HC Deb 20 March 1922 vol 152 cc186-96

Motion made, and Question proposed, That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £10, be granted to His Majesty, to-defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1922 for additional expenditure on the following Air Services, namely:—

Vote 1. Pay, etc., of the £ £
Air Force 303,400
Vote 2. Quartering Stores (except Technical) Supplies, and Transport 110,700
Vote 3. Technical and Warlike Stores 234,000
Vote 4. Works, Buildings, and Lands 111,000
Vote 9. Experimental and Research Services 43,450
802,550
Deduct Excess Appropriations-in-Aid and Surpluses on Votes 6 and 9 802,540
Net Amount 10."
The SECRETARY of STATE for AIR (Captain Guest)

In this Supplementary-Estimate presented to the Committee I first of all am asking for £10. The state- ment, which has been in the Vote Office for the last few days, fully explains the Supplementary Estimate, its necessity, and the method of financial transfer involved. A fuller statement, giving the figures, will be all that is required to those accustomed to handling these papers. I think I can assist the House in a few words by explaining the matter to them in somewhat simpler language. There are three items. The first is for £450,000, which is the Appropriation-in-Aid for the Middle East Department to defray the expenses incurred by the Air Ministry. The second item of £309,100 relates to the coal strike of last year. The third item of £43,000 is for Air Ministry research. The way in which the Appropriation-in-Aid is required is simple. In February of last year the Air Ministry asked for £1,100,000 for Middle East expenditure. Since that date it has been decided by Parliament that a Middle East Department should be set up, and that the moneys required should be shown on Colonial Vote Class V. of the Civil Service Estimates. At a later stage of the year the Secretary of State for the Colonies obtained from this House a similar sum of money, and, in addition, he estimated for a further sum of £440,000, which exactly makes up the money required for the Middle East Department. In asking for this Supplementary sum I am merely carrying out the Parliamentary procedure necessary to obtain this Appropriation-in-Aid. The second item, relating to the coal strike, on page 4 of the Paper, shows that it is for emergency measures due to the coal dispute. It will be remembered that the House passed the necessary supplementaries for the Army and the Navy expenditure on that occasion. The Air Ministry did not ask for money at that time, as they were able to defray the amount of £309,000 out of surpluses. The third item of £43,000 relates to research work, and is obtained thus: The Civil Service Estimates include a much bigger sum of a little over £200,000, which comes- on the Vote under the, heading of National Physical Laboratory, and the share of the work done for the Air Ministry has been apportioned at £43,000. We ask in this Supplementary Estimate the authority of the Committee to place that amount to our debit. As regards the £450,000 from the Middle East Vote, the increase in the Apprcpriation-in-Aid has already been voted, and it is merely a matter of the Committee recording its authority for the transfer. With regard to the total of £309,100 and £42,450, those moneys we propose to find out of the original Air Estimate for Iraq of £1,100,000 which the House voted last year. That money in the ordinary way would be handed back to the Treasury for the purpose of bookkeeping. It has been put to us that the proper method would be to use a portion of that money in these two items, and this is the method by which the moneys are returned.

Further, there is the customary Supplementary Estimate to draw attention to major works completing the sum of £2,000 each and upwards which has been undertaken during the current year, but are new to the House in so much as they are new policy. There are three items, one is for Iraq regimental and technical accommodation. Items 2 and 3 are for Egypt. These are as a matter of fact covered by a grant last year for dealing with the then proposed policy of aerodrome development in Egypt. The House granted £163,000 then. That policy was not undertaken, but the aerodromes in use had to be repaired and generally made efficient, and Item 3 shows that some temporary improvement has been made and provision for petrol storage. Items 4 and 5 deal with Palestine. These charges are more than met by the item in the Estimates of last year. The saving will appear in the Estimates which will be presented to-morrow. One other item is the last one under Vote 9 on the last page of the Paper. It is accommodation for instrument design establishment at, Farnborough. This is a new policy which will make a permanent economy. This year it will cost £20,000, and we hope that it will give us a permanent economy of at least £15,000 a year.

Sir DONALD MACLEAN

My hon. and gallant Friend has just said he is not really asking for any more money from the Committee, but only a token Vote. Let us see what that really means. The hasty perusal I have been able to give to the papers has produced this result: that this sum of £450,000 consists of surpluses on certain Air Votes that are excess Appropriations-in-aid, received from the Middle East Department. As my hon. and gallant Friend says, the ordinary course to be adopted in these circumstances is that these sums should fall into the General Fund and be so much saved in the course of the financial transactions of the year. But acting, as I understand, on the advice of the Treasury, what he says is this: "You have got so near the end of the financial year, and there are certain expenses which have been incurred under certain heads, why not take the money to make up these deficiencies out of the surpluses and call it all square? "That is phrasing it in rather popular language, but' it is certainly what is involved in this financial statement. My real point of criticism however is this. This is another example of the utter helplessness of this House properly to control its expenditure. Just look at the last item to which my hon. Friend referred. I am not criticising it, I have no knowledge for doing so, but I see there is a sum of £40,000 for accommodation for an instrument-designing establishment. If we are going to have an Air Service, obviously it is necessary to have the very best designs, because the men engaged in the Air Service follow not only a very arduous profession, but an extremely risky one.

This shows the course of business with regard to financial control. This is a Supplementary Estimate presented within five or six days of the end of the financial year. It is a proposal which ought to have very careful examination by the Committee, but what do we find It is brought on at 35 minutes to Eleven o'clock, when there are only a few Members in the House, and possibly only two or three specially qualified to deal with the subject. You will never get anything like proper control of the nation's finances until this method of dealing with our business is put an end to. My hon. and gallant Friend cannot deny that this is not a proper way of dealing with this business. This is, I suppose, the last Supplementary Estimate we shall have for the current financial year, but, if I am right in my calculations, since we re-assembled we have been called upon to vote from £10,000,000 to £15,000,000—one deals so easily now in millions in Supplementary Estimates—although they concern matters requiring very careful consideration at the hands of the Committee. We must pass it to-day; we cannot help ourselves. The Government time is fully pledged right up to the end of the financial year, and this is the only opportunity we shall have of dealing with the question. It is only owing to the fact that the Vote in front of this has taken a much shorter time to discuss than was anticipated that we have something approaching three-quarters of an hour in which to deal with this particular estimate. I cannot complain of my right hon. Friend. He is only the more or less unhappy instrument in this business of handling this most important matter. I cannot follow him in all that he said; I have only a general idea that this is not the right way of doing these things. I understand that the Air Estimates will come on to-morrow, but the time will be taken up with general questions affecting the vital principles of the conduct of the Air Service, and all sort of questions will arise. None of these matters here, however, such as the transference of these sums to the Middle East Department, will be mentioned at all to-morrow, but they ought to be thoroughly discussed. This is only another example of the extraordinary, lamentable muddle in which the whole of our defensive forces are getting tangled up, owing to the army within an army which we have controlling military efforts in the Middle East.

Sir F. BANBURY

I should like to ask one or two questions before this Estimate is passed. To begin with, Vote 9, on page 7, to which the right hon. Gentleman has alluded, seems to me to be a completely new service. I did not gather that the Secretary of State for Air alluded to it as such. It was a little difficult to hear everything that he said at the Box, but, as far as I can see, Vote 9, on page 7, is a new service. It is for "Accommodation for Instrument Design Establishment, Farnborough, £40,000," of which £20,000 is required this year and £20,000 next year. If that is a new service, as I think it is, why is it suddenly put into this Vote at the end of the year? It should be included to-morrow in the Estimates for the coming year. It is a bad principle to take a new service and put it into the Supplementary Estimate on the 20th March, when within two or three days an Estimate will be introduced for 1922–23. It gives an idea of there being economies in this year's Vote which really would not be the case if a new service of this sort were put into its proper place, namely, in this year's Vote, and not in last year's. Then I see on page 2 the following: Towards meeting the cost of the emergency measures taken during the coal dispute, estimated at £309,100. I do not quite know what the Air Service did in the coal dispute. I should have thought they would have been more useful underground than high up above the ground in the sky. This sum of £309,100 seems a very large one to have been spent on emergency measures during the coal dispute, and I think we ought to have some explanation as to how it is arrived at. Then there is a further sum of £43,450 towards meeting the increase of research work carried out by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. Those are very long words, but what does it mean? What is the scientific and industrial research? Is it for aeroplanes, or what is it?

Captain GUEST

The whole of that money has been expended on industrial and scientific research for all the Departments of State. We have only a share of it.

Sir F. BANBURY

Why should you go into industrial research? My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Lanark (Captain Elliot) is interested in research, but I do not think we should contribute, under the Air Service, to research such as that upon which he enlightened us a little time ago. On Vote 2 there is I. Appropriation-in-Aid, £110,700, and N. Appropriation-in-Aid, £234,000. I rather wanted to find out what that was, and I turned over the page to look for I. and N. Whether my eyesight is bad or not I do not know, but I can neither find I. nor N. anywhere in this book. What is the use of putting I. and N. when there is no I. or N. anywhere? There is no explanation of what these Appropriations-in-Aid are, which amount to a very considerable sum. I trust the right hon. Gentleman will give us those explanations. Vote 9, Experimental and Research Service, £43,450, D. There is a D. That is something. What the right hon. Member for Peebles (Sir D. Maclean) said is quite true. Apparently the Vote is for £10 and the Secretary of State enlarged upon that £10, but it really is for £802,000, which has been saved, and which ought to go in reduction of the National Debt. Probably they are for further expenditure on the part of the Air Service. What we are really asking the Committee to do is to take £802,000, which ought to have gone in the reduction of the National Debt, and transfer it to certain extra expenditures which have been incurred during 1921–22 by the Air Service. So it is really a very much bigger amount than appears on the face of it.

Colonel GRETTON

I wanted to make the point that has been made by my right hon. Friend that this House is really asked to vote not £10 but £802,550, money that is taken from the Exchequer and put into these Votes. I do not want to say anything discourteous or disrespectful to the Minister of Air, but really a more inadequate and confusing statement I have seldom heard from a Minister. It is difficult to understand why this money is required. These Votes are made up in a way which certainly to casual and quick investigation is quite inexplicable. Very large sums are involved. On Vote 1 there is an item for "Pay and personal allowances of men," £214,800; on Vote 3, "Aeroplanes, seaplanes, engines and spares," £156,000; and on Vote 4, "New Works and Buildings," £111,000. Not one word of explanation has been given of these items. It looks very much as if the Air Ministry had gone to the Treasury and said, "We have overspent ourselves under various heads, and we come to you to find a surplus in order to meet these amounts." That is a very bad way to keep accounts. If a Supplementary Estimate of this magnitude is to be put forward it should be presented to the House at an earlier date so that there might be investigation and some unravelling of what is meant by the Vote. On the last two Votes, Vote 4, for Works, Buildings and Lands, and Vote 9, Experimental and Research Services, we are not only asked to pay very consider able sums amounting to £360,000 in the one case, and £20,000 in the other, but we are committing ourselves to further expenditure in the forthcoming year, because there are other amounts required to complete works amounting to nearly £120,000 on this Estimate, which may be exceeded. In that case it will be said that so much has already been spent on the authority of this House that we are bound to finish the work. That is the way in which business is done in this House.

When the Air Ministry was established I was one of only two or three Members who protested. I protested because I knew that it was strategically and tactically unsound to have a separate service, independent in its organisation, administration, and so forth, under the command of a separate Ministry when in a period of War it would have to operate under either naval or military command. I also objected on the ground that the new Ministry meant very largely increased expenditure and that it was a wasteful expedient. This Vote is an illustration of the great expenditure incurred by a separate Air Ministry. In regard to the Vote for "Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough," we might ask for further explanation. What is meant? Is this experimental and research service to be a place where experts test various instruments and designs submitted for investigation and approval 1 If so, it is a reasonable and proper, part of the equipment of the Air Service; but if it is intended to set up a designing establishment for Air Force design, I would call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to the great evil and the great waste of expenditure which has resulted from that kind of method when applied to the Army and Navy. Constantly we have had experts employed by the Army and Navy particularly the Army. Certain army officers have designed small arms, machine guns, artillery, and so forth. They were constantly producing designs which were failures. They took a little bit of one, a little bit of another, and added a bit on their own, and the consequence was in one case we had a rifle which was designed by the army authorities, When we had ordered hundreds of thousands, and large numbers had been made, it was found that this rifle was much inferior to the foreign rifle. Then this rifle had to be supplied with different ammunition, and the result was that we had an inferior rifle which was unsatisfactory, which kicked men's shoulders abominably, and which had to be replaced by another.

The CHAIRMAN

The hon. and gallant Gentleman is going rather a long way back.

Colonel GRETTON

I am dealing with a matter of administration and the un-desirability of employing men who have not an unbiased mind in the matter of design, and who become jacks of all trades and masters of none. At any rate, that is the tendency. I think I have given some reasons why there should be further investigation of this Vote, further explanation of the large demands involved, and particularly of what we are committing ourselves to by voting £20,000 for the experimental establishment at Farnborough.

There is another matter to which I wish to refer in connection with the recent policy of the Government relating to the British Army. I notice that large sums are to be spent on various aircraft establishments in Egypt and elsewhere, accommodation for flying schools and so forth, and also in Palestine, where large sums are to be expended. I take it those sums are already spent. The Committee might reasonably ask to be informed whether the expenditure on these particular establishments in Egypt and Palestine comes to an end with this particular Vote, or whether further sums will be required next year. These matters are subjects of importance, and we shall never secure economy in administration and expenditure until we do insist on these occasions in probing into these various matters and having a full explanation from the Ministers concerned. I do not wish to be discourteous or tiresome, but it is a serious matter to be asked to vote £802,000, and we should have adequate explanation of what it is for.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY

I beg to move to reduce the Vote by £5.

There is only £10 shown, so I cannot make it more. I should like to make it £800,000, but that would not be in order. Hon. Members will have this satisfaction, however, that if we beat the Government we shall get rid of the most squanderous Government there has ever been. The amount of my reduction is not the measure of my dissatisfaction. I wish to support what the hon. and gallant Gentleman said about flying schools in Egypt, for which £87,000 is asked. The Government's Egyptian policy is still in an unsettled state.

The CHAIRMAN

The hon. and gallant Gentleman cannot go into that.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY

Without touching on the question of the Government policy in Egypt, may I ask what have been the training schools in that part of the world up to now and why is this very large sum to be spent on a training school there? I know that the facilities in Egypt for training pilots are very good. We trained many there during the War. But these items show that the Ministry are still in the luxurious frame of mind in which they were in war time when money was plentiful and they could spend what they liked. All this money is being expended without the approval of this Committee. That is the iniquitous part of it. The same thing applies to expenditure on barracks in Iraq, £220,000. We have been told over and over again that troops have been pouring out of Iraq month after month. I remember in 1920 we were asked to vote a cool £1,000,000 for barracks for troops there. The Colonial Secretary said it was necessary, in view of the climate, that the troops should live in solid masonry establishments. If these barracks were suitable for troops, why are they not suitable for airmen? The garrison in Iraq is reduced to normal dimensions now, and there must be a tremendous lot of accommodation available. I would like some explanation as to why this extra sum is being expended. The right hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury) referred to the expenditure of £300,000 incurred during the coal stoppage, and asked what these men were doing. I happen to be in a position to tell to a certain extent. Everyone who ever served in the Air Service in any capacity was called up and sent to one or other of various camps. One of these camps to which a friend of mine was sent was at Eastchurch. These men who had gone back into civil life as barristers, stockbrokers, and so on, and, who never could fly and were never intended to fly, were kept kicking their heels about in this muddy camp at East-church. They nearly all had military titles such as colonel and so on. They never did any service. Their business suffered, and they were given unlimited leave and free passes up to the City every day at the expense of the taxpayers. That was the kind of thing that went on because there was a coal stoppage.

It being Eleven of the Clock, the Chairman left the Chair to make his Report to the House.

Resolution to be reported To-morrow.

Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow.