In order to save the time of the House, I propose, unless there is any objection, to put together the Questions relating to the 18 statutory instruments.

I beg to move,

That this House draws the attention of Her Majesty's Government to the serious problems still facing North-East Lancashire; and urges the Government to pursue policies which will help to stop any further drift of population away from the area and will encourage industry, widen educational and employment opportunities, improve the environment and communications and give every possible help to those living in North-East Lancashire in their resolve to make the area a great place in which to live and work.

One or two of my colleagues suggested that I should have made the motion four times as long as it is and then have gone home, thereby giving them more opportunity to speak. I understand that that might not have been in accordance with the rules of order of the House, but I feel rather more virtuous than usual because by choosing this subject for debate not only have I afforded myself an opportunity of speaking on a matter which is very dear to my heart but I have given my colleagues who are Members of Parliament in North-East Lancashire the opportunity of stating their views on the problems facing the area and their suggestions for the solution of them.

I make it plain that when I refer to my colleagues I am talking across the House, because we in North-East Lancashire can take pride in the fact that when dealing with our regional affairs we have tried to cross party barriers and to work together to do what we believed to be right in the interests of our part of the country. It is inevitable that now and again someone will put forward a suggestion which is not acceptable to someone else, but, by and large, we have tried to work together and I believe that by so doing we have achieved quite a deal over the years.

I do not approve of spreading alarm and despondency about the situation in North-East Lancashire. I have no time for people who go around emitting low moans from morning to night, because it is entirely counter-productive and is likely to damage our chances of, for instance, attaining the level of industrial investment which we want in North-East Lancashire. Also, it is not warranted by the facts, because great improvements have taken place in recent years in, for instance, the structure of industry and in the environment.

It is interesting to reflect that not many years ago no less than 80 per cent. of employed people in the Nelson and Colne Division were employed in the textile industry. Now there is a wide range of industry and great diversification of jobs available in the area. We can congratulate the workpeople on their adaptability and loyalty and on the fact that ours has been a remarkably trouble-free and strike-free area. We must congratulate organisations such as the North-East Lancashire Development Association, formerly the North-East Lancashire Development Committee, which has worked day after day to try to persuade new industry to come into the area and help existing industry. We must also congratulate the local authorites, which have done marvellous work over the years.

All I propose to do is to point out that the area still faces immense problems in the respects mentioned in the motion and to indicate matters on which I believe Government action is essential and on which it is possible for them to take action without the expenditure of vast sums of public money. So often in regional debates hon. Members try to thieve all the money from other areas. Although they are in their way trying to do their best for their own areas, they can be pretty sure that nothing will come out of the debate because the Government will say "In the existing economic circumstances it is not possible to do anything." That will not be the position today. I shall make some modest demands which I do not believe the Government can refuse. Like the Godfather, I shall make a proposition which they simply cannot refuse, or, rather, three or four propositions.

I appreciate that more than one Department is involved in the matters which I shall mention. I had to tell the Government only the other day that that was the position. I could not ask for the Government to provide three or four Ministers and I am grateful to the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment for having come to reply. I know that when I mention matters not strictly within the province of his Department he will ensure that not only the words that are spoken are conveyed to the Department concerned but the feeling that is behind them. There is a great deal of feeling behind some of the matters which I shall mention.

I shall deal first with the industrial situation. There has over the years been an immense diversification of industry. One of the reasons why we were able to attract industry into North-East Lancashire was that there were a number of old factories which were empty in which previously cotton goods had been manufactured. However, we suffer from a real problem of obsolescence. Many of the old factories are not suitable bases for expansion of the industries which are now carried on within them.

Even more important, there is still in North-East Lancashire nothing like a sufficient range of job opportunities available to our young people. The consequence is that the young people leave the area. Over the years the population of North-East Lancashire has continued to fall. Mercifully, in the past five or so years the rate of decline has not been as great, but the decline continues. We must so order events that people do not leave. We must ensure that people are encouraged to come into the area from outside. We will not accept that continued migration is inevitable.

We cannot accept that North-East Lancashire is an area in which decline is inevitable. We do not accept for one moment the pessimism of the strategic plan for the North-West, which seems to suggest that further decline is inevitable. Further, we cannot accept the suggestion that was made in the strategic plan that future development should be concentrated in the so-called Mersey belt. I have not time now to talk at length about the strategic plan but there will be other opportunities for doing so. The plan is of the utmost significance to the whole of Lancashire. We say that justice demands that the Government should help prevent any further decline in North-East Lancashire.

We ask the Government to continue to afford to us the benefits of intermediate area status. That is a good start because we are not asking for any more money but merely suggesting that our status should remain as it is. I am asking that our status should not be diluted by the granting of special development area status to Merseyside. That would have a serious and deleterious effect on our part of the world. The granting of such status to Merseyside would put many obstacles in the way of our obtaining the new industries which we still require.

I do not believe that I can be accused of adopting a dog in the manger attitude towards Merseyside. This is a matter firstly of justice and secondly of the wise use of resources. We cannot close our eyes to the fact that over the years hundreds of millions of pounds have been poured into Merseyside with few noticeable results. There are now demands for more and more hundreds of millions of pounds. Let us contrast that with North-East Lancashire, in which, by comparison almost insignificantly tiny sums have been spent but they have produced real value for money in getting down the rate of unemployment and changing the whole appearance of the area's towns. I invite the Government to back success and not failure and not to listen too readily to the vociferous Merseysiders. Unfortunately, some of them are members of this Government. I dread to think of the influence that they may now be exercising. I have tried not to be personal but I know where the Minister comes from and I know that in his previous incarnation he lived a little nearer North-East Lancashire. He is, therefore, in a better position than some to appreciate the problems which the area faces.

I hope that I shall not be accused of trying to place on the Government an intolerable burden which it would be ridiculous to expect them to bear at a time of financial stringency. I am saying—my gosh, this is unusual in this Chamber—that the Government should save money and not spend it. I am saying that it would be foolish for them to pour further hundreds of millions of pounds into Merseyside. That would not be a wise use of resources, and it would be grossly unfair to North-East Lancashire as the area would find its status as an intermediate area greatly diminished.

We ask the Government to allow local authorities to get on with the job of developing industrial estates. As the Minister knows, money for the provision of service roads into industrial estates and money for the provision of sewerage facilities and the like all comes out of the locally determined sector and there is not enough to go round. The absurd situation has arisen in North-East Lancashire that the Government's own policies stemming from the Industry Act are being frustrated by the inability of the local authorities to find the resources to service the industrial estates. The authorities are, therefore, disqualifying themselves from the benefits which would be available to them under the Industry Act.

Comparatively small sums are involved. I do not know whether it is an open or a closed secret but I am told that an interdepartmental committee is now studying the position. If there is such a committee, I hope that it gets on with the job quickly and comes to a speedy conclusion. It is ridiculous that the area's efforts to provide new sites for factories should be frustrated because the Government will not make minor changes to the present system and make special allocations for the servicing of industrial estates instead of requiring local authorities to find the money from the locally determined sector.

My first point is that North-East Lancashire should keep intermediate status and that the Government should not squander money by giving special development area status to Merseyside. Second, I ask the Government to help with the area's industrial development. Third, I ask for help regarding derelict sites, which raise great problems. It is possible to receive a grant to deal with a derelict factory but not for an obsolescent factory which has outlived its usefulness and cannot be the scene of any great expansion of industry. Fourth— this is one of the most important matters of all—we want the Government to help widen job opportunities by the provision of more Government offices.

The figures show that Lancashire as a whole has not done too badly in terms of the creation of new office jobs. However, North-East Lancashire has done appallingly badly. I think that two small tax offices have been the only new creations offering new office jobs in the past few years. If the number of office jobs in the North-West as a whole are related to the office jobs in the rest of the country it will be seen that the North-West is almost at the top of the list. I think that there is only one region that comes out higher—namely, the South-East. The position regarding office jobs in North-East Lancashire is entirely different, the area being at the bottom of the league. It would be putting it mildly to say that we are dissatisfied with the general level of Government investment in North-East Lancashire. We expect that when decisions of investment have to be taken we shall not be ignored to the extent that we have been ignored in the past.

That brings me to the Hardman Report. I will not deal at length with the report, which we debated in the House. It is a matter that is very dear to the heart of the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Jones), who dealt with it at length in the debate.

The more one reads the report the more extraordinary it is. One would have to be a civil servant who had never moved out of London in his life to believe that the dispersal of civil servants to Bletchley—or Milton Keynes, as it now is —would contribute towards regional development. One would have to be living in a dream world to think that by sending civil servants to Swindon one would be contributing towards regional development. Those places are not regions. Neither Swindon nor Bletchley is the capital of a region. We expect the Government to reject the Hardman Report and recognise our claims for help.

When considering our industrial future one must bear in mind the question of communications. Without a great improvement in communications we shall not continue to get the industrial development which we have been getting recently. We all know the history of the Calder Valley road, now the M65, and I need not rehearse it at length. Suffice to say that when the Labour Government of 1966–70 decided to go ahead with a new town in Central Lancashire they were so worried by the reaction of people in North-East Lancashire to that proposal and about the possible impact on the economy of North-East Lancashire of a new town in Central Lancashire that they appointed a firm of consultants to consider the proposal. The report issued by that firm of consultants in 1969 said firmly that if North-East Lancashire had a real improvement in its communications there was no great reason for North-East Lancashire to fear but that if North-East Lancashire remained isolated there would be a great deal to fear. As a consequence of that, the Labour Government of 1966–70 and the Conservative Government of 1970–74 committed themselves to the project, not to enable people to enjoy more leisure motoring but because successive Governments recognised that the project was essential to the industrial development of North-East Lancashire. An inquiry is now taking place in Burnley, the matter is in the hands of the Secretary of State and we ask him to make as speedy a decision as possible.

We originally hoped for a start in 1974 but the scheme has already been set back a year or two by economic difficulties and the redesigning of the road to meet the requirements of the Conservative Government to reduce the Burnley-Colne stretch to two carriageways each way instead of three carriageways each way. Time is of the essence. Work on the new town is beginning and we want to make sure that the project is completed so that we can get the benefit of it before substantial investment finds its way into the new town area. We ask the Government to treat the matter urgently.

I was dissatisfied with the reply I had from the Government on 1st April when I asked about their plans for the road. They said that the matter was in the hands of the Lancashire County Council, which had to make up its mind on the order of priorities. In effect, the Government said "It is nothing to do with us; it is a principal road from Burnley. Please shut up and do not bother us." That was a load of rubbish. The Government knew perfectly well that there was no possibility of the new county council, which consisted of the same members and had the same Conservative majority as the old county council, altering the old county council's priorities.

The fact remains that the new county council has said that there is no question about it and top of the list is the M65. I want the Government to say that when the Secretary of State deals finally with the inquiry he will make plain that if there is a go-ahead for the road the money will be made available.

I turn briefly to the railway. I will not speak at length because I spoke about it at length in October. A fat lot of good it did me. An undertaking having been extracted from the Government of the day that there would be no question of the closure of the line between Preston and Colne for the next 10 years, the Liberal Party in my constituency spent the whole election campaign saying that the Government would close the line. That is one of the misfortunes of politics. Now we have the new Railways Bill, which I do not understand because, on the one hand, the Minister will have more power over the investment plans of British Rail but, on the other hand, British Rail will be given a block sum to cover loss-making lines rather than sums on individual lines. That makes me a little worried. We must have a new undertaking from the Government that there will be no closure of the line.

The line is appalling. It takes just over two-and-a-half hours to get from London to Preston, and it takes half that time to travel 22 miles from Preston to Nelson. One has to go on a rattly, smelly diesel, which is pretty deplorable but better than nothing. I invite the Government at the earliest opportunity to make plain that there will be no question of the closure of the line.

I also urge the Government to examine the quality of the line and its appearance. Some of the stations have been removed. The line is a pay-as-you-go line and now has little shelters, but the dereliction which surrounds the new shelters is appalling. Anyone who comes up from the South must have a fit when he gets off the train at Preston and changes into this ramshackle affair.

I come to housing. The area has two silent characteristics. First, there is a high incidence of owner-occupation, and, secondly, it has been said in a recent report that one-third of the houses are in need of improvement or replacement.

We are disappointed that the Government have not gone further in the extension of the 75 per cent. improvements grants. Certainly, it is some help that people who received approval for their applications before the end of September 1973 will still get the 75 per cent., but there are many people in my constituency who applied long before September 1973 but, because of pressure of work on the local authority, had still not had a decision by the end of September. It is extremely hard that they should not be helped.

Some people in the South imagine that the 75 per cent. improvement grants are a magnificent bonanza. They are nothing of the sort. With the increase in costs which occurs between the time when an application is made and when the grant is approved and the work completed, they do not amount to very much. But they are of great help and work wonders. One can go through whole parts of Nelson and see how much brighter and more cheerful it is than it was a few years ago and how much the houses have been improved.

It is extraordinary that in every part of the Pendle district, of which Nelson and Colne forms part, housing development is held up because of insufficient sewerage facilities. That is happening in Colne, and in Brierfield, where a scheme for the building of 120 houses has had to be turned down because of the lack of adequate sewerage facilities. That is something the Government can do, and I invite the Minister to bear it in mind. Vast sums of money are not involved—indeed, quite small sums.

At present the regional water authority is not handing out money to allow improvements to take place. I am sure that ultimately a few hundred thousand pounds might be involved, but immediately the figure will probably amount to only tens of thousands. Work should go ahead right away, and I hope that the Minister will make plain to the regional water authority that this should be done at once.

There is much I could say about improving the quality of life. We in North-East Lancashire have lovely countryside, if not lovely weather—and even the weather might be put right by the present occupant of No. 10 Downing Street. However, when one goes round the towns in the area some of them are still very drab. We want to see a reintroduction of Operation Eyesore. The cleaning of a few public buildings makes a great difference to the appearance of towns. We also want to see higher derelict land grants. We want more encouragement for the arts and for the valiant work done by organisations such as the Mid-Pennine Association for the Arts.

I turn to education facilities. We have a fine college in Nelson, but we should have got the polytechnic which went to Preston. As for schools, there is a long list of primary schools urgently needing improvement, but the Government have just made the most drastic cuts in money available for minor works in the new county of Lancashire. I have a letter from the Chairman of Lancashire County Council informing me that in the year 1974–75 only £900,000 has been allocated for minor works. He says:

"The present stringent financial circumstances are well understood here, but particular feeling bordering on indignation was caused to members when it was understood that allocations for counties in comparable areas were approximately double that allocated to Lancashire."

This is at a time when Lancashire has a large number of urgently needed improvements.

I think it can be said that I have been moderate in my requests. The total of all these matters would not cost one-hundreth of the cost of granting special development area status to Merseyside.

Let me try to sum my proposals. I should like to see the maintenance of the present status of North-East Lancashire. I want no obstruction of local authorities' efforts to service industrial sites. I want greater availability of derelict site grants and help in the provision of more office jobs. On the question of communications, I want no more delay on the M65 and the improvement of rail services. In housing I should like to see 75 per cent. grants, and money allocated for the improvement of sewerage systems. In education I should like to see an increase in the allocation for minor works. Finally, I should like to see Operation Eyesore brought back.

We believe that many of these things could be done, and should be done, in weeks rather than months. I urge the Government to "get cracking". I urge the Government to make sure that the people who have done so much to help themselves do not lack support in their determination to make North-East Lancashire an even better place in which to live and work.

I wish to congratulate the hon. and learned Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Waddington) on his good luck in the Ballot and also on his bipartisan approach to this topic. I hope that this attitude will be characteristic of the whole debate. I have for years advocated the idea that there are issues in North-East Lancashire on which we are all agreed and in relation to which we should not introduce an undue amount of political prejudice. For that reason the hon. Gentleman's contribution was the more welcome. I assure the House that I will follow his good example.

I shall be a little more demanding in my remarks than was the hon. Gentleman. I should like the Minister to pay particular attention to the point that we are seeking for our area not privilege but parity. Throughout the 15 years that I have been connected with the area we have not received anything approaching parity.

The hon. Gentleman said that money had been poured into Merseyside. That is quite true, and the hon. Gentleman might also have added the Manchester area. I can prove beyond doubt that preference has been given to Manchaster and Merseyside in almost every conceivable realm of activity, particularly in economic terms. They have secured a remarkable preference compared with North-East Lancashire.

I contributed an article on this topic to a magazine called "Industry Northwest". In that article I made four points on which I invited criticism and debate on the question of the preference given to other areas in the country. The first point I made was:

"North-East Lancashire is the only major industrial area in the North-West which does not have ready access to a motorway. Our communications are virtually as they were prewar when they were quite insufficient."

The second point I made was:

"We are the only area in the North-West that has not benefited from office development (administrative personnel) from the central Government. Manchester and Merseyside have been reasonably treated with benefits."

In 1970 there was a competition for the best secretary in the country and North-East Lancashire won hands down. I mix a good deal with secretaries in London—and I say in passing that I have a healthy respect for administrative work for if that falls, the executive falls with it—but I think the practical approach of Lancashire people is to be admired. I cannot understand why there has been so large a dispersal of work away from the capital and yet North-East Lancashire has not had a single job allocated to it under this process. We are highly qualified to take such work.

The third point I made in the article was:

"Notwithstanding the recommendations of the North-West Regional Advisory Committee for Further Education, neither Burnley nor North-East Lancashire has been successful in obtaining a college for higher level education."

I could speak on this topic until 6 o'clock tonight. I see you shaking your head, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I assure you that I shall not speak for that long. I have the material before me, and I feel very strongly on these matters. I believe that the people in my area are as education conscious as are people in the South Wales valleys which you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I know so well. We spend a great deal of money in seeking to give children far better opportunities than their parents had, but we are losing good people, and I must come to the conclusion that we are subsidising the rest of the country. We are spending ratepayers' money, ordinary people's money, to send their sons and daughters down South and to the Midlands to make a contribution there. That is creating an unbalanced population.

I do not know whether successive Governments think that North-East Lancashire is an old textile area—I shall disprove that—and that second best or even third best will do for it. It will not do for me. I am here not because of my personality or ability but because of the people of North-East Lancashire. Come hell or high water, those are the people who will receive my prior attention. That is why I rejoice at the subject of the debate introduced by the hon. Gentleman.

My fourth point concerned intermediate area status, which gave us a little benefit for a short time until the previous Government made the whole of Lancashire an intermediate area and the value was lost.

The hon. Gentleman rightly mentioned communications. There is no doubt that we are suffering in this respect. I read a splendid article in The Guardian by Anthony Pearson, headed:

"Meeting of the motorways attracts industry".

That is a splendid example of the value of communications to an area. I shall read enough extracts from the article to justify my contention that the absence of communications in North-East Lancashire has been a serious detriment and liability. Mr. Pearson wrote:

"To date negotiations have been concluded with about 20 firms who are moving into new premises and bringing 3,000 of the new jobs to Warrington. Other firms who are in advanced stages of negotiation for premises will bring in a further 3,000 jobs by 1976 …

Since Warrington has intermediate area status projected development is entitled to incentive grants including 20 per cent. of the cost of building new factories. But the development corporation believes that the other advantages of labour availability, good industrial relations, excellent communications, and top-grade sites are so great in themselves that the grants represent only a marginal attraction and are not the first thing industrialists are looking for."

The House should notice the priorities there. Availability of labour would put us in some difficulty, because people are leaving the area, even now. I could produce figures showing the extent to which they are leaving. On industrial relations, we would hold our own with any part of the country. But the hon. Gentleman and I have been members for some years of the North-East Lancashire Development Committee, now the North-East Lancashire Development Association, and we know from the reports we receive how industrialists are chary about moving into an area where communications leave so much to be desired. Who can blame them, transport costs being what they are?

Let us look at the example of Warrington. The hon. Gentleman spoke about depopulation, on which Warrington is trying to achieve something. For the coming years there is a project designed to generate a population increase of 86,000 people. I suppose that, as the crow flies, the distance from North-East Lancashire is 15 or 18 miles, or perhaps a little more. To achieve that target it will be necessary to create more than 20,000 new jobs. The article says where they will be centred.

On the question of depopulation, I do not understand the morality of successive Governments. At one time Burnley had a population of almost 120,000. Today our population is just over 70,000, a drop of almost 50 per cent. If it had not been for the initiative of the local authority representatives, who sometimes told the central Government "Go to blazes. We shall do it, with or without your per- mission", it would have been a pitiable area to be in.

I was with the Ministry of Aircraft Production during the war. It is not realised that the area produced the first jet engine constructed by Frank Whittle. At that time, like so many other people, I believed that North-East Lancashire was exclusively a textile area. That is very wrong. From that date to this we in Burnley have produced every gas turbine engine for every major aircraft, including our contribution to Concorde and an exclusive contribution to the Tri-Star. That showed the industrial potential of the area. The hon. Gentleman was absolutely right to say that spending in the area would be more in the nature of investment than expenditure.

I have nothing against Merseyside or Manchester as such, or against the other areas in that direction. But we cannot be blamed for wanting parity with them. That is not an outrageous demand; it is perfectly reasonable. Despite our pleadings, that is demonstrably what we do not receive.

Let me deal with the question of communications in greater detail. Since the days of the late Sydney Silverman I have been constantly seeking treatment that is comparable with the treatment of the rest of the country. On 10th June I asked my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment:

"what is the likely commencing date for the construction of the Calder Valley highway."

My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary replied:

"I have nothing to add to the answer 1 gave on 3rd April in reply to a Question from the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Waddington)."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th June 1974; Vol. 874, c. 441.]

That reply was very sparse. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary had said on that date:

"Joint public inquiries into the Department's proposals for the trunk road section of the route between Hyndburn and Burnley and into Lancashire County Council's proposals for the principal road route between Burnley and Colne closed on 29th March. Progress on the trunk road section depends upon the outcome of the inquiry, the completion of the remaining statutory procedures and the availability of funds. At the present time it would be premature to estimate a starting date.

Progress on the much longer principal road route between Burney and Colne depends not only upon the outcome of this inquiry, but also upon the decisions which the new Lancashire County Council may take about its priority within the overall transportation policy of the new county. This is a matter for the new authority."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 3rd April 1974; Vol. 871, c. 371.]

That is as diplomatic a way as any of saying that the Government are going round in circles. That is absolutely so.

I asked a Question, too, about another road that means a good deal to North-East Lancashire, the Bury bypass. I asked the Secretary of State for the Environment

"what are the prospects in the near future for the Bury easterly bypass."

There is a frightening bottleneck on the way to North-East Lancashire and into Manchester and the South. The reply from the Department stated

"Construction of the southern section of the M66 between the M62 and the A58 at Bury is well under way and is expected to be open to traffic in the spring of 1975. The northern section between the A58 and the Edenfield-Raw-tenstall bypass will be considered, together with other schemes, for start of work next year, subject to the availability of funds".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th June 1974; Vol. 874, c. 441-2.]

I know this country reasonably well. The hon. and learned Member for Nelson and Colne made a brief reference to Milton Keynes. I know Milton Keynes. If the money advanced to Milton Keynes—leaving aside Manchester and Mersey-side—had been invested in North-East Lancashire, we should not be complaining today. Indeed, we would probably be coming to the House—I hope, whatever Government were in power—and singing hallelujahs. But the truth is that Milton Keynes is in the South. It is an hour's run from London. Let us consider the amount of new roads that are being built there now. The Government are finding the money for that. They are good roads superseding roads that were tolerable previously. It is being done at Milton Keynes at this moment. I have been there recently. I have walked there with thoroughly mixed up feelings. I have asked myself what the hell these people have got that we have not got in North-East Lancashire. Why is this obvious preference being given to the Milton Keynes area? I cannot give an answer.

There was a time in our own party, Mr. Deputy Speaker, when we had very serious difficulties. I said at one meeting that if it was necessary for me to sweep Westminster Bridge for the sake of my party, all that my party would have to do would be to provide me with the brush, and I would sweep the bridge. I meant that. That is my degree of loyalty to the Labour Party—without which I am nothing at all, I recognise. But, together with a loyalty to the Labour Party, I have a loyalty to the people who have authorised my presence here, also without whom I am nothing. As a consequence, whenever I witness these occurrences they make a powerful impact upon me. Why in this "one nation" should we in North-East Lancashire be treated in the manner that I have described?

I should like the Government to undertake an exercise. They have the facilities for doing it, which I have not. If they do not do it, however, I shall certainly try. The exercise is to find out how much money over the last decade has been spent in the Milton Keynes area and for what purpose, and then to find out how many Milton Keynes's there are in this country. Let us have an estimation of what is really being spent in the manner I have described.

The hon. and learned Member for Nelson and Colne referred to a recent report. Let me tell the House what my researches in that direction have brought about. This, too, nauseates me. During the post-war years there have been no fewer than seven different reports on the economic development of North-East Lancashire. From those seven reports it is doubtful whether we have gained as much as a caravan. There were reports in 1946, 1949, 1959, 1965, 1966, 1968 and 1974; and now we are to have another report. It is an amazing situation.

I hope that it will be realised by the Government that the production of these reports is engaging the time and intelligence of responsible people. The cost of the reports to date has been £2,080,757. I repeat: it is doubtful whether in that time we have had as much as a caravan out of them. Those seven reports have dealt with the basic problems of North-East Lancashire. I wish that the £2,080,757 had been spent in North-East Lancashire. If the Government want the facts—and it almost amounts to a confession that they do—and from the publication of these reports between 1946 and 1974, 18 years, they have not got them now, they will never have them. Yet another study is envisaged. Bless my soul, what are we doing? I say with genuine regret that it seems that what we are doing is using public money with less than the wisdom that should be applied to that.

I must come to the conclusion of my speech, although there is so much more that could be said in the interests not so much of North-East Lancashire but of the people in North-East Lancashire. To apply a geographical term without associating it with a human factor seems to be wrong. There are more than 400,000 people in that area.

My last point was touched upon by the hon. and learned Member for Nelson and Colne and is about the arts. I received a telegram yesterday which stated:

"Do not neglect the important role of the arts in maintaining and promoting a vital and healthy community. Government money is needed urgently to provide theatres and arts centres so that the area can realise its full artistic potential."

That was signed by Jennifer Wilson, the director of the Mid-Pennine Arts Association. I know that association rather well. Having been involved in the arts myself, I have a good deal of sympathy with the point made. When one sees how much money has been distributed around the country by the Arts Council, one begins to wonder why this association of people is not endowed similarly.

The Government ought to realise that when Sadler's Wells found it necessary to move during the war years, the place to which the company chose to go was Burnley. I have had a very personal association with Sadler's Wells and I know what I am talking about. In the first place, Sadler's Wells had relative safety in Burnley, and, second, it knew that there was a population there who could be responsive to opera and the arts.

No Government have the right to write off an area such as this as simply a collection of philistines. That would be totally wrong. So I echo the appeal briefly made by the hon. and learned Member for Nelson and Colne that encouragement should be given.

Although a little longer than is sometimes possible, this will be but a short debate, and we owe a debt of thanks to the hon. and learned Gentleman for using his good fortune in the Ballot to make such an excellent choice of subject.

I conclude with this note of warning to the Government, not in any spirit of bravado or aggressive intent. I serve notice on them that I intend to be relentless in pursuit of the issues which we are discussing today until such time as some recognisable parity is afforded to an area which, from the turn of the century, has made a handsome contribution to the economic life and solvency of this country.

I congratulate my hon. and learned Friend— my constituent—the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Waddington) on his motion. I agree with what he said at the outset that, despite our party differences, we combine and co-operate very well to put the case for the area we represent. Especially in your presence, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I could not hope to match the eloquence of the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Jones). I think that the word is hwyl. You will be able to pronounce it, and doubtless the Official Reporters will be able to spell it, far better than I could do either.

It is fairly easy to come to the House and paint a black picture of North-East Lancashire and then join the queue, to whichever Government may be in power, saying "Please give us aid. Please give us money". But that would be an inaccurate approach to the way we look at our problems and, what is more, I do not believe that it is necessarily very productive. In North-East Lancashire we have suffered a good deal from our past history. There is still a tendency to regard us as primarily a textile-producing area. We are not. In my constituency there are factories still called mills, but they certainly do not produce cotton goods. But, as I say, there is a tendency for people outside the area to say "Lancashire equals textiles, and that is that".

Inevitably also, in our part of the country, we regard the Central Lancashire new town—Preston, Chorley and Leyland, which was tentatively and rather sickening christened "Red Rose" by a previous Secretary of State in an earlier Labour administration—with some suspicion, in much the same way as my hon. and learned Friend regarded the strategic plan for the North-West and the money which will undoubtedly be spent on Merseyside.

We tend to regard the new town with suspicion because our fear is that successive Governments will concentrate upon it and in the process neglect the small towns in other constituencies. In my own case I think of Clitheroe, Longridge, Padiham and Great Harwood. Undoubtedly the priority is communications first. Then let us think about what I hope will be the steady development of the Central Lancashire new town rather than concentrate entirely on that as the solution to all our economic problems.

My constituency is just outside the boundary of the Central Lancashire new town. I notice that hon. Members who represent Preston are not here, but I have no doubt that in absentia, as it were, they will excuse my talking about the area which they represent since it undoubtedly exercises a great influence on the whole of North-East Lancashire.

I regard that new town with suspicion, and I must do so in the interests of those whom I represent in the House. We do not know what effect it will have in the future. It is difficult to predict. Obviously it will have an effect on those parts of my constituency which are at present pleasantly semi-rural or rural. To say that one can draw a line on the map, create an enormous new town and think of it, so to speak, in a vacuum is unrealistic.

My constituents are not fond—I often wonder who is—of bureaucrats and planners, and there are fears in my part of Lancashire that that new town may in time become a sort of monster which will devour the interest of Governments, which will devour money coming into the area, which will devour—how shall I put it?—the Burnleys, the Clitheroes, the Nelsons and Colnes and the Accringtons. I do not care how long the planners talk on this subject. They cannot remove that suspicion, and I think it right that we should exercise and express that suspicion on behalf of those we represent.

I suppose that it is correct to regard my constituency as to some extent a lung for the rest of the area. It contains a considerable stretch of very attractive country. It is right and proper that we should exercise that function, and so we do at present. We attract many visitors from the nearby towns. However, there is a tendency for some people—some of them serve on local authorities—to say that the Ribble Valley Authority area must be a great tourist area and that we must use all the means in our power, seeking money and assistance from the Government, to turn it into a tourist area.

That is a false approach. On the one hand we are not Blackpool, and on the other hand we are not the Highlands of Scotland. If we had to turn ourselves into a tourist reception area, many of my constituents and those of other hon. Members present this morning would have to change their way of life. Perhaps they would have to cease to be farmers and become guides to some form of nature reserve. Many engaged in industry and shopkeeping would have to think in terms of selling curios on stalls for the benefits of tourists.

I do not really like the word "tourist". "Visitor" I accept, and we undoubtedly welcome in our part of Lancashire visitors from the Lancashire towns which surround us. But the arguments advanced by those who seek the great possibilities of a tourist industry— to be fair, many of them would make profits, and one cannot ignore that entirely—are false, for I do not believe that those whom I represent would want their part of the country changed in that radical way.

Inevitably one must take a bitty approach to this debate as one deals with matters of concern to the area. I said at the outset that we suffer from our history. I am sure that this is true. There is the feeling that successive Governments, and the civil servants who advise them, find a certain difficulty in raising their sights above Watford, which they regard as the furthest North. That may be a slightly humorous observation but there is a great deal of truth in it. We feel that we suffer from governmental neglect. The hon. Member for Burnley set out chapter and verse for that, and I agree.

I turn, then, to the subject of school buildings. I realise that the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment has no direct responsibility here, but I have no doubt that he will pass what I say back to his ministerial colleagues. Successive Governments—my own as well—have been at fault. In my part of Lancashire we have old-fashioned school buildings, some of them dating back to the nineteenth century. We have devoted teaching staff, and the quality of many of those schools in the sense of the education provided is excellent. But for many years those devoted teachers have been working in conditions which are old-fashioned, and, what is more, old-fashioned compared with the rest of the country.

One problem here is that Governments and education authorities, looking at our old-fashioned schools, say that they will be phased out in time and in their place will be put modern and larger schools. But at once in an area such as mine one comes up against the difficulty of public transport. We are very badly served by public transport. To give one example, the village in which my hon. and learned Friend lives is almost entirely—or is it entirely—without any form of public transport.

Yes, we get some.

There is some, but it is certainly not enough. This is a vital question in relation to the transport of schoolchildren. The blame for this is not a party matter. My right hon. Friend the Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher) took some steps in this direction, but they were not enough.

I merely underline what my hon. and learned Friend said about the Lancashire County Council's representations to the Government about spending on education. Although officials and, on occasion, Ministers come and look at our schools, we still feel badly served, that we are not getting our fair share and that there are other parts of the country which seem for some reason or other to attract priority over us in this matter.

There is a further point I wish to make and which perhaps distinguishes me slightly from my colleagues in this matter. I think it fair to say that I have the largest farming population of all the constituencies of the area. The difficulties and the plight of farmers are well known. I shall not take up time reiterating their arguments, except to say that I fully support them. Almost all my local farmers are milk producers. But again we suffer a little from our history. It seems to have come as a surprise to Ministers of Agriculture from both parties that there is a considerable agriculture industry in Lancashire. I think that there is a tendency for them to think of Lancashire as being entirely composed of belching factory chimneys and cobblestones. We have a considerable agriculture industry in the area. It is suffering at the moment, as all milk producers are suffering.

But those farmers also have another part to play when one thinks in terms, as some so-called progressives do, of turning the rural parts of my constituency into a tourists' paradise. To me, about the best and most attractive method of environmental preservation is good farming of the land we possess. My farmers play a considerable part in that and they would not wish to see the area changed.

I had the pleasure, and perhaps also at the same time slightly the misfortune, of living in and representing at one time a constituency which contained a large area of national park. Perhaps it was a depressing observation, but I recall that one farmer told me "I do not like being a sort of Red Indian on a reservation." His feeling was that in some way he was there to preserve the land and to be observed by tourists. He expressed a pessimistic view, but there is that feeling in my area of Lancashire now. We do not wish to see our status decline in that way.

I turn now to the question of regional development. We have reached a stage, I believe, again under successive Governments, in which, hon. Members having urged particular status for the areas they represent, almost every area, save possibly a very small circle centred round South Kensington underground station, has attracted some sort of assistance or status of one sort or another. One can go too far in this matter.

My hon. and learned Friend made the point that priorities would seem to be going elsewhere. Naturally we regret this in our part of Lancashire. We are not seeking more than our due. We are not saying "Our case is special and we are suffering enormously. Therefore, give us more money"—not at all. We are quite able to rely on the ingenuity and energy of our own people. They have proved themselves in the past. We are only seeking fairness and comparable treatment with the rest of the country. We have certain special problems. We do not seek to exaggerate them in any way, but they exist.

I again congratulate my hon. and learned Friend on taking the opportunity to bring these matters before the House today.

I, too, congratulate the hon. and learned Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Waddington) on raising this subject. I myself have raised it on other occasions. I do not claim to be unique in that respect. I mention it only because many of the problems which he has highlighted I highlighted earlier this year, and I think he would agree with the things I then said. This means that, no doubt to the delight of the House, I can make a brief speech. It is fair to say that all the main points have been covered in the debate. The hon. Member for Clitheroe (Mr. Walder) covered a wide range of topics very near to the hearts of the people of North-East Lancashire.

The motion refers to the drifting away of population. That is and always has been—as long as I have been in this House, and a great deal longer than that—the main problem facing North-East Lancashire. Most of its problems in a sense stem from that one. How to deal with it has occupied the minds of successive Governments but none of them appears to have come up with exactly the right solution.

I do not want to indulge in a battle with Liverpool. Indeed, I was born and brought up there. Liverpool has many important problems, including the problem of slum clearance, which are, happily, nowhere near as severe in North-East Lancashire. I do not want to enter into competition with Liverpool or any other area, because that would not be very productive. If it is suggested that if the Government did not give money to projects in other areas North-East Lancashire could get more, my reply would be that if we stopped spending money on some of the prestigious projects like Concorde, Maplin and the Channel Tunnel most of the help for which we are asking for North-East Lancashire could be given to it. I pass that hardly novel suggestion to the Government.

Most people in Lancashire agree, and Members representing North-East Lancashire agree, that it appears to us in North-East Lancashire that we have to shout twice as hard in order to get half as much as other people. This seems to have been true over the years.

The hon. and learned Gentleman mentioned the need for more Government office jobs to go to North-East Lancashire. With other hon. Members from the area, he and I were in a deputation to the previous Minister for the Civil Service, when we made this point strongly. We made it clear that North-East Lancashire was in a position to provide space for these jobs in suitable offices. But there is more to it than just that because, as has been said over and over again, there is a thinking among civil servants and what I call the establishment that everything ought to be centred round the South-East, and that the North is a place one visits only under sufferance, usually on those terrible trains to which the hon. and learned Gentleman rightly referred.

If more office jobs, particularly Government office jobs, were provided in North-East Lancashire, that psychology could be broken down very much more quickly. For that reason, as well as for the simple job reason, it is very important that the Government should think very deeply about the Hardman Report and do something to provide more office jobs in North-East Lancashire.

I, too, want to speak about the M65 motorway. I shall not go over the facts again. They have been rehearsed many times and we should all know them by now. I want to ask my hon. Friend some specific questions. First, how badly had this project been affected by the expenditure cuts announced last December in what has become known as the Barber Budget, and has that Budget had any effect on the likelihood of construction of the M65 proceeding?

Secondly—and my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary is in the best position to answer this question, being in the Department of the Environment—has there been any rethinking about the project as a whole? Like other hon. Members I have argued over and over again, and it is certainly the view of the North-East Lancashire Development Committee, that this motorway is essential for the economic health and prosperity of the region, but it is fair to say—other hon. Members will have had the same correspondence and the same protests—that on environmental grounds there has been increased opposition to the project as a whole.

Certainly the opposition is understandable from those who have houses and other properties on the routes and who have been messed about unmercifully. One month the project is on, the next month it is off; one month it is this route, the next month it is another. The lives of those in the areas affected are made intolerable, and they are entitled to an early decision. Has there been any rethinking of the project and how valid are the objections from the environment groups, which we all respect, and what are the immediate and future prospects for the commencement of work on the road?

The hon. and learned Member for Nelson and Colne mentioned communications. I do not need to go into that subject, because in the debate which I initiated at the beginning of this year I dealt with some of the problems and the hon. and learned Member has dealt with others, so that between us we have dealt with the problems of communications. However, I should like to say that bad communications are a pattern throughout North-East Lancashire. It is not just a matter of bad communications on the railways. The bus services are deplorable, and I agree with the hon. Member for Clitheroe (Mr. Walder) that they are deplorable not only in country areas but in industrial areas.

I should like much greater unification of concessionary fares for pensioners. We hear complaints that in certain areas concessions are given while in other areas they are not. Pensioners would be assisted if there were much greater cooperation among the authorities in that respect.

The hon. and learned Member mentioned education and the hon. Member for Clitheroe made the point that I intend to make. My constituency has suffered from the public expenditure cuts announced in December. Three major projects are to be shelved. However, the hon. Member for Clitheroe is quite right when he says that the proportion of old schools in North-East Lancashire is very high, which means that a lot of money has to be spent on what are called minor project works.

At the same time the grant of £900,000 is inadequate for this purpose. I ask my hon. Friend to pass on that view to the Department of Education and Science. Lancashire County Council's needs should be assessed not on the projected statistics applying to 1st April 1974, prior to reorganisation, but as a completely new education authority and particularly on the basis that Lancashire contains a large number of older urban areas with schools of corresponding age. I have written to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science asking for an increased allocation and I understand that he has been asked to receive a deputation from Lancashire, and no doubt he will take note of what I have said.

The problem of sewerage has been rightly mentioned. One of the absurdities of North-East Lancashire is that the water supply is inadequate, antiquated and farcical. Many houses that have benefited from improvement grants and where people have been encouraged to build indoor toilets or bathrooms or something of the sort are still inadequate because the water supply is inadequate or non-existent. People still sometimes have to go to a neighbour to ask for a kettle to be filled, and that ought not to be the case in 1974.

People also have to pay substantial sums out of their own pockets for a water supply or for new pipes to premises. I know that in certain instances they can get a grant from the county council, but they still often have to pay large sums. That is absurd in 1974, and these are by no means isolated instances. There are whole streets where people are living in conditions which would be regarded as the minimum sanitary requirements even though they have improved their houses.

Improvement grants are a burning problem throughout North-East Lancashire. The reason is that the area has a high proportion of older owner-occupied houses. They are the very places and these are the very people whom we meant to have benefited from improvement grants. What has happened—this is the only partisan note I shall introduce—is that the last Government were wrong to allow improvement grants to go to builders and others who would improve houses and then sell them. I know that that provided accommodation at the time, but there was then a strain on builders and when building costs were high owner-occupiers who wanted to modernise their own houses were unable to get builders to do the work, mainly because speculative builders and others gobbled up available building workers.

I do not dissent, but what I found extraordinary was how local authorities in my part of the world dealt with improvement grants. If I had been responsible, I would have put the speculative builder last and dealt with the owner-occupier first. The method adopted has always amazed me.

That is a valid comment and I do not disagree. I am not saying that owner-occupiers did not benefit, but they did not benefit as much as they should have done.

As there was a time limit, 22nd June, for payment of the 75 per cent. grant, many owner-occupiers are now in great difficulties. I congratulate my hon. Friend's Department on extending the grant to those who got approval before 30th September, but he will understand that those who got approval on 1st October or 2nd October, let alone those who received it in December or January, are not very happy. I appreciate that there must be a date, but I ask him even at this late hour to see whether the limit can be extended.

We are pleased that the new improvement grants are to go only to those who seek to improve their own houses while those who sell them within a certain time will have to pay back the grant. Many people in North-East Lancashire are worried because they may be outside the date that will get them the 75 per cent. grant, so that they will get only the 50 per cent. grant, because many of them just cannot afford to meet the difference. I should like my hon. Friend to consider that as a matter of urgency.

Finally I come to a subject which has become an issue in my constituency over the years. It is the building of a new maternity unit in Accrington. On 17th April 1970 there was a public meeting, certainly the largest I have attended. In January 1971, as a result of that public meeting, organised by the former medical officer of health, Dr. Webster—he was subsequently my opponent at an election, but I pay tribute to him because he was the medical officer of health who drew the attention of the public to this scheme—the Department of Health and Social Services confirmed the decision to have a new unit at Victoria Hospital with up to a maximum of 22 beds. That was less than we had asked, but we were pleased to get it.

In June 1973 we were told by the Manchester Regional Hospital Board that due to a change of plan the number of beds would be cut to 17, including two admission-delivery beds. We were not at all pleased about that, but we were fortified by the fact that it was said that the scheme would start in 1974 or 1975. In April this year the North-West Regional Authority, the new authority, said that the scheme would be delayed because of the public expenditure cuts announced last year. At the time I drew attention to how damaging those cuts would be in areas such as mine.

I have of course already written to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services, who knows North-East Lancashire as well as any of us, to say just how pressing a problem this is in the region. People in my constituency have campaigned over and over again for a larger unit. I pay tribute to the work of the Rough Lea Maternity Hospital, but it is inadequate. We badly need a maternity hospital and I ask my hon. Friend to pass on our views to the appropriate quarter.

There is another matter of a local nature. I do not expect my hon. Friend to deal with it now and it does not affect his Department. However, he will know that the Home Office is concerned to open probation hostels in various areas. Most of us would agree that on balance they are a good thing. There has been opposition from many of my constituents to the projected opening of a probation hostel in Highfield House. I know that this is not the time to raise this matter. I have been in touch with the Minister of State dealing with it today. He can find no reason, he says, to depart from the decision made in this respect by his predecessor to accept the decision of the county council. The action committee in this area is very concerned about the opening of the hostel.

1 agree about the need to increase Government grants to the arts and I pay tribute to the work of the Mid-Pennine Arts Association and of the many other arts groups, theatrical and choral, of which there are a high number in Lancashire. At a time when the professional theatre seems to be centred even more firmly around London, it is important that help should be given to that adventurous Association which maintains a high standard of cultural activity in the area.

1 commend the hon. and learned Member for Nelson and Colne for raising this subject and for the manner in which he has presented his case. I am grateful to him for the opportunity he has given us to raise some of the urgent matters affecting a region which has done more than any other region to increase our industrial prosperity.

1 congratulate my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Waddington) not only on selecting this subject but on giving us such a fair and logical assessment of the needs of the area. He has without doubt pin-pointed the critical issues facing us in North-East Lancashire. Other hon. Members have added their words to his assessment of our needs. It is necessary to make this statement. North-East Lancashire does not ask for charity. All that it requires is the opportunity to give of its best. All that it asks is that it should receive the same national investment per capita as other parts of the country.

The last Government did much to secure this and North-East Lancashire is definitely faring far better than it has done for decades. We have much better homes than ever before, a better environment, more modern factories and excellent labour relations. Long may they continue. We have good schools but unfortunately they are still in the minority. The North-West Region generally has an excellent communications network. The communications of North-East Lancashire are deplorable. I suspect that someone with a horse and pair in the old days would have done better than anyone using public transport today.

My hon. and learned Friend mentioned the Calder Valley road and the inability of the Government to give a starting date for it. The hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Jones) referred to the extension of the Bury easterly bypass into Rossendale, my constituency, and on to Edenfield. Neither he nor I have been able to obtain any information about when this scheme is to come forward. On 31st January 1974 I was given the following Written Answer by the Department of the Environment on this subject:

"Subject to the satisfactory completion of the outstanding statutory procedures and the availability of funds, construction of the northern section between the A58 and the Edenfield-Rawtenstall bypass could start in autumn this year for completion in late 1976."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 31st January 1974; Vol. 868, c. 152-3.]

It is now mid-1974 and we have yet to see any possibility of this scheme going ahead. That section of road, however, is not much use to us until we know about the Calder Valley.

Additionally there is the Haslingden bypass in the borough of Rossendale, which is an integral part of North-East Lancashire. This bypass has been on the stocks for the best part of 20 years. That is a very long time and it is trying the patience of the people of Haslingden. I have endeavoured, by tabling Questions and collecting sheaves of correspondence, to find out what is happening. First it was in the pipeline, then it was out. Now I understand that, in conformity with modern policy, it is open for consultation with local residents and so on.

I applaud that, but surely it would have been preferable to put these plans forward for consultation some time ago. As things are, the people in Haslingden are suffering absolute hell, to put it in plain English, as a result of traffic rumbling through the narrow main road day and night. This is not a major development involving major capital expenditure. It could have been done years ago. Waffling by successive Governments about whose role it was and who should ultimately build it has brought the central Government to a low level of esteem in the minds of the people of Rossendale.

We have excellent house-building opportunities in Rossendale and North-East Lancashire generally but our sewerage facilities are poor. Our principal communications with the rest of Lancashire are pathetic.

I have to couple education with the previous point I raised on the Bury easterly bypass. I have voluminous correspondence with the Departments of Education and the Environment about this bypass. There is one primary school, Peel Brow County Primary School, right in the middle of the line of this bypass. By pestering the Under-Secretary at the Department of Education I was able to find out that the school, scheduled for the coming year, was no longer in the pipeline but would be replaced when necessary.

That gave me the clue to the fact that the bypass has obviously been put back and the school delayed even more. That shows that investment in Lancashire is in no way equitable. In the constituency of Rossendale I have one primary school that is over 140 years old. I admit that it has a new classroom. That was built in 1893. It has had no additions of any consequence since then.

In common with my hon. Friends representing this area I have received strong representations from Lancashire County Council about the minor capital works building programme. Only £900,000 is allotted to Lancashire for such works. The proportion which North-East Lancashire or Rossendale in particular will receive is plainly minimal. I suggest that the Government have got their priorities totally wrong on this and on other issues. They are quite prepared to spend three and a half times as much on the issue of free contraceptives as they are on this category of education in Lancashire. They are prepared to repay 11 times as much to the trade unions to keep them quiet. I ask that the Government get their facts and priorities right.

Mention has also been made of industry in North-East Lancashire. The area has excellent industry, and the textile image has disappeared to a large extent. We now have modern and sophisticated industry, but is its future safeguarded, bearing in mind the large proportion of industry focused on Rolls-Royce, which the hon. Member for Burnley emphasised? At Rolls-Royce there has been great development in aero-engines, but it must not be forgotten that Rolls-Royce at Barnoldswick—"Barlick", as it is locally known—is a subsidiary factory to the main engine plant and if there is a major cut in the requirement for the manufacturing or servicing of Rolls-Royce engines it is not illogical to assume that the main plant will get the lion's share of work while the subsidiary plants will take the knock.

In this respect I make specific reference to the posturings recently over the request by certain militant members of society that we should discontinue to supply engines to certain Powers with which we may not at the moment have a political affinity, or even that we should discontinue the overhauling of engines. What sort of reputation does that give this country? It makes us look like a country which will supply engines today but not tomorrow, or a country which will supply capital equipment but not parts. Our competitors throughout the world would crucify us on this point, and I believe that North-East Lancashire would be the area most likely to suffer.

Another similar point concerns the footwear industry. In the last Parliament we fought tooth and nail—I almost said boot and sole—for the footwear industry in North-East Lancashire. I think that that industry today compares in employment terms with the textile industry. We are already finding that the importing of footwear from the COMECON countries is again on the increase and I have received representations from the footwear manufacturers to this effect.

We want stable employment in North-East Lancashire. This has been achieved over recent years but there is no reason why it should not continue. It is absolutely pitiful that employment opportunities should be prejudiced by a political viewpoint and dogma which is of no interest to North-East Lancashire, at least so far as work is concerned. The interest in the area is in producing goods and in selling them to the rest of the country— and North-East Lancashire does that well.

Reference has also been made to the decline in population, particularly among young technicians, the younger married people and similar categories, but I am happy to say that in my constituency that trend has been reversed and the population is on the increase. However, the trend will remain only if job opportunities and development remain. There must be development by local authorities, perhaps with Government support, and there must be more industrial estates. This can be done by a minor amendment to the Industry Act so that local authorities may lay out estates and can, if required, let private enterprise do the development.

If we had good communications in the area we would get new, fresh people and keen workers coming to North-East Lancashire, but they will not come if a satisfactory environment is not provided.

We have heard in the debate about the strategic plan for the North-West. As the hon. Member for Burnley rightly said, we have seen many reports, many of which have been vulgarly referred to as bumf, and much of that report must be within that category. But there is one point in the report which gives me much pleasure, although it has been derided in my constituency; namely, that there should be much more afforestation and amenity tree planting in the area. I must at this point declare an interest in the afforestation aspect of the matter.

I regard the North-West of England, and in particular North-East Lancashire, as an ideal place in which this country can become much more self-sufficient in forestry. Many of our barren hillsides, some left badly scarred by indiscriminate quarrying and similar operations, could be beautifully landscaped either by the local authority or perhaps in participation with private enterprise. Such work may appear to scar the land for perhaps five or six years but after that there would be beautiful green growth of trees—not all conifers but hardwoods as well. Indeed, there could be a good selection of trees. This could be done at small proportionate cost to the nation.

My local authority is exceedingly anxious to see this happen. We have in the pipeline—heaven knows what amount of money will be coming forth in this regard—plans for two country parks, one of which has been partly developed around Haslingden. This would improve the appearance of the area and would get away from the image of "dark Satanic mills", which is what we all want.

We must ask the Government to ensure that opportunities for a satisfactory way of life in Lancashire are the same as for the rest of the country. We want to improve the environment in the area, and afforestation would be one way to do it. Nationally, the cost of such work would not proportionately be that great, and we must stress that there is a greater need for 75 per cent. grants, particularly to remove the scars of the Industrial Revolution. We are not asking for millions upon millions of pounds, but we want to ensure that the per capitanational investment is the same in North-East Lancashire as it is in the rest of the country.

I join hon. Members who have spoken in the debate in paying tribute to the hon. and learned Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Waddington) for introducing the motion. The debate has been characterised by a lack of party polemic. There has been a reaching across the Floor of the House by hon. Members who represent constituencies in the area. They have joined together in making representations to the present Government, and no doubt in the past engaged in a hands-across-the-Floor approach to make representations to previous Governments.

It is a good thing that the House sometimes gets an opportunity of debating matters in such a way, particularly where there are problems relating to specific areas. Almost every hon. Member who represents the area which we have been discussing has been present for the debate. I saw my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services, the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle), immediately before the debate, and she wishes to talk to me afterwards about the content of the debate. She is constantly in touch with my Department on matters affecting her constituency. Therefore, the level of concern among hon. Members on both sides of the House about the area is very great.

As a former Lancashireman whose birthright was taken away by local government reorganisation so that I now live in Cheshire but still echo the words "The Duke of Lancaster" after the Loyal Toast, I wonder why we continue to call it North-East Lancashire. The new county of Lancashire is East Lancashire or, if one looks at the term geographically and, no doubt hon. Members would say, socially, Higher Lancashire. It is no longer North-East Lancashire in the old sense of the term.

That might well be not a bad thing because sometimes a change of name creates a change in people's psychological attitudes to an area so that they think that it is no longer an area with the "dark Satanic mills" to which the hon. Member for Rossendale (Mr. Bray) referred but an area which contains some of the greenest and most pleasant of England's "green and pleasant land".

North-East Lancashire has many problems which have been highlighted today. Hon. Members have said that they are not asking for charity but are making modest demands for the area. They do not come to the House or the Government with a begging bowl on behalf of the part of the country which they represent.

I appreciate the force of the arguments deployed, particularly by the hon. and learned Member for Nelson and Colne, on the industrial situation. On the figures, it does not look too bad. Unemployment in the area is consistently below the regional and national averages. In May this year there were 2,915 unemployed people, or 1·5 per cent. of the lavour force, whereas in the North-West Region the percentage was 3.2 and in Great Britain as a whole 1.4. Vacancies numbered 3,103.

Hon. Members have made it clear that one of the problems is not simply jobs but job opportunities. As a North-West Member, I appreciate the force of the argument that there needs to be diversification and particularly the attraction of more white-collar office work to the area. The Government are keenly aware of that need, and I have no doubt that when we have been in office for a sufficient time we shall be able to do something positive about it rather than merely be aware of the problem.

I should not like the Minister to look at the figures except in depth. If the population drifts away there will always be the situation described by my hon. Friend. There are two factors to be borne in mind: the variety of jobs, but also the creation of more environmental benefits so that the population does not drift away. The people who are drifting away are the young people whom the area desperately needs.

The drift of population is, I am glad to say, a thing more of the past than of the present. Between 1971 and 1973 the population in the area declined from 518,400 to 517,900—a decline of 500 people. But I appreciate that in the 1960s, and particularly the early 1960s, there was a large drift of population from the area. However, it seems that the rate of decline is falling.

I am sorry to persist, but I know what I am talking about. I ask my hon. Friend to find out how many of our young people who go to the colleges, both technical and nontechnical, and to the universities return to North-East Lancashire. Then we shall know the true situation.

That relates to the question of job opportunities.

Mention has been made of the strategic plan and the question of special development area status for Merseyside and how it would affect, if in being, North-East Lancashire. The Government have made no decision on SDAs for Merseyside or anywhere else, but I should like the House to realise some of the problems which the Government must face in making SDA decisions. Although there may be problems in North-East Lancashire, I remind hon. Members that the area has only one-tenth of Merseyside's unemployment and one-third of its rate. There are 41,900 people unemployed in the Merseyside area. These factors must be taken into account when considering the status of North-East or East Lancashire, whatever one likes to call it.

Several hon. Members referred to the question of letting local authorities get on with the job of attracting industry to their areas. They have pointed out that they are in great difficulties in the locally determined sector and some of the policies are frustrated by the lack of resources to put in the infrastructure of industry when it comes to the area. We are aware of that problem. The Department of Industry is currently considering what should be the future role of local authorities in giving assistance to industry. The proposals made by the North-East Lancashire Development Association are being considered in that context. However, as far as we are aware, it is not possible to introduce those proposals under present powers. It is likely that legislation will be needed for that purpose. However, the Department of Industry is actively considering this matter.

The subject of derelict sites and obsolescent mills has been mentioned. Knowing the area, I appreciate that this is a problem. A considerable improvement in this part of the country has been effected under successive Governments. The Department of the Environment recognises the problems of North-East Lancashire, and local authorities in the area have been quick to take advantage of the dereliction and clearance provisions. There are 116 schemes, costing £964,000 and covering 230 acres, which have been approved for grants. Much of the money has been spent on disused industrial buildings which involve an expensive type of reclamation. However, it has been possible to agree costs on most schemes, and the authorities concerned, particularly Burnley, appear to be satisfied with the assistance provided under existing legislation.

The special environmental assistance scheme introduced in 1972 for works to clean up neglected or unsightly land and buildings, to be completed by 30th September 1973, also resulted in a good response from North-East Lancashire. There were 818 projects, costing £2·1 million, approved for grant in the area.

I appreciate the effects of Operation Eyesore. Much of the property in this part of the country was built with very attractive stone which when cleaned to its former pristine glory makes a tremendous difference to the environment of the area. Many of the houses, mills and churches are constructed of this type of stone. The Government will consider, as far as resources permit, allowing the carrying out of work of this type because of the considerable environmental effect which results from the expenditure of a comparatively small sum of money. I cannot make any promise about the introduction of a scheme, but we are impressed with the effects of Operation Eyesore.

Hon. Members have referred to the Hardman Report. When I was in opposition, this was a matter which concerned me as a Member for a North-West constituency. The Government have made no decision on the report, but I assure hon. Members that they will look to the needs of areas such as North-East Lancashire when considering the dispersal of Civil Service work. My hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon) is Minister responsible for the Civil Service. Indeed, most Ministers dealing with this question have constituencies in areas well away from London. That is a healthy trend. Of course, Ministers know at first hand some of the problems of diversification and of attracting this kind of employment. It is the sort of employment which would keep the bright young people in the area and attract bright young people from other areas.

Hallelujah.

I am delighted to hear my hon. Friend's comment.

Before the hon. Gentleman leaves the Hardman Report, will he give an assurance that the Government will maintain the closest contact with the local authorities on this matter? I gather that only the other day it came to the ears of the local authority that a most important site might become available. I think that the details of the site have already been sent to the Government. Can I rest assured that the Government will be kept up to date? The Government should know when these sites become available because quick decisions may have to be made.

I can assure the hon. and learned Gentleman that, as this is part of the responsibility of the Department of the Environment, we shall keep the closest liaison with local authorities. We appreciate the importance of the matter. However, any lack of liaison does not prevent useful and necessary development taking place in the way in which the hon. and learned Gentleman suggests.

The key factor is communications. The M65 is the most important road in the area. I can make no statement today because, as hon. Members will be aware, there was a public inquiry at the end of February and the decision of that inquiry is not yet known. I am in some difficulty in making any announcement, the matter still being under consideration.

One point that I must make is in response to the idea of the hon. and learned Member for Nelson and Colne that Lancashire is the same now as in the past. The hon. and learned Gentleman said that there is the same Conservative control and that we do not need to ask the new county council about its road proposals. I think that he will agree that he is being a little facile because it is, in fact, a very different Lancashire. It is a much smaller area and it is different in composition from the old county borough. Included are the county borough, for example, of Blackburn, Preston and Blackpool. I think that in fairness we must ask the new county council about its proposals for roads in the area. That complies with the terms of the reply that was made by my hon. Friend the other Under-Secretary of State for the Department of the Environment.

I now turn to the railways. It has been said that we should concentrate on the cleaning up of railway land, including derelict buildings such as signal boxes, which may be unsightly. That is a matter which I shall ask my hon. Friend the other Under-Secretary of State for the Environment to take into account. Hon. Members will be aware of the Bill that was introduced by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Transport. That will prevent a great many railway closures taking place. That will be a matter that will have to be decided in future, but help is being given by the Government to the railways.

Improvement grants represent a national problem. All hon. Members say, and perhaps with some justification, that we are not going the whole hog. It is said that when a person puts in his application he has no control over the time when the decision of approval is made. That is a matter that is controlled by the machinery of local government and not by the applicant. I cannot give any encouragement to the House regarding the present system, except to say that under the Housing Bill that is now before the House provision is made for a much more precise form of help in certain areas. Some people who may have missed out under the present proposals will, if and when the Bill is enacted, be able to benefit from its provisions, in a very similar way.

Education and the allocation of capital buildings was mentioned by the hon. Members for Clitheroe (Mr. Walder) and Rossendale, by my hon. Friend the Member for Accrington (Mr. Davidson) and by many other hon. Members. Without wishing to depart from the nonparty structure which we have had so far, I remind the House that the present allocation results from the cuts in public expenditure which were announced by the previous Chancellor of the Exchequer in December last year. We have said that once the present economic situation has been overcome and when the cuts can be restored and when the economy gets going, the needs of areas such as North-East Lancashire will receive the highest possible priority. We are concerned with the development areas and intermediate areas, and special attention will be given to them when it comes to restoring public expenditure which had to be restricted because of the cuts in December 1973.

This is not just a question of cuts in expenditure but the amount that will be made available to Lancashire compared with the amount which will be made available to similar counties by way of allocation for minor works. Will the Minister consider that? The impression that the county council has at present is that it will receive far less, relatively speaking, than other authorities.

I appreciate the hon. and learned Gentleman's point. I understand that a deputation is coming from Lancashire to see the Department of Education and Science. I have no responsibility in that Department, so I cannot make any comment except to say that the views expressed by hon. Members in this debate will be sent to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science before the delegation is seen.

Tourism within the area has been mentioned. The point was made with some justification that the sort of tourism which is now wanted in and around the area must receive consideration. Steps have been taken regarding country parks and national parks and the opening of the footpath that has recently been proposed to attract people to the area.

I tend to agree with what the hon. Member for Clitheroe said about agriculture and farming within the area. We often forget that Lancashire is one of the most highly productive and best farmed areas of the United Kingdom. Agriculture plays a significant part in the whole of the North-East of Lancashire and the areas economy.

Many matters have been raised in this debate and it is too early for the Government to be able to make any specific pronouncements because of the time factor. I can assure hon. Members that we are well aware of the problems of this part of the country. It is a beautiful area which has great historic traditions. As my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Mr. Jones) pointed out, it was the area which had the foremost part in the Industrial Revolution. There is now taking place in the area some of the most important and advanced engineering in the world. I can assure the House that the Government will ensure that the area has a future as great as its past.

"Higher Lancashire" is a very good phrase which implies both geographically and in moral terms a superiority. The Minister is right to say that we have always conducted our debates in a constructive and non-partisan spirit. When I look back over 23 years and think of the debates that have taken place about the area of Higher Lancashire I wonder whether I listened to them in the same Chamber as the debates which have taken place on other kingdoms, provinces and regions of the United Kingdom. We show a fine example, although the repretation in this Chamber is almost exactly split and always has been.

The keynote of the requirements of Higher Lancashire was struck by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Waddington) and by the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Jones). Our claim is for parity and not privilege. Although that may sound modest, it means that the privilege of others and the growing privilege of other nearby regions is in danger of attacking the parity that we require. We must watch all the time the case for a special development area in Merseyside, the proposal for the Mersey belt, the existence of the Central Lancashire new town, the privileges of Skelmersdale and the absence, until the matter was somewhat rectified by the Conservative administration, of intermediate area status.

The Central Lancashire new town was attacked by my hon. Friend the Member for Clitheroe (Mr. Walder), who described it as being in danger of becoming a monster. I do not see much sign of that yet, but I ask the Minister how it is getting on and what are the arrangements concerning the proportion of home ownership. If the Minister cannot reply now, he might think about it and let us know the answer. This week the Minister for Planning and Local Government announced an alteration in the proportions of houses to be built for letting and houses to be built for ownership in new towns generally. He said that the fifty-fifty ratio was to be altered and that 75 per cent. of houses were to be for tenancy and only 25 per cent. for home ownership.

Does that proposal apply to the Central Lancashire new town? If so, it will meet fierce opposition. The Central Lancashire new town was sold to Higher Lancashire on the ground that it would be considerably different from other new towns and on the ground of the Calder Valley road. On those two grounds the fierce opposition of many parts of Higher Lancashire was to some extent mitigated. If there is to be a change to bring the Central Lancashire new town into line with other new towns, a new situation will be created.

In pursuance of the policy of parity and not privilege, we have always emphasised that we require an improvement in the quality of life rather than the dishing out of subsidies and the holding out of the begging bowl. That has paid a good dividend. As the Minister said, the stone has been cleaned with remarkable success. In my constituency in what was the non-county borough of Darwen, the appearance of the streets has been transformed. The Minister for Housing and Construction came to inspect them a few weeks ago and we were privileged that he should do so. They are an example to the whole of the North-West.

It is good news that there is a chance of Operation Eyesore being revived. I gather that the Government are considering an extension of the operation, and we welcome that prospect. I hope that the railway line can be improved. There is no reason why it should not be improved. That does not require much money. It requires thought to improve its appearance, to clean it up and perhaps to speed it up.

The Minister has given us no news about the M65. There has been an inquiry into the central section of the motorway but nothing has happened about the connection of the M65 to the motorway system. It must be three years now since my right hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mr. Page) said that an announcement of the route between Blackburn and Preston was imminent. Nothing has happened except a promise that some time in the autumn, or perhaps next spring, there is likely to be an experiment in the gathering of public opinion in Blackburn, Pleasington, Feniscowles and round that area concerning the route the population would prefer. That is slow work. It is not quick enough. These people have been awaiting year after year in trepidation an announcement about the proposed route. Now, there is not even to be a proposal put forward by authority. There is merely to be an exercise in local politics in the form of gathering the community's view on the best route. That will take further months.

It is time that leadership was displayed, much as one appreciates, and indeed demands, that local opinion should be consulted. I hope that the Minister will ensure that information is given soon to Blackburn and points west. The situation is becoming a scandal. The lives of hundreds of people, particularly old people, have been blighted. They cannot sell their houses because of the potential blight that has been cast upon them. It is in communications and the quality of life that we ask for action and help. We are not asking for money, except in so far as money is necessary, and not very much money is necessary for these purposes.

Included in those purposes I must mention the hospitals. The hon. Member for Accrington (Mr. Davidson) mentioned the maternity unit in Accrington. I must mention the casualty department in the infirmary at Blackburn. It is of immense age. It would not be tolerated, even in conditions of financial stringency, either in the London area or in any other parts of England that are more under the microscope.

The casualty department consists of one small room in which children who are brought there as a matter of urgency have to sit while the bleeding wrecks of motor accidents are brought in. That cannot do the children much good. The inadequacy of this arrangement is appalling. I ask the Minister, who has been so helpful in our debates, although it is perhaps not necessary for him to do so, to remind his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services—who knows as much about this matter as I do, if not more—that this system is a scandal and must be put right as a matter of priority, even though other things may have to suffer.

Parity, not privilege, was the cry made in this debate by the hon. Member for Burnley. It was also the cry of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne in regard to the minor works programme in the schools. We understand that the new Lancashire county is being discriminated against vis-a-vis other areas because it is a new county as the base date was taken before the new Lancashire county came into existence. Therefore, its allocation is based on the old Lancashire county, excluding the old county boroughs of Burnley, Blackburn and Blackpoll. This appears to have been the method of computation. If it is, it is an unfair way of proceeding.

With those few remarks, I should like to say how much I enjoyed this debate and how grateful I was to hear a Minister who was so receptive to our ideas.

I beg to move,

That this House affirms its belief in a democratic society in which the law is the prime guarantee of the liberty of the citizen, and in which the law, enacted by a legally elected Parliament, is indivisible, no citizen nor institution having the right to select which laws and courts will be obeyed; and deplore both politically motivated attacks upon the judiciary and attempts to remove disqualifications from, or to recompense, those who have been fined or disqualified from public office for past defiance of the law.

I hope that the motion will be accepted by the Home Department, and, indeed, that the Minister concerned will be here very shortly. He was undoubtedly taken unaware by the brevity of the remarks made on the previous motion by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke).

I feel that today I may be in danger of being cast in the role of somebody who carries a placard proclaiming "Repent, ye sinners. The day of judgment is at hand." However, I was glad to have some support in today's newspapers from a right hon. Gentleman who sometimes walks in the company of some of the sinners. This is what was attributed to him in the papers:

"Mr. Prentice, Education Secretary, last night made a strong attack on Labour's Left wing. He accused the Clay Cross rebel councillors and Mr. Scanlon's Amalgamated Engineering Workers of turning away from democratic and constitutional methods. 'They are departing from the traditions of the Left wing of the Labour party', he told a meeting of the Christian Social Movement in London. 'I believe it was wrong for the Clay Cross councillors to take the action that they did'."

Then he had other things to say, such as the following comment:

"We have constantly to remind ourselves that the basic liberties that we enjoy and the right to basic freedoms here are a fairly recent piece of progress in the context of world history."

The right hon. Gentleman made the point that some members of the Labour movement seem to have forgotten this in the recent past.

Since that presumably represents Government policy, I am happy to say that if the Minister of State, Home Office wishes on behalf of the Government to accept the motion at this stage, I shall gladly give way to him. I am sorry that he apparently feels unable to do so. I hope that when he replies he will say what is so odious in the motion to a Home Department Minister and why he is unable to accept it. I am sure he will not mind if I press him closely on this matter.

The relationship between the citizen, his liberty and the law is not without paradox. To the citizens of many countries—and no doubt Spain and Greece will spring to Labour minds, but I suggest they remember Russia, Poland, Albania, Roumania and Hungary——

And South Africa?

Indeed, and I make no partisan point on this subject. I was about to say that the law is not the protector of liberty in those countries but is a weapon of subjugation. For us, as part of the privileged minority that holds the right to free elections and the right to enact or repeal laws as we choose, the law is not simply that which restricts our freedom of action but that which allows us to go about our lives in peace and security. No man can be totally free unless he lives on an island. Paradoxically, even then he is not free from fear and hunger, sickness, predators and parasites, because he is a social animal. I hope Labour Members will not feel that that is too close to the argument on sovereignty and the EEC, which has been debated at such length on other occasions.

In Britain over the last 100 years we had come to believe that the rule of law as an essential part of the structure that guarantees democratic freedom had been so accepted that there was no longer a need to argue the case further, but recent events have shown that belief to be wrong. Many people grew up in an age when they read crime novels in which crime did not pay, in which armed criminals were shunned by fellow criminals and in which a criminal when caught red-handed was more likely to cry "It's a fair cop" than to call for the National Council for Civil Liberties.

At one time the murder of a policeman was a shocking crime and banner headlines reported the hunt for the murderer until he was found. Today it is only local paper stuff. The freedom of the citizen to walk alone at night, through the London streets or to travel unmolested on late buses—or indeed to act as part of a crew on a late night bus in London unmolested—has now sunk to a level which would be more familiar to the late Victorians than to those who lived between the wars and immediately after the last war.

We could debate the causes of such crimes eternally—and, incidentally, it would be an advantage if one day the House could take time to debate this important subject. There are no simplistic answers but, like any illness, if it cannot be cured its effects must be controlled. We need more research into causes of crime and more effort to bring back estranged members of society into the mainstream—but without bending society to fit the estranged individual. Even more, we need extra police, swifter justice and more relevant penalties for convictions.

The law is under attack on another front, as the Secretary of State for Education and Science said yesterday, and I am pleased to have his support. There was a day when we all used to expect Tory councils to implement Labour Government legislation—and I trust that we still expect them to do so—but we also expect Labour councils to implement legislation enacted by Conservative Governments. I regret to say that we have some hesitation in expecting these things. Defiance of the law is now urged by leading members of major political parties.

Some Members have no time for the judiciary and no time for Parliament, except as a salaried extension to Hyde Park Corner. They regard the law as being of two parts, ordinary law and political law, the latter being optional. Those people now constitute the major threat to the liberty of the citizen in this country. They face us with another agonizing paradox: that it is becoming increasingly difficult for the majority to have its way in a democracy. We increasingly see minorities, provided they are sufficiently ruthless, having their way in a democracy. The extension of that argument could be that the majority will eventually protect itself by the use of authoritarian and undemocratic means, until those means fall into the hands of a minority. It is an argument of despair, but if the law does not protect the majority it will use force to protect itself. That is the lesson of Ulster above all others.

I regret that the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Atkinson) is not present. I wrote to him to say that I would raise this matter, and he was kind enough to say that he would be here if he could. The hon. Gentleman recently argued on television that there are these two sorts of law, and I understand that he says that political law need not be obeyed. He instanced the Industrial Relations Act and the Housing Finance Act as political law. He said that on television, but if one wanted to be precise about these matters one could turn to HANSARD of 25th July 1972, when the hon. Gentleman said:

"The Prime Minister referred to selectivity and said that it was wrong for a political party to advocate the right of people to select laws, accepting those designed for their own protection and welfare but rejecting others. He said that it was wrong for people to pick and choose laws.

Some of us on the Opposition side"—

the then Opposition side—

"say that it is right to be selective."

He went on at considerable length, saying later:

"Non-co-operation plainly means disobeying decisions. If we are not to co-operate with a political court, how on earth can we accept its decisions?"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 25th July 1972; Vol. 841, c. 1585-8.]

There we see a plain political theory that political law does not have to be obeyed.

The hon. Gentleman is not alone in that judgment. He has the support of many distinguished members of the present administration. Many of them have been more discreet than he in their incitement to defy the law, but we can all doubt whether they would be to the fore of those calling for acceptance of the laws enacted by a Parliament with a Conservative majority. Even the present Lord Chancellor fell into this trap back in July 1972.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. One does not wish to prevent debate or freedom of expression. That is what the debate is about. But the hon. Gentleman has just made a statement to the effect that certain members of the Government have been guilty of incitement to break the law, without any specification, without naming any names. I regard that as tantamount to saying that certain members of the Government have broken the oath they took when they took their seats in the House.

My attention was momentarily attracted elsewhere, and I did not hear the hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit). It is out of order, however, to imply any unworthy motives to other right hon. or hon. Members. I expect that the hon. Gentleman will make clear what he had in mind.

I would say that when hon. Members put forward these views in the House——

Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. You gave a clear ruling, and I suggest that the hon. Gentleman is not following your ruling.

We shall see.

What I was saying was that those hon. Members who advocate disobedience of the law do so, I presume, from honourable motives. I have gone so far as to quote the hon. Member for Tottenham——

On a point of order. I have submitted to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that the hon. Gentleman is out of order in attributing to any right hon. or hon. Member any action implying that he is inciting people to break the law. I suggest with all respect that that is quite out of order.

It is out of order to suggest unworthy motives. The hon. Gentleman will no doubt seek to substantiate what he has said about certain actions, although I do not want to encourage him into further clashes in the Chamber. The hon. Gentleman will realise that it might be an advantage to him if he moved on from that.

I am happy to accept your advice, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but the quotations——

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It is not a question of advice from the Chair; it is a clear matter of order. When they take their seats in the House, right hon. and hon. Members take an oath or affirm. I do not think it is in order for the hon. Gentleman, without specifying any Member or a particular member of the Government, to make that sort of accusation. Certainly to make it in these general terms implies a general slur on many right hon. and hon. Members.

There has been a very good tone in the debate today. I am sure that the hon. Member for Chingford will not want to cast a slur on anyone. The rule is clear. Hon. Members cannot imply any unworthy motives to any other right hon or hon. Member.

I will ease the position by gladly withdrawing any suggestions that there was an unworthy motive in the mind of any hon. Member when he made the suggestions that he did, some of which I have already quoted, in the debate of 25th July 1972. I accept that each hon. Member is the best judge of what is worthy and what is unworthy and would not do anything unworthy.

On a point of order. The hon. Gentleman has laid certain charges against unspecified Members of the House and unspecified members of the Government. Through you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I ask him to withdraw that sort of statement. It is not a question of imputation; it is a direct statement that Members, unspecified, and members of this Government, unspecified, have incited people in this country to break the law. The hon. Gentleman should in all decency withdraw that statement.

I understood that the hon. Gentleman was withdrawing. Maybe I misunderstood him.

I am happy to withdraw any imputation that any hon. Member acted from a motive which he thought to be unworthy. As I understand it. that is what you require me to do, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I suggest that we proceed, and I shall return to particular matters as I continue my speech.

Further to my point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The hon. Gentleman has made certain statements. It is my submission that as a matter of order he should withdraw them completely.

It is not out of order to say that hon. Members have done one thing or another. What is out of order is to suggest any unworthy motive on the part of hon. Members, and the hon. Gentleman must take responsibility himself. But he has not named anyone in my hearing.

Exactly. Further to my point of order—and I do not want to interrupt any speech unnecessarily—what could be more unworthy than a right hon. or hon. Member breaking the oath or the solemn declaration that he made when he took his seat? Surely an incitement to break the law is a direct breach of that undertaking. The hon. Gentleman has made this statement and he mentioned one particular hon. Member, my hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr. Atkinson). But the hon. Gentleman has made general statements implying that other right hon. and hon. Members have done that, and it is that statement, through you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw.

I did not hear the hon. Gentleman. It was unfortunate that my attention was engaged by someone at the side of the Chair when the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Atkinson) was mentioned. I did not hear a reference to the hon. Member for Tottenham because someone came to the Chair. It was in the sight of the House. But I hope that we can get on with the debate by the hon. Member for Chingford hearing the strength of the point of view. I can only rule that imputation of motives is wrong.

Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was about to say that many of us would doubt just how far to the fore some Labour right hon. and hon. Members would be among those calling for acceptance of the laws enacted by Parliament with a Conservative majority. I shall leave the hon. Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Hamling) very happy in a moment by being very particular.

For example, we recently heard in the House a hysterical outburst by the Secretary of State for Employment—I can use no term other than "hysterical outburst"—when, in the sort of tone which I should have thought would have been more appropriate to the Germany of the 1920s than to Britain of the 1970s, he attacked a High Court judge. He did so in one of those manners which are familiar to us in the House as we watched him with the familiar gesture when he wipes flecks from his lips and adds fervors to his contempt of that High Court judge. I do not regard that as an incitement to break the law.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. With your leave, I would draw your attention to the altercation that occurred in the House to which the hon. Gentleman has just referred. The Chair itself ruled that there had been no contempt of the House and no breach of order, that the remark which was made was a figure of speech and that in those circumstances the House ought to pass on from the subject.

I am much obliged to the Minister. I understand that the hon. Member for Chingford is not making any charge of contempt of the House. But the House is accustomed to right hon. and hon. Members on both sides expressing opinions about the speeches of other hon. Members. It was not out of order. That was ruled by the occupant of the Chair at the time. The hon. Gentleman is entitled to say what he thinks of a speech that is made by another hon. Member. No doubt he is well aware that his speech will be followed by that of another hon. Member.

The point I seek to make—in which there cannot be a point of order, as you say, Mr. Deputy Speaker— is that, whatever view one took about the incident, it is hard to take the view that it was a remark intended to add to the prestige of the courts of this land or of a High Court judge. It goes well enough with the classic words of the Lord President of the Council on Independent Television on 24th November 1973:

"It is not part of our job to go about telling everybody to obey the law."

I take the view that it is part of the job of every hon. Member of this House to go about telling people to obey the law. I understand that my imputation that some did not was taken very ill by one hon. Member, so I am sure he will agree with me that it is our job to do that.

It is also our job to make good laws.

The hon. Gentleman has made a revealing comment from a sedentary position. We now have the distinction between not only political law and ordinary law, but between good law and bad law, and——

No.

—bad law, presumably, does not have to be obeyed.

It is our job to make good laws. That is all I said.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making the distinction. I am glad he has been able to clear up this matter and make it plain that he would like to see everyone obey all the law and not to be selective.

I happen to be a magistrate.

The hon. Gentleman is a a magistrate, so no doubt we can rely upon him.

Supporters of the Government, as I have shown by quotation, have created doubts about the attitude of their Government and their party to the law. First, there was not only encouragement for trade unions to indulge in political strikes, but some hon. Members supported those strikes. When given a chance by the then Leader of the Opposition to condemn political strikes, some hon. Members refrained from doing so. Many hon. Members will recollect Early-Day Motion No. 156 about the dispute in the coalmining industry:

"That this House repudiates recent statements by the Vice-President of the National Union of Mineworkers foreshadowing an appeal to the forces of the Crown, and earlier statements seeking to invoke the strike weapon as a means of changing an elected Government other than through a democratic General Election."

Sometimes the negative evidence is available as well.

No.

A large number of hon. Members managed to resist the temptation to follow the leadership of their leader.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The hon. Gentleman is suggesting that anyone who did not sign that early-day motion was inciting people or supporting those who broke the law. I suggest that that is quite out of order.

It is not a point of order. I have been looking up Erskine May as the debate has gone on. I see that it is said on page 418 that

"Good temper and moderation are the characteristics of parliamentary language."

Hear, hear.

There is a reference to courtesy to each other. The hon. Member for Chingford is aware of the feeling of the House.

I make no imputations other than the fact——

"Negative evidence"?

—that when hon. Members were given an opportunity by the leader of their party and most, if not all, of the Shadow Cabinet—I have not checked on that point—to stand up for the rights of the citizen and for the rule of law, not all of them did so. I should have been happier had they done so. That is part of the way in which this doubt has been created.

Secondly, there was a difficulty some time ago over the attitude of some politicians, shall I say—I shall be sure then not to provoke any points of order which are not points of order—towards the illegal, so-called civil disobedience in Ulster, which commenced with rent and rates strikes, and in those days comfort was given to those who first attacked both police and soldiers. I sometimes wonder how much regret there is among the public at large for the way in which the then Member for Mid-Ulster, Miss Devlin, was sometimes encouraged and supported in this House.

Third, the then Opposition, with the truly outstanding exception of the right hon. Member for Grimsby (Mr. Crosland) and others, found it rather difficult strongly to advise Labour councils to implement the Housing Finance Act. Ultimately the Labour Party at its conference in 1973 passed its famous resolution, which concluded with these words:

"Conference further agrees that upon the election of a Labour Government all penalties, financial or otherwise, should be removed retrospectively from councillors who have courageously refused to implement the Housing Finance Act 1972."

As I recall it, that resolution was commended to the conference for acceptance by no less a person than the present Lord President of the Council. I do not wish to transgress the bounds of order, but I believe that all us who read the New Law Journaal will remember that its comment was:

"This is as clear an encouragement to the breaking of the rule of law as we have had from a public platform for many years."

It may be that the New Law Journal is in some sort of contempt of the House —I do not know—but no one has taken it up so far.

Finally, I believe that the Home Secretary himself in his recent amnesty for illegal immigrants again gave advantage to those who had broken the law over those who have respected it.

The Labour Party, or its Marxist wing, has sown the wind, and it is feeling the first gusts of the whirlwind. We have recently seen two strikes with political results—I choose my words carefully— strikes which set aside the law of the land. The first was the miners' strike, which was unabashedly intended to topple the Government, as Early-Day Motion No. 156 makes plain. The second was the Protestant workers' strike, which toppled the Northern Ireland Executive.

Back in February 1972 there was a great deal of anxiety, not least, for example, on the part of the hon. Member for York (Mr. Lyon), now on the Government Front Bench, that pickets should be allowed to stop lorries to impart the message to the drivers. Now, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland may take a slightly different view on whether pickets should be allowed to stop lorries in order to impart their message. That was the implication of the answer which he gave me just the other day when I inquired what facilities were made available for them to do so in Ulster.

The hon. Member for York used to say of law enforcement during a strike— I take this quotation:

"We cannot call out the tanks or the Army….".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st January 1974; Vol. 867, c. 1282.]

But, of course, in Ulster not tanks but the Army was on hand to take part in the breaking of a strike.

The Ulsterman can see no difference between his political strike and that of Mr. McGahey. He can see no difference between the threats of his pickets and those of the building workers' pickets, some of whom are now in gaol in Shrewsbury. Neither can I.

If the Industrial Relations Act and the Housing Finance Act are political Acts, so will be those which replace them. If obedience to one set of political laws is optional obedience to all political law is optional. That is the way to gun law and tyranny. We have come a long way along the road, and Ulster points the way ahead. The flight from Heathrow to Belfast is virtually a time trip into London's future unless we are careful. Unless the Government can accept the motion, we shall not have confidence that they are serious about the rule of law.

I began by quoting the Secretary of State for Education and Science. I end by quoting another distinguished man who has walked in the company of the Marxists:

"The same old caveman impulses—greed, envy, lack of restraint, mutual ill will—still tear and rip our world apart, though now they have adopted such 'decent' labels as class conflict, race war, the struggle of the masses or the trade unions…. Violence, less and less restricted by a system of laws built up over the centuries, strides naked and victorious over the earth…. It is not just coarse violence itself that is triumphant, but also its shrieks of self-justification."

Those are the words of Mr. Solzhenitsyn.

The hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) used the phrase that the flight between Belfast and London was virtually a time trip into the future. As one who represents, perhaps, one of the most sensitive areas of the England and Scotland mainland, I must say that, in my opinion, there are few now here who want to import the troubles of Ulster into either Scotland or England.

However, I do not wish to follow the hon. Gentleman's general theme or to abuse the time of the House—I do not say that he abused it, but I should do so, if I were to use this occasion to go into detail on the contentious view which I have regarding what ought to be done in Northern Ireland. I realise that there is considerable natural concern about Concorde, the subject of the next motion. I shall, therefore, confine myself to one subject and a sort of report to the House.

My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, East (Mr. Lamond) and I spent Monday of this week in the Maze prison at Long Kesh and in the women's prison at Amah. I wish to report that, as a Member of Parliament, I feel the gravest disquiet, first, at the scale of the internment camp. I simply had no conception that there existed in the United Kingdom a major prisoner-of-war camp of that kind. Some say that it is modelled on Stalag 9. I know not on what it is modelled. But actually to go to Long Kesh is a very striking experience.

There are 1,600 men in that complex. It covers such an area that one has, perhaps, to be transported by vehicle, and to a Westminster politician it is extraordinarily striking that an operation of this scale should exist anywhere in the United Kingdom.

One sees there the families lining up to talk once a fortnight or once a month —whatever it may be—with the internees, families with children the age of my own, children of 8 and 6 as well as babes in arms. It is an experience not readily forgettable.

When one talks to the families, one hears from them their sheer loathing of any man such as myself who comes from Westminster, a loathing based on the fact that many of the men are there not yet having had trial and being interned, in many cases, on what they regard as suspicion. Many of us on this side of the House had the gravest about internment in the first place, but actually to see the results was a shaking experience. There was a hatred coming through such as I in public life have never before experienced.

I can best express what it is like, when one goes inside and talks, by relying on quotations. I take the case of Mr. O'Hare, of the Official IRA. He said that internment escalates problems, "that a gesture is necessary if there is to be an overall political solution." "Political prisoners", he said, "should be released on the basis that it is the end of a war. It is a war situation in which prisoners should be treated as they were in 1945 after the Second World War ".

This is not the place to argue that case. All I ask is that the Home Office, with the Northern Ireland Office, should consider the position in Northern Ireland, where the implementation of justice has become clogged up for months at a time with the result that it breeds the most burning resentments.

Especially today I ask that that kind of consideration be given, because last night's speech by the Prime Minister of Eire, Mr. Liam Cosgrave, may well be seen in years to come as a historic watershed. It is the first time in my recollection that a leading Eire politician, let alone a Prime Minister, has dared to suggest that the cherished concept of a united Ireland may not be practical. It was certainly the very strong impression that we have had not only from the UWC itself but from leaders of the strike like Harry Murray and Jim Smyth. On two separate occasions when I have met them, they have asserted time and again "We are not anti-Catholic, we are anti-Dublin rule."

Order. I do not want to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but I would be grateful if he would come to the motion, which is not to do with Northern Ireland.

It would be a disservice to the general case I wish to make if I were to challenge your ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

I end, therefore, by making a plea to the Government to look at Long Kesh and, in particular, the women's prison at Armagh. As a former school teacher, I was shocked at what I saw. I saw girls there whose chronological age was 17 or 18 through to 22. However, their age in terms of maturity may well have been rather 14 or 15. Indeed, they might easily have been your pupils, Mr. Deputy Speaker, or mine. They are clogged together in an early nineteenth century prison.

I am under no delusion as to what some of them may have been up to in the burning of Belfast, or about the other very serious crimes in which they may have been involved. But, whatever they have done, one must ask whether cooping them up in a nineteenth century prison is the best way to treat these young girls and, indeed, their contemporaries outside in order to try to inculcate into them what one might call, as un-pompously as possible, British values. I hope that a different kind of line will be taken on the liberty of the citizen in Northern Ireland, especially in the light of the new situation introduced by Mr. Cosgrave.

I hope that the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell), whose contributions are always listened to with great respect because everyone knows of his obvious honesty, will forgive me if I do not follow him in detail on this matter, because I do not claim to have expert knowledge. But I wish to say something about the subject in general of Northern Ireland.

I have looked carefully at the motion, as you have, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It seems to me that it concerns the liberty of the subject, and if ever there was an occasion which affected the liberty of the subject it is the war that has been going on now for years in Northern Ireland.

I remind the hon. Gentleman that it is not the title but the terms of the motion that we are discussing.

Indeed, I have looked at the terms of the motion and shall, therefore, do everything I am able in no way to transgress your ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

In connection with the subject of law, I want to mention the recent announcement by the Home Secretary. I admit that what I have to say is a little vague, and, therefore, I am not being dogmatic or category. The right hon. Gentleman made a statement which, to put no finer point on it, led us to believe that the situation concerning the Price sisters was clear—that on no account would the British Government be pushed or blackmailed into doing something about the Price sisters.

I was deeply impressed when the right hon. Gentleman made his statement and I wished to express that feeling. However, I was not called to put a question to him after his statement, and, therefore, I privately congratulated him.

It was, therefore, all the more of a shock to me earlier this week when we heard some rumblings that there had been some extraordinary sort of concatenation of heads between the Home Secretary, a senior member of the Conservative Party and even going so far as to include, I believe, a member of the Liberal Party. It was suggested that there had been some sort of agreement as to what should happen to the Price sisters following the threats and blackmail and so on.

I am even more troubled that today there are reports in the newspapers—as far as I know, nothing has been said in the open, apart from the right hon. Gentleman's uncategorical answer to a Private Notice Question—that it is his intention that within this year the Price sisters shall be returned to Northern Ireland. I cannot express sufficiently my perturbation at such a report, if it is true. It would be contrary to the point the Home Secretary made, about which I was so pleased, as, I am sure, were most hon. Members.

My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has completely denied what the hon. Gentleman has just said.

I am most interested to hear this. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman is able to give us chapter and verse. This is very important. I am not making any accusations, but the reports are printed in many of the newspapers today. I would be delighted to give way again to the hon. Gentleman so that he could tell us more about the Home Secretary's denial. Where was it made, when and how?

My right hon. Friend has denied in the Press that he made any deal at all.

I am delighted that the Home Secretary has made that denial. Nevertheless, this sort of thing is deeply worrying. I hope, therefore, that the right hon. Gentleman will make a public statement. Is the hon. Gentleman referring to a public statement by the Home Secretary? I am delighted to have heard what the hon. Gentleman has said, because 1 am in support of law and order. He has just made a statement that the Home Secretary completely denies——

That there was a deal.

I am not talking about whether there was a deal but about whether the right hon. Gentleman has intimated officially within the last couple of days that the Price sisters are to be returned to Northern Ireland within this year. That is what I am talking about. I should be delighted to give way to the hon. Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Hamling) again, but he is now as quiet as a mouse. He has rather let himself into this. The hon. Gentleman has interrupted me several times, no doubt for good reason in his own mind. But now, having said that my information is wrong and that the Home Secretary has denied it, I ask him to tell me when and how the Home Secretary has denied these reports.

I simply said that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary had denied that there was a deal. The hon. Gentleman has had sufficient experience of the ways of this House to know that as Members we cannot comment on Lobby stories of that sort.

Really! The hon. Gentleman himself is an old enough hand in this place to know perfectly well that many questions put down by hon. Members arise from the stories of Lobby correspondents. Do not let us have that sort of nonsense.

But I do not wish to detain the House for long because I know that other hon. Members are anxious to discuss Concorde on the next motion. I want to end by asking a question of my own Church in regard to the law. One of the reasons why I hoped to be called by Mr. Speaker to put a question to the Home Secretary after his statement was that I wanted to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether it would help him if the hierarchies of the Catholic Church in Ireland and of the Catholic Church in this country were much more outright in their condemnation of the IRA and of its using terror to get its will.

As I have said, I was not called on that occasion, but I am delighted to note that there was a statement by Cardinal Henna only yesterday. I regard his statement as perhaps as good but not as strong as I had hoped it would be, but then no doubt he has advisers who are not at one on this issue. But what really worried me was the statement of the Cardinal-Archbishop of all Ireland, Cardinal Conway, and of the Bishop of Derry. They were reported to have made a statement which said roughly that they wanted the Home Secretary to use his discretion in favour of returning the Price sisters to Ireland in his own time.

I believe that the Catholic Church is in the most diabolically difficult situation, particularly the Catholic Church in Northern Ireland, because many priests, particularly those in dioceses that are very Catholic and that may have many IRA members, are in dreadfully difficult situations. I shall not say more about it than that. I hope that in their battle to see Christianity spread, which must be a concomitant with the spread of respect for law and order, they will find themselves able to be a little more dogmatic about respect not only for the law of their own nation but for the common law and respect for each other.

My hon. Friend the Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) gave two examples of periods of anarchy through which the country had passed. In some ways, the country has come to have a callous disregard for the law, a callous disregard for Parliament and a callous disregard for the future of the children of these islands. There are two examples of anarchy that 20 years ago, and perhaps only 10 years ago, would have been unthinkable in this country. The first was the miners' strike, which aimed at the heart of the nation, the heart of the nation being the Parliament that had been democratically elected. That strike had the express aim of bringing down the Government of the country.

I do not want to wig Labour Members too much about this, because many of them agree with me anyway. They are the slaves of democracy. If the democracy of which they are the slaves admits anarchy in order to bring down the Government of Britain, thoughts of being of any future use in the service of mankind should disappear from their minds.

As of course we all know, the miners' strike succeeded and the miners have been confirmed in their success by the Scottish miners' conference yesterday and the day before when the miners claimed that the miners had brought down the Tory Government—and I am not actually quoting the words, because I do not have a transcript of what was said—and that they would not be averse, if necessary, to bringing down the Labour Government on the same ground.

The second example of anarchy's success in recent weeks has been the bringing down of the Northern Ireland Executive. There is no future for this country or any part of it, including Northern Ireland, except under the rule of law, but the rule of law has been destroyed on two occasions within six months: first, by the miners and, secondly, by the Protestant workers in Ulster. What other conceivable reason for the militancy of certain groups of nurses can there be other than the example of the miners and others who since the war have blackmailed their employers, who have found that the only way in which to get the wages they wanted was to blackmail employers, to kick and kick, to put the nation into an impossible position, to blackmail in order to get their own way?

That was the example that was set to all workers. Because of the weakness of Governments and the weakness of employers, workers believe that the only way in which they can get not necessarily their lawful dues but what they want is to strike, to hold the nation to ransom. So we have the nurses acting in a way that was unthinkable 10 years ago. So we have disrespect for and disregard of most of the law.

Will the hon. Gentleman tell me what law was broken by the miners in their strike and what law is being broken by the nurses in their strike, and, if there was a breach of the law in relation to the miners' strike, why his Government did not do anything about it?

The hon. Gentleman knows as well as I what laws were broken.

Which?

Even if no laws were actually broken, and I do not admit that —[Laughter.] The hon. Members who are laughing know as well as I do that laws were broken in the behaviour of the miners in the 1972 strike. The hon. Member for Woolwich, West is laughing about that. If he had been a girl in Doncaster during the miners' strike and had been spat on by the miners, would he have felt that that was breaking the law? Of course it was breaking the law.

We know perfectly well that not only did the miners break the law, but they wanted to break the very fabric of our society. We all know that the trade unions in this country have never regarded it as part of their job to subvert the Government in order to achieve trade union ends. That course has always been eschewed. If the hon. Member for Woolwich, West, who is wagging his head, accepts the new age that we are coming into, if he regards it as the right way in which to conduct affairs for trade unions and others, to blackmail the nation to get what they want, he should not be a member of even the Labour Party. We all know that what is going on within the nation is causing great concern.

Having been slightly interrupted, I have gone on longer than I intended. Because of the brilliance of the motion, so ably argued by my hon. Friend the Member for Chingford, and despite the lack of ability in what I have said, I hope that hon. Members will deeply and seriously consider whether there is any future for the British nation in continuing to go down the road that we have so disastrously followed for the past few months, the road along which the nation has proceeded for the past 30 years and which has led the nation only into worse and worse difficulty.

Perhaps we may now come back to the motion. It states:

"That this House affirms its belief in a democratic society in which the law is the prime guarantee of the liberty of the citizen, and in which the law, enacted by a legally elected Parliament, is indivisible, no citizen nor institution having the right to select which laws and courts will be obeyed."

It is to those words and phrases that 1 want to take the House back after the speech of the hon. Member for Yarmouth (Mr. Fell). In talking of miners an nurses he has not been talking about the motion.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We were vigorously kept to order by the former incumbent of the Chair. I make no complaint about that, but it seems to me that to tell an hon. Member that he has made a speech that has nothing to do with the motion is to reflect upon the Chair.

I think that in the circumstances I ought to let the hon. Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Hamling) continue to make his speech and see how it develops.

Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. All I was saying was that in my view the hon. Member was not speaking to the motion. That was merely my view and it was certainly no imputation on the Chair.

Nobody in his right mind would suggest that in their action in recent weeks the nurses have broken any law. They have carried out official trade union action, and no one could say that that was illegal. There is no evidence that last year the miners were breaking any law in taking the industrial action which they did. The party to which the hon. Gentleman belongs was in government at the time. They had a whole battery of laws which they might have invoked against the miners if they had wished. They did not invoke those laws.

Does the hon. Gentleman then support, as being correct union practice to gain an end, the attempt to bring down a Government?

I wish that the hon. Gentleman would not try to put words into my mouth. Whatever foolish words he may put into his own mouth, I hope he will not try to do the same for others. As his speech shows, he is capable of an immense amount of idiocy. He should not attribute the same attitudes to others. No action was taken by the miners which the then Government, made up of the hon. Gentleman's party, thought was illegal.

The speech of the hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) in moving the motion was rather unfortunate. He made holus-bolus accusations against certain right hon. and hon. Members. There is a good deal of meat in the motion. There are certain important legal points we might discuss, but I suggest that in the speeches we have so far heard from the Opposition we have been singularly ill-served.

I must declare an interest in that 1 am a magistrate. As such I am pledged to uphold the law. At no point in my life have I ever publicly advocated that anyone should break any law, however bad it might be. The last Conservative Government were bad enough but my experience in politics goes back 40 years. I have known worse Conservative Governments even than the last one, difficult though that may be for some of my younger colleagues to believe. At no time have I advocated that anyone should break any law. I hope hon. Members will accept that there are many in the House who will feel offended by the general attacks made in the speech of the hon. Member for Chingford. That is the only reason why I have been moved to speak.

I am a great believer in upholding the law and I hope the hon. Gentleman will accept that there are a lot more people in the Labour Party who are much stronger advocates of the rule of law and dedicated defenders of the liberty of the subject than would appear to be the case to anyone from outside the House who reads or hears the remarks made by the hon. Gentleman.

The hon. Member will recall that I was most particular in my comments about two right hon. Members who belong to the Labour Party and who have been very much to the fore in upholding the law—the Secretaries of State for Education and for the Environment. I was quite specific in what I said about the Lord President, his words at the Labour Party Conference and the comments of the New Law Journal upon them. I was quite specific about the quotations I used.

The hon. Gentleman referred to my right hon. Friend the Member for Grimsby (Mr. Crosland) and said that he was the only Government Front Bench spokesman. His words are clearly within my memory, however inaccurate his memory may be. The fact is that my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, East (Mr. Freeson), speaking from the Opposition Dispatch Box as the spokesman for my party in the last Parliament, said on behalf of my party and the Labour Opposition that we deplored people breaking the law. I hope that when his words are read outside the House the remarks of the hon. Member for Chingford will be taken for what they are worth. It is no good the hon. Member for Chingford waving a volume of HANSARD at me. His remarks are on the record and so are mine, together with the remarks of many of my right hon. and hon. Friends. His speech has done a grave disservice to this Parliament and to the terms of the motion about which he was supposed to be speaking.

I should like to join in the congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) on winning a place in the Ballot and on the skill he showed in the way in which he moved the motion. It is an interesting and important motion. I must say I feel that there has been an unexpected degree of sensitivity from the Labour Benches at what has been said.

Certain fundamental points need repeating. If the law is to be

"the prime guarantee of the liberty of the citizen "—

to use a passage from the motion—it must mean that the citizen accepts and recognises the law. Society can only be run by consent—consent in a mood of tolerance, with the acceptance that restrictions must be imposed when society finds certain conduct unacceptable. In part, that is what consent means here. A degree of censorship is necessary when offensive matter may be thrust into the face of people either by direct public display or by indiscriminate postal canvassing to people who are often greatly offended by receiving such material through the post.

That brings me to ask the Minister of State: what is the Government's intention about the recent Bill dealing with this issue started by the last administration and which died upon Dissolution? Is it the intention of the Government to restore it as soon as possible? Consent to accept the rule of law is so implicit in our system that it is only recently that the threat of calculated and organised resistance to laws has become apparent.

In the past our system always recognised that the way to deal with a law which was not liked was, by every legitimate means, to seek to persuade Parliament to change that law. It is because our system operates by consent that our courts are able to function. It is worth thinking about what would happen in a British court if, for example, the jurors said that they refused to try a case, or the witnesses refused to attend, or the ushers refused to carry out their duties, or prison officers refused to bring prisoners, police officers refused to go to court and, unlikely as it is, solicitors refused to instruct counsel and counsel refused to argue the case and even the judge to try it.

Any one of these acts could bring the court to an instant standstill. If it happened by a concerted move across the country our system of administration of justice would stop. It would be pointless to try to apply the sanction of contempt of court. The prisons just would not be big enough.

Parliament works by consent. There were occasions, possibly within the memory of some hon. Members, certainly within the memory of those who have read the biographies of events after the first World War, when operation by consent of the proceedings in this Chamber very nearly broke down. This place can be brought to a halt if consent of the Members to its proper operation is withdrawn. The recent events in London over last weekend, apparently concerned with the IRA, show again what could be the future pattern of calculated disobedience of the law.

I do not want to say more about that because the matter is now being considered, one imagines by the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Attorney-General. It is now nearly a week since those events, and there can be few crimes, if it was a crime, which are better catalogued and about which there is more evidence. We have television film, photographs and the rest. I very much hope that a decision about this will follow soon, since any delay in acting quickly in such cases can only create doubt and uncertainty in the minds of the people, and, I suspect, might encourage a repetition on some other pretext.

It is because the rule of law prevails that individuals do not take the law into their own hands. If a father finds that his daughter has been attacked and raped he lets the law take its course. He does not start a personal vendetta against the attacker. This restraint is an essential factor in a civilised society and is another recognition by the individual that the law must be observed.

It is essential also that those whose duty it is to administer the law should not be subjected to unfair attacks, particularly attacks which impute an unworthy motive. No judge will resent fair criticism, comment or discussion on his decisions, but it is, for example, the allegation of personal bias which is unforgivable and totally unacceptable.

The rule of law, and its observance and acceptance by the citizens, is an essential part of any democracy. The debate has not been well attended but it has raised a certain amount of vehemence, and this has demonstrated the existence of a threat to the foundation of our way of life. If the only result of the debate is that the country outside begins to appreciate that this threat exists the debate will have been totally worth while.

I regard the debate as extremely important. It raises fundamental issues of principle on how we want our society to develop and how we want our laws to be expressed. However, many of the arguments advanced in favour of the motion amply demonstrate why some of us on this side have suspicions as to the basis for its being brought forward. It has been imputed on the Opposition side of the House that those hon. Members who do not sign early-day motions demonstrate a lack of sympathy with them, as if every early-day motion automatically merited a 100 per cent. response by every hon. Member in the House.

It has been suggested that it is the role of an elected Member of Parliament to enforce the law. This is to me a strange concept. Certainly, it is the role of every Member of Parliament to uphold respect for the law, but we have our agents of law enforcement, and I would not want any Member of Parliament, however distinguished, or how little distinguished, to spend a substantial amount of time exhorting the public at large to obey the law. Rather, it is his role to be sensitive to the kinds of law which would best express the public concept of social justice——

Before the hon. Gentleman gets too far away from the point regarding early-day motions, he will recall that the early-day motion to which I referred, No. 156, was not just one of a hundred or so which go down—very few of which I sign myself—but was an official Opposition early-day motion and the signatories to it were led by the Leader of the then Opposition and his Shadow Cabinet colleagues.

I recognise part of the hon. Gentleman's point. However, 1 still think that the situation obtains, and will be recognised by even the newest Members of the House, that an early-day motion has limited significance in the political role it plays, and I find it difficult to accept the argument that non-signatories to the motion disclaim any support for it.

I emphasise that we on this side of the House recognise that the law is the prime guarantee of the liberty of the individual, but liberty is a fragile flower, and to flourish it needs rather more than a fence or a boundary of law against those who would trample on it. The flower of liberty also needs the food from the good rich soil of good social relations and concepts of social justice and, in particular, from respect for minorities and the weaker members of society. This is an argument which was clearly advanced by John Stuart Mill anticipating the age of democratic politics in terms of the necessity for the majority to recognise and protect the rights of the minority. The law must not be a weapon of oppression purely because from time to time it commands the support of the majority.

If we bring to bear in this argument Northern Ireland to which there have been many references in the debate, we should get several facts clear in our mind. The first is that hon. Members opposite seem to think that the recent demonstrations of lawlessness in Northern Ireland are a reflection of recent developments in our society, but many of us recognise that the Northern Ireland situation was born in many respects out of defiance of the law, and it was a representative of the main Opposition party who argued that Ulster would fight and Ulster would be right over the issue of Home Rule.

In the 50 years of Irish history which has since developed one aspect of the situation which gave rise to the Civil Rights movement in the mid-1960s was the inability of the minority to protect rights or to get from the majority a recognition of such rights. Such movements do not flourish unless a deep and abiding sense of social justice obtains in such a society. We must recognise that those who argue that respect for the law is paramount must equally recognise the obligation of those who make the law to be sensitive to the needs of such minorities.

Government in a democratic society must be by consent. Passing of laws which manifestly do not command the consent of the people but reflect perhaps the position of superiority of one party at a particular point in time is the way to bring this House into disrepute. We recognise the opposition and criticism advanced on many sides throughout the country, not just by hon. Members present on the then Opposition side of the Chamber, worries about the Industrial Relations Act—that it was an intrusion of legislation into areas in which it would not be acceptable to the majority of the people. Equally well is it proven that a substantial number of people, by their judgment at the last election, rejected this intrusion of the law into this area of particularly sensitive social relations——

Does the hon. Gentleman say that in future there is to be no law on this matter because to intrude the law into this area is not permissible because, for the time being, there is a minority Labour Government in power? I do not know from where he produces the idea that a majority opposed that law. Is there to be no law any more, or am I to be free if I wish to oppose his new law?

The point I was seeking to establish in terms of majority opinion rejecting concepts of the Industrial Relations Act was well attested by the fact that two parties—the present Government party and the Liberal Party—contested the last election on a platform of opposition to industrial relations legislation and its early repeal, and these two parties clearly commanded a substantial majority of public opinion in support of that position.

The danger is that this motion, instead of discussing the principles and basis of a democratic society—and as has shown in two of the speeches to which we have been subjected from the Opposition— has been used as a thinly veiled attack on the right to strike. The miners broke no law by the action which they took in February. Nor are the nurses guilty of breaking the law. Those who have denied social justice to groups such as the nurses should recognise that substantial action against the Government will be forthcoming from all those who believe that social justice is not present in our relationships in society.

Therefore, in order to promote respect for the law we as law makers must have respect for and be sensitive to social developments in society. We must ensure that our laws are based on the concept of consent. When the laws have the agreement of the majority of the population they are upheld. On this basis we can assuredly advocate that we have the right to demand respect for the law, but laws which do not enshrine concepts of social justice, laws which seem to be motivated from the basis of limited ideological predilection, such as the Industrial Relations Act, not only cause disruption in industry but inevitably bring into disrepute the concepts of law on which a democracy must be founded.

As a Member for a Greater London constituency I am greatly alarmed by the serious manpower problems of the Metropolitan Police. The basis of law and order in Greater London is undermined by manpower shortages. I represent a constituency sometimes described as "the copper belt" because of the number of Metropolitan Police officers who live in Welling and Bexleyheath.

The shortage of police in Greater London is not a new problem. What is new is the dramatic acceleration in the wastage rate. I am convinced that the policing problems are far worse in Greater London than they are elsewhere. It is a vicious circle. A shortage of officers imposes a greater strain on those who remain in the force and makes police work even more unpopular as a career.

In a recent speech the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police said:

"We cannot go on for ever losing men at this rate without being required to consider new and experimental methods of policing. The beat system may have to go in some areas where there is a dire shortage and we would have to rely on team or 'fire brigade' policing, drafting the men into an area when required for emergencies".

If that speech did not trigger off the alarm bells in the House, it certainly should have done; I view what I believe to be an accurate observation with considerable alarm. It is a frightening prospect that the police should be regarded as being available only in emergency cases, rather like the fire brigade.

How can we solve the problem? I am convinced that the national pay scales for the police must be upped. It is a basic point that when there is a threat to law and order we should go out of our way to insure that the police are adequately paid. That raises the vexed problem of the London allowance. The police in the Greater London area are in a special position and they must be specially looked after. I blame the Police Federation for being slow to appreciate the special problems of its officers in the Greater London area.

Weekend duties are a major cause of the police shortage. All too many officers in Greater London are working a six-day week. That cannot go on indefinitely. One reason for the increased number of weekend duties is the crazy altitude that if someone has a point to make he must organise a demonstration, starting in Hyde Park and ending at Trafalgar Square. It is high time that we grew out of that idiotic phase. It is not lost on the Metropolitan Police that almost invariably the demonstrations are organised not by the Right but by the Left. There are too many totally unnecessary demonstrations in London and they pose an unwelcome, and indeed unnecessary, strain on our loyal, hardworking, devoted police officers. They impose considerable strains on the family lives of police officers. That is another reason for regretting them. I mention briefly the complaints procedure against members of the police force as I believe that it ties in with the whole problem. I hope that the police will come to realise that there must be greater public participation in the investigation of complaints against individual police officers. I believe that there is a move in that direction, and I welcome it.

I come from a military background. It was the practice for Army officers at a court-martial to try Army personnel. That was sensible and, of course, the Press was allowed to be present. I should like to see far more public involvement in complaints against police officers.

I now refer to the problems of a small part of New Scotland Yard—namely the fingerprint department, which has been undergoing considerable strains. Hon. Members will know that there have been considerable wastage problems within the department. I am delighted to learn that progress is being made on the pay dispute which has worried many hon. Members. But even if the pay problems within the department are sorted out, a lot more needs to be done to the career structure within the department.

I shall not bore the House with the details but the present state of affairs is unsatisfactory. I draw attention to another speech which was made by the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. He said:

"Dissatisfaction with their pay"—

that is, in the fingerprint department—

"is such that we have lost 87 out of 288 last year…. The result is that one of the most essential weapons in the police armoury is blunted and policemen themselves can do nothing about it. When you consider the vital importance of fingerprint evidence in some of the most important and difficult cases—the London bombers' trial, for example—the dangers of this situation become only too painfully clear."

I am sure that the commissioner's observations will not be wasted on hon. Members.

Finally, I mention a matter which is the subject of an early-day motion. I believe that it falls within the whole problem of law and order. I refer to the totally unnecessary interview on BBC television last week with a gentleman who claimed to be the leader of the Provisional IRA. We have had on television in the past innumerable interviews with members of Sinn Fein and other IRA members. It is an extraordinary state of affairs that the BBC in its wisdom staged a long interview with a man who claimed to be the leader of the Provisional IRA and showed the interview on "Midweek".

I happened to see the programme. Like most hon. Members, I do not normally have a chance to watch television. My reaction was one of total wonderment. There was no explanation of why a man who in his own country—I presume that the interview took place in Southern Ireland—is presumably a member of a proscribed organisation should appear on BBC television. No apology or any other sort of statement was produced in advance. When I discussed the programme with those around me, they were baffled. I discovered last week that some 70 hon. Members were equally baffled by what had taken place. That sort of programme undermines respect for law and order.

Surely the most important thing is that the members of the BBC who arranged and conducted the interview knew that they were talking to a man who was wanted by the police, yet they did nothing to co-operate with the police by informing them but carried on and gave him a platform.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I hope that the Director-General and the Governors of the BBC will take note of the strong feelings in the House about the interview.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath (Mr. Townsend) raised a matter which is of considerable significance in my constituency. He spoke of the number of policemen involved in dealing with the demonstration over the weekend. In the last three years there has been a festival of pop fans in Windsor Great Park. At first about 2,000 people attended, but I am told that this year 30,000 people are expected. Large numbers of police will have to be drawn from the Thames Valley, and helicopters and radio will be needed for this one event which is clearly illegal and against the law of the land under the regulations which have been made to apply to the park by Parliament. There will be 30,000 people there, with no provision for sanitation, and that is in clear breach of the law.

I have no complaint about the police, but last year they were incapable of containing this demonstration. We shall face a similar situation in August, to which I am sure the attention of the Minister will be drawn nearer the time. Many people, both in Windsor and outside, are extremely worried about the conduct of pop festivals. Last year a large number of teenagers committed drug offences. Such events are just one more reflection of the breakdown in law and order, and I hope later to draw to the Minister's attention the details of a problem which is becoming serious in my constituency.

The difficulties of a debate upon a general subject of this kind are two-fold. One difficulty is peculiar to the Minister who has to reply. It is impossible for a Minister to be properly briefed upon the multifarious aspects of a subject matter such as this which may be raised in the debate. When I asked the hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) what he had in mind he was able to point only to some matters that he would raise. I must apologise to the House initially if I do not deal with, or deal inadequately with, every matter that has been raised.

The hon. Member for Windsor and Maidenhead (Dr. Glyn) asked a question and left the Chamber. I can only reply to him from my recollection, which is that, although a Bill was introduced into the House to deal with the situation he has in mind, it never became law. To talk in terms of a breach of law when there is no law is to add to the confusion created by Opposition Members in the debate. When we are talking about the liberty of the citizen and breach of the law we should be specific about where there is a breach of the law and about where the liberty of the individual has been impinged by the activity of any other individual.

We live in a free society. By "a free society" we mean that anyone can do whatever he likes within the law. But within a free society there would be anarchy if everyone did what he liked irrespective of what other members of society wanted. The difference between anarchy and civilised society is the law. The law is the expression of the will of society that certain laws and certain rules are the way in which the tensions between people exercising conflicting freedoms shall be ironed out.

The purpose of our political system, our politics and our legal system is to express the will of people in society through the machinery of the law. Therefore, of course I uphold the rule of law and subscribe to the sentiments in the motion. The hon. Member for Chine-ford, even before he got out three sentences in moving the motion, asked whether I would accept it from a sedentary position. I had no expectation that if I had done so he would immediately have ended his speech and not availed himself of the opportunity of having a go at the Labour Government and some Labour Members. If he had thought of doing that, I might have been tempted to get up there and then and say that I would accept the motion. The trouble is that we see the concepts which are implicit in the motion from different points of view, and those views have been properly aired in the debate.

The regulations to which I referred were those which control Windsor Great Park, which were laid before Parliament and which, in my view, virtually have the effect of law.

It only underlines what I said were my difficulties in replying to this wide-ranging debate. I hope that the hon. Gentleman does not expect me to cull from memory the regulations for the Royal parks. He may be right in saying that there are some regulations which impinge on this problem. I shall have to look at them and decide whether that is the case. The hon. Gentleman may be right in saying that there is a breach of the law.

To return to my central theme, it is right in a democratic society that the machine for changing society, for ending social problems and for changing the law is the structure which that democratic society has evolved. In this country that structure is Parliament. All parliamentarians would subscribe to the view that the right way to change the law is through parliamentary action. We would deplore any attempt to undermine that principle, but we must also bear in mind—and this point was well made by my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, North (Mr. Davies) in one of the most attractive speeches in the debate—that we cannot, merely by the diktat of a group of 630 members in a society of 60 million, decide that whole groups of people shall do what we wish them to do, however much we regard ourselves as representative merely because we were elected.

In seeking to do what we believe to be right—which I hope is the objective of all Members of Parliament—in calculating what is right we must bear in mind the effect of our legislation on the majority of people who will be affected by it. There is a need for consent before one legislates. The balance is difficult to keep, but it must be kept by any democratic Government who do not want to alienate the public.

Surely the Minister will accept that any Parliament can make mistakes in judging the public view or in the way that Parliament legislates. I think we all accept that. What I am putting to the hon. Gentleman is that, even if it appears to some of us that mistakes have been made and legislation is unsatisfactory or has not the full support of the country, until an election is held and that legislation is repealed or changed the duty of us all is to obey the law and advocate that the law should be obeyed.

I thought I had already said that. I may return to it. But what I am saying now is that my feeling throughout the debate has been that it is a hangover by the hon. Gentleman, I suspect a deliberate hangover, from the General Election. This was one of the issues that came up in the constituencies during the election. We were faced nightly by Conservative spokesmen, including the then Prime Minister, telling the country at large that we were in danger of a breakdown of the rule of law, and that what was really at stake in the election was whether it was possible to govern our people.

The fact that the debate takes place today against the background of an almost empty House, with no real sense of occasion about the subject matter, indicates how far we have progressed even in the few months that this minority Labour Government have been in power. We have seen a total change of attitude and concern.

There is no doubt that in the initial days of the election campaign there was a tension, which reminded me strongly of the 1930s, a tension that I never want to return to. It was a tension that had been engendered in our society by three years of incompetent, muddle-headed, bad government by the last administration. If that Government had never sought to thrust down the throats of many of our people pieces of legislation that were anathema to them, there could never have been any suggestion of a breakdown of law and order.

The fact is that, despite the fervors the Conservatives sought to whip up in the election, they could point to very few instances of a breach of the law. The hon. Member for Yarmouth (Mr. Fell) became almost apoplectic today at the prospect of trade unions holding the Government to ransom, seeking to bring down democratic government. He did not give us chapter and verse for the allegation that any trade union leader had suggested that the coal miners' strike was a political strike designed to bring down the Government. In fact, on one occasion one trade union leader did suggest that. His opinion was rejected by the President of the National Union of Mineworkers and by every other major trade union leader. It was also rejected in the motion to which the hon. Gentleman referred, tabled by my right hon. Friend the present Prime Minister. It was rejected by most people in the country; and the gentleman in question sought to retract it after the initial furore. Therefore, let us have no nonsense about there having been a coal strike which was an attempt to subvert government or the rule of law.

When the people really understood what the coal miners' strike was about there was a wide measure of sympathy for their cause. When the then Prime Minister finally appointed, in the course of the election campaign, the inquiry he had rejected weeks and months earlier, that inquiry found that the claim was justified. Because it was found to be justified, the settlement was made inevitable, and because the settlement was made inevitable we got our people back to work for a five-day working week instead of the three-day working week into which the Government had thrust them by their ideological passion. It was not the coal miners who were subverting the rule of law; it was the Government, by their attitude of trying to thrust down people's throats the kind of measures that were anathema to them.

There was one central feature of the previous Government's policy that was capable of raising the kind of resistance that did, in some cases, result in a breach of the law. That was the Industrial Relations Act. It is true—it is a matter that I regret—that there were two unions which were penalised by the National Industrial Relations Court for contempt. But all of us now accept—including, I suspect, most hon. Members who sit on the Opposition benches—that that ill-judged Act was the cause of much of our bad industrial relations last year. Last year, while this law was on the statute book, it resulted in more days lost through strikes than at any time since the war. It was the record year for days lost through strikes, even though we were living within the framework, so-called, of Tory law.

We have had an interesting few minutes of political propaganda. May we now turn to the motion? When the Minister uses the phrase that Parliament must bear in mind the effect of legislation upon the majority, is he saying that that must be the governing factor? If he is saying that, perhaps he will say what he thinks is the view of the country about capital punishment, and whether he thinks that anyone wants to pay his income tax.

The hon. and learned Gentleman interrupts me in the middle of an argument, for reasons which I can well understand. After all, he would want to avoid the responsibility for some of the acts of the previous Government, just like any other member of that Government. But I will deal with the problems which he has put to me because they are part of the serious examination of this problem.

Yes, of course it is true that, despite the fact that Parliament can rule only by consent and despite the fact that a majority Government, even though they could say that an item was within their mandate, need that element of consent, there are occasions when Governments will be ahead of public opinion. There are times when there is a difficulty in obtaining for what the Government or politicians generally regard as the right policy that degree of majority assent which will allow them to proceed. Capital punishment is one such matter. The difference between the two, I suggest, is that Governments have to assess the depth of feeling that is opposed to the measure which they propose to introduce. In what sense can they accept that even if the majority in the country dissent from their view, they are willing to accept that the law should be put into operation despite the majority's objections? In what sense would it be impossible to obtain the assent of the majority in a way which would allow the legislation to be operated?

I go back to an example which is not politically controversial and which occurred during the period of the previous Labour Government. It was the intention of that Labour Government to introduce a breathalyser law for road safety which would have allowed the police to stop at random any motorist and apply a breathalyser test. There was general support in the House for the concept of a breathalyser test. There was considerable reaction from the public at large to the idea of applying it as a random test. In the end, the Government yielded to that pressure and decided not to push it through. There is no doubt, I think, that had they chosen to use their parliamentary majority to get it through, it would have gone through; and it may be that our experience of the rather muted breath test since will suggest that we ought to have put it through in 1967. In due course, perhaps, we shall have to come back to it.

I suggest that the policy was right. What we found impossible to secure was that degree of assent from the public at large which would allow us, even with our majority, to put it into operation, and, like a sensible Government, we decided not to do so.

I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, because this is most important. He is advancing the thesis, as I see it, that it is up to a Government to make a judgment—I absolutely agree—on whether there is generally within the nation consent for something that they want to do, and if they think there is not likely to be consent enough, they should, perhaps, be of a mind not to put it through. But the essential point is that if it be passed through Parliament it must be obeyed until such time as the democratic rules work and the people put in another Government who may withdraw it. In the meantime, it must be obeyed.

Again, the hon. Gentleman intervenes before I have come to the question he has in mind. I have made the point that before even a democratic Government can pass controversial legislation they have to make this very difficult judgment about whether, even if there is majority dissent, there is at least sufficient assent to accept the legislation and to make it workable. But I agree that if a Government are so foolhardy as to go ahead and pass an unworkable law which will deeply antagonize great sections of the community to whom it applies, none the less the rule of law demands that they obey.

Where one has difficulty, a difficulty which has not yet, apparently, shown itself to the hon. Member for Yarmouth, is that if one applied that principle indiscriminately one would find it extremely hard to rebut the defence of those who were; saying at Nuremberg that they acted in response to an order which came from a properly and lawfully constituted Government.

It was not democratic.

Of course it was not democratic. There is, therefore, a sense in which one has to form a judgment about political institutions. I have long been in favour of the Freedom Fighters in Southern Africa precisely because they are fighting against Governments which are not democratically constituted and because there is no other way open to them to change their society to remove the inherent social injustice which they are fighting.

Equally, within a democratic system— this is a matter which causes the gravest difficulty—where a Government have acted with such intemperate behaviour that a man feels so deeply affronted that he cannot in conscience accept what the law says he should do, we have in the pass: seen such men stand by their convictions. They have gone to prison. But we have welcomed them afterwards as heroes in our history.

It is difficult easily to rebut—I want to rebut it—the comparison which is made by many people between those who stood for conscience in the past and those who stand for conscience now. If I may seek to rebut it, this is where I take my stand. In a civilised society, with a democratic Government, where there is a machine for changing social injustice through political institutions, if the individual feels so strongly affronted by a law which in conscience he feels he must disobey, he has the moral right to disobey, but he must expect to take the punishment which follows from it. Therefore, if a man says that he will risk going to prison for disobeying a law which he cannot accept, one may respect him. But so long as it is a democratic society and there is an institution which can change the structure of government, he must accept the punishment, and he cannot expect that anyone will relieve him of that liability. Therefore, I take the view that it would be wrong in respect of some transgressors of the law in the past to make any kind of concession in that way now.

I come now to two or three separate points which arose——

rose——

I had hoped to finish soon so that we may hear about Concorde.

I shall not delay the hon. Gentleman. I merely put it to him quite bluntly and brutally: Does he agree or disagree with the present Lord President's acceptance and welcome for the Labour Party conference pledge to recompense and remove the disqualification from the Clay Cross councillors? It is a simple question.

I agree entirely with what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said in his statement to the House about that matter. The Government have not said that they will in any way remove the disqualification.

For the rest, I have made my position plain. What I wanted to do was deal with one or two specific items in the debate which need an answer. The first is the general assertion—and most of the speech of the hon. Member for Chingford consisted of assertions—that so many policemen have now been murdered in the course of their duty that it is a matter of such little importance that it attracts attention only in the back columns of the local Press. Since 1966 six police officers have been killed on duty. Although one deplores that any police officers should be murdered, one should bear this figure in mind in relation to the enormous number of offences that are committed against our law in the course of the average year.

Murder of a policeman is a very rare offence. It is very rare because it is almost certainly solved. The culprit is apprehended and brought to justice. If we could have that degree of detection throughout the whole range of our law, there would be a marked reduction in crime. Although I sympathise with a great deal of what was said by the hon. Member for Bexleyheath (Mr. Townsend) about the London police force— and we are doing our best to solve some of the very difficult problems which we inherited—one of the best things which have happened in recent years is that the detection rate has gone up, including in the Metropolitan force. So there is some improvement to that extent.

The next thing I can deal with because it relates to my specific responsibility is the suggestion of the hon. Member for Chingford that my right hon. Friend's declaration that he would not use the retrospective powers to remove the illegal entrants under the Immigration Act 1971 was in some way a breach of the rule of law. It could not be anything of the kind. By its nature, the Act indicates that the Home Secretary has a discretion. If he chooses to use his discretion in one way, he is not in any way breaching the law.

The reason why we chose to take this action only in the limited number of cases that come within the class of what has been called the "amnesty" was that we could not accept that, where people before 1973 had acquired immunity from removal under the old law in a way that gave them the right to stay here as long as they wished, they could have that immunity removed from them by legislation which was retrospective in its effect, was never properly discussed in this House, was never drawn to the attention of either House of Parliament, and in that way sought to undermine a right that these people had acquired, even if initially they had broken the law in entering the country. Therefore, we said that it was against the rule of law to operate such a practice. The hon. Gentleman talked about the Burma Oil Company case. No doubt along with his colleagues then in the House he deplored the retrospective legislation to right a matter relating to Burmah Oil as being totally wrong, and as a result of the reaction in the House of Lords the Labour Government withdrew that piece of legislation. What is right for property must be right for blackmail, and that is why we would not use these powers under the 1971 Act, which were retrospective in effect and were unjust in application. I think that I ought now to close my speech.

rose-——-

I ought now to close——

Windy.

I have given way three times to the hon. Gentleman, so I cannot be described as "windy". The hon. Member for Christchurch and Limington (Mr. Adley) is waiting to air at least some of his views about Concorde.

We do not accept the tone or the nature of the comments of the hon. Member for Chingford about the motion, but we are quite prepared to accept its general terms.

I beg to move,

That this House understands that man flies rather than sails the oceans in order to save time; believes that supersonic transatlantic flight in 31/2 hours will attract custom; further believes that airline passengers will demand supersonic flight from the airlines; notes that Concorde exists; recalls that, historically, new British civil aircraft receive an unenthusiastic welcome not only from 'professional' critics but also from our nationalised airlines; remembers the development stage of the world's first turbine-powered aeroplanes, the Viscount, also the VC10; notes that British aerospace companies are currently achieving annual exports around £500,000,000, much of which emanates from decisions taken 25 years ago; condemns the Government's pathetic stance, caused by a split Cabinet; and now calls on the Government and British Airways to stop twittering about the difficulties and get on with the job of putting Concorde into service, so that, in a quarter of a century, we shall be able accurately to measure its value to the nation.

Being called to move the third motion on a Friday presents almost as difficult an exercise as bringing Concorde into service, in that from time to time one gets the impression that there are others almost deliberately seeking to prevent one from attaining that objective. I have only 20 minutes and I shall not make a long speech.

I start by thanking the manufacturers of Concorde for flying the aircraft from Paris to Boston in 3 hours 9 minutes yesterday in order to allow me to congratulate them in the House of Commons today. The fact that when the news of that event appeared on the tape last night one was able at very short notice to get a number of hon. Members, hon. Friends and hon. Members from the Labour Party, immediately to sign emotion congratulating the manufacturers and urging British Airways to put the aeroplane into service at the earliest possible date is an indication of the continuing interest and support for the Concorde project on both sides of the House.

That is not to say that the opinion of the House or of both parties is unanimous. There are many people who have followed this project for many years, however, and who now feel that we are approaching the final and crucial stage when at last we see this great aircraft about to come into service. There are many people on both sides of the argument who have well-known views, and in my brief remarks I shall try to aim at the middle ground.

We get so much paper for and against Concorde and so many figures about supersonic aviation generally and Concorde in particular that it is almost impossible to base one's judgment on figures provided within or outside the House. But one statement on which we can all agree is that Concorde works.

I want briefly to quote the words of my right hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Mr. Amery) when he said in 1962:

"I have today signed an agreement with the French Ambassador for the development and production of a supersonic airliner. This will be a joint project undertaken by Britain and France together.

The aircraft will be a slender-wing airliner built mainly of light allow. It will have a cruising speed of about Mach 2·2; that is, about 1,400 mph. At this speed, it would cut the present Atlantic crossing from 71/2 hours to about 3 hours, and the flying time from London to Sydney from about 27 hours to 13 hours."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th November 1962; Vol. 668, c. 670.]

As we saw yesterday and earlier this week, when Concorde flew to Rio with my hon. Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, South-West (Mr. Dodsworth) as one of the passengers, no one can deny that Concorde will achieve all the design objectives for which it was originally intended when my right hon. Friend made that announcement all those years ago.

Of course inflation has hit the cost of Concorde very hard. It has been easy to decry the project on the basis that it is so much more expensive than was originally intended, but I can think of very few projects about which one could not say that. One now has to ask oneself a simple question about Concorde, and the future of Concorde will depend on whether the answer is yea or nay. Will people fly in it? Will the customer want to fly across the Atlantic in 3 hours 9 minutes, or would he prefer to spend 7 or 71/2 hours on some other kind of aeroplanes?

I do not deny that many people would prefer to go by ship, to spend five days crossing the Atlantic. However, as I have said, in the main people tend to fly in order to save time, and the history of civil aviation shows crystal clearly that the development and introduction of fast new aircraft has been the decisive factor in attracting customers to those airlines that have operated such aircraft.

As we approach the final phase, those of us who support the project have to do so in the face of the professional knockers, the faint-hearted, those malicious people who can never see anything good in anything British, the "clever" journalists who always find it hard to accept any developments of this sort, and, not least, those people who are financially motivated in wishing Concorde not to succeed.

I do not have a great deal of time to go into this subject, but it is clear to anyone who knows anything about the aircraft manufacturing business that American aircraft manufacturers are not exactly happy that Britain and France together will soon be selling aircraft to the major airlines on the North American continent. There are people who have a clear financial motivation for causing Concorde to fail.

There are, as I have said, always those who have their doubts about any new project. If I may do so with due modesty, I should like to quote my remarks when in a debate on the subject I quoted what was said at the opening of the Stockton and Darlington Railway in 1830:

"It is safe to say that of the many people who traveled from afar to watch the chief actress—the locomotive—play her part in this novel drama, only one in ten wished her a long run. The rest·hoped for, and indeed confidently forecast, her speedy failure. Rumors that the locomotives had not proved as economical as horses, and that the Company was about to abandon them, were circulated so assiduously that years afterwards, writers of railway history would give them fresh currency."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, llth December 1972; Vol. 848, c. 129.]

I do not believe that there is much difference from those who believe that Concorde is not a viable project.

As I have said, I believe that the argument will finally be settled by the decision of the customer whether he wants to fly in the aircraft. That means that Concorde's future depends on the marketing argument. As someone who has been involved in marketing for many years I have no doubt whatever that the project is a winner. I am sorry that British Airways, which does not have a very good record in supporting new British civil aviation projects, has during the past few months from time to time given the impression that it is not exactly wholeheartedly looking forward to the arrival of Concorde.

Would my hon. Friend agree that the recent gloomy propaganda has obscured the fact that in its appraisal document British Airways said that it would operate Concorde at a profit of £1·1 million? Would he also agree that the document is anaemic and flabby and has no flair or inspiration whatever? Does he further agree that if people like those who now run British Airways had been around in the past we would probably still be evaluating the wheel as a dangerous technological innovation and one which would not make any money?

There is no doubt that if Mr. David Nicholson and Mr. Henry Mark were to go through the Press releases which their airline issues they would probably knock out a number of "ifs" and "buts". My hon. Friend will be aware that the Press release of 31st May by British Airways said:

"British Airways makes no claim to infallibility in its assessment of the future, and in this matter our forecasts may prove to be wrong. We hope they are wrong."

Unfortunately, British Airways has a record of being wrong when it comes to assessing the marketing capability of new aircraft. We need only think of the VC 10 to prove that point.

The point my hon. Friend makes is that British Airways has given the impression that somehow Concorde will be unique in having operating difficulties which it might place in the midst of British Airways' balance sheet. Even Pan American and Trans World Airlines are now making a case out to the American Government to obtain subsidies for operating the Boeing 747.

One question we have to ask is: are airlines, like railways, entering an era when profitable operation is impossible? Mr. Freddie Laker does not think so. British Airways' attitude causes me to wish that it had a little more spirit of adventure, even as great a spirit of adventure as Monsieur Pierre Cot, President of Air France, who, on 22nd February, addressing the French Chamber of Commerce in Montreal, said:

"We are confident of filling our Concordes. I am confident we shall win the commercial challenge of this aircraft."

It seems that British Airways sometimes looks at a glass of water and says that it is half empty while Air France looks at it and says that it is half full.

I find it sad that it is the French partners in this project who are taking the lead in the adventurous flights to Rio and Boston.

I have referred in the motion to the fact that there is a difference of opinion in the Cabinet about this issue. This is not something I deduced by listening secretly at keyholes. The Secretary of State for Employment admits to being a long-time member of the group which has always opposed this project. The Secretary of State for the Home Department was responsible for the miserable attempt to cancel the aircraft in 1969. Thanks to the skill of my right hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion in drawing up the contract with his French partners in 1962, this attempt failed.

I stand shoulder to shoulder with the Secretary of State for Industry. I am delighted to see a Minister from his Department present this afternoon. I am sorry that I shall not be able to give him a great deal of time in which to reply to the debate. The tactics of the Secretary of State have been dangerous, adventurous, but, I hope, successful. As soon as the Labour Government came into office he decided that he would not sit back and wait for some secret Cabinet committee to announce, in the middle of the Summer Recess, that Concorde would be cancelled. He decided that he would take the battle into the enemy camp. So he produced a lot of figures which he has not even tried to justify. He has done a great deal to mobilise the trade union movement in challenging these figures. He has done a power of good by whipping up a great deal of interest in the project.

Although some of my hon. Friends may not agree with the right hon. Gentleman, I am grateful to him for the way he is conducting this campaign. More power to his elbow. Projects the size of Concorde which take 10 or even 15 years from initiation through development to the final stage cannot possibly be judged in five minutes or even five years after they have come to fruition. We are putting £500 million worth of exports of aerospace equipment through Britain's books at the moment. Much of this total is the result of decisions taken 25 years ago. It will be all of 25 years from today when we will be able to judge whether Concorde has been a profit-maker or a loss-maker for the nation. It is not possible to give a sensible answer within five years of its development, let alone at this stage before the aircraft has got into service.

Concorde will provide jobs, and gives us pride and prestige, but unless and until this country discovers how to grow rice or discovers vast resources of copper which could be exported we shall have only our brains on which we can base our export efforts. I hope therefore that the Government, after due consideration, will come out firmly in favour of this great Anglo-French project.

The motion calls attention to future supersonic civil aviation and is most timely. As the hon. Member for Christchurch and Lymington (Mr. Adley) said, we had a great achievement yesterday, in connection with which he and I joined together in an early-day motion, in the flight of Concorde to Boston in 3 hours 9 minutes. That was something of which the House—indeed, the whole country—ought to be very proud.

We are told that the Government are at present reviewing the entire Concorde project in the light of figures produced by BAC and British Airways, in which there is a conflict of view. Some of us on this side of the House are most upset that the Government have not taken account of an early-day motion, signed by 80 hon. Members on this side of the House, calling for the setting up of a Select Committee on Concorde to look into the figures in an independent manner, after which we could perhaps consider in depth which figures are correct. I believe that this is necessary, because in reviewing the future of Concorde we are in effect saying whether we are to remain in the supersonic race at all.

There is no future for this country in supersonic engineering should Concorde by some mischance be cancelled. But such a decision by the British Government would in no way preclude the supersonic race continuing elsewhere. The hon. Member for Christchurch and Lymington was right in saying that the great beneficiary of our cancellation would be the Americans, but the Russians are also in the field and are stepping up production of their aircraft.

If the British Government decide not to continue with Concorde, it would by no means be certain that the French would not decide to go ahead on their own, and thus we might in the foreseeable future have the degrading fact of a French-produced Concorde landing at Heathrow while we in this country did not have the "guts" to carry on with the project when we were almost at the end of the road.

I stress that a Select Committee should look at this matter because we, in partnership with the French, are well in front in the supersonic field. I recognise that the Government will want to speak to the new French Government, but it is essential that we do not step aside in the supersonic race and leave it to others, because the only beneficiaries can be the Americans——

Object.

Second Reading what day? No day named.

Object.

Second Reading what day?

Friday next.

Has the hon. Gentleman the necessary authority from the hon. Lady the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight)?

Yes, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Object.

Second Reading what day? No day named.

Object.

Second Reading what day? No day named.

Object.

Second Reading what day? No day named.

Object.

The motion is not agreed to.

I am grateful for this opportunity, even if it is at two minutes past four o'clock on a Friday, to air some of the problems which are facing horticulturists, and particularly glasshouse growers. We were due to have a longer debate on this subject on the Adjournment motion for the Easter Recess, but unfortunately it was surrendered at the last moment and, although in the agriculture debate horticulturists were mentioned briefly by the hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Hastings), he was the only Member who referred to their problems. The debate understandably was concentrated on the crisis facing livestock producers. Horticulturists' problems certainly have not become any better since. In fact the situation has deteriorated during the last week.

I hope that we shall have an announcement of help on this subject from the Minister when he returns from Brussels in the middle of next week. I wish him luck in his deliberations in Brussels. I am grateful to him for agreeing to see me on this matter next Thursday, but as he is going to Brussels I hope he will acquaint himself with what aid is being offered to the glasshouse growers of the European Economic Community. Although he has provided a subsidy of 6p on heating oil until the end of this month, for which we are grateful, and a lower subsidy of 4p to the end of the current year, my information is that almost all our colleagues in the EEC, and particularly the Dutch, have been treated more generously.

After some fairly complicated maneuvers I gather that the oil price for the Dutch has been fixed at about 9p a gallon, which is about half the rate applying in the United Kingdom without taking into account the subsidy. Gas prices have been equated at about the same figure. The Dutch growers have enjoyed a grant of £500 per burner for converting to gas heating. I am told that 60 per cent. of growers in Holland have already carried out the conversion.

I am indebted to the Lea Valley Growers' Association for supplying me with its "Newsletter" and to the NFU for the information which it has supplied. In Belgium, for instance, assistance is being offered in the form of capital grants and reduction of VAT. In France we are told that 47.6 million francs has been provided. That has probably been provided through the equivalent of a FEOGA fund, a farm and horticulture development scheme and remission of tax. Germany has had £21½ million provided from funding by separate lander—namely, regions or counties. We are not sure exactly what has happened in Italy. No doubt the present crisis has not helped matters.

I represent a constituency in which a considerable expansion in the glasshouse industry has been actively encouraged to take place by previous Governments over the past 10 years. Growers displaced from the Lea Valley and elsewhere have invested substantial sums in the Arreton Valley, the light intensity and soil structure of which is claimed to be amongst the finest in the United Kingdom. New buildings costing up to £40,000—and goodness knows how much more they may cost as a result of inflation—have been erected. There are now approximately 30 acres which are covered by glass. All the glasshouses are heated by oil. Twenty acres are devoted to tomatoes and cucumbers and the remainder is concentrated on cut flowers, particularly roses, carnations and chrysanthemums. Many are exported and I believe that some go as far a field as Hong Kong.

The advisory services of the Ministry have rightly actively encouraged such development. Up to last year all was set fair for a prosperous future. Then came the crushing blow of the oil price increases. Since then prices have trebled. The Minister's Easter announcement as temporarily conceived was not over-generous. My constituents and growers throughout the United Kingdom want to know where they go next. It seems that there is no long-term plan. There has been no guidance from the Ministry.

Are the growers to turn to coal? I gather that the cost of converting modern oil heaters to coal burning works out at approximately £5,000 an acre. Or are the growers to convert to gas? Will they receive any grant-aid to do so? Is it the case that the Minister is intending to continue the present scheme? If so, will he say so now and guarantee to increase the subsidy as oil costs increase? I suggest that that should be done in the same way as the Dutch have subsidised the increased costs of gas and oil.

The position is that my growers cannot be supplied with gas in sufficient quantities before 1976 at the earliest. Whatever form of heating is decided upon, it must be based on a hot water system and not on hot air.

The glasshouse industry has a total annual output of £72 million. It is believed that some £100 million has been invested in the industry with the aid of the Horticultural Advisory Services during the past 10 years. The industry is extremely efficient and is able to meet all fair competition. All that it needs is long-term assurances. I shall briefly refer to some fairly simple aids which the Minister should consider seriously and which would help the industry.

First, I ask for the removal of VAT on cut flowers. I ask the Minister to persuade his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer to forgo that imposition, which is having a serious effect on the number of outlets that are open to producers. We all know that some small greengrocers used to sell quite a few bunches of flowers but I gather that now, because of the trouble involved in the collection of VAT, they cannot be bothered to do so. Flowers are dear enough already, but they bring some joy into the lives of most of us, and particularly the old and the sick.

Further, I ask the Minister to bring back the lime fertiliser subsidy. That would be generally welcomed by the agricultural industry. I do not believe that the return of that subsidy would offend the common agricultural policy.

Other matters which I should have liked to mention include the import subsidised tomatoes from Ireland and the cheap cucumbers which are coming here from Romania, but it is the cost of oil that is the main source of worry. Time is short. It is probably already too late to do anything before the end of next season. An announcement is therefore needed now.

In a letter to me, the county secretary of the local NFU said:

"Our members are not asking for anything more than their European counterparts will receive. All they want is fair competition and some idea of what the Government want them to use as fuel for their glasshouse heating."

We have just has a short debate on Concorde, but at this critical time we must get our priorities right. It is more essential to pay attention to the needs of our farmers and growers, otherwise we may be facing starvation in the years ahead.

We are all grateful to the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Ross) for his initiative in raising the subject of the future of the horticulture industry. As he said, we were to have had a lengthy debate on horticulture on the day before the Easter Recess, but the announcement made by my right hon. Friend of the help we were to give to the industry removed the desire of the House for a debate on the subject. In consequence, we have waited until today to talk about it.

Horticulture is an important part of our agricultural life. The horticulture industry's output as a whole is valued at more than £400 million a year, and the glasshouse sector, to which the hon. Gentleman specifically referred, accounts for almost one-quarter of that. There is no tendency for the Government or anyone else to underestimate the importance of the horticulture industry and the glasshouse sector of it to the country's economy. The Government are no less appreciative of the value of all parts of the industry in providing the consumer with its varied produce and making a significant contribution to import saving than is the hon. Gentleman.

The hon. Gentleman raised the question of the glasshouse subsidy and asked what is happening on the Continent and how we see the future. The Government treated seriously the representations made by the hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members on both sides of the House about the effects of increased oil prices on the economy and on the industry. As I said, my right hon. Friend announced on 11th April that it was proposed to introduce a temporary subsidy—it is important to bear in mind that it is temporary —to assist growers to adapt to the sharp increases in fuel prices which occurred in the autumn of last year and the spring of this year. That announcement was received by representatives of the industry with considerable satisfaction. The subsidy has been set at a reducing rate of 6p a gallon until the end of this month and 4p a gallon from the end of this month until the end of December. I cannot stress too vigorously that it is intended as temporary relief to the industry to enable it to adjust its costs and practices in the light of increased fuel costs. There is no intention of extending it beyond the end of this year.

The hon. Gentleman is concentrating on the word "temporary". This worries me, because I understand that even now Dutch growers are paying only about half the cost of fuel. It may be slightly more than that, but it is certainly less overall than we are paying. I understood also that the relief was to continue to the end of 1975. As the Minister is going to Brussels, this is an opportune time to ask him to make sure that we are on an even keel with producers on the Continent so that we do not have unfair competition from them.

I will come to what is going on on the Continent, but it may perhaps be said that Dutchmen propose and Commissioners dispose.

We are advising industry that it must look at methods and must adjust techniques to take care of the situation as far ahead as we can in terms of high fuel costs. We have no intention of providing Government assistance beyond the end of this year. This means that horticulturists will have to adjust to oil costs. This depends to a large extent on the price of the product, over which growers have little control, and on the level of imports.

I am sorry that I have no information about the situation in Belgium, but we watch the situation on the Continent closely. The key point about the Dutch situation is that the Dutch are in a favourable position in providing fuel for their horticulturists. They have a large supply of natural gas—not from the North Sea, but in the province of Groningen—and can readily take advantage of that gas and make it available to their horticulturists. Their regime is not a subsidy as such. They adjust their natural gas price to the oil price of four quarters earlier. This may not prove to be so much a subsidy on natural gas users as a slight disadvantage to those who use oil burners. This is probably the major aim of the policy which they have adopted.

The Dutch have stepped up connection grants—grants given when one switches from oil to natural gas. We in this country also provide connection grants for those who use natural gas. The price of natural gas in Holland has not yet reflected the major increases which took place in the price of oil in the autumn last year and in the spring of this year. Those increases are still to be felt by the Dutch.

Larger users in Holland get the industrial rate but—if I may put it in this slightly complicated way—the smaller of the larger users may get a lower tariff. So far as we can see users of oil burners can claim 2p per gallon on what they use and can borrow money to buy oil at a low rate of interest, about 5 per cent. That amounts to another 2p per gallon. That does not compare favourably with the level of subsidy on oil which we were providing for the first six months of this year and compares only with what we are doing for the second six months.

The French are providing about £4 million, and we calculate that it will be paid out on heated glass. This will apply for the first six months of 1974, and for the second six-month period no arrangement has been made. That compares with our subsidy of £4½ million in the current year. The Germans are paying £6½ million for glasshouse growing and fodder drying. We are unable to sort out the amounts of subsidy between glasshouse growing and fodder drying, but mostly the subsidy will go to glasshouse growers.

The Dutch, the French, the Germans and ourselves have submitted proposals to the Commission that this action be allowed, and the Commission has probably decided only today what exactly it will allow. I am not in a position to announce what the Commission has decided to allow, but such preliminary calculations as we have made in our Ministry lead us to believe that our subsidy will be able to go ahead until the end of the year as planned by us. That is the general position. We shall look into the question of converting more of our growers to using natural gas, but I am afraid that the position there is that the gas available from the North Sea is already committed to various buyers. Therefore, I suppose that there will have to be increased capital investment in the North Sea if increased supplies of natural gas are to be made available to our horticulturists. This will take time.

Horticulturists will have to do their sums in respect of their own installations and livelihoods, and work out whether they should stick to oil, wait for natural gas or perhaps convert to coal. They will have to watch the market, work out what will be best for them and do what they can to help themselves. The subsidy is merely temporary interim relief to allow the industry to adjust to the situation it now faces.

We take the hon. Gentleman's point on VAT. He is no doubt aware that a producer who pays VAT on his flowers can apply to the Customs and Excise to have the VAT repaid. At least there is that help.

The best thing I can say on the lime subsidy is that I, along with the great majority of the British public, have been told by the President of the National Farmers' Union that we are to reintroduce the subsidy. No such announcement has been made about the general fertiliser subsidy. I think that the hon. Gentleman was a little off-beam when he said that these subsidies did not offend against the Common Market regime. I would not say that what we do would ever offend against the Common Market regime, but I would say that there are some ways of being less offensive than others. I suppose that the lime subsidy is a way of being less offensive than others against the rules.

I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman did not raise the question of Irish tomatoes. Our assessment is that the improvement in the transitional amounts as a result of the European Court's decision on Irish tomatoes is not likely to afford any increased competition to our growers and tomato marketers in this country.

We are very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising the topic. I hope that some of the information I have given——

Many growers and horticulturists who read reports of this debate will be rather unhappy with the hon. Gentleman's reply. Nobody likes being subsidised, farmers and horticulturists least of all, because they feel that they should get their return from the market. Horticulturists are extremely efficient producers, and they faced up to the competition from the Common Market very well. They were going places when the oil crisis hit them.

Will the Minister please think again about guidelines over the next two or three years? I take the point that we may be able to turn to gas or coal, but it is a hard decision for producers to have to make when they have just installed expensive, modern oil-burning heaters, with Government financial assistance. It will cost about £5,000 an acre to convert, and no grants are being offered. It is an enormous decision to have to make, and it may well prove to be wrong, when we are told about the abundance of North Sea oil that we shall have shortly.

We have had a rather dismal answer. Further consideration must be given to whether guidelines can be provided for horticulturists on what they are to do in the next two or three years, when we all hope that subsidies will no longer be needed.

I should not like the hon. Gentleman to leave the debate with the thought that there will be no long-term guidelines for horticulture. That was not what I said. I said that as far as we can see there will be no long-term subsidy for fuel costs for horticulture. That will come to an end at the end of this year.

I shall take back to the Ministry the point the hon. Gentleman has just made, though I shall not be able to give a great deal of thought to alternatives because I am departing for another office on Monday. But I shall certainly ensure that the hon. Gentleman's message is referred to the Ministry, and we shall think about it.

I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman.