§ "to provide, during twelve months, for the Discipline and Regulation of the Army and the Air Force," presented acordingly, and read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 76.]
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."
§ 10.59 p.m.
§ Mr. EDESome explanation has been given to the House with regard to the expenditure of £1,100,000 that is proposed for the erection of barracks for three infantry battalions in Hong Kong. It seems to me to be an extraordinarily large sum of money to spend on accommodation for, comparatively speaking, so few troops, and I do not think the House ought to pass it without some further explanation being given. It will be found on page 203 of the Army Estimates. A sum of £200 has already been spent, presumably on preliminary plans and so on, and during the coming financial year it is anticipated that a further £5,000 will be spent. I do not know what the total value of Hong Kong as a whole is, but I should have thought £1,100,000 would buy up a very considerable part of it at the present time, and one would like to know exactly what it is proposed to erect in exchange for this tremendous sum of money.
I also notice that there are proposals in this Vote for dealing with the accommodation at, Blackdown. At the moment the accommodation there consists almost entirely of hutments, and I hope that the proposed quarters included in these Estimates will be both more permanent and 738 more sightly than the Army Council have hitherto erected there. The site is close to some of the most beautiful stretches of country, at the Chobham Ridges, and suddenly to get into this collection of hutments is a very severe shock. I hope the Army, when they are going on with their building programme, which under these Estimates and under the White Paper will be very extensive, will have some regard to the surroundings of the buildings which they have to erect, and that they will not inflict on the county in which these buildings are to be situated some of the eyesores that at present are to be found.
Part of the difficulty at Blackdown is undoubtedly due to the expansion that took place during the War, when one had to improvise things very quickly, but I do not think that when they were erected anyone imagined that they would last as long as they have lasted. I recall that I took part, in erecting some hutments, and I recollect the language of the troops in regard to the quality of the wood, but I am bound to say that I think they were misinformed, or else the people who have been living in the hutments ever since have been suffering privations which they ought not to have been called upon to undergo. I hope that whoever answers for the War Office will be able to give us an assurance that in their very big building programme the War Office will have some regard, first to the comfort of the troops, and secondly to the amenities of the district into which they bring their buildings.
§ 10.4 p.m.
§ Mr. GUYI wish to make a protest against the inadequate amount of this Vote which is to be expended in Scotland. I do so more in sorrow than in anger. I think there is a case for a larger proportion of this sum being spent in Scotland. I know that the reply is that the needs of the Army are the first consideration rather than the needs of Scotland as compared with those of England and Wales, but surely the Army in Scotland requires just as suitable accommodation, and when one remembers the rigours of our Northern climate one would expect that even more money proportionately would be spent in providing adequate barracks in Scotland as compared with England. What do we find in this Estimate? Of the total, £1,101,600 739 represents the items for Home Commands, and out of that grand total there are certain items which have not been allocated between one Command and another, but out of the net total to be spent on the Home Commands which have been allocated, namely, £620,000, there is only one item relative to Scotland, representing a sum of £15,000.
We have in other matters the Goschen ratio of 11 parts to 80 parts representing the approximate share of the money to be spent in Scotland, compared with England and Wales. This corresponds roughly to the ratio of the population of the two countries. Here we have not 11 to 80 but of 1 to 41, which is quite disproportionate and calls for some explanation from my right hon. Friend. The total number of items in the Home Command is 97 for new works and buildings, and there is only one item for Scotland. That one item concerns the new artillery barracks at Redford. There was another scheme which was under consideration by the War Office before the question of the barracks at Redford arose. Last year there appeared two token Votes, one for the new military hospital and one for these artillery barracks. The item for these artillery barracks is £15,000, but the other item, for the military hospital, has disappeared. That calls for some explanation, because there is a strong case for the work on the new military hospital being proceeded with as soon us possible. The situation at present is that the existing military hospital is at Edinburgh Castle. There is no garrison there now. The troops are some three miles away at Redford. An issue of life and death might arise owing to the transport of a sick soldier to this almost inaccessible hospital on the top of the Castle rock some three miles from the Redford barracks. I understand that the decision has already been taken to build the hospital, but I ask for some explanation as to why the item has been dropped.
I would also ask that in this particular case, where there is a need for this new military hospital, this scheme should have early consideration and steps taken to accelerate the building of this hospital, which would not only meet an immediate demand but would provide accommodation in Edinburgh Castle 740 which could be utilised for other purposes.
§ 10.10 p.m.
§ Mr. LAWSONThere is one point on page 196. I notice that there are scattered about in various items something like £250,000 to be spent on buildings. There has already been over £1,500,000 spent at Catterick. One does not begrudge money spent on the troper accommodation for the troops, but there are very great difficulties in Catterick, in so far as some of the old buildings have to be rehabilitated and some, indeed, might have been pulled down. How much longer is all this to go on under these various items? They are almost interminable. If the right hon. Gentleman can assure us that these matters are essential for the proper housing of the troops, all right. Catterick is becoming a very costly item, especially so far as the erection of buildings is concerned.
§ 10.12 p.m.
§ Mr. KELLYI am sorry that this question has come at such a late hour, but when important matters and items such as are contained in these Estimates have to be examined there are a few points I want to make. I would like to know why it is that we now have these great items of expenditure at Aldershot on the new workshop. At Aldershot we are spending £25,000 on the new workshop and £11,000 we are spending between now and 31st March this year. For the Royal Engineers at Blackdown, workshops again, another £14,000; at Colchester, workshop, 217,000. Why we are not using Feltham to a greater extent I do not know, but we are now spending £16,500; at Woolwich, on the signals department, £17,000; at Chilwell, the old munition factory, £80,000; at Jersey Barracks, £20,000; at Lichfield, £30,000; at Singapore a sum of £470,000, while we have planned up to 31st March this year, £1,352,000. There it provision of these workshops in these parts while we are mechanising so much of the Army. Why should we spend so much on this item? I hope we are going to have an explanation.
§ 10.13 p.m.
§ The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Sir Victor Warrender)The hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) raised a point about what he called 741 the high cost of the increased accommodation that we are providing at Hong Kong. If I tell him that living at Hong Kong is not the same as living in the British Isles, he will perhaps realise that to build barracks in a hot and difficult climate, if you are to study the comfort of the troops, requires a big outlay of money. It is because we have been considering the increased accommodation and the larger buildings required by troops living in that climate that we have to meet what on the face of it appears to be a large bill of expenditure for these particular barracks. He asked me whether we would take care to see that the hutments that are being replaced at Blackdown fall in with the beauties of the scenery in that part of England. We study these factors as much as we possibly can, and not only do we try to get these new buildings as nice in design as possible, but we also try to study the amenities and the comfort of the troops. I can point to what was done at Stonehenge, where care was taken to screen the buildings from the particular beauty spot the public are in the habit of visiting, in order not to detract from its attractiveness.
My hon. Friend the Member for Central Edinburgh (Mr. Guy) asked questions about the proportion of money which is being spent on buildings in Scotland and claimed that we were not being quite fair to Scotland and were not giving her a fair share of expenditure. He very skilfully worked out the cost on those lines, but for the sake of his reputation I can only hope that he will verify the facts a little more closely than he appears to have done. The basis upon which his case is founded is most fallacious, as figures are apt to be.
§ Sir V. WARRENDERIn the first place, he entirely ignored the fact that the whole number of troops in Scotland does not exceed 5,000, or rather less than one-fifth of the number of troops at Aldershot alone. If he compares the amount of money spent on buildings in Scotland on a monetary basis, it is not very easy to arrive at a right conclusion. He seems to have forgotten that last year the concluding work upon the depot at Aberdeen cost no less than £135,000, so that Scotland had a fair share there. Being a Scotsman by birth, I look at 742 this aspect of the question very closely. The hon. Member opposite asked me about the building at Catterick. The reason why this expenditure has been dribbling on and has got to the high figure which it has, is that we have been replacing buildings erected in the time of the War, which were not meant to be permanent. When buildings of this kind fall into disrepair they decay very rapidly, and the cost of repairs and upkeep increases as time goes on. The Estimates for which we are asking to-day are to improve very largely the conditions at Catterick, which are not too good, as the hon. Gentleman knows, and the money for which we shall have to ask when our further programme comes along will also be devoted to that end.
The only other hon. Gentleman who asked questions was the hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. Kelly) who again, as on the previous occasion, reeled off his questions to me fast and furious. If we are to continue mechanisation upon the scale which applies to the Army to-day, it is inevitable that we must build a large number of workshops. Not only in this country, but wherever our mechanised Army goes, it will have to maintain its vehicles. We are trying to avoid all possible waste. We are encouraging the Royal Army Service Corps, and in fact we are insisting upon that corps, and upon the Royal Army Ordnance Corps utilising common workshops where economy can be gained by working one with the other. It will be inevitable, as the process of mechanisation goes on, that we shall be continually constructing accommodation to house these vehicles, some of which are on a very large scale, and we shall have to ask Parliament to provide the money with which to carry out that programme. I think that I have covered all the questions which have been put to me, and I ask the Committee to let me have the Vote.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."
§ 10.21 p.m.
§ Mr. GARRO-JONESThere is one point upon which I should like the hon. Member to give us some information. 743 This is the first opportunity I have had of raising the matter, but during the last Election certain officers who were either on half pay or full pay thought it right to contribute articles to the newspapers in which they advocated substantial increases in our armaments. There was one communication from Lord Allenby. I have always understood that it is contrary to War Office regulations that serving officers should contribute articles to the newspapers and in particular should attempt to influence the electorate on matters of policy. Is the hon. Member in a position to give me any information? Was this done with the approval and authority of the War Office, and, if not, has any communication been addressed to these officers instructing them that they are not to contribute articles to newspapers, particularly during election time? Everyone knows that the mind of a field-marshal or general is not trained suitably to attempt to give information on matters of high policy. He is an executive officer, and has been trained to carry out the policy as prescribed for him by the Cabinet. That being so, I think it would be a regrettable development if serving officers were to be permitted to make contributions to the Press. I shall be glad if the hon. Member is in a position to reply either now or can undertake to give me an answer before we finally pass the Vote.
§ Sir V. WARRENDERThe hon. Member has rather sprung this on me and I have had no chance of going into the question. It is rather difficult to carry all the regulations of the Army in one's mind, but I will gladly go into the matter and will communicate with the hon. Member.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."
§ 10.24 p.m.
§ Mr. KELLYI want to ask a question as regards the position of the Yeomen Warders of the Tower. They have desired to press a case with regard to wages, but whenever they have made a request for their union to represent them or to speak on their behalf the War Office and the Constable of the Tower have 744 refused to accept anyone as their spokesman. They are treated as if they are in the Army and serving in the ranks. I hope this policy will not be continued and that the men will have an opportunity of being represented. The other point concerns Chelsea Hospital. What has been done, or is anything being done, with regard to pre-War pensioners who come under this Vote? These men are receiving a pension of 6d. a day and many of them are in a state of semi-starvation. I ask that their case should be considered and that something should be done to make an increase in this pension, which is inadequate for them at this time.
§ Sir V. WARRENDERThe question of yeoman warders is at present under consideration at the War Office and I am not in a position to-night to give a definite answer. With regard to the second point, I would ask the hon. Member to allow me to go into that and to communicate with him at the earliest possible moment.