§ Motion made and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Hannan.]
§ 1.22 a.m.
§ Mr. Hollis (Devizes)I wish to raise a topic which has been frequently discussed both inside and outside the House—the question of the acquisition and requisition of land by Service Departments. I do not wish to take the House over ground which has been thoroughly covered, not of course, because I wish to unsay anything that has been said either by myself or by my hon. and right hon. Friends, or to diminish its importance, but simply because I want to raise one or two new issues which have been brought to my attention more recently since we last discussed this topic.
The situation of this controversy, as hon. Members are aware, is that it cul- 1970 minated in a statement made by the Prime Minister on 25th February, a provisional statement about Government policy towards the training areas. The promise was then made to us that we should have a White Paper in due course in which the Government's policy would be more fully set out. Naturally, we cannot get very much further until the White Paper is forthcoming. On that point all I would say is that we should be grateful if the Under-Secretary of State for War could give us any indication of when we may expect the White Paper, which is most eagerly awaited, and if he can tell us when we may expect the local public inquiries which have already been promised by the Prime Minister in his provisional statement, and also in what way members of the public will be able to bring forward their views not only upon local problems, but also on the general over-all problem, without which obviously local problems can hardly be satisfactorily settled.
After having said that, I would like to raise the new issues, which have not been so much debated but which have recently been forced very much to our attention. The whole basis of this problem is that military experts have reached the conclusion that it is necessary to have training with live ammunition which it was not thought necessary to have—probably wrongly—before the war. As the result of that, a problem is created because all sorts of land which could then be used by the War Department and inhabited at the same time by civilians now has to be used—or so the argument goes—exclusively by the War Department. In addition to this live training, it is also thought that there must be co-operative training between the military and the R.A.F., and that creates a situation which is described in a letter to one of my constituents from the Air Ministry about a recent joint exercise of the R.A.F. and the military. The Air Ministry defines its policy and says:
Practices of this description are essential to the efficiency of the R.A.F. If heavy bombs were not used from time to time, the flying personnel would not be properly exercised in the duties they will have to undertake in the event of war and ground crews would not be familiar with the practical preparation and loading of explosives. Furthermore it is essential that these exercises should be subjected to practical use at intervals in 1971 order to ensure that they are remaining in good order. Only by going through the whole procedure is it possible to discover weaknesses in men and material.I have no quarrel with that general principle, but want to direct the attention of the Under-Secretary of State to the logical consequences. Not only are people not being allowed to live in the training areas, but in certain parts life is rapidly becoming intolerable for the people in the neighbourhood of those areas. On Friday, 7th May, a very heavy exercise took place at Larkhill, in Wiltshire, in which 4,000 lb. bombs were dropped. As a result, very considerable damage was done in the neighbouring villages of Easterson, Market Lavington and Urchfont, which happen to be in my constituency. I had to give a lecture at Urchfont Manor on the following morning, and at breakfast time received a number of telephone calls from residents in those villages. I took the opportunity of my visit to Urchfont to inspect the villages to see the places where ceilings had come down, ornaments been shaken from mantelpieces and windows broken and at the Manor a part of the wainscotting had been brought away as the result of the explosion.On that subsequent Monday I asked a Private Notice Question of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for Air, as the result of which a further and heavier exercise which was to have taken place on the following Tuesday was reduced. A promise was made by the right hon. Gentleman that 4,000 lb. bombs would not be used and that only 500 lb. bombs would be used in subsequent exercises. The Secretary of State said he was satisfied that no danger would result from the use of these much smaller bombs. The exercise took place and there was no danger, so far as I could ascertain, to civilians in the sense that no immediate damage was done. But on the subsequent occasion, I received a large number of complaints from people of the noise and disturbance caused. The disturbance was this time in a slightly different direction, for the effects of blast are very curious and sometimes places near at hand suffer little and those further away suffer severely from the effects of an explosion. The Air Vice-Marshal who was in command of the School of Air Support in that neighbourhood gave his opinion in the Press that 1972
In my opinion the reports have been grossly exaggerated. This is the only range in England where such a bomb can be dropped …—that is, speaking of the 4,000-lb. bomb the cancellation of which in the exercise he resented—and if you cannot use them on this range then we have 'had it.'I suggest that from the position taken up by the Secretary of State for Air and the statement made by the Air Vice-Marshal this logical sequence necessarily follows. At present that range is the only place in England where 4,000-lb. bombs can be dropped. If it is necessary that they should be dropped from time to time, and that these military exercises should take place, and if we have the promise of the Secretary of State for Air that they shall not be dropped in this place, it follows that some new place for the dropping of these bombs must be prepared. These exercises can only tolerably take place in a much more deserted part or the country than the heart of Wiltshire. If this new exercise ground is being prepared in some more deserted part of the country — the North of Scotland, or wherever it may be—and if considerable public inconvenience is caused even by the smaller exercises, does it not follow that these smaller R.A.F. - military exercises should also be moved from the inhabited parts of Wiltshire to the less inhabited parts, where they can more conveniently take place?The second point I would like to raise is that of ammunition dumps, of which there are an intolerable and incomprehensibly large number still lying about in various parts of the country. One of the most popular of all the beauty spots in the South of England is Savernake Forest. During the war an ammunition dump was built up there which now consists almost entirely of captured German ammunition. Why this ammunition was ever brought to England at all I have been asking for two years, and have never been able to get any sort of answer. It was long before this Government was in power, and it is something for which I cannot blame the hon. Member personally. But two explosions have occurred, and there have been fatal accidents. We were told as a result of an inquiry that it was impossible to tell whether these German bombs had booby traps attached to them or not, and we 1973 were told that they would eventually be taken out to sea and dumped there, but labour would not be available for a considerable time. Why they were ever brought overseas from Germany in order subsequently to be taken back and dropped in the sea is entirely incomprehensible to me.
The hope of the people of that neighbourhood was that at any rate as soon as the war came to an end these dumps would begin rapidly to diminish. In point of fact, after the first explosion some of the ammunition was taken away, but subsequently more ammunition has arrived. When the second explosion took place it was merely by accident that this load was at the last minute diverted from being unloaded in Marlborough to be dumped at Savernake, and when the explosion took place it might well have taken place in the station at Marlborough. If that had happened we have every reason for thinking that that beautiful little town would have been destroyed with considerable loss of life instead of the loss of three or four lives.
At present there is no sign whatever of that ammunition dump diminishing and the same applies to a number of ammunition dumps throughout the country. Only last week I put a Question to the Secretary of State for War as to when we might hope that Savernake Forest would be free of the unwelcomed visitation of this exploding ammunition. I received a reply to that statement in which it was stated that His Majesty's Government hope, without making any promise, to have it free at the beginning of 1949. I cannot see why it should take that enormous amount of time in order to remove those stores of ammunition. It seems to be beyond all reason, and we never get the least explanation why it will take this enormous time. Therefore, I have raised these two new points, in addition to the points already raised, for which I shall be most grateful if the Under-Secretary of State for War can give us some comfort and some information. I would also ask him if he would throw some light on the two general problems as to when these local public inquiries are likely to be held and when are we likely to see the White Paper that has been promised by the Prime Minister.
§ 1.36 a.m.
§ Mr. J. H. Hare (Woodbridge)I should like to reinforce what has been 1974 said by my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Hollis), and to concentrate on the White Paper which has been promised and which has been held up for far too long. It is really intolerable that many hundreds, and possibly thousands, of citizens of this country, who have been dispossessed by the War Office and other Defence Ministries, should not know whether or not they are going to be allowed to return to their own homes. I can speak with a certain lack of prejudice, because in my constituency the War Office have returned battle areas, but there are many battle areas in East Anglia not returned to their owners. Promises were made during the war by both the War Office and the civil authorities that this land which was taken over was only for the period of the war, and that once the war was over these areas would be returned to the original inhabitants.
Those were solemn promises made by responsible officers as well as responsible civilian officers. Still those promises have not been redeemed by the War Office, and I should like to know what are the reasons for those pledges being dishonoured. Two years after the war with Germany was concluded, it is not to be expected that a Government should dishonour pledges made during the war. It is quite intolerable that one single citizen in this country should be in that position. It is worse when we remember it is not one single citizen, but hundreds and possibly thousands of citizens who are so placed. The land was taken over on a solemn pledge that it would be handed back. Now we are informed not only that it is going to be retained, but that larger areas around are to be taken over, so that the battleground should be made larger and more effective. All I ask is that, as a result of this debate on the Adjournment Motion, we should have some assurance from the Under-Secretary that we are to have definite information at an early date as to where we stand. We all feel most deeply that the Government have no right to delay this matter any longer.
§ 1.38 a.m.
§ Viscount Hinchingbrooke (Dorset, Southern)It is a curious, but important fact, that in England the more the public see their Army in action, the less attractive they find it. I do not doubt that one of the reasons for the slow response 1975 to recruitment is because the Army has not carried out the promises given in the war. They are permanently quartered today on too many acres of England and they are apparent with all their paraphernalia and battle array as too great a proportion of our population. A great part of my constituency has been dominated by the Army for much too long. After the last war, the Army cleared up in double quick time and got into the esteem of the public thereby. The generals should not think that, by hanging on to land year after year, by extending their boundaries, by bombing practices, and by putting up barbed wire, that they are making the Army attractive. They are doing the reverse. The temper in my constituency has been rising all the time, and I am very glad of it. Perhaps a year ago we might have had some difficulty in finding a case, but there is no doubt now that public feeling is rising. I think the War Office chance of keeping their end up at a well balanced local public inquiry is much less than it was before. The Under-Secretary of State had better look into that side of the matter, and see that these decisions are now taken very rapidly indeed, because the effect of a long delay is having very deleterious consequences on the public morale and the affection of the people for their Army.
§ 1.40 a.m.
§ The Under-Secretary of State for War (Mr. John Freeman)The noble Lord has made in one respect a less responsible speech than I think the House would expect of him. I would say that whatever may be the rights and wrongs of any procedure which has been followed, he will, I am certain, take the decision himself, and advise his constituents to take any decision in what he conceives to be the national interest, and not with any intention of depriving the War Office of anything he welcomes, or the reverse, their having.
All three hon. Members who have spoken on the Motion have made references to the White Paper which has been promised and on the general situation appertaining to the acquisition of land. I regret very much—and I hope it will be accepted in good part—that I am not prepared to be drawn on the subject as to what may or may not be covered by the White Paper. I will say, however, 1976 that I should expect it to be available to the House in the very near future. When it is available, then the procedure regarding public inquiries which I was asked about by the hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Hollis) and the matters referred to by the hon. Member for Woodbridge (Mr. H. Hare) will be seen in their true light and can be properly examined by the House. I would say with sincerity and some feeling, because I have followed the problem closely, that it is really to the advantage of hon. Members on all sides of the House to wait until the White Paper does appear. With regard to the delay which has been alleged to have taken place, it may be irritating to hon. Members, but it is sometimes irritating to Government Departments to be pressed by Members on this point. We do feel some frustration about the time these things take. But I ask the House to realise that the sole reason for the delay in production of the White Paper has been the almost unparalleled effort made by the Government to consider the objections which were raised, and to try to devise adequate machinery for dealing with them. I do not propose to say more on the subject of the White Paper, except to repeat that it will be produced, I think, in the very near future, now.
I would like to turn to the problems raised by the hon. Member for Devizes, which concerned his own constituency and on which I would like to give him as much reassurance as I can. First, he has raised again the matter of the 4,000-lb. bombs dropped in the neighbourhood of Market Lavington by the Royal Air Force. He appears to have been under a misapprehension regarding what my right hon. Friend the Secretary for Air told him. The hon. Member says that as a result of complaints, 4,000-lb. bombs would not be dropped again in the area of Market Lavington. My information is that what the Secretary for Air said was that they would not be dropped on the particular date, and they were not. I am anxious to make it clear, so that there shall be no misunderstanding, that I can give no undertaking, having said that, that these bombs will not be dropped in that area. My right hon. Friend has been distressed by the complaints made on the occasion referred to, and he is examining very closely exactly what happened on that occasion, and into what reasonable steps can be taken to avoid its happening again. 1977 Whether he will come to the conclusion that these heavy bombs ought not to be dropped there is a matter into which I cannot enter or give a commitment tonight. I would add, in passing, that the occasion in question was by no means the first time that these heavy bombs had been dropped. I understand that it was the first time that any damage had been done.
In regard to the possibility of moving this bombing range, I entirely agree with the hon. Member that, of course, if it were possible reasonably to take these operations right away from an inhabited area, it would be a very good thing to do. With deference to the hon. Member sitting just above the Gangway, I will not suggest that the operations should be moved to Scotland, but I would agree that if a suitable area could be found which is remote from habitation, that is the answer to this matter. But, in fact, the problem cannot be solved quite as smoothly as that. It is not merely a question of transporting a number of elderly gentlemen to watch a spectacular demonstration of bombing, which I admit might be done anywhere; but of having large numbers of people watching these operations, and other training which takes place on the ground and in the air, all of which forms part of the same exercise. For these reasons, the Air Ministry at the moment regard the use of this part of the country, and their base at Old Sarum, as being essential.
With regard to ammunition in the Savernake Forest, I have little time at my disposal, and I want to speak as fully as I can in the time which is left. There is at the moment a substantial amount of ammunition left there, though it is considerably less than during the war. We realise that as soon as we can remove it. 1978 the better for everyone. I would like to assure the hon. Member, and the citizens of Marlborough, that I believe, in all sincerity, that the danger is so slight as to be almost negligible. I have very carefully examined the safety precautions during the last 24 hours and, while I cannot say that they are 100 per cent. foolproof, I can assure the hon. Member that they are as foolproof as we can get them. We are engaged in moving this ammunition as soon as possible into permanent underground storage. But, it must be remembered that it has mostly been exposed to the weather for long periods; most of it has been to Europe and back again, and it must be most carefully examined and sorted before we can store it in dumps under the ground.
I think that the hon. Gentleman was very reasonable in not grumbling about this, and I would like him to know the progress we have made in this work. The total surplus ammunition we have declared as a result of the end of the war is no less than 1,200,000 tons, and we have cleared it at this rate; between April, 1944, and March, 1945, we cleared only 16,000 tons, but that was at a period when we were very hard pressed. In the year 1945 to 1946, we cleared 270,000 tons, and in the year 1946 to 1947, we cleared 320,000 tons, and I hope that we can keep up that rate. It is most important to remember that this work has to be done by technicians with the highest qualifications, and it is an operation of some danger. But we feel some satisfaction that we have moved it at that rate, and if we can keep it up for the coming year, we shall not have done too badly.
§ Adjourned accordingly at Nine Minutes to Two o'Clock.