I have been approached by a number of people who have studied the proposals tabled so far and who feel that the fair way of introducing petrol rationing, should it have to come about, would be to allow people to accumulate their coupons over a full 12 months. The reason is that if coupons have to be used or exchanged within six months of issue, as I understand is the present proposal, if rationing were imposed in December, people would have to use up their coupons by about May and would not be able to save them for their summer holidays, towing the family caravan or going on a tour of the British Isles, including Scotland and the Western Isles. Please let us have some flexibility. There is nothing wrong, surely, in a man saving his petrol coupons so that he can take his family on a well-deserved holiday in this country and at the same time possibly save some foreign currency.

9.45 p.m.

My next point relates to the supply of petrol to mopeds and their two-stroke engines. In many parts of the country for years they have been accustomed to buying petrol and oil separately at a garage, simply because there is not a ready-mixed pump available, and mixing them themselves. The present regulations are causing them considerable concern because in many cases they have to travel long distances to find a ready-mixed pump. I understand that it is permissible now to supply them with their fuel in cans, but more publicity could be given to that fact because many garage owners are not aware of it.

The problem of collecting fuel in cans also arises for a number of smaller farmers and horticulturists who have for years collected their petrol or fuel in several 5-gallon drums at a time and are now having difficulty in getting those drums filled by their normal suppliers. Many of them do not have 200-gallon fuel tanks on the premises. They have to depend on collection in cans. I hope it can be made even clearer than it is now that it is permissible for people in agriculture and horticulture in a small way to get their fuel in cans.

I want to make strongly a point which I am sure the Government appreciate but which has not been spelt out sufficiently to the country, namely how essential it is that agriculture and horticulture should get their full requirements in all forms of fuel. As hon. Members on both sides of the House realise, it is not a question of making a 10 per cent. cut in farming or horticultural enterprises—they cannot even make an economy of 1 per cent. If they are to be efficient today, farmers cannot afford to waste fuel, and the considerable quantities of fuel they use on the land—more than ever before with increasing mechanisation—are essential to the well-being of agriculture and horticulture.

I hope that the sort of difficulties which my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mr. Skeet) talked about on Second Reading—he described how a number of farmers in Bedfordshire were having grave difficulties in obtaining supplies of fuel sufficient just to keep their machinery going—will not be repeated, because whether it be to heat and light intensive production units, to dry grain—which will be necessary again next summer—or just to keep the tractors going, no fuel is wasted in the countryside. It is all needed, and needed quickly when required by the farmers.

I support what my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Kimball) has said about life in the countryside in general, and how different the situation is from the last time our petrol supplies were threatened. In the years which have intervened since the last time we had petrol rationing—that was at the time of Suez—a great deal has happened in the countryside. The most significant thing has been the complete dismantling of the rural railway network. In Leicestershire, in 1959, we had in my own Constituency no fewer than 25 railway stations all in use. Three years ago that number was reduced to one. We got a second reopened, so we now have two railway stations. The buses which were put on to replace withdrawn railway services were not patronised sufficiently, and they have been withdrawn.

Thus, today, the motor car is the only means by which people in rural communities, some of them quite large, can keep in touch with one another and get around. My hon. Friend will be interested to know that in Leicestershire there are more than 60 communities, some of more than 3,000 inhabitants, who have no public transport services of any form at all on any day of the week. Many slightly larger communities may have a weekly bus, and some places even one bus a day, but there are certainly more than 60 communities with no form of public transport at all—bus or train, good or bad.

I hope, therefore, that if the time comes when we have to work on the ration books which are being introduced my right hon. Friend will realise that life in the country is very different today from what it was 20 years ago. To give one or two examples of great significance, I would mention first that the country doctor who lived in a village and served that and a couple of nearby villages has now vanished. Doctors are grouped together in our new health centres, which are in large or fairly large towns, which may be 10 or 15 miles away from the rural communities which the centres also serve. The people in the villages have to go to those centres to see their doctors. One or two village shops keep going in a village, but in the main people have to shop in the big towns or cities. Pensioners find themselves in a still more serious position. In many of our villages the post offices have been closed, so that pensioners, two or three probably travelling together, now have to take lifts in cars to collect their pensions once a week.

There are many other reasons for which people who live in the country depend upon the motor car to get around. I suppose the most significant change of all is that, whereas 20 years ago most people who lived in the country communities worked in country districts and probably near where they lived, today most people living in the country travel by car to work in the towns and cities and do not live near their work.

I hope that I can rely upon my hon. Friend's sympathy with and understanding of the points that I have put forward, which are very significant.