Recently, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science said that London and the other big cities contained most of the areas of stress. He said that when he was announcing the additional £10·8 million for teachers in areas of deprivation. I want to deal with an area of acute stress in a sector of education for which he is responsible, and that is nursery education. I shall refer to the miserable pay of nursery nurses and their unfavourable working conditions compared with nursery teachers, even though it is recognised on all sides that nursery nurses play a vital role in the nursery class.

They are employed by local education committees to help and to support the nursery teacher. They are trained and qualified so to do in colleges of further education and other establishments that come under the control of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science. They take the examination of the Nursery Nurses Examination Board after a two-year course which leads to qualification as a nursery nurse.

But, as I indicated, this is a divided empire, for not only is the Secretary of State for Education and Science involved, so, also, is my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services; not only is the local education committee involved, so is the local social services committee, for it employs nursery nurses in its day and residential nurseries.

Voluntary organisations and religious bodies can run day and residential nurseries and they, too, can and do employ trained nursery nurses. In addition, there are vast numbers of private nuseries, play groups and nursery schools which should employ trained staff; but I am afraid that many do not. This division of responsibility for the care of the young child in his pre-school years does not serve the child, or his family, or those who care for him.

It is the policy of the Labour Party to reallocate the responsibilities of both Ministers now responsible for nursery education and for nuseries so that the Secretary of State for Education and Science becomes the Minister responsible for the pre-school child, because this divided responsibility perpetuates the inequalities and anomalies which now exist.

I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Department of Education and Science has now taken his place on the Front Bench. Earlier I was deploring the lack of a representative from his Department.

When I asked my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on 7th May if he would reallocate these responsibilities that are now divided between my two right hon. Friends, he replied that he had no immediate plans to do so. I regard that as a very disappointing reply. It is a direct negation of our policy proposals. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister can be persuaded to think again and that my right hon. and hon. Friends will help him to arrive at a better solution.

Nursery nurses' salary negotiation are a matter for the National Joint Council for Local Authorities. I have had an enormous number of letters from nursery nurses, student nursery nurses, parents and nursery matrons, all complaining bitterly at the wretched pay that obtains right across nursery nursing. Earlier this year I had the pleasure of addressing the conference of the matrons of day nurseries at Blackpool. They had a great deal to tell me about this matter.

I shall now remind my hon. Friend of some rates of pay paid to nursery nurses and others who arc trained and who are working with young children. The lowest rate for a girl under 19 employed in a nursery class is £639 per annum, or f12 a week. At 19 she earns a little more —£681. At 20 and over, whatever her age—that is, if she is a mature woman—she earns £807 and she rises to a maximum of £1,101. In a day nursery the comparable rates are a little higher: they are £795, £837 and £975, rising to a maximum of £1,260.

The nursery nurse in a day nursery works much longer hours than the nursery nurses working in a nursery school or class. She is required to work a 40-hour week or " as shall be required ", so this works out to an open-ended commitment to work as long as she is required in the day nursery. She gets only four weeks' holiday, plus bank holidays, so there is a considerable difference between the working conditions of a nursery nurse in a nursery class or school and a nursery nurse in a day or residential nursery. I cannot for the life of me see why there should be this difference in working conditions.

A nursery nurse can eventually become the matron of a day nursery or of a residential nursery, but usually matrons are women with SRN qualifications or even additional nursing qualifications. Even if she sticks the poor pay and the long hours for a sufficient number of years and becomes a matron, what does she earn? One might say that the plum jobs in this field are the jobs of matrons of large day nurseries or large training nurseries. However, the matron of a large day nursery approved to train nursery students can hope for a maximum salary of only £1,650 a year, and in a residential nursery she can get a little more—£1,950.

I remind my hon. Friends that from all the salary scales that I have quoted there are deductions for insurance, and so on, and in residential posts there are deductions for board and lodging. So, wherever we still have day or residential nurseries we have nursery nurses and matrons earning these deplorable salaries. All of them, I repeat, are trained women. Most of them are caring for the physical and emotional needs of deprived children, and some arc caring for battered children. I am sorry to say that if my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science were to delve a little he would find that in some parts of the country there is a shortage of trained nursery teachers. He would find nursery nurses caring for pre-school children in nursery school situations. He would find them caring for as many as 40 young children under five years of age in nursery classes attached to infant schools. That is a matter of great concern.

In December 1972 the previous Government introduced a White Paper called "Education: A Framework for Expansion". In that White Paper there was a valuable section about education of the under-fives. It was the first time that we had such a valuable section in a White Paper on education. I welcomed it very much. We had £34 million allocated for the expansion of nursery education. That was not enough to meet the demands of the local education authorities, but it was a beginning. At paragraph 31 the White Paper said:

What are the incentives for people to train as nursery nurses? Are those who train, young students leaving school or mature women who want to take up training when their own families are off their hands? I suggest that unless we can offer young girls who are trained more than £12 a week there will be no more recruits in the near future and that nursery education will suffer. As a result, it will not expand as we wish to see it expand.

We are considering new ways of carrying out expansion. I am the President of the Nursery Schools Association, which is a job that I enjoy very much. I hasten to say that it is not a job that brings any financial reward. I have no financial interest to declare but I have an enormous amount of interest to declare in the whole spectrum of nursery education. We have been looking carefully at the experiment now going on with the nursery centres that have been started. There are many in the pipeline which combine day nursery provision and nursery school provision under the same roof. Such centres are doing at local level what we want to see done at national level—namely, offering the two levels of care for the pre-school child.

In the nursery centres we find that nursery nurses work longer hours for about half the pay of a nursery teacher. They are working side by side with the trained nursery teacher. We know that they work longer hours and earn less pay than the nursery teacher. We also know that they work for very much less money than the untrained orderlies working in the nursery centres or in the day nuseries who are under the direction of the nursery nurses.

The Sunday Mirror reported in March that nursery nurses at the new Hillfields Nursery Centre in Coventry—which is one of the centres which we are looking at with great interest—were queuing up for orderlies' jobs because the orderlies were offered £9 a week more than the nursery nurses. That is a scandalous situation and one that we cannot tolerate any longer. In the Sunday Mirror one of the nursery nurses was quoted as, follows:

Trained nursery nurses are angry that private nurseries, child-minders and playgroups with unqualified staff can flourish. They are angry at their wretched pay, at every grade well below the national average wage, yet after proper training. They are angry at the lack of recognition of the important work which they do. They are concerned that much damage can be done in the early years of a child's life by untrained and unqualified people. They are angry because they are often given jobs to do which involve cleaning premises rather than caring for children.

We all say that we are concerned at the growth of illegal child-minding. The latest estimate is that about 100,000 young children in the pre-school age group are being illegally minded. The Social Science Research Council has been given £11,000 to carry out an investigation into this.

It is no wonder that nursery nurses are angry. I hope that they will fight as the hospital workers are fighting. Society has been content for too long to take advantage of their dedication and love of their job. They are demanding better pay and conditions; they are demanding a proper career structure, which does not exist at all at the moment, and they are demanding recognition for the splendid work which they do.

The joint working party which has been looking into the pay and conditions of nursery nurses may propose more academic courses and different means for attracting more mature women to train as nursery nurses, but this is only playing with the problem. Proper pay and status, and a proper career structure are essential if we are to prevent these trained women moving away to do shop work or work as cleaners because they know that in untrained work they can earn twice as much as they can earn in the job for which they have been trained.

Here is a stress area, by any definition. We should be ashamed of the present state of affairs. Unless we give nursery nurses what they are surely entitled to, we shall put the whole future of nursery education in jeopardy.

I am asking for an immediate undertaking from my hon. Friend that the three Departments involved will forthwith set up a working party urgently to examine the pay of nursery nurses and to make a decent offer to them as soon as possible as an interim award. That is the short-term problem.

The working party should then examine ways of implementing the changeover to the Department of Education and Science in line with our party's policy proposals, which would ultimately provide the opportunity to upgrade the position of the nursery nurse and give her a proper career structure, with the proper assistance that her job requires.

I am asking also that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science should immediately require local education authorities to set up a pre-school advisory council to draw in all the organisations which are involved in the care of the young child, bringing in the voluntary organisations and voluntary workers, together with nursery teachers and nursery nurses—everyone now involved in the care of the preschool child, whether within the State nursery school system or outside it.

Such an advisory council should make proposals for improvements in the care and education of the young child in order to raise standards and expand the present provision. This would do at local level what I hope will he done at national level—that is, bring the entire care of the pre-school child under the Department of Education and Science. That is the longterm problem.

I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will he able to give me the assurances for which I ask and that very soon we shall see the working party set up to investigate in considerable depth the problems which I have outlined, in due course coming back to us with proposals for remedying the defects and difficulties which the nursery nurses now face.

4.20 p.m.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Short) has always taken a close personal interest in this subject and speaks with considerable expertise.

It was decided that I should reply to the debate in view of the responsibility which my Department has in relation to local authority social services departments which provide day and residential nursery care for children under five.

I am well aware—my hon. Friend deployed this argument today—that she believes that this responsibility should be handed over to the local education authorities, but as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made clear in his reply of 7th May to my hon. Friend's Question, the Government do not believe that any reallocation of responsibilities between the two Departments would be justified at the present time. I assure my hon. Friend that I do not intend to argue this matter from a departmental point of view. I am uncommitted in the long term as to which is the right Department to have the responsibility.

There is obviously a great deal of force in many of the arguments used by my hon. Friend about the vital importance of education in provision for children under five, but I am sure that my hon. Friend will accept that there have been substantial opposing arguments in favour of the present division of departmental interests, and these arguments were accepted by the Seebohm Committee on Local Authority and Allied Personal Social Services. I shall not go into the matter today but my hon. Friend knows the position. The Seebohm Committee recommended that social services departments should be responsible for the supervision of child minders and private day nurseries. The new Departments are already in close touch with many of the people who are concerned with pre-school children.

It is my belief that although there may be changes in the long term, the three Departments which my hon. Friend mentioned, and indeed more organisations, will always be involved with the pre-school child and we shall never be able to eradicate totally some form of departmental demarcation difficulties.

The background to the involvement of social services departments, as against local education authorities, in all these activities is that the day-care services are at present—I stress at present—essentially services provided for those families who are most in need and most heavily beset by all the many problems suffered by those who are the victims of poverty. I am talking about single-parent families, about mothers overburdened by the struggle to bring up too many children on too few resources and about the mother driven to desperation by poor housing and squalid, hopeless surroundings.

I hope that in future day-care provision will be on a wider basis and will be freed from the need to act as a kind of safety net for those suffering from an accumulation of social and physical disadvantages. But, unfortunately, it will be some time, even if we are able preferentially to divert scarce resources into this area, before day-care is able to take on a wider, more universal rôle.

Until it can, it will continue to be concerned largely with the needs of families who through no fault of their own have all too many other needs—needs which are essentially the concern of social service departments. It is this fact which lies behind the Answer which my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister gave on 7th May. As my right hon. Friend made clear in his Answer, it is the Government's view that day-care services for the under-fives should remain at present with social services departments, but there is a clear need to continue and to develop the close co-operation that already exists between the two main central Government Departments—education and my Department.

There are regular meetings of a consultative group on the needs of the under-fives which contains officials of my Department and the Department of Education and Science, as well as representatives of other interested Departments. This is quite apart from the frequent and informal contacts taking place between the professional officers of the Social Work Service in my Department and HM Inspectors in the Department of Education and Science.

As for contacts at local level, coordinating committees have already been established in some areas and the Government are now considering whether it might be helpful to reinforce these by the issue of specific guidance on this subject. This will command the attention of Ministers in all three major Departments, and indeed, to that extent, we are already embarked on the review of many of these arrangements.

In addition to the general question of the location of responsibility for these services, my hon. Friend has taken the opportunity to raise the more specific question of pay and conditions of service for nursery staff. I say at the outset that I agree with much of what she has said on the subject. There are considerable and serious problems here. Not only do existing pay scales for all kinds of nursery staff leave much to be desired, especially when they are compared with those for other kinds of staff employed in similar settings, but there are also, as my hon. Friend has rightly pointed out, difficulties caused by the differences in pay and conditions of services as between nursery nurses employed in the day, residential nurseries provided by social services departments, and the corresponding nursery assistants employed in nursery schools and classes.

In both cases, of course, we are concerned with staff holding the same qualification, namely, the Certificate of the National Nursery Examination Board. Rates of pay in pure cash terms are slightly higher for staff employed by social services departments than they are for those employed in the education service. As my hon. Friend said, staff in social services departments also have much longer working hours. They do not have the same school holidays and, as against the year-round service provided in the day-care field, it is not surprising that recruiting for the education service is a great deal easier than it is for social services.

The responsibility for fixing pay and conditions of service for nursery staff employed by local authorities, both in the education services and in the social services, already rests with one and the same body, and that body is not central Government. Much of what my hon. Friend said must be addressed to the National Joint Council for Local Authorities' Administrative, Professional, Technical and Clerical Services, which is an entirely independent body, comprising representatives of employing authorities and staff interests. It determines pay and conditions for all types of professional staff employed in the different local authority departments. The council is not concerned with teachers, who have their own arrangements through the Burnham Committee, but nursery staff in the education service have never been included in those arrangements.

The National Joint Council took over responsibility for nursery staffs employed in both education and social services departments from the Nurses and Midwives Whitley Council in January 1973.

Central Government will be very ready to offer the council any assistance which it may require in its formidable task by way of professional advice and guidance, but the responsibility is definitely one for the National Joint Council itself which, I assure my hon. Friend, is reviewing the problem in relation to the needs of both services.

My hon. Friend mentioned training for nursery work, and she drew attention to the importance that she attaches to the expansion of facilities in the whole range of pre-school activity. I share those responsibilities. Some of the aspects she mentioned refer directly to the Department of Education and Science, and what she said will be noted by my hon. Friend the Minister of State.

My main priority and concern relate to child-minding, to which my hon. Friend drew particular attention. Sadly, the child-minding situation is very disturbing. There are many highly disturbing reports about the kind of services that arc provided by some child minders. My aim is to take whatever measures are open to me to eliminate these intolerable conditions and, at the same time, to extend the provision for the individual care of children so that child minding is not thought of as a second best to be fallen back on only when there is no room in a nursery.

We ignore the problem of child minding at our peril. A child who suffers these inadequate and often appalling conditions is likely to be scarred for life by the experience and to suffer deprivation throughout his life.

A good child minder provides warmth and loving care that cannot always be found even in a good institutional centre. It is by concentrating on support and assistance to minders that we hope to reduce the scale of illegal minding and to eradicate the low standards of care which, as we are all too aware, are often to be found in the homes of unregistered minders. Already a number of local authorities are giving support and assistance to minders by providing them with courses and in-service training. by organising group meetings of minders for discussion and the pooling of experience, and by providing minders with play and household equipment. It is to the expansion of this kind of support and help for minders that I attach great importance.

Eight local authorities, at my Department's request, are just starting to undertake an experiment in day fostering, under which they will recruit and pay specially selected minders to care for children in the priority groups for all or part of the day. Already there are important projects for linking minders to a particular play group or nursery, to give both the children and the women minding them an understanding of the social focus. It is to the achievement of responsible, registered child minding that I attach considerable urgency.

We must offer the kind of support which will establish child minding as a respectable and skilled occupation and, by constantly increasing our understanding of children's developmental and play needs, we hope to make inroads into the appalling problem of illegal and substandard minding and to create for many of our young children who are separated from their parents for a day a warm and homelike atmosphere in which they receive the intimate care and intellectual and social stimuli that they most need. All these are interrelated on each other.

I assure my hon. Friend that nobody in Government wishes to hold on to any particular responsibility purely for the purpose of a departmental objective. Our objective is to provide a comprehensive, proper and expanding care for the preschool child. To that end we shall work together, and when it is appropriate to make changes, I hope that we shall review the situation in a purely objective way.

In the immediate situation my hon. Friend deserves our thanks for drawing attention to the problem of nursery nurses, their salary scales and conditions of service. I hope that this debate will help to focus attention on the problem which these nurses face at this very moment.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at half-past Four o'clock.