HC Deb 05 March 1941 vol 369 cc981-8

Motion made, and Question proposed, That such numbers of Officers, Seamen, Boys and Royal Marines and of Royal Marine Police, as His Majesty may deem necessary, be borne on the books of His Majesty's Ships and at the Royal Marine Divisions, for the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1942.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty (Sir Victor Warrender)

In view of the way these Estimates have been received, it would be doing scant courtesy to the Committee if they were to be passed without my making some short reply from this Box. I do not think I have ever heard a Debate upon Service Estimates in which less criticism was levelled at the Minister in charge of the Department. From every speaker the Royal Navy has received fervent congratulations and expressions of great admiration. The Royal Navy is accustomed to perform the task allotted to it quietly, efficiently and without show, nor is it looking back over its shoulder for bouquets, thanks or congratulations. All the same, I am quite certain that all ranks in the Fleet will be very appreciative of the remarks which have been let fall and of the expressions to which Members of the House have given vent. The first to do so was the hon. Gentleman the Member for North Camberwell (Mr. Ammon), and, in thanking him for the tone of his speech and for the generous things that he said about the Service with which he was once privileged to be connected, perhaps he will allow me in return to offer him our congratulations on his election as Chairman of the London County Council. No doubt, the training and experience which he received at the Admiralty went some way to persuade the County Council to elect him.

The hon. Gentleman made one or two suggestions and asked for certain information. I wish it were possible to comply with that request. The Navy has always had the reputation of being the silent Service. I very much fear that the Ministers who represent it in the House will also earn the reputation of becoming silent Ministers, because in these days the vast bulk of the questions that we are asked cannot possibly be answered. For instance, the hon. Gentleman asked for details as to the loss of the "Glorious." If it were possible to give them, the First Lord would be the first to authorise me to do so, but we have already given the House as much information as we think safe, and I am not in a position to-day to supplement it. The same applies to his remarks on the passage of the French ships through the Straits of Gibraltar, and indeed to his suggestion that some indication should be given as to how far our marine losses in the Merchant Fleet constitute a diminution of our available tonnage. These figures could, no doubt, be given, but they would only have one result apart from elucidating the mind of the hon. Gentleman, and that is to give the enemy some details which to-day he may not possess. We are all agreed that every effort must be made to prevent the loss of even a single ship, for each ship that is lost is a calamity from the national point of view. To give replies to such questions will not prosecute the end that we all have in view.

The hon. Gentleman raised the question of corvettes and reminded my right hon. Friend that certain criticisms had been made about the qualities of this class of vessel, such as that they were too slow and uncomfortable for their crews. The corvette was produced to meet a particular need. The need at that time was for ships that could hunt submarines and that could be produced quickly. Even in these days of scientific invention we still cannot buy a is. article for 6d., and if these ships were to be produced in a short period of time, we had to accept certain limitations. I am not to be drawn into a discussion of what their actual designed speed is. It is obvious that the greater the designed speed of these craft, the more horse-power they would require and the more slowly they would be built.

Mr. Ammon

Does not the hon. Gentleman see what a serious statement that is and what a serious admission that of the First Lord was? The admission was that the corvettes were not fast enough to catch the new submarines. It is far better that we should have a few competent ships able to do the job than a large number of ships that are not able to do it.

Sir V. Warrender

The hon. Gentleman is falling into the fallacy of assuming that

the corvette is the only ship which is hunting the submarine. That is not so. There are the fast destroyers. The corvettes are primarily escort vessels and in that capacity have done magnificent work. They have succeeded, too, in destroying submarines. Their speed is a question to which we have been paying particular attention. The hon. Gentleman will realise that, although a ship may be built to-day to meet a certain situation or certain tactics on the part of the enemy, the situation or the tactics may in the meantime change. If one could have been wise before the event, one might have altered one's plans in advance, but it is not true to say that my right hon. Friend admits that the corvette is not doing its job or is not the type of ship that is fitted to do the job.

Mr. Benjamin Smith

May I put this point of view? It is known that the fastest submarine on the surface does not reach 16 knots. The hon. Gentleman referred to the corvettes as doing submarine hunting. If he can tell me how a ship which is slower than the vessel it hunts can catch it, I shall be glad to know. I should like to see hounds hunting a fox in the same way. The fact is, as I understand it, that it is generally assumed that these ships are not competent to hunt submarines from the point of view of speed, although they are more handy than submarines. It does not need a long view to see that if you want a hunting ship, you must have a fast ship.

Sir V. Warrender

My experience of the hunting field taught me that the fox is considerably faster than the hounds, and yet I have seen hounds kill many brace of foxes. I am not to be drawn into an argument about that. It is true that on the surface a submarine is a comparatively fast vessel, but submerged she becomes slower, and the more escort vessels you have, the more eyes you have to see them, the more you will keep the submarines submerged and the easier it will be to deal with them.

My hon. Friend then went on to make a point affecting the Whitworth scholarships. My right hon. Friend proposes to look into that matter and if there is anything we can do to achieve the result which my hon. Friend has in mind, in a better way than it is being achieved today, we shall sympathetically consider what action can be taken. Although I have not had an opportunity of studying the problem closely, I should have thought that had they been willing, those scholars could have come in on the engineering side from the universities, and I think that possibly they have not done so because they feel there is more scope for them in civil life.

Mr. Ammon

I think the hon. Gentleman has rather missed the point. The Whitworth scholars are those who come into the Service from the dockyards and from the workshops as against those coming from the universities, and the point was that many of those who attain high standards in their examination have to leave the Service because there is not room for them, although we have trained them.

Sir V. Warrender

I shall be quite ready to go into the point raised by the hon. Member. I turn next to the speech made by the gallant Admiral of the Fleet the Member for North Portsmouth (Sir R. Keyes) and would thank him for the great tribute he paid to the young men who are under his command to-day. If they will emulate the example which he has set them, they will benefit greatly from their education. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Chertsey (Capt. Marsden) raised several points in his very cheerful manner. I do not propose to reply to. them all, because I do not think he would expect it. As far as the pay of midshipmen who are coming into the Service as a result of the Dartmouth scholarships is concerned, my right hon. Friend gave him an assurance which I think satisfied him. Then he raised the question of retired, commissioned warrant officers and made a proposal to my right hon. Friend which he thought would meet a need which he and other officers in the Service are concerned about. I have discussed that matter with the First Lord, and he has authorised me to say that he is looking into it and proposes to deal with it. My hon. and gallant Friend also made some references to the need for preventing loss of time in the shipyards during "alerts" and so on. I think the morale in the shipyards which I have visited is remarkably good. No doubt there are bad men as well as good men, and one gets slackness on the part of certain individuals, but we are fully alive to the need for keeping up the spirit and the morale of our shipbuilding men, and Admiral Sir Michael Hodges is now touring the shipbuilding centres of the country and speaking to the workmen on the site of their work. He came to see me only this morning and told me that he has addressed no fewer than 127,000 men in the shipyards, and I think he is doing extraordinarily good work in impressing upon those on whom we rely to build our ships how much success in this war lies in their hands.

A great tribute was paid by my hon. Friend and neighbour the Member for Lincoln (Mr. Liddall) to the service rendered by the Naval Reserves. Naturally, I find myself in cordial agreement with him; indeed, I do not know where the nation would be were it not for these men and seamen who do some of the dirtiest jobs. My hon. Friend asked a few pertinent questions, most of which I propose not to answer.

Mr. Liddall

Why not?

Sir V. Warrender

I think he will realise why not.

Mr. Liddall

I do not.

Sir V. Warrender

I can tell him, when he asks me whether we are impressed with the need for ships, that we are so impressed; and as to whether we are pressing on with the equipment of merchant ships with anti-aircraft weapons, 1 tell him that that is the case.

Mr. Liddall

I did not ask my hon. Friend whether he was impressed. I asked what he was doing about it.

Sir V. Warrender

My right hon. Friend told the House in his speech that some thousands of ships were now equipped with close-range anti-aircraft armament. We are continuing to equip them as fast as we can. My hon. Friend asked me whether the shipyards were being used to full capacity and whether we were getting all the labour that we required. He knows the answer to those questions without asking. Nevertheless, I can tell him that we are using every shipyard we can, provided that we have the requisite labour. We are, and have for several months been, in touch with the Ministry of Labour, in order to retain in or to get back into the industry the maximum number of men.

Mr. Liddall

My point was about combing-out men who are of value to the ship-

building yards in order to supply other Forces. Such men are being roped into the various branches of His Majesty's Forces, although they could be much more useful, doing work to which they are accustomed, if they were brought back into the shipyards.

Sir V. Warrender

Yes, Sir, but my hon. Friend knows that there is a conflict of interests. Such men are vitally required to build ships, but are also vitally required by the land Forces for the repair and maintenance of Army vehicles. It is a question of assimilating the needs of one Force to those of another.

Mr. Liddall

I asked that ships should be given priority.

Sir V. Warrender

I agree that it is a question of priority and that it is for each Service to substantiate its claim. My hon. Friend, knowing the First Lord of the Admiralty well, may be sure that the right hon. Gentleman is not slow in stating his case. I cannot go further than that. My hon. Friend suggested that we should go back to the use of coal for the Fleet. That is a very long and contentious argument. I do not propose to embark upon it. It is sufficient to say that the qualities and the performance of our fighting ships must be equivalent, if not superior, to those of enemy ships which they have to meet at sea. If we have to meet oil-driven ships, which have very superior qualities, while we have sent coal-fired ships, these ships will be in a position of immediate inferiority. It is no exaggeration to say that the Battle of the River Plate could never have ended in a British victory if the cruisers which met the pocket battleship had not been oil-fired. They would not have been able to turn on extra speed at a moment's notice; indeed, they might not have had the fuel required to complete the action, coal being very difficult to obtain in those waters. So that I think my hon. Friend may rest assured that, after many years of study, the view taken by the Admiralty that the Fleet should use oil fuel is the correct one.

He also asked why the men in the Merchant Navy did not receive military awards and decorations. They are given civil awards for the reason that it is in their own interest. If they were given? military decorations, they might be suspect were they to fall into enemy hands. Members of this Service are given military awards if they are employed directly on active service, as they were, for instance, in the evacuation of Dunkirk.

Some concern was expressed by the hon. and gallant Member for St. Marylebone (Captain Cunningham-Reid) about the First Lord's remarks concerning corvettes. I hope I have been able to allay this concern. The hon. and gallant Member was good enough to tell us that he had some particulars about a mass-production submarine which the Germans were adopting, and I understand that he said that it would have serious repercussions. Obviously, these are matters which are better not discussed on the Floor of the House, but I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the Admiralty are fully alive to the traditional ingenuity of the Germans, and we know of what they are capable. But in case my hon. and gallant Friend's suggestion tends to cause public alarm, let it at least be remembered that although one may be able to build a submarine comparatively quickly, it is quite a different thing to find the crew to manage it or indeed the officer with the high degree of skill and courage required to command it and to undertake its successful operation at sea.

Finally, the hon. Member for Dunfermline (Mr. Watson) referred to the housing difficulties in a particular dockyard. We have been very much aware for some time of the conditions which have existed there, and we are fully conversant with the hardship which in many cases has been imposed upon those working in the yard. We have made very strenuous efforts indeed, as I think the hon. Gentleman knows, to get additional housing there, and in addition we have endeavoured to requisition houses and housing estates in the neighbourhood where the labour required could be accommodated. We are still persisting in our efforts to ease the housing situation—that is, my hon. Friend the Civil Lord is, because he is primarily interested in it—and if the hon. Gentleman has any views which will be of assistance, my hon. Friend will be only too glad to receive them. I might be allowed to mention that we have recently increased the subsistence allowance to men transferred up there from 21s. a week to 24s. 6d. a week, following upon the scheme brought in a few months ago by the Ministry of Labour to cater for workpeople sent to employment too far away from their homes for them to be able to travel backwards and forwards each day.

I think I have covered all the speeches which have been delivered on these Estimates, save those which refer specifically to the Amendment. Before sitting down, perhaps I might be allowed to say this: The glamour of the naval Service is naturally centred very much upon the men in the fighting ships, but it is sometimes forgotten that those men could not carry out their heroic deeds were it not for the fact that there is a sound and healthy organisation behind them. It is the fashion in these days in some quarters to deride the efficiency of the efforts made by the civil servants of this country. I think that those who have had experience of working at the Admiralty will agree with me that there we are singularly fortunate in the civil servants whom we find both in the responsible and in the subordinate positions in that Department. Let it not be forgotten that there has been a great expansion. Whereas the War Office, as I very well know, has had great relief in many respects by the formation of the Ministry of Supply, the Admiralty is still working the same organisation on an expanded basis which it had at the beginning of the war.

The task of victualling and clothing the Fleet in these days, when supply may be interrupted at any moment by enemy action in our own country, is a very responsible one and not very easy. 1 do not think it would be fair to leave out of the general recognition of services rendered given in this House to-day those civilians, of whom there are many thousands working long hours, who give a most wonderful devotion to their duty and who have a wonderful pride that they are serving the men of the Fleet. The fact that we are being spared any breakdowns of a serious nature is a great tribute to the devotion to duty of these men and women—because a great many of them are women. The enthusiasm is terrific, and I think they deserve a pat on the back from this House as well as from everybody else.

Question put, and agreed to.