I beg to move,

That this House disapproves of the holding of planning inquiries in secret, except in the interests of defence and national security.

The House has been in continuous session for over 20 hours and I should like to express my appreciation to those who have made it possible for today's business to take place.

I think that most people regard a planning inquiry and a public inquiry as one and the same thing, but that is not so. What we used to call a public inquiry may now take place behind closed doors. A citizen may decide to attend a planning inquiry. The application may affect his house, village or community. He may wish to listen or to give evidence. But when he reaches the town hall, he may find that he is refused admission. As a member of the public he cannot count on being admitted to the hearing. He is no longer entitled automatically to attend. This fact has become apparent only as a result of events in my constituency. I find this a disturbing development, and when a citizen's freedom is curtailed I think it right that this House should know of it.

Through force of circumstances and not my own choosing, I have become a reluctant specialist in secret planning. I make no apologies for raising the subject this morning. I do so because we are unhurried and because hitherto discussion has been confined within the 30 minutes limit of an Adjournment debate. I do so because what has happened in the part of England that I represent can happen tomorrow elsewhere, and I wish to spare my colleagues on both sides of the House a similar experience. I do so because the traditional checks and safeguards cannot be counted on. For that reason, I believe that back-bench Members still have a rôle to play.

I am grateful to the Minister for being present at this debate this morning. If the rôle of Government in this sphere has not so far been distinguished, I hope that he will be able to reverse that trend.

I stress at the outset that the honours are even between Labour and Conservative Governments and that there is no element of party controversy in what I have to say. Nevertheless, I ask the Minister, although matters are well documented, not to hesitate to interrupt me and to intervene if any statement of fact that I make is inaccurate or incorrect.

I should like to remind the House briefly of what occurred, to sketch through the reaction of Governments to those events here, and, finally, to summarise the present procedural position and make three recommendations.

If you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, drive with me to Wiltshire this afternoon you will find big open country and miles of rolling unspoilt countryside. We are privileged to enjoy it and we are jealous to protect it. You will also find that a very large company has moved in from another part of England, that it has acquired 600 acres of farmland—an area twice the size of Hyde Park—that it has spent £1 million on railway sidings and a processing plant, and that large-scale mineral working is in progress.

If the House inquires how this great company comes to be there, it will find that a planning inquiry took place at Salisbury, that the central evidence at that inquiry was heard behind closed doors, that such a thing had not happened before, that no prior warning of such proceedings was given by the Minister, that the expert witness was excluded, and that the in camera evidence was taken into account by the Minister in arriving at his decision.

If the House inquires more closely still it will draw the inescapable conclusion that the whole thing was born of a mistake. I must explain. A month before that planning inquiry, representatives of the company called by appointment at the Department in London. This was not within the knowledge of myself or my constituents. There those representatives saw a civil servant. They asked whether part of the forthcoming inquiry could be held in camera. They had commercial secrets which they wished to protect.

This raised questions of major principle. Planning law and practice date back to the beginning of the century, if not earlier. No planning inquiry had ever before been held partly or wholly in secret. Such a procedure had never been countenanced. The House will agree that such a decision could not be left to a relatively junior civil servant. If we were to cross this threshold and move forward into an era which tolerated planning inquiries behind locked doors then the Secretary of State would need to know of this and to give it careful consideration. Further, this House which is rightly jealous of the rights of the citizen, should first have the opportunity to make its views known.

Yet none of these things happen. The mechanism broke down. What should have been referred to policy level was never so referred. No one in a position of authority in the Department was consulted. Let me be more specific. The Minister in charge of the Department at that time was Mr. Anthony Greenwood, as he then was. He was a much-respected Member of this House, capable of appreciating at once the implications of the company's request.

Lord Greenwood of Rossendale, as he now is, will confirm that the issue was never referred to him, that it never so much as crossed his desk. There was, of course, a system of delegation operating within the Department. There were two junior Ministers yet there are no grounds for believing that that decision was referred to either. Unhappily, and by cruel mischance, neither is alive today. What of the Permanent Secretary? He was Sir Matthew Stevenson. Later Sir Matthew, a distinguished public servant, was to be cross-examined by a Select Committee of this House. Members who choose to read the printed evidence will see that he, likewise, had no knowledge of the matter whatever.

"I am not really terribly well-equiped to answer."

Those were Sir Matthew's words.

Thus it was that that decision on that morning was left to a relatively junior civil servant and thus it was that this House was never consulted. Thus it was that Government stumbled into this unfortunate situation and thus it was that successive Secretaries of State, the Council on Tribunals, the Lord Chancellor, the Solicitor-General and a host of other people were burdened with an issue which even today remains unresolved. The mechanism broke down. It was a mistake, albeit a small one, which started this chain of events.

Let me return to that meeting at the Department 28 days before the inquiry. At the end of the interview the company's representatives put on their hats and, having obtained the assurance that what they were asking was acceptable, they returned to their headquarters and were able to make preparations for their case to be heard in camera. Meanwhile, the Department alerted the inspector to expect an application for secret proceedings. On the appointed day—28 days later in Salisbury—there was the company and there in his place was the inspector who had travelled down from London.

At the appropriate moment, and in accordance with advice given by the Department, counsel for the company rose in his place and applied to the inspector for a private hearing. The inspector was waiting for his cue. My unsuspecting constituents who were present in numbers, and who were naturally anxious at the threat of mineral workings in their district, knew nothing of what had happened in London. The inspector heard the plea and granted it. It would be difficult to stage a less attractive piece of pre-arranged official play-acting than that.

"The first we knew about it"—

wrote a local farmer—

"was when the appellants asked to go into camera and the inspector agreed. We were flabbergasted."

Thus was launched the first hearing in Britain of a planning application behind closed doors.

Once across this threshold it is hardly surprising that what could go wrong did go wrong. From modest beginnings the trouble escalated. The secret hearing was short, maybe half an hour, maybe an hour. It contained the kernel of the inquiry, the reason why the company needed to operate in that particular location rather than in some other part of England.

Only two of my constituents were admitted. A declaration of life-long secrecy was first produced for signature. Neither constituent has any technical qualification whatever. A prominent geologist from London University attended the inquiry. The company objected to his presence. He was therefore refused admission and took the train back to London. No one present was able to understand, still less to contest, the technical evidence which was then brought forward. The House will appreciate how deeply insulting these proceedings were to my constituents. It will appreciate too, the shock to public confidence and the injury done that day to faith in the fairness of our planning procedures.

Some months elapsed before the Minister came to his decision. It was during those months that yet a further bizarre little incident took place. Confidential evidence taken into consideration by the Minister became public. Part of what had been secret emerged from secrecy. It lay at the National Reference Library here in London, and there were many closely printed pages of it. The inquiry should have been reopened to enable this evidence to be cross-examined in public, but it was not reopened and, instead, the Minister proceeded to his decision.

The Minister decided to grant the applition. When the inspector's report was published, the confidential proceedings were kept in a separate annex and this annex was withheld. It was kept at the Department under lock and key. Neither my constituents nor I had any knowledge of what it contained. My constituents were not told why their particular stretch of countryside had been chosen. They were left to watch excavation get under way.

This is how this industrial complex arrived in Wiltshire. It is a company of the highest standing. It has done no more than what has been permitted it by government. I congratulate the company on its efforts to screen the workings. I believe the company to be no less unhappy than I am at these events and at how they have been handled. I believe the company to be no less anxious than I am to see a solution.

I think it right at this point to make it clear that after admission to Wiltshire the company has made two further planning applications and there have been two further planning inquiries. The first—in 1970—was to extend its activities in the form of railway sidings and a processing plant. That application was granted. The second—in 1974—was to extend the period of mineral working by a further 10 years. For that inquiry the Minister insisted on the confidential annex to the inspector's original report being laid upon the table.

The Minister's decision on this application is awaited. That issue is therefore sub judice today. I make no comment on it. It has no relevance to today's debate. I am concerned today with in camera hearings and with the implications which arise therefrom.

I return to London. The events which I have described were remarkable. Yet the reactions of government to those events have been more remarkable still. A study of HANSARD will confirm that I have raised matters from time to time in Adjournment debates, but progress has been slow. When something without precedent occurs in one's constituency, it will be found that there is no concerted view or body of opinion on the subject within the House and it is no good going to the Library to ask what happened on the last occasion because there was no last occasion. This accounts for the fact that it has been a rather slow business.

Initially Ministers set off bravely under the banner of the Duke of Wellington—"There is no mistake. There has been no mistake. There shall be no mistake." Ministers firmly adopted the stance that inspectors have the power and have always had the power to conduct proceedings as they see fit. "It is a matter for the inspector", it was said; "He has the discretion and the right, having listened to the case, to decide whether he thinks that it is in the public interest." Thus ran the the departmental brief which was served up to successive Parliamentary Secretaries in successive administrations. To be fair, they did their best with it, but, for all their brave efforts, the position was clearly untenable from the start.

If an inspector can close the doors at will, not only against the public but also against the specialist acting for objectors, it follows that warning can never be issued. The point was well illustrated when I sought to obtain from government the travelling expenses of the geologist who had been excluded from the central hearing and had taken train back to London. In his letter of refusal the Minister said:

"As you know, it was not possible until the application had been made at the inquiry for anyone to say whether the inspector would agree to hear part of the evidence in camera. It was not therefore possible for anyone to say in advance that Dr. Hancock's journey would be abortive."

Thus the stance of government was that highly-paid specialists must travel from London to a planning inquiry in, say, Aberdeen only to risk finding on arrival that the journey had been wasted. It was this remarkable defence by government which clearly could not hold out for long.

I said that progress has been slow, but I have found allies. I found that the matter had been aired in another place. I found that Lord Brooke of Cumnor, no less—there can be few greater authorities on planning law, as I am sure the Minister will agree—had made clear his opinion that there must be something wrong with the procedure. I found, too, that The Times had grasped far more clearly than Ministers had the real significance of the issue.

I found an ally, too, in the Council on Tribunals. That council came forward with the clear recommendation that new rules must be produced and that our planning law must be overhauled to provide for in camera hearings.

The House will know that the Council on Tribunals is appointed by and is responsible to the Lord Chancellor. Thus it was that Lord Hailsham arrived on the scene and for two and a half years, while the machines were digging deeper and deeper into Wiltshire countryside, the Lord Chancellor worked on new rules with the Secretary of State for the Environment and the Council on Tribunals. I felt that at last something was being done, if not by way of redress, at least to spare others the injustice which had been done to my constituents. By now that Wellington banner—"There is no mistake. There has been no mistake"—was beginning to wear rather thin.

Finally, rules were ready to be laid before Parliament. The House will note that two and a half years had been spent on consultation among the most eminent authorities on these rules. They were circulated for comment to public bodies such as the Country Landowners' Association. The rules ran to 23 pages. They insisted on the need for warning of an in camera hearing. They insisted on the admission of an expert witness. They sought to ensure that what had happened would never happen again. I was satisfied at least that the Lord Chancellor in his study of the case had recognised the grave mistakes which had been made.

But how wrong can one be? The rules were never laid before Parliament, they were stillborn. The Government suddenly stopped in their tracks—why I shall never know. Either the subject was held to be too complex to be encompassed within a set of rules or it was feared that when the rules came before the House their origins might have received close scrutiny. One or two unhappy skeletons might have tumbled out of the cupboard on to the carpet.

In any case, the rules were stillborn and on 4th May 1972, the Secretary of State announced:

"It is Government policy that inspectors should in future not accede to requests that they should hear evidence in private at planning inquiries."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th May 1972; Vol. 836, c. 199.]

That was the end of the Wellington dictum.

The Government recognised the deep injustice done to my constituents. The Government announced that it must not happen again, but they failed to muster the courage to admit openly that they had been wrong. As for the Lord Chancellor's two and a half years' hard work, within days of the Secretary of State's announcement he made clear that rules would be "inappropriate". That was the word used.

And what of the Council on Tribunals, the third member of this triumvirate, watchdogs poised to sound the alarm when danger threatens, the sacred geese of the Capitol, whose upkeep costs the British taxpayer more than £1,000 a week, and who had stressed in successive annual reports the need for these rules? They, too, found that such rules would be "inappropriate".

So we are no nearer a solution. The Secretary of State's announcement was a matter of policy and we all know that policies can change overnight. Besides, that administration has been swept away and the present Government are in no way bound by the policies of their predecessors. There are no fresh safeguards. What happened in Salisbury can equally happen tomorrow in Salford, in Norwich, in Carlisle. A highly-paid expert can take train to a planning inquiry in Newcastle only to find that his journey is wasted, that he is excluded from the proceedings and that no one will reimburse him for the costs of his journey. Indeed, a Member of Parliament can travel to a planning inquiry in his own constituency only to find the doors closed to him on arrival.

It is a ludicrous situation, and Ministers know it, but once having adopted and defended the posture that nothing untoward had occurred at Salisbury, it is very difficult for Governments to climb down. How much more honourable and practicable it would have been if Ministers had said at the outset, "Yes, it was a mistake, we all make mistakes, a civil servant made a mistake. It will not happen again and of course we shall have a fresh hearing." Governments are majestic institutions, but one of their weaknesses is the difficulty they find in admitting a mistake.

What should be done now? It is no answer for Ministers to say, as they have done, that these situations are rare, that secret hearings are exceptional. Of course they are, but this is the argument of the nurse excusing her illegitimate baby, "Please, ma'am, it was only a little one." It is no answer for Ministers to say, as they have said, that what is past is past. These things will not lie down or get lost, however convenient that might be. There is no skirting this problem.

The proceedings of Government mishandling stand like a monument in Wiltshire for all to see. As the Council for the Protection of Rural England said:

"The beauty of this lovely stretch of rolling countryside will be largely destroyed."

It is no answer either for Ministers, as they have done, to make charges of obstinacy. If we on these back benches—Labour and Conservative alike—see clearly that the dice have been loaded against our unsuspecting constituents to their lasting detriment, then we say so. That, after all, is what this place is all about.

Three things are needed. First, I ask the Minister for an assurance that the stated policy of the last administration, curbing the discretion of inspectors, still obtains. In itself that solves nothing, but it provides a breathing space. Second, I ask that our planning rules themselves be amended. It must be clearly stated in black and white that, apart from defence considerations, a planning inquiry shall be held in public. It is as simple as that. There can be no compromise. At least the abortive efforts of the Lord Chancellor in seeking to prepare rules demonstrated that a code of safeguards is impracticable.

Of course commercial secrets are important. I was myself a carefree businessman for ten years before I entered the House. But a planning inquiry is not a court of law. Its function is essentially different, and if justice is not seen to be done, it is better that it were not held at all. The wider public interest demands that proposals can be challenged by all who feel concerned, and that they may summon the aid of all such experts as they choose to muster.

A leading article in The Times summed up the situation far more ably than I could ever hope to do:

"So it would seem unrealistic to hope for a compromise solution whereby evidence could be heard in camera at planning inquiries under conditions that would be a satisfactory safeguard against injustice or abuse. A choice has to be made between the guarantee of openness and the assurance that an appellant would not be inhibited from giving evidence because its publication would damage him. The choice must be for openness. That is essential for public confidence in planning inquiries and it is unlikely to impose too great a burden on commercial interests; otherwise the 1967 case would surely not have been the first of its kind."

What is the third need? If this matter is ever to be laid to rest, there must be a judiciary inquiry. There is no other way. The damage to confidence and to countryside can be remedied only by that means.

The Government will need no reminding of a similar case in 1954 with which my predecessor at Salisbury was intimately concerned. I am content that this morning the Minister should judge for himself the accuracy of the parallel. The scene in one case lay a few miles to the South West of Salisbury, the other a few miles to the South East. Both concerned the future of some 600 acres of farmland. Both occasioned years of local protest and both met with refusal of investigation. The Minister in one case said:

"No new fact or consideration which would justify an inquiry into this case has been disclosed."

The Minister in the other case said:

"No case for a special investigation by an independent committee has been established."

But later came a shift of emphasis. The Minister in one case said:

"I recognised that this case raises a general issue of principle.…I am ready to consider the issue of policy involved in consultation with my colleagues."

Recognition in the other case ran thus:

"The Council of Tribunals recognise that a procedural point of considerable general importance has been raised by this case."

Then came the caution:

"In your case, however, events have proceeded too far to be affected by the outcome of this consideration."

So said the Minister in one case. The Minister in the other case said:

"This…cannot affect the decision in the Grimstead case."

Then came the change of mind. A judicial inquiry took place at the Corn Exchange, Blandford. A Select Committee of this House invited the Permanent Secretary and an Assistant Secretary to appear before it. At the cross-examination of senior civil servants it was demonstrated that the Minister had acted upon inadequate advice. At the cross-examination of other senior civil servants it was also demonstrated that the Minister had acted upon inadequate advice.

The terms of reference in 1954 were to inquire into the procedure adopted. The report following that inquiry, Cmnd. Paper No. 9176, concludes:

"There was no trace in this case of anything in the nature of…personal dishonesty … The procedure adopted, however, was such that it inevitably gave rise to misgivings among local farmers and landowners, and I am satisfied that…"

The petitioner's name is then mentioned. The passage continues:

"…was fully justified in the circumstances in pressing for a Public Inquiry."

If it was right to set up a judicial inquiry in 1954—and no one in this House would deny that it was—it is equally right to do so in 1974.

The hon. Member for Salisbury (Mr. Hamilton) has deployed a powerful case in respect of planning matters concerning his constituency. I do not know the detailed circumstances of those matters or of the inquiry. It is not my intention to support the hon. Gentleman in any detail of his own case. I felt it right that at least one Labour Member should add his voice to the motion.

There can be no doubt that it is against the public interest for planning inquiries to be held in camera. I am certain that if the House were fully attended—I appreciate the reason for a smaller attendance today after the hectic proceedings of yesterday's sitting—those who struggle for the preservation of civil liberties would be here to participate and to vote if necessary for the hon. Gentleman's motion. I hope that the Minister will accept the spirit of the motion and allow it to be passed by the House, so as to give the seal of approval of this democratic Parliament to the basic principle that we disapprove of planning inquiries being held in secret.

I know from my own experience, having attended a number of planning inquiries and having appeared as an unqualified person on behalf of my constituents who have been objectors to planning inquiries, how fairly the inquiries are conducted. I pay tribute to the inspectors because I am certain that the majority of the Minister's inspectors who preside over planning inquiries are of the same calibre and courtesy as those who have presided over the inquiries which I attended. The inspectors have gone out of their way to put the ordinary layman at ease and to try to make the proceedings as informal as it is humanly possible to make them within the rules of planning inquiries. Nothing that I have said should be construed as criticism of the inspectors.

Responsibility for the rules that govern inquiries and the guidelines given to inspectors is a political responsibility that is fairly placed upon the Government of the day. One of the troubles with planning inquiries in general is that ordinary people are fearful to exercise their rights. Very often they are not aware of their rights. I find a great deal of criticism in my constituency about planning inquiries. The possibility of their being held in secret would increase tremendously the already high degree of apprehension that is felt when ordinary applications for planning approval are subjected to an inquiry after refusal of the application.

My experience tells me that planning inquiries are weighted against the ordinary applicant not because of unfairness but because of limited resources. If there is an appeal against a local authority's refusal of planning application, the whole panoply of the local authority is to be seen at the inquiry. All the professional officers and all the expertise are gathered together at the inquiry after months of detailed research. The ordinary chap, very often unrepresented, stands little chance despite the protection that the inspector invariably extends to him. Planning laws are complicated and what to the layman seems a straightforward matter can quickly be made into a most complicated matter once the experts get to their feet.

If we put on top of all the disadvantages which already exist the possibility of the proceedings being held in camera, the balance will be seen to have gone to an unacceptable and unreasonable degree against the citizen. I believe that there is no justification for secrecy except in the sort of case that was clearly defined by the hon. Gentleman and involves defence and national security.

As for commercial applications, it must be a factor that a commercial applicant takes into account in deciding to submit a planning application that he will have to disclose certain facts if he wishes to proceed. If he does not wish to disclose those facts, let him seek some other place for his development. It is unreasonable that the purpose of commercial secrecy should be used to exclude the public from planning hearings.

I agree with two of the hon. Gentleman's final requests to the Minister. First, he wanted an assurance that the 1972 statement of the then Government's policy still applies in respect of this matter. Secondly, I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to consider seriously the hon. Gentleman's plea for the publication and approval by the House of rules governing the secrecy position in planning in- quiries. It is necessary for a clear statement to be laid down in rules available for all the participants in a public inquiry—the applicant, the objector and everyone else—so that they know clearly where they stand on the matter.

I cannot go along with the hon. Gentleman's request for a judicial inquiry into his own case, because I do not know the circumstances, but I hope that my hon. Friend will be generous on the matter and accept the principle of the motion, because it is an important principle which should have the backing and approval of the House.

I lend my weight briefly to the statement of the hon. Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Wellbeloved) in support of what my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Mr. Hamilton) has said this morning. I, too, have no particular knowledge of the case, but I am very worried about its implications.

My hon. Friend spoke of an area covering only 600 acres, but we all know that the effect of exploitation such as that of which he spoke goes far beyond the immediate area in question. He also spoke of the insult to local people that they should be excluded from the planning stages and that the inquiry should be held in secret.

I would take the matter further. Whenever this sort of thing happens, there is a growth of anger which spreads far beyond the boundaries of Wiltshire into all other rural areas. There is a continual and increasing search for raw materials, for water, oil and other mineral resources. In our part of Dorset we have seen the widespread effect that such exploitation can have not only upon the immediate area but for 50 or 100 miles round about. We have seen roads bulldozed out of existence and roundabouts destroyed to allow transportation of the material when it is extracted.

I have spoken very briefly, but I am very much in favour of what my hon. Friend said and I hope that the Government will take due note of it.

First, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Mr. Hamilton) on raising this matter. More than that, I congratulate him on his tenacity in bringing it before the House so often on behalf of his constituents. I believe I am right in saying that this is the sixth time over the years that my hon. Friend has shown this diligence on behalf of his constituents. One must also give congratulations to the constituents of Salisbury on having a Member who looks after their interests with such great care and who will never take "No" for an answer when he thinks that a Minister has given him a wrong answer.

I think it would be right if I left comment on the details of the particular case raised to the Minister, because he will obviously have before him the departmental brief reciting the facts in detail. However, there is one point that I must raise for a specific answer. What disturbed me most in my hon. Friend's recital of the circumstances was his suggestion that a decision had been taken on an important matter of this kind—namely that an inquiry should be held in camera—by a junior civil servant without reference to a Minister or the Permanent Secretary of his Department. If that is correct, a most rigorous inquiry, possibly even a judicial inquiry, should be held into the matter.

Before I press the Minister for a judicial inquiry, there are three questions that need to be asked and answered. First, did the junior civil servant make a decision that the appeal should be held in camera, or did he merely advise the appellant that under the existing regulations the inspector had power to ask for the hearing in camera? Those are two quite distinct situations.

Secondly, did the junior civil servant give a direction to the inspector or influence the inspector as to whether the hearing should be held in camera, or did the inspector exercise his own discretion, given him by the regulations, without any direction or hint coming from the Department of the Environment?

Thirdly, did the inspector fail to give the other persons present at the inquiry an opportunity to object to the proceedings being held in camera? Did they avail themselves of the opportunity to object, so that the inspector had all the circumstances before him prior to exer- cising this discretion—if that was what he did? These are preliminary questions that one would wish to have answered before deciding whether this is a proper case for a judicial inquiry.

My hon. Friend mentioned two matters that immediately struck a chord of sympathy with other hon. Members. The hon. Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Wellbeloved) and my hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, West (Mr. Spicer) endorsed the principle that the policy declared in 1972, that all future planning inquiries must be held fully in the open, should be continued. I endorse and underline that policy decision, which was taken by my right hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr. Walker) when he was Secretary of State in 1972.

I ask the Minister to confirm that it is his Government's policy, as it was my Government's policy, that all planning inquiries be held in public and not in camera. I would extend that principle one stage further. I would like not only inquiries into planning matters held in public but all local authority planning committees held in public as well. Quite often authorities resolve to go in camera to discuss planning applications. Planning applications so concern the amenities and environment of citizens in the neighbourhood affected by the planning inquiry that it is only right that people should be given full knowledge of what is happening and an opportunity to be present when the decision is taken.

That applies not only to the public inquiry but to a local authority decision because, as the rules stand, a public inquiry is held only if the person making the application is disappointed and does not get from the local authority what he wants. At that point the public can go to the inquiry and make their case. If, however, the local authority agrees to the application, the appellant is satisfied and the local authority has made its decision, but the other people affected by the planning application cannot appeal against the decision and ask for a public inquiry. They are excluded. It is therefore important at that first stage that nothing should take place in camera. I ask the Under-Secretary of State to give us the Government's views on that matter.

If there is to be a policy change, my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury is absolutely right that clear-cut rules of procedure must be laid down as indicated by the Council on Tribunals. I therefore ask the Minister whether this matter is before the Dobry Committee which is considering planning matters. Is that committee considering the rules of procedure regulating the conduct of planning inquiries? If so, we shall await its findings with interest in the hope that we shall have an opportunity to discuss them.

My hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury brought a further matter to our attention. He did it almost as an aside but it was a matter of importance to the individual concerned. It concerned the question of the denial of costs to the expert who travelled to the public inquiry but found that he could not give evidence because he was excluded through the proceedings being held in camera. What I found extraordinary was the quotation which my hon. Friend gave from the Department of the Environment in justification of the refusal to allow the costs. According to the note which I made, my hon. Friend said that the letter from the Department stated that as it was not possible to know in advance whether part of the hearing would be in camera it could not be known whether the expert's journey would be abortive.

I should have thought that that was a reason for allowing rather than disallowing the costs, because the expert would not know whether his journey was necessary until he had arrived. Therefore, he should not be put in that jeopardy. If he knew beforehand that it was likely that the hearing would be held in camera and still made his journey, one could say, "You took the risk. It was up to you whether you made the journey". But if he properly went all the way to the inquiry and then found the door slammed in his face, those responsible for taking that decision should ensure that funds were available to reimburse the expert called to the inquiry and who properly attended it. If the reason for the refusal to pay the costs is that given by my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury in the quotation which he mentioned, it begins to defeat comprehension.

That is possibly a matter which should be considered by the Under-Secretary of State once more if it is not too late. Certainly it should be covered by any rules which the Council on Tribunals or the Dobry Committee may recommend regulating the conduct of these proceedings. The costs of expert witnesses and others should be allowed out of public funds if their journey has been rendered unnecessary by circumstances entirely outside their control.

This is an important debate, but we should not be too disappointed by the small attendance of hon. Members because the House has been through a particularly difficult 18 hours.

I should like to read the motion so that hon. Members may be clear about it and so that I can deal with it more effectively. I start with the introduction:

"To call attention to the practice"—

I emphasise "practice"—

"of holding planning inquiries in camera; and to move, That this House disapproves of the holding of planning inquiries in secret, except in the interests of defence and national security."

I cannot begin my reply without recognising the tireless efforts of the hon. Member for Salisbury (Mr. Hamilton) on behalf of his constituents over the problems of the East Grimstead quarry. The hon. Member for Hornsey (Mr. Rossi), who perhaps has been more closely associated with this matter than I have, also paid tribute to the hon. Gentleman. This is the seventh debate on this subject which the hon. Member for Salisbury has obtained in this House since 1969. His powerful advocacy is matched only by his wide-ranging attempts outside the House to bring the matter to the attention of all who could conceivably offer some assistance, including the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration—the Ombudsman, as he is more popularly known—and the Council on Tribunals, not to mention many Ministers, including successive Prime Ministers.

The hon. Member for Salisbury is only too well aware of the results of all these inquiries and it is therefore with some surprise that I find myself dealing in this debate with what amounts to the same questions as the hon. Gentleman has been asking since 1969. Stubbornness, particularly in the House, is often a great virtue. I am only sorry that I shall not be able to offer the hon. Member any further assurances than those he has been given before.

The motion is in general terms, but the hon. Member has made it clear that his concern arises from a particular case, and I should like first to set out briefly the background to the East Grimstead case. In June 1967 a public local inquiry was held into a refusal by the Salisbury and Wilton Rural District Council to grant planning permission to English China Clays Limited for the winning and working of chalk from some 25 acres of land at East Grimstead.

Part of the proceedings at the inquiry were heard in camera because the applicants wished to rely on commercially confidential evidence to justify the use of the large area of land for chalk workings. I make no bones about the fact that, before the inquiry took place, a representative of the appellant company called at the Department to seek procedural advice about the possibility of this evidence being heard in camera. This answers one of the points raised by the hon. Member for Hornsey. The representative was told that there was no bar to this happening if the inspector conducting the inquiry should think that it was appropriate. It was a matter entirely for the inspector's discretion. As I have already said, the inspector subsequently decided that an in camera session would be appropriate in this instance.

I think I should make it clear, as successive Ministers before me have done, that there was no question of conniving, no question of rigging an in camera session for the 1967 inquiry. The company was advised purely on a procedural point that if it wished to make an application for such a session it could do so and the inspector in the exercise of his discretion would then decide what to do on the merits of the application before him.

The hon. Member has asked before now the basis on which the inspector could make such a decision. In this instance the procedure at the inquiry was governed by the Town and Country Planning (Inquiries Procedure) Rules 1965, which have since been replaced by the Town and Country Planning (Inquiries Procedure) Rules 1974 but which are unaltered in this respect. The rules lay down certain requirements and provide that, apart from these,

"the procedure at the inquiry shall be such as the appointed person shall in his discretion determine."

After the company's application, the inspector agreed to hear the technical evidence in camera in the presence of representatives of the appellant company, the Clerk of the Rural District Council who represented the local planning authority, who had a right to be heard, and the solicitor representing two owners of adjoining land. At the short—the very short—in camera proceedings, it was agreed that the appellant company's claim about the special quality of the chalk should be the subject of further technical examination undertaken by the then Minister, Anthony Greenwood, who is now Lord Greenwood of Rossendale.

On the basis of what was said in the inspector's report and the confidential annex, together with the results of the investigation, the Minister decided in September 1968, to allow the appeal in respect of part only of the site—about 10 acres—and for a limited period of five years from the commencement of operations, which meant that the permission would expire on 31st March 1974. There were other stringent conditions as to restoration and hours of work. The time limit and area restriction were imposed because it was considered that one of the main problems was that of moving the material from the site because of the effects of increased road traffic on the area. The Minister therefore strongly endorsed his inspector's view that every effort should be made to arrange rail or even pipeline transport.

Subsequently in 1971, following a public local inquiry, permission was given for a rail siding at East Grimstead, which permission was due to expire also on 31st March 1974, and for a minerals treatment works at Quidhampton, six miles away. In giving his decision on these called-in applications, the Secretary of State made it clear that these developments in no way prejudged any future application to extend the East Grimstead chalk-working consent.

Towards the end of 1973, the Department received from the Wiltshire County Council the details of a planning application by the company for a 10-year extension of the two permissions in respect of the winning and working of chalk and the use of the railway sidings, from 1st April 1974—the previous permissions expiring, as I have said, on 31st March 1974. The then Secretary of State decided that the application should be called in for decision, and this was done on 14th December 1973. A public local inquiry was held earlier this year in June and July and the report of the inspector, who took the inquiry, is currently before the Secretary of State for consideration. I am sure that the hon. Member understands that I cannot discuss the merits of that application or the contents of that report.

I think it is worth pointing out here, however, that one of the major points which the hon. Member had raised since the 1968 decision was met before the current application went to inquiry. This concerns the annex to the inspector's report concerning the evidence heard in camera in 1967. He had taken the view that his constituents would be placed in an extremely unsatisfactory situation when the company applied for an extension of its temporary planning permission—in other words, they would be trying to make a case against evidence which they had not seen.

But, as the hon. Member will recall, his right hon. Friend, the Member for Crosby (Mr. Page), then Minister for Local Government and Development, told him in reply to a parliamentary Question on 26th November 1973 that the company now had no objection to the full disclosure of the evidence given in camera and the then Minister sent to him and the others concerned a copy of the then confidential annex to the Inspector's report on the same day, the company having agreed to this as they were now fully protected by patents.

Thus, in his letter of 14th December 1973 to the county council calling in the latest application, the Secretary of State said:

"Evidence about particular qualities of the chalk in the site was a material consideration in the decision on appeal given in 1968. Because of their desire in 1967 to maintain confidentiality, the grounds for the Minister's decision of 1968 were not fully open to general discussion at the local inquiry but the Secretary of State understands that the company no longer regards it as essential to keep that evidence confidential and he considers that it now appropriate to enable interested persons to hear all the evidence in support of the present application and comment on it."

As the hon. Member knows, the inquiry which took place earlier this year was held with its doors wide open to the public; the company confirmed its earlier decision that confidentiality was no longer required; and all the evidence that was originally confidential was available for comments by any interested persons, including the hon. Member who attended the inquiry.

It is, therefore, somewhat difficult to see why the hon. Member keeps going on about the East Grimstead case. There is nothing more to offer the hon. Member on it and I hope he will accept that the Secretary of State will now reach his decision on the current application in the light of all the relevant evidence presented by both the applicant and other interested parties at the inquiry, including the hon. Member himself, on a fair and rational basis.

The motion refers to

"the practice of holding planning inquiries in camera"—

as though this were a frequent occurrence. I am sure the hon. Member does not wish to mislead. There has been no case where a whole inquiry was ever held in camera. The session at East Grimstead lasted about one hour in a two-day inquiry, and this is one of only two cases that the Department can trace where the question has been raised at all. In the other case it proved unnecessary in the event to elicit confidential information. This is an important point and we are all concerned whether it is the thin end of the wedge. Therefore, it is important to see how thin the wedge here is and how little substance there is behind the point.

This House has debated on many occasions the arguments which abound in relation to the public disclosure of what companies feel is confidential information. One can talk at large about doing what is in the best interest of the public, and indeed different aspects of this concept can be advanced on either side.

On the one hand, for example, the hon. Member vigorously campaigns for the disclosure of information which he thinks his constituents need to know in order to have the opportunity to test the company's claims. On the other hand, companies may seek to preserve trade secrets or the details of manufacturing processes because they do not wish to lose what may be a substantial competitive advantage in exports. This, too, can be said to be in the public interest. The arguments on this problem have not just arisen in connection with the East Grimstead case, but in other fields also. We have seen similar arguments where there have been problems over air emissions and over the discharge of trade effluents into rivers. In the end, one must strike a balance with the long-term aim of ensuring that what is done is done in the public interest.

As the hon. Gentleman knows, the Council on Tribunals expressed the view, in the light of the hon. Gentleman's original representations, that a procedural point of considerable importance had been raised by virtue of the in camera session at the 1967 inquiry, and the Council thought that this ought to be covered by a provision in the statutory rules of procedure for planning inquiries. Draft rules were prepared, were the subject of widespread consultations, and were shown to the hon. Gentleman by the then Secretary of State and the then Lord Chancellor at the end of 1971.

The conclusion was reached, however, that the making of rules for the appropriate procedure would have resulted in rules which were so overpowering in relation to the other rules as to give the impression that hearings in camera could be a usual and recognised feature of inquiries, whereas it was intended that they should be very exceptional only. This was not just the then Government's view. It was also the view of the hon. Gentleman himself, who said in this House on 25th February 1971 that he thought that the new rules were likely to be so complex as to be unworkable in practice.

The point that I am trying to make is that if a set of rules is of such great importance—the situation having arisen in only a small part of an inquiry on one occasion—then, if they are extended by a provision such as this it will dominate the rest of the rules and give the impression that this kind of procedure is more normal than we expect it to be.

I must emphasise here that the Government's view, like that of their predecessors, is that in camera inquiries are only ever likely to be justified in exceptionally rare circumstances. Their rarity in the past is surely some guarantee of this. We adhere to the principle that hearings should be in public so that the public can satisfy themselves that the Franks Committee's recommendations for openness and fairness are being applied and can see the justification for what has been done. It follows, therefore, that any departure from this rule will be very exceptional.

I refer the hon. Member to what his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Sir M. Havers), the then Solicitor-General, said in reply to a debate concerning the Council on Tribunals which the hon. Member raised on 19th July last year. The hon. and learned Member drew attention then to the practice of the courts in relying on the exercise of discretion according to the circumstances of the case, rather than on written rules. He explained that the practice of the courts tended to confirm that there was indeed an advantage in the public's interest is not having fixed rules. Let me remind the hon. Member for Salisbury here that the whole British constitution itself is an unwritten one: it relies on a series of theoretical, practical and conventional bases which have grown up over the years in the light of experience. The situation here is no different.

Inspectors have been advised not to accede to a request that they should hear evidence in private at planning inquiries. If such a case does arise again—and one cannot rule out that possibility—the inspector will refer the request to the Secretary of State. I can certainly give an assurance that the Government adhere to the general principle that planning inquiries should be held in public and that any departure from that practice could be justified only in an exceptional case. If there were an application, it would be for the Secretary of State to decide whether and how the confidential material should be heard. I note that the hon. Member does not dispute that matters of defence and national security would have to be dealt with privately. It is, as the hon. and learned Member for Wimbledon said last year, impossible to lay down hard and fast rules about these matters.

I can hold out no promises of legislation or statutory rules, for nothing has happened to suggest that it would be any easier now than it was three years ago to find a way of expressing the provisions that would be needed in a way that did not encourage the idea that in camera sessions could be a normal everyday procedure. To some extent, this should itself be a re-assurance to the hon. Member. If there are no specific provisions for in camera proceedings, people will not be encouraged to suppose that it will be easy to obtain a private hearing.

I can, however, like our predecessors, assure the hon. Member that, if such a case occurs again, the Secretary of State will consult the Council on Tribunals about the procedure to be followed.

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will accept those assurances, not only from this Government but from his own party when they were in office. In accepting them, I hope that he will be willing to withdraw his motion.

On this occasion, I wish to exercise my right of reply, which I have not been able to do previously.

I thank the Minister for what he said. I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Hornsey (Mr. Rossi) and for Dorset, West (Mr. Spicer) for what they said. I want especially to thank the hon. Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Well-beloved). It was a complete surprise to me to see him in attendance, and what he said was very welcome.

The Minister said that I had sought help from many quarters, and he instanced the Prime Minister. He will know that, on the day that the decision to permit the original application reached me, I approached the then Prime Minister, who is again Prime Minister today. I received a very courteous reply from the right hon. Gentleman to a letter which I handed in at Downing Street that morning. However, 14 months later, the same Prime Minister wrote to me explaining that his original letter had given a mistaken impression. He explained that the draft of that letter forwarded by the Department to Downing Street had been telescoped in the process of the fair copy being prepared.

Leaving aside the merits of that, it demonstrates that if a back bencher from either side of the House writes to the Prime Minister, the reply that he receives from the Prime Minister is drafted by the Department. We all agree that that is the case. Therefore, when the Minister says that I have had recourse to the Prime Minister, all of us on the back benches know what that means. What I am saying is accurate and is carefully documented.

We also know, on the back benches and the Front Benches alike, that when someone approaches the Prime Minister and he takes sufficient interest in the matter to make inquiries of the Department, great care is usually taken in finding the facts to supply to the Prime Minister.

I do not criticise the Prime Minister. Regardless of his party, a Prime Minister is always hideously over-burdened. But when a back bencher hears from the Prime Minister, he must assume, as has been demonstrated in this case, that the letter has been drafted by the Department concerned.

The Minister also said that I had turned to the Parliamentary Commissioner in this case. He was correct. In this Chamber, I do not like criticising the Parliamentary Commissioner, and I should not choose to do so were it not for the fact that the Minister mentioned it in his speech. We are all fallible and it is my opinion that in this case the Parliamentary Commissioner was not at his best. The original report, which is on the bench beside me, is riddled with mistakes. It is not sufficiently informed. The Parliamentary Commissioner says that it came as no surprise to my constituents who were present at the original inquiry that suddenly an in camera hearing was ordered. That is not true. It came as a complete surprise.

It is clear from the report that the Parliamentary Commissioner had no knowledge whatever that an expert witness was present, yet it is the nub of the whole problem that an expert witness was present. The Parliamentary Commissioner says in his report that it was reasonable for the Minister to decide himself to test the evidence, but I think that the Parliamentary Commissioner was completely in the dark about the expert's presence.

He did not satisfy himself that in camera proceedings were legal. He satisfied himself that the Department had satisfied itself—in other words at one remove—but it has not yet been decided in the courts whether it is legal to have proceedings in camera.

When he appeared before the Select Committee, the Parliamentary Commissioner said that it did not occur to him that a change in the procedure would have helped the complainants. But two or three weeks later the Council on Tribunals recommended that there should be a change in the procedure. At least he said to the Select Committee:

"this is not to say that the complainants in this case do not suffer, because they do."

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. As the Government resisted this motion and yet could not get one Member to support them in the Lobby, may I ask the Minister to make a statement as to his Government's intentions?

I think, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that this comes ill from the hon. Member for Hornsey (Mr. Rossi). He has been a Whip, whereas I have not. I have been present on many occasions on a Friday. We all know that this is one of the ways used. The Government have

Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The position has been a little odd. It is perfectly clear to everyone present that there were large numbers of supporters of the Government present. I understand that they spoke against the motion and then, I believe, ordered Members out of the "No" Division Lobby. Some Members did trickle in there, but they then were thrown out. The Government Whips stood in armed guard at the entrance to the Lobby to stop any of their supporters going in. It was a most extraordinary procedure.

Order. There is a providence which guides us in these matters. The Standing Orders are quite clear:

"If at any time it shall appear, on a division, that forty Members are not present, the business under consideration shall stand over until the next sitting of the House and the next business shall be taken."

Mercifully, it is not the business of the Chair how hon. Members cast their votes, abstain or whatever they do, except that they keep in order in the Chamber. Mrs. Hayman.

Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Order. I have given a very good run for little money on this question.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It is a very small point of order. Could it be recorded in the Journal of the House that the Government have not mustered a single vote in their support? The Minister, having delivered an oration from the Dispatch Box——

Order. I am sorry, but even after an all-night sitting that is asking a lot, and it is quite impossible.

Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I should not like to go unchallenged the statement that Government Members were ordered from the Lobby. The hon. Members on the Government side of the House who were present decided of their own free choice not to go into the Lobby. The Whips certainly gave them advice but in no way attempted to prevent them if they wished to go in. Certainly, the Whip said to me, "It is up to you to decide what you want to do".

I think that honour is now satisfied on both sides.

I beg to move,

That this House calls on Her Majesty's Government to give priority to allevating the prob- lem of lone parents and their children in the light of the recommendations of the Finer Report.

I am grateful to the House and recognise my good fortune in coming so early in my career in the House to have the opportunity to propose a Private Member's motion. I must say that I have to reconsider exactly the extent of my good luck when my motion has also come on the day after an all-night sitting. Nevertheless it is a great privilege for me, having made a great study of the problems of one-parent families and having worked with lone parents and their children, to have the opportunity to move this motion today.

My main regret is not so much the sparsity of the audience in the Chamber but the fact that a report as important as that of the Finer Committee and a problem as acute as the problem of over 1 million children who are currently being brought up in one-parent families should be left to the responsibility of a Private Member to raise as a subject for debate in the Chamber.

It is now five years since the late Richard Crossman set up the Finer Committee on one-parent families. That committee's report was signed in March this year. It has been published since July. It affects the lives of one in 10 families in this country. Yet we have had no debate on the Floor of the House of the very many wide-ranging proposals and recommendations contained in that report. The one thing which would make me very sad in my use of the time which has been allotted to me today would be if the fact of having had this debate on a Private Member's motion were to be used at a later stage by the Government as an excuse for not giving proper time in the House for discussion of the subject. I hope we shall have an assurance on that point from the Minister when he replies.

As I said earlier, the Finer Committee was set up over five years ago. In the five years since then, hon. Members on both sides of the House, people outside the House and, perhaps most important of all, lone parents themselves have attempted at different stages to invoke various measures which could help one-parent families. But time and again when we have asked for individual reforms, we have had used against us the fact that the committee was sitting, that it was composed of experts and that it would be reporting and making recommendations, and it was said that the Government could take no action until they had those recommendations before them.

Therefore, children have been waiting five years for the report to be published. We have had Members of the House submitting evidence, watching the deliberations, waiting for publication of the report and being fobbed off time and again when asking for immediate reforms—such as an increase in the disregard for people receiving supplementary benefit, the granting of the maternity grant regardless of national insurance contributions, and the raising of the family allowances and their extension to the first child. On many of these issues, and on many others, we have been told that we must wait for the Finer Report. We now have Finer. It is a massive document extending to two volumes and containing 230 recommendations.

Before proceeding to the contents of the report and to what many right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House would like to see done about it, I should like to spend a little while talking about the problems of lone parents and their children and discussing exactly who we are talking about and how grave and large the problem is.

One of the most important things about the setting up of the Finer Committee was that it was, in its own way, a recognition that lone parents and their children, for whatever reason they were one-parent families—whether it was the single schoolgirl mother or the widower father, the divorced woman or the separated man—were all individuals, and in responding to their individual problems every one of them had more in common with each other than they had differences. They shared a common problem, a personal problem—that of being a single parent bringing up a child or children in a society which is geared socially and economically to two parents bringing up children.

As is well known by those of us who have taken an interest in the subject and by anyone who cares to read the findings of the Finer Report, these people share many other problems as well. Their main problem is that of poverty. The average weekly income of a fatherless family is almost exactly half that of a two-parent family. Perhaps it is appropriate here to make the point, which runs so frequently through the Finer Report, that the costs of keeping a family are very much the same whether there are two parents or one. There is still a roof to be provided, rent to be paid, rate demands to be met, cleaning and washing to be done and children to be cared for.

In fact, the costs for a one-parent family are often more, not less, than for a two-parent family. There may be one adult less to feed in the family, but there is only one breadwinner and one parent to combine both rôles. Therefore, a woman may have to employ someone to do jobs around the house which normally in a two-parent family would be shared between husband and wife. It is often necessary to get someone to care for the children and, in the absence of a wife to do the washing, there is the necessity to incur the expense of sending items to the cleaners or the launderette. One finds again and again in the Finer Report a recognition of the fact that the costs of maintaining a family are very much the same whether there are two parents or one. Yet it is the one-parent family which is poor.

When we consider the composition of one-parent families we find that they fall into various different groups. The stereotyped idea that many people have of the unmarried mother and her child as representing the one-parent family is in no way accurate. There are about 80,000 single mothers bringing up children in this country. There are 90,000 motherless families, with fathers who, by reason of being widowers or divorced or separated, are caring for children on their own. There are far more than either of those groups of divorced and separated women and widowers bringing up children on their own. When we talk about one-parent families we are talking about over 1 million children.

One thing that we must accept in our discussions about policies relating to one-parent families is that more and more of our nation's children will spend some time as members of a one-parent family, as increasingly the trends are for earlier marriage and earlier divorce and for two marriages rather than one to become the sociological pattern. We must bring ourselves up to date and recognise that fact and acknowledge the extent of the suffering involved.

Half a million of the lone parents in this country are mothers. They are poor because they are dependent on supplementary benefit, which is by definition the poverty level, and they are hemmed in when they are on supplementary benefit. They are not allowed to go out to work part-time to increase their income. Until the announcement by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services a couple of weeks ago, they were allowed to earn only £2 a week before they lost their entitlement to supplementary benefit. Now they are entitled to earn £4 a week, and that is little enough for the mother who, because she needs company and self-respect which working part-time provides, often suffers economically by her decision to work part-time.

Mothers on supplementary benefit are penalised in other ways. An unsupported mother is subject to the strictures of the cohabitation rule. This subject has been raised frequently in the House. It cannot be said too often how arbitrary is the present nature of the rule and its working and how important it is that the departmental committee which is currently considering the subject should report very soon in order to bring in safeguards for many women who at the moment are liable, on the word of a snooper, an inquisitive neighbour or a malevolent person who wishes to give information, to lose their supplementary benefit with no evidence or reason being presented. I hope we shall see an automatic right of appeal in such cases and that no benefit will be stopped until after the appeal has been heard.

Mothers who are not in receipt of supplementary benefit but are in receipt of maintenance have their problems as well. We have seen—this is illustrated in the Finer Report—how totally inadequate is the present system of maintenance in divorce and separation. It is often impossible for a women to collect her entitlement as allocated by a court, and we are aware of the humiliating problems which many women face when attempting to get the maintenance which has been allotted to them. We have to admit, too, that many of the men about whom we are talking cannot afford to keep two families. If a man leaves one family, for whatever reason, he gains other responsibilities and he does not have a pay packet which can stretch to support both families.

It is absolutely essential that we accept one of the main recommendations of the Finer Report that we should separate off the assessment and collection of the maintenance that is due from a husband or father so that it can be paid to the mother or wife concerned. At the moment, as I say, she has to undergo a humiliating process of chasing a recalcitrant husband through the courts for money which she often does not get although she is taxed as though she had received it. This practice could and should be ended if we gave to the State its proper responsibility of assessing and collecting that maintenance, thus keeping the mother concerned out of at least this part of the proceedings.

Even mothers who manage to go out to work full-time and who are not dependent on supplementary benefit are poor. They are poor because they are women and because in this country women's wages are still, on average, only half the wages which men receive.

A family which is being supported by a mother as breadwinner is likely to be poor by virtue of the fact that even her full-time wage will be low.

In many ways the problems of one-parent families—five out of six heads of such families are women—are the problems of women in our society. Some one-parent families headed by mothers who would like to work full-time, who could earn a good salary by so doing and who feel that they could contribute more to their children and to their own lives and give themselves more self-respect by going out to work, are unable to do so because of the lack of day care facilities for children.

There are now fewer day nursery places for children under five than in 1945. That is a disgrace to us all. It shows that when the country needed women workers—during war time—it made adequate provision for their children to be cared for during the day while they were at work. Now, when circumstances are different, we have allowed ourselves to slip backwards. Even the mothers who manage to gain one of the scarce day nursery places for their children under the age of five are often faced with the irony that they can work when their children are very small and before they go to school but that when their children reach the age of five and go to primary school their problems begin. That is because primary school ends at three o'clock, a quarter past three or half-past three and their jobs end at half-past five, so that there are two hours when there is no one to care for their children. Employers are not happy with employees who take off eight weeks during the summer because their children are away from school.

In looking at our day care facilities for children and for mothers, we need to provide a balance that equally assesses the needs of both. We need a flexible system which provides the nursery school place for the child who can take and cope with a nursery school, the day nursery or creche for the child who is not ready for a nursery school, the playgroup that also provides a lunchtime meal so that a mother can work a half day, and the various provisions of nursery classes attached to primary schools so that we can offer a flexible range of services that caters for the needs of both the child and the mother whether she wants to work full-time or part-time if she wants to work at all. Of course, her basic job is to be the mother who cares and who wants and chooses to stay at home to look after her children with an adequate income to do so. That applies equally to fathers who choose to stay at home to look after their children while they are small.

I welcome the fact that the Department has announced that it intends to end the scandal whereby fathers in the past were required to register for work if they had children under school age or of school age because they wanted to stay at home to look after them, whereas mothers with dependent children were automatically entitled to supplementary benefit if they so chose. I am delighted to know that the Department intends to change this rule in line with the recommendations of the Finer Committee. I shall be even more delighted when it is actually implemented.

There is another measure that the Department could take. I am now dealing with the smaller and less expensive points but points that could be of enormous help to lone parents and their children. I refer to family income supplement. Much as I dislike means-tested benefits and much as I opposed the introduction of FIS in the beginning, we now face the grim reality that many thousands of families are dependent on family income supplement. Any withdrawal of it would necessitate a much longer-term strategy of fighting poverty overall.

We could do something to help one-parent families. We could lower the number of hours worked per week which entitle a worker to be eligible for family income supplement. If we reduced the level to 24 hours a week we would cover the mothers and fathers who work part-time—the three-quarter day—to cover their child care responsibilities. We could help those parents a great deal more than we do at the moment, because they are effectively wage stopped and they have no hope of getting either supplementary benefit or family income supplement.

What we ought to have done, and what I greatly regret that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer was unable to announce in his autumn Budget, was to have brought in family allowances for the first child as well as increasing these allowances. Over 50 per cent. of one-parent families have only one child. It would have been an enormously valuable interim measure for those families if we had introduced family allowance for the first child. I consider it extremely sad that this Labour Government have found themselves unable to bring in that provision.

However, when we hear the Secretary of State speak about the child endowment scheme as if it were the be-all and end-all solution for one-parent families and their poverty, we must not be deceived. There will have to be differences in the administration of the child endowment scheme from that of the family allowances scheme if one-parent families are to benefit.

In many cases the family endowment scheme is effectively a transfer from husband to wife of the child tax allowance. A cash benefit from the husband becomes a cash benefit for the wife.

When a mother is sole head of the household and works, what she gains on the roundabouts she loses on the swings because she loses her child tax allowance when her new family allowance comes in. A mother on supplementary benefit feels most bitterly resentful about the fact that family allowances are counted as income for the purpose of assessing supplementary benefit entitlement. She is no better off, because by getting an increased family allowance she will lose out of her supplementary benefit what she seemingly gained. When we introduce this much-needed family allowance for the first child we will have to ensure that it is disallowed against supplementary benefit entitlement.

All the matters about which I have been talking relating to the poverty of one-parent families hinge around the central issue whether we should look again at how we provide income support for lone parents and their children and end the present disorganised system which perpetuates their poverty.

At present some lone parents—widows and widowers—are entitled to a pension and national insurance benefit, other lone parents are out working, but for the reasons I have outlined they are often on very low wages, and yet others are dependent in the long term on supplementary benefit—the official poverty line—to meet their needs.

That system is totally unsatisfactory. Unfortunately, however much we may deplore it, the local offices of the Department of Health and Social Security and the Supplementary Benefits Commission are not the most welcoming places. The whole system of supplementary benefit was never designed to provide long-term income support to families. Yet that is how it is being used for one-parent families.

What we need is a totally new scheme, a special cash allowance as of right for all one-parent families whatever their status. That was the recommendation we were most pleased to see included in the Finer Report on one-parent families. It is the recommendation which, sadly, seems mostly firmly to have been rejected so far by the Government. We recognise that it is an expensive recommendation. I and many of my hon. Friends were disappointed that the benefit recommended by Finer is in some way means- tested or, to be more accurate, has an earnings rule attached to it. I know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has expressed concern about this.

One simple way in which we could put that right is by abolishing the earnings rule on the guaranteed maintenance allowance and making the scheme more generous than the committee initially set out.

We are here arguing about detail, and what I would contend that lone parents and their children would like us to do is to establish the principle of a special cash allowance as of right, regardless of age or status, and to get that on to the statute book and administered by a completely different authority from the Supplementary Benefits Commission, which could then do much more effectively the work it is intended to do—that is, give emergency financial aid to people in sudden and dire straits.

Apart from the main financial recommendations, many other valuable suggestions are put forward in the Finer report. There is a large section dealing with housing. We know that the problems of one-parent families are not simply those of poverty, although most of their problems are inter-linked with their basic problem of poverty. Housing is one of the areas in which the heads of many one-parent families are discriminated against because they are women. One of the two main areas of difficulty and insecurity is housing. One-parent families are far less likely to become owner-occupiers than the rest of the population. They are far less likely to become unfurnished tenants. One-parent families are far less likely to get council housing, often because of the allocation policies of housing committees of every political complexion throughout the country.

One-parent families sometimes suffer from policies that are not designed to discriminate against them but which do so unintentionally. There are still local councils which will not accept on to their lists single mothers and their children as a family unit. This is a disgrace. There are other councils which do not recognise the way in which they are discriminating against lone parents and their children. For example, a points system that works on allocating points for each adult and child in the household means that the one-parent family, compared with the two-parent family in the same bad housing conditions, will automatically lose out because it will have one person less.

A neighbouring authority which allocates its points on room deficiency rather than on the number of adults in the household will say that a one-parent family needs the same number of bedrooms as a two-parent family and, therefore, will not discriminate in this way against the one-parent family.

A whole range of measures are set out in the Finer report aimed at abolishing the underprivilege of fatherless families. They are three times more likely than two-parent families to become physically homeless and to end up in the horror of bed and breakfast accommodation—bed and breakfast accommodation for the people who can least well cope with it. These are people who are already lonely, who have already probably gone through some sort of emotional trauma of separation or loss. They are already poor.

The recommendations concerning local authority housing, owner-occupation and homelessness are among the most important sections of the Finer Report. There are also sections dealing with the need for better day care facilities and there is a major section—which has been accepted by the Government and which was included in the Labour Party manifesto but which I am sad to say was not included in the Gracious Speech—on the need for family courts.

We still have the problems of custody, separation and maintenance being discussed and decided in a magistrates' court, with all the paraphernalia of policemen and lay magistrates untrained in the specialised skills necessary to domestic jurisdiction and more used to the ethos of the "drunk and disorderly" type of Monday morning with which every neighbourhood magistrates' court is associated.

If we are to deal in a civilised and humane fashion with the facts of life as they are in our society—that people have children out of wedlock, that marriages break up and that people lose husbands and wives through death, divorce and separation—if we are to deal humanely with adults and children affected by these facts, we must have a specialist system of family courts with properly trained and sensitive personnel who can staff such courts. I hope that we will have an announcement very soon stating what progress is to be made in the implementation of the manifesto pledge to bring in family courts.

There are many other recommendations within the Finer report. I was talking earlier about the difficulties that lone mothers have in obtaining a decent wage. It is a fact that many of these problems stem not from a lack of employment opportunities but from a lack of training opportunities. When we look at the figures for apprenticeships, we see that 95 per cent. of apprentices are boys and that the 5 per cent. who are girl apprentices are in hairdressing.

The present situation is not good enough, if we are to use our woman-power as well as our manpower—and, God knows, we need to use both well in the years ahead. Even before we get to the training and vocational side, we look at the educational opportunities for women and see how they are discriminated against throughout their educational lives in the curricula offered to them, the course of subjects and the job advice they get.

In pre-school education we can see that most of our underprivileged children in the most underprivileged areas are the least likely to get the nursery school education they most need. We go downwards in that vicious cycle of poverty, which I hope we are all determined to break, not by stepping in and saying that the way to end the problem of poor children is to stop them being born but by saying that the way to do it is to end their poverty.

That, I suggest, is the only approach we can and must make to this problem. There are 230 recommendations in all the Finer report. The most important is for a special cash allowance for all one-parent families, but there are the other matters I have mentioned. For example there is the question of the maternity grant. It is a small point and my colleagues on the Front Bench will be delighted to know that it is cheap to implement. At present about 92 per cent. of mothers are eligible for the maternity grant since they or their husbands have sufficient national insurance contributions to be eligible for the measly £25 allocated to them on the birth of the first child. That is supposed to provide for everything that is needed for the birth of the first child. We will leave the sum to one side for the moment.

The mothers who are not eligible for the grant are the very mothers who need it most. They are schoolgirl mothers. They are the mothers who have just started work and have not built up a contribution record. They are women who are living with cohabitees or who have been deserted by a cohabitee and are not eligible on a cohabitee's record. These women suffer most.

What I have suggested would be a cheap measure. I should be glad to see us moving away from the conventional type of approach to the payment of this grant. It should be dependent on the birth of a child whether a person gets a grant for providing for that child, not whether that person has been out of work for the past 52 weeks.

I have said that there are 230 recommendations. I was disappointed with the reply I received from my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister when I asked whether he was satisfied with the coordination of Departments on the implementation of these many and varied recommendations which span right across problems of education and science, the Department of Health and Social Security, the Attorney-General's Department, the Department of the Environment, and many Departments and Ministries. The reply I received was that the Prime Minister was satisfied.

The Prime Minister may be satisfied, but I am not and I think that this is a view that many of my colleagues will share. We would be much happier with the approach to tackling the very important document which we have before us if a departmental committee were to be set up to see how we could integrate our approach to the problems of one-parent families and how we could make a proper and concerted attack.

One-parent families are the most significant minority group that we as a society neglect. We have always seen them as separate, as different—some single mothers here, the widows there, the divorced and separated somewhere in the middle. We have never done enough for this important underprivileged group. Although we have made much progress in other fields of social welfare, we have made very little progress here.

One-parent families are the most rapidly growing group of families living in poverty today. They have been neglected as to the help they have received. They have been neglected in the respect that we as a society give to them.

There is one thing that I want to say on behalf of lone parents struggling to bring up children on their own, in many cases against overwhelming odds. This is something that should be said, because too often we seem to assume that a lone parent is ipso facto a failure and that ipso facto the child of a lone parent will be a failure. This is just not so.

We know that many men and women on their own do a marvellous job and bring up children in a happy, warm and loving atmosphere. We know also that many children are better off with one good caring parent than with two unhappy parents kept together unnaturally. If those children are deprived, it is not the fault of the parent. It is the fault of a society that allows their physical underprivileges to continue and to intensify, as they are intensifying in these days of inflation.

I guess that my hon. Friend the Undersecretary will not argue too strongly over the case I have put forward that one-parent families have needs. He will not argue against the assertion that many of the recommendations of the report of the Finer Committee are things that the Government would like to see implemented. The case that we will hear from both sides of the House is that we are in a time of economic stringency, that inflation is rampant and that we cannot afford to help these families now.

If we accept that doctrine we shall fail. Certainly we on this side of the House will fail in our Socialism. If we do not help these families now, we shall be allowing them to go to the wall. These are the very people who suffer most from the effects of inflation, and then we have the contempt to say that, because of inflation we cannot afford to help them. We are mortgaging the future of over 1 million children if we do not act to give assistance to lone parents and their families now, and we cannot use the economic situation that hurts them more than it hurts those of us in the House as an excuse for not helping them now.

I am sure that the whole House will wish to join me in congratulating the hon. Lady the Member for Welwyn and Hatfield (Mrs. Hayman), not only on her success in the Ballot, which obviously was not within her control, but on choosing this subject and on the absolutely admirable way in which she presented the case. I have never heard a better speech from the back benches—in fact I do not think that I have heard a better speech at all—on a social services subject.

What stood out in the hon. Lady's speech was that, although there are always temptations in a situation like this, she did not make any party capital out of it. That is something for which I am very grateful. The whole House will wish to join me in that sentiment.

The hon. Lady was so fluent and so comprehensive as to intimidate those of us who will follow her. She said almost everything and left us with nothing other than to applaud, to echo and to hope. However, it is important that we should unite across the Chamber and make our contributions to the debate. Obviously it is a pity that more Members are not here and that many, like the hon. Lady, had to stay up throughout the night. That in itself is a great tribute to the hon. Lady—that after staying up all night she can still deliver a speech such as that. For obvious reasons many Members had to return to their constituencies.

The fact that there are not many Members here underlines the need, which was stressed by the hon. Lady in her opening remarks, for the whole House to have an early opportunity of debating this subject in Government time. I was delighted when yesterday at Business question time the Leader of the House assured me that he would do his best to find time as soon as possible after Chirstmas for such a debate. We must all respect the enormous pressures on the Government's timetable, a timetable which has been thrown out of gear this week, for understandable reasons. Therefore, of course, we do not criticise the Leader of the House for saying that it must be after Christmas, but I hope that it will be soon after Christmas, and I hope that there will not be any excuse offered or proffered because we have had today's debate. It is important that the Government should make a definitive pronouncement—again, we cannot expect that today—about this report and it is important that Members should have the opportunity of debating its implementation.

This is a subject which unites Members in all parts of the House. The motion which stands in my name and those of my hon. Friend the Member for Wallsall, South (Mr. George) and about 130 other hon. Members crosses all party lines and includes members of every party in the House and of all wings and sections and groups within every party in the House.

This is also an appropriate time to mention that one of the most active of party groups, of which I have the honour to be chairman, is the group for widows and one-parent families, which meets regularly and discusses these issues in an entirely non-party and non-partisan spirit, motivated by only one thing, which is a genuine desire to do something to help these people who, through no fault of their own, very often are deprived.

One thing that we shall all have to recognise in debating this subject is that this is a continuing social problem which no Government will ever be able to solve. There have always been, and there always will be, society and human nature being what it is, families that break up. There will always be families devas-stated by tragedy, sometimes sudden, swift and terrible as in Birmingham a week ago, sometimes quiet and domestic, but always these things will happen and always they will leave in their wake children with only one parent on whom to rely.

These children, who are all quirks of nature and circumstance, obliged to live in a sort of twilight area, are never to blame. We should always remember this. It is easy and perhaps sometimes justifiable to comment on the conduct of parents, but the one person who cannot be blamed is the child. If a schoolgirl has a child, one may throw up one's hands and deplore her morals—although I believe that that reaction should have no part in a debate such as this—but one cannot blame the child, who is all the more deserving of the consideration and help of society in general. So these children, deprived as they are, must always be our first and our proper concern.

Members of Parliament are in an almost unique position to appreciate this, because all of us, wherever we sit, have our surgeries and advice bureaux. We all find that the most heart-rending cases often centre around these single-parent families—perhaps a woman deserted by her husband, a man left by a wife whose attentions have wandered, or people like the parents of a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl who came to my surgery the other week distraught and distressed because she is pregnant and about to give birth.

Members of Parliament have a double qualification and therefore a double obligation, because those of us who are married and have children appreciate a little more acutely than most the problems of a one-parent family, because many of us with constituencies far from London have to leave our children with our wives during the week and attend to our duties here. We can see the tension which can be created even in a normal, healthy, happy and relatively affluent family by the absence, even if only temporarily, of one of the parents.

Because of these things, we have an obligation and a unique privilege in the sense of being able to see exactly what the problems are. We could also be in a unique position to know more about how to solve them than most people know. At the centre of our discussion when debating an issue like this should be the thought that, around a happy, healthy family life a happy, healthy society can flourish and that, without family life as its basis, society and indeed civilisation can be placed in jeopardy.

I was particularly struck to read in a recent edition of Poverty, the journal of the Child Poverty Action Group, an article by Victor George of the University of Kent, from which I will quote one tiny passage. There are things in his article with which I would not agree, but we can all agree with this, that an enlightened social policy for one-parent families must have as one of its main aims

"to encourage as many mothers or fathers to continue caring for their children when their spouse dies or leaves. In spite of all the criticisms levelled at the family, it is still the best and cheapest way of bringing up chidren and until a better way is found"—

I suggest that it never will be—

"social policy must aim at supporting the family. At present, social policy fails to do this. A rough indication of this is that about one-third of all children in the care of local authorities come from one-parent families—a disproportionate figure, since children of one-parent families account for only ten per cent. of the child population."

Those comments are particularly pertinent to our debate, and I believe that there is not a Member in the Chamber who could not echo and endorse them. If we are adequately to maintain and enhance family life, we should try with care and determination and passion to do more and more for these families.

The hon. Lady was particularly right when she said that, because this social area is fragmented, we often tend to ignore it. There are, of course, the widows, and we are all conscious of their plight. Then there are unmarried mothers, the divorced, the separated and the widowers. Do not let us forget the widowers, who in a sense are in the most difficult situation of all. Because they come in these various groups and compartments, we sometimes find it difficult to think of them as presenting the single social problem that they do present.

Widowers are perhaps in the most difficult situation of all, because a woman obviously has her maternal instincts, she is fitted by nature to look after the family and she has generations of inherited experience behind her. A man is not in that position and suddenly to be deprived of his wife by death or desertion devastates him. He must always be encouraged and helped to the uttermost to try to keep the family unit together.

The major recommendation of the Finer Report, which is at the centre of this debate, is the GMA, the guaranteed maintenance allowance. I agree with the hon. Lady that it is a matter of high priority that it should be introduced. I do not want to inject partisan notes into my speech, any more than she did into hers, but she closed with a passing and entirely permissible reference to Socialism, so perhaps I can be forgiven one partisan comment.

The money which we are at present expending on food subsidies could be better spent and a portion of it could be devoted to bringing in this allowance, to the much greater benefit of this important and deprived section of the community. When the Government protest that it is economically impossible to bring it in at the moment, I would say, "Please look at your priorities and the money that we are already spending. Please consider whether some of the money might not be more constructively diverted to this policy." Without increasing capital expenditure—we all know how important it is for everyone's sake to contain that—the GMA could be brought in as a matter of priority, and fairly soon.

But of course we accept that the economic conditions of today are such as to make it difficult for any Government of any party to indulge in any large-scale extra expenditure. Only by a change, an alteration, a diversion can this be brought in. Although I have made my plug, I know that the Government are wedded to their system of food subsidies and I fear—I hope that I am wrong—that my plea has fallen on deaf ears.

If so, I would say, as the hon. Lady said, that many recommendations in the Finer Report could be implemented at little cost or in some cases at no cost at all. It is to these that I urge the Government to direct their attention. I hope that, if not today at least when we have our definitive debate, the Minister will promise us the early implementation of some of those recommendations. The hon. Lady has referred movingly and persuasively to many of those recommendations. I will therefore not mention all that I had intended to mention. But I hope that I can reinforce some of her comments and perhaps even be able to add some others to them.

It is essential, for instance, to do something to humanise the cohabitation rule. It is not the hallmark of a civilised and humane society to place widows in fear of their moral reputation if they take in a lodger. A system which relies even to the minutest degree on the anonymous allegation is entirely to be deplored.

The Child Poverty Action Group, when it recently drew up what it thought was a code for the reform and the humanisation of the cohabitation rule, hit upon certain important facts. First, it recom- mended that anonymous allegations should never be accepted as admissible evidence. I hope that we can all agree about that. Second, it recommended that both sides should have an absolute right to call witnesses instead of that procedure being dependent upon the chairman's discretion. Third, it recommended that there should always be a clear written record of proceedings which should be sent to the claimants, as is done by national insurance tribunals. Fourth, it recommended that the written reasons for the decision sent to the claimant should be in the form of a statement which should apply the relevant statutes to the facts and arguments presented at the hearing so that the appellant would know the basis on which the decision had been reached. In the interests of justice we can accept no less than that.

There are those who say that the rules should go altogether, but I do not suppose that the Minister would associate himself with that line of argument. We must be realistic. Successive Governments have argued that it would be indefensible and unfair to abolish the rule totally. If that argument is accepted in this debate, and for the purposes of my argument I accept it, I think that a humanisation of the procedure is of the utmost importance and should be a matter of high priority for the Government. It would have the incalculable advantage that from an administrative point of view it could be implemented with almost no cost.

The hon. Member for Welwyn and Hatfield talked of family courts. She referred to them as courts which can be conducted in a friendly and relatively informal manner and in a warm atmosphere. It is something of which we can hardly be proud that people faced with the most acute, distressing and depressing social and domestic problems are often brought into an atmosphere which they find intimidating—namely, a courtroom with police officers and with the smell of stale beer hanging heavily in the air. I hope that something can be done quickly about this. As it was within the Labour Party's manifesto, I hope that the Government will be able to do something with the family courts at least in the next Gracious Speech.

The hon. Lady also referred to the housing situation. She mentioned how many local authorities unwittingly penalise the single-parent family. I should like to see the Secretary of State for the Environment send out a circular to local authorities within the next few weeks requesting a harmonisation of the procedure that is operated by local authorities. I am asking for a harmonisation which will deliberately not place at a disadvantage the single-parent family. If that alone could come from this debate it woud be well worth having. I hope that the Minister will pass on that suggestion to the Department of the Environment and that he will add his persuasive Celtic powers to my voice so that the Secretary of State gets down to the job fairly soon.

The hon. Lady also referred to maternity grants. Again, I do not think that anyone who dwells for a moment on the needs of people could possibly disagree with what she said. It is a strange system and a weird form of justice that penalises the child for the sins of the mother. It is those mothers who are not eligible for the grant whose children are most in need and for whom the £25 could make a considerable difference. I hope that the Minister will take on board that matter. Again, there is the inestimable advantage that the public expenditure required would be of minute proportions.

I do not wish to detain the House for much longer. I know that there are other hon. Members who wish to make their contribution to this debate. I end by drawing attention to another matter that the Government should undertake immeiately in bringing about the form of coordination to which the hon. Lady referred. I have suggested that we should have a circular on housing. I also suggest that the Minister and his right hon. Friend go before the Prime Minister at No. 10 Downing Street and ask him to set up as a matter of urgency a co-ordinating committee representing all the major Departments of State which are affected by the recommendations of the Finer Report and whose united endeavours and joint experience must be brought together if the single-parent families are to be given a new dimension in which to live.

That should be our aim. We cannot prevent the tragedies of death that result in widows and widowers being left with small children. We cannot act as a court of morals and we cannot prevent deficiences of various kinds. Still less can we prevent conception by schoolgirls that results in children being brought into the world and having to live with only one parent. What we can do is to take such children into our collective care. We can encourage the family unit and ensure that if children have been deprived through death or the accident of birth, they will not also be deprived by the fact that society is unconscious and neglectful of their needs.

It must be reiterated that there is all-party support for the motion. There are very few matters on which the hon. Member for Staffordshire, South-West (Mr. Cormack) and I agree. If we begin to agree too often I shall need to re-examine my political philosophy. I am sure that he, too, would need to consider his position. However, on this subject we have reached near unanimity. Indeed, all-party agreement is testimony to the fact that it is not always necessary to adopt a partisan approach to achieve our political and social objectives.

It is a pleasure to follow the superb speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn and Hatfield (Mrs. Hayman). There were parts of my hon. Friend's speech which were so moving that I swear I saw some tears in the civil servant's box. That is testimony to the weight of her speech. My hon. Friend not only said many of the things that I meant to say but she probably made many of the points that the hon. Member for Staffordshire, South-West intended to make. Probably she has rendered superfluous many of the matters that the Minister would have put forward in winding up. It must be emphasised that this debate should not be seen as a substitute for a fuller debate. Indeed, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House has indicated his willingness to arrange a full debate. It is important that what is said on this subject is not listened to by only a handful of people such as the number present today.

The output of Her Majesty's Stationery Office is enormous. Many reports are published such as weighty Royal Commissions and committees of inquiry of various kinds. I am convinced that awaiting each report is a pre-arranged pigeonhole which is swiftly filled. Many reports have been consigned to oblivion, with very few of their recommendations implemented. Many reports are greeted by the Government with apparent enthusiasm, but after an initial flurry here and in Government circles they find their pre-arranged niche, for ever more to be forgotten.

But one thing we can assure Ministers is that the Finer Report on one-parent families will not have that fate. There is an enormous amount of support for its recommendations. We must warn Ministers and senior civil servants that there is a great deal of support within the House and a whole range of organisations outside. They have got together in the Joint Finer Action Committee. The supporters inside and outside the House are in close liaison.

We must also warn the Government that other groups and organisations within our society have come to our support. This morning I attended my party conference, which unanimously passed an emergency resolution supporting improvements in the lot of one-parent families. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State was there. The phrase "one-parent family" was used often by many speakers. My right hon. Friend is aware of the problem anyway, but that repeated use of the phrase shows that within the Labour Party and the trade union movement there is a groundswell of support. Most important of all, the vast numbers of people who come within the scope of the report are anxious to see an improvement in their situation. All in all, an enormous amount of pressure will be coming the way of Ministers in the not-too-distant future.

We could not support a cause that was not just. We feel that our cause is just, and that the recommendations should be implemented not merely because there is a growing army of supporters but because the report has shown that the area is one that has hitherto been largely ignored and neglected by Government. The committee has shone a pitiless floodlight on this area of neglect, and none of us will allow that floodlight to be switched off.

It is a magnificent report. When historians and social administrators appraise important reports of the 20th century, they will place the Finer Report on high. It is a superb work, invaluable not only for Ministers. I hope that many local authorities are scrutinising its 230 recommendations very closely.

It is a great report for both the long term and the short term. We arc not so naive as to assume that even if the Government had the money, which they have not, the 230 recommendations could be translated into reality at the wave of a wand. As Professor McGregor, one of the committee members, said when he visited the House recently, the report is educative in many ways. Many of its recommendations are long term, striking at the heart of our administrative system. We face not just financial obstacles but administrative obstacles, the natural inertia with any bureaucracy, especially when it is fragmented and departmentalised.

The recommendations are not confined to the Department of Health and Social Security. They cut across the entire spectrum of the machinery of central and local government. A great deal of co-ordination should be involved, and we are not entirely satisfied that it is taking place.

We have waited a long time for the report. We recognise the difficulties that were faced by the committee—a number of deaths and resignations as well as all sorts of other problems. But at last the report is out. Having waited a long time for it, we do not want to wait a long time before its recommendations start to reach the statute book.

The Government's initial reaction was not totally encouraging. When the report was published, I asked my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State a question, and her reply was not completely satisfactory to many supporters of one-parent families. She said that the Government accepted many of the recommendations, that they were having consultations with local authorities about their sphere of the recommendations and that there were some recommendations that the Government could not accept.

The pivotal recommendations relate to income and finance. What the report has shown is what we realise anyway—but now we have more documentary evidence to support us—that the financial position of one-parent families is generally inferior to that of two-parent families. The Finer recommendation was the well-argued guaranteed maintenance allowance. We have heard that the Government will not implement it. They have their own child endowment schemes, and we look forward to those being published and implemented.

We shall be told that there is the cost problem. We are realists. If the Government tell us, "We have not got the money", we acknowledge that they are in a better position to know. But we are saying that when the money is available we expect to see the recommendations receiving high priority. There are other groups with equally strong claims on a diminishing public treasury, but the case for the one-parent families has been put strongly, and we expect priority treatment.

The hon. Member for Staffordshire, South-West spoke about many recommendations that would cost little or nothing to implement but would at least show the Government's good intentions. I am sure that my hon. Friend will tell us that there have been modest beginnings, but they are modest. Perhaps a couple of the recommendations have been ticked off, but we shall not be satisfied until we start seeing large chunks of them being ticked off and can say that the Government are acting.

I reinforce what has been said by both previous speakers about the cohabitation rule, which illustrates the problems of bureaucracy and not of cost. We mounted the campaign on the matter some time ago, and it has received a great deal of support. When a former Lord Chancellor, Lord Gardiner, comes out so strongly in favour, we know that we have a good case.

After considering the Finer recommendations, I believe that the Committee is almost saying that there is a strong case for the cohabitation rule to be abolished, but Finer says that we cannot go quite that far. He says:

"There are few subjects in the field of social security law and administration which give rise to more heat and criticism than the cohabitation rule in supplementary benefits.…Granted the necessity for the rule, the task must be to improve its administration so as to minimise the dangers."

There are dangers: widows walking in fear, afraid to engage in a reasonable relationship with a member of the opposite sex for fear that someone will inform upon them and there will be an investi- gation, the result of which will be the withdrawal of an order book, which can spell financial disaster.

I personally could not support the abolition of the cohabitation rule. Clearly public funds must be protected against fraud. However, the statistics show that there are remarkably few cases in which fraud is proved and not all that many cases in which it is suspected. The rule affects a potentially large number of people. Examples have been given showing how it can be improved. One way of improving it is to have a code of conduct for investigators. Throughout the night we have been talking about potential invasions of our privacy. Privacy can be invaded in a far less spectacular way. Clearly there is a strong case to be made for a re-examination of the regulations as operated by social security investigators.

There must be a statutory definition of cohabitation for the benefit not only of claimants, who have to know whether the relationship on which they have em-barked comes within the definition of cohabitation, but of the officers. Someone must find a reasonable definition of cohabitation which can then be placed inside the order books so that widows or others potentially liable to prosecution may understand the position.

Another danger of the present operation of the law is that order books can be withdrawn on suspicion. In many cases Department of Health and Social Security officers make allegations and the book is withdrawn and it is impossible for a widow or perhaps a single parent to prove innocence. An automatic stage should be inserted in the proceedings so that the book can be withdrawn only after an investigation and a hearing at which the accused person is represented. From my questioning of Ministers, it is clear on the question not only of cohabitation but of tribunals in general that if a person is represented his chances of getting off are significantly increased.

I hope that we shall be visiting the Minister in the not-too-distant future in order to thrash out some of the problems I have mentioned because if ever there is a case for close examination and action it is in respect of the operation of the iniquitous cohabitation rule.

Mention has been made of the Finer Committee's recommendations on housing. The cost of some of the recommendations of the Finer Committee is not incalculable. When we say that we must build more houses for one-parent families, we must not forget that there are two groups equally in need of adequate housing. In my area, over 7,500 people are on the council housing waiting list. We must move ahead with building not only more houses but specialist accommodation for one-parent families.

Mention has been made of the points system, a system which in principle I support. At least it gives an air of rationality and objectivity to what is often a disastrous situation. Without the points system we would be forced to resort to subjective assessments, which could be disadvantageous. The points system is very wayward in its operation from local authority to local authority, and it heavily penalises the one-parent family. Therefore, perhaps a directive or advice could be issued to local authorities inviting them to consider the Finer Committee's recommendations.

It is important that one-parent families should be given adequate support. When one is widowed, divorced or separated, one is in a vulnerable position and is faced with not only financial problems but psychological problems. I wonder whether the social services and housing departments provide adequate information not simply on housing but generally for people who, against their will, are regrettably thrown into this category. The advice systems must generally be considerably improved.

Temporary accommodation must also be improved. People thrown into the one-parent family category are desperately vulnerable before they can be found permanent accommodation, and much more must be done by local authorities to tide them over.

One of the strongest sections in the Finer Report relates to the legal system. It is a terrific indictment of the way in which the law operates. I foresee some great problems. We have problems enough with Departments such as the Department of Health and Social Security, but others are equally intransigent. Perhaps the Law Departments come within this category. In view of the way in which other Departments are moved, the outlook is not entirely encouraging. I therefore hope that the Finer Committee's recommendations about the law will be quickly implemented.

The onus of responsibility for implementing the Finer Report is not simply on the Department of Health and Social Security but on almost every Government Department. One wonders whether they are taking their responsibilities seriously. They may think that by inviting a Minister from the Department of Health and Social Security to deal with these matters they can forget their responsibility. Many of the Finer Committee's recommendations on education must be considered. Modest beginnings have been made. Let us hope that we can go on from them and see an improvement in the lot of one-parent families. The Finer Report not only deals with the question of improving the lot of one-parent families but is a charter for women's rights. That has been largely ignored.

It has been a pleasure for me to speak in the debate. I hope that, though there are many empty seats in the Chamber—understandably in the circumstances—the not entirely deaf ears of the Minister will be opened further and that he will transmit what has been said in the debate to other Ministers not only in his Department but in other Departments, because two-thirds of a million one-parent families and over 1 million dependent children are anxiously awaiting the results of the Government's deliberations. They cannot wait too long. Nor can we.

The hon. Lady the Member for Welwyn and Hatfield (Mrs. Hayman) has picked up one of the most enviable speaking characteristics of the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell), namely, that of being able to speak without notes. She has been a most knowledgeable and articulate exponent of her cause, which today is the cause of all of us. The ground has been well covered and I hope that sufficient seeds for thought and action have been planted on the Government Front Bench.

Two General Elections have made me acutely aware of the deprivation, hardship and suffering among the group we are discussing which is worthy of special attention and financial support even at a time of great financial stringency. Society is more fluid than it was even a few years ago. Many divorces take place at an earlier age. Divorce is easier and it is becoming more acceptable socially. The House and the Government must react to this new feeling in society.

I have been working for several years for a London charity called St. Christopher's which deals with the problems of homeless and delinquent adolescents. This was virtually my introduction to the problem of one-parent families. Many of the children in the society's homes are from homes where the parent was unable to bring up the family in modern conditions without proper financial support. We all agree that it is much better to bring up children at home rather than in a home. That is perhaps the main argument as to the correct action to be taken on the Finer Report.

May I mention the problem of the single schoolgirl who is expecting a child and possibly is a casualty of our so-called permissive society. I suggest that if she knows that society will not neglect her if she has a child and will try to help her financially and in other ways, there is a chance that she may not have an abortion and may be prepared to go ahead and bring up her child. Is that not an important factor for us to consider?

Housing authorities, particularly in our big conurbations must adopt a more flexible approach to the problem of lone parents and, indeed, single people in general. We must have an interdepartmental committee to co-ordinate the main thrust from Whitehall. I echo the call which has already been made for a major debate on this subject before too long.

I believe that the answer is a supplementary cash allowance as of right. I do not think I am alone in saying that I do not know how some lone parents survive financially when prices are rising by 20 per cent. per year. Such parents try to survive by spurning luxuries and accept that their living standards frequently will fall below those of immediate neighbours.

One of the great weaknesses of our society is the ludicrous way in which society hands out financial rewards. A football pool winner will receive an enormous sum of money which will probably bring him much ill health and unhappiness. Then there is the property developer who through his ability and risk-taking will make his first £500,000 before he is 30 years of age. Yet how small are the rewards for those pillars in society such as the hospitals, doctors, the policemen and the group of people I shall meet when I open an old people's home bazaar on Sunday.

We are today turning the spotlight on a large group of our society who are the salt of the earth, yet that group is very badly rewarded for its efforts. These people struggle against the odds in trying to bring up children in decent Christian homes with loving care and attention. In doing so they are saving the taxpayer and ratepayer from many extra demands. I believe that a decent civilised society should go out of its way to reward these members of our society; in doing so it will become a more just and compassionate society.

The House is grateful to the hon. Lady the Member for Welwyn and Hatfield (Mrs. Hayman) for this opportunity to debate the Finer Report, but we are more grateful to her for her penetrating analysis of the problem with which she introduced the debate. That analysis benefited from her work in this sphere before she entered the House. Incidentally, I very much liked the way in which the hon. Lady reprimanded her Labour colleagues when she thought that a reprimand was due.

It is appropriate that we should discuss this matter after an all-night sitting when many of our own families perforce became "one-parent" families, but the fact is that the coming of dawn, which many of us witnessed from the terrace or from the warmth and comfort of the bar, has meant that the attendance at this debate has been hit to some degree.

The depth of feeling on both sides of the House, and the support of the all-party committee, which is examining this problem, have not perhaps been represented in this debate to the full. The Finer Report comprised 1,000 pages and took five years to compile and in the process got through three secretaries, which is a high mortality rate for the Civil Service.

After all this investment and research work and the analysis which has been undertaken, we owe it not just to one-parent families but to those who worked on the Finer Committee to give top priority to the report. There is no point if Government after Government set up committees and Royal Commissions and then, after receiving their reports, Parliament takes no notice. Many recommendations involve Government funds, and the expenditure of such funds is not at the moment popular with the Treasury. I believe, however, that this is the right time to get in the queue, because at some other time the circumstances will change as we solve our economic problems. It is right that this group of people should be at the forefront of the queue knocking at the door until the time when the Treasury reopens its gates.

Some figures that were given after the Finer Committee reported showed that one-parent families have to survive on £26·09p per week—less than half the average income of two-parent families with children. These statistics underline the problems of one-parent families.

There is a popular misconception that in talking of single-parent families we are talking only of unmarried wothers. But fewer than 15 per cent. of the people involved are unmarried mothers. There are other groups who form the bulk of single-parent families. This is a group which after pensioners comprises the largest single group of poverty in the country.

The Minister would do well to cast his eyes overseas and look at how European countries tackle the problem because they give greater priority to these areas of poverty than we do in this country. If we cannot persuade Labour Members to vote for the EEC on other grounds, perhaps the fact that we may have to revise our standards upwards in the treatment meted out to single-parent families may bring them into the Lobbies at the appropriate time.

I personally regret the Government's decision to continue to allow supplementary benefit to be the main source of income for single-parent families. So much of the friction between these parents and the Department of Health and Social Security is due to their dependence on supplementary benefit. If only we could reach a system which gave a guaranteed maintenance allowance as recommended by the Finer Committee so that that element of dependence would be removed, much of the problem would be solved. Furthermore, it would give many people affected by these matters an incentive to work which has not existed before. Many of the parents need to work, not just for financial reasons but on psychological grounds. It could help the country out of its economic difficulties if they can be encouraged to join the labour market.

The situation would have been eased considerably if a Conservative Government had brought in the tax credit scheme to which Conservatives were committed, but Finer was unable to predict the outcome of the two General Elections. This has led to the present situation. I hope that the administrative programme will not delay for long the introduction of a guaranteed maintenance allowance. The children in such families are the ones we must bother about. They are at a disadvantage financially, socially and psychologically. Their problems today are society's problems tomorrow.

I am reluctant to be partisan in this debate, but it would be much easier to tackle these problems by a selective rather than by a universal approach to the social services. With respect to Labour Members, I believe that it is this principle of universality in the social services which has prevented us from tackling particular pockets of poverty.

We would do well to look at the words of the Finer Report on this topic which are as follows:

"What chiefly matters in such situations is to assist and protect dependent children all of whom ought to be treated alike irrespective of their mothers' circumstances".

Few people would dissent from those sentiments and I am sure that the Secretary of State for Social Services would not depart from those emotions.

These two substantial volumes will not disappear. They will remain with us for some time and we shall have to tackle them.

I conclude by saying that there is a widespread belief that it is the big battalions that get all the help. That belief is growing in credence every day and it threatens some of our democratic institutions. I can think of no better way of shattering that belief than for the Government to say, "We accept the recommendations of the Finer Report. Here are sections of our society who have no big battalions and no money behind them. But we accept the logic of their case and implement the recommendations of that report." The uplift to Government in accepting a case backed not by any big battalions but by careful analysis and logic would be tremendous.

The whole House—and it is understandably a small one after an all-night sitting—congratulates the hon. Member for Welwyn and Hatfield (Mrs. Hayman) on initiating this debate and on the extremely knowledgeable way in which she introduced it. We know that she had great practical experience in these matters before coming to this House, working in a society which has done so much for widows and single-parent families. We valued her contribution greatly. I am sure that it will be some compensation for her predecessor in her seat to know that she cares so much about these matters, because he, too, cared a great deal.

This has been an extremely interesting debate and an interesting and useful trailer for the full debate which I hope the Government will allow us very soon on the Finer Report. We need such a debate, and I know that my right hon. and hon. Friends want to go into the details of the report with great care.

The debate has had one other use in that we shall be touching on some of these matters during the Committee stage of another Bill which is to begin next week, and we shall be able to make good use of much of the information which the hon. Lady gave us.

The first major recommendation of the Finer Report relates to the guaranteed maintenance allowance. I do not think that there is any difference between the two sides of the House about the need for this. It was with this very much in mind that Conservative Party candidates in the recent election campaign said that we intended to use the tax credit scheme as the principal means of bringing help to one-parent families as soon as economic circumstances allowed. We regret that a start on this has not been made already by an announcement that the first child will receive family allowance. We hope that that will not be too long coming.

Whether the new allowance is called a guaranteed maintenance allowance or a tax credit scheme matters little. What matters is that we bring selectively to these deprived families some income as of right which they have not had before. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Acton (Sir G. Young) said, universality has so often been an enemy in helping those most in need, and it was the same universality which made successive Governments carry on longer than they would have wanted the cheapest solution, namely, that which involves means-tested benefits. Now that means-tested benefits or any other benefits linked solely to incomes are no longer as socially acceptable to the country generally, we have to move to a new system where we select people according to other categories of need, and the single-parent families are very much in those categories.

I turn to one or two individual matters raised by the hon. Lady which caught my attention. The first related to the day care of children whose single parents go out to work. I agree with what she said about the gap in time between the child coming home from school and the normal end of the parent's working day. This is especially true where the single parent happens to be a man. Usually he cannot take a job which ends at 3.30 in the afternoon, which means that he cannot take a job at all. I know of one instance where this has caused great misery to a man who has two young children to look after. He does it very well, but he is quite unable to take on a proper job. Here is a case where some flexibility in school times or in day care and day nursery arrangements would help a number of people considerably.

Several hon. Members mentioned their dislike of the cohabitation rule. I share that dislike, and the Under-Secretary of State and I have been on the same side in arguing for an end to the rule. But it must be realised that it presents the administration with great problems, and they are not easy of solution. If we decided to do away with the rule, we should come under considerable criticism from those who are eager to show up the abuses which can arise if no system exists. This needs looking at carefully, and it may be that that can be done in Committee. We need to make the cohabitation rule more flexible, particularly as it affects single parents looking after several young children. But I sympathise greatly with the Under-Secretary in having to meet these very difficult problems.

My hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire, South-West (Mr. Cormack) spoke movingly and with great knowledge of these matters. He does an extremely valuable job as chairman of the all-party Committee on Widows and One-Parent Families. He drew attention to one very important fact. So often these families become single-parent families overnight, and there has been no long-term preparation for the event. In the case of a family who lost a parent in the recent Birmingham bombing, for example, there has been no time to build up inner resources and mental reserves against it. When families meet these situations they find them desperately hard to overcome. Thus it is not only the matter of the sudden fall in income which attaches to such tragedies. Many have difficult mental problems which they have to face.

It is not only the cash side to which we have to pay attention. There is also a great need for advice to single-parent families, and I question whether all the paraphernalia of the social security system really works well on many of these occasions to give single parents in need the advice, almost parental advice, that they want in order to work out the matters which in all probability the deceased hubsands or wives looked after during their lifetime. They include matters such as paying social security contributions, what happens when alimony is not paid and other problems that, as every hon. Member knows, come to us regularly in our advice bureaux.

There are some proposals in the Finer Report that would not cost a great deal of money and those should be implemented as soon as possible. Among them is the proposal to have family courts. One suggestion that has caught my attention is that family courts should be held on Saturday mornings. Why not? That would be a day when a court need not look like a court, need not be surrounded by policemen and so on, when it could be a place when problems could be sorted out much more simply and in a much more humane fashion. That proposal would not be expensive to implement.

I have already mentioned the need to make the cohabitation rule as compassionate as possible, and I am certain that the Under-Secretary will take that matter very seriously.

The hon. Lady said that local social security offices were not the most welcome places in the world for anyone, but particularly not for those accompanied by young children and with serious problems. How true that is. But I am sure she would not extend that to the dedicated people who work in the local social security offices. I often find, as I am sure she has found, that those people do a marvellous job. We all owe the Department a debt for the civil servants it has working for it, often in adverse conditions, in some local offices. I can say that with great emphasis of my own constituency, and I am sure that it applies to others.

We warmly welcome the whole document that has been produced by Sir Morris Finer. It will be a milestone in the country's social history. It is an enormous document and I cannot say that I foresee all 230 recommendations being taken up by Governments overnight. I am certain that that will not happen because some are vastly expensive. But I want us to start to march along that road very quickly. I want us to march along the road to an income as of right to the one-parent families. I want us to march along the road of making life more tolerable for these large numbers of deprived children.

We wait upon the Government to lead the way, and I am sure that if they go along that road steadily and with determination they will have much support from the Opposition.

I am conscious that many hon. Members have been here all night, but there has nevertheless been a remarkable quality in the debate and much of it has been due to my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn and Hatfield (Mrs. Hayman). I can put her and others out of their misery straight away and say that the Government certainly have no intention of opposing the motion. Its ideals could not be opposed by anyone genuinely concerned with this subject. I propose in rather general terms to outline the Government's attitude and approach to the Finer Report and, where necessary, to express our reservations on certain features.

I know that there are hon. Members who are somewhat critical of the writings and actions of the late Richard Crossman, but the fact that Dick Crossman set up the Finer Committee in 1969 is a further reason why many of us still hold him in high regard. Since that time and partly before it there has been a quickening of public interest in the subject of one-parent families.

I shall not mention the groups outside the House, because if I leave out one, I shall cause a great deal of trouble. There has also been great interest among groups inside the House. There is the all-party Committee on Widows and One-Parent Families to which my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George), and the hon. Member for Staffordshire South-West (Mr. Cormack) belong. The setting up of that committee has helped to engender further interest.

I should like to pay a personal tribute to Sir Morris Finer and the committee for the four-and-a-half years of hard labour that they must have undertaken. The report has excited the interest of those who for years urged the case of one-parent families. More than that, it has awakened the interest of others who had never considered the problem, or who had failed to appreciate its scale and complexity.

My hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn and Hatfield is certainly not one of those. The House and the country are indebted to her for choosing this subject for debate today. If I may use the phrase, she gave us a wonderful precis of the Finer Report and if anyone wants to read a shortened version of the Finer Report, my hon. Friend's speech was just that.

That is what we had expected of her. Many of us knew her before she came to the House and knew of her interest in the subject as Deputy Director of the National Council for One-Parent Families. Her speech today confirmed our expectations and convinced us, if we needed convincing, of her sincerity and compassion for those in need.

After four-and-a-half years, the Finer Committee has produced its recommendations, which cover a wide range. It has gathered an enormous amount of stastistical information. The size and nature of the problems associated with one-parent families are spelled out in detail. For instance, we are told of the 620,000 families and, according to the 1971 census, the 920,000 children who are affected. We are told that 40 per cent. of those families received supplementary benefit and that for most of them supplementary benefit is their main source of income. The report says that about 50 per cent. of those have been receiving supplementary benefit for more than two years and that a further 7 per cent. are living in effect on incomes even lower than supplementary benefit. The figures are there for all to see and I do not want to repeat a mass of statistics that we can read for ourselves.

But the figures show the financial circumstances and other problems associated with maintenance orders, housing and so on. Those figures are essential for Governments and voluntary organisations that play a part in solving these problems. However, when I first read the Finer Report—I was then a back-bench Member—I was particularly attracted by a passage in Part 8 from which I should like to read a short extract. It refers to the

"mass of factual and statistical information that is assembled"

and says:

"There is a missing element. This has to do with what it is like in terms of immediate human experience, in the process of living from day to day, rearing children, and coping with the repetitive small problems as well as the pervasive great ones, to be and have the responsibilities of a lone parent."

When looking at the statistics we forget the ideas behind that quotation at our peril and to our shame. I think that this was the point about which the hon. Member for Wells (Mr. Boscawen) was talking. But we are talking about human beings and not just statistics.

I have a personal point to make here. My own father died when I was two, so I am a son of a one-parent family. But in the Rhondda in those days it was the normal custom if such a tragedy occurred that the family would return to the home of the grandparents. My mother and the four boys did this. The family, friends, the chapel and the whole community wrapped itself around us and provided a sort of protective shield to help us to overcome the difficulties that we were facing.

That is really what we want from Finer—a protective shield covering the whole range of difficulties facing one-parent families. In the creation of that shield obviously the State and the Government have a major part to play. I should hope that the shield which we can help to create will help all one-parent families as far and as fast as lies in our power and certainly as fast as present resources permit.

Most hon. Members have commented on the financial problem. This was one of the committee's central themes—it is certainly the theme which has attracted most attention inside and outside the House, today and previously—and it concerns the financial hardship faced by so many one-parent families. Certainly the evidence presented in the Finer Report demonstrating their poverty in relation to the generality of two-parent families is formidable. The detail of this was spelt out today by my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn and Hatfield. The Finer Committee's solution to the problem, as we know, was a special social security benefit for one-parent families, large enough to lift them off supplementary benefit and acting as a guarantee of maintenance. Some people, certainly some hon. Members, are disappointed that the Government have not said that they can accept that recommendation. I should like, therefore, to make our position clear.

We accept in principle the case for additional support for one-parent families. We are at present preparing our own child benefit scheme which we believe will take the place of child tax allowances and family allowances and prove a benefit for all children including the first. One-parent families stand to gain in particular from this scheme because so many of them are one-child families and do not qualify for family allowances. It will also be a special help to those among them who are trying to support themselves but do not earn enough to get any benefit from child tax allowances. In bringing in this scheme we shall be fulfilling one of the recommendations of the Finer Committee. We are also carrying out another important financial recommendation by doubling the disregard on the amount that people such as lone parents can earn before their supplementary benefit is affected.

The Finer Committee recognised that the benefit it recommended, the guaranteed maintenance allowance, was not a short-term solution and would take some time to introduce. We have reservations about the nature of this allowance because it is means tested. I must say that in my experience the greatest difficulties that I face as a constituency Member are the problems created every time means-tested benefits are introduced or extended. As the House knows, it is our purpose in the main to reduce dependence on means-tested benefits and not to increase it.

Although means tested, the guaranteed maintenance allowance would also be extremely expensive. I know that the House will expect to hear the costs involved, as it has been indicated that I would mention them. In current terms an allowance calculated on the basis suggested in the Finer Report would need to be about £20 a week for a woman with one child, and the cost would be about £250 million. The Finer Committee envisaged that part of the cost would be met by maintenance payments from the other parent, usually the father.

Is that £250 million a net figure, after reduction of supplementary benefit, or is it in addition to the cost of supplementary benefit at present?

I understand that it is a net figure, but if I am wrongly advising the hon. Gentleman I shall take the opportunity of correcting myself later.

The Finer Committee was talking in terms of only part of the cost being met by maintenance awards, and that this would involve a new system of assessing and collecting maintenance payments, which the report presents as part and parcel of the benefit arrangements. This raises fundamental issues of principle, for it proposes to shift the responsibility from the courts to officials. We are particularly anxious, as a Department and as a Government, to hear the views of interested persons and organisations on this aspect of the Finer proposals. These proposals to remove much of the work of assessment and collection of maintenance payments from the courts are only a part, though an important part, of the fundamental changes in the legal system that the committee recommends.

The other major proposals were for a unified system of family courts—as requested by many hon. Members today—exercising matrimonial jurisdiction, which would replace the existing jurisdiction exercised by the divorce courts and the magistrates' courts, and for a reform of matrimonial law in magistrates' courts.

We can appreciate the complexity involved in trying to make such a change and to deal with this recommendation at any great speed. The family court recommendations are so closely linked to the other legal recommendations—on maintenance and matrimonial law—that it would be unrealistic for the Government to consider them until decisions have been reached on these linked proposals. I assure the House, however, that substantial steps towards meeting the Finer Committee's criticisms of the matrimonial law now enforced in the magistrates' courts are in prospect and are now being taken.

The legal and financial recommendations occupy the bulk of the Finer Report and are central to the consideration of the problems of one-parent families. But there are other areas which the committee researched and which the House regarded today as of fundamental importance to the well-being of these families. I should like briefly to mention some of them.

My hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, South referred to them as "modest beginnings." I mention them only because they have been referred to by hon. Members. I do not suggest that they are a substitute for the major task which lies ahead. I should love to be doling out large chunks, which I think is what has been suggested, rather than these modest beginnings.

One or two special points have been raised. One concerned the disregards, which I have mentioned. We are dealing with the matter by doubling the disregards which are now in the Bill which, as the hon. Member for Wells mentioned, we shall be discussing in some detail next week.

The suggestion that the requirement to register for work should be waived for lone fathers has been accepted by the Supplementary Benefits Commission, and we hope to be able to implement this in the very near future.

Then we had the fact that the commission had previously used discretionary powers to pay the adult rate to certain lone parents as recommended by the committee. The commission has now implemented the recommendation fully and has extended the use of its discretionary powers to pay lone parents under the age of 18.

Many hon. Members have mentioned the cohabitation rule. It is certainly true that whenever this subject is raised, either inside the House or outside, it causes considerable difficulties for all concerned. The Supplementary Benefits Commission is carrying out a review of the administration of the cohabitation rule. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has asked the commission to take into consideration the question whether any changes are called for in the relevant legislation and to report to her on its findings. The hon. Member for Staffordshire, South-West mentioned that matter. The Commission will also be considering various points on the subject which were put forward by the Child Poverty Action Group. I have agreed to meet a deputation of hon. Members on the question of the cohabitation rule.

The hon. Member for Walsall, South mentioned appeal tribunals and their effect on supplementary benefits. We are mindful of the criticisms which have been made of these tribunals, and my Department is sponsoring an independent research study into problems associated with this matter. The hon. Member for Wells also mentioned buildings. One hon. Member suggested that the social security offices were not very pleasant places to attend. In part, this is true although we are taking steps to try to improve the buildings as rapidly as possible. I visited the offices at Stockton a fortnight ago, and I found there offices the like of which I had not previously seen. It is true, unfortunately, that the staff has to operate in local offices which are not adequate and we are doing all we can to improve them. I join in the tribute which has been paid to the staff, not only for the extra work which has been put on them in recent years but also because on many occasions they have to work in completely unsuitable conditions.

Several hon. Members have mentioned the lack of co-ordination. This is a point which is not easy to substantiate. While we are satisfied that there is ample opportunity for liaison and discussion between the officials of all Government Departments concerned and at ministerial level, we have a form of co-ordination in the social services committee and the Cabinet, but if any hon. Member has evidence of lack of co-ordination I shall be pleased to receive the information so that we can see whether anything can be done to improve it.

I will not go into the Common Market argument. I understand that when the Finer Committee looked at the various solutions proposed on the Continent, the Committee said that none of the proposals which it had examined offered the right solution for one-parent families in this country, although I would not make too much of that.

May I now deal with housing. The report contains some useful recommendations on housing. They are wide-ranging and, although they do not suggest any major upheaval in existing housing law and practice, they touch on many facets of this subject.

The Government welcome the report pinpointing the special difficulties which one-parent families face in finding and keeping a home—difficulties which are often shared by others in the community whose needs may be described as special. The Government are actively examining the recommendations in this connection. While I can say that the Government accept those recommendations which bear on their own actions in the matter of housing, the majority of the housing recommendations and those which are of the most immediate and direct concern to one-parent families relate in the main to the activities of other bodies such as local authorities and building societies.

In many cases those bodies have a statutory responsibility for carrying out the duty which the Finer Committee would have them perform in a particular way. They are not obliged to follow advice suggested by central Government and they are certainly not subject to direction by the Government. I would, however, make it clear that the recommendations often represent what is already the best practice amongst those bodies or are in line with advice which has been put out by the Government.

Our plan in relation to all the recommendations that affect the responsibilities of other bodies is to consult the body or, where appropriate, the representative organisation, putting the Government's view on the recommendation and seeking theirs. We shall then get down to considering whether further guidance, and if so in what form, would be appropriate.

The section of the report on homelessness has been carried into Government action. The Committee's recommendations coincide with those made to local authorities in a circular issued last February. Since then, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment has announced a review on homelessness which we hope will result in a clarification of the legal responsibilities of housing and social services authorities. Homelessness resulting from marital disputes can happen suddenly and can bring a great deal of distress, as the Finer Committee says. Any improvement which can be made in the arrangements for dealing with homelessness generally should be of special benefit to those like one-parent families who are especially vulnerable.

The personal social services obviously play a large part in helping one-parent families. The recommendations made by the Committee on Personal Social Services are generally in line with the Government's own views. In particular we very much endorse the view of the importance to one-parent families of a sympathetic and understanding reception by the services to which they go for help and advice. This point was made by the hon. Member for Wells.

We welcome the expansion of services and improvement in facilities broadly on the lines recommended by the Committee, and we share the Committee's view of the important part that the social services play in improving the quality of life.

It would be wrong not to recognise that much is already being done by local authorities and voluntary bodies to try to help one-parent families, and equally wrong not to recognise that further progress depends on the manpower and resources available to local authorities, which will be limited in the immediate future, and on local authorities' judgment on the priority needs.

Hon. Members have drawn attention to the importance of adequate day-care services. My hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn and Hatfield spelt out the importance of day-care services to lone parents whose children are below school age. The Finer Committee made a number of valuable recommendations about what could best meet their needs. The Government's programme for the expansion of nursery education will help single parents, although I recognise that this is not day-care as such. Within the limits of available resources, local authorities and voluntary organisations will be encouraged to develop a range of services to meet the needs of these and other children.

The Committee's views on the needs of small children and on forms of day-care which would best promote their social, emotional and intellectual development are reflected in the development of day-care services. We endorse in particular the Committee's emphasis on avoiding the long separation of very young children from their parents each day, on providing warm and stable alternative care where separation is unavoidable, on providing an opportunity for the development of skills, play and involvement where possible for the parents in the care of a child and on contact with other parents and care staff.

I should now like to say a few words on employment because the employment prospects for the single mother are important. The Government welcome the objectives in Part 7 of the Report relating to the improvement of opportunities for employment and the circumstances in which it should be undertaken. Some of the recommendations were not ad- dressed to the Government, but on those which were, a number of developments have already taken place.

For example, Recommendation 178 suggested that rights under the contracts of employment, redundancy payments and the unfair dismissal provisions of the Industrial Relations Acts should be extended as a minimum to cover those working 18 hours a week. The provisions in the forthcoming Employment Protection Bill will extend protection to those working for at least 16 hours a week with one employer. The desirability of making statistics on all aspects of women's employment available in one publication—Recommendation 181—has been met by the publication earlier this month of a Department of Employment booklet, "Women and Work: A Statistical Survey". Also Recommendations 185 to 187 on women's training needs are in line with current official thinking.

Finer highlighted particularly the plight of lone mothers because they tend to occupy less skilled, less responsible and, therefore, lower-paid jobs. As I have said, we hope that the implementation of the Equal Pay Act and the proposed legislation against discrimination in employment on grounds of sex will help to improve the employment position of women generally, and lone mothers should benefit from this.

Many hon. Members made special individual points, and if I have missed any I will write to those concerned. Other hon. Members mentioned matters which could be referred to other Government Departments. The hon. Member for Staffordshire, South-West referred to a circular on housing. I will make sure that that, like all other suggestions, goes to the appropriate Department.

I think that the House has generally welcomed this opportunity to debate the Finer Committee Report. This is certainly the first opportunity that the Government have had to hear the views of hon. Members. I was pressed by hon. Members on both sides of the House to ensure that this debate would not preclude a fuller debate in Government time. I cannot believe that we have heard the last of Finer in this House. Fortunately, I am not directly responsible for what Government business comes up week in, week out. However, I assure all concerned that the points that have been made on the need for a further debate on the Finer Committee Report will be conveyed to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House. I believe that it is important to continue the consideration that hon. Members have given to the Finer Committee Report so that the common aim of all of us can be achieved. I believe that common aim to be the maximum possible relief for one-parent families.

I wonder, Mr. Deputy Speaker, whether it is in order for me to reply.

Yes.

I am conscious that I have received more of your eye today than a back-bench Member can normally expect. I will not take up much more of the time of the House.

I should like to thank hon. Members for their contributions to the debate and their kind words about my having initiated it. I also thank the Minister for his very full and detailed reply, for which I am sure we are all grateful.

I am pleased that the Department is with us so completely in spirit. If some of us feel that the flesh is a little weaker than the spirit, perhaps we can combine together to ensure the more rapid rate of progress that we should all like to see on this issue.

I should like to leave my hon. Friend with one last thought since there is obviously so much Front Bench good will towards the plight of one-parent families—the thought of Christmas approaching. We were pleased when the £10 bonus for pensioners at Christmas was introduced. Indeed, we were all pleased when it was extended by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services. But some of us are disappointed that families—after all, Christmas is a time for children and families—who are dependent on long-term supplementary benefit are not to receive the £10 Christmas bonus. Many lone mothers this Christmas will be buying their children's present at jumble sales just as they did last Christmas and the Christmas before that. I suggest that a Christmas bonus for long-term recipients of supplementary benefits would be a very well received gesture of Government support for the spirit of Finer as well as for the implementation of those 230 recommendations.

I beg to move,

That this House reaffirms its commitment to extend civil liberties in the United Kingdom through a Bill of Rights and especially to guarantee and secure the right of all citizens to peaceful assembly and demonstration; to establish Parliamentary accountability over the activities and operations of the Special Branch to prohibit the use of entrapment; and to enhance the genuine freedom of the Press and publishing in the interests of making these media more easily available for the expression of differing points of view.

It is signally appropriate after our night's work that we should have the opportunity, however brief, to discuss some of the issues involved in civil liberties. When the times are evil and this House is called upon to take measures to protect our freedom, we need to have all the more care and regard for any interference with the liberties of the individual in all parts of the kingdom.

I detect a fear and a growing feeling that to dissent, to challenge established views or opinions, is somehow un-British. I detect, too, a feeling that those who peacefully and legally assemble and demonstrate to try to influence or change opinion on major matters, in a peaceful way, are seen by too many people as agitators or as some kind of enemy. I wish to assert this afternoon that the right to challenge and question accepted, established and widely-held views is a precious civil liberty and that the right to assemble and to demonstrate peacefully in pursuance of those views is also a precious civil liberty.

So too, in this process, is the right to express alternative and different views in print. Of these ingredients is our freedom made. Even when and if that freedom is under attack, we should do nothing in this House or elsewhere to curtail or impede civil liberties, because by doing that we help the very forces which are mounting an attack on our freedom.

My first point today is to urge the need for a Bill of Rights, setting down clearly for every man and woman in the country the basic rights that go alongside the responsibilities of being a citizen in our society—a charter for the individual, to protect him and her from the abuses of those in authority, whoever they may be. It may be said that such a charter is not needed. I do not agree.

I will cite one instance of why I think such a thing is necessary. Concern is growing in this direction, and this is evidenced by responsible calls from responsible individuals and organisations for an independent inquiry into the events at the Windsor Free Festival. The Home Secretary has already announced that he has rejected this independent inquiry, partly basing his reply on a report by the Chief Constable of the Thames Valley Police that the report was

"a thorough account by the responsible chief officer of police of his own actions and of his reasons for them."

I question whether this can reasonably be held to be a "thorough account" when there is in this document a bias, understandable I admit but a bias none the less.

Paragraph 14 of the report of the chief officer of police of the Thames Valley Authority states:

"The Festival at Windsor appears to be a gesture against the Establishment and all forms of authority."

What evidence is there for the chief officer of police to make that statement? What is the value of that statement in the report which he had been asked to prepare for the inquiry which was later held by the Thames Valley Police Authority? There is no evidence at all in that report to support that statement, which is a reflection of bias. I have said that it is understandable bias but that it is none the less bias.

At paragraph 18 the following statement is made:

"Opinion in the Windsor area of members of the public, local organisations and the Royal Borough, has been almost unanimous in being against the festival and in favour of the police strictly enforcing the law."

There is no evidence for that statement. Indeed, even if that statement be true, is that a reasonable ground for interfering with an assembly the sole purpose of which was peaceful and was known at the start to be peaceful?

I give a third illustration of what I consider to be bias which may have coloured the conduct of the chief police officer of the Thames Valley Authority when he makes the statement that known criminal elements were taking part in this free pop festival. If known criminal elements were recognised, why was none of them apprehended if they were doing anything which gave the officers concerned reasonable ground for suspicion?

The same sentence in the report goes on to make the statement

"and it became clear that there were several militant groups present."

There is no definition of a militant group. It is based on an assumption, on a view, on a bias, on an opinion, about the people peacefully gathered at that event to take part in a festival. I could go on through the report, but I will not.

Shortly, what is of concern here is that an attempt at a peaceful gathering to listen peaceably to pop music was suddenly and without warning after several days broken up by the police authority, leading to serious allegations of breaches of the law and misconduct by the police. We are in the position that there can be no independent inquiry into this.

I do not want to be misunderstood in this matter. My concern is twofold. My first concern is to see that the police operate sensibly within the law and, when called upon to do so, can justify actions taken. That is not to be anti-police. I am not anti-police. However, the House has put the police in the position of not being publicly able to respond to challenges when allegations of this kind are made. It is my view that some public daylight let into this procedure would be as helpful and beneficial to the police as it would to the public and it would also help the general aim of improving police and public relations.

The second point of my concern is that the right of peaceful assembly for lawful purposes should be made easier and not more difficult. As the Acting General Secretary of the National Council for Civil Liberties says on the question of demonstration,

"It is already the case that the freedom to hold demonstrations in this country depends on the discretion of the police—in NCCL's view an intolerable situation."

The article by the acting general secretary also says this:

"Over the past two years, the police have developed a jigsaw of special squads—Special Patrol Groups, Commando Squads, Special Service Squads—and so on, which, although not simply concerned with industrial questions, have consistently intervened in industrial disputes and in other demonstrations."

That brings me to the question of the activities of the Special Branch, a topic mentioned by my motion. I am not here questioning, and I would not seek to question, the need for a Special Branch, particularly in these days. However, we in the House are in the situation of having a body with wide powers and wide discretion which is not subject in any real sense to parliamentary accountability. The shadowy sinews of power of the Special Branch stretch into places which we do not even know about. We have the recent case of the late Mr. Lennon, where a request made at an inquest for the Special Branch to appear and be questioned about its activities was turned down. A report carried out by the police themselves was published yesterday. I know its conclusions, but again there is no public daylight let into the extremely serious concern which many people feel.

There is the earlier case of a Mr. Littlejohn, and the most serious doubts about the rôle and activities of the Special Branch in this matter are still with us. What is of concern here from the point of view of civil liberties is even the possibility, if not the fact, of the increasing use by the Special Branch of entrapment and the agent provocateur. It is not just in areas of political or security concern that there have been serious allegations about the rôle of the Special Branch in industrial disputes.

I turn quickly now to Press and public freedom. It seems strange that again this House has seemingly no means to question decisions taken by people who are not Members of Parliament or members of any elected body over such matters as the publication of the diaries of the late Richard Crossman. I am not objecting necessarily to the decision, on whatever grounds, not to publish. My concern is that if there is a valid reason to withhold consent, that consent should be properly vested in an individual who can be questioned and challenged on the views and the judgments made.

As for the Press, we need to pay great regard to what a man who is now in another place once called "censorship by omission". All of us who are concerned in legitimate, lawful, peaceful minority groupings, especially in the Labour movement, know how difficult it is to get reported in the major newspapers the views of those groupings. There is an establishment in Fleet Street which takes certain things for granted.

I do not want to open the argument about the Common Market, but it is true that most of the national daily papers were and remain in favour of Britain's entry and use acres of their space, editorially and in their news columns, to argue that case while there has been little attempt to ensure a balanced debate as part of the great debate to which the then Prime Minister had called us. Surely we should be concerned to make it easier for individuals and minority organisations to have the means to go into the publishing business on their own, perhaps through the use of some publicly-controlled printing plant and process.

There is a growing feeling among senior journalists themselves that, just as they need freedom from pressures, they also need freedom from the whims and pressures of proprietors. I am worried about what I see as straws in an illiberal wind. A concern over these matters should be the concern of everyone in these islands who values freedom. Individual freedom depends on our collective attention to the details of that freedom. We cannot allow ourselves to be indifferent to those who would rob us of our freedom or allow that freedom to be taken from us by stealth.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Corbett) has canvassed in his interesting speech a wide variety of his concerns about the threats to liberty as he sees them. He was not able even within the space of that canvass to cover all the matters that he raised in his motion. Some of the detail to which he referred is not in the motion. I make no complaint about that, but it makes it rather difficult for me to deal with the points that he raised in any detail. However, I shall do my best.

Anyone concerned with civil liberties is concerned about the way in which authority exercises its power at any time. Equally, at present we all have to be concerned about the manner in which minorities exercise the power and influence that is open to them in the purveying of their views. My hon. Friend said that there had to be acknowledgement that in a civilised society those who assemble and demonstrate peacefully have the right to do so. There is no question about that. It would not be my task to bring that issue into question.

The real issue is whether in the specific cases which come to light from time to time and which cause complaint, the right to assemble and demonstrate has been exercised, or whether that right has been abused in seeking to exercise it in name only because there has been a resort to violence or some breach of the law which indicates that it was not a peaceful demonstration.

In determining whether that is right or wrong in any given situation there are bound to be conflicting views. The cases which can be referred to over the years which have been controversial have been assertions between either the minority group itself and other groups involved in the incident or the minority groups themselves and the police exercising their powers on behalf of us to keep law and order.

I do not pretend to suggest that there will not be mistakes made by the police or any other body of authority. One of the reasons for my right hon. Friend being anxious to introduce an independent element into complaints against the police is to ensure that the public are satisfied that where the complaints are raised they are genuinely and dispassionately considered. In most cases, even under the present system, there can be little doubt that the attention which is given to these matters by the investigating officers is thorough and impartial. However, there have been cases where that assertion has been called into doubt.

It is for that reason that the independent element will be introduced as quickly as possible in legislation which I hope will be coming before the House in the not-too-distant future. It may be that when that legislation is introduced much of the concern that has been voiced by my hon. Friend about the exercise of authority as it relates to the police will be quietened. At least I hope that that will be the result.

My hon. Friend went on to talk about specific cases such as the Windsor pop festival. It fell to my task to meet a deputation from Release which came to the Home Office to discuss the matter. Like my hon. Friend, I have seen the report which was prepared by the chief of police of the Thames Valley Authority for the purpose of explaining the reason for taking certain actions. It cannot properly be regarded, and was never intended to be regarded, as an independent inquiry into the actions of the police. It was an attempt to show why the chief constable took the action that he took in the course of the Windsor pop festival, and it allowed the Thames Valley Authority, which is the appropriate body, to consider the matter, to examine his version of events against the complaints by Release and other organisations, including the people who organised the festival.

Having seen both sides of the question, I recognise that there are differences of view about what happened. But I do not think that it would be right to accept that the chief constable's view was wholly unsympathetic to the right to hold a pop festival. He had co-operated in previous years in the holding of the pop festival in Windsor, allowing the festival to continue to the end.

On this occasion, the owners of the land had said, under their statutory powers, that the festival could not be held, and its holding breached the regulations applying to the Windsor Great Park, in that, for instance, the setting up of tents or playing music is an offence. Although there were a number of specific infringements of the law, the chief constable had made arrangements that the festival should not be stopped by the police, as he indicates in his report. It was only in the middle of the week in which it was supposed to continue that he came to a different decision.

My hon. Friend takes issue with the chief constable about the grounds on which he took that decision. It is a matter of judgment between those who take one view and those who take another. The chief constable sets out in the report the reasons why he thought that there were likely to be breaches of the peace and why he thought it necessary to exercise those powers.

Release and a number of other organisations have suggested through my hon. Friend that in the light of that report there should have been an independent inquiry. There have been a number of complaints involving specific allegations of the abuse of police power in individual cases. These are being investigated under the existing procedures of complaint against the police.

It was suggested that my right hon. Friend should have set up a public inquiry, somewhat akin to the Red Lion Square inquiry. There were two difficulties about that. One was that the power under Section 32 is rarely used, and now that we have seen it used in relation to the Red Lion Square incident we can understand why. It takes an enormous amount of time. It involves the activities not only of the police but the people involved for many weeks, and takes up a good deal of time of those appointed to conduct the inquiry. Before we could envisage that allocation of resources, men, time and money, we should have to be assured that the result would be worth while in terms of reassuring public opinion and establishing justice between those different complainants.

In this case I do not think that there is much dispute about the facts relating to the main actions of the police. What they did is fairly self-evident from the report of the chief constable as well as from the complainants. Therefore, what is in issue is the judgment of the chief officer in deciding to close down the festival when he did. That judgment has been considered by the appropriate authority, the Thames Valley Police Authority, which came to the conclusion that it did not wish to censure the chief officer. Though there were dissenting voices, the majority were in favour of accepting the report he had put before them.

My hon. Friend has indicated that he disagrees with that judgment. That is his right in a free society. However, since the facts are known, what a Section 32 inquiry would contribute to the further extension of his knowledge is difficult to see. It was not thought right therefore that we should authorise such an inquiry. All the specific complaints against specific officers for specific abuses of power will be considered under the existing procedure.

My hon. Friend went on to raise doubts about the activities of the Special Branch. Just because the Special Branch must inevitably conduct its activities in some degree of confidentiality and secrecy, there is always likely to be some apprehension about exactly what the Special Branch does. In fact, it is simply a group of police forces in an area and is made up simply of police officers carrying out special duties. The special duties refer to the security of the State and to investigations necessary for the security of the State, but they are conducted by ordinary police officers who have no greater powers than any other police officers.

The term Special Branch suggests a national organisation which is distinct from normal police authorities. It is no such thing. There is a Special Branch of the Metropolitan Police, but there are Special Branches of other police forces and they are composed simply of police officers who have been recruited and trained and who serve in the police forces which they originally entered. There is therefore no particular national organisation.

The officers are under the control of their chief officers and they are responsible for the prevention and detection of crime and the preservation of public order in their area. They are mainly concerned with offences against the security of the State, with terrorist or subversive organisations, and with certain protection duties, keeping watch on seaports and airports, and making inquiries about aliens. Because that is their normal rôle, there must be some degree of security about what activities they engage in.

All of us who have anything to do with the control of police powers and police authority are concerned that that authority should be used properly within the limits of the law. We investigate thoroughly any complaints brought to our notice to ensure that those powers are not abused. So far as one can see, there have been no substantiated abuses of power in ways which would give my hon. Friend alarm.

My hon. Friend has referred to the report on the Lennon case. The police version of what took place in relation to Kenneth Lennon was different from his allegations to the National Council for Civil Liberties in the statement prepared and published some time ago. Comparing one with the other, one finds grounds for believing that the police version of what took place is more credible and more cogent. But these matters are now laid before the public, because both versions are available publicly. That decision was made by my right hon. Friend to allay the kind of anxiety which my hon. Friend feels. It was precisely due to the fact that he wanted to show the company that the Special Branch had nothing to hide in its activities that he made these investigations public.

I accept that there will still be room for dispute about who is telling the truth and where the truth lies. But from my point of view, having read both sides of the story, I reiterate what I said before—namely, that there seems to be cogent ground for believing that the police version of what took place was more credible than the version produced by Mr. Lennon.

I do not say that with any air of complacency and we shall continue to investigate with scepticism any suggestion by the Special Branch that it has conducted its inquiries wholly within the law if there are reasons for doubting the correctness of that suggestion. But it must be said here and now, and quite firmly, that the only reason for having a Special Branch is that there are real threats to the security of the State. It would be wrong in seeking to control the way in which it exercises police power to inhibit in any way its activities in its defence of the security of the State.

We could not be talking at a more dangerous time in our history in relation to threats to the security of the State, and it would be wholly wrong to undermine the work which the security services and the Special Branch carry out for our protection. If there is any abuse, we shall pursue it vigorously to see that it does not occur again.

My hon. Friend turned to another matter, namely the publication of the Crossman diaries. I hope that he will not expect me to dilate at length on that topic. He suggested that there should be some person who was capable of being questioned here in the House on that subject. I, too, think that there is some person who is capable of being questioned, and who indeed has been questioned on this issue. I suggest to my hon. Friend that he addresses his question in that regard, not to me, but to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, who has ministerial control over whatever consent is given for the publication of the diaries.

My hon. Friend referred finally to the possibility of the establishment in Fleet Street of some kind of publishing concern, perhaps with Government backing, to allow minority views to be published in a way in which he said they are not published in Fleet Street at present. This matter raises serious issues about the freedom of the Press, and it would be wrong for me to canvass any view at the end of a reply of this nature. This is a question for the Royal Commission on the Press which at present is investigating all these matters, particularly the financial structure of the Press, to see in which ways it could be improved or helped possibly with the result which my hon. Friend contends. However, this is a matter that is best left to the evidence to be given to the Commission.

I can see serious objections to what my hon. Friend suggests and I would not have thought that the matter was as serious as he indicated in his speech. It seems to me that the minority groups to which he is referring get a substantial slice of Fleet Street space, although I accept that all of us who from time to time canvass matters that are dear to our hearts feel that Fleet Street gives us a bad time in properly allocating space. But if my hon. Friend looks at this morning's papers, he will see the amount of space allocated to the Lennon report, and he will remember the amount allocated to the Windsor pop festival. No one can say that they were not fully covered by most of the major newspapers.

I end with a matter which my hon. Friend raised in passing. It is one which has been of considerable interest to me over the years. It is whether all these matters would be improved if in this country we had a Bill of Rights.

I am bound to tell my hon. Friend that I take a different view. My hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General shares some of my hon. Friend's views. We have discussed these matters in the past in public. But my concern about a Bill of Rights is that first the Bill of Rights has to be passed by the House of Commons and the House of Lords as normal legislation. Equally, it can be amended as normal legislation within our constitution. There is nothing within our constitution to provide that it can be entrenched, as it is for instance in the American Constitution where there are safeguards against easy, quick amendments to the Constitution.

A Bill of Rights would be no greater protection than any other legislation on the statute book that was passed in the present Parliament. If it were suggested that this Bill of Rights by its limiting scope might have some effect upon the way in which the courts interpreted legislation, as a lawyer I should be bound to warn my hon. Friend that the courts have not always been radical or sympathetic in their interpretation of legislation involving social changes.

The English common law and English courts and our legal system in particular have always been very astute to protect the individual liberty of the subject. That is written deep in our English legal history, and our lawyers understand what to do in relation to that problem. Therefore, where the question is a dispute between the State and the individual the bias in our English legal training tends to be in favour of the individual.

Where we are talking about social legislation, about the rights of groups and about the balance in society between different economic forces and the way in which Governments try to redress imbalances between those groups, the English courts have not always been very helpful when it came to interpreting legislation because of their preoccupation with individual liberty.

In many ways a Bill of Rights might turn out to be a fairly reactionary and conservative approach to the problem of establishing freedom and justice within our society. Therefore, I have always had some hesitation about our ever passing a Bill of Rights. It is a matter which is sometimes approached by Conservative lawyers with a good deal more zeal than it is by lawyers on our side of the political fence. One wonders why that should be, unless it is as I have indicated.

I cannot suggest that I could ever support that part of my hon. Friend's interesting dissertation. But I have been grateful to him for raising these issues, and I have attempted partial answers to them.

I thank my hon. and learned Friend for the courtesy and patience of his reply. I am sure that our hearts are in the same place even if our heads lead us in somewhat different directions as regards some of these problems. I thank him sincerely, especially after a harrowing night in which he played no small part.

In the circumstances, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I shall seek leave to withdraw. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

I beg to move,

That, in pursuance of the provisions of section 3 of the House of Commons Members' Fund Act 1948, the maximum annual amounts of the periodical payments which may be made out of the House of Commons Members' Fund under the House of Commons Members' Fund Act 1939 as amended by the said Act of 1948 and by the Resolutions of the House of 17th November 1955, 7th March 1957, 17th May 1961, 9th March 1965, 4th May 1971, and 1st August 1972 be varied as from 1st December 1974 as follows:

(a) for paragraph 1 of Schedule 1 to the said Act of 1939, as so amended, there shall be substituted the following paragraph:

'1. The annual amount of any periodical payment made to any person by virtue of his past membership of the House of Commons shall not exceed £750 or such sum as, in the opinion of the trustees, will bring his income up to £1,250 per annum, whichever is the less:

Provided that if, having regard to length of service and need, the trustees think fit, they may make a larger payment not exceeding £1,400 or such sum as, in their opinion, will bring his income up to £1,900 per annum, whichever is the less';

• (b) for paragraph 2 of the said Schedule there shall be substituted the following paragraph:—

'2. The annual amount of any periodical payment to any person by virtue of her being a widow of a past Member of the House of Commons shall not exceed £375 or such sum as, in the opinion of the trustees, will bring her income up to £875 per annum, whichever is the less:

Provided that if, having regard to her husband's length of service or to her need, the trustees think fit, they may make a larger payment not exceeding £700 or such sum as, in the opinion of the trustees, will bring her income up to £1,200 per annum, whichever is the less';

(c) in paragraph 2A of the said Schedule for the words 'the annual amount of any periodical payment'" to the end of the paragraph, there shall be substituted the words 'the annual amount of any periodical payment made to any such widower shall not exceed £375 or such sum as, in the opinion of the trustees, will bring his income up to £875 per annum, whichever is the less:

Provided that if, having regard to his wife's length of service or to his needs, the trustees think fit, they may make a larger payment not exceeding £700 or such sum as, in the opinion of the trustees, will bring his income up to £1,200 per annum, whichever is the less'.

This motion is signed by the trustees of the Members' Fund. I am sure that it will receive the support of the House.

I assure hon. Members that our experience as trustees has made us realise how much this further provision is needed and how much it will be welcomed by those who will benefit from it. I do not think that there is any need to elaborate the changes that we propose, because they are set out in detail in the motion. I therefore content myself with moving the motion.

Over the last 24 hours in particular the House has had to face some very difficult and hard decisions, but it is appropriate that, those decisions having been taken, we should turn our minds to other matters of concern to ordinary people. I am extremely grateful to Mr. Speaker and the Minister for allowing me the opportunity to place before the Government the plight, not yet desperate but increasingly difficult, of the motorists of rural areas. It is for me only to point out that plight. It is for the Government to take note of it and perhaps provide some solutions for it.

It may be appropriate to look back over the last 10 or 15 years. Undoubtedly in the urban areas over the last 15 years there has been a massive increase in car ownership. The result of that in urban areas has been a falling away of the receipts and services of both trains and buses. In urban areas that has meant that a fairly simple measure had to be taken, that of cutting back the services.

In rural areas, by contrast, the growth of motor car ownership has taken place only in the last 10 years. I am sure that the Minister will appreciate that we in the rural areas are not quite so affluent as those in the urban areas and therefore we came on the scene much later. Equally, we followed the same pattern and cut back public transport services as the result of the growth of ownership of motor cars.

It is wrong to call it a cut back. It would be much more accurate to refer to the dismemberment of our services, both train and bus, in rural areas. As a result of that dismemberment, we are almost completely dependent on the motor car, and it may be as well to remind the House exactly what has happened to the cost of running a motor car during the last three or four years.

In November 1971, petrol cost 22p a gallon. In November 1974, the cost had risen to 64p a gallon. It would be a brave man who would hazard a guess as to the exact figure within even the next three months. This increase has been a crippling imposition, particularly on people in the rural areas where, as I have said, the car has become the only possible means of transport.

In urban areas, as a result of that increased cost, people are going back to the trains and buses. Of course there are problems and of course staffing difficulties play a major part in those problems, but at least the services and the basic routes are there and can be stepped up in the face of public demand.

In rural areas there is no such possibility. When railway services have been closed, the lines have been ripped up. When bus services have been cut, the depots that served the bus lines have been closed, and even the bus services cannot be increased as is now needed. Thus in the rural areas we are left with the car as an essential means of transport.

It is essential for getting people to work. It is not only that farm workers may have to travel a mile or 1½ miles, often at a very early hour, to get to milking and other farm jobs. Main areas of population and of work are often long distances from rural communities. The car is absolutely vital, therefore, for our workers.

It is also vital for many people in country areas for school runs. Without the car it would very often be impossible to get children to school. Shopping in rural areas is quite a different thing from shopping in urban areas. If one wishes to go into a market town, often one can go only by car because there is no possible alternative. The buses which do run are run at the wrong times and one can probably return home only on the next day or at a completely inconvenient time. I should add that even if aged parents live only in the next village and have to be visited, there is no possible way of doing that except by car.

We are, therefore, left with the car, which now presents a tremendous problem in keeping it on the road in areas in which wage levels are still well below the national average. In my part of the world, Dorset, one can regard £25 a week not as a reasonable wage but as the wage earned by many people. To run a car as a necessity on such a wage is becoming more and more difficult.

I said that there was a possibility of price rises in the near future. The Minister will have noticed what the Shah of Iran said yesterday about the need for price increases for the oil producers. The Minister will know, equally, that the petrol companies have price increases very much in the pipeline, and they must be coming forward.

I want to give the Minister just one example of how this hits people in my constituency. We have only one large engineering works—Westlands, at Yeovil. Of the 5,500 people who work at West-lands, more than half come in to work from the rural hinterland around Yeovil. Therefore, about 2,500 people have no alternative in travelling to work at West-lands but to travel by motor car. In urban areas people are encouraged to share motor cars and possibly to share costs. But if one lives in a scattered community in a rural area that is quite impossible. People tend to travel to work one person to one car because the problems of shift work, holidays, and so on make it impossible for people living more than two or three miles apart to use the same car to travel to work.

If one takes a particular run from Dorchester to Yeovil, one finds that about 50 people who work at Westlands live in Dorchester and have a round trip of 45 miles a day. The cost of that has more than doubled, so they are now paying £5 a week to get to work. That is unacceptable. If one takes into account the possibility that that cost may rise by another £2 or £3 a week for petrol alone, leaving aside the cost of running a car, one appreciates that this makes it all the more serious a matter for those people.

If we go on like this we shall begin to destroy the balance of our society in rural areas, because of necessity those who live in rural areas and who want to live there will be pushed, as costs escalate, into moving nearer to their place of work. In particular, in our part of the world we shall be left with a society which is not balanced and which contains a very high proportion of people in the upper age ranges. That would be bad for the rural areas and, indeed, bad for towns such as Yeovil which at present we serve so well.

I suggest to the Minister that we have two particular problems here. The first problem we all know and accept. That is that we must conserve energy. That is why most Opposition Members did not vote against the increase in VAT on petrol. It would have been wrong for us to do so. But, at the same time, we are seriously disturbed about the possibility of further increases in the price of petrol. We believe that help must be given to those who live in rural areas.

I have five suggestions which may be of some assistance. First, the Government may care to consider again accepting some form of liberalisation of transport in rural areas. The Minister will remember that we suggested this is an amendment to the Transport Bill. Unfortunately, it was defeated. If that suggestion were adopted, it would help because it would conserve petrol. It would put people back into a more liberalised form of public transport.

Secondly, I suggest that greater use should be made of school buses. Many school buses run to a fixed timetable and there are empty seats. I spoke earlier of school runs. Admittedly they are to private schools and people might not accept the idea of doubling up there, but I know many parents who would be prepared to pay for a child to go on a school bus, and that would effect some saving and would help to keep cars off the road.

My third suggestion is more controversial. I believe that we would save energy if we went back to the 50 mph speed limit. If we are in the middle of an energy crisis, serious consideration should be given to this point. If, as we expect, the cost of petrol goes up again, we might also have to consider the possibility of moving to a two-tier system of pricing petrol. I appreciate that it would be very difficult. It might be ruled out on the grounds of administrative cost, but these people who suffer hardship should be able to get a basic allowance of petrol at a lower price. Thereafter the price of petrol for ordinary motoring and luxury motoring—if one can call any motoring these days a luxury—should run free, at possibly double the figure of the cheaper petrol. This has been applied at times of emergency in other countries and it should be explored in more detail.

Finally, I wish to deal with a point where I believe not only the rural areas need help. It affects possibly everyone who finds that the cost of getting to work is increasing out of all proportion to any wage increases which might come about. Is it not time that some more settled and more equitable view was taken of the cost of getting to work? It is not unusual for people to pay £5 a week to get to work. I am not at all certain that consideration should not be given by the Chancellor to alleviating this burden in some way, perhaps by giving a tax allowance to everyone who goes to work. That might be a simpler thing to administer——

Would my hon. Friend allow me to add a sixth suggestion to the five which he is making? He has mentioned school buses. May I ask the Minister to give urgent—and I mean urgent—reconsideration to the three-mile limit for school buses? This is causing extreme hardship. If the limit were reduced to two miles, or if some element of flexibilty were introduced, it would reduce a great deal of the hardship which I know is experienced in many constituencies.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. That is just the sort of area in which help could be provided. It would serve the dual purpose of taking motor cars off the road, cutting out unnecessary journeys, and inducing passengers to use the bus which is already running.

It would be ghastly if we found that our rural areas were once again to be the first areas in the United Kingdom to feel the effects of inflation, unemployment and depopulation which occurred in the 1930s. We cannot stand idly by and allow that to happen. I have mentioned that the balance is changing in favour of the towns. We do not want a drift from the countryside to the towns. It would be bad for the countryside, for the towns and for the country as a whole. But people are fighting a losing battle against rising costs, and the car is vital to rural life in the circumstances in which we now live.

I would accept that motion willingly, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I apologise for having rather outstayed my time.

Order. The hon. Member is mistaken.

I apologise yet again, Sir. I misunderstood.

I had virtually finished, but I should like to draw the Minister's attention once more to the vital need to do something to help our rural areas. This is a vital factor in our life in rural areas. If I speak for Dorset, it is in rural terms an affluent part of the country. How much more must this problem apply to Scotland, Wales and other parts of the United Kingdom, where wage rates are lower than they are in Dorset? What is at risk is the whole structure and balance of life in our rural areas. I hope that the Minister and the Government will take note of what I have said.

The hon. Member for Dorset, West (Mr. Spicer) has done well to draw attention to a situation which is becoming distressingly familiar in rural areas and to which the recent pressure of rising prices has added a further cruel twist. The House will have been sitting for about 26 hours fairly soon, but I still feel that this is an important topic to end such a marathon sitting to show that, despite all the large affairs of state with which we have been dealing, we still consider as fundamentals the transport of people and their ability to live decent and reasonably full lives in the rural and less populated areas.

Public transport services, both rail and bus, have dwindled over the past 10 or 20 years. Bus operators in urban and rural areas alike have found themselves squeezed by falling levels of demand and the pressure of rising costs. It is ironical in the context of this debate that the main factor undermining the economics of the bus industry during this period was the private car. The figures tell their own story. It is always salutary to look at the figures, and these are staggering.

About 16,000 million passenger journeys were made by bus in 1950 when there were 2½ million cars on the road. In 1970 there were 9,000 million passengers journeys by bus and over 11 million cars. The demand for buses had almost halved while the car population increased fivefold.

I have been dealing with this situation and trying to find solutions for some time. There is, I know, something of a chicken-and-egg argument about whether bus services were withdrawn because of loss of patronage or whether people bought cars because of declining bus services. If one looks at any area in detail one is bound to find a little of both elements, but it is clear that, irrespective of the availability of buses, many people switched to the car because of its greater convenience and the greater mobility it gave them, and that enough people did this to make a tremendous dent in the demand for public transport.

This says something significent about what people are willing to pay for the motor car. The hon. Member made comparisons about affluence in rural and urban areas, but, perhaps because of the much greater advantage of a car in a rural area, the ratio of car ownership in rural areas tends to be considerably higher.

A number of detailed studies, including those carried out by the Department four years ago in Devon and West Suffolk, have brought out the extremely high proportion of journeys made by car compared with those made by bus even when there is a scheduled bus service.

Against this background and the pressure of rising costs, it is hardly surprising that bus operators have no longer been able to continue the level of services that was provided 20 or even 10 years ago out of the revenue from fares. But, despite the rising tide of car ownership over the past two decades, many people do not or cannot drive and do not for one reason or another have access to a motor car. These people are dependent on some form of public transport in order to get about and lead a full life.

The central Government have made increasing funds available to help the bus industry since the mid-1960's in the form of remission of fuel duty—full remission was given in the Finance Act 1974—and through the new bus grant, which is half the cost of a new vehicle for use on stage services.

On top of that, in rural areas local authorities have been empowered since 1968 to give financial support to bus services needed for the benefit of persons residing in rural areas. When they use these powers to subsidise services the central Government pay half the cost as a specific grant, although from April 1975 the specific central Government contribution will be absorbed into the new arrangements for financial support on a county council's transport expenditure generally and the new transport supplementary grant.

I know that Dorset County Council has made good use of these powers and enabled a number of services which would otherwise have been withdrawn to keep going both in the area represented by the hon. Member and also in the area to the east. Thanks partly to additional funds of this sort, but mainly to their own efforts and their skill in making the best operational use of the resources available, the various bus operators in the area—both subsidiaries of the National Bus Company and private operators-have kept a basic network of services going.

I accept what the Minister says on that matter. At the same time there is no doubt that, in terms of cost, travel in rural areas has become outrageously expensive. Even with these supplementary payments and support from the county and district councils, travel in rural areas is outrageously expensive. Some old-age pensioners who travel half to three-quarters of a mile have to pay 8p or 10p for such journeys. That becomes prohibitive in rural areas. I hope that the Minister will take account of that and not believe that all is well with rural services as a result of these subsidies.

I assure the hon. Gentleman that no one in my position in the Department of the Environment would think that all was well with rural services. A great deal of effort has gone into dealing with this matter. Different Governments have continually tried to help transport in rural areas. I get a number of Adjournment debates which come some way into this category of rural transport. Therefore, I am only too keenly aware of the problem. Indeed, the problem in Scotland is particularly bad, because the sparseness of the population is even greater and that creates additional problems for the bus operator, whether private or public.

Is the Minister aware of the great distress facing local councils throughout the country over these transport relief costs with which the Government assist? The councils are having great difficulties in paying for these rural transport costs under the existing grant. Are there are particular proposals in mind to increase the subsidy to local authorities? I am speaking particularly of the Staffordshire County Council, which has great concern over this problem. Is there any proposal for increasing the subsidy in that regard?

We are now moving to a totally different type of grant in the transport allocation of grants. It is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer as to how much can be made available for any particular local authority for any particular service. Instead of getting a specific grant for various individual services, local authorities will have more freedom to cut their coats according to their cloth and according to the style that is necessary for the circumstances of their areas. I do not think that this will be a panacea.

We do not have money in great supply to give to local authorities. The option for them to decide is better than the previous position, but many of the grants will continue in any case. When the supplementary grants are ultimately given to local authorities and they know how much they are getting we may know more about it in the House because I am sure that hon. Members will wish to question my right hon. Friend and myself about their areas and will make pleas about specific services.

I have tried within the Department to work out something with the committees of operators and the trade unions. It is a very thorny problem. It is, as somebody once said, like drawing a map of the Balkans. There are no actual points of delineation. The hon. Member may be able to say that certain areas are urban and others are rural, but over the country as a whole the situation is much more complicated. Partly due to the additional funds which have been made available over the years, but mainly because of operators making the best use of their resources, many operators have managed to keep services going.

It may be that in view of the sharp rise in the cost of private motoring some people who at present travel to work by car will be able to switch to bus. In so far as this happens, it should of course strengthen the economics of the bus services and may even make it possible to expand the network at some points.

The hon. Member made a plea for greater flexibility of bus operators and referred to the Opposition amendments to the Road Traffic Bill which were debated last Session. As my right hon. Friend the Minister for Transport and I made clear at the time, the reason why the Government were opposed to those amendments was not due to any insensitivity to the plight of people living in rural areas or to any indifference to the problems. From the time of the Jack Committee onwards, we have all been agreed on the analysis of the problems.

The reason why we rejected those amendments was that we were far from convinced that they would achieve what the Opposition hoped for from them. The problems are fairly easy to grasp. The real difficulty comes in devising satisfactory solutions. It may be that the problems can be dealt with only in the context of particular localities, or that some more general solution might be practicable. That is why I am holding further consultations with both sides of the bus industry and with the local authority associations with a view to identifying the areas of agreement and disagreement about possible approaches to the problem.

In our discussions we will certainly take account of the changes in the costs of private motoring and the implications which these have for the provision of transport in rural areas.

While these consultations are going on, however, it would clearly be folly for the people directly involved in the situation on the ground simply to sit back and wait. The local response to the situation is vital, and particularly the exercise by the county council of its duty under Section 203(l)(a) of the Local Govment Act 1972

"to develop policies which will promote the provision of a co-ordinated and efficient system of public passenger transport to meet the needs of the county".

The hon. Member has referred to the need for flexibility. The scope for flexibility which exists within the present system should not be lost sight of, and the new duties of the county council provide a means of developing it. It may well be, for example, that much of the demand for public transport comes from areas which are too scattered to warrant the use of a conventional bus.

But there may be scope—I merely use this as an illustration—for feeder services of possibly mini-buses or of post buses which would serve the outlying areas and connect with the basic network of conventional services. Again, there may be scope for varying existing licences to enable the services to cater for other villages not at present served.

It is not uncommon for major employers in the local centres of employment to arrange their own services under contract. There may be scope here to extend such services to cover a wide area or to make services provided in this way available for other passengers.

It is wrong to suggest that the present system is so rigid that nothing can be done except what is already done. But there must be close liaison between the local authority and the bus operators. If any worthwhile ideas emerge from such discussions it would be as well to discuss them with the traffic commissioners for the area to see whether there are any good reasons why they should not be adopted.

I give two illustrations mentioned by the hon. Gentleman which have been examined and which are partly successful. One is the school bus and the other is the post bus. They have possibilities, but there are difficulties in that they tend to be going to the centre of towns at a time when other people, particularly old people, do not want to go. When I was on the Opposition Benches I intervened on this matter in a debate to say that there was not much point in taking an old lady into a market town on a wet Tuesday at 8 a.m. if she could not get back until 4 o'clock in the afternoon.

The post buses are usually going out early in the wrong direction, to the rural areas, and they come in rather later. I know a number of areas in Scotland intimately, and I know their transport problems. Although I live in the middle of a large conurbation with reasonably good transport services, particularly in my part, I am aware of the dire need to find a solution to the general problem.

Does the Minister accept also that the present bus service nowhere near meets the needs of the ordinary individual? How the companies work out their timetables the good Lord only knows. I have no idea. People are left marooned. They have to go into the major towns on market day at 8.30 a.m. and either turn round and come back at 9.30 a.m. or wait until 3.30 p.m. The school bus would be much more acceptable, particularly to the elderly people, who could go to the day care centre, having done their shopping, and make a full day of it.

What the hon. Gentleman has said emphasises that there are a number of ways of looking at the matter. It can be considered in the general or in the particular, and I think that the answer would be a combination of both. Discussions are still going on between both sides of the industry and the local authorities. We have probably been going too far in looking for a single solution up to now in all cases when flexibility may give more possibilities.

The hon. Gentleman referred in his speech to the possibility of relief for the rural car user. Any question of a tax allowance for travelling to work, or exemption from vehicle excise duty or tax on petrol for such journeys, is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I know that the hon. Gentleman will not think that I am avoiding the question, because although the Government are in some ways one there are people with responsibility in particular fields.

Any special relief, in whatever form, is likely to lead to anomalies and to further dissatisfaction between people in different areas and between people within the same area whose expenditure patterns differ. This is particularly the case because the revenue lost as a result of such relief would have to be made up through increases in taxation or reductions in public expenditure in some areas. Inevitably, some other group of taxpayers would object to such changes on the valid ground that they discriminated against their interests. If that apparently simple solution were adopted, Adjournment debates in the future would be almost endless.

The hon. Gentleman also referred to the impact of price increases which are being sought by the oil companies. The Government are only too well aware of the consequences of oil price increases on all oil consumers, whether private, commercial or industrial. Representations have been made by many classes of oil consumers that future price increases should not be borne by them. A good reason can always be put forward to support that contention. The Government will take all these special problems into account when it becomes necessary to amend the maximum retail price orders for motor fuels and paraffin.

The painful fact is, however, that there is no way in which we can avoid the effects of the fivefold increase in crude oil prices that has occurred since October 1973. It seems that the increase will become even greater than that and that it will become impossible for any Government in the Western world to do much about it.

We must all recognise that mobility in rural areas will become increasingly costly whether we are thinking of private or public transport and whether the costs are borne directly by the user or shared by the ratepayer and taxpayer. It becomes all the more important to ensure that a level of public transport provision is aimed at locally which reflects the needs of the area and which puts the available resources to best use. In that respect I believe that the local authorities have a crucial rôle to play.