§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."£ [Mr. Simmons.]
§ 9.16 p.m.
§ Sir Stanley Reed (Aylesbury)I wish to raise the question of the conversion of the R.A.F. station at Westcott into an experimental station. I do this with some reluctance because this matter has been discussed on several occasions with the Ministry, and the Minister of Supply and the Parliamentary Secretary have given certain assurances, in view of which it may seem somewhat ungracious of me to bring the matter to the attention of the House. There is, however, involved in this transaction a very important question of principle of interest not only to various parts of the country, but to other parts of my own county.
There was opened, in 1942, an R.A.F. station at Westcott in the county of Buckingham, about ten miles from Aylesbury on the road to Bicester. That station was put down in the very heart of the country, and on some of the very best agricultural land in the county and in the country. Something like 1,000 acres were diverted to the construction and use of the aerodrome. At the end of the war it 1264 was found that the aerodrome was no further needed for the purposes of the R.A.F. Those who are interested in the county and its development naturally expected that it would be converted to agricultural purposes and the amenities of the neighbourhood. They were then informed that it was proposed to convert it into an experimental station. Immediately protests were made by all the authorities concerned—by the Aylesbury Rural District Council, by the Central Bucks Joint Planning Committee and by the Bucks War Agricultural Executive Committee; and the ground of the protest in all cases was that these 1,000 acres represented some of the best agricultural land in the country, that they should be preserved for agricultural purposes, that this area had been scheduled as a permanent agricultural zone, and that its retention for Government purposes cut right across all the plans of the rural district council and the Central Planning Council for the preservation and development of the area. As I have said the Ministry listened with all consideration to these representations, and their officers have since shown very marked consideration in consulting local interests as to the works which have been put in hand, without the slightest effect whatsoever on the ultimate conclusion. If I might employ an Eastern proverb:
The dogs bark, but the caravan goes on.Therefore, I am bound to bring this question to the notice of the House.It is quite true that the Minister has given certain definite assurances as to the purposes for which this station will be used, in order to mitigate any fears as to its being a nuisance to the neighbourhood. I must point out to the Parliamentary Secretary that these assurances are not binding on the Minister's successors, and that circumstances may arise which will make it impossible, for the Minister himself to guarantee and carry these assurances into effect. Please understand that I accept implicitly that when the Minister gives these assurances he means to see them carried out. But this is an experimental station, it is dealing with a power to the limit of which no one can set any boundary whatever. Neither the Minister nor we know how far these experiments will have to go, and what shape they will have to take. For those reasons, white accepting these assurances, they have no binding effect on his 1265 successors, and they almost certainly raise the question as to whether the Minister having committed himself to this enterprise, can give full effect to them himself.
No sensible man would say that this experimental station is not necessary. Everyone will agree that the Ministry are wise in exercising prevision in providing for these experiments to be carried out. I am prepared to admit that this may be a convenient centre, but when it is argued that this is the only convenient centre for these experiments, that is making demands upon our credulity which we cannot accept.
If I am asked to say that in the 700,000 odd acres of various stations available to the various Ministries there is not one station reasonably removed from a centre of population, which does not provide a place where these experiments can be carried on and developed without being an intolerable nuisance, and which does not provide space for expansion to any reasonable degree, that is a proposition which no one who has been round this country, and been round the great stations now derelict in the Eastern counties, can possibly accept. Developments have already taken place which those who know this locality realise were bound to happen. There have been inquiries about the requisitioning of dwellings, the Ministry have to provide accommodation for the workmen on the site. What are they to do? They propose to put them into Aylesbury, one of the most crowded and congested provincial towns in England, where the housing position is desperately acute.
On these grounds, therefore, I would ask the Minister, even at this stage, to reconsider this decision, and to see whether he cannot even now find a more suitable site which will not be a nuisance, which is capable of expansion, capable of accommodating any developments which are almost bound to occur, rather than fasten on to this neighbourhood a permanent blot which will make life in a considerable area round it almost intolerable. In an apparent paradox the late Gilbert Chesterton said that the difference between the Hun and the Englishman is that the Hun destroys what he hates and the Englishman destroys what he loves, that is, the countryside. I ask the Parliamentary Secretary not to continue on the fatal course of destroying what we love, the English countryside. 1266 and to relegate this experimental station to one of those areas on the East Coast, remote from a populated area, where it will be free from all these objections, with ample room for any expansion which the experiments may demand.
§ 9.25 p.m.
§ Flight-Lieutenant Crawley (Buckingham)I am sure the House is indebted to the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Sir S. Reed) for raising this matter, in which some important questions of principle are involved. My constituency marches with, his, and indeed, the line of demarcation goes-straight across the aerodrome where this rocket experimental station is being set up. Therefore, I would like to associate myself with much of what he said. I endorse entirely what he said about the consideration which the Ministry have given both to our representations and those of the local authorities, and I am particularly grateful for the assurance which they have given me that no major development in the experimental establishment at Westcott involving a substantial addition to the noise created will be embarked on without consultation of local interests. I know that the local authorities concerned are very grateful for that assurance.
There is one small matter on which I should like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary to give, if possible, a further assurance. If this experimental station should be closed down in future, will the owners of the land, who have lost their land and who may lose more through the establishment of this experimental station, be given the first option of buying back their land at whatever the market price is? I am not making a case for landlords, but certain farms around this aerodrome have been badly split up, and if the station is ever closed down it would be in the agricultural interests of the district if the land could go back to those farms.
My main concern is with the future. The Ministry's chief argument for having this experimental station where it is now proposed to have it, at Westcott, is that an assembly plant of this kind must be in the middle of all the factories which make the component parts of the rockets, implements and other things concerned, and that at present, while transport and materials are so short, it is obviously impossible to set aside some out-of-the-way 1267 locality and develop it for this purpose. I accept that argument, but the experts with whom I have consulted admit that they cannot tell where these rocket experiments are likely to lead. There are obvious limits to experiments with rockets themselves in this country—the size of the country suggests that very quickly—but it is also apparently quite true that these experiments may lead to entirely unforeseen developments, which may not necessarily be connected with rockets at all. These developments in turn may need a new experimental station and assembly point and then, unless things have altered very much indeed, exactly the same argument is likely to be used about this new station—difficulties of transport and so on. That new station will, therefore, be placed, or there will be a desire to place it, in an area which is in the centre of the manufacturing plants. That area is very likely to be somewhere in my constituency, or in that of the hon. Member for Aylesbury.
We, therefore, feel a very real interest in future policy on the whole question of scientific research and of rocket research in particular. The question which I should like to put to the Government, therefore, is: What will be their policy in regard to rocket and jet propulsion and atomic research? Are we to allow the continually diminishing area of our countryside to be encroached on piecemeal, as the need arises, by putting up new plants and new experimental stations just wherever, at any given moment, it seems to be most convenient? Or are we to set aside and plan to develop some single locality, if possible fairly remote, where such research and other scientific research could be concentrated, and expanded as the need arises, without spreading' a nuisance and without increasing risk—and in this sort of experiments there are always small risks—and without destroying any farm land or rural amenities in general? However preoccupied the Government may be, the second alternative is the only one which the Government can really seriously undertake. The demands of efficiency, the coordination of scientific research, and the general demands of the rural amenities of this country, make it absolutely essential that we should begin now, especially when we are planning the reconstruction of the country, to plan if necessary a new 1268 town, with the necessary transport, in some place which is not in the middle of a residential area. As new experimental stations are needed they could be put into this particular locality, which could be developed on the lines of a trading estate. I do beg the Government not to be caught napping and not to repeat, in the scientific revolution of which we are now on the verge, the mistakes in planning and location of factories and dwelling houses which were made in the industrial revolution and as a result of which this country has suffered so much.
§ 9.30 p.m.
§ The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Aircraft Production (Mr. Arthur Woodburn)I should like to thank both the hon. Members for the very tolerant way in which they have raised their complaint this evening. On behalf of my Department and my Minister I should like to say that we do very much sympathise with them and other hon. Members who find the countryside being utilised for purposes associated with war. At the end of the war we had all hoped that that had finished for good. The conference of U.N.O. which has just come to an end has given us some hope that wars may be ended, but after the failure of our hopes at the end of the last war and the new war which came upon us, nobody can feel quite sure even now, that war is finished for good. Therefore, whether we like it or not, until such time as international security guarantees the rights of people, we must take some cognizance of the necessity for the defence of the country.
For that reason we must not neglect the science of war. Science, research and development must go on. This Government consider that it is one of the essentials in the spending of our money power after the war that as little as possible should be spent on the manufacture of implements of war, but that on no account should we starve science, research and development, which will enable us to keep abreast with every possible weapon of war. The work at Westcott, if I might give the background of it, is concerned with experimental research and development. I think there is some misunderstanding as to how far the experiments at this station will go. The experiment is concerned with what used to be called the "doodle-bug" and the rocket.
1269 I can readily understand that people who have gone through the years of war never want to hear anything about guided projectiles in the form of "doodle-bugs" and rockets for the rest of their lives. Therefore, if they are picturing a neighbourhood which is going to be humming and buzzing with the throb of a "doodle-bug" passing over their heads, I can readily appreciate their apprehension. I assure hon. Members right away that no such thing is contemplated at this station. There is going to be no discharge or extensive use of certain projectiles from this station. What is going to be established at Westcott is a large-scale laboratory. The people who will occupy it will not be people who are sending projectiles but people who are studying the aerodynamics and the propulsion of projectiles. The two main parts are, of course, the jet engine and the body which is propelled. The experiments in regard to the jet engine will take place mainly on the bench. There will be certain noises when these jet engines are working, but even at the maximum these noises will not exist for longer than five minutes at any time.
The other experiments will be on a very small scale with much less noise. None of the villages which are affected are within 1,000 yards of the establishment. Any noise which comes from these engines will be much the same as the whine which comes from the jet aeroplane. Only 15, or maybe 10 per cent, of the noise will reach Westcott, which is the nearest village. So far as the villages which are further away are concerned, only 5 per cent, of the noise will reach there. Even the noise will be reduced considerably, as far as we can see, by experiments which have already taken place and which are likely to diminish that noise and perhaps abolish it altogether.
The body of the guided projectile will be experimented with largely in a wind tunnel where, instead of using air in which to try projectiles, we use an artificial wind in a tunnel to create the conditions which the projectile would experience in the air. That will take place inside a very large building and will make no noise whatsoever. It will create no disturbance in the neighbourhood.
This experimental station is mainly occupied with these guided projectiles 1270 which might be used for war. It is worth while mentioning that there has never been any invention such as this has been that does not find a use in peace. It is a great step forward in man's conquest of the air. It is rather difficult to foresee the end of it. We have already seen a rocket travelling through the air about 3,600 miles per hour. That means a possibility, when rockets can reach America, of our being able to send a rocket from here to America in less than half an hour. The fact that this possibility exists means that we shall strive to make some use of it. I can foresee the time when a letter service between here and the States will be carried by means of a rocket which might have been developed primarily for purposes of war. It is interesting to note that although the Germans sent the first rockets here, we had been studying the question of such a rocket before the war started. I can only hope that, as the possibility of war recedes, the scientific experiments of this station will be devoted not to war, but to peace.
Both hon. Members who spoke raised the question of the agricultural value of the district. I am glad to be able to assure them that, out of the 900 acres involved in this estate, 600 will continue to be cultivated. A great part of this area could not be cultivated now, because of the existence of the aerodrome. The expense of reconstructing it would be almost prohibitive, but 600 acres will be restored to agriculture. The Ministry have been able to make arrangements with farmers which will avoid any severance of holdings. The farming will be done by one farmer. The other farmers have accepted the offer of the Ministry, I am informed, and will receive adequate compensation.
Our Ministry have consulted the Ministry of Town and Country Planning, the Ministry of Agriculture, and other Ministries concerned. I think hon. Gentlemen can accept my assurance that the Minister of Agriculture is very jealous of what remains of the agricultural land of this country. I can only say that he has accepted our proposition and is satisfied. The question whether some other part of the country could have been found or not must obviously be one of opinion. All I can say is that experts who are in charge of the job searched very diligently within 1271 reasonable range to find a suitable spot. It is not the distance from manufacturing areas which is the fault here, but because we have a large number of experimental stations which, while not doing this work, are doing analogous work. It is desirable that the scientists at this station Should be within easy reach and access of their colleagues in the other station.
I am assured by our experts that they could find nowhere that was just quite as suitable as this district I can quite imagine Aylesbury people, and the people of my hon. Friend's constituency, feeling a bit worried in case the countryside.is going to be despoiled by this inrush of some manufacturing centre, but I feel sure that, if they went to Farnborough and saw the experimental station there, they would find no complaints from people there that such a station caused any dislocation of rural life or disturbed people in any way whatsoever
I can give the assurance, on behalf of the Ministry, that, whatever the development of this station will be, it will not disturb the normal rural life in this area, or bring any blot upon the landscape, but will introduce into the area a lot of very desirable and charming people who will make their great contribution to the social life of Aylesbury and district. I think there is ho fear of Aylesbury people suffering in any way Housing is a problem, but it may be that the fact of the station going there may make some contribution 1272 to the solution of Aylesbury's housing problem, because it will have another ally, in addition to the rural district council, which is doing its best at the moment.
So far as the Ministry is concerned, we will give a promise that, should there be any development which might alter the complexion of this station and bring about any disturbance of the people, we would willingly enter into consultation with the hon. Members and those interested to see whether some adjustment could be made. So far as we can see, there is no reason whatever why this station should ever develop any attribute other than that of a great laboratory of scientific investigation for the discovery of these new principles which may lead to world-changing developments in transport. No firing or explosions will take place in their districts. I sympathise very much with the hon. Gentlemen in their worry about this place, but, believe me, there is not one part of the country in which we put down any kind of station where somebody does not find difficulty in accepting it as the right place. I hope that, with this explanation, we shall have the good will of the people of Aylesbury when our scientific experimenters arrive in their district, and that they will welcome them and offer them every encouragement to get on with their work.
§ Question put, and agreed to.
§ Adjourned accordingly at Eighteen Minutes to Ten o'Clock.