§ 5.58 p.m.
§ Mr. Emrys Hughes (South Ayrshire)May I be allowed to use a few minutes of the concluding stages of this Session to thank the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Civil Aviation for the spirit in which he has responded to the appeal that the Government and the Treasury should take a broad view of the necessity of spending a greater sum on securing the protection of the public who are travelling under Civil Aviation plans. I speak as a member of the travelling public who is fortunate enough to be able to travel to Scotland tomorrow morning in a few hours. I can leave London at 10 o'clock and arrive in Prestwick at about 2.30. It makes all the difference in the world to those of us who are travelling to and 2544 from Scotland on Parliamentary duty to be able to travel with the minimum amount of fatigue and inconvenience.
We want the public to be assured that air travel is comparatively safe. We shall feel a greater sense of reassurance now that we have had that very generous reply from the Ministry of Civil Aviation that there is not to be parsimonious cutting down of expenditure on research on safety so far as the civil aeroplane is concerned. We are asking for only a small fraction of a sum of money to be spent on the civil aeroplane compared with what has been spent on the R.A.F. and on aeroplanes which we hope will never be used again for the purpose of destruction. There has been too great a casualty list in the development of the aeroplane. We know in the West of Scotland, and we know in Prestwick, for example, that aeroplanes went out over the Atlantic and crashed over the Island of Arran, where there are monuments on the lonely summits of that beautiful island to people who crashed and who went to their deaths as pioneers in the enterprise which we know is going to mean a great boon in the future.
§ It being Six o'Clock, Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Order of the House this day, till Monday. 20th October.