HC Deb 06 August 1940 vol 363 cc163-86

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."— [Mr. Paling.]

9.53 p.m

Mr. Stokes (Ipswich)

The matter which I wish to raise to-night and of which I have given notice to the Secretary of State for Air was referred to in the Fifth Report of the Select Committee on National Expenditure. It concerns the acquisition of a site for a repair depot in Scotland which has been a subject of Questions by me on 18th June and 10th July. I do not want to waste the time of the House by going into along recital of what has already been reported to this House, but I would like to recapitulate the main facts. The land purchased was a piece of 160 acres which on Clydeside, at any rate, was generally accepted as bogland. There were seven vendors for the Government, and it is interesting to note who these were. First, there was the Paisley Borough Council, which sold 11.706 acres at a price of £2,050, which worked out at an average price of £186 per acre. Then there was His Grace the Duke of Abercorn who sold 49.227 acres for £6,150 at an average cost of £123 per acre; Mr. Robert Rowand who sold 21.317 acres for £2,878 at an average of £137 per acre; the Houstor. Brothers who sold 39.804 acres for £5,000, at an average of £125 per acre; the Misses Taylor who sold two lots, one of 9.614 acres for £2,237. at an average Of £220 per acre and the other 16.14 acres for £3,763, average £235 per acre; the Douglas Estate (Earl of Home), which sold 11.857 acres for £1,200, average £100 per acre; and J. P. Cochrane's Trustees who sold 5.149 acres for £750, average £150 per acre. The total acreage was 164.814 and the cost £24,028, with an average of £145 per acre. It is noteworthy that the whole of this land—not a part of it—was de-rated and unused, and therefore presumably considered valueless, prior to the purchase and has contributed nothing whatever to the upkeep of the locality. This is the land which we are fighting for and which apparently the people are being compelled to pay for before they fight for it in order to satisfy the Duke of Abercorn and the Misses Taylor. Can we expect that, when the war is over and the soldiers return from their fighting, they will find that the land really belongs to them or that it has been shuffled off by the Government on to some private interest which wilt ask them to buy it again before the next war?

The total price was £145 per acre. In pursuing the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the subject, I failed to get any promise from him that there would be any Income Tax whatever levied on these people, who apparently sold what was considered worthless land at a high profit to themselves. In his definition of what is considered a revenue and what a capital sale, he is so vague that it is impossible for anyone except someone probably of exceptional intelligence to understand what it means. I am not one of those select few, and I have so far failed to understand on what basis he decided whether it should be subject to tax or not. It is well to recall to the House, what is in the report of the Select Committee, that, in addition to the expenditure on the land of some £26,000, a large amount was spent by the contractors in driving piles into the bottomless bog before this thing was stopped, and, on top of that, £160,000 was spent on sheds and permanent fixtures which never got permanently fixed, and which presumably have some residual value, but nothing like the value at which they were purchased. Something of the order of £464,000 sailed down the drain or into the pockets of the Duke of Abercorn.

It is well known that some time before the war the Royal Air Force had a small aerodrome station somewhere in this locality which had been there for more than 10 years, so it is not a matter of giving information to the enemy. It is surely reasonable to assume that the Air Force authorities should have known something about the land they were proposing to purchase and use next door. If it was right that that site should have been purchased, why has it been found right that the correct site is not many miles from a place I must not mention for fear of giving information to the enemy? If it is right now, it ought to have been right in the first instance, and ought to have been selected instead of the bogland that was taken over.

Surely the Government authorities must have made some kind of investigation as to what has gone on in the neighbourhood before, and they must have been aware, if they had their wits about them—I doubt whether they had—that less than 30 years ago a racecourse stand in the immediate vicinity collapsed for the same reason, that the ground was unstable and that it was impossible to arrive at a satisfactory foundation. It would occur to the ordinary business man that the most remote inquiry, an inquiry at the bar of the local public house, would have ascertained that the land was unstable, that this collapse had taken place and that it was doubtful whether it would be capable of standing any heavy weight. An added discomfort which I should like to mention is that, at this time when we are being urged to dig for victory, some 40 acres of vegetable gardens had to be destroyed in order that the pile-drivers' activities and various other activities could be carried out. Those crops are lost and cannot be recovered, and, as far as I know, the ground cannot be put into a cultivable state again for some considerable time.

Obviously, any local contractor, if he had been asked—and as far as my inquiries go, I have failed to elicit that any local contractor was asked—would have told the Air Ministry that the site was not suitable. One pile-driving company actually made this remark to an acquaintance of mine: "You could pile for ever on that site and you would never get to the bottom." I should like to ask whether any pile-driving experts were consulted before this work was undertaken. There is one point in the report of the Select Committee to which I should like to refer. It appears that in February, 1939, a report from one of the engineering assistants in the Designs Section of the Works Directorate of the Ministry was made as to the difficulty of using this site, but in spite of his report, it was decided to go ahead. I hope that the Secretary of State, when he replies, will tell us whether any real consideration was given to this complaint. It would seem that here we have a civil servant trying to do his best to save public funds and somebody on top, less competent than himself, overrules him, and insists on the work going ahead for reasons not yet explained, despite the fact that the engineering assistant had stated that the site was totally unsuitable. The Select Committee, in support of what I have already stated, says on page 4 of its report: Though with modem engineering knowledge and appliances it would be wrong to say that any site was impossible for the erection of a building "— as an engineer, I question that statement— it would be difficult throughout the length and breadth of this country to find any site which was likely to prove more difficult and expensive than the site here selected. If the Select Committee could discover that, surely there must have been responsible officials in the section concerned in the Air Ministry who were capable of arriving at the same conclusion before squandering public funds in the way in which they have done. Again, in support of what I have said, the Select Committee states on page 7 of its report: The Air Ministry representatives have been at great pains to emphasise that the decision to abandon the second depot was the result of a decision of policy, and that it was not in any way influenced by the difficulties that had been experienced on the chosen site. I am very sorry that any Government officials could have made such a statement to the Select Committee. It only makes them the laughing stock of people outside in the trade who know, and have known all the time, that this site was impracticable. There may have been both reasons for abandoning the site, but to say that it was not also abandoned because it was unsuitable would be an absurdity in view of the remarks of the pile-driving experts, who say that one could drive until the cows came home and still would not get to the bottom.

There are several questions which I should like to put to the Secretary of State. Why was such a high price paid for this low-lying, mist-ridden bogland? Here I would add that I regret having to raise this question to-night in the absence of my hon. Friends from Clyde-side constituencies. Unfortunately, they are not here. I am sure they would have had a great deal to say had they all been present. Perhaps the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton), who is present, will have something to say later.

It was known that when this site was purchased it would have to take heavy machinery and workshops—it was not just a question of providing an airfield. If any ordinary business set about purchasing land for their industrial development in the same way as the Air Ministry seem to have done, they would "go broke." No one in their senses would buy this sort of land for this purpose without first taking the trouble to discover the nature of the substratum of the soil. At an early stage it was discovered by the Air Ministry that there were seven feet of peat below the surface and they could have said then, whatever their mistakes had been, "For heaven's sake, let us stop and have a look." The biggest insult of all to my Scottish friends was the fact that an English contractor was engaged to carry out the job. If a small Scottish contractor had been asked to undertake the work, he would have told the Air Ministry the nature of the ground, and public money would not have been wasted. Were a consultant engineer and an architect appointed, and, if so, who were they, and what were their qualifica tions? Were they really competent to advise upon, the work? Again, who was really responsible at the Air Ministry? I know that the Secretary of State will answer with magnanimity that it was he who was responsible, but of course, we know perfecty well that that sort of reply is only a formula. I hope the House will insist on an answer to these questions.

Of all the efforts on which I have embarked in an endeavour to save public money and satisfy public protest, I have invariably found opposition in the Department. One cannot get at the truth or have things properly investigated and dealt with, and it seems to me that the views expressed by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle best describe this difficulty up against which we all are and I propose to read them to the House again: The sad fact is that Officialdom in England stands solid together, and that when you are forced to attack it you [...] not expect justice but rather that you are up against an avowed trade union, the members of which are not going to act the blackleg to each other, and which subordinates the public interest to a false idea of loyalty. What confronts you is a determination to admit nothing which inculpates another official, and as to the idea of punishing another official for offences which have caused misery to helpless victims, it never comes within their horizon. I hope the Secretary of State will not allow this obstruction and that he will tell us what he is going to do, because the public are very much exercised in their minds by this report and are not prepared to accept a statement that he is responsible for everything which has happened, and that everything in the garden is lovely. Are the vendors to be made to repay the money? It seems perfectly outrageous that at a time when people are not allowed to make excess profits in spite of extra work the Duke of Abercorn and the Misses Taylor should sit at their firesides and reap this harvest because we are at war. The Chancellor of the Exchequer says that he is not going to subject them to Excess Profits Tax for reasons that I do not under There seems no way of getting at them, and there ought to be even a special Act of Parliament passed to insist that this money which has been squandered should be repaid. Of course, much more has been squandered than was paid to the vendors, but at least the money which has been paid to file people who have done nothing with their land—and because they have done nothing is one reason why we are where we are to-day—should be paid back. I hope that there will be a full and proper inquiry and that we are not again to find ourselves the victims of the closest trade union in the world—the Civil Service.

10.11 p.m.

Mr. Ammon (Camberwell, North)

I intervene, not in order to follow the line of my hon. Friend who has raised this matter, but because I think it concerns the authority of the House of Commons. The House appointed a Select Committee to consider questions of national expenditure and to report thereon. Therefore, what my hon. Friend has asked for, namely, an inquiry, has already been carried out, and the verdict has been delivered and passed to the right hon. Gentleman. I was concerned when I heard his statement the other day in which he rather seemed to repudiate the findings of the Committee. I suggest that if that is the case, a serious position has arisen in which we may even have to appeal to your authority, Mr. Speaker, as to how this Committee stands. The committee sits under the chairmanship of the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne) and is representative of all sections of the House. An inquiry was carried out with the utmost care, thoroughness and efficiency, and the subcommittee which was responsible for it was presided over by the right hon. and learned Solicitor-General. Therefore, he has had a considerable part in drawing up this report. The report, as we understood, would be sent to the Air Ministry or would be considered by the Ministry after having been delivered to the House, and it was expected that some action would be taken on it. Undoubtedly it has been proved up to the hilt that there was gross inefficiency and almost criminal carelessness in regard to the problem we are now considering. Another part of the report also bears considerable testimony to that. It is well to note that, following on what my hon. Friend read from page 4, the Committee say: It seems clear to the sub-committee that at least £250,000 has in the result been wasted. The House ought to take note of that. In summing up they say: The sub-committee are not satisfied that sufficient care was taken before rejecting other sites in the immediate neighbourhood. It is much to be regretted that the advice of competent local people was neither asked for nor obtained. While they can well understand the necessity for speedy decision, the sub-committee are bound to report that financial considerations in the selection of the particular site did not receive the close scrutiny to which they should have been subjected. That is a very grave indictment of the Air Ministry, and it is not to be lightly brushed aside, because the Committee was specially appointed by Parliament to consider cases like this and to deliver reports thereon. Those reports are the considered findings of that Committee, and one would naturally expect that there would have been some statement that somebody had been taken to account for what was done. Had it been an ordinary workman who had committed an indiscretion or a fault of duty, he would have been discharged, but because there are people in fairly high positions who have blundered so terribly and palpably and have cost the State so much money, they are probably still continuing in their positions and are likely to add still further to the cost.

Further, the action or inaction of the right hon. Gentleman causes us to have doubts about what is happening in other directions. The sub-committee found conditions so grave in the Air Ministry that the chairman of it came to this House and asked for special absolution in order that the report should not be delivered to this House, because of what it would reveal, but sent direct to the Ministry itself or the Prime Minister. If a report which has been published to the world is ignored in this way, we have a right to ask what is happening with regard to that other very serious report which was too grave to be submitted to the gaze of this House. The right hon. Gentleman has no right to stand up in the House, as he did last week, and put himself in the position of defending these other people. In the first place, he was not the Minister concerned at the time, and in the second place the court appointed by this House had delivered its verdict and had a right to expect that the Minister responsible for the Department would see that action was taken on that verdict. Therefore, I am not concerned about the points of detail raised by my hon. Friend, because they are dealt with in the report itself. The verdict was delivered to the right hon. Gentleman in order that he should act upon it, and it is not fair to the House—it is an insult to the House, in fact it challenges the authority of the House—for him to act in the manner he did, indicating, as he seemed to do, that he is not prepared to take any notice of the report.

10.17 p.m.

Mr. Maxton (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

I intervene to take away the reproach against the Clydeside area Members made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes). We have not been uninterested in this matter. When the hon. Member was apportioning blame, I intervened to say that it was the Chancellor of the Exchequer who was responsible, but if my recollections are correct, this business started in the time of the previous Minister.

The Under-Secretary of State for Air (Captain Harold Balfour)

No, the scheme was initiated at the time when my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer was Secretary of State for Air.

Mr. Maxton

In any case, the Under-Secretary was there all the time, and has a first-hand knowledge of the matter, and whoever else may avoid responsibility he cannot. I am the more hurt that he should be in a position of this sort, because for many years he was my next-door neighbour on this bench, and I thought I had managed to groom him up to he a sort of half-competent Minister, just as I hoped that by reason of the fact that the present Secretary of State sat so near to myself for many years some virtue would perhaps pass to him. There can be no excuse that a hurried decision was necessary in this matter owing to the stress of the war, because the decision to go ahead on this particular site was made when things were relatively calm. The Under-Secretary knows that it was a very deliberate decision of the Ministry to go to this site in preference to extending the civil aerodrome in the near vicinity; they came to the decision to go to this site because of certain engineering difficulties. Is the Under-Secretary denying that? If the hon. and gallant Gentleman is saying that the case must be left in the Minister's hands, I must ask him whether he contradicts my statement now, by the shaking of his head.

The decision to go to that site and to extend it, rather than develop the site of the civil aerodrome in the near vicinity —and this statement is badly hampered by the consideration that you must not mention names of places—was taken because the engineering difficulties on the civil site were very great. There was a certain hill to be removed and, unfortunately, there was a sentimental consideration, because there was a cemetery on the side of the hill. But the money which has been spent on the boggy site could have shifted the hill 10 times over, and disinterred and re-interred all the dead people, and given them all a great burial; it would cost a fraction of the £250,000 that was bunged down into the bog. I cannot understand why this decision was ever made. I was aware that, for a period of years, going back, to my knowledge, a dozen years, there was a full inspection of that area by the Air Ministry, both from the point of view of civil aviation and R.A.F. considerations. They went over the whole of the west of Scotland, because the city of Glasgow was dissatisfied that their civil aerodrome should be somewhere about eight miles from the centre of Glasgow. The district was surveyed in every possible way, and one site after another was rejected, long before the war was even contemplated; yet they went on, and, coming to a decision for the future R.A.F. development in that area, they chose a completely impossible site. There is something fundamentally wrong in the organisation of the Ministry, if something like that can happen in time of peace, when there is plenty of time and no rush, and a big area of territory to be examined.

I am not now interested in the matter. I took it up at the time of the civil aviation problem, and I questioned the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor. I got an answer which, in the light of the Committee's report, was evasive. He told the House that they would go to another area which was more suitable for the purpose. No indication was given that this area was definitely bad and that a huge sum of money had been wasted. There was merely the suggestion that another area had been decided upon because it was more convenient. After that, just by accident, I heard that a committee of inquiry were going there, and I endeavoured to guide them as to the best way of pursuing that investigation. I myself went over the site—tramped over it, and got myself into a devil of a mess in doing it.

I want to ask the Minister a question on a very small point of detail. There is a serious shortage of timber, I understand. Has any attempt been made to recover those piles which were sunk in that place? I saw piles which had been sunk, and they were as fine timber as I ever saw, huge big things. I do not know how many of them went down into the bog, or whether any attempt has been made to bring them up. There is a further point for the Minister, and this is my only interest left in the matter, since the Committee's report has been made.

I was very concerned about the 40 acres that had been taken off the approved school in the vicinity, which had a great record in the district. It was a model school, the boys of which, under the enthusiastic direction of their superintendent and governors, had reclaimed those 40 acres and made a fertile little farm out of them. It was the principal manual training which the boys got in the school, and they were producing wonderful crops, not only producing all the fresh vegetables for the school itself, but a surplus which was sold in the community round about. All this work was wiped out in three months. I want to know whether that school has got back its 40 acres, and some financial compensation that would help to restore it to its old position of fertiity before the hand of the vandal was laid upon it.

I have no particular worries about the Duke of Abercorn—in fact, when I was inn inquiring about the owner I was told it was the Duke of Abercorn's trustees. I rather fancy that the estate must he in the hands of a receiver or something of the sort. Neither have I any knowledge of the Misses Taylor who have been mentioned. I do not know them at all, but I am interested in the school and its 40 acres. That is a very small fraction of the problem which is involved, and it is one in which, as a former Secretary of State for Scotland, the right hon. Gentleman might have a special interest and to which he might give special attention.

10.28 p.m.

Sir Adam Maitland (Faversham)

The chairman who presided over this responsible Select Committee is now sitting on the Front Bench, and is obviously a free agent at the moment. As one who assisted him in his investigations and in the compilation of the report, I want to say at once that I stand by every word of it. I would like to reinforce what has been said by the hon. Member for North Camberwell (Mr. Ammon). This is the fifth report of this Select Committee, and I think there have been three other reports issued since. We all realise, of course, that every Department to-day is particularly pressed, but I think it is important that the House of Commons, having appointed a committee to investigate important matters of this kind, should see that the traditions and customs of the House are complied with; and I would like to ask whether, in these cases where a Select Committee is set up and presents a report to the appropriate Ministry, in due course there should not come back to the committee itself a considered reply. I understand that that is in accordance with the traditions of the House and I think that is a tradition which should be maintained in this case, not only in regard to this particular inquiry but with regard to the work of the Committee as a whole, because we recognise—and it is only fair that we should recognise—that in the investigations which have been made, we are to some extent guided not so much by the facts but by general tendencies. We are not a court of law. We take such evidence as we can—usually that evidence which appears to be well founded.

The hon. Gentleman who has seized, as he always does, this opportunity of riding his particular hobby horse, has raised a case which I hope will not rest. It is only fair to say that this land may not be used for purposes for which heavy machinery is required, but it may be used for other purposes. It is only right that the House should be told this. The House will find no adverse comment in this report with regard to the price of the land itself. In point of fact, the site is situated near a large town, and, on inquiry, we were assured that a price higher than that which was paid would probably have been the right price. I only mention this; it is a most unimportant point by comparison with the greater question.

Mr. Stokes

The hon. Member does, I hope, realise that this land was all de-rated. That being the case, on what basis was this valuation arrived at?

Sir A. Maitland

To me, the fact that this land was derated does not mean that it was necessarily without value. The hon. Member has said that all derated land is of little or no value, but he knows well that where land is near an industrial district it is of greater value. This was potential building land, and the hon. Member will agree that land near industrial centres and similar to land in the vicinity which has been sold at a higher price than that mentioned in the report, cannot arbitrarily be said to have been bought at too high a price.

Mr. Stokes

Does the hon. Member consider that the Duke of Abercorn and the Misses Taylor gave that value to the land as an aerodrome site? That is the point.

Sir A. Maitland

If I argued that point, I should be doing what the hon. Members wants me to do, by giving him an opportunity to expound his pet theory. I come back to the important point—that £250,000 was wasted. That is the fundamental thing in connection with this report. There were at least two sites originally inspected: one in the west of Scotland and the other in the east. think the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) rather confused them, if he will forgive my saying so. The Air Ministry and the Treasury, on grounds largely connected with availability of labour, chose this site, in the west, called Site B in our report. It is well to remember that the particular scheme involved was of something in the nature of £1,500,000, and here I must say that the contractors themselves assured us that the difficulties in regard to the site, great as they were, were not insurmountable. We had to accept that evidence. That was also the evidence tendered by the Ministry. But the site was abandoned, we have been informed, on quite other grounds, on the ground of policy, which meant the abandonment of the idea of proceeding with the erection of civil repair depots.

It may very well be—and it is suggested in our report—that if the scheme which was originally proposed had been carried out in its entirety, there would not have been this criticism with regard to the fact that £250,000 was wasted, because had the scheme gone through, it would have been found that the cost had no doubt increased by some hundreds of thousands of pounds. I hope that in this matter we shall not look for political heads. What impressed me on one occasion in particular was what was said by one of the witnesses. He certainly left me with the idea that the Angel Gabriel could never have persuaded him to give up this particular site because it was a difficult site.

This is not the occasion on which to mention names, but certainly that impression remained with me very much indeed. We had to consider main issues and principles affected by the reports submitted. I hope, therefore, we shall not be driven on to a side issue but will stick to the main purpose of the report, which is to point out that there was not sufficient care exercised in regard to the whole question. It is not a question of ascertaining responsibility. Our responsibility is at an end when we have submitted this report to our colleagues in this House, but I ask, when that duty is discharged, that there shall be considered replies from the Ministries.

10.28 p.m.

Mr. Glenvil Hall (Colne Valley)

I would like to reinforce what the hon. Member for Faversham (Sir A. Maitland) has said. I feel that the fact that certain individuals sold land for this aerodrome site is, as far as this discussion is concerned, rather beside the point. Until the taxation of land values is brought into operation you will always get all over the country, as you are getting now, people selling their land—and I am not blaming them—for such prices as they can get even if it is needed for the national emergency. We need not go into details on that ground to-night.

I would like to ask the Secretary of State for Air one or two questions. The hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) raised the point that I intended to raise as to what was happening to the enormous number of piles already driven into this site. I understand that at least 25 firms started to drive piles one after the other into this land and each in turn gave it up. Was the Minister aware of the fact that this large number of firms was engaged on this work and did not the fact that one after another gave it up as a bad job mean something to the officials at the Ministry? Did they not think that possibly this work was more than could be undertaken? I make that point because, in my view, the same thing may be happening elsewhere. According to the reply which the Minister gave to a Question asked in this House the other day, I understood him to say that the valuation placed on the site by the Inland Revenue was larger than the maximum price paid for the land. Does not that show that the price frequently fixed by officials of the Inland Revenue is far above the actual price which should be paid? I would like him, if he will, to give some idea of how these Inland Revenue officials arrived at the valuation which they put upon this land. As my hon. Friend has pointed out, it is nearly always de-rated and the value which, at best, must be surmised, is frequently above that placed on the land by local people.

I would ask the Secretary of State for Air whether he has any machinery at his Ministry which would enable the National Exchequer to guard itself against the forced-to-pay prices which are put on land by the Inland Revenue authority and what check he has to show that the Inland Revenue valuation approximates to the value put on land by people living in the vicinity of the land so valued?

10.41 p.m.

Sir Joseph Nall (Manchester, Hulme)

I want to remove one misapprehension. De-rating has nothing whatever to do with the value of the land. It was presumably de-rated because it was agricultural land but that does not mean to say that it was not assessed at some value. In any case it would be assessed for Schedule A Income Tax and only de-rated because it was used for agricultural purposes.

10.42 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Air (Sir Archibald Sinclair)

When the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes) said he would raise this question I felt very grateful to him because this subject has been studied by a Select Committee of this House and has attracted a considerable amount of public attention. But I did not feel so grateful to him then as I do now, especially after the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for North Camberwell (Mr. Ammon) who seemed to suggest that, from the answers I gave him to Questions, the report of the Select Committee was to be completely ignored, and thrown into the waste-paper basket and that I proposed to take no notice of it at all. Such was very far from being my intention. My answers to Questions asked me last week were directed solely to the issues arising out of the main question raised by the hon. Member for Ipswich about the price of this land.

That is one of the few aspects about this transaction which escaped censure, criticism or admonition by the Select Committee. It was only of that aspect I was then speaking but may I make it clear to the House that I have come fresh into this controversy and my point of departure was the report of the Select Committee. Far from repudiating the findings of that Committee I made them my starting point. The hon. Member for Ipswich said it was very difficult to get at the truth. Well, I thought that, at any rate, was a good place to look for it as it was carefully considered by a Select Committee of Members of all parties in this House. I thought I had better start from their findings. The hon. Member for Faversham (Sir A. Maitland) pointed out in a very fair speech, that it is not only the Air Ministry which comes under the criticism of the Select Committee and it would not be at all fair to state this case in terms which suggest that it was the Air Ministry, of their own free will, who chose this site, and was solely responsible for the decision that was taken—[HON. MEMBERS: "Who was?"] I will tell the House in greater detail.

Let me remind the Rouse of the history of this question. It was decided in September, 1938, that three civilian repair depots were to be established for the repair of aircraft during the war. The assumption then was that the resources of the aircraft industry would be fully employed in other directions and it was necessary to have this special organisation for the repair of aircraft. Between November, 1938, and March, 1939, there was a good deal of pressure brought to bear on the Air Ministry to place, at any rate, one of these depots in Scotland and one near Glasgow. There were some 27 Parliamentary Questions, I am told, asked during that time, and four deputation of Members were received urging the claims of Scotland in general and of Glasgow in particular.

Mr. Maxton

Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us what was the political composition of those deputations?

Sir A. Sinclair

I do not wish to he drawn into details, but it is fair to say that among those who made up the deputations and those who asked the Questions there were Members of all parties.

Mr. Maxton

We were never associated with anything of the kind.

Sir A. Sinclair

Perhaps I ought to exclude the hon. Member and his party, but there were many Members of other parties. The requirements of these depots were very exacting. They are mentioned in the Committee's report. They had to be near an existing aerodrome, they had to have railway communication, and for strategic reasons they had to be west of a given line—that very much limited the area of choice—and there had to be available labour near the site. While the Air Ministry was making up its mind where this thing should be, the Assistant Commissioner for Special Areas in Scotland wrote: I am to say that the Commissioner hopes that these considerations which were mentioned in the letter— will enable the Air Ministry to decide in favour of getting the proposed depot in area B. In the meantime the Air Ministry had decided in favour of area A, but the Treasury Inter-Services Committee disapproved of area A and approved area B. The Ministry of Labour wrote a very strong letter. This is to an officer in the Air Ministry perhaps more responsible than any other: You will remember that in your letter you said you had found area A very favourable from the point of view of speed and cheapness "— so economy was in the minds of the responsible officers of the Air Ministry— and that you have decided that you must proceed with the depot there. We have looked at the area again and feel obliged to enter a serious objection to the decision from the point of view of the potential labour supply. He goes on to say further: I hope that in the light of the foregoing observations, you will reconsider your decision to go ahead with area A, and decide instead to adopt the area B proposal. As I have said, my Department is very disturbed about the area A proposal, and my Minister may well take the line that it should be referred to the Committee of Imperial Defence before a decision is taken.

Mr. Stokes

May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether the site now used in place of the collapsed site is in area B or area A?

Sir A. Sinclair

The site now used is the one which the Air Ministry did not want. It is in area B. The decision taken by the Air Ministry was for area A, and it was only because of pressure from the Ministry of Labour and other Departments—

Sir Irving Albery (Gravesend)

The right hon. Gentleman has just said that it was suggested that the matter should be referred to the Committee of Imperial Defence. Can he tell us whether it was so referred, and if not, why not?

Sir A. Sinclair

No, because the whole weight of the pressure was against the Air Ministry, and the Air Ministry knew it could not get its way on that Committee. The decision of the Air Ministry was for area A, and it was that decision which was being contested. The Air Ministry were reluctantly compelled to abandon the project in area A and to go to area B.

Mr. Hammersley (Willesden, East)

Are we to understand that in matters of this character the Air Ministry are swayed by representations made by the Ministry of Labour?

Sir A. Sinclair

The decision was a Ministerial decision, and Ministers decided, in view of the representations which were made from various quarters—after all, unemployment was very important—against the advice of the official advisers of the Air Ministry, to go to area B. The Secretary of State's panel of industrial advisers, an independent panel of outside experts, declared that the scheme was sound, and approved of the lay-out. It may be asked whether, even if the Ministry were compelled to go to area B, there was no better site at the side or in the neighbourhood of area B? It so happened that a very intensive search had been conducted by the Civil Aviation Department of the Air Ministry for a good airport for Glasgow. There is only one other site within the immediate neighbourhood of area B which is possible, and I think it is the site which the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) had in mind in making his speech. All I can say is that it is a very bad site. It is a site which had to be rejected for civil aviation, and it was not found possible to establish the Glasgow municipal airport there, partly for the reason that there are a great many pylons in the vicinity, and partly because, I am told, it is particularly bad for fog. Of course, if it was found not good enough for civil aviation, hon. Members will realise that a fortiori it was not good enough for military aviation, because the machines which are to use the aerodromes are much faster, the bombers are much heavier, and the difficulties of getting away from a limited space are much greater in the case of heavy bombers. Therefore, it was not suitable for military use. Those, briefly, are the reasons for which the site in area B was adopted.

Now, why was it abandoned? Not because it was found impracticable, not because, as the hon. Member for Ipswich said, no new site could be found. Those were not the reasons. It was, as the hon. Member for Faversham (Sir A. Maitland) says, because a new decision of policy had been taken. Let me make it clear what that decision was. It was a very big one, namely, that whereas, as I informed the House a short while ago, the original idea was that the repair of aircraft during the war would be done by this special civil repair organisation, because there were no resources available in industry, it was subsequently discovered that these resources would in fact exist. Lord Nuffield became adviser to the Air Ministry on this subject, and under his advice it was decided to make this change of policy, and the civil repair organisation was set up under Lord Nuffield. It was for that reason that it was unnecessary to go on with this project. True it was, and I am not attempting to hide it from the House, that the site was much worse than the Air Ministry had all along suspected. But the additional expenditure o£100,000, heavy though it was, and grievous though it was, would have been much less than the expenditure involved in obtaining a similar site, far away from a city or town, far away from available resources of labour and where a great housing scheme would have had to be undertaken. Indeed the Select Committee accepted the statement.

I started my speech by saying that I accepted the findings of the Select Committee, and I make no exception in favour of this particular one. The hon. Member for Ipswich did not put a question which I was told he would raise, as to the name of the expert who was consulted about pile-driving. He was Professor Terfaghi. He said, that surely we knew perfectly well that any reasonable man must have known perfectly well that it was impossible to make a good site for a depot of this kind on this soil. I am very new to these matters and I have not a very great knowledge of pile driving experts, and I have no doubt that the name of our adviser will mean more to the hon. Member than it does to me. I know that he is an expert on this subject of worldwide reputation. He had tackled similar undertakings in other parts of the world.

Mr. Stokes

Who were the consultants for the construction of the whole scheme not the advisers—when the Ministry got into trouble?

Sir A. Sinclair

The consultant engineers were, of course, the Ministry's works department. The decision to abandon was taken on the grounds of broad policy. It followed from this general question that the depot in area B was no longer required.

It being Eleven of the Clock, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, with the Question put.

Question again proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Munro.]

Sir A. Sinclair

As the hon. Member for Bridgeton said, these decisions were taken in the hurry and stress of war when there was great need for speed. The Government were convinced that we were approaching a crisis in international relations, and it is true to say that allowances have to be made for that. The hon. Member for Bridgeton asked whether it was possible to recover the piles. I regret that that was impossible. They were driven into the clay and they were covered with concrete foundations for the sheds. He asked whether any compensation was paid to the special school which had market gardens on that site. A sum of £1,387 was paid to the school.

Let me turn to the main subject of the speech of the hon. Member for Ipswich, that of the price paid for the land. He asked why such a high price was paid for this low-lying, mist-ridden land. It is not good land, I admit, but he overdrew the picture a little. Part of the site has, for example, been chosen by Paisley Town Council for a housing site. It has great merits as a building site. On one side it is bounded by St. James Park, which belongs to Paisley Town Council. On another side is the L.M.S. line, and on a third it is bounded by a main road which has recently been widened to 80 feet. At the time of the purchase of these 164 acres, one-third was used for allotments and market gardens, one-third was arable land, and one-third was pasture. The best advice that the Ministry was able to obtain was that it was worth £250 an acre. Part of it is feued to-day at a price which is equivalent to a capital value of £500. A site which is on the opposite side of the aerodrome, and is just as low as this land, is feued at a price which gives an even higher capital value. Much of this ground was already in the market as attractive building sites and some of it had been bought by Paisley Town Council for its housing scheme. They bought it for £125 an acre. Another part of the site had been offered—although they had not closed with the offer then —at £500 per acre. I mentioned just now that among the representations which the Air Ministry had received in favour of this area was one from the Commissioner for the Special Areas. He, in pressing this project upon the attention of the Air Ministry, warned the Minister that the price which would be asked—he was not valuing it—for two parts of it would be £250 an acre; for a third part of it £500 an acre and for a fourth part £800. The Air Ministry bought it at an average price of £145 an acre. In view of these facts I am sure the House will not be surprised that the Select Committee did not make the purchase price the subject of condemnation.

In conclusion, let me remind the House of exactly what the criticisms of the Select Committee were. They said first that the financial considerations in the selection of the site did not receive the close scrutiny to which they should have been subjected. On the one hand I must answer on behalf of the Ministry that they did receive their scrutiny, so much so that the weight which they did attach to the factor of cheapness was one of the subjects of criticism in the letter from the Ministry of Labour which I have read. On my own behalf I say that I accept that admonition, and I will endeavour to be a faithful and economical steward of the public moneys entrusted to me. I have given certain instructions in the Ministry, to which I shall refer later.

The second criticism is that insufficient care was taken before rejecting other sites in the immediate neighbourhood. I can only say that a search extending over three years has revealed no other site and no one has yet suggested an alternative. The third criticism was that the advice of competent local people was neither asked for nor obtained. I have always felt strongly that Government Departments ought to get local advice when they are making purchases or undertaking activities in different parts of the country. In this case the Air Ministry was itself in the position of a local person. It had been in that area for a great many years. In that particular area, and just adjoining this site, there had been an aerodrome, there had been an Auxiliary Air Force squadron and a Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve unit. The Air Ministry knew the area very well indeed, and, from their own knowledge, did not want to go there, as I reminded the House earlier.

I certainly bow to this criticism, and to meet it and the other criticisms to which I have referred I have given the following instructions: First, that detailed estimates are invariably to be prepared before the purchase of any site is approved, and these will be carefully examined by the Finance Division concerned. Secondly, I found that even before the sub-committee's inquiry had begun requests for additional supervising staff had been made and two additional supervising land officers have now been posted to the lands branch. In future, all estimates will be submitted in detail to one of those officers before submission to the Finance Division. Lastly, about seeking local advice, a subject on which I have strong views, instructions have been given that if a specially expensive or difficult site is to be acquired a second opinion must be obtained from a suitable and qualified land agent and valuer in the neighbourhood.

Let me again thank the hon. Member for giving me the opportunity of making this statement. I hope that my statement has, at any rate, convinced the House that we not only respectfully accept the report of the Select Committee but that we are seeking to profit by it and have taken action to give effect to its findings.

Sir A. Maitland

Will the right hon. Gentleman answer the question which was put to him, as to when the Committee can expect a reply to the confidential report which was sent?

Sir A. Sinclair

I think that confidential report was sent to the Prime Minister.

Sir A. Maitland

Is not the right hon. Gentleman able to say whether any action has been taken with regard to it?

Sir A. Sinclair

I should want notice of that question, but I am not sure whether it is a question which should be addressed to me.

Mr. Stokes

Why was an English contractor—a very good one—employed on this job and not a Scots contractor?

Sir A. Sinclair

I am told that this contractor was considered to be the best for the job, but the employment of Scots contractors has been the rule in the past and will be so in the future.

Sir Joseph Lamb

Can the Minister give us a definite assurance on one point? I was very concerned about one part of his speech, and disconcerted, because he said that the Ministry did not want this land, but took it by compulsion brought upon them by other Departments. It is true that those Departments may have wanted that to be done for other reasons, such as the Ministry of Labour, which may have had a great deal of unemployment there, and may have wanted that land used. Although that was desirable, it did not justify that land being taken and this money wasted. I ask that, if pressure is brought to bear upon them, the Ministry shall consider the merits of the case.

Sir A. Sinclair

The Minister at the head of a Department may want to adopt a particular course but the requirements of that Department must be considered in relation to the requirements of other Departments. I cannot give the hon. Gentleman an undertaking that, on all matters affecting my Ministry, I shall always be able to get my own way. The hon. Gentleman said that there was pressure to buy this land. I should not have used words to give him that impression. The pressure was to go to a particular neighbourhood.

Adjourned accordingly at Fourteen Minutes after Eleven o' Clock.