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  • Anthony Meyer – 1972 Speech on the Rule of Law

    Anthony Meyer – 1972 Speech on the Rule of Law

    The speech made by Anthony Meyer, the then Conservative MP for Flint West, in the House of Commons on 1 December 1972.

    I beg to move,

    That this House reaffirms its view that strict observance of the law, both by Government and by individuals and organisations within the State, is essential to the maintenance of political freedom, and to the protection of minorities, including dissentient minorities; and repudiates the doctrine that it is in any circumstances justifiable in a free society for any individual or organisation to reject any law.
    I shall not speak today about crime and punishment. I know that this is a matter very close to people’s hearts. They are worried sick about the apparently inexorable rise in the number of violent crimes. I know that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is tackling this problem with courage, imagination and humanity. If things can be made better by a judicious mixture of stiffer penalties and more certain detection and—perhaps rather more to the point—more certain conviction, I am sure that my right hon. Friend will find the right mixture. At any rate, he will not forget that the more we stiffen penalties the harder it is to secure convictions. That is one aspect of the rule of law.

    However, this morning I want to talk about a rather different aspect, namely, the rule of law as the protector not of our lives and property but of our freedom.

    The rule of law is a two-sided coin. We cannot split it down the middle. On one side is the restraint which the law imposes on the exercise of arbitrary or tyrannous power by the Government, and on the other the restraint which the law imposes on individuals, sections or interests within the community.

    I propose to argue that the rule of law in this double sense is one of only two guarantees of our political freedom. The other guarantee, of course, is Parliament. At the risk of shocking some hon. Members, I must say that the rule of law is a more reliable and certain guarantee of our freedom even than a free Parliament—this Parliament or any other.

    A lot of people say that the most valuable gift which Britain gave to the overseas peoples which once she ruled was that of parliamentary democracy. If so, that gift has been frittered away, because in most of black Africa parliamentary democracy in any meaningful sense has disappeared. It is, however, still alive, and in rather more than a purely formal sense, in both South Africa and Rhodesia. Does this prove that those two countries are free? Parliamentary democracy has disappeared, or is apt to disappear, in Zambia, Tanzania, Ghana, Nigeria and, from time to time, Pakistan. Does this prove that they are not free countries?

    If we go by the definition of Sir Ivor Jennings—he was no Right-wing imperialist—there can be no doubt. His definition was:

    “The test of a free country is to examine the status of the body that corresponds to His Majesty’s Opposition.”

    On that definition, South Africa is in the clear and Nigeria very definitely is not.

    But Britain bequeathed another gift to her former colonies—the rule of law. This has shown a somewhat tougher will to survive. In only a few of the countries of black Africa—of which Zanzibar and Uganda are the most notorious—is the rule of law entirely extinct. To the extent that the rule of law survives in, say, Kenya, Nigeria or Tanzania—that is, to the extent that judges in those countries are able to exercise any kind of control or restraint on the Executive or on arbitrary actions by the Executive—Kenya, Nigeria or Tanzania can stake some kind of claim to be as free as South Africa or Rhodesia, where the powers of judges to check the Executive still exist but are being eroded.

    It is not surprising that the rule of law should be at least as effective a barrier to tyranny as is a free Parliament. Parliaments are emanations of the popular will, and there are some hon. Members who consider that this Parliament ought to reflect more closely the popular will as manifested by the Daily Express. At times of real crisis, when popular emotions are overwhelming, Parliaments are sometimes very ready to entrust the nation’s liberties to a strong man. It was not so difficult to get the Reichstag to hand over full powers to Hitler; it was not difficult to get the French Assembly to hand over full powers to Petain, and, for that matter, it did not take us very long to decide to suspend the forms of parliamentary democracy in Northern Ireland. I do dispute that decision, but we did not take very long over it. For reasons which are not particularly discreditable, democratic parliamentarians are not infallible defenders of political freedom.

    Lawyers, on the other hand—and this does them no particular credit—have a vested interest in the maintenance of free institutions. Quite simply, they make their money and their reputations out of them. Blocking the actions of government, whether on behalf of some giant corporation or some obstinate individual, can be highly profitable to a lawyer, and it is no less profitable to assist the Government to attain their ends. There are rich pickings all round.

    A dictatorship governing by decree is very much less in need of lawyers. A dictatorship which snaps even the thin cobweb bonds of its own decrees, as in Zanzibar or Uganda, has no need of lawyers at all. All it needs is the infamous “people’s courts” to destroy any individual or organisation which ventures to defy the current orthodoxy. In such a system of “justice” there is no need even of professional judges. The “people’s courts,” which are nothing better than institutionalised lynchings, are a grim reminder that we do not make justice either more perfect or a better guardian of liberty by bringing it more closely into line with the public will. On the contrary, the best hope of enlarging the area of freedom in a society which has lost it lies in the attempts of a shattered legal profession to rebuild its prestige and its fortunes. I have always felt that the best hope of improving things in the Soviet Union is to build on the gradually increasing prestige of the legal profession there—interpreting Soviet law, true, but gradually acclimatising people to the idea that the State must at the very least obey its own laws.

    It would be unwise to project such hopes too far, as the hon. and learned Member for Rowley Regis and Tipton (Mr. Peter Archer) has pointed out in his admirable book on Communism and the law. I have argued that the rule of law, in the sense that the actions of the Executive must be subject to check by the judiciary, is at least as important a guarantee of political freedom as is the existence of parliamentary institutions, and that dictatorships have found it easier to destroy parliaments than to destroy the law.

    It was this aspect of the rule of law which concerned the two foremost writers on the subject, A. W. Dicey and Sir Ivor Jennings. Although they wrote from diametrically opposite political viewpoints they were both almost entirely concerned with the control which law ought to exert over Government. In neither writer do we find much awareness of the other side of the coin, namely the obligation of groups or individuals within the State to submit to the law. Yet throughout the free world the problem is not so much of Governments which are too strong but—and this is astonishing in an age of high technology and mass propaganda—that Governments are too weak to defend the general interest against the particular interest. In some ways the need today is to reverse the events leading to Magna Carta. Some of the barons have grown more powerful than the king.

    As the Home Secretary said in his magnificent speech to the Conservative Party conference:

    “The law and its proper enforcement are not the enemies of freedom; they are the very conditions of its existence.”

    In the free world freedom is threatened today not by the arbitrary exercise of State powers but by the actions of certain minority groups. Some of them—hi-jackers, bomb-throwers, and urban guerrillas—are out to destroy the law and to impose on us all some kind of unnamed and insane dictatorship.

    At the opposite extreme are those normally law-abiding citizens—trade union leaders who refuse to accept the Industrial Relations Act and respectable local government leaders who refuse to operate the Housing Finance Act. As a Welsh Member I may be permitted to put into this same gallery of high-minded, wrong-headed lawbreakers the young hotheads of the Welsh Language Society who give such headaches to the Marylebone magistrates.

    Between the wholly detestable terrorists and the respectable non-conformists—the trade unions, the local government leaders and the Welsh Language Society—there is the larger, rather more equivocal group of extremist militants who do not set out to destroy the law on principle but who will readily break the law, and break it repeatedly, rather than abate their claims. Let us be in no doubt about the dangers that these people represent, however inherently justifiable their claims may be.

    It is because this brand of law-breaking—this readiness to break the law rather than abate one’s claims—has become the norm in Northern Ireland that the province has become almost ungovernable. If the tendency is allowed to spread in the rest of Britain—if moderate opinion comes to acquiesce in continued defiance of the law by militants—then the whole of Britain will become ungovernable. No one has perceived this more clearly or expressed it more sharply than Mr. Victor Feather who recently said:

    “Violence and disorder is the certain road to self-destruction. It is that which brings disaster, and if it is not checked, leads to dictatorship.”

    The terrorists and the bomb-throwers are not the most dangerous threat to our future. We are not so craven that we can be frightened into acquiescing in their rejection of the law. The worst that they can do is to call into being a counter-terrorism more substantial than their own. The extremist militants, on the other hand, pushing their claims to the cliff-edge of legality and beyond, represent a much more formidable threat. The greatest danger of all comes from those pillars of rectitude and of the Establishment, who, as the leaders of great trade unions or powerful local authorities, so intensely dislike a particular Act that they will openly defy it and call on others to do so. Only these people could make defiance of the law respectable, normal, unremarkable.

    The Leader of the Opposition has now publicly set his face against this sort of development. Perhaps he will now go further and urge trade unions and local authorities actively to co-operate with the law. We would be wise to do so. Strict support of the rule of law—indeed, active co-operation with the law—is even more important to the party opposite than it is to my own. It is they rather than we who believe in making men good by Act of Parliament, or making society perfect by Act of Parliament. It is they rather than we who believe in the declaratory value of Acts of Parliament such as the Race Relations Act.

    So I say to those very few members of the Labour Party who have been encouraging trade unions or local authorities to defy the law, “Do you not realise that, by naturalising the idea that we can obey the law or not as we choose, you are thereby frustrating your own long-term ends? Are you not going to need the full apparatus of the law if ever, which God forbid, your turn comes to impose upon us all your highly uncongenial remedies?”

    I could address the same argument to the muddle-headed idealists of the Welsh Language Society. A quarter of the population of Wales speak Welsh. The number is showing a tendency to increase, because education authorities throughout Wales faithfully interpret the requirements of the Welsh Language Act to increase the amount of Welsh teaching in schools.

    Now we have the report of the Bowen Committee on bilingual road signs. The three-quarters of non-Welsh-speaking Welshmen will be required to accept bilingual road signs to satisfy the perfectly legitimate desire of the quarter of Welsh-speaking Welshmen. This whole exercise depends for its success entirely on the acceptance by that three-quarters of a legal requirement which benefits them not at all. But if the Welsh Language Society extremists had succeeded in their efforts to bring the law into disrepute they would have destroyed their best hope of achieving the end they seek.

    I have argued that the rule of law is so essential to the maintenance of our liberties—both in the sense of restraining the arbitrary use of power by the Executive and in the sense of enabling the Executive to defend the public interest and public freedom against the anarchic or tyrannous pressures of determined minorities—that it should be upheld at all costs, and that hon. Members on both sides should never allow themselves to connive at deliberate breaches of the law.

    Of course, this does not mean that the Government have but to pass laws and apply them and we have all but to obey The rule of law, however essential to the maintenance of our liberties, will in fact be in danger if the laws themselves are absolutely intolerable to a majority or to a very large, coherent and determined minority. The Government must at all times have regard not to the popularity but to the acceptability of their laws, if only because if they do not, the courts, particularly courts with juries, will not apply the law.

    But, be that as it may, once the rule of law begins to crumble, the end not just of Parliamentary democracy but of freedom itself is very near. That is why it is so important that the House should today remove any possible doubt as to where it stands on this issue by accepting my motion.

  • Queen Elizabeth II – 1972 Christmas Broadcast

    Queen Elizabeth II – 1972 Christmas Broadcast

    The Christmas Broadcast made by HM Queen Elizabeth II on 25 December 1972.

    My whole family has been deeply touched by the affection you have shown to us when we celebrated our Silver Wedding, and we are especially grateful to the many thousands who have written to us and sent us messages and presents.

    One of the great Christian ideals is a happy and lasting marriage between man and wife, but no marriage can hope to succeed without a deliberate effort to be tolerant and understanding. This doesn’t come easily to individuals and it certainly doesn’t come naturally to communities or nations.

    We know only too well that a selfish insistence upon our rights and our own point of view leads to disaster. We all ought to know by now that a civilised and peaceful existence is only possible when people make the effort to understand each other.

    Looking at the world, one might be forgiven for believing that many people have never heard of this simple idea. Every day there are reports of violence, lawlessness, and the disregard for human life.

    Most of this is excused on purely selfish grounds. I know there are millions of kindly people throughout the world who are saddened with me for all those who suffer from these outrages.

    In the United Kingdom we have our own particular sorrows in Northern Ireland and I want to send a special message of sympathy to all those men, women and children who have suffered and endured so much.

    But there is a light in this tragic situation. The people are steadfastly carrying on their ordinary business in their factories and places of work.

    Voluntary workers, both in and out of uniform, have struggled to keep humanity and commonsense alive. The social services have done their job magnificently. The forces of law and order continue their thankless task with the utmost fortitude in the face of appalling provocation.

    We must admire them greatly for their patience and restraint.

    I ask you all to join me in praying that the hearts and minds of everyone in that troubled Province may be touched with the spirit of Christmas and the message of brotherhood, peace and goodwill. May tolerance and understanding release the people from terror and put gladness in the place of fear.

    But I am speaking today to all the peoples of the Commonwealth. In this unique organisation, we are fortunate in having endless opportunities for co-operation.

    Through its informal structure we have created a web of relationships between peoples of many races and creeds and now between a great number of sovereign independent states.

    I have visited almost all of the 32 independent Commonwealth countries, and we are looking forward to going back to Canada and Australia next year. I know from this personal experience how much the Commonwealth is valued by its members.

    Britain is about to join her neighbours in the European Community and you may well ask how this will affect the Commonwealth.

    The new links with Europe will not replace those with the Commonwealth. They cannot alter our historical and personal attachments with kinsmen and friends overseas. Old friends will not be lost; Britain will take her Commonwealth links into Europe with her.

    Britain and these other European countries see in the Community a new opportunity for the future. They believe that the things they have in common are more important than the things which divide them, and that if they work together not only they, but the whole world will benefit.

    We are trying to create a wider family of Nations and it is particularly at Christmas that this family should feel closest together.

    Christmas is above all a time of new life. A time to look hopefully ahead to a future when the problems which face the world today will be seen in their true perspective.

    I leave with you the old message, “On earth peace; goodwill toward men”. No one has ever offered a better formula and I hope that its simple truth may yet take hold of the imagination of all mankind.

    God bless you and a happy Christmas to you all.

  • Alec Douglas-Home – 1972 Statement on an All-Party Delegation to Rhodesia

    Alec Douglas-Home – 1972 Statement on an All-Party Delegation to Rhodesia

    The statement made by Alec Douglas-Home, the then Foreign Secretary, in the House of Commons on 2 March 1972.

    With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I wish to make a statement.

    I said that I would report further to the House on the possibility of an all-party delegation visiting Rhodesia. Mr. Smith has finally replied that he would feel unable to agree to the visit of the delegation proposed. He gives as his reason not only the strongly expressed opposition to the settlement of certain members of the proposed delegation, but also their alleged support for movements in Africa which make use of terrorist methods.

    Since both the Labour and Liberal Parties have stated that they are not prepared to change their nominations to the all-party delegation, a position which I quite understand, I regret that there is now no point in pursuing the proposal further.

    Mr. Hattersley

    Will the Foreign Secretary accept that this is not simply a matter affecting the Labour and Liberal Parties but is the cause of concern to the House as a whole? Indeed, will he further accept that since Mr. Smith’s message is indicative of Smith’s character and policy, the right hon. Gentleman’s statement is central to relations between Britain and the Rhodesian régime?

    In the light of that understanding, may I put three specific questions to the right hon. Gentleman? First, having reported Mr. Smith’s message to the House, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman to say what reply lie has sent to Mr. Smith’s impertinence? Second what conclusion does the Foreign Secretary draw from Mr. Smith’s attitude about the Rhodesian Front’s likelihood of honouring any bargain that may be struck between Salisbury and Whitehall?

    Third, does the Foreign Secretary realise that since he, unlike his predecessor, claims to have struck a bargain with the Rhodesian régime, he should be in a position to exercise some influence in Salisbury? When does he intend to do so?

    Sir Alec Douglas-Home

    I think the hon. Gentleman knows that I have always thought that if there was to be observation of the Pearce Commission from this House, that would be better done by an all-party delegation. I made that clear to Mr. Smith. I also made clear the fact that in this House it is the practice for parties to select their own members to take part in delegations and that therefore it was intolerable that the choice should be limited. Thus, my preference was for an all-party delegation, though Lord Pearce is getting on with his work successfully without observation.

    I will answer the three specific points the hon. Gentleman put to me. The answer to the first is that I have told Mr. Smith that I regret his decision. [Interruption.] The answer to the second, about the honouring of any bargain, is that that is a different matter in relation to the settlement that has been proposed; he must put the whole of his authority and party behind it if the settlement is to be brought into the Rhodesia Parliament.

    The answer to the third is that I think the hon. Gentleman knows very well that the only sanction I have—I hope he is not asking me to use it—is to withdraw the Pearce Commission, which is something neither he nor his right hon and hon. Friends want.

    Sir F. Bennett

    Will my right hon. Friend confirm that it would be misleading to suggest that this represents an overall objection of hon. Members from this House going to Rhodesia? [Interruption.] Is it not a fact that very prominent right hon. Members from both sides of this Chamber, including one distinguished former Labour Minister and an equally prominent former Conservative Minister, have been to Rhodesia in the last few weeks?

    Is my right hon. Friend aware that at least some of us feel that the more that Lord Pearce is allowed to get on with his job—without interference from political sources, including those who favour a settlement and those who are opposed to one—the better?

    Sir Alec Douglas-Home

    Yes. I have never thought that we should transfer our political differences from this House to Rhodesia, particularly while the Pearce Commission is there, or indeed at any time. It is true, of course, that hon. Members have been to Rhodesia in recent weeks.

    Mr. David Steel

    Will the right hon. Gentleman explain why he believes that, although he has been unable during these negotiations with Rhodesia to get Mr. Smith to accept a modest demand that an all-party delegation from this House be allowed to see what is happening as part of the test of acceptability which is being carried out, there is any real hope or promise of Mr. Smith, once the negotiations are over and the formal ties with this country are cut, accepting the more substantial demands contained in the agreement that has been concluded with him?

    Sir Alec Douglas-Home

    Mr. Smith has accepted the proposals for a settlement—[Interruption.]—and has agreed to put his authority behind them in his own Parliament. Having done that, I should have thought that he must keep the agreement. [HON. MEMBERS: “Rubbish.”]

    Mr. Hastings

    Is not the first objective to ascertain the views of the Rhodesian people in this matter? Is that not the responsibility of this House as well as of the Government? Has anyone explained to my right hon. Friend or to the House how this delegation could possibly help?

    Sir Alec Douglas-Home

    No, Sir, they have not, but if there were to have been a delegation, it should have been an all-party one.

    Miss Lestor

    Will the right hon. Gentleman kindly publish all the exchanges he has had with Ian Smith over this matter so that we may see whether or not the Foreign Secretary explained to Mr. Smith why I and many Members of my party believe that violence becomes inevitable—[HON. MEMBERS: “No.”]—and often legitimate, but only if all normal methods of democratic change are closed?

    Is he aware that the conduct of Ian Smith in Southern Rhodesia since the Pearce Commission went there demonstrates that this course is rapidly becoming the position? Will he acknowledge that if ever those who believe in equal rights in Southern Rhodesia are compelled to answer force with force, they will have been taught by masters who have been supported by the Foreign Secretary?

    Sir Alec Douglas-Home

    I will ignore the hon. Lady’s final remarks. I hope she will recognise that the whole purpose of this settlement is to enable peaceful democratic change to take place so that the Rhodesians should not have to resort to violence.

    Sir Gilbert Longden

    If my right hon. Friend thinks that it would be advantageous for an all-party delegation to go from this House to Rhodesia—though in my respectful submission Lord Pearce is doing very well without such a delegation—why not put them in an R.A.F. aeroplane, fly them to Salisbury and see what Mr. Smith does next?

    Mr. Thorpe

    While not wishing to see my Chief Whip detained without trial and therefore dissociating myself from the suggestion of the hon. Member for Hertfordshire, South-West (Sir Gilbert Longden), may I ask the right hon. Gentleman if he does not feel that, in fairness to the House, he should go further than expressing regret to Mr. Smith, which is the sentiment one expresses if one is unable to accept a supper invitation?

    Does he not think that he should make it clear that he received an undertaking from the two political parties that they would refrain from expressing an opinion publicly or from taking part in political activities while they were in Rhodesia and that he had accepted those undertakings as having been given in good faith?

    Does he not believe that he should reject the suggestion that the members of the proposed delegation support terrorist methods and are themselves alleged to be terrorist sympathisers? [Interruption.] Is he aware that if the Pearce Commission concludes that there is support for the proposals that this House should be asked to grant £5 million for 10 years to lift sanctions, grant independence and give recognition to the Smith régime, this House should be given an opportunity to see how the Pearce Commission has worked, prior to such a conclusion being reached?

    Sir Alec Douglas-Home

    I have already conveyed to Mr. Smith the two suggestions which the right hon. Gentleman has made. On the last point he raised, I suggest we await the Pearce Report.

    Mr. Brocklebank-Fowler

    Is my right hon. Friend aware that hon. Members on this side of the House as well as hon. Gentlemen on the benches opposite are deeply disappointed that the Smith régime has felt unable to accept the presence in Rhodesia of an all-party delegation from this House? Will he present our dissatisfaction to Mr. Smith over this?

    Sir Alec Douglas-Home

    I have told Mr. Smith that I supported the idea of an all-party delegation to observe the Pearce Commission working. I will certainly tell him that I think he has made a mistake in this matter.

    Mr. Roy Jenkins

    Is it not a fact that, contrary to the impression which the right hon. Gentleman gave in reply to a question from his hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Hastings), which disparaged the value of an all-party delegation, the suggestion for an all-party delegation came specifically from the Foreign Secretary? Is it not the case, therefore, that his own suggestion has been rejected by Mr. Smith? Does not this conduct on the part of Mr. Smith affect the right hon. Gentleman’s mind about the value of any bargain that may be struck with Mr. Smith?

    Sir Alec Douglas-Home

    I am not sure if the right hon. Gentleman was around when this was considered, but the position was that Mr. Smith rejected a request for a Labour Party delegation and a Liberal Party delegation. I have never been keen on Lord Pearce’s Commission being observed, but if it was to be observed—[Interruption.]—I agree that could have been better expressed, I meant it in the sense that Lord Pearce could get on with the work of the Commission perfectly well without any external observation—but if there were to be observation, I agree with the right hon. Gentleman, and I said that it should be an all-party delegation, that was the best form. This has now been turned down.

    Mr. Roy Jenkins

    I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman if he told Mr. Smith that he was not very keen on the proposition he was putting forward?

    Sir Alec Douglas-Home

    I told Mr. Smith that he ought to accept an all-party delegation. He has not done so.

  • Edward Heath – 1972 Statement on Interrogation Techniques (Parker Committee’s Report)

    Edward Heath – 1972 Statement on Interrogation Techniques (Parker Committee’s Report)

    The statement made by Edward Heath, the then Prime Minister, in the House of Commons on 2 March 1972.

    With permission, Mr. Speaker, I will now make a statement about the Report of the Committee of Privy Councillors under the chairmanship of Lord Parker of Waddington. This report is published today; and copies are now available in the Vote Office. The Government have not found it necessary to omit any passage on grounds of security; and the report is published with only minor amendments which do not in any way affect the sense.

    The terms of reference of the Committee were to inquire whether, and if so in what respects, the procedures currently authorised for the interrogation of persons suspected of terrorism, and for their custody while subject to interrogation, require amendment. The Government are indebted to Lord Parker and his colleagues for the scrupulous care with which they have examined this very difficult subject.

    The Committee found itself unable to agree; and it has therefore submitted a majority report signed by Lord Parker and my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter), together with a minority report signed by Lord Gardiner.

    The majority find that the methods in question, which had been applied on a number of occasions in the past under successive Governments in various parts of the world, were applied in Northern Ireland in August, 1971, to 12 detainees, and in October to two more. They consider—and I quote—that

    “there is no doubt that the information obtained by these two operations directly and indirectly was responsible for the saving of lives of innocent citizens”.

    They conclude that the use of the methods involved could be justified in exceptional circumstances subject to further safeguards which they recommend. They consider, however, that the use of these techniques in some, if not all, cases would offend against English law; but they refrain from expressing any view about the position in Northern Ireland where legal proceedings which raise this issue are pending. Lord Gardiner in the minority report considers that these methods are objectionable in all circumstances.

    The Government, having reviewed the whole matter with great care and with particular reference to any future operations, have decided that the techniques which the Committee examined will not be used in future as an aid to interrogation.

    Mr. Harold Wilson

    Is the Prime Minister aware that, in accordance with our usual practices in these matters, I can confirm fully that the amendments made on security grounds were entirely marginal and made no difference to the sense of the report?

    Secondly, has the right hon. Gentleman noticed reports which have said that these techniques have not been used since the Parker Committee was set up? Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether that is so? I do not think that it comes out in the report itself.
    Thirdly, while hon. Members will want to study the report and while every hon. Member faced with this very difficult problem will decide whether to accept in principle the argument of the majority or that of the minority, is the Prime Minister aware that I, on behalf of my right hon. and hon. Friends, greatly welcome the announcement in the concluding part of the right hon. Gentleman’s statement? It is a wise announcement in all the circumstances, and it may make more than a marginal difference to the possibility of stabilising and improving the situation in Northern Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman will recall that at the end of the two-day debate last November my right hon. and hon. Friends voted on this matter because of Compton, and, naturally, we are extremely pleased that the right hon. Gentleman has taken this wise decision?

    The Prime Minister

    I can confirm that these techniques have not been used in cases other than those mentioned in the majority report; namely, the 12 in August, 1971 and the two in October, 1971.

    Mr. Grimond

    I, too, wish to congratulate the Government on their decision that these techniques should now be abandoned. May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether there must not be some disquiet about the fact that some of these techniques may have been contrary to English law? What is the position of soldiers under the Army Act who might have been required to take part in the application of these techniques when, possibly, their powers may have been in conflict as between English and Northern Irish law?

    The Prime Minister

    On the first part of the right hon. Gentleman’s question, as both the majority and the minority reports point out clearly, the techniques were used over a long period in the postwar years under Governments of both parties in this House. On the second part, as this matter is before the Northern Ireland courts at the moment, it would not be appropriate for me to comment on any difficulties which might arise in that respect. Obviously this is a matter in which the Government have given thought to the position of Her Majesty’s forces. But I remind the right hon. Gentleman that the Compton Report showed that these techniques were used by the R.U.C. under the authority of the Northern Ireland Government.

    Mr. Dodds-Parker

    Will my right hon. Friend say whether in criminal investigations it will still be possible to put a blanket over the head of an individual who is in custody when there are good reasons for maintaining concealment of identity?

    The Prime Minister

    A directive has been issued to the G.O.C., which, therefore covers the whole Army in Northern Ireland, in the sense of the statement that I have made. As for the use of techniques for non-interrogation, obviously from the point of view of security sometimes it is necessary for people to be asked to stand against a wall with their arms raised so that they may be searched to see whether they have weapons. That is a specific and limited use. As for putting a blanket over someone’s head, the Army has been instructed not to use that technique in any circumstances. The police are covered by the normal police regulations. If a person asks to be covered so that his identity should not be revealed in public, it is possible for that to happen.

    Mr. Mayhew

    While I welcome the Prime Minister’s decision, may I ask him whether he is aware of the substantial body of expert opinion which says that the technique called sensory isolation can cause mental distress for long periods thereafter and permanently in certain circumstances? Was this known to the Government when they approved this technique?

    The Prime Minister

    Both the majority and the minority reports discussed this in some detail, and there is obviously a conflict of medical evidence about it. Her Majesty’s Forces will of course continue to be trained in resistance to these techniques and, at the same time, training methods are being reviewed in regard to their application to Her Majesty’s Forces. But the general conclusion of the majority report is that it has not been possible to discover ill effects on Her Majesty’s Forces as a result of subjecting them to these techniques in training. But they also point out that a training position may prove to be different from a position in time of emergency or war.

    Mr. Woodhouse

    Does the Government’s decision to discontinue intensive interrogation of this kind apply only in Northern Ireland or to all future circumstances anywhere?

    The Prime Minister

    I must make it plain that interrogation in depth will continue but that these techniques will not be used. It is important that interrogation should continue. The statement that I have made covers all future circumstances. If a Government did decide—on whatever grounds I would not like to foresee—that additional techniques were required for interrogation, then I think that, on the advice which is given in both the majority and the minority reports, and subject to any cases before the courts at the moment, they would probably have to come to the House and ask for the powers to do it.

    Mr. Alexander W. Lyon

    Although one welcomes the ending of these intolerable techniques, was not the most disquieting feature the fact that, whether they were known to the members of this Government or their predecessor, they were not known to the House or to the country? Is it not right that the procedure followed in interrogation in depth, even the one which is still being sanctioned, should be put into some written form and be discussed by and available to the public?

    The Prime Minister

    The recommendation of the majority report was that, if the techniques were to be continued in a limited form, it would be necessary to set down guidelines in the way that the hon. Gentleman suggests. I do not think it would be possible or perhaps advisable that there should be issued as a public document any account of methods of interrogation which did not use these techniques. I am prepared to consider that, but I should have thought that as a security measure it is probably not advisable.

    Mr. Biggs-Davison

    Are not the holding of this inquiry, the publication of this report and my right hon. Friend’s statement today indicative of a civilised nation and an example to the world?

    The Prime Minister

    I think that the Government have come to the right conclusion in this matter. The majority report emphasises that the techniques had been used for a long time; and that in this particular case, in the sudden emergency of 9th August, they were used. In paragraphs 20, 21 and 22 the report sets out very clearly the advantages which were gained from that. But now that the situation is more a continuing one from the point of view of interrogation, I repeat that I think that the Government have come to the right conclusion.

    Mr. McManus

    Would the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that this report will only further sap the confidence of the minority in all reports instituted by this House, since it appears to attempt to whitewash what went on, and that no welcome whatever will be forthcoming from the people whom I represent for the fact that the Government have now been shamed by force of public opinion into discontinuing barbaric practices?

    Would the right hon. Gentleman also bear in mind that this will call into further question the validity or usefulness of a tribunal which is now sitting? Will he particularly bear in mind that, if this sort of thing foreshadows the long-expected initiatives, they are bound, if they follow this sort of pattern, to be rejected outright by the minority?

    Finally, on the question of interrogation, will the right hon. Gentleman give his personal guarantee to the House that another form of interrogation, whereby soldiers go around remote parts of my constituency and ask people their religion, will cease forthwith?

    The Prime Minister

    I completely repudiate what the hon. Gentleman says. If he is claiming to speak for his constituents, perhaps he will prevail upon them to abandon the barbaric practices of the I.R.A. in murdering helpless individuals sitting by their own firesides.

    Mr. McManus

    On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it in order for the Prime Minister of England to stand in this House and accuse my constituents, without proof at all, of barbaric practices?

    Mr. Speaker

    I have heard nothing out of order.

    Mr. Tapsell

    If the interrogation procedures which have been used in past years, which the report confirms have saved innocent lives, are now to be discontinued, will it not be necessary very speedily to issue a new and clear code of practice to our Forces in Ulster in case a new emergency should arise in which interrogation in depth should again be necessary?

    The Prime Minister

    I repeat that interrogation in depth will continue when it is deemed right, but these techniques will not be used for this purpose. We must distinguish between these two things. I would repeat what I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford (Mr. Woodhouse), that if any Government did come to the decision, after the most careful thought, that it was necessary to use some or all of these techniques, it would be necessary to come to the House first before doing so.

    Mr. Harold Wilson

    I thank the Prime Minister for his answer to my earlier question, when he said that these techniques had not been used during the period following the Compton Report. Is he aware that I have sent the Home Secretary some alleged evidence—I cannot evaluate it—purporting to show that there has been a continuation of this kind of practice? Will he be prepared to set against what he has said any findings which the Home Secretary may give him? Is he aware that only today there have been rather serious allegations of a continuation of practices—whether these specific ones or the others which were not the subject of the Prime Minister’s announcement I am not certain?

    Do we take it from his statement that the Prime Minister has no present intention of introducing legislation in this matter—for example, possibly to validate past actions—at any rate until the result of cases now pending in the courts becomes known to the House?

    The Prime Minister

    Yes, the right hon. Gentleman is correct. We have no intention at the moment of introducing legislation to deal with this matter by way of an indemnity. Naturally, we should like to see the results of any decision in the Northern Ireland courts. Then, if we judged it necessary, we would naturally raise this matter in the House.

    On the first part of the question, I too have been sent from time to time a number of allegations, and I have immediately asked that all of them be investigated. The G.O.C. has always said that any allegation will immediately be investigated. The problem is to get those who make the allegations to come forward and make them to any inquiry or to give their own evidence about the allegations. They are prepared, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, to set them down on paper and sometimes to make them to other people, but they are very slow to come forward to make them to any inquiry. But I think the right hon. Gentleman will find that these allegations are quite separate from the question of the 14 cases in which the techniques were used for deep interrogation.

  • Ray Carter – 1972 Speech on the Protection of Otters

    Ray Carter – 1972 Speech on the Protection of Otters

    The speech made by Ray Carter, the Labour MP for Birmingham Northfield, in the House of Commons on 29 February 1972.

    I beg to move,

    That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide for the protection of otters.

    This is not the first occasion on which a Bill has been introduced for the protection of otters—[interruption.]

    Mr. Speaker

    Order. Will hon. Members please refrain from conversing with one another? Those who wish to talk beyond the Bar might withdraw.

    Mr. Carter

    A similar Bill was introduced in 1969 by Mr. Edwin Brooks, the then Member for Bebington, Unfortunately, it failed to obtain a Second Reading.

    When the first Bill was introduced about two years ago there had arisen a sudden awareness of the precarious existence of the British otter. Otter hunts which had existed for centuries on a plentiful supply of otters were finding on more and more occasions that a day’s hunting would conclude not only with no kills but with no sightings either. Between 1900 and 1957 hunts had on average for every hundred hunting days found between 65 and 72 otters, but by 1967 the figure had fallen to 43. The count at otter hunting, I am assured, is the only reliable method of determining the precise otter population. As a result of this dramatic decline in the otter population, many hunts voluntarily agreed to cease hunting.

    The reasons for the decline in the otter population are numerous. It is claimed that the very severe winter of 1962–63 destroyed a large percentage of the population, including many young and female otters. The increasing use of inland waterways for recreational purposes is also believed to have had a deleterious effect on the otter population. Yet again, the rise in use, and hence in residual levels, of pesticides and insecticides in our inland waterways affects the fertility of the otter to a point where reproduction has been seriously reduced.
    Quite apart from these hazards, the otter is one of those animals that have been pursued by man through the ages in the belief that it is a pest and a destroyer of fisheries. This constant harrying of the otter population must have had an effect on its number, for, unlike most mammals, it has no breeding season, and it is always possible that a female with a litter or about to breed will be killed, which has a disproportionate effect on the otter population.

    Of course, the need to protect the otter, like any other animal, hangs on the desire of the public to preserve our natural heritage, and whilst there are increasing signs that there is a growing volume of opinion in support of a policy of conservation, Governments of all persuasions have so far done precious little in terms of legislation. Yet the uniqueness and attractiveness of the otter, our largest water-based mammal, have been introduced to millions of people who have never even seen the animal through the books of the late Gavin Maxwell and Henry Williamson. Town dwellers who look for mournful hours into the polluted waters of urban rivers for some sign of life are at the very least able to draw encouragement from the fact that further up stream life does exist which one day may return to all our waterways. But even this upstream life is now threatened, largely for the reasons that I have given.

    So precarious is the otter’s existence that the World Wild Life Trust and other eminent bodies have put it on their list of animals in greatest danger of extinction. Just before I had the opportunity of introducing the Bill I received a visit from the R.S.P.C.A., which has added its support, with all other natural history bodies, to measures and efforts to help the otter and save it from extinction.

    Anglers who have for centuries regarded it as one of their natural enemies, to be routed out and destroyed at all costs, are now changing their minds and rallying to its aid. Mr. Ben Pond, a leading naturalist and river keeper on the Trent and Stour, was reported in the Angler as saying:

    “An otter takes what it needs and that is little enough. People don’t seem to realise the good they do in a fishery. I was keeper on the Trent and Stour for 24 years and assure you that apart from eels and other enemies of the fishery otters eat thousands of lampreys that would otherwise feed on fish spawn”.

    A similar view is adopted by the overwhelming number of river authorities in England and Wales. A questionnaire was recently sent to 29 such authorities, and not one considered the otter to be a pest. One fairly typical response from a river authority is as follows:

    “The general feeling is that the otter does little damage to our fisheries. Most bailiffs report that they have not seen otters for a long time and feel sure that they are becoming scarce in Cornwall”.

    Those are the views of the Cornwall River Authority.

    Another authority, the South-West Wales River Authority, said:

    “The authority’s attitude to the otter is that it is an animal which should be conserved.”

    So much for the long-held view that the otter is a pest to be equated with the rat or the grey squirrel and so much for the claim of the hunters of the otter that their actions are not just sport but a necessary pursuit of one of man’s natural enemies.

    It would be deceitful of me to try to obscure from the House an underlying motive in this Bill, which is the effective banning of otter hunting unless specifically allowed for the purposes of control. I believe from all that I have read of otter hunting that it is a thoroughly inhumane practice which, if allowed to go unchecked, could pursue the otter into extinction. I mentioned earlier the voluntary restraint of some hunts in response to a request from a master of otter hounds temporarily to discontinue hunting. Unfortunately, there is now ample evidence that this self-denial has broken down, and numerous reports have come in from anglers that hunts, instead of breaking off before the kill, are going through right to the brutal end.

    Like many other animals that have gone before it, therefore, the British otter is now in an extremely critical stage of existence. Unless immediate action is taken future generations might be deprived of the sight of an altogether indispensable part of our water life. No more timely reminder of the precarious nature of the otter’s existence could have occurred than the report in a Sunday newspaper that some otter hunts, for want of otters, had switched to hunting wild mink classified as pests.

    Two years have elapsed since the last attempt was made to classify the otter as a protected animal. Should this attempt fail, it is conceivable that the need for a third will have been removed, the otter having disappeared from rural and water life.

    Mr. R. T. Page (Northampton)

    I rise to oppose this Bill—[HON. MEMBERS: “Shame”]—not in the least because I am less anxious to preserve the otter than my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Mr. Carter).

    I believe that a balance of nature is deeply important in our country and that the otter plays that part. Certainly at the present level of the otter population I am completely convinced that what the otter does is vastly more for good than harm. If it became very plentiful maybe it would be a menace to fisheries, but it is not so now. The question is not whether it should be preserved but how. If we abolished otter hunting we would abolish the one wide-ranging organisation which has an interest in preserving the otter.

    Mr. Carter

    Rubbish.

    Mr. Paget

    To some of my hon. Friends this may not be apparent, but we have eliminated the wild deer in this country. Wild deer exist nowhere except where there is a pack of deerhounds. The farmer cannot be prevented from guarding his crops unless there is some organisation that will compensate him. So we have the wild deer surviving only when it is hunted. Very much the same applies to the game birds, the pheasant and the partridge. They are becoming rare. They approach extinction except where they are preserved, and they are preserved because of hunting. I think the objects of my hon. Friend and I are exactly the same, but I do not think that he will serve those objects which we both have in mind by eliminating the one organised and active group of otter preservers which exists in this country.

    Mr. Carter

    Rubbish.

     

  • Robert Cooke – 1972 Speech on Public Service Broadcasting

    Robert Cooke – 1972 Speech on Public Service Broadcasting

    The speech made by Robert Cooke, the Conservative MP for Bristol West, in the House of Commons on 23 February 1972.

    I beg to move.

    That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide for the greater freedom of public service broadcasting; and for purposes connected therewith.
    At present, all broadcasting is just that, and until the spoken and televised word are as freely available as the printed word some element of public service will remain.

    I seek to provide for greater freedom within the existing framework and to modify that framework in such a manner as to pave the way to the ultimate freedom for broadcasting which the Press in Britain now enjoys.

    When the printing press was invented, the church was against it because it helped to disseminate knowledge and spread education beyond the closely guarded confines of church and court life. There are still some clergy today who are against local radio, though their reasons remain obscure. Radio has been a means of mass communication for half a century, yet it retains many of the shackles that it acquired at the outset due to public and parliamentary fear that it would be misused. I suspect that some of the heirs and successors of those timid and suspicious churchmen of centuries ago sit in this House, and I have noted the suspicion or caution with which some hon. Members approach any proposal for the extension of mass communications. They are not confined to one side of the House.

    That is why with the arrival of television, which is the ultimate in powerful and intrusive means of reaching every household, it was regarded as being too dangerous to be let out of the hands of those to whom radio was entrusted 50 years ago. Later we created the I.T.A. and the companies which work within its framework, in the affairs of one of the smallest of which I have some experience and interest. It is not they who are under attack today, but the massive and in some ways rather splendid bureaucracy that, alas, the B.B.C. has become.

    I recognise that the B.B.C. produces a vast quantity of first-rate material, and long may that continue, but the B.B.C. problem undoubtedly exists and must be tackled. One reads in this morning’s newspapers of a massive shake-up in its current affairs department. Resignations are talked of. There is a report of a savage attack by a union on administrative waste at the top. There is a report of a settlement of a libel case involving the B.B.C., and the number of public apologies made by the corporation for its actions have increased greatly in the last 18 months. It has set up a special complaints committee, but with a fanfare of publicity and somewhat narrow terms of reference.

    It is against this background of the B.B.C. problem and the need to reorganise independent television long before 1976, when the new pattern of contracts and, one hopes, two channels instead of one will emerge. It is time to set up a small group to report within a year on the future of broadcasting as a whole.

    My Bill provides for a review of broadcasting by a group of not more than seven nor fewer than three persons, at least one of whom shall be a woman and one of whom shall be under the age of 45, appointed by the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, subject to the affirmative Resolution of this House so that the House will have absolute control of its composition. My Bill defines its terms of reference. It would seek to modify the existing framework in such a way as to give a greater number of separate originators of programmes greater freedom to express divergent views, and, broadly, to place broadcasting on the same footing as the national and local Press. The I.T.A. would be known as the Television Authority, with two channels served by separate competing companies preserving regional character, with ample opportunity for clash of view. Indeed, by extending the opportunities for coverage of controversy of a national or local character, public participation would be vastly increased.

    The television authority would continue to exert an influence over the programme companies. The companies would continue to be financed by advertising. The same disciplines over them would apply via the authority as applies at present. I would not preclude in my Bill the possibility of a company which did not comply with the reasonable wishes of the authority finding itself fined for its malpractices, which has not been happening recently but could, I believe, happen if the House would give my Bill the force of law in due course.

    In the case of the B.B.C., to some people even to suggest change is like advocating the demolition of West-minister Abbey. I am asking my review body to consider the possibility of a broadcasting corporation receiving licence fees as at present but augmented by clean sponsorship; that is, not allowing any sponsor to make a personal appearance or to advertise but merely to have the name of an organisation prepared to sponsor a programme attached to it, and only after the programme has been produced, so that there could be no collusion between the sponsor and the programme producers. The corporation would have responsibility for transmission, as the B.B.C. does now, but Channel 1 and Channel 2 Television, should replace B.B.C.1 and B.B.C.2 and they should be completely separate, each with its own policy and views on current affairs and matters of that kind. They could be relied upon then to produce a different but nevertheless balanced clash of views.

    I believe that the present situation gives the B.B.C. far too great an exclusive artistic patronage but that with two channels one could get divergence of view and much wider scope for artistic patronage. So many other benefits flow from having two quite separate channels that I need not detail them here.

    Lastly, I come to the question of overseas services, which would be replaced by a new corporation, Radio-Television Great Britain, which would broadcast into Europe and into the world at large with material drawn from all available sources—B.C.1, B.C.2, T.A.1 and T.A.2; and similarly with radio. I believe that in this way Britain’s voice abroad would be far more representative than it is at present. It is within this framework, and with the knowledge that many more channels of communications will shortly be possible by means of cable to every household, that the review should be conducted. There could be 60 channels via cable to each household, revolutionising the means of communication and taking some of the burden off the far-stretched postal services.

    I do not believe that a better future for broadcasting lies in councils, committees or commissions to control and confine the talents of those who work in radio or television. We talk a good deal in this House of the right of freedom of speech.

    This Bill is designed to help us find a way to confer that freedom upon those who broadcast, in the belief that freedom of speech and clash of view is where the real safeguard of the truth lies.

    Finally, my Bill is a kind of backbencher’s Green Paper, a basis for discussion. I do not imagine for a moment that the House will be unanimous about all its details, but the central theme, about which we must all agree, is that freedom of speech and communication is the greatest possible safeguard of the truth.

  • Robert Carr – 1972 Statement on the Coal Industry and the Wilberforce Report

    Robert Carr – 1972 Statement on the Coal Industry and the Wilberforce Report

    The statement made by Robert Carr, the then Secretary of State for Employment, in the House of Commons on 21 February 1972.

    My Speaker, with your permission, and that of the House, I should like to make a statement about the coal industry and the Wilberforce Committee’s Report.

    The report of the court of inquiry into the coal dispute was received in the early hours of Friday morning. I am sure that the House will wish me to express its great appreciation of the speed and skill with which the court discharged its difficult task.

    The court concluded that for a number of reasons which are exceptional to the mining industry—

    “and do not apply in industry generally”—

    the miners at this particular time have a case for special treatment. The court in its recommendations distinguished two quite separate elements: first, the periodic increase in wages which is normal in all industries and for which it considered the National Coal Board’s offers of 7 per cent. to 9 per cent. as perfectly fair; secondly, it recognised what the report calls “an adjustment factor” meaning that—

    “a time may come in any industry when a distortion or trend has to be recognised as due for correction”.

    The court was convinced that on this account the miners’ claim

    “should be given exceptional national treatment”

    and that

    “a definite and substantial adjustment”

    in their wage levels was called for.

    Taking both these factors into account, the court recommended a settlement over 16 months from 1st November, 1971, giving increases of £4.50 for face workers, £6 for other underground workers and £5 for surface workers. The court also recommended further negotiations on a number of other issues.

    During the course of Friday there were further negotiations between the N.U.M. and the National Coal Board. A number of points within the framework of the Wilberforce Report and also an issue affecting subsidised transport arrangements were agreed, but the N.U.M. pressed for an increase of £1 over and above the increases recommended in the report for workers other than those at the face. The National Coal Board rejected this claim. Talks continued at 10 Downing Street, where the Prime Minister made it clear that the Government supported the board in rejecting the claim for the extra £1. In the event, the N.U.M. dropped this claim but negotiated a concession with the board related to the 5-day week bonus.

    With the exception of this concession and that relating to subsidised transport, all the supplementary issues agreed between the board and the N.U.M. were either consequential on the Wilberforce recommendations or were matters which the report recommended should be settled by negotiation.

    The union is now carrying out a ballot of its membership and has suspended picketing. It is expected that the ballot result will be known by next Friday. I am sure all sides of the House will join in hoping that the settlement will be endorsed.

    The Wilberforce Report emphasises that inflation

    “presents a most serious threat to the standards of living of everyone”.

    It is, therefore, essential that the country as a whole, and in particular all concerned with pay negotiations, should accept that the level of the coal mining settlement is, as the Wilberforce Court explains, due to reasons which are exceptional and do not apply to industry generally. It will continue to be the Government’s firm policy, in the interests of greater price stability for the whole community, that the overriding need is to ensure moderation in wage settlements.

  • William Whitelaw – 1972 Statement on Mass Lobby of Coal Miners

    William Whitelaw – 1972 Statement on Mass Lobby of Coal Miners

    The statement made by William Whitelaw, the then Leader of the House of Commons, in the House on 15 February 1972.

    On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. It is right that I should report to the House on the circumstances of the mass lobby taking place, which I have specifically been to see to ensure that everything was carried out in accordance with the recent proposals of the Services Committee, and, indeed, in the best interests of all concerned.

    I assure the House that every effort is being made on behalf of all those concerned to ensure that this demonstration is properly and peacefully conducted. Every effort is being made to ensure that those in very large numbers who wish to come into this House and into Committee Rooms are able to do so. I specifically made arrangements myself when there for an extra 500 people to be admitted immediately, and that has been done.

    I pay a considerable tribute to the right hon. Gentleman the Opposition Chief Whip, who has taken a considerable part in ensuring that this demonstration is properly conducted and that everything is being done that should be done in accordance with the traditions of the House.
    I also pay a considerable tribute to some of the stewards of the march with whom I have spoken, who are taking every precaution to make sure that their members are doing everything they can to pursue it on a peaceful basis. The large numbers create considerable problems for the police. I should also like to say how much I admire the work of the police and the authorities of the House in a very difficult situation. All concerned are conducting it in a way in which I would regard as the highest in British traditions.

    Mr. Michael Foot

    We appreciate the statement that the right hon. Gentleman has just made and the efforts that he has made, together with my right hon. Friend and others, to ensure that the dangerous situation that seemed to be arising half an hour ago outside the House should be properly dealt with. We are grateful to him for making the statement. Would he undertake to keep a very close watch on the situation to ensure that large numbers of miners are able to come into the House and that they are able to exercise their democratic rights to meet their Members of Parliament and others in the House, and if by any mischance there is any hold up in this procedure, will he make a further report to the House? I am sure that he would agree that we all wish to ensure that miners coming on this lobby should have full access to their Members of Parliament in this House to be able to put their view.

    Mr. Whitelaw

    Further to the point of order, Mr. Speaker. The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that, within the limits of the accommodation of the House and what numbers can properly be admitted, those who can be admitted will certainly be so. How many are admitted of the large numbers inevitably ultimately depends upon how quickly those who come in then move through and go out again. This point is very much in the mind of the right hon. Gentleman the Opposition Chief Whip, and this will be done. This is very important because obviously the House cannot accommodate more than a certain number at any one time.

    As for my interests in the matter, I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He would accept that my determination both to go there to see to it and to return and to report to the House is evidence that I wish to see that, within the reasons proper to the House, every help is given. It cannot be possible, necessarily, to accommodate in this House everyone who might want to come in at any particular time, because that clearly is not within the capacity of the buildings or the arrangements that can be made here. But, within those premises, everything is being done that can reasonably be done.

  • Edith Summerskill – 1972 Speech on Whittingham Hospital

    Edith Summerskill – 1972 Speech on Whittingham Hospital

    The speech made by Edith Summerskill, the then Shadow Secretary of State for Social Services, in the House of Commons on 15 February 1972.

    The right hon. Gentleman is to be thanked for the forthright and clear way in which he has presented the report. In view of the extremely serious and shocking revelations in it, will he accept that the recommendations should be implemented as soon as possible? Will he bear in mind the deep concern of all hon. Members that the report is the latest in a succession of hospital scandals, following as it does the 1968 inquiry into the “Sans Everything” allegations, the 1969 Ely Hospital inquiry and last year’s Farleigh Hospital inquiry?

    As we are dealing with the most vulnerable in the community, who are entirely dependent on the compassion or the disciplined care of others, I would ask the right hon. Gentleman four specific questions.

    First, what immediate steps will the right hon. Gentleman take to ensure that not only in Whittingham but in similar hospitals there is from now on first-class, efficient management and co-ordination between hospital management committees, regional hospital boards and medical nursing administrators?

    Secondly, will the right hon. Gentleman take immediate steps to increase the inspection of all such hospitals by the General Nursing Council at more frequent intervals and encourage a more rapid turnover of staff, periodically bringing in new staff from outside, because in such hospitals the staff become as institutionalised as the patients?

    Thirdly, will the Secretary of State encourage the more active rehabilitation of long-stay chronic or psycho-geriatric patients, with increased transfer to community care, and will he consider giving greater powers to his proposed community health councils in the forthcoming reorganisation of the National Health Service?

    Fourthly, we note no mention in the right hon. Gentleman’s statement of the Ombudsman. Will he recognise that there is public anxiety about the lack of investigation of complaints into the National Health Service and that his Committee to investigate the role and setup of the Hospital Advisory Service is no substitute for a hospital Ombudsman, because such complaints need an independent procedure outside the National Health Service? Will he seriously consider the setting up of a hospital commissioner?

  • Keith Joseph – 1972 Statement on Whittingham Hospital

    Keith Joseph – 1972 Statement on Whittingham Hospital

    The statement made by Keith Joseph, the then Secretary of State for Social Services, in the House of Commons on 15 February 1972.

    With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I should like to make a statement on the Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the administration of, and conditions at, Whittingham Hospital, near Preston, Lancashire. The report has been published this afternoon in Command Paper No. 4861.

    Allegations of ill-treatment of patients, fraud and maladministration at Whittingham were made in confidence to my predecessor in 1969. These were followed by a special audit investigation and inquiries by the police. Shortly after the police inquiries were completed a nurse was tried and convicted of manslaughter of a patient. As soon as I was free to do so after these proceedings I set up the committee of inquiry, which made its report to me early in November. Publication of the report has been delayed while charges against two other nurses, on which both were acquitted. were before the courts.

    The report is very disturbing. It is highly critical of standards of medical and nursing services in some parts of the hospital, particularly for longer-stay patients, and of the management. It also criticises the Manchester Regional Hospital Board, and to some extent my Department also. With a few qualifications, which are not however central to the main issues, I accept the conclusions and recommendations.

    The report assesses Whittingham as a hospital of wide contrasts and an extreme example of a hospital which has failed to keep up with the times. Side by side with some good modern services, it found in the long-stay wards evidence of old-fashioned methods, inadequate treatment and rehabilitation, poor buildings and insufficient medical and nursing staff. The report severely criticises the medical and nursing administration, the management structure and the way these worked; it describes the result as a hospital with day-to-day tactics but no overall strategy The committee of inquiry believes that in these conditions there have been instances of ill-treatment and large-scale pilfering by some members of the staff and the further evil of suppression of complaints about such practices when made by junior staff.

    As the House knows, I have set up a Committee to review the procedures for dealing with complaints in hospitals, and I have arranged for this most distressing aspect of the Whittingham Report to be brought to its attention.

    The report apportions a share of the blame for the general state of affairs at Whittingham to the regional hospital board, which, while pioneering the establishment of psychiatric units in general hospitals, did not adequately recognise the needs of elderly long-stay patients, which led to dual standards of care. I accept that my own Department as well as others may not have been sufficiently alive to this danger in earlier years. Our present policies take full account of it.

    The report recommends that all members of the Whittingham Hospital Management Committee should be invited to resign and the committee reconstituted. It also recommends complete operational integration of the medical and nursing services at Whittingham with those of the psychiatric unit at Preston. Such integration is undoubtedly most desirable, but in my view it is doubtful whether it can be achieved satisfactorily without amalgamating under a single hospital management committee the hospitals at present in the Whittingham and in the Preston and Chorley groups. The board has already started local consultations on proposals for amalgamation. The chairman of the Whittingham committee resigned in December on grounds of ill-health, and four other members have resigned in the course of discussions of the proposed amalgamation. With my endorsement the chairman of the board is inviting the remaining member to resign so that a reconstituted committee can be appointed with amalgamation with the Preston and Chorley group of hospitals in mind at an early date. The new committee will need to consider the many detailed recommendations in the report for improvements at Whittingham itself. There have already been important staff changes.

    This report highlights two of the most important problems facing the hospital service today: the proper care and treatment of longer-stay and elderly patients in large isolated mental hospitals, and the proper planning of the transition from services based on such hospitals to services based on departments in general hospitals. I have asked all boards to review their services for longer-stay mentally ill patients, looking particularly at outmoded attitudes, at allocation of staff, and at management policies and organisation. Each board is also now working out and discussing with my Department plans for the restructuring of its services for the mentally ill; these will provide for a properly organised transition to services based in general hospitals, and improved standards in the old mental hospitals until they eventually close.

    It would be wrong to jump to general conclusions from the indictment in this report of some parts of one hospital. There have been enormous improvements in the last 20 years in nearly all psychiatric hospitals. The great majority of staff, at Whittingham as well as elsewhere, work with patience and devotion, often in difficult and unsatisfactory conditions, which we are now making great efforts to remedy.

    I have referred in this statement to the main points which arise from the report. The Command Paper includes a foreword I have written which contains similar comments and also refers in more detail to the recommendations addressed to my Department and to the regional hospital board; action on most of these has already been taken or is under way.

    The House will, I am sure, be grateful, as I am, to Sir Robert Payne and the other members of the Committee for the time and effort they devoted to their inquiry and to producing this forthright and constructive report. Ever since I have been in office I have been continuing the theme of my predecessor in concentrating on improvements in this and related fields where they are most needed. The House can be sure that the lessons of this report will not be forgotten.