HC Deb 09 December 1946 vol 431 cc877-88

Nothing in this Act shall prevent a person resident in the United Kingdom from acquiring foreign currency to be used solely for the purposes of bona fide travel abroad for periods not exceeding two months in any calendar year.—[Mr. Henry Strauss.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. H. Strauss

I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."

This Clause is proposed in order to raise for discussion, and to enable the Chancellor of the Exchequer to make some statement on some specific points I put in my speech on the Second Reading. I confess at once that I must disclose a personal interest. If there is a thing I love above most things, it is foreign travel. I think it is a very serious step, if the Government take the right to prohibit foreign travel altogether. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer said, in the very useful statement he made at an earlier stage of the proceedings, that that is not his intention, even in the serious times in which we find ourselves today. He is going to allow some foreign travel, but the amount he is to allow is quite arbitrary, and, under the powers which he takes in this Bill, he could stop it altogether. I think that, unless overwhelming reasons are given in favour of taking such a power, it is a power which this Committee should not allow him to take. To prohibit foreign travel altogether would be lawful under this Bill.

The first question I wish to put to the right hon. Gentleman is whether, in his opinion, it would also be proper under existing international agreements. That question is one of some importance. I do not wish to repeat what I said in the Second Reading Debate on the distinction between capital movements and current transactions. I think everybody is agreed that the Chancellor must have power at present—it may be that we differ as to the duration of the Statute—to control capital movements, but he should be a little chary about interfering with current transactions. In the international agreements, with which he is far more familiar, I suppose, than anybody else in the Committee, that distinction is constantly drawn, and indeed, in his speech on the Second Reading, he said it would be the task of the Treasury to draw it. The question I then raised was whether he was quite confident that, under the international agreements, he would have complete power to draw it as he wished, and that foreign nations night not have their own points of view. The criticism has been brought forward by the "Manchester Guardian," I think, and in other quarters, that in the view of many people, both in this country and in some foreign countries, bona fide foreign travel is a series of current transactions and is not a capital movement. In the answer which he gave in the Second Reading Debate, the right hon. Gentleman made the distinction, with which I completely agree, that if one goes abroad with 6d., that may be a current transaction, and that if one goes abroad with £60,000, that is clearly a capital movement.

The interesting and difficult question arises when we consider the intermediate cases. I want to say that I am not questioning for one moment the right of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to take adequate precautions to see that the travel is bona fide foreign travel and is not a concealed capital movement. What I hold is that, on the face of this Statute, there should be a definite right to some foreign travel. I should like to know the answer to the first question, whether it would be in accordance with international agreements to prohibit foreign travel altogether, which the Chancellor could undoubtedly do under the Bill as it now stands. But assuming that he said either that it would not be in accordance with international agreements, or that he has no intention of imposing such a prohibition, the next question I want to put is how he determines the amount. I feel that in this limitation to £75 per annum he is really being shortsighted and unwise. I give the right hon. Gentleman credit for his desire to do better, and I am sure his motive is genuine anxiety about our foreign exchange position.

9.30 p.m.

Nevertheless, I believe he is being shortsighted. I do not think he is taking sufficient notice of how much good can be done to the trade of this country by British citizens indulging in their natural proclivity for travel abroad, and making friends and inviting them to visit this country. He is wrong, I believe, in assuming that he can both stop British citizens travelling abroad and still induce great numbers of foreigners to visit this country. There must be reciprocity in this matter. If he were far more generous than he is at present and if indeed the only thing he sought to control were capital movement, and possibly the total duration of foreign travel for which facilities should be given, he would not, on balance, lose a penny.

Let me point out, as I did shortly on the Second Reading, the arbitrary tyranny that his present policy involves. The right hon. Gentleman said at an earlier stage this afternoon that he would rather limit people in their foreign travel than limit the importation of food. He put his point in a way that I agree was legitimate, and I agree that, if so put, the argument has great force. When he talks about food, he is talking about a necessity: when he is talking about tobacco or American films, he is not. A thing which certainly shocked me, and I think I am not alone in the matter, was the way in which we have spent so much of the American dollar loan—

The Chairman

That question certainly does not arise in connection with this matter.

Mr. Strauss

With respect, I bow to your Ruling. I think I can argue the relative propriety. I think I can say that, if the importation of American films is allowed, then a fortiori foreign travel should be allowed. I know of no criterion whatsoever by which the right hon. Gentleman can say that the importation of trash from Hollywood is a necessity but any indulgence in foreign travel is a luxury. I might say the same about tobacco but I will not develop that except to say that I should like to know what is the criterion. Of course, the right hon. Gentleman can say, "I am not considering merits. What I am considering is the possibility of riots. If I stopped or limited the tobacco, I should be swept from power, whereas those who wish to travel abroad are so much fewer in number that I can afford to deal with them without any regard whatsoever to the merits of the case." That is an answer of sorts, but I do not think it is one that reflects much credit on the Government, nor do I think it is one which does justice to the people of this country.

The people of this country, of all classes, are becoming increasingly anxious to take their holidays abroad, so far as possible, to enlarge their outlook, and to learn more about other countries. I believe that demand is very general and I should like there to be something on the face of this statute to show that, at least, the men and women who wish to indulge in foreign travel, or to recover their health abroad, are quite as deserving of consideration as the men and women who clamour for the bilge from Hollywood. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will treat this Amendment sympathetically. It may not be elegantly drawn and I want to make it perfectly clear that its purpose is not to enable foreign travel facilities to be used for transferring capital abroad. Nor do I want to say anything to suggest that, in these times of stringency, anybody can command facilities for unlimited travel abroad. They ought to be able to demand some travel abroad, and, in considering how much, the Chancellor of the Exchequer should treat people with equality and should not attach more importance to one set of desires than to others.

In conclusion, I would repeat that, if the Chancellor really encourages the sort of travel which I want, and for which the Foreign Secretary has repeatedly expressed his own sympathy, he will not, on balance, lose one penny for his country. In the past, our travellers abroad have built up friendship and prestige for this country, and they are capable of doing that today.

Sir Henry Morris-Jones (Denbigh)

I wish to support the new Clause, and I hope that the Chancellor will look upon it with benevolence and kindness. There is much more than finance involved in it. The people of this country have, for something like seven years, been living in conditions very much like those of a fortress. Up to a year ago, not half of one per cent. of the people of this country had an opportunity of leaving this island. In the last year a larger number have had the opportunity of doing so, and many took advantage of it. Foreign travel is a great benefit to the people concerned. We are given to understand from statistics received from the Minister of Health that, so far as diseases in this country are concerned, the health of the people, on the whole, has sustained itself very well. I have no doubt it can be argued that the health of the people has been maintained owing to the very able work of the Minister of Health and of the medical and nursing professions of this country. But there is no doubt that the physical health of the people of this country has deteriorated. It would be a very good policy on the part of the right hon. Gentleman to help the recovery of that physical health. I believe that he would be making an investment for the Labour Government if he were to encourage a little more travel abroad. People would come home with a fillip which would be a tonic for them and might help them to put up with a Labour Government for a little longer than they otherwise would.

There is no doubt that the elderly people of this country, those in the 60s and 70s, are having great difficulty with the rationing, particularly the reduction in the milk supply, and are at present suffering a great strain. There is a further source of strain in the limitation of their income which has been brought about by the Government in the new Transport Bill. They want to have the opportunity of spending their limited resources to the very best advantage. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to give careful consideration to this proposed Clause. I can think of no reason why persons resident in the United Kingdom should not acquire foreign currency for the purpose of travelling abroad for periods up to two months, and I am sure that the morale of the people generally would benefit if they were allowed to do so.

Mr. Dalton

I am very fond of foreign travel when circumstances are such that I can indulge in it, but nonetheless I do not feel that I can accept this proposed new Clause, admirable though its intentions are. Two months is a long time for a hard working person to be out of the country. Taking the proposed Clause as it stands—I will say something of a more general nature in a moment—I do not think that two months is a period which we should encourage people to spend travelling abroad in ordinary cases. In exceptional cases, perhaps, we should. [An HON. MEMBER: "Why?"] Because they ought to be working in this country, helping production. Taking the matter on more general grounds, £75 is not a fixed or final sum. It is the maximum which, having regard to all the many claims upon our foreign exchange resources, we feel can be given in the ordinary case. Of course, there are cases now in which a great deal more than this is allowed, as the Committee will, no doubt, appreciate. The businessman travelling on bona fide business, as distinct from bona fide pleasure travel, can draw up to £10 a day now. There is no fixed rigid amount. He has to show that he is engaged on business likely to help the trade of the country, and we have to form our best views on that matter. [Interruption.] Is that point challenged?

Mr. Stanley

No.

Mr. Dalton

After all, we must not be too serious about this. People who are really ill and who think the medical professions in this country cannot cure them, are entitled to go abroad and take counsel with Swiss or other foreign physicians, and they may stay away indefinitely, provided a reasonable case is made, and the entire cost while they are under treatment can be met. We make that allowance for health cases, and we make special allotments also for school children going to foreign schools, young people wishing to learn foreign languages, undergraduates attending foreign universities and post graduate research students. All such cases are outside the limitation of £75.

In short, the limitation of £75 applies only to those people who go abroad for any other reason than the practical and utilitarian reasons to which I have referred. I think £75 is a reasonable sum. Taking the level of incomes in this country—and here I approach one of the points raised by the hon. and learned Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. H. Strauss)—I do not think many people can take much more than £75 out of their current incomes for a foreign holiday. Therefore, when one goes above £75 one begins to draw upon capital, and this is part of the answer to the question raised by the hon. and learned Gentleman. Having regard to the average level of incomes, for the great majority of people a sum greater than £75 must mean a draft upon such capital resources and savings as they have.

This is where we begin to be able to draw a practical distinction between capital and current transfers. Although I agree the thing cannot be put with complete exactitude, and varies from one income group to another, and so on, I think £75 is within the reasonable limit for current transactions, and when it gets above that it would be excessive for most people. In fact, I am told the average sum spent on foreign travel recently has been only just over £50; that is to say, well below the maximum allowance. I am also informed, though I cannot give particulars, that other countries which are imposing exchange control just now in many cases impose a lower figure than the £75 which we allow.

9.45 p.m.

I say frankly, I would like to see an increase as soon as we can give it. But, balancing one thing against another, I do not think we ought to go beyond the present limit now. I certainly could not agree to enshrining unaltered in this Bill such a human right as is here set down in the proposed Clause. As to whether we may, without breaching international conventions, do it, my advice is that we can. This is a matter on which lawyers, who are always ingenious, could no doubt put up a case both ways. However, I am advised that we can. I am advised that we are not only entitled to do it under the distinction, of which I have already spoken, between current and capital movement, but I am advised also that it is proper to look upon foreign travel as an invisible import. We speak of tourist travel in this country as invisible exports—that is the jargon, which has a meaning of sorts—and in the same way we can speak of foreign travel, people from this country going to foreign countries, as a form of invisible imports. The foreign exchange used by our travellers abroad does compete with the foreign exchange used for the ordinary purposes of importation.

I did say just now that I thought on the whole more fruit was more important than more foreign travel. The hon. and learned Member for the Combined English Universities asked what about films and tobacco? Your predecessor, Mr. Deputy-Chairman, ruled that that was not in Order, so I would not be in Order in answering it. I think the hon. and learned Gentleman was thought to be in Order in doing no more than mentioning these matters, so I will answer it—hoping that I just keep in Order—by saying that we have to balance the whole programme. It does so happen that there are more people in this country who like going to see American films, in default of good British films. We hope that ultimately that defect will be remedied. It also happens that those people who prefer to go to see American films, if they cannot see good British films like to smoke. More people like going to see those American films than can afford to spend more than £75 on foreign travel. That is the consequence of the distribution of wealth and the habits of our people. Therefore, if we have to choose—and for the moment we have to, owing to the scarcity of our means; though later on perhaps we shall be able to choose both and not one—we must say that most people prefer the films and the tobacco, not to speak of the fruit, to foreign travel which they could not afford on the scale proposed by the hon. and learned Gentleman.

Invisible imports, as we may call foreign travel, are legitimate to be controlled in the same way as visible imports, provided—and this is where we reach the other side of the international obligations—there is no specific discrimination otherwise than is permitted. The field of Empire preference would be quite out of Order. Apart from discriminations of that sort, which are legitimate, there is limited discrimination, by people saying "Why not more limited spending in France, so long as we do not want to spend more in North America?" There I think we would be open to serious criticism. In that respect we have had representations. When we altered the foreign travel allowance from £100, inclusive of travel, which it was some little while ago, to £75, we thought we might make it available for France and certain other European countries. Then we asked ourselves, if it was made available for France and those other European countries, why not for North America? When I say "North America" I include, of course, the United States and the Dominion of Canada. We could not refuse to do the same thing for North America as we planned to do for France and the other European countries, and fixed it at £75 for every country. Therefore, I say that on the grounds of import control we are entitled to exercise this discrimination, in addition to the right that we have to exercise it on the ground of current transactions.

Finally, I have only two things to say. One is that, of course, it will not be forgotten by the Committee that this figure of £75 as it is now, does not include the cost of return travel, of a return journey, whether by sea and rail, or air. It docs not include the cost of the return journey there and back to whatever is the farthest point to be reached on the course of the journey. If, for example, one were proceeding to Italy, one would be quite entitled, if proceeding by stages to the Island of Sicily, and passing through Florence and Rome on the way, to take a ticket for an air passage, or for whatever means of travel one chose, to and from Palermo in Sicily, and that would stand outside the £75.

In the second place, I do ask—and the hon. Member for Denbigh (Sir H. Morris-Jones), particularly—not to think too poorly of these little islands. North Wales, they tell me, is very rich in beauty. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman would agree, but why should not more people find solace on the slopes of Snow-den or Cader Idris, from which the Marines are just retiring, due to the pressure exercised by the people of Bar-mouth? There are little places in Cornwall, too, and up in Scotland. Scotland is one of the undiscovered paradises to the Sassenach. I mention this, not only to inspire a sense of local patriotism in the minds of some of those who, after this is pointed out to them, will not, I hope, press this new Clause to a division—

Captain Crookshank (Gainsborough)

Why did so many Ministers go to Switzerland?

Mr. Dalton

I went to Scotland. We do not interfere for the sake of interference in this Government. It may have been otherwise at another time. And the Swiss were quite embarrassed—

Captain Crookshank

I bet they were.

Mr. Dalton

They were. They made official representations to that effect. Certainly, they have been embarrassed, that too many people have been taking holidays in Switzerland. Now we have to try to adjust that, and I venture to say that Scotland should not be wholly ignored. I had not been there, personally, for some time, but I greatly enjoyed my visit to Scotland, and I hope that others will do the same. During the period when foreign exchange is so tight, there is no reason why Scots' change should not be a little bit looser. Why should people not take the opportunity to find out something about the beautiful parts of our islands? I hope that that will be some solace to travellers, if we reject, as we must, this proposed Clause. When better days come we shall, I hope, be able to widen the range of foreign travel. In any case, I could not accept the new Clause in this form.

Mr. H. Strauss

I profoundly agree with the right hon. Gentleman about the beauty of Scotland and Wales; but, surely, that is an asset to attract foreign visitors to these islands, and he said that he wanted them to come. But there would not be room for foreign visitors to go to Scotland, if we all went there, too.

Mr. H. Roberts

It is a little unfortunate that the Chancellor of the Exchequer introduces levity into this discussion. I am what is called a stationary man. I have travelled abroad very little; in fact I do not think I have been out of Great Britain since 1937, and for my part, I require no lectures to induce me to view the beauties of North Wales—or, I may add, the greater beauties of South Wales. But the amount of currency which is required—

The Deputy-Chairman (Mr. Hubert Beaumont)

Perhaps I was too lenient with the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It seems to me that we are on to a discussion of "See Britain first." Only the proposed new Clause can now be discussed.

Mr. H. Roberts

I accept the rebuke which you have administered to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Deputy-Chairman. As I was saying, the amount of foreign currency required for this purpose is not known to me, but it is known to the right hon. Gentleman. The amount of currency required for other purposes is also known, but it is not disclosed; instead we are presented with the choice between foreign travel and food, as if they were alternatives, with no figures to back it. We are also told, and of course it is quite true, that foreign travel of any kind is an invisible import. That I accept at once, but I do not accept the view that above £75 we are encroaching on capital. I charge the Chancellor with undutiful behaviour to that old teacher of his who taught him that there is no particular sanctity about the revolution of the earth around the sun; he should remember that, and realise that if he made it two years instead of one, that would not necessarily make it a charge on capital.

There is another important side to this which should not be overlooked. I think the effect on the prestige of Germany between the wars of the very heavy rationing of foreign travel was bad. It marked Germany as an impoverished country. That may be no disgrace, but the legend of the rich Englishman has been good for our prestige for a very long time. It is not good for trade, or for showing the flag, that we should pass a Statute which enables the Treasury, in effect, to put a complete embargo on foreign travel. I think it is unfortunate that we should be asked to do it, and it is still more unfortunate that the case should be supported by arguments of such levity as those we have heard.

Sir H. Morris-Jones

The right hon. Gentleman made a statement which will be within the recollection of the Committee—if I have got it wrong he will correct me—that sick people are, at the moment, allowed to travel abroad. There are several cases within my knowledge in which the Bank of England definitely refused facilities for sick people to receive sufficient foreign currency to leave this country, in order to secure something which may not be available here. There are certain things available in some countries, which are not available in others, certain waters, for instance, at some of the spas in some foreign countries are not available in this country. I know of cases in which the Bank of England have not given permits for foreign travel under those conditions. I would also like to bring to his notice the fact that there are many people who do not come in any special category of illness, but who are suffering from such general conditions that a change of country and a change of scene would be beneficial to them. I think the right hon. Gentleman might consider that aspect of the question.

Question, "That the Clause be read a Second time," put, and negatived.