NATIONAL FIRE SERVICE.

HC Deb 18 November 1941 vol 376 cc210-47

Sir Ralph Glyn (Abingdon)

The opportunity of this Debate permits me to ask the House to give a few moment's consideration to the present position of the National Fire Service, which is now the fourth Defence Service in the country. On it are placed very great responsibilities. We all feel that we should like to take an early opportunity of expressing our admiration for the wonderful work done by the old Fire Brigade during the Germans' air attack last spring. Those who were in London during that attack frequently saw firemen of the London Fire Brigade who, having worked all night, were still cheerful in the morning, having accomplished great tasks with great success. The same is true of other cities which suffered. Hon. Members who sit for constituencies associated with those areas well know the extraordinarily good work that was done under the old organisation.

I believe it is the duty of this House to consider one or two matters concerning the National Fire Service. I have always understood that a National Defence Service must be the care of Parliament, because for reasons of discipline and organisation, it is essential that Parliament, and only Parliament, should be acquainted with the position and should hold the responsible Minister to account in this House. The first thing to be remembered is that, under recent Regulations, entry into the National Fire Service now ranks above entry into the Army. That may come as a surprise to a good many people. I ought to qualify my statement by saying that men between certain ages are not being taken into the National Fire Service. When a man is called up and goes to an Employment Exchange, he is given the preference of joining the Navy, the Air Force, the National Fire Service and, last, the Army.

One matter requires immediate attention. The National Fire Service inherits the great prestige of that service which went before it, and it is important that nothing should be done to besmirch in any way the honour of the National Fire Service. We do not want embusqués in this Service. We do not want men to creep into the National Fire Service as a means of escaping duty elsewhere. We want to be perfectly sure, also, that, in the administration of the National Fire Service, the men selected are truly competent and receive appointment for no other reason. It ought to be the business of this House to review the actual position of the National Fire Service from time to time. As the appropriate Regulations were issued last August by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, in his capacity as Minister of Home Security, it is competent for us to ask how the scheme is progressing after these months have passed.

I do not think many of us have appreciated the extraordinary foresight that was shown in 1937–38 by the then Home Secretary and his officials, in visualising the effect of a heavy air attack on this country. When first the proposals were introduced for the formation of the Auxiliary Fire Service and for providing a national equipment, many of us felt highly critical against the conduct of the present Lord President of the Council. As Home Secretary, he set up in the Home Office, under a very respected Civil Servant, the administration of this new Service, and those of us who had any contact with it in those early days must have been acquainted with the efficiency shown and the consideration given to every hon. Member who put a case forward. In other words, the Service started with the confidence of this House.

The next thing was that the present Home Secretary introduced the proposals which are now embodied in the Fire Service Emergency Provisions (No. 1134) and explained them to this House. Great emphasis was placed at that time upon the Service being based upon a regional organisation. I hope the House will draw attention in the near future to the way in which the regional organisation is being misused. There is a great deal about the old organisation which could be useful and play a part in local administration. At the present time it takes all the bumps and gets none of the credit. It was stated that the chief regional fire officer would be responsible for supervising what was done in each region and for seeing that the traditions and the position of men who had proved themselves under the old local government services would be looked after.

When the regulations came out, it appeared that the whole matter was centralised and could not be dealt with by regional fire officers. Apparently, nobody can be dismissed from the Fire Service unless the Home Secretary approves. The lumbering-up with centralisation is extreme. If you over-centralise the National Fire Service, you are bound to tread on the corns of men who have given years of voluntary service as part-time firemen, who are proud of their work and who now find themselves put aside on various grounds. I suppose most hon. Members have heard from such men in their constituencies and know how sorry they are that more use is not being made of their services. I believe that if the organisation were allowed to remain more in the hands of the regions and less centralised in Whitehall, we should get over these difficulties with greater success. Everybody knows that in fighting attack from the air you must have trained men. To have a lot of amateurs, no matter how keen or how brave, is not enough. I think we all admit that something on the lines of the National Fire Service is essential, but many of us feel that it is bad for the morale of the country and of the organisation itself, to have in purely rural areas, men polishing the nozzles of fire hoses, at rates of pay which are quite adequate for 24-hour duty in the city, but are, possibly, somewhat large for sitting in a rural fire station.

In a good many of the regions they have set up training establishments which are gradually overtaking the need for more trained men, but those facilities are not yet sufficient. There are still many shortcomings in the establishment of the Service, and I believe that until it is more recognised as an essential Defence Service than it is to-day, we shall not feel assured that the keen men in the larger administrative posts are getting all that they think necessary. The organisation is extremely expensive, and the hierarchy which has been set up is tremendous. Under the regional officer there are divisional officers, column officers, senior company officers, company officers, section leaders, leading firemen and firemen. In addition there is the women's group, in which there are the senior area officer, the assistant area officer, the group officer and so on. This organisation will probably amount, eventually, to between 300,000 and 500,000 people. The administration is, naturally, localised and has to be connected up to the regional headquarters, and if an attack develops on a vulnerable point, it devolves upon the column officer and the fire force officer to delegate sufficient pumps to quell the first outburst and also to draw reserves from other parts. All this is highly complicated and involves a network of communication. It assumes that you will have an adequate number of men including part-time men, to man the engines and pumps, if the scheme is to work satisfactorily.

Under the Regulations laid down in August, there are various particulars of the conditions of service and of how discipline is to be maintained. There is no mention throughout of any trade union. I want hon. Members opposite to believe me when I say very sincerely that I regard trade unions as an essential part of the industrial life of this country. I do not believe it possible to have negotiating machinery without them. But, equally, I believe that if this is a National Defence Service you must not have dual loyalties. You are undermining the discipline of the officers by doing so. If it is right for the National Fire Service to have a trade union, why not the Army, the Navy and the Air Force? Some hon. Members will say that that simile is wrong. They will ask: What about the police? Have the police not got a trade union? But the police have not got a trade union. Hon. Gentlemen opposite will remember the organisation that was set up a few years ago to enable the police to have their conditions made more or less uniform throughout the country. It will be remembered that Lord Desborough was the head of a commission which made recommendations. To-day the police are not nationalised as a national force. The police to-day still serve under the watch committees of different local authorities, and there is far more reason, in their case, to have somebody which will see that there is uniformity in the treatment of the various police forces of the country, organised as they are on a local authority basis, than there is in the case of the National Fire Service.

The present Home Secretary was a highly successful and much respected Chairman of the London County Council [HON. MEMBERS: "Leader"] I beg par- don,—leader of the London County Council. A former clerk to the county council is now a respected and distinguished Civil Servant, and the head of the National Fire Service was the head of the London County Council Fire Brigade. So that the triumvirate at the head of the Service is principally representative of the London Fire Brigade. I do not think you could have a better cradle in which to bring out efficient administration. But it is inevitable that there must be certain people in Newcastle, Glasgow, Manchester and Birmingham who have a great sense of civic pride and a great belief in the efficiency of their services. They would like to see their ideas put forward and considered and this could be done if only the Government would place the regions more truly in control of this Service and not centralise it so much in London.

I believe that Mr. Jack Horner, who has been sending me, and no doubt other hon. Members, statements of what he wants done is a most efficient organiser. I am equally sure that in the days before the National Fire Service was formed the membership of his union was comparatively small. I do not know—I have not asked—but I believe he takes pride in saying that from 80 to 90 per cent. now belong to it. It would be interesting to know what conscripted men—remember that—who have to join the National Fire Service have to pay as dues to this union. It would also be interesting to know what is wrong with the Service, because there is something wrong—and I will come to that in a moment—which makes it possible for an outsider, but a skilled fireman, such as Mr. Horner, and some very able local representatives, to ask Members of Parliament to meet them and to discuss with them matters of discipline and pay and organisation generally. It is indeed an innovation of democracy to have trade unions dealing with men who have been conscripted. I do not know how it is going to work. I do not believe it is right, and I am convinced that it is not fair to the men who have been put in charge of the Service. You have to trust the men you appoint to responsible positions and hold them responsible to the Minister, who is himself responsible to this House. Do not let us run away on side issues connected with unions, dealing with conscripted men in a national service. I am sure that is wrong, and I think hon. Members opposite know that it will get us into a jam if it goes on. The grievances which are put forward by the men are, I am afraid, in many cases justified.

Mr. Gordon Macdonald (Ince)

May I ask my hon. Friend to tell us whether he would suggest some alternative machinery to take the place of the trade union's activities?

Sir R. Glyn

I am coming to that in a moment. In the proposals that have been put forward by the Fire Brigades Union in regard to allowances and the treatment of dependants, I believe there is a very real grievance, which the men feel very much. It should not be dealt with by agitations and meetings. I saw it stated in the daily newspaper which I read every day that there have been 400 meetings; the correspondent of the paper said that they were most admirable meetings and that the spirit of the men was excellent. I do not doubt that for a moment; my complaint is that it should not be necessary to have these meetings. What is wrong at the top? There is obviously something wrong, and I venture to think that the present Home Secretary has plenty to do as Home Secretary. I know the Lord President had plenty to do when he was Home Secretary, at the time when the Ministry of National Security was hardly hatched out of its egg. He sat on it and hatched out something which was quite successful, but I do not think he ever intended to live with it when it got so big.

Who is supposed to look after this vast Service? I believe it is the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Mabane). I am told by the firemen that he is responsible for this great Defence Service. The hon Member for Huddersfield has now, I am sure, considerable experience in connection with fire services, but I venture to suggest that when there are half a million men taking part in the defence of this country, it is not sufficient to put them under a Parliamentary Secretary. It is ludicrous to suppose that, unless you decentralize to the regions, which you are not doing, there will not be grievances not dealt with, so long as there is this bottleneck at the top. There can be no excuse for the wife of a fireman who is seriously hurt by enemy bombs having to depend, after a certain period of weeks, on public assistance. I think that is wrong. I also think it is wrong to treat rural fire organizations like the organizations in Liverpool, London, Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham, Coventry or anywhere else. Everybody in the country knows that it is not necessary to have full-time men, paid in excess of the agricultural rate, sitting around apparently doing nothing. I know that if the call should come, they would do a great deal, but the fact is they have not the opportunity of doing it. What is to be done can be perfectly well done by part-time firemen.

How far is the hon. Member for Huddersfield planning out the future of post-war fire services in this country? Somebody must be thinking about it. In the region in which my constituency lies I asked the other day whether any geographical points were being selected for fire-centres for the rural fire fighting services, with due regard to the essential factories which are now being put down in the rural areas. I was told: "No, nothing of the sort is being done. We have to play the cuckoo, and turn out the local fire brigade if it happens to have a fire station, irrespective of where it is, because it is impossible to get buildings." That seems to me to be rather absurd. It is only another indication that planning is necessary, not only for the present but for the future, and in doing so the organisation must be given the status of a great National Defence Service.

We are told by the Prime Minister that he wants constructive criticism, and this presumably is the opportunity to make some humble contributions. First of all, therefore, I would like to ask whether it is necessary to have a Fire Brigades' Union as the only medium through which the men can put forward their grievances. Would it not be much better if Mr. Jack Homer and the others could be absorbed into that part of the administration which, not being subversive of discipline and not risking any dual loyalty, would ensure to the regions an immediate representation of any grievances and an immediate chance of having things put right?

Secondly, I would like to know whether there is any control whatsoever over the levy paid to the Union by the men who are conscripted to join the Fire Service. It is probably a great deal more than it was when there was a smaller number of fire brigades which had to look to the Fire Brigades' Union as the only medium for obtaining continuity and uniformity throughout the country. Next, I should like to know whether it is not possible to differentiate between the cities and the rural areas. Conditions are so completely and utterly different. There are some admirable men belonging to auxiliary fire services and local authority brigades in the rural areas; they have rendered wonderful service, and they now find themselves subordinated to men who have done no fire fighting at all, who do not know the district and who have been conscripted into the Service. The chief officers of some of the local brigades know all the district, and surely they need not be thrust completely aside. These are not the days in which to throw away good material; they are the days in which we should use it to the best advantage.

Then, is it really necessary to have 24-hour spells of duty in a rural area as well as in the cities; and what is the opportunity for owners of factories to have some association, through the fire prevention organisation, with fire fighting? It is only in Great Britain that fire lighting is completely and utterly divorced from fire prevention. They are completely different organisations, and in the regions the officer responsible under the Commissioner for fire prevention has nothing to do, as far as we can make out, with fire fighting. Somebody else has to deal with that, and I am not at all sure that it does not come under another Minister. At any rate there must be some association between the fire prevention service existing in factories, dumps, etc., and the fire fighting service. If the National Fire Service is realty to be efficient, why in the name of reason is it still necessary to keep fire fighting organisations and other services outside its jurisdiction? I know of dumps containing valuable military stores which the regional fire officer has no power to enter In case of fire the Service fire brigade does its best, but I am told they are amateurs—so they are called by the regional fire officer—and he cannot even insist on knowing the conditions of efficiency in the depot or dump. They may call on outside brigades for help, but there is no liaison of any sort. There is another big factory making urgent stores for aircraft. If the place catches fire, the last thing to put on it is water. Water, on this particular commodity, will stop production, with an aircraft engine bottleneck. The other day there was a small fire. The fire prevention people knew that they must deal with it with sand, but not with water. Along came the local fire brigade. On came the water, completely ruining a product wanted by the Ministry of Supply. I do not blame them; it is simply because there is riot that contact between the one and the other. If it is possible to look upon the National Fire Service as a national service, and one to which you are empowered to conscript men, this House must take some interest in it to ensure that these grievances are corrected. I suggest that Mr. Homer and his friends should, somehow or other, be drawn into the organisation. We should not permit this anachronism of a trade union as the only medium to put forward ideas in a National Defence Service.

Let me say one word in conclusion. I think that we are probably going to have a far heavier air attack than we have yet had. I believe that, whether these grievances are put right or not, these men will fight the enemy as courageously and as splendidly as they have done before. But I do not believe it is right—it is certainly wrong of this House—to see that there is any legitimate grievance that we cannot put right by our own initiative without being dragooned by an outside body. Our responsibility we cannot shirk, and we must see that the conditions of the wives and dependants of these firemen and the conditions of the men themselves, are put right quickly, that the organisation at the top is worthy of the wonderful spirit of the men below.

Mr. Silkin (Peckham)

I regret to say that I disagree with almost everything that the hon. Gentleman has said. I believe that a good deal of his speech was devoted to attacking the Fire Brigades' Union. I believe that his speech would never have been made but for the agitation which that union has carried out. I believe that he would never have known the grievances of the men but for the publicity given to those grievances by the union. But for the union these men would have had no opportunity of expressing themselves at all, and their griev- ances, if any, would have remained entirely unsatisfied. The hon. Gentleman seemed to me—I hope he will forgive my saying so—to have a very slight acquaintance with the organisation of the fire brigade Service at all. For instance, he talked of it as a conscripted Service. It is nothing of the kind. It is true that under the National Service Act a number of men have been drafted into the Service, but by far the vast majority of the Service is a voluntary service of men who joined the Service before the war, and to talk of it as a conscripted Service is really entirely misleading. Then, again, the hon. Gentleman suggested that the effect of the National Service Act was to discourage volunteers from continuing in the Service, and he said that every Member of the House had had experience of volunteers having been encouraged to leave the Service. I am bound to say that it is not my experience. Volunteers have remained in the Service and have been encouraged to remain in the Service.

Sir R. Glyn

I never said that. What I said was that they did not like to have whole-time men put over them. As for conscription, it is a conscript Service if a man has to serve and can elect to serve in that particular branch of National Defence.

Mr. Silkin

As regards the volunteers, they are in exactly the same position as before. There is no change. If they objected to whole-time men being over them, they must have objected before. There has been no change in that respect at all. I merely say that as indicating to my mind that the hon. Gentleman has very little acquaintance with the Service itself. He talked of embusqués. As if any man would choose the fire brigade service as a shelter from military service. There are much more healthy shelters than the fire brigade. One's experience in London, which I know is true of many other cities, is that there has been a very large number of casualties, deaths and serious injuries in the fire brigade. It is an extraordinary proposition to me that any man anxious to avoid military service should go into the fire brigade for safety.

Sir R. Glyn

Does the hon. Gentleman know how many men there are in the National Fire Service who never see a fire but are employed in administrative jobs?

Mr. Silkin

I cannot answer that question, but there must be very few employed in administration, and administration is not confined to the National Fire Service. You have it in the Army, the Navy and the Air Force. I do not imagine that the proportion of people engaged in administration in fire brigades is any higher than the proportion in the Fighting Services; I should say, if anything, less. Really, I think that the hon. Member is quite wrong in suggesting that a Service which has done great and noble work is in any respect a Service for shirkers from the other Services. As a matter of fact, the reason why the National Service Act was passed at all was that men over 35 had been given the option of joining the Civil Defence Services instead of the Fighting Services, and not sufficient men had been produced for the Civil Defence Services. It was for that reason that the National Service Act, which enabled the authorities to compel men to go into those Services, was passed. Obviously, it was not an opportunity that men were running after to avoid service in the Army, Navy or Air Force. The hon. Gentleman is quite wrong, also, in regarding this Service as in any way a military Service. It is a Civil Defence Service, and I remember very well on the occasion of the Debate on the Second Reading, the Minister of Labour and National Service made a strong point of the fact that this was a civilian Service, not a military Service.

Therefore, it being a civilian Service, is there any reason why these men should not organise themselves into a trade union if they so desire? As a matter of fact, the Ministry of Home Security has recognised trade unions for other Civil Defence Services. It has also negotiated with them, as I believe it has negotiated with the Fire Brigades Union. For the life of me, I can see no reason why they should not. The hon. Gentleman has suggested as an alternative that Mr. Jack Horner and his friends should be brought into the administration, that they should, in a way, be converted into a company union. But surely the hon. Gentleman recognises that if it is intended to bring about a solution of the problem, it must be a solution which will be acceptable to both parties. He knows perfectly well that there have been more strikes and difficulties and more controversy arising over this question of company unions than over almost any other question. Surely the men are entitled, if the hon. Member recognises that they are to have an opportunity of putting forward their grievances collectively, to have an independent organisation, independent of the Ministry, and one which can speak for them, irrespective of what the Ministry might think. Surely, it will be recognised that a well-organised Service would be a much better disciplined Service and would result in much better work than if it were unorganised. Surely, it is essential that these men should have the opportunity to ventilate their grievances and to get them remedied. I am sure that the permission for this union to exist is good and in the interests of the men. I also agree that, whether these grievances are remedied or not, as my hon. Friend said, if the hour of need comes, those men will carry out their duties to the best of their ability. I feel that these grievances have had rather short shrift from the Minister. I should like to give the Parliamentary Secretary an opportunity to state the reasons for the rejection of the men's claims.

There are five of these claims in all. The men claim that they should now be put on the fixed basis of remuneration, and not on the Civil Defence rate. The auxiliary firemen are doing exactly the same work as the regular firemen, working side by side with them, and it seems wrong that the regular firemen should get a higher rate of pay. The auxiliary firemen work the same number of hours, and they are now equally well trained. In fact, the object of forming a National Fire Service was to weld the whole organisation into one big service, and that welding has been successfully carried out. The regular firemen are quite in agreement on this point—the objection does not come from them. My hon. Friend declares that there is a Civil Defence rate for all Civil Defence workers, that these men are Civil Defence workers, and that it would be unfair for them to be paid at a different rate from other Civil Defence workers. I realise the force of that argument. If my hon. Friend had been consistent, and had carried the argument right through, there might have been something in it. But in the rescue service men are paid a higher rate than the Civil Defence rate. A carpenter, for instance, in the rescue service is paid at the trade rate for car- penters. I have had a good deal to do with the rescue service, and I know what I am speaking about. How can you defend the payment of different rates to men who are working side by side at the same job?

Moreover, the regular fireman is paid at the full rate in sickness, while the auxiliary fireman is limited to 13 weeks' payment. Cases have been reported in the Press of men who were seriously injured in the course of their duties, and who, after 13 weeks, have been dismissed from the Service, their sick pay stopped, and the men compelled to rely upon the Poor Law. It is scandalous that men injured in the course of those duties should have to go to the Poor Law. It is equally scandalous that if a man is working with another fireman and both get injured, the auxiliary fireman ceases to get compensation at the end of 13 weeks, although the regular fireman continues to receive it indefinitely. Then there is the question of discipline. Quite rightly, a code of discipline has been laid down for the Fire Service. The complaint of the men, and I think a legitimate complaint, is that the administration of the code is entirely in the hands of a superior officer, and that they have no right of appeal to an independent person. With the best will in the world, an individual may be wrong, or may be prejudiced, or may be vindictive; yet the whole future of a man may depend on the decision of his immediate superior. We recognise everywhere the right of appeal, but the fireman has none, except to other officers.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Home Security (Mr. Mabane)

To the Regional Commissioners.

Mr. Silkin

In certain cases. The complaint is that they have not that right, generally speaking. If my hon. Friend has altered that, so that they now have the right to go to an independent person, that grievance ceases to exist. Then there is the question of hours. There, again, I think they have a legitimate grievance. In the main, they work 48 hours at a stretch, and then have 24 hours' rest. Generally speaking, they have nothing to do. They say that they are perfectly prepared to carry on indefinitely when there is work to do, but to have to carry on for 48 hours at a time with nothing to do seems to me, and certainly seems to the men, to be unreasonable. I recog- nise that it might be necessary to have some system by which the men were at call in case of need. That could easily be devised by forbidding the men to go far away. Finally, they complain about the lack of opportunity for promotion. Here I am merely repeating their allegation, because I have no proof. They claim that there is favouritism as regards promotion. I put that allegation forward for what it is worth. I have had two instances given to me, with which I do not propose to trouble the House, but which would appear to call for some explanation. Possibly the explanation would be forthcoming.

I imagine that the men would be well satisfied if they had equal pay with regular firemen, some readjustment of hours, and equal treatment as regards sick pay and accident pay. They would be prepared possibly to forgo any concession on the other matters—at any rate, until they are able to put up a much better case than they have been able to put up to me. I feel that they have not had altogether satisfactory treatment from the Minister, who has rejected all their claims offhand and given them nothing at all, treating the matter merely on the basis that they are Civil Defence workers and that they have to put up with the conditions of other Civil Defence workers. I hope that he will reconsider the matter. The country does not realise even to-day the immense debt of gratitude it owes to fire brigade services throughout the country. It is true that some have not had an opportunity of showing their worth, but if they have that opportunity, they will be equally as gallant, skilful and courageous as the others. Wherever these men have been tried they have not been found wanting. They deserve the very best treatment that this House can give them.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Cuthbert Headlam (Newcastle-on-Tyne, North)

The course of this Debate has shown so far that the House is mainly interested in three or four subjects, that the prestige of the Prime Minister remains unimpaired and that his critics are very few indeed in this House, and I believe they are fewer still in the country. But it has also shown that there is a certain distrust of some of the colleagues of the Prime Minister, although it is not very evident who those particular colleagues may be. It has also shown that we in this House, representing, I believe, the feelings of the country generally, are anxious to do all that we can to help Russia in her hour of need. It is considered by some Members of this House that in a totalitarian war, the kind of war in which we are now engaged, we are not exercising a drastic enough policy with regard to the conscription of labour and in matters of production.

It is clear that, if the Prime Minister were to decide to throw one of his band of brothers to the wolves, there are in this House a good many hon. Members who would have no hesitation whatever in suggesting to the Prime Minister the most suitable successor to that victim. But if there were two of his band of brothers thrown to the wolves, we should all of us be at considerable difficulty in deciding who the successor was to be for the second place. For myself, I frankly admit that I should not anticipate that we would be any nearer a speedy victory if, for instance, my right hon. Friend, the Member for Horsham and Worthing (Earl Winter-ton) were selected to fill the vacancy or even my hon. Friend the Member for South Croydon (Sir H. Williams). The truth of the matter is—and we must not disguise the fact from ourselves for one moment—that we are suffering to-day in exactly the same way as we suffered in 1914. We started this war utterly unprepared, and we cannot expect to have everything that we require ready in a very short space of time. Both industrially and militarily, we were not in any way ready for a major war, but the difference between this war and the last war is a very material one. In the last war we were able to check the German onrush before it had gone too far, and we were able, therefore, or we were given time for that reason, to organise our war effort and to improvise armies. In this war the collapse of France, the greater preparedness of Germany, the immensely more complicated armaments that are required and the tremendous rapidity of movement have rendered our task of improvisation a thousand times harder. Even if the Front Bench opposite were filled with supermen, they could not be expected to get our machinery of war going in anything like the same time as was done in the last war.

However, the question arises—and it is a question which has been ventilated in this Debate and which any critic has the right to ask—whether we have done and are still doing all that is humanly possible to expedite production and whether our organisation of supply is the best possible? It is extremely difficult for the ordinary man really to express an opinion upon such a subject, but all of us in this House are more or less in touch with those who are definitely connected with industry, and their points of view are continually being brought to our notice. Certain matters arise which require looking into and upon which the Government should give a reassurance to the House in this Debate. To-day one hears, on all sides and from all sorts and conditions of people, of the immense waste and extravagance that are going on and of incredible delays in production and the lack of a formed plan, as far as one can see, in the methods which are employed. I personally have always considered that the great mistake in the conduct of this present war has been to separate the two Ministeries of Supply and Labour. It would have been infinitely better if the people who were responsible for supply could also have been responsible for the labour required to produce the necessary supplies. There are cases of which I know, and probably they are known to other Members of this House, where factories have been built and equipped and nothing has happened for a very considerable time because the necessary labour is not forthcoming. That is going on, I am sure, all over the country, and it certainly has been going on in my own part of the world.

The Minister of Labour was, I think, gravely mistaken when he did not conscript labour after Dunkirk, when he came into office. I can understand that he was opposed to anything like that as a matter of principle. Such a procedure was opposed to everything he had stood for all through his life. But we are living in a grave emergency, and in a grave emergency you must be prepared to change your old ideas, at any rate, for the time being. Now we have this same Minister of Labour touring the country and telling us that things are "desperate" and threatening to conscript women to work in the factories when he signally failed to conscript men. From all I have seen myself and from what I am told there is a great deal too much of the old Civil Service tradition in the way of administration. No one holds a higher opinion of the Civil Service than I do. I belonged to it in a minor sense at one time, and I have been intimately acquainted with it and its procedure all my life, but what is good enough in times of peace is not good enough in time of war. When you have things referred back from one branch to another and from one office to another, and you have everything referred to committees, you are not going to get things done quickly.

There is a very good rule that it is better far to get a thing done, and perhaps not quite as well done as you think it ought to be done, rather than to go on waiting and scheming to improve the thing so much that when it is produced it is the most perfect thing of its kind in the world. I should like some kind of assurance that this method of referring everything to a committee is not to be the practice for the rest of the war. I know we have a most distinguished ex-Civil Service official sitting on the Treasury Bench—the Lord President of the Council. No one could have a greater admiration for his official ability than I, but I sometimes wonder whether he would not be well advised to change his old conceptions for the time being and let offices get a move on more quickly than they are doing at the present time.

As regards the actual prosecution of the war itself, I think we must be very grateful for the improved situation which exists. I can understand perfectly well the great anxiety there is in the country generally to do something more active to help Russia. Last night, before I came to London, I had a deputation of workers to see me from Tyneside. They came to tell me how much the working people in their part of the world were anxious that we should take prompt action on the Continent, in a military sense, to assist Russia and that we should create, as they said, a Western front. They pointed out what was being said in the Press about the advisability of such a course, and they said that Stalin himself had suggested that it was the right thing to do. They told me that if the workers were assured that we were doing all we could to help Russia, they would increase their output by 20 per cent. I pointed out to them that the situation was fully appreciated by His Majesty's Government, as expressed in the House of Commons by the Prime Minister, and I also pointed out that the Prime Minister had given every assurance that everything we could possibly do to assist Russia by supplies, and money too, no doubt, was being done, but when it came to this question of establishing a Western front, I tried to explain to them the difficulties of the situation.

It is a curious thing that in this House and the country generally those who are most anxious that we should start a military expedition on the Western front, as it is vaguely described, are those who a short time ago were the leading advocates of disarmament—some of them avowed pacifists. At any rate, they were men who rather looked down on the military and were determined that we did not want armies in future. It is these gentlemen who are so active now in telling us that we must embark upon an expedition on the Western front. I do not know, and if I did I should not say, how many ships are required to convey a single British division across the sea. But I do know how many ships are required to convey a single strengthened German division across the sea, and I think I am perfectly at liberty to divulge that secret. It requires 50 ships, each of 5,000 tons, and as I pointed out to my friends in the North last night, it is quite impossible that we should be able to find the requisite shipping for carrying out such an undertaking at the present time. It is not one division we should want, but 30 or 40 if it was to be an effective military effort. My friends then suggested that we ought to make little incursions into the Western front which would keep the Germans wondering what we were going to do next. My reply was that such incursions or cutting-out expeditions would not lead to the movement of a single German division from the Eastern front; in other words, that although it might be good for the morale of the people in the country wherever the expedition went, providing it was successful, it could not have any effect whatsoever on the war at the present time. That being so, it seems to me that we must bide our time, as things are, until the right moment comes.

I reminded my friends as I should like to remind the House to-day, of an old maxim of Napoleon, who said: The whole art of war consists of a well-reasoned and extremely circumspect defensive followed by a rapid and audacious attack. It is perfectly obvious that if final victory is to be obtained, the German army must be defeated in the field, and until the right moment arrives we should be singularly ill-advised to risk another adventure such as that which led to the retreat from Dunkirk, the Cretan incident or our intervention in Greece. Another front will develop itself before any of us are much older, if we are to judge from the events which are passing to-day. For the time being our task is to help to the utmost of our ability by supplies—and active intervention wherever it may be possible—to the Russians in their struggle against our common foe, the Germans.

Now that the Russians have been forced into the fight we are in a position infinitely better than we were before that event happened. When France failed us the whole basis of the policy of this war was knocked out; we had no military Ally of any kind on the Continent. Now we have a great military Power associated with us, and everywhere we see on the Continent a revival of that spirit of independence among the conquered peoples which must ultimately mean the end of Hitler. Our task, therefore, must be to strengthen our Army in every possible way, to build up immense reserves of power and, above all, to see that we are secure at home, because that is the real and true meaning of Napoleon's maxim about the defensive. What is the good of our attempting to strike out all over the world unless we are quite certain of ourselves? There are people who tell us that we have no need to fear an invasion of this country, and I am always thankful, therefore, when the Prime Minister and his colleagues remind us over and over again that the real danger to us in this country is at home.

We must have at home an Army strong enough to resist an invasion, and when we are in that position, then, and then only, can we look to a foreign expedition in which we shall meet the German army on land. I am certain that the duty of the House, the duty of us all, is to make it clear to the people outside, who are in- fluenced by so much that is written by unthinking people in this respect, that the policy of the Government at the present time, from a military point of view, is the only wise and sensible one. No more uncertain expeditions. Our task, when expeditions do take place, is to see that our forces are strong enough for what is expected of them and that we are never again in the position in which we were in 1940-41. That is the main lesson that we ought to have learned, that it is perfectly ridiculous and wrong in every way to risk, simply for the sake of satisfying public opinion, another Continental expedition until we are thoroughly prepared for it.

Mr. Orr-Ewing (Weston-super-Mare)

I will not follow my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for North Newcastle (Sir C. Headlam) into all the arguments he used, but will return to a subject which, at the moment, does not appear to have been fully cleared up, although some aspects of it have been ventilated by my hon. Friend the Member for Abingdon (Sir R. Glyn). One remark made by the hon. and gallant Member for North Newcastle would possibly serve in some manner as a text for the few words that I want to speak. He said that the real danger is at home. I wish to reinforce that statement by saying that one facet of that danger must not only be studied, but every preparation must be made to meet it, through the National Fire Service. When the hon. Member for Abingdon opened the Debate on this subject I could not help but feel that he was under some misapprehension as regards the type of organisation that is being built up and the comparison of the present, and we hope the future, organisation with that which obtained in the past.

A good deal was said both by the hon. Member for Abingdon and by the hon. Member for Peckham (Mr. Silkin) on the subject of a union, but I do not think they made quite clear the grounds on which such a union would carry on its activities. It may well be, in my opinion, that when a National Fire Service has been fully formed, with something of the same form of structure as exists in the Fighting Services, a union will not be a necessary means of expression, but I think it is very hard to say, at the present stage of development of the National Fire Service, what will be the best means by which those within the service can express their feelings and their possible grievances.

The hon. Member for Abingdon made a charge of over-centralisation as regards the National Fire Service. After listening very carefully to his speech, I am not entirely clear as to the basis of that charge. If he meant that there is too much control in London over the fire-fighting operations in the regions, I think he is manifestly wrong. My experience and observation in the regions leads me to say that if my hon. Friend had studied that aspect of the matter rather more closely, I think he would not have made any suggestion that that is the case. If, on the other hand, he meant that in selecting those who are now, and are to be, officers in the new National Fire Service, the control at the centre is too great, again, I think that if he had studied the methods of selection of those officers, he would have found that they were examined and interviewed in the regions, and that it was only those who applied, and who were thought fit to apply, for the highest posts of command who were, in fact, interviewed by a central selection board in London. On both those counts, I think that if my hon. Friend will examine the position rather more closely, he will agree that some of his statements were perhaps rather wide of the mark. As far as I have been able to observe and ascertain, there is no attempt in London to control the actual fire-fighting activities of the regional organisations and no attempt from the centre to dictate who should or who should not hold responsible posts within the regional fire-fighting organisations, except in so far as the central selection board was set up to examine, interview and vet those who applied for posts in the higher command of the fire services.

My hon. Friend went on to refer to the rural areas and those concerned in the National Fire Service in those areas. It is true that he prefaced his remarks by some admirable statements about the need for efficiency in fire fighting being the only gauge as to the value of the men within the Services, but at the same time, unwittingly, he cast a slur upon those who have to stand by, hour after hour, day after day, week after week, in the rural areas, not only to protect the vulnerable points within those areas, but ready to reinforce the fire services stationed in big centres should they be subjected to sudden attack. I think that the picture he suggested of idle men sitting in the countryside waiting for something to happen gave an entirely false impression. In making that remark, my hon. Friend should also have said that there have been many thousands of idle men—idle through no fault of their own—sitting in the cities waiting for something to happen. The fact that the men to whom my hon. Friend referred are in the country does not imply in the least that their local knowledge is the only thing that must be considered in the question of appointments. The actual methods of fire fighting in war-time are so widely divergent from—one might say contradictory to— those which existed in peace-time that an entirely different set of knowledge and facts must be in the possession of those who are in control. Many firemen in responsible positions have told me that if they had fought fires in peace-time as they have had to fight them in blitz conditions, they would have got the sack next day.

Fire fighting in peace and in war has very little in common. We all know that there must be many disappointed men—excellent men, and, with great respect, grand old men—who have spent many years of their lives organising local fire services and bringing them up to a considerable pitch of enthusiasm and efficiency. But does that mean that they would be the right men to control the movement of large numbers of pumps from one area of the country to another, and does that mean that they would be the right men to care for the welfare of the personnel and maintain the machines under conditions which they would find impossible to visualise merely as a result of their peace-time experience? We all respect these men, and I think that it would be wrong to suggest that they are being thrown out of their areas. They are not being thrown out. If it is a question of resenting more experienced men being put over them, then, if we are to accept the statement of the hon Member for Abingdon, that efficiency is the only test, we must ask, to gauge their value, whether their experience is the right experience. Quite obviously, those who have had experience of fire fighting in a blitz and have proved that they can not only handle the men but care for their welfare under these conditions, are the men who have first claim to hold positions within the new National Fire Service.

What other statements were made by the hon. Member which may also have quite unwittingly misled the House? There is the question of fire prevention, and in this connection I speak purely from my own personal experience. His suggestion that there should be a closer link between regional headquarters seems to me to smack of that very thing to which he objected—over-centralisation. If there is a fully trained and efficient branch of the National Fire Service in any area, much the best policy, as regards fire protection, is organisation within the area itself, and I can assure the hon. Member and the House, from factories within my own personal knowledge that that link is not only very close but is very real, and that when of necessity the local fire service have to be called upon to assist, they have not only known what to do and how to do it, but they certainly have not committed anything like the blunders contained in the story which the hon. Member told. By and large, I would say that no one can criticise very much the administration of the National Fire Service at the present time and over past months. The Fire Fighting Service has had and still has grievances which it is the duty of this House to put right. But would it not be fairer to examine the picture when it has been more fully painted?

We are in the process of building up a vital Civil Defence Service—I would call it a military defence arm. Fire is one of the oldest and strongest weapons an enemy has ever used and modern methods of raising fire have very much outstripped modern methods of prevention. We should fully appreciate the immensity of the risk and recognise the necessity for wider training, but we must also look at the problem as it is at its present stage of solution. Do not let us pretend that the organisation is even yet complete. It is not, and it is nothing like complete. I wonder if the hon. Member realises that in selecting men for the higher command in the National Fire Service, with very few exceptions no records of service had been kept. I think, therefore, that the House will appreciate the enormous difficulties which existed in selecting suitable men with a background and a history be- hind them. I believe that this matter has been put right, and that in future complete records of service will be kept in the same way as in the other Services. Let us be fair, and let us withhold judgment, but not necessarily criticism, until the organisation, the structure and the framework of the picture are complete.

Dr. Russell Thomas (Southampton)

I am afraid that it was not until Question Time that I knew that this matter of the National Fire Service would be brought before the House. I should like to say a few words on behalf of the claims which have been put forward by the firemen. In my opinion they are fair and reasonable claims. I am not going into the academic discussion of divided loyalties as to whether a union should exist in a Service, but if these men had been treated with fairness and justice I do not believe any of these questions would have arisen. As they do not appear to have been treated with fairness and justice, the men had no other alternative but to combine and try to force their opinion upon the Government. The hon. Member who opened the Debate also referred to conscription. I believe it has been made quite clear in this Debate that for the most part these men have not been conscripted, but in any case they are in no different position compared with large numbers of people in this country. Miners are forced to work and many seamen have to return to their ships whether they like it or not, and they are liable to prosecution if they do not do so, but no one would suggest that the Miners Federation or the National Union of Seamen should be disbanded on that account.

Let us consider the claims of these men. First of all, they ask for a uniform wage. They are not asking for an excessive wage, but merely for £4 a week throughout the country. At the present time there are, I think, about 20 different rates of pay in existence. I believe that many regular firemen in this country are in agreement with this demand, and I am sure that it is not beyond the power of negotiation to put this matter on a proper basis. Another claim relates to the hours of service. At the present time men are working about 112 hours per week. That is a very long time, especially when one remembers the disagreeable surroundings—the basements and garages and so on—in which these men have to serve. They suggest that their hours should be limited to 72 per week, and I consider that to be a fairly reasonable claim. I do not suggest for one moment that they should not work during a blitz; they are willing to do so. I have seen these men working during a blitz, and I can assure the House that they are exposed to conditions as severe as those which any soldier might have to face. There are many other people employed by the Home Office who are asked to work many fewer hours but with far greater pay.

The other thing that they ask for is increased sickness benefit. We all know how dreadful it is to think that anyone who suffers injury due to enemy attack should be thrown upon public assistance after 13 weeks. That has happened over and over again.

They are asking for better disciplinary methods. The disciplinary code, which is a new code, is highly unsatisfactory. It is chiefly concerned with punishing the men by taking away their wages. Those who suffer are not so much the men as their wives and their families. I believe my hon. Friend would not resort to severe measures of that kind if he could avoid it. Normally he would allow the offence to be tried by a magistrate, and a fine of perhaps 10s. imposed It may be argued that these people should have entire military discipline and be confined to barracks. I have heard that suggested, but men who are already doing 112 hours a week in basements could hardly be confined very much longer, because there would be not much of the week left.

They also complain of the unfairness of promotion. I do not think there is any doubt that promotion has gone to those who have inside interests, those who are able to pull strings here, there and everywhere, who have been in the Fire Service before the war. I believe that promotion should rest entirely on efficiency and service. That is the only basis on which it should take place. I believe that many very good firemen have been pushed into the administrative part of the service. Men who are expert firemen should be kept outside, to make the brigade as efficient as possible, and they should recruit others for the administrative parts. The right hon. Gentleman has built up a great and splendid bureaucratic machine, which is what we should expect from the right hon. Gentleman, but if the human elements which make up that machine are not treated fairly and justly, he can never expect the machine to function efficiently. I believe he has procrastinated, and that is a fault that he frequently indulges in.

I am not a trade unionist, and I have not been briefed in this matter by a trade union or anyone else. As a barrister, I do not belong to any lawyers' society, and, as a doctor, I do not belong to either of the two trade unions which represent the medical profession, either the Medical Practitioners Union on the one hand, or that more sinister and anti-social body, the British Medical Association, on the other. I approach the matter from a purely neutral standpoint and from the standpoint of justice and fair play. If the right hon. Gentleman had been here, he would have had nothing to fear. He need not have brought the Prime Minister with him in order to safeguard him, nor would he have needed to invoke the great Parliamentary abilities of the Prime Minister in order to deflect the mind of this House from one of contumely to one of satisfaction, which, I believe, happened on a recent occasion.

Major Sir Jocelyn Lucas (Portsmouth, South)

I wish to put one or two of the points which are most strongly felt. Perhaps the most important is this: A Regular soldier and a Militiaman get exactly the same treatment in sickness or in health. The regular fireman and the auxiliary, on the same job, get different treatment. An injured regular gets his full pay, while an auxiliary, with perhaps a fractured thigh, at the end of eight weeks goes on to the civil injuries scheme and loses his pay of £3 10s., going down to 35s. If he is a married man, that must be a great source of anxiety. If he has no private means, he has to fall back upon public assistance. The cost to the Treasury would be exceedingly small. Not more than 5 per cent, of injured firemen are unfit for duty at the end of 13 weeks, which is the outside range for which at present they get full pay. The moral effect on men and on their wives and families would be tremendous.

With regard to the penal code, the wage of £3 10s. a week is based on the cost of living. If a man has £6 10s. taken off, at 10s. a week, that is very hard on his wife. A way out would be to do what you do in the Army and give the men, in addition to their basic wage, proficiency pay. If a man misbehaves, you can take that from him and it will not affect the wife, though she might say something to the husband afterwards. If he got that as well, it would be an encouragement to proficiency and doing the job properly. One of the greatest mistakes made at the beginning of the war was paying officers and men of the Auxiliary Fire Service at the same rate. It made a tremendous difference to morale when the officers had their pay raised.

On the question of hours, I should like to say a word or two on the question of what the men do when they are confined to their quarters. Many of them while away their time making toys for the children—a very excellent object. Many of them feel very much that they would welcome any opportunity given by the Minister of Supply to make some small gadgets which would not require a great deal of skill and allow the money so earned to be given to the Firemen's Benevolent Fund. If the Minister would give consideration to that, it would go a long way to pleasing them. With regard to the union, if it had not been for its agitation many Members would not have known of the troubles of the firemen at all.

Mr. McLean Watson (Dunfermline)

We are indebted to the hon. Member for Abingdon (Sir R. Glyn) for having raised this discussion. I can assure him that some of his remarks at any rate will not be lost on this side of the House. The National Fire Service is not the only national Service that we want to see established, and, if the rule that he has endeavoured to put- before the House is to be the rule with regard to all national Services, we shall have to discuss and re-examine the matter very closely. We on this side have been in favour of the nationalisation of mines for a very long time, and we believe that even under a nationalised system we should require the services of a miners' union to look after the interests of the men, because conditions underground are so varied that uniform conditions cannot be laid down. We have also been in favour of the nationalisation of railways. I believe that the hon. Member is interested in railways, and I suppose that if his dictum were accepted and we nationalised the railways, the railwaymen's unions would have to go because there would be no need for them in a nationalised system. The hon. Member may say that what we are discussing is the fourth defence system. I wonder whether he could put up an argument against either the railways or the mines being regarded as part of our defence system? In the present situation they are as great a part of the system of defence as the Fire Service.

Those of us who were privileged to take part in the discussions upstairs a few years ago on the Fire Brigades Bill knew that the stage that we had reached at that time was not the final stage; it was simply a stepping stone towards the National Fire Service. That Service has now come and the hon. Member has put up an argument against the continuation of a union being associated with it. He says that it should be in the same position as the Army, Navy and Air Force and that no union should be attached to this fourth defence service. We on this side of the House believe that in the present situation the firemen are justified in banding themselves together to see that a proper system of wages and conditions is established. The time may come when there is such satisfaction within the Service that a union is no longer required. If that ever becomes the feeling of the men they themselves will see that the union is terminated. They will not continue it longer than they feel it is required. The present system has developed since the previous Act was passed and we began to get local authorities to work together to undertake fire prevention. Since that system began to work we have been gradually getting on to the National Fire Service. It is unnecessary to cover the ground that has been admirably covered by the hon. Member for Peckham (Mr. Silkin) who put up the case for the men and did it effectively. I agree with the position as he stated it and as it has been stated by the hon. and gallant Member for South Portsmouth (Sir J. Lucas). The men have a just grievance. Men are engaged in this Service working the same number of hours and doing the same work for different rates of pay. We shall not get satisfaction in the Service so long as that is permitted to continue. I would appeal to the Minister to have this matter carefully examined. I have considered the demands put forward carefully and I believe that they are justified.

I will not discuss the qualifications of the men who have been appointed as regional controllers. I daresay that the best men available have been selected and that they are doing their best to form in the various areas fire brigades that will be capable of dealing with fires in both the larger towns and the rural areas. There is, however, one thing on which I want to touch, because I am in communication about it with the Secretary of State for Scotland. Where local authorities who have previously been in control of the fire brigades have been discussing plans for the setting-up of a new system, it is surely only reasonable that the controllers should consult the authorities who know their areas best as to the regions that are to be set up. I am in communication with the Secretary of State about a case where a scheme that had been drafted by the local authorities was brushed aside by the regional controller, who put a new system of his own in its place. That is not good enough. When we are building up a National Fire Service, in which, I agree, the regional controllers should be given a considerable amount of power, there should at least be consultation between the controllers and the local authorities. I hope that as a result of to-day's discussion this matter will be re-examined by the Home Office and that a real and honest endeavour will be made to get a settlement of the dispute that is already in existence between the Fire Brigades Union and the Home Office. If the Home Office want to get rid of a union of that kind, the only way to do it is to have satisfaction among the men who are in this new Service. I hope that we shall have some assurance that as a result of the agitation of the union we shall have harmony and satisfaction in this our latest national service. I would have liked to say something about the question of conscription. We are having a great deal more conscription than we really enjoy in this country, and there is nothing surer than that when the war is over a great deal of that conscription and compulsion will have to go. These are restrictions that we are willingly bearing in the circumstances of the day, but when we can breathe again freely many of them will have to go.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Home Security (Mr. Mabane)

At the opening of this Debate the hon. Member for Abingdon (Sir R. Glyn) said he thought the time had come when the House might properly inquire how the scheme which established the National Fire Service was progressing. It is now almost six months since the House adopted the Bill upon which this nationalisation was founded, and I must say that the Department welcomes this opportunity of saying something about the development which has taken place. It has been very gratifying to hear from Members on all sides of the House the tributes which have been paid to the old fire brigades, as the hon. Member called them, notwithstanding the fact that the heavy attacks that we experienced a little time ago have not been upon us recently. I would remind the hon. Member that the old brigades are the same as the new brigades, the same men are in them, and I would also remind the House that when we think of the National Fire Service we must now think of it as we did before, as a body composed not only of those engaged whole-time in the business of fire-fighting, but as composed substantially of ordinary citizens engaging in a part-time duty after their normal day's work has been done. It would be a great pity it we were to lose those part-time volunteers, upon whom the efficiency and the effectiveness of the service depends, for without them we could not have the necessary man-power.

I would also remind the House, as one who has been occupied with the Civil Defence services in this Department since the beginning of the war, that at times it has been rather an uphill fight, and the House has recognised that fact when it has been mentioned before from this Box. At times the House has been rather grudging of the attention paid to the Civil Defence services and of the money spent upon them, and there have been many occasions when we in the Department would have welcomed support from the House in making progress in many directions. I do not say that to defend myself from what, I gather, was one of the complaints of the hon. Member, namely, that the National Fire Service is under my control. It is not. It is under the control of the Home Secretary, who has delegated to me a substantial measure of responsibility.

Sir R. Glyn

I had nothing personal to say. What I meant to suggest was that it should be under a whole-time Minister.

Mr. Mabane

I should like to point out that this very great change has been carried through in an extremely speedy manner. It is a change which would have taken a very long time in peace. Nevertheless, within six months of the introduction of the Bill we are able to debate in the House the development of this National Fire Service from its very initiation. It has not been an easy change, and I would remind the House that we have been making this change while we have been crossing the stream, or might have been crossing the stream. The House will realise that it has been welcome to us that while this change has been taking place we have been left in comparative quiet by the enemy. I was interested to hear one or two speakers say that in the past the country, and perhaps the House, has never really appreciated the consequences of a really serious attack by incendiary bombs upon this country. Indeed, as we look back we realise that criticisms were made of the service not because it was too small but, often, because it was too large. We learned our lessons when the incendiary bombs came, and we undertook this business of nationalisation and reorganisation.

I should like to say a word about the reorganisation. It should be remembered that the purpose of this nationalisation was to make a unit of the whole fire-fighting forces of the country. There were somewhere about 1,450 separate authorities responsible for fire brigades, and there was a loose unification of control, but it was more loose than unitary. Those 1,450 brigades have now been reduced to 37 fire forces, five of them in London, and those fire forces are now knit together in a hierarchy of control and command. There is the fire staff at the Home Office; there are in each of the 12 Civil Defence regions chief regional fire officers; under them there are fire force commanders; and so, down the scale, it is one chain of command from top to bottom. The officers who have had to take the higher ranks in the new National Fire Service have had to undertake responsibilities far greater than any fire chief ever had before. A divisional officer to-day is a man who has command of about 100 pumps and 1,000 men, and I think I am right in saying that in peace-times there were few, if any, brigades, outside the London Fire Brigade, with a command of that character. When we come to the fire force commanders in the large fire force areas and the regional fire officers it should be realised that we have created a new level of responsibility in the Fire Service.

But while we have created these new responsibilities I do not not think the hon. Member for Abingdon was quite right in suggesting that we have centralised affairs. As I look at the Fire Service I am rather struck by the extent to which that responsibility and authority have been delegated from the Home Office to the chief regional fire officers commanding under the Regional Commissioners and the fire force commanders. I have been re-reading the Debate which took place when this Bill was introduced, and then the House was rather emphasising the necessity for centralising authority in this matter. We have endeavoured to centralise and to unify training in certain directions. The degree of training and efficiency up and down the country varied enormously, varied from one city to another and from one rural area to another, and it was clear that we should have to establish a uniform system of training. We have since established a National Fire College, and from that college are flowing out instructors and men who can unify the drill of the fire service throughout the country and, I am sure, make it more efficient.

Before I leave this matter of organisation I should like to deal with one other matter raised by the hon. Member for Abingdon and by other Members. The hon. Member seemed rather contemptuous of the rural brigades, speaking of men who hung about and seldom saw a fire. it must be remembered that now the rural brigade is just as much a part of the fire-fighting organisation of the nearest town as the brigade in that town. Going about the country I have been struck by the number of rural brigades which have had very considerable blitz experience. Some of them have in their stations little shields with the names of the places to which they have been called, which show that they are by no means without fire-fighting experience, and they have done remarkably good work. Now the whole of the fighting force in an area surrounding any target is just as much a part of the force available for that target as are the fire pumps nearest the target.

One hon. Member made a particular point about consultations with local authorities. He said it was essential that the fire service authorities should consult with the local authorities. We do that, and only in the last day or two have sent further instructions to secure that it is done. Then there has been criticism of the administrative machinery. It has been suggested that we have a large army of administrative officials who, perhaps, are not doing very useful service. I am fairly certain that in the fire service the proportion of the total force who are in the front line will compare very favourably with the proportion in any other service. There was a reference on a previous occasion to the "teeth and the tail" of a service. The proportion of teeth in the fire service is very high in relation to the tail. It must be remembered that we have had to set up a new administrative machine. Before the fire service was nationalised the administration was being conducted by 1,450 authorities, with little bits of things going on here and little bits of things going on there. We have had to co-ordinate and weld them into one administrative whole. Furthermore, there were some tasks which were not being done at all. At the fire force headquarters we have six officers—the chief clerk, the finance officer, the transport officer, the stores officer, the establishment officer and the catering officer. One lesson that we had to learn was that it was essential to provide men with proper food and drink when they were sent to distant fires. We are looking after all these things. Our administrative machine is by no means overlooking them.

Now I would like to turn to other matters which bulked largely in the Debate, relating to trade unionism and conditions of service. My hon. Friend the Member for Abingdon made the point that the Fire Service is not a proper sphere in which trade unions should operate. He has made the point a little late, because the matter was much in discussion during the Debates on the Bill, not merely on the Second Reading but during the Committee stage, when Amendments were moved not to secure that the Fire Service should be free of trade unionism but that members of the Fire Service should be entitled to join unions. A definite statement was made on that subject by the Minister at that time. In general, matters connected with the Civil Defence Service, relating to such things as conditions of service, have been discussed for a long time with a consultative body representing the whole body of trade unions. So far as I know, no objection has been raised about the process of consultation; moreover, ready and easy consultation with the trade union has been of the greatest possible help.

I am sure that the Fire Brigades Union recognises its own position. It is a member of the general consultative body and desires to be a body easy of consultation. If any of the things were to happen that have been suggested, that is, if the union began to be a source of unrest and to create indiscipline, I am sure that the House of Commons would not stand it at all and that the position would have to be reviewed; but I am sure that that is not the position that the union desires to adopt. On the general subject of the conditions of service, it is important to remember that improvements are continually being made in them throughout the war. It is not as though we stood still. We have had to learn as we went along and collect our experience. The Department are entitled to a little credit on account of the continuous improvements that are being made.

I have now to deal with the five points of what is called the firemen's charter, and I will do so in some detail, because they were mentioned in some detail. The first point relates to rates of pay. The hon. Member for Peckham (Mr. Silkin) objected to the principle, on which the Department stands, that the Fire Service is part of the general Civil Defence Service. That principle has been laid down ever since the war broke out, and I do not think my right hon. Friend would be inclined to depart from it or from the principle that any rate laid down for the general Civil Defence Service must apply to the National Fire Service. The hon. Gentleman mentioned 3. differentiation to be found in the rescue service, but the basic rate there is the same as in the National Fire Service. The exception is that in the rescue party is one man who is entitled to a higher rate of pay on account of skill. It is confusing the issue to suggest that there are many different rates of pay in the National Fire Service, as if that were the determined and deliberate policy of the Department.

What has happened? Before the Fire Service was nationalised, every local authority could pay its firemen, within limits, what it liked, and naturally there were different rates all over the country. One uniform rate was established when the Service was nationalised, the present rate of £3 10s. per week but, naturally, those who joined the National Fire Service carried with them their own conditions. I do not think the House would have tolerated any suggestion from the Home Office that the contracts of these men, made in peace-time between them as professional firemen and their respective local governments, should be broken. Anyone who joins the Fire Service now comes in on the uniform rate, which is the rate throughout the Civil Defence Services. The difficulties connected with rates of pay are desired to be met. Then there is the position of the part-time regular firemen, the kind of man we know so well, who works, say at his blacksmith's shop during the day, and may be called up for fires. He is paid a retaining fee, and so much per hour, when he goes to a fire. There is a difficult problem with which we are having to deal. It is true to say that there is one rate for the National Fire Service now. Many firemen who came over to the Service upon its formation brought with them different rates and it is not deemed proper to break the contracts which had already been made with those men.

The next point of difficulty relates to injury and sick pay. Let it be remembered that at the beginning of the war entitlement was only to three weeks' pay if a man was injured. The Department did not find it exactly easy to secure the advance which it did secure, namely, that if, not merely a fireman but any member of a Civil Defence Service, was injured as the result of enemy action, he should receive, whether full-time or part-time, payment at the rate of £3 10s. per week, for 13 weeks as a limit. I ought to make it plain that, if he were fit to return to duty, before the end of the period of 13 weeks; then he would go back to the Service. If he would never be fit for duty again, the period of payment stopped at eight weeks and then he went on pension, exactly the same as anybody else in similar circumstances It was suggested that such a man went on to the Poor Law. The House knows that these pensions are administered by the Assistance Board. It is only in that respect that a fireman, injured and unable to return to duty, is in contact with the Assistance Board. I agree that the cost of extending the concession asked for in this case might not be large, and I can say that, while the matter has always been under consideration, it is at the present time under active consideration, in order that any grievances may be properly remedied.

Discipline is the fourth matter, one which is very difficult to deal with in a service like this. It would be intolerable if the only penalty possible to be imposed were dismissal There was a time when that was so, but now we have a discipline code which has been discussed with the trade union consultative body. Contrary to what was stated by the hon. Member for Peckham, there is an appeal. Certain penalties may be imposed, with an appeal to the Regional Commissioner, and certain other penalties may be imposed by an officer of rank not lower than divisional officer, in which case the appeal lies to the Fire Force commander. The final matter is concerned with hours. Hours of duty are not hours of work. The soldier, I take it, is on duty continuously; his duty is varied with periods of leave. The firemen and other members of the Civil Defence Services are required to be at their posts, although not working, but we do not know when a raid is coming, and they must be there to man the pumps when the time comes.

The fifth point is promotion. All that I can say is that I should like to know of any cases of unfairness or preference in regard to promotion. The hon. Member for Southampton (Dr. Russell Thomas) said that promotion was secured by influence. I would like to deny that most strongly. All I can say is that the original appointments to all the senior posts went to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State personally. There has been a most careful examination of candidates by a central selection board on which some hon. Members of this House sat; a careful examination of the candidates at the regions by regional selection boards, and I am quite certain that so far as it is humanly possible to avoid it, no sort of influence or unfair preference has been brought to bear in this matter of making appointments in the National Fire Service.

I have done my best to answer most of the points raised by hon. Members in this Debate. I think the Department can claim that the progress made since 20th May, when this Bill was introduced, has been by no means negligible, and I think they can also claim that the improvement in efficiency is already substantial.

Dr. Russell Thomas

May I interrupt my hon. Friend a moment? Do I take it that in point of fact he is not prepared to make any concessions to the Firemen's Union? I believe that is the burden of his speech. Would he make it clear?

Mr. Mabane

I do not think I have said that at all. I made it perfectly plain that all these matters affecting the conditions of service and pay of the Civil Defence Services have been continuously under consideration since war broke out. There have been continuous improvements as we have gained experience, and exactly in the same way any representations of this kind will be given the most careful and full consideration. If the circumstances merit it, changes, will be made to improve the Service. I wanted, however, to look at this nationalised Fire Service rather from another angle in conclusion. That is, Will it be more effective in putting out fires? That is the final test. Unless that is the case, the Home Secretary and the Department will have to face a charge, but I think we can say that already the improvement resulting from the establishment of a chain of command, enabling officers to mobilise their pumps with a great deal more ease and to move their forces from one area to another a great deal more effectively, and the improvement as a result of the standardisation of the drill and as a result of instructors coming from the Fire College, have enabled every officer to know what he ought to do if enemy action falls upon us. In those and in many other ways there is already evidence that the nationalised Fire Service is likely to be far more effective in dealing with the kind of fire that the country had to suffer during the period of intense raiding than was the case before. We have not yet been put fully to the test; as the Prime Minister reminded us, it is always difficult to prophesy, but all I can say is that the efforts of those who are now in command, whether on the Fire Staff, as chief regional fire officers, as fire force commanders, or as officers lower down the scale, together with their enthusiasm, will create a service far more likely to do that which the House desired the Home Secretary to do when it passed the Second Reading of this Bill on 20th May last.

Mr. George Griffiths (Hemsworth)

My hon. Friend stated that the fireman who has been working for a local authority and receiving £5 a week will still retain his £5, while another man, doing the same job during the same number of hours, will only get £3 10s., although he will be working alongside the other man all the time. Is that going to create unanimity and a willingness on the part of the lower-paid man to put his best into it? I think you are wrong there.

Mr. Mabane

The hon. Member will realise that there are other considerations to bear in mind. There are the pay of the Fighting Services and the pay of the general Civil Defence Services to bear in mind, and it was never contemplated that the rates established in the Civil Defence Services should approximate, for instance, to the highest rates paid to policemen, nor that the Auxiliary Fire Services should approximate to the rates paid to regular firemen who, before the war, had undertaken this duty of fire fighting as a professional career.

Major-General Sir Alfred Knox (Wycombe)

Is the Department satisfied with the intake of conscripted firemen provided by the Minister of Labour and National Service? Are they coming in sufficiently fast every month, and being trained? My impression, from the little I have seen of the Fire Service, is that it is top-heavy—the staffs are too large, and the men are not being trained as quickly as they ought to be.

Mr. Mabane

We have to take what we can get. There is a great demand for man-power, and we do our best to press for our allocation. As far as training goes, we are establishing training camps in every region for the recruits, and, with regard to the top-heavy quality to which the hon. Member was concerned, perhaps he was here when I said that I am quite certain that the proportion of those in the Fire Service who are in the front line would bear very favourable comparison with any other of the Services.