Tag: Austin Mitchell

Below is the text of the speech made by Austin Mitchell, the then Labour MP for Grimsby, in the House of Commons on 13 June 1978.

If I had wanted to grab the headlines or address a packed Chamber, I should not have called for a debate on retinitis pigmentosa. It is not a phrase that trips from everyone’s tongue. In my experience it is a phrase of which people fight shy. Those to whom I have mentioned it today have automatically and wittily replied “You what?” or “Say that again”. That is a reaction that I am sure accounts for the tumultuous attendance for the debate. If it had only been known that it was about tunnel vision, I am sure that the Chamber would have been packed.

First, I define my terms. Retinitis pigmentosa is a group of diseases whose common feature is a degeneration of the light-sensitive cells of the retina. It is a deterioration that shows itself first in bad vision, impaired vision, loss of vision in dim light, such as in the dusk or in the dark, and goes on gradually to loss of peripheral vision, so that merely the central portion of the visual field remains. That is the tunnel in the phrase “tunnel vision”. It is a tunnel which all too tragically can close, resulting in complete blindness in the severest cases.

Between 10,000 and 25,000 people are afflicted by retinitis pigmentosa—between two and five persons in every 10,000 of the population. It is a progressive, degenerative inherited disease. It is not something that one just catches.

Apparently it is a Northern disease. It seems to be more common in the North than in the South. There is, for instance, a high incidence of retinitis pigmentosa in Tristan da Cuhna, because of inbreeding in the population. I do not know whether that explains the high incidence in the North, but it is a feature of an inherited disease, and because it is inherited there is no way of escaping it. That is the beginning of the tragedy that it poses for families throughout the country.

The disease is often difficult to diagnose. Its victims appear awkward rather than blind. They stumble in dim light. They bump into things that are on the edge of their field of vision. In most cases, ​ however, they can still read. They can still see perfectly well at the centre of the tunnel. Therefore, missed diagnosis of the disease is all too common.

I have a letter from a Mrs. Hoden, of East Herringthorpe, near Rotherham, that sets out a tragic example of the sort of misdiagnosis that may occur. Her two girls, who suffer from retinitis pigmentosa, were diagnosed as mentally backward, because of the effect of the disease on their ability at school. Their clumsiness at night was put down to the same thing. A boy who suffers from retinitis pigmentosa was classified as ineducable. These children should have been treated in a special school for impaired sight, not intellectual ability. They are now in that special school, but only after what amounted to years of delay because of misdiagnosis.

Even sadder is the fact that if retinitis pigmentosa is diagnosed, the victims all too often have to be told that in the present state of medical knowledge little treatment is available in this country. Therefore, when the disease is diagnosed, all they can do is to wait for the results of research that is going on in this country and overseas. They have to wait for the development of new methods of treatment to replace the old discredited methods of vitamin injection and placenta implantation—methods tried in the 1950s and 1960s—while going slowly, irrevocably and sadly blind.

It is hardly surprising that people are not prepared to wait. People faced with the negative despair produced by this disease and with the lack of opportunity for treatment in this country are naturally and inevitably prepared to clutch at any straw, any prospect of hope, that the disease can be not necessarily cured but checked, so that the progressive deterioration can be stopped. Therefore, they turn to hope emanating from overseas, specifically from Switzerland and the Soviet Union. They clutch at the hope offered by treatments there, because that offer of hope is not available in this country.

I have a letter from Professor Bangerter, the head of the Opos Eye Clinic in St. Gallen, Switzerland. His English is not of the best—like mine—but he says:

“The letters, we got from England, are so numerous that one of our secretaries is nearly completely engaged in answering them. The ​ balance of these letters is extremely oppressing.”

He is deluged with letters from people in this country who want help.

Inevitably, faced with the prospect of the steady loss of their sight, their friends, neighbours and acquaintances who do not want them to go blind are prepared to offer help. Therefore, appeals are made in different parts of the country, particularly in the North, to raise money to send these people to Switzerland, more commonly, but also to the Soviet Union, for treatment.

The figures for these appeals make instructive reading. I have heard of £22,000 being raised in an appeal in Liverpool for one family—the West Vale family fund. In Retford, £11,000 was raised for a girl called Shirley Dexter. In Sowerby Bridge, £6,000 was raised for Tracy Brown. In Keighley, £4,500 was raised for Garry Turton. In Grimsby, £2,000 was raised for Sid Owen. I read them in that order, but that league table of figures is not necessarily a league table of generosity in those places. If it were, Grimsby would certainly be at the head, not the bottom, of that league. Those are the kinds of appeals which have been launched and subscribed to all over the country. The list goes on.

The result is that people are being treated in Moscow, but more commonly in Switzerland. The numbers being treated in Switzerland must run into hundreds, possibly thousands, because of the period during which the Opos Eye Clinic has been carrying out treatment. I understand that last week, at St. Gallen, nearly a score of British people were being treated at the clinic. They included a family of 13 from Liverpool, seven of whom were being treated in the clinic for retinitis pigmentosa.

I hold no brief for either of these treatments. A British expert from Edinburgh University, Dr. Reading, attended a USSR national symposium last December. He came away unconvinced that the Russians had made any advances in treatment. Dr. Bangerter, the founder and head of the Opos Eye Clinic, is regarded, even in his country, as a fringe figure.

If I wanted to set myself up as a confidence trickster with the happy prospect of receiving large sums of money I could think of nothing better than to open an opulent clinic in Switzerland with large ​ numbers of patients so desperate for help and treatment that they would be prepared to fork out £700 a time for treatment and to come back every three months for further treatment and, once the initial treatment was over, to come back every year for further treatment to stop the deterioration of the disease. Such people would be prepared to pay out £10 for a box of vitamin pills, and even pay for sitting in the waiting rooms. I heard of a lad who went by himself because his money was in short supply, could not find his way round the town, and was charged for sitting in the waiting room of the clinic.

This situation naturally produces suspicions. Those suspicions are amplified because Dr. Bangerter has never published facts to show the success or failure rate of the treatment. People will continue to go to Switzerland and the Soviet Union to pursue any available treatment, so long as that treatment holds out a hope which is not available here.
When they return many such people claim that their sight has been improved. They do not say that they have been cured. Some newspapers have highlighted claims from people who say that they have been cured by this treatment, but no such claim has been made by the Russians or the Swiss. The most that I have seen claimed by the Swiss is that they can retard considerably the progress of the disease or stop it over a long period. There is no claim of a cure. The claim is of stopping the progress of the disease. People do return and say that their sight is improved.

One would need a national survey to discover total figures. I talked to Sid Owen, from Grimsby. He has not had the full treatment, but he says that he can now read better than he could before. I have spoken to Garry Turton, from Keighley, whose specialist has commented on the increased activity in his eye. I talked to the parents of Tracy Brown, of Sowerby Bridge. They say that her condition has been improved by treatment at St. Gallen. I have also spoken to two others.

I cannot evaluate these claims. All that I can do is to report that such claims are made. They could mean something or nothing. There are examples of spontaneous remission, and that could be ​ associated with the treatment. It could be anything. It could be hope, desperation, and confidence exuded by the Swiss clinic which makes people feel that they have been helped. It is also possible that having spent all the money which has been donated by others, patients will not admit that there has not been an improvement. Perhaps they claim an improvement to support those who have backed them.

The claims of improvement which are made by those who have been to Switzerland for treatment have not been professionally evaluated. The reason for that is that in son-le cases the patients have broken with their specialists, who did not wish them to go to Switzerland. In other cases the doctor or specialist did not wish to know about the treatment. There is no collective evaluation to give us a picture of the incidence of the disease being checked. There has been no attempt to follow up the hundreds of people who have received treatment, and continue to do so, to find out whether there has been an improvement or deterioration in their conditions.

We have not studied the Swiss treatment on the spot. The Medical Research Council’s working party on retinitis pigmentosa did not do this. So far as I know, none of the specialists who dismiss the Swiss treatment has been to Switzerland to look at the treatment, although the clinic would welcome an inspection team. I quote from a letter in Professor Bangerter’s classic form of English. He said:

“Personally I do not have any greater desire than to finally find doctors who are ready to join us in the tight against retinitis pigmentosa. So it is quite self-evident that the English team will get any insight and complete orientation”—

this is a typically Swiss note—

“free of charge”.

So these people are prepared to open up their facilities for inspection by a team from this country. We welcome that kind of inspection, but it has not so far been forthcoming.

In answering my questions on the subject, the Minister of State has dismissed the Swiss treatment as though it were just a matter of the implantation of placenta of a type done here in the 1950s and 1960s. However, as I understand it, there is in the Swiss clinic a combination ​ of treatments which include injections to expand the vessels in the eye, the contraction of which is associated with the disease, the implantation of amnion from chicken eggs, vitamin and other treatments to check the loss of nucleic protein and, finally, play optics or exercises to expand the field of vision, the contraction of which is a dominant factor of this disease.

If the treatment is to be evaluated at all, it must be evaluated as a collective group of treatments, each element of which might or might not make a contribution, but all of which must be taken together because it is in that way that the patients experience them. Evaluation of this treatment must be carried out, for no one who is afflicted with the disease will be prepared to heed the warnings of doctors and specialists against going to Switzerland for treatment, because no one trusts the judgment of the doctors, and will not, unless it is reinforced by a specific study of the treatment and its results.

One needs positive evidence in order to give positive advice to people who are afflicted by this disease. Whether that advice is pro or contra, it must be based on evidence.

I dwell on the Swiss and Russian treatments because of the numbers of people who are trying to take them up. The numbers who are seeking treatment in Switzerland and the Soviet Union show the scale and desperation of the search by those concerned for some form of treatment—the scale of demand for something to be done to help those who suffer. Clearly, no words in this House will deter those high hopes, but words in this House can add to the demand for an expansion of research into the causes and treatment. They will lead to a demand for a greater concentration of resources on this matter, particularly of money, which here, as in so many other fields, is the key to progress with the diagnosis and treatment of the disease, and the key to success.

More prosaically, we can ask, as I have tonight, for an evaluation of the Swiss and the Russian treatments and of their effect on the people who have taken them. Preferably there should be a before-and-after evaluation, so that we can say with certainty, with authority and ​ with evidence, either that these treatments are no use and that people should not go, or that there may be something to them and, if there is, that they should be developed in this country.

If we do not study the treatments and assess them in this fashion, we are letting down the victims of retinitis pigmentosa—people who are bound, whatever we in this House say, and whatever experts tell them, to rage against the dying of the light.

Below is the text of the speech made by Austin Mitchell, the then Labour MP for Great Grimsby, in the House of Commons on 20 November 1985.

The basic reason why the House should be televised is to bridge the gulf between us and the people. After all, we are the people’s Parliament. We are not a closed debating society. We are the representatives of the people. We are not speaking for ourselves. We are discussing the issues that matter to the people and making decisions that affect their lives. Therefore, we should be available to the people on the medium from which they now get the bulk of their information about news and current affairs. Lament it how some will, that is the fact. If we are not on that medium, we relegate ourselves to a backwater that is irrelevant to the people and their lives.

Arcane abstractions have been dredged up from the 18th century via South Down, but we are not a ​ 19th-century debating Chamber. We are not influencing and persuading each other. We cannot control the Executive, because we cannot bring it down. We have a system of government by party in which the people choose the Executive, and the people alone can bring it down. In that situation, the House of Commons is the open part of the system, where decisions become public for debate. It is the forum of the nation where the issues are discussed. It is the stage for the battle of ideas where the case for and against what the Government are doing is put before the people. All that is done to inform and educate the people. Yet what a farce it is if we do not reach the people.

The popular papers do not report us. The qualities give bald summaries for a small readership. The radio, which is a minority channel, carries noisy extracts of our debates, but television, the only genuine mass medium, carries only sound radio with still pictures. We are the weaker for that. We can be effective and reflect the public’s concerns only if we have firm roots outside. We should be involved in a two-way communication process with the people outside, because it is the people who are the root of our power.

All the arguments against televising Parliament have one common characteristic—they are all defensive. There is a strange coalition of opponents. We have hon. Members who feel that their inadequacies in performance, or the lack of it, should not be exposed to the gaze of the public. We have hon. Members who feel that the House is so awful—

Mr. Faulds

Will my hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Mitchell

No.

Mr. Faulds

Will my hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Mitchell

No, I am sorry, I am not giving way.

Mr. Faulds

He is frightened of the argument.

Mr. Mitchell

Some hon. Members feel that the House is so awful that the public should not be allowed to see it. Some feel that the public are so stupid and ill-informed that they will not understand what we are doing. Over the past few days journalists, men of the written word, have been bitterly hostile to television coverage, which will cut down their importance, their job as self-appointed middle men mediating between us and the people at inordinate profit to themselves. Both the Charles Moore article in the Daily Telegraph and the Hugo Young article in yesterday’s edition of The Guardian showed contempt for politicians and television.

In the Chamber, two fears are paramount. There is fear of change in the Chamber and fear of television itself. To those who fear change in the Chamber, I say that, with television, the lighting will be somewhat brighter than it is now, but the House can be unconscionably dim at times, can it not? If we bring in the cameras straight away, they will be operator cameras. If we wait until the start of the next Session in November, the broadcasting organisations will be able to supply wall-mounted remote-control cameras that are unobtrusive.

It is up to us in the House to define the terms of the coverage. We could go for the Canadian style of coverage or that in the United States House of Representatives, where the Speaker is shown in mid-shot and there are no cutaways, no shots of disturbances, no shots of people rushing like lemmings to jump from the Gallery almost as fast as nationalised industries have been flogged off—no ​ sensationalism, just straight, neutral coverage. We could go for the same coverage as the House of Lords, which allows cutaways. The decision is for the Select Committee and the House, and it has to be taken predominantly in the light of what the House wants rather than what the television people want. That is the important thing. The decision is ours. When we are televised, what will come over is what is effective now—serious, straightforward Chamber debate.

Mr. Faulds

How gullible.

Mr. Mitchell

The speech of the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell), unlike the interventions of my hon. Friend the Member for Warley, East (Mr. Faulds)—

Mr. Faulds rose—

Mr. Mitchell

That speech would come over—

Mr. Faulds

If my hon. Friend has the guts to give way—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Ernest Armstrong)

Order.

Mr. Mitchell

I shall not give way.

The speech by the right hon. Member for South Down would come over extremely well on television, wrong as it was, because it was compelling argument. That is the truth of the matter. It is not the histrionics of the demagogue or the subtle lying of the studio, but straightforward Chamber debating that comes over effectively. It is striking from the Hansard Society report on the House of Lords coverage how little the House of Lords has changed because of the advent of television.

There are those who fear change. We have conducted ourselves like a closed debating society for many years. What good has that done us? What respect is there for the House of Commons? The public are increasingly alienated from parties, politicians and politics. They do not respect or hold hon. Members and the House of Commons in esteem. The public are not in awe—they are bored and alienated and believe that we are remote. We must reach out to the public, and we can do so through the media from which they get their news and information.

In this closed debating society, for much of the day the Chamber is dying on its feet, which may be especially true when I am speaking. The Chamber is badly attended and uninspiring for large chunks of the day. The only way to remedy that is to make it once again the focus of attention by putting it on television and making it available to the people. Through television we have the chance to make the Chamber important and a focus of interest and concern once again. We should seize that chance.

I never understand the fear of television—a fear that has been so manipulated tonight.

Mr. Wilson rose—

Mr. Mitchell

Television is essentially a mirror of reality. It has faults, but reality has faults. If we object to reality—

Mr. Wilson

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Can you enlighten me? Under which code of practice are we debating? Is it the pre-television one, when one gives way to interventions, or is this the post-television age when we do not?

Mr. Deputy Speaker

That is not a matter for me.

​Mr. Mitchell

The interventions have been so repetitious and so absurd—

Mr. Faulds

My hon. Friend has not listened to them. I am so grateful that he has at last been overcome by embarrassment and is prepared to listen to a moment of contradiction of some of his arguments. I rose first—I made many attempts later—to make the point that my hon. Friend seemed to be basing his attack on some of us on the fact that we were defensive about television. I happen to like the medium. I am rather good on television. If, unfortunately, the cameras come in, I will probably benefit from it.

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order. I hope that this is an intervention, not a speech.

Mr. Faulds

What I wanted to say to my hon. Friend when he refused to let me intervene is that we are not defensive about proper television coverage of this House. If there were a continuous programme, I would vote for it. What we are defensive about is the selective presentation that the media boys will give to televising the Chamber.

Mr. Mitchell

I thank my hon. Friend for making it clear why I did not give way in the first place. I did not want his speech to punctuate mine.

The critics of television are getting it both ways. They say that the House is too dull to be covered, and that it will be reduced to a form of entertainment. They say that people will not be interested, but also that 10 million people will be watching for every flaw, every absentee Member and every aberration. If they are influenced by those fears, they can only suck it and see. The experiment gives us a chance to see whether the fears are realised. That is what an experiment is about.

Mr. Faulds

Jump off the cliff and see where you land.

Mr. Mitchell

It is no use listening to abstract fears of people who have not seen the proceedings on television and who are defensive about it. The best way is to watch the experiment and see how it works.

The critics of television must not forget that we already appear on television and in the least appetising, most inadequate way—a voice-over radio broadcast with irrelevant pictures. Why should not the reality be shown through the television cameras? We should be clear that the coverage will be different for each level and channel. Television will have several forms of coverage of our proceedings. Eventually, we shall have full-time coverage on cable. Cable is coming. In Canada, there is full-time coverage by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and the United States has such coverage on C-Span. They attract small but devoted, interested and involved audiences.

There will occasionally be full debates on important issues, as there have been on the radio. There will be daily and weekly edited summaries of what has happened in Parliament on BBC 2 and on Channel 4. There will be extracts of speeches and statements in Parliament in the news and in the current affairs programmes. There will also be regional coverage by the regional companies of regional matters and Members of Parliament.

Each channel will make its own decisions and choices. There is enough evidence that, within that range of choice, everyone will see something.

However, those who wish to see more and to pay continual attention to the House will ​ be able to follow their interests, and why not? It could be a long debate, or simply a reminder on the news that Parliament exists. In contrast to the experience of my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton), some of my constituents have telephoned me in Grimsby during the week and, when told that I am in London, respond by saying, “What is he doing in London?” There is an amazing ignorance of Parliament.

The fear of television is unrealistic. The debate has moved on more recently to an argument about which party will have the advantage, and whether Front-Bench or Back-Bench Members will benefit. The Prime Minister is reported to have changed her mind yet again. I hope that she is not, as The Guardian put it, “uncharacteristically dithering”. She has everything to gain by appearing on television, as does the leader of the Labour party. Both will come over brilliantly, because ability comes over well on television. That is what people will be looking for. If ability comes over well, it is not a matter of which party wins or loses. The whole Chamber will gain, because we shall have shown that we are doing a serious job. We shall allow the public to judge our ability, performance and how we get on in this testing ground. We shall not leave that judgment to the insiders—to the sketch writers who relay their views in their theatre criticisms, peddling small doses of what happens here, at inordinate profit to themselves.

The experiment in the House of Lords has shown how successful television can be. It was not naturally the most exciting television, it was not naturally the most propitious experiment that could have been conducted, but at the end of the experiment, 81 per cent. of a representative sample of 200 peers wished the experiment to continue. In a sample of the public interviewed by BBC audience research, 72 per cent. believed that television gave them a good insight into what was happening in the House of Lords. Moreover, audiences were good. There was an average reach of 1·5 million for the afternoon and of 300,000 for the late night programmes.

Indeed, when the ITN programme “Their Lordships’ House” went out late at night, the audiences were one fifth higher than they had been for the programmes in the preceding four weeks. That is the test. The consumers liked it, and those who participated liked it and wished it to continue. That 19th century institution down the corridor has shown us the way into the 20th century. It is a success story that should give us the confidence to take the plunge. If we do not, that House will continue to get the prestige of being on television.

The House of Commons should go ahead on a similar basis. We could do so by voting today in principle and then allowing the Select Committee to agree the coverage that will be most acceptable to hon. Members. Then we should put it to the test of an experiment, preferably as long as possible and as late as possible, so that we can install remote-controlled, wall-mounted cameras, which are less obtrusive, and decide the matter on the basis of reality, not the hypothetical fears that have been projected today by those who are scared of television.

Only when we have seen how it works will we have to take a final decision, and power will remain in our hands throughout that process. I hope we will decide not on fears, either of ourselves or of television, or on the kind of quibbles that have been paraded before us, but on what ​ is in the best interests of the people who have a growing desire to know, to see, and to be involved. All the evidence is that people want the House to be televised.

Secondly, we must decide on the basis of what is in the best interests of this House. We are the last major Chamber to allow television in, and it is television alone that will enable us to do our real job, which is to put arguments before the people. We have dithered, delayed, hesitated and hovered. Enough is enough, and it is well past the time to reach out and talk directly to the people.

We can do it through this experiment, and if we go ahead we shall be moving into the 20th century instead of cowering in fear of the world outside, pretending we are still living in the 19th century, doing a job that is dead in a Chamber that is half alive.

Below is the text of the speech made by Austin Mitchell, the then Labour MP for Great Grimsby, in the House of Commons on 11 June 1985.

I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision for the development of a more unified legal profession by enabling solicitors, as of right to exercise rights of audience in all courts and tribunals, civil and criminal, in England and Wales; to regulate and provide for advertising of pupillages and tenancies in barristers’ practices and to enable barristers to establish practices anywhere in England and Wales with direct access to those seeking legal advice and when appropriate, representation, there being no mandatory intervention of any solicitor’s or barrister’s clerk or any other person whatsoever; to enable barristers and solicitors to practise together in any mutually acceptable form; to enable barristers to litigate for professional fees; to enable barristers to advertise; and to abolish the rank and title of Queen’s (or King’s) Counsel and the two Counsel rule.

The first thing that we must do is summed up in the words

“let’s kill all the lawyers”,

as Dick said in Henry VI, part II. Ever moderate, and because some of my best friends are lawyers, I am not proposing to take that extreme course, but I am proposing to save the lawyers from themselves, and to save the consumer from them.

My Bill deals with three problems. The first is the ever-escalating scale of legal costs. In the BBC libel case it is estimated that of £900,000 of legal costs, £650,000 were fees. It worked out at £1,149.42 per day for QCs and £574.71p for their juniors. Secondly, the processes are slow, arcane, cumbersome and inefficient. Thirdly, the system is characterised by monopolies and restrictive practices that are at variance with the competitive ethos of the times. Too much is regulation by barristers for barristers.

Therefore, the first thing that my Bill does is give solicitors rights of audience in every court, thus ending the barristers’ monopoly of the higher courts, which will be welcomed by most customers. After all, there is no point in having a Rolls-Royce when a Mini will do equally well. Most people prefer to be represented by someone who knows them, and knows their problems and their case, rather than by a total stranger who is thrust on them at the last minute, all too often on the day of the case itself. The rich can buy the barrister of their choice, but the poor get Murphy’s law, and all too often Murphy himself.

The Bill will be welcomed by most solicitors. It allows those who want to specialise in advocacy to do so. Indeed, on 27 March last year, the Law Society launched a campaign to end the Bar’s monopoly of advocacy. It said:

“citizens should be entitled to retain the advocate of their choice and not to have to employ more lawyers than are necessary for the case.”

I say, “Hear, hear,” to the Law Society, for once. I am afraid that the Law Society has gone a little quiet about it probably because of the threat by barristers that conveyancing will be handed to banks and building societies unless the Law Society lays off. I have to tell the Law Society that conveyancing will go to banks and building societies anyway, and the principle of equal access to the courts is right.

Secondly, the Bill abolishes the distinction of QC, a title conferred by the Lord Chancellor in his doubtless idiosyncratic and wholly undemocratic way, behind closed doors, with no appeal. It is essentially a mark of status. As one QC wrote to congratulate a newly appointed QC:

“You’ll talk the same rubbish—but now they’ll listen to you.”

​ If people are going to charge higher fees, as QCs do, it should be for quality as designated by the market place, not for status. They should not be able to charge for a junior on half fees to milch the customer at the same time.
The third and most important part of my Bill will democratise the Bar. How wrong it is that we should have a self-selecting, self-regulating elite of some 4,800 barristers whose training is shorter, more amateurish and less adequate than that for solicitors. The profession is exclusive and amateurish, and there are rich rewards. I am talking of incomes of up to £250,000 a year, and even higher. Such incomes are showered on the top, while at the bottom penury prevails. There is a struggle for survival so intense that one has to have either private means or well-placed connections to get in and survive the starvation years.

The right hon. Lady the Prime Minister has testified to what a struggle that is. I was deeply moved in her biography by Penny Junor to read what a struggle the right hon. Lady had to get into chambers, and how much prejudice there was against a woman, just as there is now prejudice against blacks, and how Sir John Senter promised her a place in his chambers and then threw her out at the end of her pupillage, together with the present Secretary of State for the Environment. It was the right hon. Gentleman’s first experience of abolition.
Many are called, but few are chosen, and especially not working-class provincials. Mr. Norman Lloyd, the careers officer at Manchester university, quotes one barrister as saying:

“My advice to working class students would be to avoid the bar at all costs.”

Mr. Lloyd says:

“The entry route is an obstacle route so elaborate and so bizarre that it might have been invented by the producer of It’s a Knockout.”

He is right. That is why my Bill regulates pupillage to ensure that it is a proper training and that it is paid. That is why it regulates tenancies to ensure that they are advertised openly, encourages the co-operative pooling of fees, as in Lord Gifford’s chambers, and stops exploitation by the head of chambers.

The Bill allows barristers to set up practices wherever they please even in co-operation with solicitors—as the Royal Commission on legal services recommended — without the intervention of barristers’ clerks.
Barristers’ clerks have been variously described as an untrained legal mafia or as barristers’ pimps. They have been described as a “unique and disturbing breed” — unfortunately I forget where that quotation comes from —who manipulate the monopoly power of barristers, all too often for their own purposes because clerks take between 5 and 10 per cent. of all fees. They can earn from £30,000 to £100,000 a year, much of it from public money. Their power must be restrained, and my Bill proposes to do so.

The Bill allows barristers to set up anywhere without the necessity of having clerks. It allows barristers to take customers without going through the intermediary of a solicitor, as they can already take cases from abroad. It is interesting to note that barristers have girded their loins and revised their practices to deal with Common Market competition, but they will not give customers in this country the same benefit. The Bill allows barristers to advertise—something that solicitors have now begun to do, with great benefit to the profession and to the public.

Most other countries have a unified legal profession, and it works well for them. It would here. I see no reason for our obsession with keeping two or even three legal taximeters ticking over, shuffling papers and people to and fro, aggregating dramatis personae in cases, and with not setting up a common training for barristers and solicitors.

It is important to note that my Bill only opens the way to unification. It allows solicitors and barristers to work together in any way that suits them and their purpose. It does not enforce a unified profession.

The Bill keeps specialisation, but it eliminates its excesses. What is most important is that it opens the gateway to change at the Bar. It ends the rigidities and inflexibilities. It paves the way for a more democratic, open and efficient profession which can adjust to the times, because this Government of barristers have made a gospel of competition.

I am not seeking to inflict the same damage on the legal profession as the Government have on manufacturing, by the misguided application of competition. I am saying that the test of restrictive practices, wherever they are, must be public interest and not the convenience of a dreadfully complacent, conservative profession.

On that test, barristers need to be brought kicking, struggling and, no doubt, pleading into the 20th century if we are to have a healthier and more open profession and a better and cheaper service to the public. We want not a closed, proud, restrictive and exclusive profession, but one which serves people and protects their rights and liberties. That is what my Bill will provide for.