Mr Ian Orr-Ewing: I feel alarm at the way in which this matter has been brought before us today. I should have thought that the Minister, having made recommendations to the Commission, the Commission having found those recommendations to their liking—although it may have been that they used the recommendations to produce something to the Minister's dislike—and the Minister having given them an indication...
Mr Ian Orr-Ewing: I would ask the Minister to go a little further on one point which he raised, when he implied that there would be some sort of filter through which the doctor would have to pass if he wished to treat his private patients in a health centre amongst other patients on the doctor's list. He also implied that it would not be possible within the terms of the Amendment, or rather I should say, he...
Mr Ian Orr-Ewing: The second point with which the Minister has dealt is perfectly clear. It is the first point on which I wish he would enlarge if he can. He is fixing in his own mind some sort of proportion between the private patients of a general practitioner and the listed patients. Can he give us any indication of what sort of proportion he is aiming at? I do not want to be meticulous in this matter....
Mr Ian Orr-Ewing: We are most grateful to the Parliamentary Secretary for supporting our Clause. He has supported it in every way, except in the sense that he does not want to see certain words printed on a piece of paper. It is a great thing that we should be unanimous on this point, and I hope that he will get over his coyness in seeing his wishes interpreted in print, a coyness which is common to other...
Mr Ian Orr-Ewing: The responsibility is laid upon the individual, which is our point. If this Clause were accepted, the Parliamentary Secretary thinks we should be cutting across this great campaign. Of course, we should not be doing anything of the sort. We should be introducing an element of voluntary recruitment to carry out the campaign, assisted by the powers of Government, both local and national. Is...
Mr Ian Orr-Ewing: I am glad the Minister has looked at this again, and has found that his suspicions about how the local authorities would behave were not well founded and that he can trust them. It is better to set in motion this procedure rather than to appoint a small local dictator to say what is right or wrong, and after that, if need be, to have an inquiry. I am sure that this is the right way to do it.
Mr Ian Orr-Ewing: I beg to second the Amendment.
Mr Ian Orr-Ewing: I beg to move, in page 9, line 6 after "section," to insert: prohibiting or restricting the use of any premises for the manufacture, storage or sale of food or". I raised this matter in Committee, and the Minister said that he would look into it to see whether the position was exactly as he had stated it to be. Under certain conditions, if a responsibility is laid upon somebody trading in or...
Mr Ian Orr-Ewing: Are they to be the sole arbiters? That is the point. If we can get some assurance from the Minister that they themselves will not be the sole arbiters, but that there will be some undertaking about general consultation—some review of the position—then I think that will be quite satisfactory. That is probably the intention, but if the right hon. Gentleman could say so, I think it would be...
Mr Ian Orr-Ewing: In partial gratitude and with great hope, in view of the right hon. Gentleman's statement, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Mr Ian Orr-Ewing: I beg to second the Amendment. It does seem to me that the Minister is doing the very thing he was trying to avoid when he resisted us upstairs in dealing with Clause 12, which really is the governing Clause as regards the powers of local authorities over those who live within their respective areas. If now the Minister is going, so to speak, to whittle down the authority of local...
Mr Ian Orr-Ewing: I beg pardon.
Mr Ian Orr-Ewing: Is it not possible, under the Clause as it stands, for the Minister to make an order covering the activities of a commercial undertaking, and, at the same time, to make an order covering the activities of a local authority within whose area the undertaking stands?
Mr Ian Orr-Ewing: I should like to explain my own feelings on this Bill. I am very disappointed that nobody on either side of the House has been allowed to improve this Bill as many of us would have liked to see it improved. I entirely agree that the danger of running an expensive service without 100 per cent. efficiency is a danger which we must examine very closely. The figures which have been quoted on...
Mr Ian Orr-Ewing: The Committee will have been interested in many of the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman, but I must admit to a feeling of considerable disappointment at the way he put the case before the Committee for the activities of his Department, and, so far as he could do so for those of other Departments too. I rather think the best example of his approach to the matter was included in the few...
Mr Ian Orr-Ewing: I agree that it has been taken care of to a certain degree as regards payments, but I feel sure that the right hon. Gentleman will agree that I was not exaggerating the whole picture.
Mr Ian Orr-Ewing: The hon. Member has raised an interesting point. This House and this Committee are not aware of the proceedings of these boards, and I think it is a great pity that we are not aware of them. I should be considerably assisted if the minutes of the proceedings of these boards were published, and I see no reason why they should not be, although I agree that it would be quite wrong if the...
Mr Ian Orr-Ewing: Whether they published it or not, there is no official document which gives a proper and exact official record of the proceedings of these boards. I think it would help very considerably if a proper report of these proceedings was published. I want to deal with another aspect of the problem concerning which I believe the boards have failed, and this concerns the question of the personnel of...
Mr Ian Orr-Ewing: Has the committee on the staggering of holidays any power as to the staggering of holidays by geographical areas, that is to say, in relation to British Railways in the matter of special fares for special holiday trains?
Mr Ian Orr-Ewing: I am sure the right hon. Gentleman wishes to be fair. What I meant was that although the average wages paid now on the unlicensed residential side are in excess of those laid down by the regulations in most cases, it is not only a matter of wages but of holiday arrangements and other things. One cannot stop at wages because hours and distribution of work come into the question also.