HC Deb 18 May 1939 vol 347 cc1671-81

It shall be the duty of the Army Council in consultation with the Board of Education, and through national organisations interested in adult education, to provide educational and social facilities for persons called up for service under this Act.—[Mr. Creech Jones.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

5.6 p.m.

Mr. Creech Jones

I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."

Last week, or earlier, the House considered the question of trade union rights in reference to the new conscripts, and in that discussion reference was made to their civil liberties. I am sure this new Clause will receive sympathetic consideration, because we are dealing with a new class of soldier who is being taken away from his normal civilian surroundings and to some degree deprived of his personal interests. There will be among the conscripts many men of studious habits and of sensitive nature, men who are curious about life and about the world, men who are active-minded, and as they are to be transferred to a completely new environment I want to impress upon the House the importance of ensuring that certain educational and social facilities are available to them in that new environment, especially as they will be returning to civil life after their period of training. I think it will be generally agreed that during their training it would be undesirable that their studious habits should in any way be broken and the purpose of the Clause is to secure the co-operation of the Board of Education and the Army Council in arranging facilities, particularly through those bodies already working in the field of adult education.

I am encouraged to move this Clause because during the last War the Government set up a Committee to investigate education in the Army, and particularly what kind of adult education might be made available for the soldiers serving in the Forces. I think the House is familiar with the second interim report which that distinguished Committee made to the Minister of Reconstruction, but there is an observation in it which I should like to bring to the attention of hon. Members, The report points out that on entering the Army men are taken away from their old interests and old associations and are cast into an entirely new environment and method of life, and continues: In such circumstances education has made a new appeal. The regular life, with its accompanying regular leisure time, and the lack of counter attractions, have led many men to attend classes and lectures or to undertake a course of reading. It is well known that even during the War, when men were preoccupied with the war, very successful educational schemes were run in the Army, largely because the men wanted that facility. Lord Gorell, who was, I believe, at that time acting in association with the War Office, particularly recommended that these facilities should be made available, and pointed out the success of the schemes which had been experimented with while the War was on. If such need was felt during the War and a scheme could be worked out under war conditions, how much more easy would it be to plan a scheme during peace. Already there is in existence machinery for carrying through the proposals in the Clause. The report in question clearly indicated the type of machinery and the form of organisation which might be adopted, and we have among the adult educational bodies a considerable staff of tutors who are willing to undertake this sort of work. Therefore we have the machinery and the voluntary associations, which are quite prepared to play their part in organising the facilities, and I suggest that serious consideration should be given to the case of young men who are temporarily taken away from their existing educational life and from their opportunities of discussing and studying subjects in which they are interested. I suggest that during their training they should not be cut off altogether from their major interests, because when it is over they will have to take up those studies afresh and will also want to read, study and think about the problems they are interested in. Seeing that the machinery is already in existence, I earnestly ask the Minister favourably to consider this proposal and to accept the recommendations of the report which was worked out during the War.

5.13 p.m.

Mr. Ellis Smith

I beg to second the Motion.

I hope the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education and the Secretary of State for War will be good enough to take note of what I am going to say, because it is based very largely upon my own personal experience. I finished my apprenticeship at an earlier age than that at which these boys are to be taken away, and in my view one of the most important periods of apprenticeship is the last year of it. Last week I discussed this question with one of the most representative persons in the engineering industry on the employers' side. He was very much concerned about the effect of taking these young men away, and that anxiety can be relieved if the Secretary of State, working in conjunction with the Board of Education and other bodies, will take steps to carry out what my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Mr. Creech Jones) has suggested.

I am not speaking critically of boys now, only stating facts, but until boys reach the age of 19 they are not apt to take things as seriously as they do afterwards. It is then that they begin to look forward to having to obtain their livelihood, because they are urged by their fellow craftsmen and other people to acquit themselves as well as possible in order to become efficient craftsmen. The result is that the boys, and their parents, wish that education to be continued at evening classes in order that the boys may qualify themselves in the best possible way. At the ages of 19 or 20, when they are beginning to get nicely settled down, the Bill will come into operation and they will be taken away. Some provision should be made to enable such boys to continue their technical training while they are away from their home surroundings.

For instance, it is well-known in regard to mathematics that once students have discontinued their study of that subject it takes some getting down to again. I was being trained in the shops to become a draughtsman after I had had a practical training in the workshop. After I came home from the Army I could not get down to that subject. Other boys are being trained in art or commercial subjects. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education and the Secretary of State for War should consult the Workers' Educational Association, the National Council of Labour Colleges and the co-operative and trade union movements to get their point of view about the need for continuing training. They should consult also representative organisations which encourage boys to continue their technical training. In that way, despite the fact that the boys will have been taken away, we shall be able to safeguard that early training. I hope that the Secretary of State for War will also remember the effect of taking boys away from their home surroundings at a period of life when they need the home environment more than at any other period in their lives. I want to use what influence I have to safeguard as far as possible the future of these young men. An hon. Member spoke earlier of a small section of young men who will be affected, and called them a noble body. I look upon all the young men of this country as a noble body, and I want to safeguard the interests of that noble body of young men whom we are going to take into the Army for six months' training.

A great deal will depend upon how this Measure is administered and upon the spirit of that administration, as well as on the attitude of the Secretary of State for War and the Army Council. A great deal will depend upon the officers who will train the young men. I want, therefore, to refer to the obsolete discipline under which these young men are to be put. I would be the first to admit that discipline is necessary, but the obsolete discipline under which many of us were trained, and with which we had to contend, belonged to the Elizabethan and Victorian periods and not to modern times. The spirit in which the Bill is administered should be based upon a discipline of respect for merit and not upon that form of discipline which many of us experienced. The old form of discipline brought about humiliation to an extent that ought never to be tolerated. I will give the House an example. We are all upon an equal footing in this House, no matter what our social status. One Member may drive up to the House in a Rolls Royce or a limousine and may be looked up to by chauffeurs and footmen, with all that that may mean, but that Member is on an equal footing with the humblest and poorest of us. I know that you cannot bring about that condition in the Army to the same extent, but I suggest that it should be brought about to a greater extent than has been the case in the past.

I know that discipline is necessary, particularly on the parade ground, but once the parade ground is left behind there is no need for the discipline which has been maintained in the past. I will give the House another concrete illustration and then I will close. I remember being taken to France and, because of the technical training which I had had, I was put into a school to be trained in the mechanism of tanks and to understand the internal combustion engine. No body of men could have taken that work and that training more seriously than did those young men in the training school in France. We received word that the Army had difficulties in getting over the Hindenburg Line and that the tanks were getting held up. It was necessary for us to carry out experiments on the tank field so that the experienced man of the Tank Corps could be watched by the Army Council and the officers, and devices brought out to prevent the tanks from getting fast. After the training, we were taken on to the tank field and had to dig trenches to represent the Hindenburg Line. No body of men could have worked harder than we did on that occasion, but we were lined up by an officer who addressed us and said that we had worked disgracefully, that the trenches ought to have been dug within a few hours, and so on.

Owing to the stern military discipline, we had to stand there and dared not say a word, but this fellow carried on to such an extent that I could no longer stand it. All I did was to make a deprecatory noise, but I was given a severe trouncing and I had to appear before the commanding-officer the following morning. Fortunately, the commanding officer was a decent sort of man and I was not subjected to the discipline that one would have got in the ordinary infantry. Tech- nical corps were not under the same discipline, and I am pleading for a relief from that discipline because of the social effects. In the infantry, men who are called up will think themselves as good as any other man in the land, although they will respect the need for discipline upon the parade ground. I am appealing to the Secretary of State for War to give instructions that the Bill should not be administered in the spirit of the discipline of the old days, because we have got away from the mid-Victorian and Elizabethan period and we are now living in the year 1939.

5.25 p.m.

Mr. Sexton

With what has been said by my hon. Friends the Members for Stoke-on-Trent (Mr. E. Smith) and Shipley (Mr. Creech Jones), I am in perfect agreement. It cannot be too often emphasised that the workers in various crafts should be enabled to continue their education during the six months. At the age of being called up, young men who are entering a profession such as teaching, the Church or the law will have finished their preparatory studies and will have qualified by examination to enter some academy, university or training college. It would be a pity if, during their six months' training, they should not be able to continue the thread of their studies, in order to go to the college or the university or higher seat of learning and then right on to make a success of their profession.

That means something more than the ordinary Army education being given, something on the lines suggested by the proposed new Clause. Special courses should be set up for craftsmen, as suggested by my hon. Friends. There is a great danger of young men of 20 years of age being taken away from the line of thought to which they have been used and forgetting all that they have learned or, on the other hand, not desiring to take up that profession in the future. To safeguard against that, the Board of Education and various other bodies should be called in to enable these young men not only to have a military training but to continue their education.

5.27 p.m.

The Secretary of State for War (Mr. Hore-Belisha)

I am sure that the House is grateful to the hon. Member for Shipley (Mr. Creech Jones) for proposing this new Clause in order to call attention to the manner in which a militiaman should be treated. I do not think he is particularly anxious that the Clause should be carried in this form, because we intend to do much more for the militiaman than is exactly specified here. It is, however, as the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent (Mr. E. Smith) said, a question of spirit, and I wish to assure the House that we fully share the sentiments and aspirations which have been expressed by hon. Gentlemen who have spoken from the opposite side of the House.

Sometimes, paradoxically enough, hon. Gentlemen opposite have antiquated notions. It is a long time since we buried Colonel Blimp. [HON. MEMBERS: "Some of them are still alive."] Yes, but they are fading away, like all old soldiers, and their influence has been eliminated from the Army. Also, the bibulous, blustering sergeant-major is now a figment of the imagination. I wish his spectre could be dissociated for ever from the Army, which is a modern and alert profession. It respects education perhaps more than does any other profession. Anyone who visits barracks must have been struck by the fact that men continue to attend classes throughout their military careers. That is a practice which does not prevail in most callings. Every soldier is supposed to have a third-class certificate. He gets an extra 3d. a day if he obtains a second-class certificate, and a first-class certificate qualifies him, other conditions being satisfactory, for promotion. Thus we set much store upon education in the profession of arms. We cannot treat the militiaman in exactly the same way as the soldier, because he will be with the authorities for a much briefer space of time, but we recognise the necessity for giving him every available opportunity for improving his mind, as he certainly will improve his body.

In the spiritual sphere, the chaplains of all denominations have met under the chairmanship of the Chaplain-General to see what additional succour they can bring to these men during their period of service. In the realm of sport, we intend to provide them with every possible facility for games and exercise, and also to furnish them with the necessary equipment. They will have have open to them the institutes of the Army, where they will be able to purchase glasses of milk, bars of chocolate, or otherwise to spend their money in a way that may be agreeable to them, perhaps to the accompaniment of the gramophone and wireless. They will also be able in these institutes to play billiards and indulge in other harmless recreations like darts. We have been in touch with the National Book Society. We intend to purchase books specially for them, and to augment our libraries, which already exist, and we shall be grateful for any assistance we can have from societies such as that which I have mentioned. We have also been in communication with certain philanthropic institutions. There are a number of bodies, like the Y.M.C.A. and the Workers' Educational Association, who co-operate with the local education authorities; and the Board of Education provides classes on all manner of subjects. We shall be only too happy to draw upon the resources of the Board of Education wherever they may be offered to us and may add to the advantages which we ourselves can provide. I trust that I have said enough to convince the House that we shall approach this matter from a human point of view, and that we shall endeavour to do all we can to suit the convenience and the needs of these men.

The hon. Member for Stoke made a new suggestion, which I had not heard before, namely, that, in addition to ordinary educational facilities and facilities for reading, encouragement should be given for the continuance of technical education. Of course, in the Army itself, with its great diversity of trades, there will be occasions for obtaining experience and proficiency, perhaps in some trades with which the ex-apprentice was not previously acquainted. These men will be living a pretty full life, and we must not overcrowd either their working hours or their leisure; but I see no reason—because we are breaking new ground here—why a militiaman should not use his evenings for the purpose of attending educational classes rather than visiting the pictures, if he so desires. I can assure the hon. Member that, in the light of what we shall learn in the course of our practice, we shall endeavour to expand in every-possible way the opportunities which maybe offered to these men. If they do not wish to attend technical classes, we propose to approach the cinema trade and see whether they can give facilities for these men to see films. I share the attitude that has been adopted by hon. Gentlemen opposite, and I can assure them that, while it is not necessary to accept this particular Clause, because we wish to do more than is here specified, we will do our best to carry out what it suggests and to give every possible satisfaction. We realise that these men are being withdrawn from civil life, that this is a new experence for them, as it is for us, and we desire to make it as agreeable and profitable as possible.

Mr. E. J. Williams

Are these libraries brought up to date periodically?

Mr. Hore-Belisha

Yes, I think they are. It is my desire that they should be. If the hon. Member has anything in mind and will tell me what it is, I will inquire into it.

Mr. Creech Jones

May I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman's reply means that, so far as non-vocational education is concerned, the Army Council are prepared, through the Board of Education, to enter into consultation with voluntary associations such as the Workers' Educational Association, with a view to preparing some scheme so that these facilities will be made available for militiamen?

Mr. Hore-Belisha

The fact that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education is sitting beside me is evidence of the unity of the Board of Education and the Army Council. I have already been discussing the subject with him, and we shall put ourselves in touch with the Board of Education to see to what extent we can carry out what the hon. Gentleman, as the result of his experience, has suggested.

5.38 p.m.

Mr. Lees-Smith

The right hon. Gentleman's answer has been given to us in the spirit in which the Clause was moved, but he was rather vague and not very concrete in the information he gave. I am not at this stage seriously criticising him for not being able to be more definite, but I think it will be found that the types of evening education needed for these new conscripts will be quite different from the types that are needed for ordinary soldiers in the Army. After all, the ordinary soldiers are spending their educational hours in preparing for the certificate examination, and that is not at all the kind of work which will be suitable for these young men who are there for six months. I do not think that the Army Council, by itself, is a Department which has the experience requisite for providing the proper type of education for this new class of militiamen. The Department which is specially concerned with these new men, who are civilians, is the Board of Education, and I should be more satisfied if I knew that the scheme for these young men was being drawn up on the initiative of the Board of Education, with the Army Council taking a secondary place. I do not go further than that at the moment, but I would ask for a definite assurance that the scheme will be drawn up in the closest co-operation with the Board of Education.

Mr. Hore-Belisha

I will give the assurance that we will put ourselves in touch with the Board of Education, who, of course, have much more experience of education than we have. It must be the duty of the Army Council to draw up a curriculum of military training, but we desire that these men should be given every possible advantage. I could not be more specific because we are dealing with the future, but I wished to indicate the state of mind in which we are approaching the subject. We will put ourselves in touch with the Board of Education, and do our best by co-operation to arrange for what the right hon. Gentleman desires.

5.40 p.m.

Mr. Sorensen

I desire to express my pleasure that sitting beside the Secretary of State for War is the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education, for their co-operation will certainly be to the benefit of these young men who are to serve in the Militia for six months. Naturally I, in common with my colleagues, look upon conscription as an evil, but even evil may sometimes be turned to good. In any case we have to make the best of a bad job, and in this case I think that an appreciable amount of good can be extracted from it if there is the right spirit. The only plea I would make is that, in considering the question of education for these militiamen, regard should not be paid solely to technical education. There are some young men at least—perhaps more than is anticipated—who will be glad of the opportunity of studying what are sometimes called the humanities. It may sound strange to some people to suggest that a militiaman actually serving should be interested in cultural subjects, but, bearing in mind the statement of the right hon. Gentleman a little while ago that the Army of to-day is very different from the Army of many years ago, it is clear that there are men in the existing Regular Army, and there will be men in the Militia force, who will respond to the opportunity to consider other than purely technical matters.

I do not want it to be assumed that these young militiamen are only interested in their muscles. Although muscles have their place, and the development of them is very necessary, surely we can do something to stimulate the minds of these militiamen, not merely in a technical direction, but in a general cultural direction as well. I am cerain that the men of the present Army and of the future Militia are very different in many respects from those of the Army of 30 or 40 years ago. I say that without casting any reflection upon those who belonged to the Army then. We have a higher type of man joining the Army now. It is not merely the unfortunate and the depressed that join, but men of all types, and it seems to me that here is an opportunity to provide, for thousands of young men each year, facilities for considering matters which can help them to be better citizens when they have finished their term of service, and will help to link up the young man in the Militia with other young men outside. The old assumption that once a man was in the Army he was in a separate category must be destroyed. All men, whether outside or inside the Army, are human beings, and, for the sake of a more intelligent and better informed democracy, I hope that the statement of the right hon. Gentleman will be implemented in the near future, and certainly on technical but also on cultural lines every endeavour will be made to feed the minds of these young militiamen as well as their bodies.

Mr. Creech Jones

In view of the right hon. Gentleman's assurance that there will be consultation with the Board of Education, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Clause.

Motion and Clause, by leave, withdrawn.