§ The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Glenvil Hall)I am sorry to say that when replying on the Adjournment last Thursday night I misled the House on the demobilisation target to be achieved by the end of the year. I told the hon. Member for Aston (Mr. Wyatt) that he was wrong in supposing that the demobilisation figures would not be reached by the end of December. In this I was right, because the provisional release programme, announced by the Minister of Labour on 7th August, will in fact be achieved. I was, however, wrong in relating the demobilisation figures to 1,100,000. This 1,100,000 represents the trained strength to which it was thought last May the Armed Forces could be reduced by the end of the year.
As stated by the Prime Minister on 24th October, however, it will not be possible by that date to bring the Forces down to 524 the level then forecast. The reason why it will, nevertheless, be possible to achieve the release programme by the end of the year is that the programme did not involve a run-down in the strength of the Forces quite to the 1,100,000 trained men and women referred to in the estimate made in May. I confused the target for releases by the end of the year which will be reached, with the earlier target for ceiling strength by the end of the year, which will not be reached, and I humbly apologise to the House for my mistake.
§ Mr. WyattAs my hon. Friend informed the House on Thursday night that the brief from which he was speaking was supplied to him by the Central Office of Information, could not he now agree with my contention that the Government information services need strengthening?
§ Mr. PickthornIn order that there may be no further misunderstanding, may I ask the hon. Gentleman what is meant by the word "run-down"?