NATIONAL EXPENDITURE.

HC Deb 15 October 1941 vol 374 cc1397-454

Order read for resuming Adjourned Debate on Question [9th October]: That Mr. Ammon, Mr. Higgs, Mr. Leach and Sir Adam Maitland be discharged from the Select Committee on National Expenditure."— [Major Dugdale.]

Question again proposed.

Mr. Austin Hopkinson (Mossley)

I think I should be in Order in reminding the House what took place at the beginning of this Debate last week. My hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Sir A. Maitland), chairman of the Subcommittee in question, made a full statement of the position of that Sub-committee and of their reasons for desiring the House to grant them their discharge. Subsequently, with a view to maintaining the rights of this House, I intervened in the Debate myself, but time being short, I was unable to conclude my remarks. The position, if I may remind the House, is this: The House set up a Select Committee to report to the House upon expenditure, particularly in relation to the various 'Fighting Services. That Committee resolved itself into Sub-committees dealing with the various Services, and the Sub-committee we have under discussion to-day was that dealing with the supply of material for the Air Services. In the course of their investigation that Sub-committee investigated a case of what they regarded as quite unjustifiable expenditure of a very large amount of money which might be called not only capital or initial expenditure but continuing expenditure going on to the present day and apparently intended to continue indefinitely, although no result worth talking about can ever come from that expenditure.

Further, in accordance with the procedure of the House the report of this Sub-committee was submitted in the first instance to the main Committee—the Select Committee itself. That main Committee decided by a small majority that this was a case which ought to be submitted, in accordance with their instructions, to the Prime Minister for a decision as to whether it was suitable for publication or not. Therefore, a report was made to the Prime Minister, but I would ask the House to bear in mind that the Report going to the Prime Minister was not the same report which would have been submitted to the Select Committee in the words originally drafted by the Sub-committee in question. Naturally, in a report to the Prime Minister, matters of detail were entered into very fully and to a much greater extent than the Subcommittee would have dreamed of doing in a report to the House, for, after all, a report to the House is public property and therefore, any competent Sub-committee would so draft their report that there was in it no information which could be of value to the enemy. On that account, it seems to me highly probable that the Prime Minister, in dealing with the matter and deciding that the report ought to be suppressed, was basing his decision upon false premises; that is to say, upon the supposition that the report as submitted to him in full detail was approximately the same as the report which would have been submitted to the House. For this reason, it seems to me that the Prime Minister might well reconsider that decision, that he might examine the original report which was prepared for submission to the House, that he might go through it carefully and possibly ask the Sub-committee to eliminate certain points which he regards as dangerous, and that then the House should receive the report, as I think the House is entitled to do.

It may be said that the House, acting in the state of hysteria in which it was at that particular time, having set up a Select Committee of the House, immediately gave an instruction which sterilised the Committee to a very large extent. The House was in a hysterical state when it was doing these things. One by one the privileges that had been gained through the centuries were thrown away. I think the House might do well to consider in this connection whether it would not be a good thing to revoke the instruction it gave to the Committee. What is the good of this Select Committee on Expenditure if, on representations being made by some Minister, who is really the criminal in the dock, to the Prime Minister, the reports can be suppressed at once, without explanation, on the grounds of public safety? If we allow this Sub-committee to be discharged, in accordance with the Motion before us, I venture to say—and I think I shall have the House with me—that the reports of all the Committees and Subcommittees in future will not be worth a row of pins. Nobody will pay any attention to them because, naturally, both the House and the public will say that if the Committees find out anything really serious, of course it will not be in the public interest that the reports should be published, and they can be suppressed.

As I pointed out to the House last week when the Debate was began, there is another case that is bound to come up sooner or later on a vastly greater scale than the one in question, where public money has simply been poured down the drain and tens of thousands of men have been occupied on a perfectly worthless scheme. Are we to have the appropriate Sub-committee reporting that that expenditure was totally unjustified and that steps should be taken to investigate who was responsible for robbing the taxpayers in this way, and are we to have that report presented to the Prime Minister for him to say that it is not in the public interest that Parliament should know about it? What on earth is the House of Commons for? Surely, its duty is to take control over these matters and to see that public funds are not wasted and squandered as they are at the present time. That obligation upon the House is greater now than ever it was, since all Treasury safeguards have completely disappeared as regards any large amounts of money. I think I have told the House before that even as far back as the year before the war, Treasury control over large amounts had disappeared, that Ministers could go direct to the Prime Minister for the time being and wangle out of him enormous sums of money, and the Treasury and the Committee of Imperial Defence would be informed of it after the thing had become a fait accompli. In those circumstances, there is no safeguard whatever except the House of Commons. The Treasury are not allowed to exercise their proper function in regard to these very heavy amounts of expenditure; they can deal merely with pettifogging things. Therefore, it behoves the House to stick to its rights and to insist that there shall be some sort of control over public expenditure.

Of course, nowadays people ask, "What does it matter?" In spite of what the Chancellor of the Exchequer has said, we are inflated up to the eyes and will be still more inflated before very long. What does money matter? It matters because it is the measure of man-power, which matters more than anything else. Every pound that is spent unnecessarily means using up man-power, which we cannot afford to waste at the present time. Therefore, I ask the House to consider this matter very seriously. I ask hon. Members to consider whether they will allow this Motion to go through or not. The Members of the Sub-committee concerned, those Members of the House whose names are mentioned in the Motion, wish to be discharged; they wish to be discharged because they are not allowed to carry out their duties. They say it is no use going on if, when they carry out their duties to the House, their report is suppressed, nominally by the main Committee, but actually by the Prime Minister.

But we do not want to have a row about these things at the present time. Therefore, I suggest that the Prime Minister should have before him the re- port of the Sub-committee as originally drafted, that he should examine it without any relation to the further details which have been handed to him, that if he sees anything in that report which ought to be suppressed in the interests of national safety, he should re-submit the report to the Sub-Committee for fresh drafting to avoid those difficulties, and that then the House, in the exercise of its rights, should be put into possession of the facts, as far as they can be disclosed. If these Sub-committees are to be treated in the future as this one has been, I think the House and public will feel that we might just as well dissolve all of them, for they will be perfectly useless, since every sub-Committee will know that if it finds out anything in any way detrimental to any Minister of the present Government, the report will be suppressed and Parliament's endeavours will be rendered vain.

I hope the House will consider these matters very seriously. I remember that when the House was surrendering its powers one after another in that state of absolute hysteria in which it was after Dunkirk, I protested. I pointed out that one of the most critical periods of our history, the only time when there were armed rebellion and civil war in this country, was mainly the fault of the House of Commons, inasmuch as it allowed the Crown time after time to encroach upon its rights until those rights were encroached upon to such an extent that armed combat was the only way of getting them back again. At this critical time of the nation to-day, I foresee a time when we may be put to that same bitter arbitrament in the middle of the greatest war in history and with the invader at our very doorsteps. Either Parliament must assert its right now by the old constitutional methods, as it is in its power to do, or we shall see ourselves in the position that the Executive will have encroached so far upon our rights that we shall have no means whatever, except the horrible arbitrament to which I have referred, of retaking those rights and getting back to a constitutional and democratic basis of government again.

Sir John Wardlaw-Milne (Kidderminster)

I hope my hon. Friend the Member for Mossley (Mr. Hopkinson) will forgive me if I do not at once follow him into the very important matters he has raised concerning the rights of the House of Commons against the Executive. I hope I shall be able to show the House that these matters are somewhat far away from the subject matter which we should be discussing to-day. Before coming to that, however, I would like to deal first with the Debate that took place in the House on 1st October. My hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Sir A. Maitland) moved an Instruction to the Select Committee on National Expenditure to report to the House the minutes of their proceedings of 6th August. I must refer to that for two reasons. In the first place, a Select Committee publishes the minutes of its proceedings at the end of every Session. Therefore the minutes asked for would have been published in the normal way at the end of the present session. My hon. Friend was, of course, entirely within his rights in asking for them. It was a Motion to which there could be no possible objection, and it was of a purely formal character. If necessary, therefore, I plead guilty, as chairman of the Select Committee, that it never occurred to me to be present when this purely formal Motion was moved. My hon. Friend made no speech at all but merely moved the Motion formally.

To my surprise, next morning I read that the hon. Member for North Aberdeen (Mr. Garro Jones) had made a speech on the subject. He began, correctly, by drawing attention to what he described as the longstanding and salutary rule of the House that it is not competent for a Member to refer to the proceedings before a Select Committee until the Report of the Commitee has been laid on the Table of the House. Having stated that that was a salutary rule, he proceeded at once to break it by making certain comments on these proceedings and still worse by making statements which were inaccurate. These purported to show what had happened in the Select Committee, a matter of which, not being a member of the Committee, he could have no knowledge. He was paying, however, unintentionally a definite tribute to the members of the Committee because it was clear that they gave him no information, and that their pledge of secrecy had been truly kept. He made certain remarks which it is necessary to refer to, because, as the result of that speech, certain completely eroneous statements were made in the Press. In the first place, he stated that a few weeks previously the question of the Motion which was passed by the House on 28th May, 1940, had come up for interpretation by the relevant Subcommittee of the Select Committee on National Expenditure. I know of no such occasion at all. As far as I know, there is no accuracy in the statement. The hon. Member proceeded to state that upon the Air Sub-committee submitting a report to the full Committee, the Co-ordinating Sub-committee held that a question of public security arose, and therefore the report should be sent direct to the Prime Minister. That is not accurate. Not only did the Co-ordinating Sub-committee not decide but they had no power to do so. Their function was a very much narrower one. All they could do was to make a recommendation to the full Committee, and that is what they did. A little later the hon. Member stated that, seeing that the members of the Air Sub-committee were quite unable to reach an accommodation with the Co-ordinating Sub-committee, they felt that they had no course open to them but to resign. They were not seeking to make any accommodation with the Sub-committee at all. The Subcommittee had, at this stage, nothing to do with the matter. It had passed completely out of their hands. Again the statement therefore is inaccurate.

Mr. Garro Jones (Aberdeen North)

The hon. Gentleman has made a great many rather pompous corrections of my statements. Every statement that I made is correct. If he states that the Co-ordinating Sub-committee had not brought up for interpretation the Order by which the House authorised the Co-ordinating Subcommittee to report direct to the Prime Minister, all I can say is that that is the whole matter in dispute between the Coordinating Sub-committee and the operating Committee. By what authority did the Select Committee give any directions to the Co-ordinating Sub-committee at all, because the House gave the power to report direct to the Prime Minister not to the Select Committee but in express terms to the Co-ordinating Sub-committee? I am not suggesting that that was a correct or an incorrect procedure, but that is actually the power that the House gave it.

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne

I think the hon. Member will be quite satisfied that I shall deal clearly with these points. If I do not, I hope he will ask me again. I think I shall convince him that he has been misled. Before dealing with the facts, it is necessary that I should touch on the general question of security in connection with reports made by the Committee to the House. This matter has been actively in the mind of all members of the Select Committee since it was first set up. It arose, perhaps, in an acute form in the first place on matters in connection with a proposed report of the Air Sub-committee when the Solicitor-General was chairman and the hon. Member for Faversham (Sir A. Maitland) and two of his present colleagues were members. The Air Sub-committee at that time had to report on a matter which they thought was so secret that it should not be set out in a published report. May I remind the House of the difficulty in which the House itself is in this connection? If a Select Committee passes a report, from that moment the report passes it goes out of their hands into those of the officers of the House, and it is laid before Parliament and published in the normal way. Therefore the mere passing of a report by the full Committee means prompt publication. That, of course, in time of war raised a difficulty which faced every member of the Committee.

Eighteen months ago, as I say, the question arose in an acute form in the case of a report submitted by the Air Sub-committee of that day. As a result of the consideration of that report the Committee instructed the Co-ordinating Sub-committee to seek certain powers from the House and to ask whether, in cases where the Committee as a whole considered that it was not desirable to make immediate publication, that Subcommittee should have power to make a report direct to the War Cabinet. It so happened that I was not in England at the time. I was absent for three or four weeks, and the right hon. Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris) was in charge of the Committee. It unanimously passed a Resolution asking the House for these special powers. My hon. Friend the Member for Faversham was present, and, as far as I know, there has been no dissent from the seeking of these powers from any member of the Committee from that day to this. The powers were sought and the House granted them. The Select Committee since that date has issued 36 reports. The special powers have been used on three occasions in 18 months, including the present occasion, so that previous to the case which is now the subject of discussion the powers have been used on only two occasions. It certainly cannot be said that the Committee has in any way used them excessively.

I think it is better for me at this stage to make it clear that, although the power to make representations has been given by the House to the Co-ordinating Committee, any sub-committee has full power to send its report, and, indeed, does send its report direct to the full Committee. Consequently all that the Co-ordinating Committee can ever do is to recommend whether a thing should be published or alternatively whether these special powers should be used. The decision lies with the full Committee. There is another aspect of it that I must make clear. Eighteen months ago—and it was confirmed this year—the Select Committee unanimously instructed its Chairman to take special care regarding questions which might be matters of security and gave him special instructions to bring up before the Co-ordinating Committee any question that he thought was one of doubt from the security angle. I only say that to show that the question of security is very much in the minds of the members of the Committee at all times.

Mr. Leach (Bradford, Central)

Why is the hon. Gentleman hammering the question of national security at great length when he himself has expressed the view that it is not involved in this matter?

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne

If my hon. Friend will allow me to finish my speech, he will find that I will deal with all the points. If a recommendation is made by the Chairman for consideration of a Subcommittee's report from the security angle, it goes to the Co-ordinating Committee for consideration and their recommendation to the full Committee, which makes a decision. What happened in this case? This matter was brought up in the way I have described. I, as a member of the Sub-committee, saw the report. As instructed by the full Committee, I looked at it, as I look at every report, to see whether it contained matters which it might not be advisable to publish in the present condition of affairs. I make no decision on the matter at all. My only decision is whether it appears to be a subject that ought to be considered. Having come to the decision that the matter should be considered from that point of view, I send it to the Coordinating Committee. In the absence, in this case unfortunately, of my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham, who could not be present on that day and whose insistance on publication I have no doubt would have been made clear, the Co-ordinating Committee unanimously decided that in this case it would be better that the report should not be published. They made that recommendation to the full Committee, which met about a week later.

The House can imagine without my telling it that the whole matter was discussed at great length. In the end the full Committee decided by a small majority against publication. There is really nothing else in the story but that. We hear about the Co-ordinating Committee infringing the rights of the House of Commons, but the real fact of the matter is that these four gentlemen were out-voted. They could not, unfortunately for them, convince their colleagues that they were right.

Sir Henry Fildes (Dumfries)

How small was the majority?

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne

Only one. It is in the document in front of the House. By this majority the members of the Subcommittee were out-voted.

I do not wish to criticise in detail the excellent speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham. On the contrary, I admired it as a first-class parliamentary performance. It increased, if that were possible, my respect for his ability. It was a very clever speech, perhaps skating, as it seemed to me, on the very edge of Order, but not being out of Order.

Sir Adam Maitland (Faversham)

It was a very sincere speech.

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne

I hope that my hon. Friend will take what I have said as a compliment. I hope, however, that he will allow me to chaff him just a little. He worked himself almost up to boiling point over his concern for the rights of Parliament. He pictured himself as following a long line of back benchers who have stood up to assert our rights. My own blood is purely Scottish. I have not a drop of Irish blood in my veins, but as his speech progressed I had a burning urge within me to take part in that fight. I felt very much that I would like to be in the fight for my rights that he was describing so convincingly. As time went on, however, I could not help beginning to wonder who the enemy was that we were to fight. Clearly it was n6t the Government, for the Government had nothing to do with this. The proposal that representations should be made in certain cases to the War Cabinet did not emanate from the Government. It was a request of the Committee itself. It sought the powers and the House granted them. Whom, then, were we fighting?

My hon. Friend presumably has been suffering under a sense of frustration and a desire to fight for something like 18 months, but his ordinarily placid nature hitherto has not, as far as I know, certainly not in the Select Committee, shown any signs of eruption. I heard nothing of his desire to take this matter up in the last 18 months. I wonder whether it is going too far to ask my hon. Friend and his late colleagues in the Air Sub-committee whether, if his view and that of his colleagues had not been over-ruled by a majority vote, we should ever have heard anything about the rights of Parliament in this matter at all. We have never heard anything about it in the last 18 months. Should we have heard anything about it to-day had it not been for the fact that my hon. Friend and his colleagues were defeated?

Sir A. Maitland

Of course the question was never raised, because the occasion had not arisen. The issue upon which my hon. Friends and myself have asked to resign is that information which in our view the House had a right to have was to be withheld. Of course, if the Committee had taken a different view the issue would never have arisen. While I am on my feet, let me say that the hon. Member refers to the first occasion on which the Air Service Sub-committee asked that a special report should be withheld from the House. That was done at the request of and with the unanimous support of the Investigating Committee— the Air Service side of it. In the second instance the same Sub-committee, with a full knowledge of the facts, strenuously and persistently objected to the information being withheld from the House.

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne

My hon. Friend has answered me by saying that of course if he and his friends had had their way in the Committee this matter would not have been raised. That is my point. I go further and say that on the two previous occasions when the Select Committee has exercised its power, as far as I know none of these Members thought the House had been badly treated, but on the contrary thought it was right that for reasons of security the report should not be made public at that time. That is exactly the position now. The simple fact of the matter is that the majority of the Members of the full Committee did not agree with my hon. Friends. Fortunately, I was not asked to give a vote on the matter at all. The simple position is that he put it to the vote and it was not carried. As I have said, I have no quarrel with my hon. Friend's speech, far from it, but there are two points which I feel bound to mention to the House, the first because it gave rise to headlines in the press which are unfair and, I think, unjustified My hon. Friend did not say that in this case there had been undue influence upon Members. He was much too clever for that. I would invite the House to note his remarks in this connection: It is the situation which arises when a Minister whose Departmental affairs are being investigated is put in the position of being able to exercise influence on the Members of a Select Committee as to whether or not their report should be published. Here was a case, we believe, and still believe, of bad administration, official negligence and wasteful extravagance."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 9th October, 1941; col. 1206, Vol. 374.] The House will notice that there is nothing definitely in that speech to say that undue influence was brought to bear in this case, and I accept at once my hon. Friend's statement that he did not intend to join the two matters at all.

Sir A. Maitland

On the contrary—

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne

I was giving my hon. Friend credit for his intention, because if his answer is that he was so intending I am bound to tell him that I know of absolutely no influence in this case from any Member of the Government, and I personally think that the fact that the newspapers—one of them, at least—which printed a report to the effect that a Minister was accused showed that a completely wrong impression had got abroad regarding the matter. I say quite clearly and definitely that I know of no influence exercised by any Minister in connection with this matter at all.

Let me make another point perfectly clear, because I want the House to understand the position. In the case of every report which comes up for consideration by the Select Committee certain passages in it, or certain matters even in it, are referred to the Department concerned. Very often they are referred to it to make sure that the statements are accurate— they may be statements of fact or figures.

Mr. Woodburn (Stirling and Clackmanner, Eastern)

Is it not the case that they are referred to the witnesses and not to the Department?

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne

Not entirely so. I do not think I should be correct if I said that. Perhaps they are referred to the witnesses in respect of any evidence they may have given, but there are points that have to be referred to the Department concerned, in order to see that they are accurate, in the first place, and in the second place to sec whether there is any point in the report which the Committee should be advised is a matter of secrecy. When I say there is no influence that I know of brought by any Minister I wish to make it perfectly plain that I am not referring to the ordinary reference to the Department which is made in the case of every report.

Mr. Hopkinson

This is a very interesting point. Apparently a witness from one of the Services may be examined by the Sub-committee, and then that witness's evidence is disclosed to his Ministry.

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne

It may be entirely my fault, but I did not intend to convey anything of that sort. Every witness who gives evidence may go through his evidence when it is in type, and is entitled to correct it if he has made a misstatement of fact—any trifling error— but the evidence is not shown to anyone. It is not shown to the Minister concerned or to anyone else. But when a report comes up for discussion, before, indeed, it goes to the full Committee, it has always been the custom, recognised and known to every Member of the Committee, that all matters which raise the question of security or on which the Committee are making a statement of fact are checked, so far as possible with the Ministry concerned.

Mr. Hopkinson

The procedure is quite harmless, although it is a little out of the ordinary that the report should go to somebody else.

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne

It is not the report which goes; it may be an item in the report—some figures or a sentence or something of that sort. The report does not go to anyone.

Mr. MacLaren (Burslem)

Is it within the province of the Sub-committee when they have certain evidence about which they are doubtful to discuss that part of the report with the Minister and with the Department?

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne

Certainly not; they do not discuss it with anybody. The Sub-committee do not discuss it with anybody before it comes to the full Committee. In one sense the Subcommittee might do it before it comes to the full Committee, that is, make a reference on a question of security or of fact, but that is not a case of submitting a report. The report is not submitted at all. I wish to turn to the second statement which my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham made, and that was—

Sir A. Maitland

May I intervene before my hon. Friend goes further, because this is very important? Of course, one is under a difficulty in this matter, because my own speech attributed certain things to which I could not refer, but I would ask my hon. Friend this question: Is it a fact that in this instance the two Ministers concerned expressed the view that under no circumstances should a report be made to this House on this matter?

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne

Not to my knowledge. They certainly did not express it in any way officially. [Interruption.] I heard none. My hon. Friend may have heard it.

Sir A. Maitland

Again I must remind my hon. Friend that it was he who read the letter to the Committee giving this information.

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne

The letter my hon. Friend speaks of is a letter of the kind I have been speaking of, not a letter from the Minister.

Sir A. Maitland

But that letter—

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne

I really cannot go into that now.

Sir A. Maitland

I ask my hon. Friend this: Is it a fact that he himself read to the Committee a communication from one of the Departments concerned that both Ministers concerned objected to the publication of any report on this matter on the ground, as they put it, that it was contrary to the national interest?

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne

Yes, I have agreed with what my hon. Friend said. I read to the Committee—I cannot go into details for reasons which my hon. Friend knows—a statement giving the result of a reference of the kind I have just described. That statement was a result of this reference.

Earl Winterton

Was the Minister's name mentioned?

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne

I think it was not mentioned at all. Ministers are not usually mentioned at all.

Earl Winterton

The Ministry's?

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne

Yes, the Ministry's, but not the Minister's.

Mr. MacLaren

I thought the hon. Gentleman said the Sub-Committee did not discuss these matters with the Ministries at all?

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne

I am saying they did not—I am sorry that I do not make myself plain. The Minister, so far as I know, was not consulted by the Sub-Committee. Who is consulted within his own Ministry, I do not know. Certain references are made to the Ministry as a routine process, and the opinion of the Ministry is given to this Committee. It was done in this case. It is a very different matter from the question of pressure from a Minister. It is an opinion, often on a comparatively small point in the report, asked for by the Committee itself. Indeed, if any opinion were given by the Minister in this way, it would have been the result of an inquiry from the Committee themselves. That is not pressure from a Minister and it cannot fairly be described in that way.

Mr. Woodburn

Is it not also the case that every witness is asked to indicate on his evidence any part which he might consider to be so secret that it should not be divulged to the public?

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne

That is so. I do not want to detain the House unduly. I am anxious, however, to give way whenever I can. The second point which my hon. Friend mentioned was this: Are hon. Members aware how exactly this new procedure operates? If a subject matter is referred by way of memorandum from a Select Committee to the Prime Minister, the Committee are entitled to have an answer to that communication. Are hon. Members generally aware that members of a Select Committee cannot raise the subject matter of their report in this House?—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 9th October, 1941; col. 1204, Vol. 374.] Of course, that is true but only in one sense. There is nothing to prevent the Select Committee issuing their report at any time they choose, and the moment they issue that report it can be raised in the House. It is not for me to interpret what the Select Committee might or might not do in this case, but I have no doubt that, if they were not satisfied with the reply which they received from the War Cabinet, they would decide to issue a report. It may be technically true to say what my hon. Friend said, but it gives a wrong impression. If the matter is considered sufficiently serious, Members of the Committee may raise it as soon as a report is issued. Then my hon. Friend suggested that the recommendations of his Sub-committee possibly appeared too drastic for some of his more timorous colleagues. It is not impossible that a document issued under secrecy would be a good deal more drastic than something which could be reported publicly in time of war. Perhaps that point did not strike the House. The speech made by the hon. Member for Mossley rather gave a very different idea, namely, that in something which the Committee sent to the War Cabinet they were concealing something which the Sub-committee wanted brought forward. Is it not possible that the very opposite is the case?

Mr. Hopkinson

The hon. Member is accusing me of saying something which I did not say, and I object strongly. It says that the report which went to the War Cabinet was very much more strong.

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne

I am glad that my hon. Friend saw that point, because it is very important. I do not know what was meant by the reference of my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham to a dispute between Members. He said that this was not a personal dispute. It is not a dispute at all. It is a mere difference of opinion between himself, his colleagues and certain other Members who supported him and the majority of the Members of the Committee. That is the whole thing in a nutshell. I desire to say as little as possible regarding the matter which was the subject of the division. The Committee decided, and they are entitled to come to that decision. I do not know how any Select Committee or Parliament itself could continue to function in a democratic country if the views of a minority are to rule. I do not know any way by which House of Commons authority can be maintained in the Select Committee if the views of a minority, however strongly held and however just they be, are to prevail over those of a majority.

This occasion gives me the opportunity, which I have wanted for some time, to pay a very sincere and whole-hearted tribute to the Members of the Select Committee as a whole. I fancy that not all Members fully realise the hours and days of work which are given in this matter to the service of the House, and we hope and believe to the furtherance of our war efforts. Sub-Committees meet in this House nine or ten times a week. Many Members have spent many days on visits of inspection in various parts of the country, at times sometimes inconvenient to themselves and often in not too comfortable circumstances. No group in the Select Committee has done better work than the four Members who have asked to be relieved to-day. Their colleagues fully realise the value of their work and their worth. The request that they should be discharged from the Committee comes from the four Members themselves but those Members have been privately and semi-publicly urged to rescind their decision and to continue to work for the Committee and give the House and the country the valuable views and work which they have been giving for some lime.

The Motion before the House is, by custom, in the name of a Member of the Government, but the Motion has nothing to do with the Government and does not affect them. It affects nobody but the four Members concerned. If those Members insist upon resigning against the wishes of their colleagues, there is nothing more to be said. If they have changed their minds, as I hope may be the case, I hope that the Government will withdraw a Motion which nobody wants. I am sure that the Committee would then go back to their work in a much happier frame of mind in the knowledge that our tried and trusted colleagues were back with us. The House could then turn to what I may, with great respect, say are really more important matters.

Mr. Garro Jones (Aberdeen, North)

I think the House will agree that the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne) was not very happy in making his speech. I very much regret he thought it right to begin that speech by throwing charges of inaccuracy against myself and hon. Members who have resigned from the Air Sub-Committee. I shall be glad to leave it to the House to judge, when hon. Members have the whole of this Debate before them, which hon. Members have been accurate and which hon. Members have been inaccurate. The first question which is clear in this Debate, the point on which every hon. Member stands upon common ground, is that facts helpful to the enemy ought to be suppressed from publication in our Parliamentary proceedings. Not one Member of this House dissents from that principle.

The issues which have arisen are simple. They are: Who is to decide whether a matter which it is proposed to publish is likely to be helpful to the enemy or not, and, if it is decided that restraint should be exercised, through what Parliamentary procedure should that restraint be operated? Now the House has made an attempt in the case of reports by a Select Committee to dovetail this procedure of restraint into our Parliamentary procedure—not a very easy thing to do, to dovetail the suppression of reports into a free Parliamentary system. I would like the House to look at the Order by which it attempted to do that. It is upon that Order that the whole of this issue turns, and unless hon. Members have in their minds the terms of that Order—which the hon. Member for Kidderminster appears to have forgotten— the discussion will not be very clear. I am going to read the Order to the House. It was made on 26th November last: That if the Committee"— that is, the Select Committee— shall appoint a Sub-committee to co-ordinate the work of other Sub-committees, such Sub-committee shall have power, in cases where considerations of national security preclude the publishing of certain recommendations and of the arguments upon which they are based, to address a Memorandum to the Prime Minister for the consideration of the War Cabinet, provided that the Select Committee do report to the House on every occasion on which that power shall have been exercised."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th November, 1940; col. 99, Vol. 367.] It implies no disrespect to the House if I say that that Order was passed in a hurry. It has been passed twice by the House, first on 29th May, 1940, and again in the new Session, on 26th November last. On the first occasion on which it was passed, it was passed on the day after the Belgian capitulation in the precise form in which it was put upon the Order Paper by those nameless persons whom I will call the "Parliamentary managers." The hon. Member for Kidderminster said that the Government do not come into it at all, but there are certain circles which do come into it, and if the House will accept my term of "Parliamentary managers," these were the people who put on the Order Paper, and secured the passage of, this Order.

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne

I plead ignorance at once as to who the "Parliamentary managers" are. I know all about the usual channels; are those what the hon. Member is referring to? I do not even know to whom he could be referring. Those powers were sought by the Committee themselves; it was they who asked the Government and the House for them.

Mr. Garro Jones

I am perfectly aware of that. I do not propose to attempt to define who the "Parliamentary managers" are, but nevertheless experienced Members of the House will know what I mean. I contend that the Order as passed was ambiguous. It contained at least two latent ambiguities which have now arisen to confront the House and which have given rise to the very difficulty which is now engaging our attention. The first ambiguity which the Order contains is this: Who is to take the initiative in raising the question of whether the public; interest arises in the publication of a report or not? The hon. Mem- ber for Kidderminster told us that in point of fact these reports are sent to the Department.

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne

I purposely did not make that statement. The report is not sent to the Department at all. For the third time I want to make it quite clear that I have never made such a statement. What I said was that certain items in the report, certain sentences or paragraphs, might be submitted if there were any doubt in the minds of the Committee or those concerned either on the question of security or of fact. I have never said that the reports are sent.

Mr. Garro Jones

I will take the statement as made.

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne

As made originally.

Mr. Garro Jones

As made originally. It makes no difference to my argument. There are sent to the Departments for their observations minutes, or facts, or items of evidence, and it is at that stage —and the hon. Member for Kidderminster will correct me if I am wrong—that the question of public security arises.

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne

I am very sorry to correct my hon. Friend, but that is not so. These are sent completely automatically before the report goes to the full Committee at all. Actually, the person who brings up the question of security is the chairman—myself. On the instructions of the full Committee, I have to look over every report from that point of view, and if I think there is any question about it, as I did in this case, my instructions are to send it to the Co-ordinating Sub-Committee, who will decide whether they think fit to make a recommendation regarding publication or not. I hope I have made it clear.

Mr. Garro Jones

The question is, Who is competent to decide whether public security is at issue or not? Surely, the chairman of the Select Committee on National Expenditure, with all his wide experience, is not competent to come to a decision like that without consultation with the security officers of the Department?

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne

He does not come to any decision.

Mr. Garro Jones

If that power is to reside in the chairman of the Select Committee, then the whole of the publication of these reports at any given time will depend upon the temperament and character of the chairman of the Select Committee.

Sir. J. Wardlaw-Milne

No. All he can do is to make a recommendation.

Mr. Garro Jones

I only interrupted my hon. Friend once. The point I wish to establish is this. The Order as made by the House leaves ambiguous the question of who should take the initiative in raising questions of public interest. That is the first point which I wish respectfully to submit to the House for reconsideration with a view to clearing up and defining the Order which was made. The hon. Member for Kidderminster said that Ministers do not come into it at all. I respectfully but emphatically dissent from that observation. The Ministers do come into it, because when the matter is sent to the Department that matter goes before the Minister concerned, and therefore before any report of a Select Committee is published the Minister is apprised, not perhaps of the precise terms of the report, but of the material with which that report is going to deal.

Sir Percy Harris (Bethnal Green, South-West)

May I, as an ordinary member of the Committee, say that that is a complete travesty of the fact? It is a libel on all members of this Committee. We would not tolerate that for a moment. We are all Members of this House, and we would not permit our chairman, nor any chairman of a Sub-Committee, to inform any Government Department what was going on inside the Committee.

Sir Harold Webbe (Westminster, Abbey)

Pure nonsense.

Mr. Garro Jones

I have no wish to generate heat, but we are now in the presence of a difference between the hon. Member for Kidderminster and the hon. Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris). I intend that what I have said should stand upon record and should be considered by the House when they are reviewing the position. The second and lesser ambiguity which was contained in this Order is to be found in a portion of the last paragraph which says that the Select Committee shall report to the House upon every occasion on which this power shall have been exercised. There is no time limit within which the Select Committee should report to the House. I believe that the report which has given rise to our present difficulty has been sent long ago to the Prime Minister, but I am not aware that the House of Commons has been apprised of the matter

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne

I am afraid my hon. Friend is not sufficiently informed on a large number of matters. The fact of the matter is that the report of the full Committee that these powers have been exercised is made at the next meeting of the full Committee. It is already on the records of the House.

Mr. Garro Jones

At any rate, there is no time limit in the Order as passed by the House, as I think the hon. Member will agree, within which that report should be sent to the House. In point of fact varying periods have elapsed between the sending of a report to the Prime Minister and informing the House that it has been sent. There can be no question that there has been of late a tendency among Ministers to resent and to resist the activities of the Select Committee on National Expenditure.

An Hon. Member: Who said so?

Earl Winterton (Horsham and Worthing)

The Prime Minister attacked your own chairman.

Mr. Garro Jones

There have been a great many public whisperers going about criticising not only the hon. Member for Kidderminster but every other Member of the Select Committee. The basis of these criticisms has been that that Committee is exceeding its terms of reference, that it is interpreting as matters affecting national expenditure matters affecting national policy and national administration, and it is said that the Select Committee has been placing too weighty an interpretation on its powers. I was sorry to see that the hon. Member for Kidderminster, knowing that had been the case, taking the attitude which he has done to-day, because I hope the House will realise that we are engaged, although it may seem to be a matter of procedure, on a fundamental issue affecting the control of this House over expenditure. Two hundred years ago it was the custom for the Privy Council to send for Members to explain -their votes. That seems almost like an anachronism. Not long ago an hon. Member who is now a Minister was sent for by the Attorney-General to hear menacing language which the present Prime Minister strongly disapproved of. Are we quite sure that nothing of that kind is going on to-day? We have certainly had the Air Minister making light of reports of the Select Committee. I have heard him rebuke different Members of the Select Committee for entering into controversy on facts judicially found by the Select Committee.

Mr. R. Morgan (Stourbridge)

Is the hon. Member suggesting that the objection of the four Members of this House to service is that their reports have been overridden by some Minister, and especially the Prime Minister himself? If that is their interpretation, I think they ought to say that they agree with what the hon. Member is saying.

Mr. Garro Jones

The hon. Member for Kidderminster read what the hon. Member for Faversham (Sir A. Maitland) stated concerning the intervention of Ministers in these matters. I am content to put it in this way, that whereas nominally this appears to be an issue between the Select Committee and the operating Subcommittee, the whole question is, Who is to decide when the matter is one of public interest and when the matter is one merely affecting the reputation of Ministers? All of us have had experience of putting down particular Questions and receiving Answers that it would not be in the public interest to answer, when all the time the information we sought has been published in journals in America or in this country. All these signs go to show that the House is in danger of tolerating encroachments on its control over expenditure merely because these encroachments are being made by almost imperceptible degrees. That is a situation to which the House ought to give its immediate and earnest attention.

What ought to be done? Admittedly it is easy to do the wrong thing, but it is perfectly certain that to do nothing at all would be to do wrong, and it is possible that some small amendments in our procedure would meet, not only the scruples —the right and admirable scruples, in my view—of the Sub-committee, but might also meet the views of the Select Committee itself, and preserve the control of the House over expenditure intact. I am going to make a proposal that the Government, in consultation with the chairman and members of the Select Committee, should take into review the Order which the House passed giving the Co-ordinating Sub-committee these powers, with a view to amending it and clarifying it, to put it no higher than that it should operate on the principle that the Operating Sub-committee should be the first part of the machinery which should take into consideration questions of public security.

I have no objection in war-time to the taking into consultation of the security officers of the Department concerned. It is evident that a layman unacquainted with all the issues involved cannot always tell whether a question of public security arises or not, and if Ministers and Departments are to be taken into consultation in war-time by these Operating Sub-committees I prefer that it should be done openly and as a recognised part of our procedure, than by other, I will not say subterranean, channels, but than that it should be done unofficially, to put it no higher. If the Operating Sub-committee consider that questions of national security arise, it is simple for them to delete those dangerous elements from their report but it, after they have sent the report to the Coordinating Sub-committee, the Co-ordinating Sub-committee still think there is something in that report affecting national security, then the Co-ordinating Subcommittee should itself have power to report it to the Prime Minister. In the event of dispute between the Co-ordinating Sub-committee and the Operating Sub-committee then, and then alone, should the Select Committee be brought in. I hope that the Select Committee will not stand on punctilio because of any objections to giving these powers to the Co-ordinating Sub-committee so as to prevent the widening of the channel of disclosure in cases where military secrets have been brought before the Operating Sub-committee, and the Government or the official channels, if you like, want to stop it at a lower stage than the full Committee, and therefore empower the Co-ordinating Sub-committee to do the job.

There are two minor suggestions I would make. One is that the Coordinating Sub-committee which has been entrusted with these new and very important powers, should have its quorum altered from two to three, four or five. I should prefer five, because when the quorums of Sub-committees of the Select Committee were fixed at two it was on the assumption that the total membership of the Sub-committees was four. The Coordinating Sub-committee is a much larger Sub-committee, and yet it has the same quorum as the other Sub-committees. I think it would be an additional safeguard if the quorum of the Co-ordinating Sub-committee were increased from two to five. I would further ask that this should be considered. The quorum of the Select Committee itself, which would come into these matters by way of an appeal body, is seven out of a membership of 32. Everybody knows that many meetings of this Committee are purely formal, and therefore it is perhaps difficult to obtain more than seven members, and in such cases seven are perhaps quite enough. But where they are adjudicating upon such—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Dennis Herbert)

The hon. Member is going beyond the Question which is before the House. It is not relevant on this Motion to discuss the whole machinery of Select Committees.

Mr. Garro Jones

I appreciate, if I may respectfully say so, the force of what you say, Sir. I am not discussing the machinery of the Select Committee in regard to its general functions, but only the operation of such machinery in regard to the Order passed by the House on 26th November last.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

If the hon. Member will confine himself to existing circumstances he will be all right. He is getting beyond that. He is even proposing alterations in the machinery of the Select Committee.

Mr. Garro Jones

I will leave the matter there. Perhaps I might be permitted to add one sentence, and to ask whether, for the operation of this particular Order, the provisions which have been made in regard to quorums could not be amended? I hope I have not detained the House too long on what may seem a narrow point, but I hope the Committee will not be content to allow the discharge of these Members to take place. That would put their successors in an extremely invidious position, and it would detract from the authority of the Select Committee and of all the operating Sub-committees. The Prime Minister has told us that the House of Commons is the foundation of the war effort. He has also told us—I have not his exact words here, but I believe I quote them correctly from memory—that the public interest is a plea which should be sparingly invoked. The public interest is a plea that is not being sparingly invoked, it is being very frequently invoked; and in some circumstances, as we believe, it is being improperly invoked. The suggestions I have made would result in some safeguard against that. The House knows that the Prime Minister himself would scorn to invoke the plea of the public interest to cover up some fault that he might have committed. Other Members should be asked to conform to the same standard. I think the Prime Minister should ask them, and should tell the House that he has done so; because the House of Commons is not only the foundation of the war effort; it is the foundation on which a peace structure will be built. If the Prime Minister will steadily resist, even with all his preoccupations, any attempt to weaken that structure, that in the end will not be the smallest part of the debt that the House of Commons and the nation will owe to him.

Sir Percy Harris (Bethnal Green, South-West)

I do not bother the House very much, but I feel some obligation to support the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne), who has so ably and wisely guided the work of the Select Committee. I took a very active interest in the original establishment of the Select Committee. The Government of that day were not particularly enthusiastic about bringing it into existence, but it is fair to say that when it was formed it was a reflection of every section in the House of Commons. Not only were the official parties, Conservative, Liberal and Labour, represented, but we actually had an independent Member of the House upon it. I think it is reasonable to say that the Select Committee attaches great importance to the independence of the executive. And, as the hon. Gentleman quite rightly said, they do not show any particular tenderness to Ministers; on the contrary, they have been most frank in their criticisms.

I happened to be particularly associated with the obtaining of the system of the special powers' report to the Prime Minister direct. I am not giving away any secrets when I say that the officials of the House thought that to obtain such powers was entirely against all the traditions of the House of Commons, and that when we sought them— and we sought them, curiously enough, on the initiative of the Air Sub-Committee —we were not welcomed particularly by the Government and the Prime Minister. I know that it is only a coincidence that we sought this on the initiative of the Air Sub-Committee, and I am not making any point about that. The Prime Minister, as a good Parliamentarian, was not anxious that we should he allowed the privilege of direct access when we ask for it. He rather understood that this was a departure from tradition. It was only as a result of pressure by the Committee itself that these powers were obtained. It is only fair that this should be said in justification of the attitude of the Prime Minister. Having got these powers, we use them very sparingly. We have to persuade 30 Members of this House that it is not in the public interest to report to this House, and only on two other occasions have we been able to persuade that number of Members.

When we come to the narrow issue of a Sub-committee's report on a particular problem, I have rather a detached point of view, because I did not happen to be present at the time, and I did not vote. What influenced the Committee? I think it was this. The Sub-committee felt constrained to present to the main Committee a truncated report of the publication. They were not prepared to give all the facts, all the figures, and all the information that justified their conclusion. Therefore, the majority of the Committee felt that if we were going to justify the many severe criticisms and charges that were to be made a fuller report should be published. The Sub-committee took the line that that fuller report should not be made public. A report has gone to the Prime Minister giving far fuller information than it was possible to give to the House of Commons, the public and the Press.

Mr. Ammon (Camberwell, North)

Surely the right hon. Gentleman is mistaken in saying that the Sub-committee objected to a stronger report going to the House? Possibly that was the view of the Co-ordinating Sub-committee.

Sir P. Harris

The report that was sent to the Prime Minister was very much fuller, much more extended, and justified the conclusions come to. I was very sorry that my four hon. Friends chose to resign because they did not get their way. We do not want them to resign. I think the wisest course would be, now that they have, quite properly, ventilated their point of view, for them to go back and become members of the main Committee and again carry on their work. I can assure them that they will be welcomed. Then we can pass on to the next business. In the meantime, the report has gone to the Prime Minister, and I am going to say, on behalf of the Committee, with the support of the chairman, that if we do not get a satisfactory reply from the Prime Minister, if the matters contained in that report are not dealt with in a way which we consider satisfactory, we shall not hesitate to bring the matter before the House of Commons in due course.

Mr. Hely-Hutchinson (Hastings)

The fact that I have been so fortunate as to be able to catch your eye, Mr. Speaker, suggests that this is not entirely a private fight and that a mere Irishman may join in. My hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne) spoke in circumstances of considerable difficulty and subject to a good deal of cross fire, and it seemed to me that at times he and his questioners were not talking about quite the same thing, so that certain parts of my hon. Friend's speech may have left some confusion in the minds of hon. Members. But I felt in my own mind that my hon. Friend's speech brought this matter back to where it really belonged. The specific matter before the House is that here are four members of the Sub-committee who have asked to resign. They have asked to resign because certain powers granted by this House to the Committee on National Expenditure were exercised by the Committee in a way contrary to the views and strong convictions of these four members. Therefore, they felt that they wanted to resign. That is all with which we have to deal. It is solely their own affair whether they resign or not. I personally agree with those who have said that they hope they will not resign. But it would be a very useful by-product of this happening if the result of it all is to cause, as suggested by the hon. Member for Faversham (Sir A. Maitland) and the hon. Member for North Aberdeen (Mr. Garro Jones), the terms of reference of the Committee and subsequent Instructions to be carefully reviewed by this House.

I speak with some little past knowledge of this general subject, because I was a member of the Committee myself at one time, and I myself sought discharge— which was granted—for reasons that were connected really with the terms of reference of the Committee. There was no Debate on the occasion of my seeking discharge If there had been such a Debate, I think the House might have had a few minutes of good honest fun. But I feel that my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster was very near the mark when he suggested that a large part of the speech of the hon. Member for Faversham, and perhaps I might add, of the hon. Member for North Aberdeen, was skating on the very edge of Order, and I would be equally skating on the very edge of Order if I were to attempt to reply to them in too much detail. There are, however, one or two statements made especially by my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham which, having been made, cannot go wholly uncommented upon—I do not say answered. For instance, he states that the Subcommittee in considering this particular item—the nature of which I do not know at all, and I am very fortunate in not knowing anything about it at all—said: It seemed to us certain that after three years, no useful result could accrue, and accordingly we recommended unanimously that the experimental work should be stopped."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 9th October, 1941; col. 1206, Vol. 374.] If I knew all about this matter, I might agree with the hon. Member or I might disagree with him. But neither he nor I nor the Select Committee is charged by Parliament with the business of deciding whether or not that experimental work should be stopped. We have a very large Committee which we call the Cabinet which we have charged with the business of deciding these matters. I think that in these experimental matters the proof of the pudding lies in the eating. There were instances in the last war of very large bodies of opinion being convinced and repeating again and again that both tanks and big battleships were a sheer waste of money. These things have to be worked out by trial and error, and it would be unfortunate therefore if this statement should go out as the last word on the subject. In general and in view of the fact that the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster has brought the Debate to its proper sphere, I do not propose to develop now what I had in mind to say except to mention that the principle for which I sought resignation from the Select Committee on National Expenditure was that the Committee seemed to me to be seeking too much to do the Government's job. I know that one must be careful not to offend against Lord Baldwin's advice to would-be politicians not to be too logical, but when Parliament has a Committee such as the Cabinet charged with the work of Government it is not entirely logical to appoint another committee which continually investigates and reviews a great many decisions that the Government have made. That appears to me like keeping a dog and barking oneself. For that reason, I hope that the policy will be that the House will once more review, and very carefully consider, the terms of reference under which the Committee on National Expenditure exist and perhaps make some closer definition of them and some improvement in their general character.

Earl Winterton (Horsham and Worthing)

I should like, as one who is not in any way connected with the dispute that has arisen, to make a suggestion to the House, which, I think, though I have not had an opportunity of consulting anybody, might be approved. Those who have listened—and I have listened almost throughout to this discussion—cannot but feel very strongly that we have in the members of the Select Committee, whichever view they take in this particular matter, true and faithful servants of the House and of the public. I would like to pay my tribute to their work. I entirely dissent from what my hon. Friend has just said. I think that his views are his own and those of nobody else in the House. The House on the whole is most grateful to the Select Committee and believes that it performs its duties in an excellent way. It is deplorable in the interests of these servants of the House, who entirely leave their own political opinions behind when they join these committees, as has been proved by the Debate, that there should be this difference of opinion expressed so strongly. It would be even more deplorable if the dispute between certain members of this Select Committee, equally sincere on both sides, should detract in any way from the usefulness of that body. If there should be—I hope there are not— any Members of the Government who regarded the Select Committee with suspicion, I can imagine how delighted they would be if the result of this discussion was to injure the usefulness of that body by making Members of the Government say in private, "How these people quarrel among themselves."

How are we to avoid that? The obvious way will be in the form, respected and well known, that hon. Members who wish to resign will reconsider their resignation. Obviously they cannot be asked to withdraw it unless the Government take action. I am well aware that, if I were a Minister representing the Government, it would be correct for me to say that this matter in no way concerns the Government but is a dispute between private Members. But, in fact, the Government come into the picture very considerably. In the first place, the Government must be presumed, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary—it would be a most wounding reflection to think on the contrary —to be well-disposed to this Committee and regard it as doing excellent service to this House and to the nation and as being helpful to the nation. Therefore, the Government cannot wish to see any breach in it. How could these resignations be avoided? The hon. Member who initiated the Debate the other day brought forward, as he was entitled to do, facts which left the impression upon my mind, and certainly upon the minds of many outside this House, that there was a very serious state of affairs in a certain Ministry which required to be dealt with. That matter has been brought up in Debate in a way—through no fault of my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Sir A. Maitland)—which is calculated to do the greatest possible mischief to the public weal. The Government have made no speech on the subject. May I repeat for the benefit of hon. Members the charges which we have heard? In his speech my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham said: It referred it to a factory, and it was known that this factory, which was to be erected for the purpose of manufacturing certain aircraft and accessories, was 12 months behind scheduled time, that only 25 per cent. of its machinery had been placed in position and that the housing conditions of the workers for the factory was most unsatisfactory … from time to time schemes of the Air Ministry and the Ministry of Aircraft Production should be reviewed and that where the Minister concerned was satisfied that the original purpose of a scheme could not be served, it was important that it should be abandoned at the earliest possible moment."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 9th October, 1941; col. 1205, Vol. 374.]

Sir Robert Young (Newton)

That is part of the report of the hon. Member which was accepted by the full Committee.

Earl Winterton

That is true, but it has a bearing on the matter at issue. Otherwise, there would have been no object in quoting it. I am not taking sides in this conflict, and I beg hon. Members to consider the effect it is having on the public mind. Here is a matter which the House has not been allowed to consider in its entirety. More serious still, the hon. Gentleman the Member for Mossley (Mr. Hopkinson), and others outside the House, have read into that reference by my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham something which may or may not be in it, but which clearly concerns, as it happens, someone who occupies a very high position in this country. Everyone knows to whom I refer. You are giving to the enemies of this country, including Nazi broadcasters, material for use which ought not to be at their disposal. The effect of this situation is to suggest that there is a hidden scandal which is not being properly dealt with. As I have said, I am not taking sides in the controversy, and I suggest that the matter should be dealt with on the basis that we should have from the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, or some other representative of the Government, a statement to the effect that the matters which are in dispute, which have been brought to the notice of the Prime Minister, will be dealt with by the Prime Minister personally at the earliest possible moment, and that information as to the action he proposes to take shall be communicated to the House. If that could be done by the Government, my hon. Friends who wish to resign would be in a position to consider their resignations, because their purpose would have been served—namely, action would have been taken on this report.

Mr. Higgs (Birmingham, East)

I should like to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Sir A. Maitland) on the excellent speech he made when he opened this Debate and at the same time to tell the House of the admirable manner in which he took the chair at all times in our Sub-committee. I should also like to pay tribute to the hon. Member for North Camberwell (Mr. Ammon) and the hon. Member for Central Bradford (Mr. Leach), who are of different political colour from myself. We have sat on this Committee for a period of two years, and we have yet to have our first serious differences. We have had difficult problems to consider, and we have had slight differences of opinion, but on no occasion have we had a split vote, and for these reasons I regret having to ask for my discharge. As for the suggestions that we are giving information to the enemy, I am getting a little tired of hearing that excuse put forward. We are keeping information from the British public and the enemy but I consider that on this occasion it would have been far more valuable to give the information to this House and the country and make the Germans a present of it. There is nothing the Germans would have copied, and the right course would have been to present the report as completed. I happen to have here two or three extracts from the 20th report of the Committee, and with the permission of the House I will read two or three lines: Unions concerned are not permitted to work overtime without the permission of the district delegates to remedy what is an intolerable position in time of war. So far others have been completely unsuccessful. In the locality complained of the introduction of pneumatic rivetting in ship repairs has been and still is stubbornly resisted. Apart from the complaints about the speed of ships, it is claimed that their design does not accord sufficiently with the adopted modern practice of most shipowners. I know the contents of the report in question, and I can assure the House that there is no more information of an unsatisfactory character being given to the enemy than there is in the lines I have quoted. What can the Germans read into these lines? We have consider- able labour troubles, and the design of our machinery is not up to date; it is of an inferior character. Something has been said about the Prime Minister dealing with matters of this description. He would deal with them far more effectively than the Air Services Sub-committee, but the Prime Minister is directing the destiny of the nation, and he has problems of far greater magnitude than this to deal with. You cannot expect him to deal with the 101 matters of this description that might be sent to him from time to time. The House appointed a Select Committee to report to the House. My hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne) referred the report to the Co-ordinating Sub-committee. He was quite in order in doing that. I do not know for what reason he did so, but he assured the House that Ministers had not influenced him. I wonder whether permanent officials have had anything to do with the matter and whether they have advised him. In any case, the report was diverted to the Co-ordinating Sub-committee in the first instance.

I should like to know how long that Sub-committee considered the report. The Air Services Sub-committee had considered it for 10 weeks or more, and had travelled up and down the country examining witnesses. According to information I have received, the Co-ordinating Sub-committee hardly read the report, and I do not think they were more than 10 minutes in giving their decision. They advised that the report should be sent to the Prime Minister. Those members of the Co-ordinating Sub-committee were members of the full Committee, and obviously, having taken a decision in the Co-ordinating Sub-committee, whatever came up in the discussion in the full Committee they had to abide by the decision they had taken. We were defeated by one vote, we accepted the defeat, and the only thing we could do was to resign.

It is exceedingly difficult to debate an abstract, unknown monstrosity of this description. The House asked for the minutes, and received them. The contents of this document are not worth the paper they are written on, for all the information that is given to the House, with the exception of the Members who were present and the voting of the Committee. There are two reasons we ask for our discharge. One is that we dis- agree with the full Committee, and the other is the specific waste that is taking place in connection with the unknown problem before us. That waste is continuing, and will continue, unless the House does something about it. [An HON. MEMBER: "Then why resign?"] We resign because we consider it to be our duty to do so rather than to continue as members of the Sub-committee. As to our relations with the main Committee, all the way through they have been excellent. The Air Services Sub-committee have had no greater differences with the main Committee than any other Sub-committees have. We have abided by their decision at all times, and we have agreed to their correction of our reports. It has been argued that if the minutes had been rescinded and another vote had been taken, it would have been a case of minority rule. But at times the minority is in the right, and I consider that is so on this occasion.

With regard to national expenditure, it is sometimes said that the cost does not matter as long as we get the goods. The cost does matter. The difference between income and expenditure has to be met by inflation. Inflation has taken place already, and one of the objects of the House in appointing the Select Committee was to endeavour to reduce the inflation to a minimum. The gap has to be bridged by inflation. What an outcry there was before the last war if a penny was added to the Income Tax; if 2d. was added, the Government of the day had to resign. My hon. Friend the Member for Mossley (Mr. Hopkinson) referred to a case involving £15,000,000 or £20,000,000. Does the House realise that that means 3d. or 4d. in the £ on Income Tax? The purpose for which the Select Committee were appointed was to reduce expenditure of that description when they come across it. We have come across one case and we are not allowed to make it public. Is it not our duty to hand in our resignation in those circumstances? What alternative have we?

We shall feel the effect of this excessive expenditure when the war is over. Hon. Members have heard of the "Hungry Forties" and we shall have them again if we do not take every opportunity we can to reduce wasteful and extravagant expenditure. I often think that if many people who have duties to perform with regard to making economies had £5 invested in the Government, they would take a very different attitude towards the money that is being squandered to-day. I say that money is being squandered. We are working very inefficiently in very many respects. The Select Committee was appointed to try to remedy that position. We have had difficulties before. The Air Services Sub-Committee have already had one report diverted to the Prime Minister. On that occasion, they did not resign. We have had difficulties with officials, we have been side-tracked on one or two occasions, but on those occasions we have not taken exception to what has happened, and we would not have done so on this occasion and we would not have made the stand we are making had we not considered that the particular problem under consideration was of such vital national interest. The scandal in question cannot be kept quiet much longer. It has to come out, and it ought to have come out a considerable time ago; and it is a pity that this state of affairs should have to arise before expenditure of that description could be stopped. The Sub-Committee are prevented from doing what they consider to be their duty, and therefore, we ask the House for our discharge, hoping that we have contributed our quota to the proceedings of the Select Committee on National Expenditure. I conclude by saying that I endorse the recommendations of my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham that the Select Committee should take every possible step to prevent a recurrence of what has happened, and that the House should insist on having more details concerning matters submitted by the Select Committee on National Expenditure.

Sir Robert Young (Newton)

I rise to speak as a member of the Committee who found himself in disagreement with my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Sir A. Maitland), and I want immediately to say that there is no one who would welcome more cordially than I would a decision by my hon. Friends to withdraw their resignations. I have been told by some hon. Members that they regard this matter as one of very serious importance, and in speaking I shall try to conform with the mood of the House. I do not think the hon. Member for West Birmingham (Mr. Higgs) was quite fair or correct in his remarks concerning the Coordinating Sub-committee. If he will look at the report, I think he will find that in the division in the Select Committee several members of the Co-ordinating Sub-committee supported my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham. Therefore, I do not think it was fair to suggest that simply because they were members of the Co-ordinating Sub-committee, they would stick together when the full Committee were considering the matter. I do not like the term applied to this matter by my Noble Friend the Member for Horsham (Earl Winterton), who spoke of a dispute. There is no dispute in the Select Committee. There is a difference of opinion as to what is or is not in the national interest to be published. That is not a matter of dispute. As to those who are so much concerned about the independence of the House and object to the restrictions which they say have been placed upon its liberty, quite apart from anything that has arisen in the Select Committee they could at any time have brought their grievance before the House and asked it to rescind the restrictions which they thought were imposed upon its liberty.

When this Motion was first proposed, I listened with care to the statement of the hon. Member for Faversham and his complaint against the exercise of the powers conferred on the Select Committee by the House. Such explanations of resignations are usually received by hon. Members with sympathetic interest and sometimes, I think, with an avid expectation that some startling disclosure is going to be made. In this case no such thing could happen. As a result there has been some disappointment to some Members and to some sections of the Press. I noticed with satisfaction that the hon. Member studiously avoided charging any of his fellow-members of the Select Committee with a desire to excuse, minimise or hide any waste, inefficiency or delay by those criticised in the unpublished part of the Sub-committee's report. On the other hand, there appeared to be a suggestion that some Service Department or high official had been guilty of such action. He does not challenge the right of the full Committee to decide that publication of the elided part of his report was not in the national interest. Nevertheless, it is that decision which is in question—a deci- sion strictly in accordance with the powers asked for by the Select Committee and granted without dissent by this House. The hon. Member's action, therefore, is a criticism, or perhaps more a complaint or a protest, against the authority given by this House to the Select Committee. But the curious thing is that he and his resigning colleagues were quite aware of that authority all the time and said nothing against it, as far as I know, until they found themselves in disagreement with the full Committee on what was or was not in the national interest to be published. The House gave the Select Committee power to report direct to the Prime Minister. If by a majority it decided to do so, then the Select Committee has not transgressed in any way.

There is something still more curious to my mind. The present Solicitor-General, when chairman of the Air Sub-committee, found himself in a difficulty which was the same as that which confronted the Select Committee on this occasion. There was information which it was considered not wise to publish, and he wisely advised his colleagues to seek power from the House to report direct to the Prime Minister instead of publishing material which the Committee thought was against the best interests of the country. The House set up the Select Committee, and the Committee set up eight Sub-committees, but it was never assumed that any of those Subcommittees, although fully acquainted with the details of the information under consideration, should dictate willy nilly that their report should be published without amendment, deletion, or extension. Such an assumption would have reduced the full Committee to a state of irresponsibility for the substance and recommendations of its own reports.

Sir A. Maitland

My hon. friend can only be making these observations because he is applying them to this case. May I ask him whether he remembers that apart from objection, criticism or amendment, members of the Air Sub-committee offered to the full Committee to redraft their report in any form that was thought necessary to cover the question of national security?

Sir R. Young

I remember that something was said about redrafting, but I also remember that it was said there was a hurry about the report, and I do not remember hearing any statement in the Committee that the thing would be done. I am sure the House would not expect any committee, if it felt that a report submitted to it contained matters dangerous to the well-being of the nation, to publish that report. That was the opinion of the full Committee, and owing to that the four Members seek to resign. I trust the House will realise that there was no objection to the criticisms contained in their report. The question was whether it was advisable to print certain parts of the report. Who should determine whether it was in the national interest? Surely the responsible full Committee and not a sub-committee should do that. The full Committee came to the conclusion, as recorded in the minutes: That the matter of paragraphs 25–32 be referred to the Co-ordinating Sub-committee, and that it be an instruction to the Subcommittee that, in consultation with the Subcommittee on Air Services, they do consider all the evidence available, and address a memorandum to the Prime Minister under the powers conferred on them by the Order of the House. In doing so, the Committee were only doing what they were instructed to do by this House, Some of us on the Committee have reason to complain about some of the things said as a result of this difference of opinion. The hon. Member for Mossley (Mr. Hopkinson) told us in his speech that he knew what the unpublished report dealt with. Why was he silent? It is not characteristic of the hon. Member to be silent in those circumstances. He is his own party in this House. As a loyal member of a party I confess that at times I envy his independence. It is very nice to be a free lance. Nobody will call him to book. He says thousands of people knew, and know what the unpublished report was about. Why have they kept silent? What is all the fuss about?

Mr. Hopkinson

I kept silent because this was not by any means the worst case. There are much worse cases than this.

Sir R. Young

Why did not the hon. Member tell us about those worse cases? What is he covering up? What need has he to cover up anything if he knows all about these things? He tells us that thousands of people know what is in the unpublished report. Then why have not we come to know it? Did the Press know? Why were they silent? Who muzzled them?

Sir A. Maitland

We want to know that.

Sir R. Young

I am perfectly sure that last week they were all agog to know, but there was nothing in the Press because they did not know. Therefore, the arguments of my hon. Friend the Member for Mossley appear grotesque, fantastic and absurd so far as they concern the question of the publication of a report which he says so many people know about. I go further and say that the national security will not be safeguarded if it is always assumed that what we discover for ourselves is known to our enemies and therefore should be broadcast far and wide. Besides, what right has the hon. Member to dogmatise about what the report dealt with? What right has anybody to dogmatise and say that any particular information about any war activity is known to our enemies? The only people who can dogmatise about that, in my estimation, are those directly or indirectly in collusion with our enemies.

Mr. Hopkinson

Is the hon. Member referring to me as being in collusion with the enemy, because, if so, I hope he will have the decency to make what he is saying perfectly clear?

Sir R. Young

I am saying, What right has the hon. Member to dogmatise—

Mr. Hopkinson

Exactly; and I would call the hon. Member's attention to what I said on that occasion, which certainly could not be truthfully described as dogmatising. I said that I had enough respect for the Intelligence Department of our enemy to presume that when tens of thousands of our own people knew about this that they too knew about it, and that is not dogmatism.

Sir R. Young

I will give the hon. Member the credit of saying that he was not dogmatising. It was on account of the way in which he put it in saying that the enemy knew. I say that nobody can be insistent upon these things and declare, as the hon. Member seemed to declare in this House, that the enemy knew, unless such a person were in collusion. I am not referring to the hon. Member now. I take this matter very seriously. One serious statement made by the hon. Member for Faversham was in implying that some Service Department or high official had sought to bring pressure to bear for the publication or non-publication of some part of the report.

Sir A. Maitland

That has been stated several times. Perhaps I might just recall to the House the circumstances in which I was dealing with the question of the influence of witnesses. I have refrained from saying that this was a procedure adopted as an innovation, and it was our duty, as Members of this House, to see how this innovation operated. Speaking from experience, I said there were certain dangers to the House itself. Then I went on to give instances. One instance was that it was within the power of witnesses to influence members of a Select Committee in deciding whether or not a report should be published. If the hon. Member asks me specifically whether that influence was exercised in this instance, I say, "Certainly."

Sir R. Young

I am glad the hon. Member interrupted me, because his interruption bears out what I said. The impression was certainly given that a Service Department or a high official had brought pressure to bear on the hon. Gentleman or upon his Sub-committee to do something.

Sir A. Maitland

I have never said that.

Sir R. Young

It amounts to that.

Sir A. Maitland

I am sorry, but I must make it plain. The point is this: Under the procedure which is now in operation on the part of the Committee, it is possible for Ministers to influence members of the Select Committee in deciding whether or not to report to the House. I repeat that influence—I did not say pressure upon our Sub-committee or upon any individual member—was used in the case of Ministers whose Departments were being investigated. This influence was invoked, not by the Ministers themselves, but by the Committee themselves and by the hon. Gentleman himself.

Sir R. Young

The only difference between the hon. Gentleman's statement and my own is that I regarded it as meaning pressure, whereas he says it means influence. I do not recall that on the full Committee anybody has tried to influence the contents of the report other than members of the Committee themselves. I am sure it has never happened on the War Sub-committee of which I am a member. I do not feel inclined to believe that any Minister, civil servant, or public Department would be so foolish as to do any such thing on a Committee which had power to get every item of information it demanded. But if it has occurred, I have no hesitation in saying to the hon. Gentleman, "Do your public duty, and expose the person or persons who have tried to cause the Committee to do something other than what it is entitled to do by the powers conferred upon it." In my estimation, it is not enough, in a question of this kind, to refer in the House of Commons to an earnest conversation with a particular person and then say that it ended in disagreement, because that also seemed to infer that the disagreement was about matters in the proposed report.

The hon. Gentleman made two suggestions to the House. He said that several of the Ministers—whom he indicated— should take an interest, I presume in the unpublished part of the report. What does he mean by that? Does it mean that the Prime Minister should not have studied carefully the facts placed before him by the Co-ordinating Sub-committee, and, having the facts before him, have consulted those concerned so as to determine whether the views expressed were justified and to decide also whether the recommendations should be enforced? If it does not mean that, then he and his Subcommittee know quite well that matters of policy are outside the scope of the Select Committee. Someone has said—and I agree with him—that it is not within the power of a Committee or Sub-committee to decide, in spite of any past inefficiency or waste of energy or money, whether a certain implement of war should or should not continue to be produced. They are not engineers, they are not scientists; only experts can decide whether the article referred to is a failure or will be a failure, and that therefore its production should cease.

The hon. Member wants the House to retract the decision that the Sub-committee should report direct to the Prime Minister when in doubt as to the wisdom of printing some portion of a Subcommittee's report. I trust the House will do no such thing, but if and when it does, I suggest that it should also decide that such matters should be issued for private information to Members for secret Debate at a Secret Session of this House. In so doing, I am emphasising that I believe that what was in this report was matter which, in the public interest, should not have been published. If no such condition is made, you may have certain Subcommittees asserting a right to the publication in full of their reports against a decision by a majority of the full Committee to the effect that it is not in the public interest to do so. That would lead, in my opinion, to disagreements, dissension, and ultimately public perplexity. I would ask the House to remember that it is only a matter of opinion as to what should or should not be published in the interests of the nation, or as to what should or should not go to the Prime Minister. Do not let us confuse the issue. We must not allow any Sub-committee to threaten, to dictate to or disintegrate the full Committee, especially such an important body as the Select Committee on National Expenditure which has now been set up. In so doing, they will uphold, in my estimation, not only democratic decisions but democratic government.

Sir George Schuster (Walsall)

I was particularly anxious to intervene for a short time in this Debate because I happened to be one of the members of the full Committee who was unable to be present when the decision was taken which has given rise to this Debate. Therefore, I should like to testify that if I had been there I should have very strongly supported the majority decision. By so doing I believe I would have increased the majority from one to two. I believe that the hon. Member for South West Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris) has expressed a similar view so that it might have been further increased. There are one or two matters I should like to mention which have not been mentioned yet in this discussion. As a member of the Committee I have derived one very great satisfaction from this Debate, in that the House of Commons has shown a great deal of interest in what happens in this Committee on National Expenditure, though it is perhaps rather unfortunate that the first time that it has been the subject of a full discussion that should have been in relation to a disagreement.

I think indeed it is worth while calling the attention of the House to the fact that although over 30 reports have been presented to the House, there has never yet been any Debate in the House on any of them. I hope the House will excuse me if I add a few further remarks on this subject. Those of us who sit on this Select Committee have a very difficult task. We have limited time, the work has to be fitted in with other work and it is difficult to get Committees together. Each Sub-committee has a vast field to cover. It is impossible for any Sub-committee to examine fully the field for which it is responsible. Therefore, it has to apply a process of selection. One of our great difficulties is, if I may so put it, to get pointers to the matters to which we should direct our inquiries. I speak as a member of a Sub-committee which has put into one of its reports a definite appeal that Members of this House should call our attention to facts which they think worthy of inquiry. I venture now to put it to the House that that has not received a very wide response. If the House is interested in our task, then I think all Members of the House could do a great deal to help the Select Committee in its work.

Passing on from that to the subjects under discussion, one can deal with these in technical terms as regards procedure or one can try to get deeper into the substance of what is involved. I am not going into questions of procedure. I would only like to say, in reference to the speech of the hon. Member for North Aberdeen (Mr. Garro Jones), that he has made a number of very elaborate suggestions, but I would put it to the House that the real issue before us is whether the House has confidence in this Select Committee on National Expenditure or not. If the Committee commands their confidence, then I can assure the House that the rules of our procedure are perfectly adequate for us to carry out our business properly. On the vital question which has been raised—namely, as to who is to decide whether a particular issue is one on which a question of public interest arises—the decision essentially and in substance rests with the Committee itself. If the House cannot trust the Committee to take that decision, I think that the House should express that in some way or other.

Mr. Garro Jones

Why does the hon. Member suppose that this House gave the power of making that decision to the Coordinating Sub-committee? What was in the mind of those who drafted that Order, and the mind of the House when they passed it?

Sir G. Schuster

The hon. Member is trying to lead me into just those somewhat unimportant and complex grounds which I want to avoid. The position is that it lies with the Co-ordinating Subcommittee to raise the question, but afterwards it is the full Committee that has to take the decision. My point is that, however the hon. Member likes to argue, the responsibility really does in substance rest with the full Committee.

Turning to what I consider to be a much more important issue, one is in a very great difficulty in discussing it because one is not allowed to reveal the subject matter that gave rise to all this dispute. But my hon. Friend who moved the Motion originally did give a certain amount of information. I do not know whether he was skating on thin ice or was going over the edge or whether he managed to observe all the proprieties which should be observed. But, at any rate, he did tell the House that the whole of this recommendation referred to experimental work. It is not part of the ordinary activities of the Ministry of Aircraft Production. It is a question of an isolated experiment. The point that I want to put to the House, a point which I think is of substantial importance, is this. We have, as I have already said, a very difficult task on these Committees. We are not technical experts; we are a lay Committee. When a question like this arises, of whether it is in the national interest that a particular kind of technical experiment should go on or not, I feel myself in a very great difficulty. I am not omniscient—as my hon. Friend the Member for Mossley (Mr. Hopkinson) always professes to be.

Mr. Pickthorn (Cambridge University)

He is not present.

Sir G. Schuster

I wish that he had not: left, because I want to make an observation about his speech. I think it was a very mischievous speech. I want to say about my hon. Friend what I have often been tempted to say before—and I say it with regret, because I have great affection for him. He is one of those people who, when you hear them speak, make you think that they possess all wisdom, that they speak with authority —not as the Scribes and Pharisees. You think that about my hon. Friend until he gets on to a subject about which you happen to have special knowledge yourself, and then you are apt to find that his speech is recklessly inaccurate and misleading. He told us that he knew all about this case, that it was a case involving not hundreds of thousands but millions, and that it was analogous to others which must come before the Select Committee, involving 20 or 30 times as much. How does he get this information? If he has it, why does he not bring it with all supporting facts, before the Government or before our Select Committee? I put it to the House that speeches of that kind, not followed up by facts, cause grave disquiet in the country—and if we are to speak of helping the enemy, I can think of nothing which is more calculated to help the enemy.

I want to say something more on this particular subject, and again I speak with restraint, because I do not want to stray over the borderline of propriety. I can put what I want to say like this. I feel ready to be an extremely severe critic of certain things that are going on. Nobody, even Members sitting on the Government benches, can feel satisfied that we are doing in all respects as well as we ought to do. That statement cannot be disputed. But if one looks back over the record of this country in the war there is surely one activity in which we can claim to have shown outstanding excellence—that is, in the design of our aircraft. There has never once in this war been any complaint, such as one remembers so well in the last war, that the enemy had better aeroplanes than we. In fact, it has been commonly acknowledged that ours are far better than the enemy's. Great credit seems to be due for that somewhere—I do not know where it should go. Now that has a direct bearing on this particular case. This is a question of experimental expenditure on types of aircraft. I do not mind confessing to the House that, as a layman, I hesitate to come down to this House saying, "Here is a disgraceful example of waste of money." Should not all of us who are laymen hesitate to do that? I think it right to put that point, because it directly concerns the question at issue. I think the House has been misled as to the seriousness of this case. And, as to that, I come back to what I said about the task of this Committee. We cannot deal with everything; we have to try to concentrate on the things of importance. There may be things which, even though small in themselves, illustrate some widespread inefficiency in the system. On the other hand there may be isolated cases, which look very important, but which have less significance. I do not think that we in the Select Committee ought to indulge in a sort of witch-hunt. We want to know where the big issues are. It is not isolated instances, but examples of inefficiency in the main lines of activity on which we should really concentrate.

Sir A. Maitland

That is absolutely wrong. It is because there are great issued involved that we have taken up a strong line.

Sir G. Schuster

I am glad to find that my hon. Friend respects the same principles as I do, but I dispute his right to pass judgment on me as being entirely wrong. I am entitled to my opinion as much as he is to his, and we have an honest difference about it. I adhere to what I have said, and I think it right to say these things to the House.

There is one other thing I want to mention in regard to what the House may, in fact, have been gravely misled. No one can deny that this has been put before the House as a sort of case where one side of the Committee favours some form of appeasement while the others are courageous, patriotic people who long ago rejected appeasement as the method to be tolerated. It is fair to explain to the House that that is not the case at all. I myself, in supporting the particular action that has been taken, would have supported it because I thought it was the most effective way to get quick results. We proposed to put before the Prime Minister a full detailed account of the whole transaction in a way it could never have been put in a report which had to be published. We thought that that was the quickest way of getting action. But we did not commit ourselves at all as to our final course. If the Prime Minister does not give us satisfaction, it is open to us still to come down to the House, give all the facts and say that public interest as regards giving information to the enemy must take second place, and that the importance of this issue overrides everything else. Surely if, after having tried to do the matter in this way, we then found that it did not produce results which we considered effective and satisfactory, and if we then came and reported to the House we would produce a much greater effect than merely by publishing a recommendation in an emasculated report made to the House. In saying what I have, I refer particularly to the hon. Member for Mossley who represented to the House that we had to refer to the Prime Minister the question of whether this was a matter of public interest or not. It was nothing of the kind. We referred the matter as a case on which we wanted to make recommendations and required urgent investigation, and we are entirely free to consider our future action in the light of the reply that we get. Therefore I myself feel strongly that the line of action we have taken is the most effective in the national interest.

Mr. Ammon (Camberwell, North)

I want if I may to bring the House back to the position as outlined by the hon. Member for Faversham (Sir A. Maitland) when he opened this Debate with a speech that was forceful, restrained and discreet. Before I do so, however, let me remind the hon. Member for Walsall (Sir G. Schuster) that he is completely mistaken in saying there has been no discussion in this House on any report submitted by the Committee. Actually there was a full discussion in the House on the question of the Abbotsinch scandal, or mistake— whichever you prefer—during which it was indicated that there was a tremendous waste of public money. An attempt was made by the Minister concerned to defend the Government but afterwards he had to recede from that position. Let me say at once that the tact that I am taking opposite sides from that of my hon. Friend the Member for Newton (Sir R. Young) goes to show that there are no party politics in regard to this matter. It is something which transcends party differences, something which does not even involve the Government. It is a matter which concerns the House solely and absolutely. This Sub-Committee was set up in order to be the watch dog of this House as far as the expenditure of public money is concerned, and its duties became particularly important in view of the fact that no detailed Estimates of large expenditure are now set before the House. To a large extent this Committee carries out the duties which would normally be carried out by the House, as a body, were full Estimates put before the House.

Everything that goes on in these Committees is secret and privileged. One is not allowed to divulge the proceedings. Even the Prime Minister and members of the War Cabinet were not to be told what happened. Let us admit that, to a certain extent, this Sub-Committee has been "hoist with its own petard." That is to say, the innovation of going to the Prime Minister came as a suggestion from this Sub-Committee. May I point out to the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne)—who as Chairman of the Select Committee on National Expenditure does his job with distinction and credit—that he did not quite stand up to that high level when he seemed to suggest to-day that the hon. Member for Faversham had sailed close to points of Order and various trifles like that. Surely he could have paid no greater compliment to the hon. Gentleman in that he managed to keep within the bounds of Order in making such a statement before the House. Indeed, a high official of the House said to me afterwards that in all his experience he had never heard a Member able to put so narrow a point while keeping within the bounds of Order all the time. Therefore, I do not think the hon. Gentleman need be much concerned about any criticism on that score.

I am sure I am not giving anything away when I say that as soon as the Sub-committee started work we found it difficult to get some information from the Department and certain steps had to be taken by the then Chairman to overcome those difficulties. The hon. Member for Kidderminster may have given the impression that there have been very substantial changes in the membership of the Sub-committee, but it is the same Sub-committee as at the beginning, with the exception of a change in the chairmanship. Soon after the Sub-committee came into being, we came across a matter of such serious importance that we felt that in no circumstances dare we bring it to the House, and what is more, we felt it was so serious that we dare not take it to the whole of the Select Committee, but that it should go to the Coordinating Sub-committee. We took that step because we felt that the matter was so serious and the repercussions would be so tremendous, and a Resolution was passed by the House giving us authority to send the report to the Prime Minister, not for the Prime Minister to say whether or not it was a matter that would endanger public security if it were disclosed, but for him to take such action as he could, because it was felt impossible for us to give any publicity to it.

The House should remember that the request for those powers was based solely on the ground that we felt the matter was of such tremendous seriousness that we did not dare risk public security with regard to it, but in seeking that other means of dealing with the matter, it was not intended by us that the Resolution of the House should be used to cover up any failings or shortcomings on the part of Departments or Ministers. That is the issue at the moment. The members of the Sub-committee do not for one moment suggest that they should not have due regard to the strong argument concerning majority government, but there do come times when things are so important and the issues are so narrow that one must differ from a very narrow majority, as we have done in this case. Moreover, I challenge altogether any statement that the majority decision in the Select Committee was taken on the ground of public security. That decision was taken on the ground of public interest, but not on the ground that security was endangered. In fact, the report was not considered strong enough by the majority of the Select Committee, and I venture to believe that the chairman of the Committee himself did not take the view that public security was in any way endangered by the report.

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne

Whatever my own views may have been in the matter, I sent it to the Co-ordinating Committee for consideration. Therefore, I must have considered that point arose.

Mr. Ammon

The position is that the decision was not taken wholly on that ground. The question we have to con- sider is whether or not we should save the faces of certain people who made errors or misjudgments, or whether it is the duty of the Sub-committee, as we held it to be, to report to the House what we consider to be great waste, bad administration, and extravagance. That is the issue with which we are concerned at the present time. We have no quarrel with individual members of the Select Committee. Responsible men do not lightly cast aside associations they have built up over two years in interesting and important work—and I think I can say without presumption that we have been engaged on important work—and particularly associations they have formed with individuals which have resulted in closer bonds of friendship than would otherwise have existed. We do not cast aside such associations unless compelled to do so by something over and above our particular interests. It is solely on that point that the issue is drawn at present. The argument used by the hon. Member and others is that, if they sent to the Prime Minister reports which they felt it was not wise to publish to the House, on the ground of financial security, and if they did not get satisfaction from the Prime Minister, they would probably take steps to bring the matter to light here. That means that they are going to defy even the opinion of the Prime Minister that national security is endangered, placing themselves in a very much more difficult position. One finds it very difficult to accept that sort of argment as having any basis or any power at all.

We are not actuated by any narrow spirit at all. We are not lightly going to set aside majority rule, but we have the right to point out that the majority is so narrow and the position so wide that the matter is one calling for further consideration by the Committee. It is not a question of "Against whom are we going to fight?" We are not fighting anyone. We are not quarrelling. What we are concerned about is that millions of money are being wasted, while labour is being diverted from things which are necessary to carry on the war and, in spite of seeming to take an obstinate line, it is our duty to bring that to the House. There is no other means of doing it, because if, once a matter has been sent to the Prime Minister, we cannot discuss it, it then becomes a matter of Privilege as far as the Committee is concerned and we are shut down. Looking at it in any way, the House must accept the fact that the resigning members are not actuated by any narrow spirit. All that we are concerned about is efficiency and ensuring that the nation gets full benefit for the money that is being expended and that people, however high their position, should be brought to the judgment bar of the House in order that we may know whether or not we are getting full value for money. We get condemnation of workmen who are not pulling their weight or doing this, that or the other. It is equally important that those in higher positions should have to face charges of falling short in any way.

It is with that question alone that we are concerned. We do not say that our report is infallible. It may be all wrong. That is for the House to determine when the Department has put up its defence. We do not claim that some defence may not be found. There is evidence given by the hon. Baronet the Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris) and enforced by the hon. Member for Walsall (Sir G. Schuster) and the hon. Member for Kidderminster, not as to whether our findings are right or not, but rather that they might have been put in very much stronger terms.

Those terms were of such a nature that we think they ought to have come to the House instead of being dealt with in this way. There is one thing I want to say in justice to my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham. The Co-ordinating Subcommittee is made up of chairmen of the different Sub-committees, and when this report was considered by that committee the chairman most concerned was not present and the report was passed in a very few minutes. There ought to have been some way of delaying consideration of the report so that the hon. Member could have been there to put his case. Whatever may be said with regard to the fact that the Committee was not influenced by the Co-ordinating Sub-committee, when men have decided to take a certain line it is difficult for them to go against it on a committee of which they are members.

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne

But some of my hon. Friends did often change their minds.

Mr. Ammon

But a number came into the Committee prejudiced by the decision taken by the Co-ordinating Sub-committee. It is a matter not of party policy, but of public concern that when questions arise of great importance relating to waste of money, misdirection of labour, and so forth, and a majority of only one makes a decision, those questions should be brought to the attention of the House.

Mr. Craik Henderson (Leeds, North-East)

I should like on behalf of the obscure Members of the House who are not members of the Select Committee to say a few words. This discussion has been very interesting to Members who are on the Select Committee, but those of us who have not that high privilege are hearing something on which we cannot form any opinion. We have heard that a question of great importance is involved, and on the other side we are told that it is a simple question. The direct question is a simple one, but there is also a bigger question on which the House cannot form any opinion because the matter is secret. We are being asked to say whether the majority of the Committee was right or wrong on the question whether this report contained things which it was not in the public interest should be disclosed. Even about that there is some confusion. It is not clear Whether the objection was on the ground that it was against the public interest or whether because it was likely to give information to the enemy. There is no Member of the House for whom I have a higher regard than for my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Sir A. Maitland), and I suggest to him that it is unfortunate the question should have arisen in this way.

I suggest that the difficult is in the terms of reference which the House gave to the Committee and that the larger question might be raised in a Secret Session on the terms of reference. That is the; only way in which we can discuss what lies behind this matter. We cannot take any decision on the request of four members to resign because they disagree with the majority. Having accepted the decision of the House given in May and November last year, the correct remedy of the Sub-committee, I suggest, was not immediate resignation. If the War Cabinet should decline to accept their recommendations then, and then only, in my view, they might be justified in tendering their resignations. Alternatively, the remedy was to come here to ask that the terms of reference should be amended. I suppose it is too late to make an appeal to the members of the Sub-committee, but I know the House would welcome it if, even at this late hour, they would agree to withdraw their resignations and on a subsequent occasion would come forward with the request that the terms of reference should be amended. It is a subject which the House would like to have fully discussed, and I appeal to them to withdraw their resignations and proceed along those lines.

Mr. MacLaren (Burslem)

In all the speeches that have been delivered in this Debate there has been a sort of repetition of two impressions of what happened. I want to make an appeal to the Government. I understand that the Motion before us cannot be withdrawn unless the Government withdraw it, and the Government, I understand, cannot very well take the responsibility of withdrawing it unless they have some idea of the feelings of the hon. Members of the House involved in the Motion. I think I am expressing the feelings of the House when I say that all of us would regret their resignations at this moment. The other day when the hon. Member for Faversham (Sir A. Maitland) delivered his speech I knew intimately his feelings. It was a most trying experience for him. Knowing him as I do I can assure the House that he made that speech with deep and sincere conviction, feeling that he was performing a public duty to the State. He and his colleagues having this deep conviction in their mind, I am going to ask them whether, after this prolonged Debate, and after they have impressed the House with the importance—indeed, the dangerous importance—of the question they have raised, they will not now reconsider the position they have taken up. I know that it is difficult for them, feeling as strongly as they do. They will say, "Suppose we agree to go back on to the Committee, what have we effected by the action we have taken? What satisfaction can we have? If we go back on the Committee, shall we again be subject to some sort of inquisitorial dictatorship which will hedge us around in the discharge of our function of inquiring into these very seri- ous charges; are we to go back on to the Committee and have no power to give the House of Commons a full report on the information we have? '' We are all grown men here, and surely we can at least face a difficulty of this kind. I am now appealing to the Government to consider the withdrawal of this Motion and asking them, at the same time, to give some warranty or some guarantee to the four hon. Members of this House—

Mr. Quibell (Brigg)

And the House.

Mr. MacLaren

—and the House, because after all they are doing it on behalf of the House. I ask the Government to give some sort of guarantee to this Committee that it will have an opportunity for a full expression of its case, subject to national safety. I am appealing in a double way, to the Government and to the four Members of the House, to come to some agreement now. I appeal to any one of the hon. Members who formed the Sub-committee to express his views on this matter, with your permission, Mr. Speaker. If this Debate continues, it will not be for the good and wellbeing of the House of Commons and the State. The hon. Members have ventilated their case and have performed a great public duty, and I ask whether some accommodation can now be come to and some guarantee given to the courageous members of this Sub-committee. I honestly believe that they have sincerely done a public duty.

Mr. Leach (Bradford, Central)

After the speech which we have just heard I want the House to believe that we are not four stupid people standing out on a question of dignity or anything of that kind. We hold to the belief that we are actuated by one of the best principles upon which the Government of this House could possibly be founded. As one of the four Members, I would be very glad to respond to the appeal that has just been made, provided that some assurance were forthcoming from responsible quarters that the matters we have raised would be dealt with immediately. I want it to be properly understood that we are just as much alive to questions of public safety and giving comfort or help to the enemy, as any other Member of this House. We considered that matter very carefully when we drafted our report, and we were fully satisfied that neither of those transgressions was made in that report.

Let hon. Members consider for a moment. Suppose a Government Department were engaged in a costly and foolish enterprise, wasting large sums of money, the substance of the taxpayer. Suppose a committee comes along, investigates the enterprise and says: "This must stop." It is forthwith stopped. Suppose that the Germans knew all about it throughout the whole period, and they suddenly learned that we had stopped this thing; would that be a source of comfort to them? I imagine not. I do not think that that issue was involved for an instant. The right hon. Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris) suggested that we were a little anxious to see that the minority view should prevail, and that we were not good democrats. As a matter of fact, precisely the opposite is the case. We put the matter to the vote and were defeated. What was our course? We could not pursue it any further and we had to resign. The matter was one of serious principle and no other course seemed open to us. If we said now: "All right, we are sorry we resigned"—which, of course, would not be true—"and we are ready to go back," what sort of guarantee is there that we should not suffer humiliation by a recurrence of the same kind of experience of which this is the first example? I want it to be understood that we are not stupid, we are open to reason, and if any assurance can be forthcoming from responsible quarters that this matter is to be put right immediately, we shall be very glad indeed to respond to the request made.

Sir A. Maitland

It is only by permission of the House that I can intervene again in this Debate, and perhaps I may have that kind indulgence. The request which has been made is really addressed to the Prime Minister himself, for presumably any assurance such as my hon. Friend would like to have ought to come from him. I would like to say, and I am glad to take the opportunity of doing so, that whatever has been done there is nothing which suggests a lack of confidence in the Prime Minister on the part of the members of the Sub-committee. The question was the procedure which has been adopted with regard to the whole matter and the need for bringing about a speedy decision with regard to what has exercised our minds. No man who has been a Member of this House for some years could fail to be moved and impressed by the atmosphere which has prevailed during this Debate. It is quite obvious that even as between those who have different points of view there is a sincere desire that we should be united and determined to the maximum extent. I hope nobody will think that we resigned in order to kick up a fuss about it. If we go back to the Committee, it is merely in answer to the request which has come from all quarters of the House that we take up our burden once more, if we can have an assurance such as we require. I believe this Debate will have served to cause the authorities to give immediate attention to this matter, and I sincerely trust that in the future hon. Members will not assume that because our action was perhaps drastic, it was actuated by anything but the most proper motives, namely, a desire to see the successful prosecution of the war. I would like the House to be indulgent to my hon. Friends and myself. We will do our best to continue to serve it.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Captain Crookshank)

While it is not for me to comment at all on this Debate, I think we must all appreciate the very great sincerity with which the four members of the Sub-committee have in turn addressed the House. Now the hon. Gentleman who initiated the Debate has risen and said that in response to the appeal of others in this House they are prepared to resume the work which they have made so peculiarly their own during recent months. in reply to that, I am quite sure that everyone here would like to say, "Thank you very much for corning forward to do it again; we know what you have already done, and we look forward to further good service in the work which lies before you." But there is the difficulty, of course, that in order for that to be done the Motion has to be withdrawn. Therefore, I rise to do that. I think that is as far as I can take it. On the other hand, I quite appreciate the general trend of the Debate, and indeed the last few words of the hon. Member have been that the House would like some sort of assurance as to what was going to happen about the report. I can only say that the report, as we have heard not infrequently during this Debate, was a secret report submitted to the Prime Minister. It is not therefore for me, in his absence, to pledge the Prime Minister or anyone else to particular action with regard to it. The best way I can leave it—and I hope it will be satisfactory to everyone—is that, of course, we shall call the attention of the Prime Minister to what has been said in this Debate, and he has quite an acute enough mind to read between the lines. If necessary, some arrangement can be made through the usual channels, or a Question be put down when a considered answer can be given. I do not think it would be satisfactory for anyone to give a pledge or anything definite to-day. The gist of the Debate will certainly be reported to the Prime Minister, probably as soon as the House rises. If the House will accept that, I am prepared to ask leave to withdraw the Motion on behalf of the Government, and again express our thanks to the hon. Gentlemen who are prepared to resume the work.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn