HC Deb 01 March 1944 vol 397 cc1533-46

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

Commander King-Hall (Ormskirk)

The immediate cause of the remarks which I am going to make to-day was the negative reply which I received from the Government to the request that we might have a Debate on a Motion which stood on the Order Paper in my name, and that of 250 other hon. Members, to the effect that HANSARD should be supplied to the Libraries and discussion centres of the Armed Forces of the Crown at the public expense. I believe I could have obtained another 68 signatures to that Motion, and it would have been interesting to know whether, if we had got as far as 318 signatures, the Government would have accepted it as an affirmative Resolution. I informed the Government that on this occasion I proposed to raise the general question of the supply of HANSARD to the public and this particular question of the supply of some copies of HANSARD to the Armed Forces. May I say at once that I am quite convinced there is no deep question of principle on this matter between the Government and myself. The most, I think, that my hon. Friend will say to me is, "Hasten slowly!" Indeed it is very difficult to suppose that any Government in the House of Commons would object to any measures calculated to improve knowledge by the people of the proceedings of Parliament. It may be, and I think it is, that perhaps the Government are not yet quite fully seized of the importance of this subject which I am raising on the Adjournment.

In effect, it can briefly be summarised as being the whole question of the public relations of Parliament. I would first take this case of the supply of HANSARD to the Armed Forces of the Crown. One of the most remarkable consequences of this war has been the extraordinary growth of educational activity in the Armed Forces, and anyone who knows anything about it would pay a tribute to the work which is being done in that respect in the whole range of education for citizenship. I do not want to weary the House by attempting to describe what that set-up is, but if anyone examines it he will find that in the various Commands of the Fighting Services there are senior educational officers and there are officers under them in areas, and, in a very short time, one finds oneself dealing with hundreds of centres of discussion and education. If one goes down to the lower levels, the figure amounts to thousands. I might, for instance, mention to the House that I recently had the privilege of receiving an invitation to go up North to one section of the Naval Command to spend a fortnight there talking to them about the actual day-to-day work of Parliament. The letter said: I hope you will be able to give to me at least four lectures a day, because that is the minimum in a fortnight which will be of any use, so great is the demand to hear this kind of thing discussed there. The provision of HANSARD to the officers responsible for all this enormous education work which is going on—and I am confining myself solely for the time being to the three Services in the United Kingdom—would be of the greatest assistance to them in their work. I have here a selection from a large number of communications I have received, and I would like to read out to the House a typical communication. I have chosen one from each of the Services. The first one comes from the Air Force, and the officer concerned wrote me a long letter of which I give this extract: The news room plays a vital part in informing all ranks of the progress of the war, and encouraging them to take an intelligent interest in their duties as citizens whilst they are at war. There is a liberal supply of newspaper maps and plotted war fronts, periodicals, pamphlets and books. Some stations in my area have as many as 200 visits a day. Now this is the part which I think will interest the House: Hansard is the most important publication in the news room. It brings home to all the value of our Parliamentary democracy, which we are fighting for. Every side of the question can be seen to be cogently argued and for the first time many see their own opinions being expressed in Parliament. It is the answer to the suspicion that the House of Commons is out of touch with the sentiments of the services or that only one point of view is considered. That comes from one of the Bomber Command groups. I have a letter here from one of the big A.A. areas and, in response to a question, I arranged for some specimen copies of HANSARD to be sent. The Welfare Officer—who happens to be a Member of this House—wrote back: Many thanks for copies of Hansard, which have been received with great enthusiasm. The education officer is of the opinion that he will be able to get authority to expend from the funds £25 a year on the daily provision of Hansard. I would be glad if you would let me know how many daily copies we could get for that amount. He goes on to say: It is very good of you to say you will do what you can to raise the necessary additional money to give the required 50 daily copies of Hansard which we need in this area. Then I have a letter here from a Naval Signalling School which says much the same thing, only the writer observes that he has written to the Stationery Office, as they have not very much money, wondering if they could get reduced rates if they ordered the two copies they needed, and he was told that only public libraries are entitled to have special rates. Finally, I have a letter from the Army. This comes from a very large depot up in the North, and the officer says: It would be very helpful, and so useful to us, for lectures and discussions for men in this unit. I have to produce a new one to last 90 minutes for six days in the week. I can well believe he would find it useful to have HANSARD. That is just a selection from a very large correspondence, which I could produce, illustrating what a great convenience it would be to the Services to have copies of HANSARD at these centres from which all this enormous amount of discussion and study is now emanating. In a perfect world, my calculation is that I could guarantee a very good home for not fewer than 2,000 copies of HANSARD, every issue, in this country alone—and I am not saying anything about the Services abroad and the demand I know there is for it out in Cairo and Alexandria. I recognise, however, that this is by no means a perfect world, and that there are technical difficulties of production, and I am prepared to say that 500 copies of HANSARD, shared out amongst the Forces, would at any rate touch the fringe of the problem. That is a phrase used to me by an officer very high up in this matter. He said, "Get us 500 copies. It would touch the fringe of the problem." I suggested that the Army should have 200, the R.A.F. 200, and 100 should go to the shore establishments of the Navy.

That, in brief, is the case for this particular argument for the supply of HANSARD at the public expense to the Armed Forces. At least may I make this plea, that while I do not believe, as a matter of fact, that the Treasury will object to the small expense involved, if there is an objection, at any rate let the Armed Forces have HANSARD at the reduced rate which is now available to the public library. Personally I feel it is not asking much of the financial side, and I say frankly that I am not anticipating much objection there. There are technical difficulties in dealing with 2,000, but I think that 500 is not an unreasonable request for all the Fighting Services in this country.

Now I want to say something about the general question which, as I explained to the House, is really that of the public relations of Parliament. I think it is up to me very briefly to explain to the House why it is that I am rather concerned with this, and am receiving correspondence on this subject from people all over the country. Some 100 Members of both Houses will know the answer to that question, because they will know that a movement has been started, which they have been good enough to support, a nonprofit-making association calling itself the "Friends of Hansard," with which I am to some extent associated. I want to place on record in HANSARD a brief statement which defines what the object of that Association is. It is: A body of persons united in the resolve to take such action as may be expedient to increase the circulation and study of HANSARD in order that a larger number of persons in Britain, the Empire overseas, the United States and foreign countries may become acquainted with, and interested in, the proceedings of Parliament and thus be better informed about the day to day workings of the democratic method, as exemplified by the proceedings of Parliament.

It being the hour appointed for the interruption of Business, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

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

Commander King-Hall

Since its foundation this Association has become the focal point of a considerable amount of interest by the public in the proceedings of Parliament. May I say, Sir, that in speaking about HANSARD I always feel that I am dealing with a subject which is of special interest to the Chair, due to the special position which Mr. Speaker occupies as a trustee of HANSARD. I will not dwell at length on the extraordinary facts which have been revealed beyond reminding the House that, until a recent date, HANSARD was not supplied, except in a very few instances, to any of our Embassies and Legations. I do not know whether that shocks the House as it shocked me when I learnt of it. Nor was it supplied—although this has been remedied now to some extent—to any libraries of the British Council overseas, which exists to spread knowledge of the British way of life. So far as statistics can be obtained up to the present I think I am on safe ground in saying that I doubt whether HANSARD is to be found in 50 per cent. of the public libraries of this country, although they can obtain it at the reduced rate. I beg hon. Members who are present, and those who may read these words, to make a few inquiries in their own divisions and see whether something cannot be done to get copies for their own libraries. I know of a town of 150,000 inhabitants where one cannot get in the public libraries there a copy of the proceedings of Parliament.

There are ways of persuading. Government Departments to become more friendly towards HANSARD but it is not on that issue that I want to detain the House now. The really important point is that a large number of the public are quite unaware of the fact that HANSARD can be bought. They think it is a kind of private publication, reserved strictly for Members of Parliament and the Government. Every day letters come into the Association of the "Friends of Hansard" expressing astonishment that HANSARD can be bought. Personally, I never travel in a train without having an extra copy of HANSARD to pass round among my fellow travellers. I have never yet done a railway journey without finding people astonished at the discovery that HANSARD can be bought. People usually say, "This is very interesting; I never knew that there was such interesting reading in it." We have to let the people know that if they want to do so they can buy a copy of HANSARD. I suggest that it should be found in the head offices of every large banking and commercial concern in the country. I am glad to be ably to tell the House that many banks, insurance companies and large firms are now beginning to take a very lively and practical interest in the Association, practical by giving us financial support—for we are not rich—and in the work we are trying to do to make public opinion better acquainted with the proceedings of Parliament.

I want to make it clear that not a word I have said, or ever wish to say, is to be interpreted as any attack on the Press in their reporting of the proceedings of Parliament in full. On the contrary, let us remember that it is due to the Press and to the fight they put up in the past that the public are now allowed to know what is going on in Parliament. The Press has fought for the public in this respect, and they are very friendly to this activity to make the proceedings of Parliament better known to the public. Within the limits of what they can do with their small page papers, the Press, and the B.B.C., give an excellent summary of the proceedings of Parliament, but we must be clear that there are two quite separate things. A summary is one thing and a full report is quite different, and they must not be confused. It is the business of the Press to give the best summary they can in the space at their disposal.

I also want to make it plain that it is not my purpose or that of the "Friends of Hansard" to see HANSARD in every home. We are not endeavouring to increase its circulation in any phoney manner. No doubt if I were given £50,000 and took space in papers I could boost up the sales of HANSARD. That is not my purpose or the purpose of the "Friends of Hansard." We do not wish anyone to have HANSARD who does not want to have it for genuine reasons and who will not treat it with respect. Nevertheless I could not believe nine months ago that the average world sale of HANSARD, which amounted to 2,450 copies, represented the total number of people in the world who wanted to read a full report of the proceedings of the House of Commons if they had known they could get it.

We have not had an opportunity to do very much and we have not been pressing the matter with the Stationery Office but, even with the very delicate hints that we have thrown out to the effect that HANSARD is worth looking at, in nine months the circulation has risen to 3,855, which certainly shows that there are some people who did not know about HANSARD and, now that they know about it, want it. Moreover, what we want to explain to the public is that, if they see in their paper that a subject is being debated which is of special interest to them, if they really want to find out what was said they can do so by giving an order to their bookseller or buying a copy at the Stationery Office.

A man may only take that action three or four times a year, but it is all to the good for the working of democracy and the strengthening of the link between people and Parliament that people should acquire this habit of occasionally indulging in a really deep drink of Parliament instead of a daily cocktail. Let them know that they can get the genuine article when they see that a subject in which they are specially interested has been discussed, and then they will see what the difference is between a Debate in Parliament and a summary. There are many differences in quantity and quality.

I do not think anyone would deny that the two copies of HANSARD which contained the report of the Debate on foreign affairs a few days ago contained a great deal of extremely interesting material to anyone who has taken any interest in foreign affairs. Naturally the daily Press, on the second day, printed the Prime Minister's speech in full, but simply had not the space to do more than summarise other speeches in the shortest possible way. There was a serious omission, as I was unable to make some observations that I wanted to make, from an independent point of view, upon the concluding passage of the Prime Minister's speech, but those two HANSARDS contained precisely the raw material required by the discussion groups in the Services, the Civil Defence Services, schools and that great and democratic study group movement which is springing into activity all over the country. That is a very important movement which ought to be encouraged by this House. It should also be known that the HANSARD which records the proceedings of another place can also be obtained by the public. Somme of the Members of another place have been as shocked as I have to discover that the sales of their HANSARD, which contains excellent and authoritative material, are ludicrous. They are now selling only 703 copies per issue. That figure must be improved, and it will be improved when people get to know that the proceedings of another place are published and can be obtained. Something has to be done about that. Many people do not know that there are two HANSARDS.

I would like to come to one other aspect of this business. I want the House to believe me when I say that the public interest in HANSARD is increasing. It ought to go on increasing, and I hope it will. I want to warn the Government and the House that that will raise some difficult problems. I wonder whether the House realises that for technical reasons, which have nothing to do with war-time production or shortage of money, the maximum production of HANSARD in its present magazine format is 10,000 to 12,000 copies. There is no means of getting more. You cannot produce a HANSARD of that shape and size in larger numbers. The figure we have got to at present is 7,500, and one has only to look at the curve in my office to see when the ceiling will be reached. This is a peace-time as well as a war-time problem, because if the demand rose to 20,000 copies per issue, it will be necessary to print our proceedings, or some of them, by the rotary method, which means a different shape and size of publication. That will be a difficult problem. The solution will be two editions. There will be an edition like it is at present for Members, Government Departments and so forth, and, if I am correct in my supposition that there will be an extra demand above that, there will have to be something which will resemble in format a newspaper as a second edition for the general public. I mention that fact to illustrate that there are some big problems in front of this House, and I am doing it to prepare the minds of the Government and hon. Members so that nobody can say afterwards that they were not warned.

May I summarise my requests to the Government? First, I ask that copies of HANSARD of both Houses be made available to Service organisations at the public expense. Second, I ask an assurance from the Government that, as part of their post-war plan—and this is part of the whole post-war set up—they will look into the whole question of the public relations of Parliament, which is nobody's baby at present. It is linked up with such matters as what the galleries in the new Chamber will look like, and so on. In particular, I ask the Government to consider the problem of what they are going to do if the public require more and more copies of HANSARD. There is much more that I could say on this subject. I could tell the House how HANSARD is being used in schools and about the movement, which is now beginning, for setting up local groups in different parts of the country to discuss our proceedings on the basis of a joint subscription that the group takes for HANSARD. I could also say something of the development which is taking place in the provision of HANSARD to Congressmen. Only a few hours ago I was pleased to have a letter from a Congressman saying that he was glad he was beginning to get HANSARD and that he was finding it interesting reading. A distinguished American assured me that we could do nothing more useful for Anglo-American relations than to enable Congressmen to get HANSARD so that they could study our proceedings. About a dozen Congressmen are now receiving HANSARD. I hope I have said enough to persuade Service Ministers to see to it that they put HANSARD into the hands of their personnel and to get into the minds of the Government and Members of this House a realisation of the importance to the future of democracy of a subject which I deem it to have been a privilege to have been able to bring to their notice.

Sir Patrick Hannon (Birmingham, Moseley)

I support the appeal made to the House for the wider circulation of HANSARD and, in particular, the point which my hon. and gallant Friend raised, about study groups in the country who are taking a live and vivid interest in the proceedings of this House, and giving an opportunity for a wider circulation of knowledge of our proceedings. I endorse what my hon. and gallant Friend said about the appreciation expressed in the United States of sending copies of HANSARD to the House of Representatives and to the Senate. In the ordinary newspapers of this country, we get only a summary, necessarily a very congested summary, of the proceedings of this House, and it would be a great advance if the Treasury could see its way to facilitate in every possible way the wider circulation of HANSARD in the public libraries of this country. I have visited the public libraries in my constituency, and I found that HANSARD was not there, when, from time to time, I have been challenged, as have others of my colleagues, about contributions I have made to our Debates. It would be a great advance in the cultivation of public opinion if the proposal made by my hon. and gallant Friend opposite could be carefully and sympathetically considered by the Treasury.

It would not be a matter of great expense. After all, the Ministry of Information receives a very substantial contribution from the Treasury for its work—I am glad to note that the Financial Secretary to the Treasury says "Hear, hear" to that. It would be a very suitable contribution from the Treasury if they would enable us to spread HANSARD more widely. Sometimes I go down to a public meeting and produce HANSARD, indicating the variety of matters referred to during Question time, and I say to my constituents: "These are the questions we have been discussing. We spent an hour to-day on all sorts of matters with the various Ministries and those were the replies which we received." These matters never reach our constituents, except when we have some opportunity of bringing them into contact with HANSARD.

My hon. and gallant. Friend has done very valuable work in calling attention to what HANSARD means in the public life of this country. It is the medium of information between the House and the country, and I hope the Financial Secretary will see his way, without adding very much to the public expenditure, to permit HANSARD to be more accessible to the people, through the public libraries, and to the Forces. All our Defence Services would be delighted to receive a more liberal distribution of HANSARD than obtains at the present. I believe that the Financial Secretary appre- ciates the importance of the suggestion, and I ask the awful, difficult Treasury, which is reputed to stand against every proposal of this kind, to see its way to accept the suggestions of my hon. and gallant Friend.

Mr. Driberg (Maldon)

I shall try to make three points in about one minute. The first is to emphasise the great importance, for reference libraries in particular, of the bound volumes, with their very valuable and thorough indexes, and to ask that they should be made better known. The second is, if it is possible, as my hon. and gallant Friend suggested, that a second edition of HANSARD should be produced for wider distribution, that it is very important that that edition should not be in any way condensed or edited, but should be equally full, because the problems of editing or condensation would inevitably create controversy. Thirdly, my hon. and gallant Friend mentioned shore establishments of the Royal Navy. When ships are at sea, too, there is a crying demand now for reading matter of all kinds, and it seems to me that that demand could be partly met by supplying HANSARD. Recently, I turned out an old bundle of HANSARDS, of the kind which I am sure clutters up the desks and window sills of many hon. Members, and gave them to the crew of a small naval patrol boat, numbering four men. When I saw them a few weeks later, they told me that all their spare half-hours at sea, by day and night, had been spent in reading these old HANSARDS with fascinated and astonished delight.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Assheton)

As the House is aware, the Treasury Ministers are responsible for a number of Departments, and the Stationery Office is one of them. I think the reason is that, originally, all Departments of the Executive were under the Treasury, and gradually, one after another broke away and obtained their own Ministers. But the Stationery Office is still under the control of the Treasury Ministers, and it is not often we have a Debate which concerns the Stationery Office, a Department which, I think, serves the public and the House extraordinarily well. It is very seldom that the Stationery Office gets Ministers into any sort of trouble. I am not suggesting that to-day they are going to get into trouble at all because the hon. and gallant Member for Ormskirk (Commander King-Hall), to whose speech we have all listened, I am sure, with great interest, is himself a friend of the Stationery Office just as much as he is a Friend of HANSARD.

I agree very much with what the hon. and gallant Member and the hon. Member for Moseley (Sir P. Hannon) said as to the value of a full and complete publication of the Debates of the Houses of Parliament being available to the public, and I think my hon. and gallant Friend has made a valuable contribution in enlarging or helping to enlarge the sales of HANSARD. It is, in fact, the case that during the war the sales of HANSARD have been increased three-told. I am sure this is partly due at any rate to the activities of the hon. and gallant Member for Ormskirk and his friends.

He asked me one or two questions. I will try to answer them. First, he asked about the Service Departments. As far as the Treasury and the Stationery Office are concerned, we, of course, have the duty of entertaining all the applications the Service Departments may make to us. My hon. and learned Friend the Financial Secretary to the War Office, who has been sitting on the Bench beside me, will have listened with care to all that the hon. and gallant Member has said. Should he come to me later as a result of the hon. and gallant Member's representations, and make an application for a further number of copies of HANSARD for the use of the Services, I can assure the House that, from the point of view of the Treasury and the Stationery Office, no obstacles will be put in the way.

I would like the House to remember one thing, that there is a very definite physical limit to the number of copies that can be produced—my hon. and gallant Friend made that clear—and it is something like a margin of, perhaps, 2,000 copies above the present edition. So my hon. and gallant Friend must be very careful what he does, because there is no question of increasing that number, at any rate as long as the war lasts, and there is no question of ever substantially increasing the number in the same form. He is quite right in saying that if it was ever desired to produce, say, 40,000 copies, it would have to be done in quite a different way. We might still have our HANSARD book ourselves, but if the public were to have an edition, it would have to be done on quite different lines, and would look much more like a newspaper. As far as Members of the House are concerned, I feel sure that they would insist on maintaining the present form. There is no question of any change of that sort during the war. The obvious difficulties of machinery and labour put it quite out of the question. My hon. and gallant Friend must restrict his activities, or he may put us in the embarrassing position of not being able to make the small supply of HANSARD available go round among all his clients, that is, as far as the Services are concerned.

My hon. and gallant Friend also asks about the general public relations of Parliament after the war. That is a rather wide question, and I cannot go into it fully now, but I assure him that I will give it the consideration which it merits. The House ought to be grateful to the hon. and gallant Member, and I am grateful to him, for one particular reason. I would like to thank, on behalf of all Members of the House, not only the Editor of HANSARD, but also the reporters for the quite remarkable job of work which they do for us all. We are all very grateful. We do not often have an opportunity of saving so, and I would like to say it now. We are grateful also for what the Press do. In wartime it is almost impossible for them to make the public aware of the proceedings of Parliament as they would like to do. That is due to the limitations of paper and so on. I have nothing to add now to what I have said, but I think the House would wish me to say that we are grateful to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Ormskirk for raising the matter.

Sir P. Hannon

Could my right hon. Friend not take the opportunity to limit some of the publications, of which, goodness knows, we are tired, and to allow HANSARD additional paper?

Mr. Assheton

It is not a question of paper at all; it is a question of printing. The printing machinery will not permit the printing of more than 2,000 copies above what are printed now. There is plenty of paper, and, whatever the Ministry of Information may have to go without, I assure hon. Members that they will have their HANSARD.

Major Woolley (Spen Valley)

Will my right hon. Friend consider requests from the other two Service Departments in the same light as that in which he indicated he would consider requests from the War Office?

Mr. Assheton

Certainly.

Mr. Driberg

Would it not be possible to farm out the printing of HANSARD, in view of the shortage of machinery, to one of the big firms of printers?

Mr. Assheton

If the hon. Member would like me to go into the technical details with him, I would explain to him that in the short time available, that cannot be done.

Question, "That this House do now adjourn," put, and agreed to.