§ 80. Sir R. THOMASasked the Secretary of State for Air how many private aeronautical inventions have been submitted to his Department during the present year; how many were exhaustively tried out; how many were not fully experimented with owing to lack of funds and/or facilities; and would he give official support to the establishment of a national central laboratory and full-scale testing station if such a project were laid before him?
§ The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for AIR (Sir Philip Sassoon)As regards the first three parts of the question, the Air Ministry is in receipt of a continuous flow of inventions and ideas communicated formally and informally and of very varying degrees of promise. To supply statistics of all these suggestions and to investigate the progress made with each one would involve an amount of labour which would not in my opinion be justified. I can assure the hon. Member that every effort is made to secure for the nation the benefits of all new and useful discoveries in the advance of aeronautical science, and 557 provision is made in Air Estimates each year to enable the best of these to be developed on their merits. As regards the last part of the question, I am satisfied that the National Physical Laboratory and the three Experimental Establishments under the control of the Air Ministry, at Farnborough, Martlesham and Felixstowe fulfil the necessary requirements so far as aeronautical invention is concerned.