§ First, with reference to the events of the last 12 months. As far as events at home are concerned, I need not detain the House at any great length. The year has been, on the whole, an uneventful year, though one of steady progress. We have been going on with the task, always a very difficult task, of building up a permanent Air Force from the very beginning. At the end of the War there was no permanent Air Force in existence at all. There have been difficulties in connection with recruiting, there have 1606 been difficulties in connection with training, there have been difficulties in connection with equipment, but I hope we are gradually overcoming them. Certainly as far as recruiting goes we have found that we have got an excellent type of recruit in adequate numbers. As to the training, our various training schemes have been going ahead, and perhaps the most noticeable event in connection with training during the year has been the-opening of the Air Staff College at Andover. There is another difficulty of which I should like to remind the House in passing. I said just now that at the end of the War there was no permanent Air Force in existence at all. At the end of the War also the Air Force possessed no permanent buildings. The force, being the creation of the War, was housed exclusively in war huts and temporary buildings. One of the tasks with which we have been confronted, a task which necessarily has meant the expenditure of a good deal of money, has been to make these war huts habitable, to re-condition them and, where we could, to replace them with permanent buildings. But, as I said, I need not dwell upon this part of air administration. As far as home affairs are concerned, the year has been uneventful.