§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. R. J. Taylor.]
§ 10 0 p.m.
§ Mr. Walkden (Doncaster):The hon. and gallant Member for Chelmsford (Wing-Commander Millington) was told by my right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council on 12th March that the total expenditure on E.N.S.A. during the present financial year was to be reduced to £3,500,000 as compared with £4,500,000 spent in the preceding 12 months. The Lord President went on to say:
It is considered that the reduction of expenditure for the 12 months ending August next by £1,000,000 as compared with the previous year can be regarded as satisfactory.150 Now at the date when that reply was given, I ventured to ask my right hon. Friend whether anyone in the present Government had troubled to go into the details of this organisation and so forth, to which the right hon. Gentleman replied:The matter has been gone into thoroughly by the Service Departments and the National Service Entertainments Board."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 12th March, 1946; Vol. 420, c. 946-7.]—for which I believe, by reason of the office which he now holds, he is in the main responsible. I am very sorry that, despite the fact that this is the second Debate we have had on this very important issue, affecting such a large sum of money, no Member of the Government has accepted the responsibility of replying from that Box. I respect the hon. Gentleman who is to reply tonight very much, but I protest against the way we have been treated on this very important issue.I venture the opinion to my right hon. Friend that never was there such a loose reply given by him affecting such a vast sum of money out of public funds as this attempt to cover up the maladministration of E.N.S.A. In fact, I would say that my right hon. Friend, at the time he gave this reply, for once in a way got mixed up with his brief. He put forward the plea that E.N.S.A. will spend less this year as compared with last year. Well, no one can argue against £3,500,000 being less than £4,500,000; it certainly is that. But is this enormous sum not to be equated to anything at all? Is no one going to justify from the Government point of view such a vast sum of money when it is claimed by him that economy has been practised on this particular corpse?
What are the facts? If we refer to the White Paper on Defence Services, we are told that roughly 5,000,000 men and women were in the Armed Forces last August. By June this year we shall have roughly 1,900,000. Last year we spent on E.N.S.A. £4,500,000 on over 5,000,000 men and women in the Armed Forces. This year we shall allow to be spent £3,500,000 with only 1,900,000 in the Armed Forces. If we call that five-fifths, then on 2,000,000 we should not spend more than two-fifths and if, to be more accurate, we regard that two-fifths as 1,750,000, that, without any economy whatsoever, should be the maximum amount they should be entitled to spend. 151 We have in addition certain boasted economies, referred to by the right hon. Gentleman in his reply to the Question, which were declared by the Under-Secretary of State for Air in the Debate on 12th March. These economies refer to live entertainment and there is to be no more live entertainment for the home Forces. There has been a severe cut in cinema entertainment and there are to be no more broadcasts. Increased responsibilities of C.E.M.A. are to be taken into account. Then there are the increased responsibilities of Army welfare. There is the reduction of staff, again an enormous economy. Every one of these economies suggests that E.N.S.A. is spending less and less. But, it must be remembered —and this is of paramount importance—that this expenditure comes from the hard-earned pay packets of men and women in the Armed Forces. It comes from their beer, "'baccy," buns, tea or whatever other commodities they purchase from N.A.A.F.I.
If we compare the per capita charge on the strength of the Armed Forces, E.N.S.A's cost on the soldier's pay packet of last year was roughly 18s. per person for the year. If my right hon. Friend cares to work it out in £ s. d. and to equate it to the soldier's pay packet, this year, with all this vaunted economy, we are spending not 18s., but 35s. Is that economy? I wish my right hon. Friend were replying to the challenge. Where is the money going? The old gang of Drury Lane, the Colonel Blimps of theatre-land, know the answer already. I do not know whether my right hon. Friend has had consultation with them. Maybe it is one way they have of providing themselves with a gratuity, because they cannot get one out of the War Office. We are informed that there are Treasury watchdogs at Drury Lane. I did a job or two in connection with E.N.S.A. during the war and I know there are watchdogs. They are audit clerks who tick off figures all day long. I can assure my right hon. Friend that figures are all they do tick off. They are very nice fellows and I like them, but as watchdogs they are about as powerful as a Pomeranian would be in a lion's den.
No one must imagine that the well-paid hierarchy are folding up, because they are not putting up the shutters yet. 152 They are not hurrying back to their former employment. Like the Peers in "Iolanthe," they
throughout the war. Did nothing in particular. And did it very well.They are hanging on to four-figure incomes with grim determination. The smaller fry did a grand job of work throughout the war. They knew nothing of what was going on. They have been completely liquidated. Hundreds have been sacked. It was necessary, but unfortunate that that should be so. While I am mentioning expenditure, might I refer to that very much travelled gentleman, the world-wide traveller at public expense, Basil Dean, with his £3,000 a year salary, his unlimited expenses, free car and chauffeur, two secretaries and medical expenses provided and uniforms and ribbons as well—all paid for by soldiers, sailors and airmen? He has been, throughout the war, or at least since N.A.A.F.I. took over the responsibility, more generously rewarded than Montgomery, or even the right hon. Gentleman himself, as figures can prove, if these watchdogs at the Treasury care to reveal everything to the Financial Secretary. I understand that he is now spending his leisure time writing a book on what he has done for the Forces throughout the war.
When the Lord President says that the matter has been gone into thoroughly by the National Service Entertainments Board, does he not know that that only means Basil Dean? It is only one man, it does not mean a Committee. The Board meets sometimes but until my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Bellenger), who is now Financial Secretary to the War Office, kicked up a dickens of a row in this House the Board had hardly met at all. Months and months after the Lord President of the Council at that time talked about this Board, they never even met. Everybody in theatre land recognises that the real title for the Director—I should give him his correct title, the Director-General of E.N.S.A.—is "The Lord Poo Bah of the land of bluff and make-believe," with incidental music provided by Sir Edward Ellington, the Chairman of the Board, who, by the way, is in receipt of a handsome pension from the Air Ministry in addition to his E.N.S.A. salary. 153 A nice little carve-up is taking place at E.N.S.A. Hitler's chairs, for example, were removed from the Berlin Chancellery to Drury Lane disguised as stage props, and are somewhere here in London. Who has them at the moment I do not know, but some folk have a good idea. There is another emissary, who was sent all the way from London to Berlin in recent months to acquire a Leica camera, because one cannot be bought in London. The camera may have been paid for, but the journey and so forth were paid for at public expense. There are caravans lying in backyards in Hamburg or Brussels, all for the convenience of this Director-General, which have hardly been used. They are lying there, rusty, all paid for out of the soldier's pay packet. Indeed, there are tens of thousands of gramophone records lying somewhere in this country. They are tucked away all right. They are waiting for someone to pick them up later on. That they will pick them up I have no doubt.
There are three London theatres still occupied by E.N.S.A. for no particular reason whatever—no one really knows why, except that they are tenanted by E.N.S.A. for no real purpose, and no one seems to be bothered about it. There is a scarcity in this matter, as London theatre managers know. Only a few weeks ago, after the hon. and gallant Member for Chelmsford raised this matter in this House, the Director-General of E.N.S.A. went all the way to Egypt to stage-manage or present British drama for rich Egyptian civilians, again at public expense, out of the soldier's pay packet, and this kind of business still goes on. Important charges have been made by the hon. and gallant Member for Chelmsford. Not one of those charges has been answered by the Government.
We read vague paragraphs in the public Press about the Arts Council, Army Welfare, the Army Cinematograph Corporation, etc., and we are told that these organisations are taking the place of E.N.S.A. But it is over six months since the matter was raised. These people, so we are told, are now to have their finger in or their share out of the N.A.A.F.I.-E.N.S.A. pie. The fact remains that E.N.S.A. is dead and done for. My right hon. Friend knows that the corpse stinks. It stinks in the noses of all decent people in theatre land and 154 the commercial theatre. The theatrical profession itself is bewildered as to why this rotting carcass should be left lying about to contaminate the reputation of theatre land at all. I suggest that it is high time that the body was laid decently to rest. To spend £3½ million on embalming this corpse is a tall order, rather more than the country ought to be asked to supply.
I ask my right hon. Friend, or the Minister who is going to reply, for a clear statement on the future of E.N.S.A. It is long overdue if only to vindicate the actions of those of us who rather than be a party any longer to what was obviously wrong—we had to endure it because there was a war on and we wanted to see the job through—resigned our posts at a time when we felt we could with dignity. We have been begging ever since for some action to be taken. Therefore, I ask the Minister to make a definite statement tonight. I have put to him a direct question and I want a direct answer this time. Is the E.N.S.A. organisation to be wound up, and if so, when? I say to him that the past is the past and we cannot do much about it. In fact, I asked on the Floor of the House when questions were submitted some months ago whether it was worth while to hold a public inquiry or some kind of Commission such as was suggested at the time. I submitted it would be a waste of time, energy and public funds. I now maintain that the Government are not playing fairly on this question. Nobody is recognising the important issues that have been raised by the hon and gallant Member for Chelmsford and myself. I beg the Minister and the Government to be frank, honest, and open with the country. Tell the men and women in the Armed Forces what they are prepared to do. Give us the shape of things to come, but, for Heaven's sake, see to it that no further maladministration of the kind I have indicated shall take place in the future.
§ 10.18 p.m.
§ The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Glenvil Hall):My hon. Friend is quite right This matter was debated before, when my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Wing-Commander Millington) raised it at a somewhat later hour than this. We then had quite an interesting discussion, though I was not, on that occasion, called upon 155 to reply. In the limited time at my disposal tonight, I shall try to deal as best I can with the main points raised by my hon. Friend. He made three points, so it seems to me, with variations. He alleged that there was excessive expenditure on E.N.S.A., that there had been maladministration, and, finally, he made certain charges against those in control. With regard to expenditure, the procedure laid down has been, I think, good. There is, as my hon. Friend said, a National Service Entertainments Board in existence which has a Government finance officer on it. In addition, detailed control was delegated by that Board to a Finance and Organisation Committee upon which this finance officer also sat.
That Committee and the Board with the assistance of the Departments concerned between them, worked out, over a fairly long period, the overall global commitments and arrangements which it was felt E.N.S.A. should undertake. Departments would indicate the kind of entertainment they wanted, and where, and, within this global sum which the Treasury had vetted and agreed to, the Committee got down to it and worked out the details. That, I submit, was the only way in which this kind of thing could be run.
It became a vast organisation, giving concerts and shows all over the world, often in very primitive conditions; obviously this was going to cost money, and, sometimes, things were undoubtedly inclined to go wrong. Although that is a fact, if we look at the magnitude of the operations undertaken and the difficulties which had to be surmounted, there is a great deal to be said in favour of those who ran E.N.S.A. and did provide such valuable entertainment. Many of the shows, I quite agree, were not perhaps such as would commend themselves to the majority of hon. Members of this House; they varied undoubtedly in both calibre and quality. Nevertheless, the men liked them when they were at the ends of the earth and enjoyed them thoroughly, and, in my view, the money was very well spent.
The accounts of the Department, although they have been audited in the same way as those of N.A.A.F.I., are open to the scrutiny of the Departments concerned and of the Comptroller and 156 Auditor-General, and, so far as my knowledge goes, we have found nothing seriously wrong with them. It is true that, in a thing of this magnitude, here and there things did go wrong, but, so far as we know—and, if the hon. Member has any evidence to the contrary, we shall be glad to have it—during the five or six years in which this organisation has been running, the organisation has been run, on the whole, efficiently and well. We have no evidence whatever of any defalcations at all.
§ Mr. Walkden:I never suggested that in the slightest degree.
§ Mr. Glenvil Hall:I accept that, but I thought I had better make the point in case some people thought that was implicit in what has been said. The total expenditure for the five years up to 1944 was £7,890,000. Of that amount, N.A.A.F.I. itself found £5,070,000, and the balance has been advanced by the Treasury. I should add that N.A.A.F.I. has set aside in its accounts a reserve sum to meet this liability in full. N.A.A.F.I.'s current contributions since 1940-41 have been equated to N.A.A.F.I.'s current payments out of profits to Service charities. But in the Summer of last year, it became clear that the cost of entertainments had reached a level at which, if N.A.A.F.I. were to continue to make its contributions to Service charities, it could not meet the full cost of E.N.S.A. entertainments as it had in the previous five years. Therefore; the matter was discussed between the Service Departments, N.A.A.F.I. and the Treasury, and, as a result it was decided to terminate the old agreement. Thereafter until August, 1946, N.A.A.F.I. profits will be allocated between the Service charities and entertainment on a basis to be agreed with the Treasury, and any balance of the cost of entertainment remaining will be met finally by the Exchequer. The sum involved will not be large. The accumulated contingent liability up to August, 1944, will he repaid by N.A.A.F.I. in full.
We have not yet got the 1944-45 accounts, but from what we know of the out-turn of the year, I can tell the House that the loss to the Treasury under this new arrangement will not be great. As my right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council told the House in answer to a Question the other day, the expected cost that year will be something in the 157 nature of £5 million, including £500,000 for capital depreciation which he did not refer to when he gave his answer to the hon. and gallant Member for Chelmsford.
My hon. Friend said that, considering the rate at which men are being demobilised from the Forces, the amount which is to be spent during the present year is vastly in excess of what it should be. What he forgets, I think, is that most of the sum which my right hon. Friend mentioned was spent in the earlier months of the year. During the latter five months, ending next August, the amount which we expect to expend in this direction will be no more than £1 million. My hon. Friend will be glad to know that it has been decided to close down this side of E.N.S.A.'s activities in August this year. Thereafter, the Service Departments themselves will become responsible for the provision of their own entertainment with, of course, the assistance of the N.A.A.F.I. organisation and out of N.A.A.F.I. funds.
§ Mr. Walkden:Will E.N.S.A. be dead altogether?
§ Mr. Glenvil Hall:E.N.S.A. will come to an honourable, but, in the view of many, not untimely end in August of this year, and, as I have said, thereafter the Service Departments will provide their own amusements and entertainments.
A great deal has been said about some of the personnel who during the last five or six years have worked in E.N.S.A. and controlled it. We have had one view expressed tonight, but it would be unfair to Mr. Basil Dean and those who work with him if I did not say that there is another view which has been equally and 158 firmly expressed to me. I have not met Mr. Basil Dean for some years, but it is only fair to him to say that he has devoted a great deal of energy during the last six years to this work. He has been criticised year after year, but, nevertheless, he has gone on. He has provided entertainment for troops all over the world and we must recognise that he has fulfilled a great and useful function to the State during these stressful years.
I find it difficult to reply to my hon. Friend on the charges he made towards the end of his speech. I can only say that, if he will give me details, I will have them gone into in order to see what truth there may be in them and if it is necessary to take action against anyone for bringing anything illicitly into this country that action will be taken. The short answer is that during the war every care was taken to see that this money was expended as wisely and judiciously as possible. The organisation will end in August and the Services will find their own entertainments and the money for it will not come out of the Treasury, but out of N.A.A.F.I. funds which is, as my hon. Friend rightly says, provided out of the profits of the canteens of that organisation.
§ Wing-Commander Millington (Chelmsford):The Financial Secretary said that if specific information of breaches of law could be given to him he would see they were investigated and the appropriate action taken. Specific instances were given——
It being half-past Ten o'Clock, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.