VOTE A. NUMBER OF LAND FORCES

HC Deb 15 March 1948 vol 448 cc1743-84

Resolution reported: That a number of Land Forces, not exceeding 850,000, all ranks, be maintained for the safety of the United Kingdom and the defence of the possessions of His Majesty's Crown, during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 5949.

Resolution read a Second time.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."

5.28 p.m.

Mr. Keeling (Twickenham)

I wish to deal with a subject which was, I think, hardly mentioned, or not mentioned at all, in the Debate on the Army Estimates last week. I want to say a few words, in so far as it affects the Army, on the White Paper published last December on the needs of the Armed Forces for land. We were half promised a Debate on this subject. It is a very important subject, and I am sorry that the Government did not put down a Motion to approve the White Paper.

The White Paper proposes the permanent use of no less than one million acres of this country—that is to say, one in every 56 acres in the United Kingdom—for the Fighting Forces. Of this one million acres, 700,000 are required for training, and, of that total, 90 per cent. are required for training the Army. I am afraid it is also a fact that the Army is responsible for most of the specific proposals which have aroused the strongest objections.

The requirements of the Army are not evenly distributed among the different parts of the Kingdom. About 1½ per cent. of the land required is in England, 2 per cent. is in Wales and less than half of 1 per cent. is in Scotland. The first question which arises is, Why is such a small use made of Scotland, which includes two-thirds of the wild country of the United Kingdom? Why is a preponderating use made of England, which is five times as densely populated as Scotland? Three-quarters of the land required for training is to be in England, with the result that the impact of the Army upon the facilities for recreation is very severe indeed, though the public are not wholly excluded from Army land.

The answer made by the Government to my question is in the White Paper. They give three reasons for avoiding Scotland. One is the lie of the land and another is the climate. The difficulties of the lie of the land have been exaggerated, I suggest. Secondly, is there any part of the United Kingdom which has not a bad climate? Surely these disadvantages are compensated for by the sparsity of population in Scotland? There is a much more serious objection to the greater use of Scotland, and it is the shortage of accommodation there and the fact that the members of the Territorial Army, which is mostly in England, have to be trained near their homes. I see the force of that argument, but the occupation of nearly 500,000 acres in congested England seems to be a very serious matter at a time when we have to grow more food in order to survive. I hope that the greater use of Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Dominions will be considered as a policy for the future.

In their search for areas which are not open to objection the Government have asked the Council for the Preservation of Rural England and the Council for the Preservation of Rural Wales to co-operate by suggesting alternatives. That invitation was welcomed, but I should like to point out that those councils would be in a stronger position to give constructive advice if they knew what the Army requirements are in each command and the extent to which each command must, in the opinion of the War Office, be self-sufficient. The White Paper shows the allocation among different parts of the United Kingdom; why cannot they be given information as to allocation among the commands? If these councils were given that information, they could give more help by way of constructive suggestion and by influencing public opinion.

The next point is that the White Paper talks about a joint user of the same area by different Services. Paragraphs 8, 15 and 26 say that the Services ought to aim at a joint user, in order to reduce the total area. We have been told by Ministers, in familiar but untrue jargon, that they have this point constantly in mind. We have had Government pronouncements that no opportunity will be lost—another familiar cliché—to make one training area serve for more than one Service. We were told that a committee had been set up to promote that result. All I can say is that the committee seems to have been singularly unsuccessful. In the list of land requirements which has been supplied to the Council for the Preservation of Rural England there is not one instance of genuine joint use.

It is true that two instances of it have been claimed. We are told that there is joint use by the Army and the Royal Marines of the field firing range on Dartmoor. In fact, the Royal Marines appear to have been given the almost exclusive use of it. It is of very little use to the Army. We have also been told that there is joint use of the Battle Hill area in North Yorkshire by the Army and by the R.A.F. Regiment. The fact is that there are separate areas of which the exclusive use is given to one Service or the other. There is no joint use at all at Battle Hill. Why should not infantry training by the Army, the Royal Marines and the R.A.F. Regiment be done on the same piece of ground? Why should not the same small-arms range be used by the three Services? Training programmes would have to be co-ordinated, of course, but surely that is not an insuperable difficulty. Unless the policy of joint user is put into effect it will be difficult to take the professions of the Government on this matter very seriously.

I now want to draw the attention of the House to the very serious interference by the War Office proposals with national parks, nature preserves and other amenities. The Army are taking something like 160,000 acres in areas recommended by the Hobhouse Report for national parks. National parks were not even mentioned by the Secretary of State in his speech upon the Requisitioned Land Bill last December, yet the Army wants to use permanently a large part of the North Yorkshire moors national park, and to discharge live ammunition there, with the result that the public would be excluded. They want to take a big part of the Pembrokeshire coast national parkland, perhaps the finest coast scenery in Great Britain; about 40,000 acres of Dartmoor, and so make it impossible to have a national park at all in the Northern part of Dartmoor; about 18,000 acres in the very middle of the North Wales national park; and part of the Lake District park area—only a small part, it is true—near Ullswater.

I should like to call the attention of the House to the Hobhouse Report on National Parks. It says in paragraph 151: The extensive demands of the Service Departments for training areas in the wild uncultivated land of England and Wales have most serious implications for National Parks, especially where land is required for training with live ammunition. From this land the public would be excluded on account of danger from firing and from unexploded missiles. Moreover, the problem is not confined to considerations of acreage alone, for many of the areas involved are of outstanding interest and beauty. It would be no exaggeration to say that the appropriation of a number of the particular areas now listed for acquisition by the Service Departments would take the heart out of the proposed National Park areas in which they are sited, and in certain cases render our proposals for the designation of individual National Park entirely nugatory. Apart from national parks, there are the areas recommended as nature reserves by the Wild Life Conservation Committee. It is proposed to use one of these, Braunton Burrows, for combined operations, which will do irreparable damage to any nature reserve. I would also mention the National Trust. I hope we can have an assurance that the War Office has no designs on any land or building belonging to the National Trust. If it has, it will be very discouraging to would-be benefactors of the National Trust.

I want to say two or three sentences about commons and footpaths, especially coast footpaths. I submit that common land ought not to be acquired, but only—where it is absolutely necessary—used by the Army; that common rights ought not to be extinguished; and that the commoners and the public generally ought at any rate to be allowed intermittent access to commons. Footpaths ought, if possible, to be kept open, especially coast footpaths and paths giving access to beaches. If this is not provided for, the tank gunnery schools at Purbeck and in Pembrokeshire will destroy access to long stretches of the coast.

None of us on this side of the House disputes that the Army must be properly trained, and none of us disputes that the areas of land required for this purpose must be greater than before the war because of the larger reserve Army, the proposed continuous training of the Territorials, the greater proportion of tracked vehicles, the increase in mobility and the range of weapons, the design of new weapons and the use of live ammunition. Having spoken last week on the needs of the Territorial Army I should be the last person to deny all that. But facilities for public recreation are necessary too, in the interests of the Army itself which requires fit men. I hope therefore that the War Office will give attention to these points. They will of course be brought to the attention of the Ministry of Town and Country Planning inspectors who are holding inquiries in accordance with the White Paper.

5.43 P.m.

Mr. H. D. Hughes (Wolverhampton, West)

It is not often that I find myself in agreement with the hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Keeling), but I can start by endorsing almost everything that he has said. I came here armed with a number of quotations of which he has already taken advantage, and I need therefore do little more than underline the very serious concern which is felt about the requirements of the Service Departments for the use of land. Many of the arguments used in the White Paper are exceedingly weak. The White Paper says that it is not possible to make greater use of Scotland because of the nature of the terrain and the climate. Surely we are not training a fair-weather Army? At the beginning of the war when I was being trained in the Artillery, we needed difficult terrain and we were not particularly daunted by areas which had bad climatic conditions. If the Army is going into action in future, it will not be able to rely on the climate of the Mediterranean or upon an open rolling country. It would seem that much more consideration should be given to training possibilities in Scotland and Northern Ireland——

Mr. Emrys Hughes

To what part of Scotland does the hon. Member refer?

Mr. H. D. Hughes

I had the pleasure of visiting Scotland last summer, and I noticed that in considerable areas of Western Scotland there were large hutted camps and other accommodation used by the Services for training during the war. That area was used to a very considerable extent. Large areas of Scotland were completely cut off during the war for military training purposes. While I am not suggesting that we should deprive the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) of access to large parts of his native land, I do suggest that land and accommodation used during the war could be used again.

Mr. Emrys Hughes

Will the hon. Member be more precise? After all, Scotland is a very big place. Where does the hon. Member want these training areas?

Mr. H. D. Hughes

There are large areas outside South Ayrshire in the Northern and Western parts of Scotland which have fewer alternative claims for public use than almost anywhere else in this island. I would not dispute that the hon. Member knows a great deal more about the local terrain than I do, and I shall not therefore venture further on his own ground.

I would ask whether in this matter the War Office is exercising the maximum possible discrimination between the needs of the Regular Army and those of the Territorial Army. It is quite obvious that the Territorial Army needs access to land just outside the industrial areas, but it is also obvious that for Regular Army training it is possible, with a little administrative ingenuity, to go further afield. I and my hon. Friends from Staffordshire kept the House quite a long time on one occasion discussing the merits and demerits of Cannock Chase. We made the point then that while Cannock Chase is an example of an area which is suitable for some Territorial training, a great deal of Regular military commitments take up land there in one of the few beauty spots ready of access to the population of the West Midlands. I feel sure that what is true of Cannock Chase is true of many other areas.

Having said that, I would like to pursue a little further some more general issues which have been discussed during these Debates on the Army Estimates. I would like to congratulate my right hon. Friend the Under-Secretary because, in spite of all the pressure that was put on the Government last year to give the public more information on the Army Estimates, they have this year succeeded in giving even less information than we had last year, which is a very remarkable achievement. They state in their White Paper that it is the policy of the Government to give the public the greatest amount of information consistent with essential security. About the only extra information is given on pages 10 to 14 of the Army Estimates, where, under the heading of "Army," is set out what appears to be the brief of the first lecture to be given to a recruit on entering the Army. It seems somewhat reminiscent of Elementary Lectures, Part I, which I was given as a recruit at my Preliminary Training Centre. It certainly does not give any more information than would be given to a recruit at that early stage of his training.

I want to press still further that, bearing in mind the essential needs of security, my right hon. Friend should again look at these Estimates to see if further information can be given. It is a little unsatisfactory that the "New Statesman" should be so much more informative than Vote A, that statements can be made that we have a very limited number of formations ready for active service and that arms are starved of technical recruits, and that no hon. Member in any part of the House has information which will enable him to substantiate or deny such allegations. Bearing in mind the Vote of 850,000 men which we are being asked to pass, this House should ask and press for further information.

Normally, I believe that the achievements after the second world war can be compared very favourably with those after the first world war, but when one turns to the run-down of the Services I am afraid that the comparison works much the other way. My right hon. Friend quoted the other day from a document giving figures of the war of the Spanish Succession. I want to quote from the same document a few figures in relation to one of the later stages of our history, because the public should be aware of these figures. They show that in 1917 the manpower strength of the Army was 3.8 million. By 1921, it had run down to 296,948. By 1938, one year before the outbreak of the last war, the figure was 193,342. In 1945, the manpower of the Army rose to 2.9 million, and in September, 1947, it had only run down to a figure of 742,799. On the basis of the figures now before us, we shall still have 345,000 men in the Regular and conscript Army by 31st March, 1949. That is a larger figure than we had in this country in 1921, even if one adds all the 1921 Territorial Army on to the Regular Army figure.

These are large and significant figures, and before this House can feel really satisfied that in this economic crisis we can afford that amount of manpower in the Army, we should have a good deal more information than we have already been given. I wish to press a little more closely a matter raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Swingler) on the achievements of the manpower economy committees. At a very early hour on Thursday morning last the Under-Secretary of State said a little about what the manpower committees had done. He said that they had made a number of recommendations which were now being implemented. Can we not have some more information on the work of these manpower committees? Can we not know some of their recommendations? Is it impossible for the War Office to give us some idea of the savings of manpower that will be effected if these recommendations are put into effect? Could we have a little more information on how these manpower economy committees have worked? Have they had the advice of specialists on organisation and methods? I hope that my right hon. Friend will be prepared to say a little more about them when he deals with that point.

Another point on which I would like some information is the raising of the call- up age to 18 years 9 months by 1950. That will have a serious effect on the young men who are to be called up. During the whole of the period prior to their service they are bound to be unsettled; they are not fitting into normal life in industry or elsewhere. If the Army cannot handle these men I should have thought that it would have been better to see if some alternative method could not be found of reducing the call-up without delaying it, and so lessen the period of uncertainty.

The Economic White Paper points out that we shall be seriously short this year of skilled workers in certain occupations—in the iron foundries, the steel industry, etc. Would it not be easier, rather than to delay the general age of call-up, to extend the exemptions from call-up on the industrial grounds which we have already applied in the case of coalmining and agriculture, and in that way minimise the economic effect of the call-up, as well as avoid lengthening the period of unsettlement of the youth of the country?

In his speech on the Army Estimates my right hon. Friend went to great pains to stress the standards of accommodation that were being given to our troops in Germany. I thought that he went a little too far in that direction. In fact, last autumn, when I had the opportunity of visiting Hamburg, quite responsible persons made the point to me that the standards and quantity of accommodation which our troops were occupying in that city were rather higher than was absolutely necessary—standards of housing, theatres, hotel and hospital accommodation. I do not deny that our troops abroad should have good standards, but in a city where thousands of houses are in ruins, where the civilian population is living in holes and in cellars underneath blitzed buildings, I feel that we must try to strike a happy medium and not have too sharp a distinction between the standards of the occupying troops and the standards of the civilian population. I should have felt happier if the accommodation taken by the Army in Germany and elsewhere was controlled by the Control Commission.

The Secretary of State for War (Mr. Shinwell)

So it is.

Mr. Hughes

My right hon. Friend says, "So it is," but——

Mr. Shinwell

I mean that the Control Commission have to be consulted.

Mr. Hughes

It may be that the Control Commission have to be consulted, but, as I understand the position, the civilian authorities in Germany have no authority to restrict the amount of accommodation which is taken in the cities by the Army. I feel that a better balance would have been reached had the Control Commission been given greater powers in this direction.

I come to my last point. On 26th March last year, as a result of pressure by a number of hon. Members on this side of the House, the then Secretary of State for War announced the setting up of welfare committees in the Army on lines somewhat similar to those which had already been announced by the Navy. I recognise and welcome the magnificent work which my right hon. Friend has been doing in the direction of improving the standards of Army welfare in the period since he has been in office. I am sure that he will be the first to recognise the importance of the maximum possible democratic participation in welfare work in the Army, subject to the necessary requirements of discipline. I would ask him to tell us what is happening to these welfare committees? How many have been set up, and what work are they doing; what have been their achievements?

In some of the outlying units abroad which I had the opportunity to visit last year, I was disturbed about the welfare conditions. Had a welfare committee of this kind been in existence in some of these overseas stations many of the grievances of the troops which are put to Parliamentary delegations who happen to appear would have been settled a great deal earlier than they actually were. Parliamentary delegations visiting outlying stations and units find the troops coming to them with grievances about local allowances, postal arrangements, the non-supply of civilian clothing and arrears of pay. I must say that on these points being taken up with the War Office a satisfactory solution has been reached, but a Parliamentary delegation cannot supplant a welfare committee. The welfare of our troops should not be left to these rather sporadic visits by Members of Parliament. Would it be possible to have some better system of visits to out- lying units at regular intervals by representatives of the War Office, who could find out for themselves what is going on, and check up on the administration of our outlying commands and outlying administrative headquarters?

6.0 p.m.

Mr. Thornton-Kemsley (Aberdeen and Kincardine, Western)

My hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Mr. Keeling) is, as the House knows, a doughty champion of footpaths, commons, open spaces and the preservation of rural England. He has complained that rural England has got about three-quarters of the Army training areas, and he thinks a lot more of them ought to go to rural Scotland. He quite rightly mentioned the three objections there are to that course and, as a Scottish Member, I do not mind underlining those objections. First, there is climate. The hon. Member for West Wolverhampton (Mr. H. D. Hughes) said that we do not want to train a fair-weather Army. But, we have precious little time to train the new intake into the Army, and have to train them under the most advantageous conditions we can. We have no time to train them in manhandling their guns out of bogs, and things like that.

The difficulty about Scotland is not that it rains sometimes, but that some of the training areas there are seriously disadvantaged from an Army point of view because of the presence of bogs. I had to spend some time in the early days of the war making reconnaissance for artillery ranges in Scotland, and I know the difficulty. Even when we take the most suitable land we can, we find that guns are constantly getting bogged, and it is a great deal more difficult in the case of tracked vehicles.

My hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham also said that we needed to have areas somewhere near accommodation and that the T.A. must train near its home stations, but there is no accommodation in a great many of these wild open spaces of Scotland. We have two armoured divisions, and one is the 56th London Division, which did very great service during the war. The regiments which go to make up its battle order have had recent experience of battle and of armoured fighting. If one considers regiments like the City of London Yeomanry—the "Rough Riders"—the County of London Yeomanry—the "Sharpshooters"—and the Westminster Dragoons, or the motor battalion, Queen Victoria's Rifles, one can quite understand the desire in the War Office that this fine London division should remain an armoured division. But, the trouble about an armoured division is that there must be a training area nearby to which it can get easily. It pre-supposes accommodation in London and some facility for frequently moving out of London to train somewhere near to London in order to make Territorial Army training possible.

The other armoured division is a Yorkshire division. It may be that my hon. Friend in referring to training areas in Yorkshire had in mind the areas over which that armoured division will train. It was not the choice of the right hon. Gentleman, but was made long before he took office, and it seems to me that it would have been more sensible to have made some other division, more advantageously placed territorially as regards training areas in country districts, one of our armoured divisions, instead of making a London division 50 per cent, of our total armoured division strength.

The Secretary of State has told us that the target for the Regular Army is about 200,000 all ranks, excluding the National Service men, and that he hopes that target will be reached by 31st March, 1949. To do that, and having made allowances for the short service volunteers, voluntary enlistment must total about 3,000 a month. When it is considered that the Regular Army before the war had the strength of about 220,000, that it will now have to train National Service men to a total of about 350,000 from the beginning of 1949, and about 200,000 from mid-1950 onwards, and in addition to find a cadre of officers and N.C.O.s for the Territorial Army, it will be readily seen that it will be stretched to its utmost limits. The principles of war do not change with changes in applied science, and of those principles the greatest is to concentrate the maximum force at the decisive point.

We depend upon our Regular Army to provide a mobile striking force, and in order to do that we must reduce the need for dispersion to a minimum. How can that be done? I suggest two ways. First I want to talk about Colonial Forces. Vote A shows an increase of Colonial troops from about 90,000 to 153,000, Which figure includes the Gurkha troops of which my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Perth (Colonel Gomme-Duncan) spoke so eloquently when we discussed the Estimates last week, and also labour corps for dealing with evacuation of British troops from certain areas. In the Army Estimates for 1947–48 my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey (Mr. Gammans) spoke about the possibility of raising considerable Colonial Forces from East and West Africa, from the West Indies, from Ceylon, Malaya and Hong Kong. The same point was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr. H. Fraser) in the Debate last week. I am sure they are right. The population of British West Africa and of the East African Colonies is about 40 million, which is not very far short of the population of the whole of the British Isles.

Here is a vast reserve of manpower and good will ready to be used. It is not, in my submission, making the best use of a British Regular battalion to keep it for three or four years in a single unit station. It would be of immense advantage if we could use coloured troops for garrison duties of this kind. I mention this particularly this year, because it seems to me that we have at this time a magnificent opportunity of using officers formerly in the Indian Army for training these coloured troops. A scheme of this kind would not only enable a greater concentration of our small Regular Army, but it would do much to raise the standard of life in our Colonial Empire. I was very glad that the Under-Secretary told us, early last Thursday morning, that the long-term policy with regard to Colonial troops is now, since the recent tour of the C.I.G.S., the subject of consultations between the Colonial Governors and the Commanders-in-Chief. I hope that these points, which have been made more than once in this House, will be borne most earnestly in mind, particularly with regard to the opportunity of using officers who have been so used to training and working with coloured troops.

The second point which I wish to make with regard to the concentrating of our Regular striking Force is one which, I am quite aware, is not so popular. Indeed, in certain quarters it is very unpopular, but I make no apology for putting it forward, because I think it is a point we ought to consider, as the situation is so desperately serious. When I look at these Vote A figures and see that the Polish Resettlement Corps and the Polish Land Forces are to run down from a little under 140,000 to 30,000 this year, I wonder if we are really wise. Not all of them, but many of these Polish soldiers are very good soldiers indeed. I know that, because I have had the honour to serve with and alongside them. I believe that a great many of them would prefer to transfer to a Polish contingent of all arms, under British command, than to have the choice of returning to Poland, of going elsewhere overseas or of being absorbed in a civilian occupation in this country.

I believe that exactly the same is true of refugees from other European countries which have fallen under Russian dominaton—for example, Czechoslovakia. I believe that that is a possibility which we ought at any rate to consider, to have a European voluntary force, under British command, working alongside the British Regular Army. It might even be possible, by agreement with the United States of America and France, to recruit a German force for the defence of the Western zone against aggression, but I quite realise that that is hardly a matter which can be discussed under Vote A of the Army Estimates.

May I say something which I believe would greatly help the right hon. Gentleman in his attempt to find recruits for the Regular Army? He has admitted to a certain difficulty of recruitment, especially for the technical arms. I believe that when a young man is making up his mind about the career upon which he proposes to embark, the thing that weighs most with him is not so much the pay—not immediately the pay—but the prospects which confront him as he looks into the future. I believe that intending recruits are influenced to some extent by the shortage of married quarters, and by the obsolescence of Army barracks. I have lived in a good many barracks in my life, and very few of them were quite so obsolete as the college in which I lived for three years in Oxford. But I believe these things are important. The young man who is thinking about whether he shall take up an Army career wonders what is to happen to him when, in his early forties, after 20 years of service to his country, he is discharged from the Army, and left to fend for himself, without any kind of prospects, or any great prospect, of a future career.

I am quite certain that we in this House—and if anything is a non-party matter I think this is—ought to make the service of the State a life's career with an absolute guarantee, in so far as that can be given, of civilian employment for a man who has satisfactorily completed a long-term engagement with the Armed Forces. The opportunities for doing this have been greatly widened, and very much increased, since the State has become a large employer of labour in the socialised industries. I believe that that wider possibility gives opportunities for men who have left the Army to be employed, for example, in the transport, electricity and, shortly, in the gas industries, as engineers, boiler men, electricians and technicians of all kinds. In Government offices and installations, and in the nationalised industries themselves, I believe there are great opportunities for men to be used as caretakers, storemen, watchmen and clerical workers of every grade. There is also an opening in forestry for lorry drivers, general labourers and so on.

I believe that an undertaking to provide civilian employment after military service would involve agreement with the trade unions to accept Army tradesmen and others as union members. I am in no way qualified to speak on behalf of the trade unions, but I hope and believe that there would, at this time, be no difficulty in coming to an agreement on those lines. After all, the trade unions must recognise, as we in this House must recognise, that at this present time our country, our way of life, and our very existence as a free people is in great and growing danger. Can we doubt that war will be more likely if the only Power which is likely to cause it believes that the democracies are militarily weak? Because Hitler made that mistake, it does not follow that others will not make it also.

It is extraordinary how blind men are to the lessons of history. In an age when man's mastery of science has outstripped his mercy, pity, peace and love, when the elemental struggle with which we are faced even now is between freedom and its denial, justice and injustice and right and wrong, it is imperative that we should act with boldness and imagination, for every- thing in which we believe is at stake. In closing, I say for our part, let us free our Regular Army from as many as possible of its extraneous duties and fashion it into a well-equipped and highly mobile striking force as our military contribution to Western Union. Let us do this quickly, for time is not on our side. Swift and even spectacular action now may save the day.

6.21 p.m.

Mr. Emrys Hughes

Arguments have been advanced from both sides of the House on the subject of land for the Forces. The hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Keeling) protested that too much land in the beauty spots of England, as well as agricultural land, was being taken for the training of the Army. His suggestion was, "Scotland has enough—send them to Scotland." I was surprised to hear that view endorsed by my namesake the hon. Member for West Wolverhampton (Mr. H. D. Hughes), who spoke from the Labour benches. He said, "England and Wales have their quota of troops; the rest must go to Scotland." I am afraid that the Secretary of State for War might yield to this curious alliance of Wales and England against Scotland. I protest against the suggestion and say that, as far as Scotland is concerned, public opinion does not wish to see further encroachments by the Army on Scottish territory.

The hon. Member for West Aberdeen (Mr. Thornton-Kemsley) was quite right in putting forward practical objections from a military point of view to illustrate the weakness of the case for bringing troops to Scotland. He pointed out what other hon. Members have forgotten. In Scotland, he said, there is much boggy land. That is a commonsense, practical thing to point out to people who have not studied the geography of Scotland. The hon. Member pointed out what would happen when the Army went into the boggy land with their military equipment, tanks and motor vehicles. I do not know what would be the simple answer to that. It is a matter for my military friends. If the Army is transferred to the North-West of Scotland, it will be bogged. Presumably, that will be training for the striking force contemplated by the hon. Member for Western Aberdeen. I ask the hon. Member for West Wolverhampton to define the spots in Scotland to which the Army should be transferred for training. Did he mean the South of Scotland? If he contemplates the establishment of military training centres in the South of Scotland, where there is the best agricultural land, he will find that there will be the strongest opposition from the county councils, similar to that expressed by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Scottish Universities (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot) when he described the Secretary of State for War as a "robber baron."

The hon. Member for West Wolverhampton said that in the course of his wanderings somewhere about the North West of Scotland, he had seen a large number of derelict military huts. He suggested that that would be the very place for training the British Army. Perhaps he does not know that most of the military huts have already been occupied by a different kind of army—the army of homeless squatters. We will do everything possible to prevent the homeless squatters from being driven out of these places so long as the homeless of Scotland are living five, six or even a dozen in one room.

What will happen if the Army adopt the suggestion of these reactionary Labour and Conservative Members? If the Army go to Scotland, I presume that hon. Members will want the soldiers to be contented and properly housed. The Secretary of State for War has done some useful public work recently in pointing out that soldiers are living in out-of-date barracks in hopeless housing conditions. I assume that if a military training centre were established in the North, East or West of Scotland, we would require to house soldiers. If we used building labour for the erection of married quarters for soldiers, a call would be made upon the labour organisation required for the provision of accommodation for miners and agricultural workers. We would have building labour used for that purpose when civilians are living in houses in conditions little better than those in Central Africa. I protest in the strongest possible way against the light-hearted proposal that because people want to save the beauty spots of England and Wales, the troops should be pushed off to Scotland.

The Secretary of State for War talked last week about the moral welfare of the troops. I suggest that in discussing that subject we must consider what might be the effect upon the civilian population of bringing into these areas of Scotland a large number of soldiers. In parts of Ayrshire the introduction of soldiers during the war was something new. I come from an area where we had no soldiers, but where now we have Polish soldiers. I disagree with the hon. Member for Western Aberdeen. The figures in the Estimates show that there is one Polish officer to every two soldiers in the Polish Resettlement Corps. When there is a proportion of one officer to every two men, the only possible thing to do is to demobilise that organisation and transfer its members into useful industrial occupations. If that were done, the local population would back the move with the greatest enthusiasm. We are tired of seeing the Poles there. We are tired of seeing soldiers marching through the streets. Their presence causes a serious social problem for the women and young children in this locality. In February, I asked the Secretary of State for War a Question: … how many hospitals there are for the treatment of venereal disease for soldiers; how many nurses are employed in these hospitals; and how many cases were treated in 1947. The right hon. Gentleman replied: There are no military hospitals which treat venereal diseases alone. Patients who suffer from such illness are treated at special centres, of which there are, approximately, 27 at home and overseas. Treatment, except for female cases and complicated cases needing ward treatment, is carried out by male special treatment orderlies, and not by nurses; I cannot readily state the number of special treatment orderlies so employed. The number of cases treated from January to November, 1947, was about 34,700. Figures for December, 1947, have not yet been received."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th February, 1948; Vol. 447, c. 201–2.] When we have that statement that there are 34,700 cases of venereal disease in the Army, it presents a social problem for the local authorities who have to deal with the effect upon the civilian population. I ask the Secretary of State to give some reassuring statement that this evil is getting less, both from the point of view of the soldiers and of the civilian population.

Finally, I would like to deal with the point raised by the hon. Member for West Aberdeen, which I think he raised with the intention of being helpful. The hon. Member wants a striking force. Against whom? Throughout all these Debates there runs this persistent argument that we need a striking force, presumably against Soviet Russia. Do hon. Members realise what they are talking about? A striking force against Soviet Russia? An hon. Member opposite talked about the climate of Scotland, but what about the climate of Russia? Do the military experts realise what they are talking about in contemplating a striking force against Russia? I believe that talking in this way is absolute defeatism, and that all the military gentlemen who have spoken in this Debate—and spoken earnestly and sincerely—are not facing realities. We should, in these Estimates and in all Army, Navy and Air Estimates, set our faces resolutely against going into another war, and should take every possible opportunity of presenting that point of view to the British nation.

6.32 p.m.

Mr. Heathcoat Amory (Tiverton)

I am not going to say a word about the strategic aspects of these problems. When I was in the Army, I found that my views on strategy received much less recognition than I thought they merited, and I have no reason to think that the response of hon. Members on either side of this House would be very different.

I think many of us who sat through the Debate last week finished up in a mood of some anxiety and unhappiness. I have always been trained to believe that in any undertaking the most important thing is to be quite clear as to the immediate objective. The first reason for my unhappiness was that I felt that we were not very clear, in the short term, as to what kind of an Army is wanted, for what purpose it is being prepared, and by what time it has to be ready. I felt that the answers we received to these questions were rather hesitating, and, in some cases, rather conflicting. The second reason why I felt unhappy was that it seemed to me that when we looked at all three sections of our Forces—the volunteer Regulars, the volunteer Territorials and the National Service men—the prospects in none of these three cases are particularly rosy at the moment. I certainly do not blame the heads of the Services for that. I believe there never was a time when the Army was more intelligently or sensibly run, or when the Service heads were more conscious of the ever-changing needs of modern war.

I feel that in one direction there is still much to be done, and that is in the economical use of manpower. The Services are traditionally extravagant in manpower, and sometimes I have thought that they ought not to be entrusted with any manpower whatever. In the Army, a squad of men used to be regarded as the smallest possible human entity—the equivalent of a molecule or an atom. People who have responsibility for manpower in industry, when they see the way in which the Services use manpower, are apt to pass from one apoplectic fit to another. I hesitate to-mention "time and motion study" to the heads of the Services, or they too, I suppose, might have apoplectic fits. I hope, however, that this manpower committee will be backed up and that it will achieve results.

"Overheads" must be continuously attacked—this question of the ratio of "teeth to tail" to which my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for North Blackpool (Mr. Low) referred. This tendency on the part of headquarters staffs to elephantine growth, is becoming almost a law of nature. Only strong-minded and ruthless action on the part of a commander will get results. He will be confronted with 20 good reasons why he should increase the size of his staff; he must refuse to listen to them, say that he will just not have them. I will give just one example of what I mean. During the war, Field-Marshal Montgomery was offered the opportunity, as an added adjunct to his staff, of securing the services of myself and several other officers. To our amazement, and that of our friends, Field-Marshal Montgomery said, "No, a thousand times no," though he missed the opportunity of securing, as we thought, the services of a brilliant party of officers on very reasonable terms. That is the kind of action which will get results, and it is the only one that I know. I think none of us will quarrel with the substantial allocation which has been made for research and development. Obviously, we want the best brains we can get, they must be properly remunerated, and I hope they will be.

May I say a word or two on each of the three sections of our Forces which I have mentioned. First, I will deal with the National Service men. The difficulty in training them in the short time allotted, has been mentioned and I know that it is a very real difficulty. Nevertheless, personally, I am not in favour of abandoning compulsory National Service at the present time. I feel the right thing to go in for is a continual search for new methods of training, and the application of fresh minds to the problem. During the war, our inspired trainers got the most astonishing results, and I hope that those officers who have a special flair for training are being given full scope today. There is one direction which may help, and that is that, as far as possible, men should be allotted jobs in line with their civilian experience. The Army used to have a supreme gift for giving a man a job when he comes into the Army which is as far removed as possible from his civilian experience. I am sure that the more closely Army life can be identified with civilian life the less specialised training will be required and, as a result there will be a gain in efficiency.

It is rather disturbing that one still hears, in spite of the difficulties of training in the short time, of young men hanging about during their training with not much to do. The difficulty is not so much during the early weeks, but during the later months of their training, when they do not seem to be always fully employed. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will tell us that it is not so, and that it is not going to be the case in future. With regard to the moral aspect which has been mentioned the information which I receive is that there has been a very great improvement during the last year, especially in Germany, and I think the very greatest credit is due to the Commanders, and, in particular, to the Commander-in-Chief.

In regard to the Territorial Army, as an old territorial officer I realise that whatever methods we found successful 10 or 15 years ago are probably quite out of date now, when a different outlook and approach is necessary. It is too early to assess prospects. It is difficult to be very cheerful. It bristles with difficulties and it is quite likely that some major modification to the present scheme may be required in the future, but not, I think, yet.

On the subject of buildings I would ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he has considered the introduction of some standardised light construction building for the purpose of drill halls. In the past I have known substantial drill halls being built at great expense, and in a few years later they were wanted in some other position. My hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland (Mr. Vane) raised the question of the name and suggested "Armoury." I think it is a good name against "drill hall." It has tradition behind it, and is also full of modern meaning. More important is this question of local names and associations. I agree with my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Perth (Colonel Gomme-Duncan) on that subject. I am sure the War Office underestimates the importance of this. Local loyalties are strong, and it would be madness not to make the most of them.

Speaking as an employer on the subject of paying for a man's time off, most employers are only too glad to do what they can to back up the Territorial Army, but we must remember the growing burden of this kind of thing and the effect on costs. Time off is all right, but making up pay is not, I think, a reasonable burden to throw on employers. I understood the right hon. Gentleman to say that he would give sympathetic consideration to the possibility of the Government helping in that direction.

On the subject of the Regular Army, remuneration is, I think, at the root of the problem, particularly the remuneration of the tradesmen and more skilled men which should be raised. The levelling up process has gone too far, and I agree with what has been said about prospects. It is most important. As I understand it, the Regular Army in the future will have to provide a high proportion of N.C.O's. The attributes of a modern N.C.O. are pretty exacting. Quality of leadership is more important than ever before. The N.C.O. will have to exercise responsibility over National Service men coming from all walks of life. It is absolutely vital that we should attract good men, and there is no escaping from the conclusion that the prospects in the Army must be at least as good as those in industry.

I was glad that the right hon. Gentleman dealt with married quarters and that he is keen on that, because a contented wife is most important for good morale in the Army. There is also the question of openings after discharge. The Army will be very much a young man's job in the future, and it is most important that there should be a second career open to him when his time in the Army is up, not only just jobs but jobs carrying responsibility, because many of these soldiers will have been N.C.Os. holding responsible jobs. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will remember that today the Government is a very big employer of labour and that it is growing bigger. Sooner or later we shall have to devise some link-up between the Armed Services and those industries for which the Government have direct responsibility, so as to provide openings for men without them having to start again at the bottom of the ladder.

I cannot close without referring to the need for considering also the question of the remuneration of officers. In the case of officers of middle seniority they are not paid high enough today. Not enough is being allowed for, the tremendous costs of accommodation, and for moves, when abroad, for the education of their children. I hope that something can be done, because some are living too close to the margin. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will look at that position, because I am sure he will agree that in the long run the welfare of the officers is a very important key to the efficiency of the Service.

All of us on this side of the House are conscious of the difficulties with these problems today. In this Debate we have not tried to make those difficulties any greater for the right hon. Gentleman who is responsible. It has never been harder than today to foresee exactly the needs of the Army or find the right solution for them. There is however a real danger that because of these doubts as to what exactly we are preparing for, policies may be confused, contradictory and very wasteful; and because we have not got quite clearly either a short-term or a long-term aim, the Army may fall into a state of inefficiency at a time of growing peril. I hope the message will go out as a result of this Debate that the Army is a very valued and appreciated form of National Service; that Parliament is determined that what can be done shall be done so that it is more efficient than ever before; that it is a service with a forward looking outlook, a service worthy of the recruitment of the best brains and the best character of the youth of the nation

6.46 p.m.

Mr. A. R. W. Low (Blackpool, North)

I want to draw attention to one or two points made in the Debate last week which were not fully answered. Before dealing with them, I should like to refer to the question of accommodation. When the Under-Secretary of State for War wound up last week's Debate, he astonished some of us on this side of the House by telling us about married quarters: We hope, also, to start 500 for other ranks and some 200 for officers."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 9th March, 1948; Vol. 448, c. 1186.] We were very glad to hear him say that, because that was a matter which had been pressed throughout the Debate. However, I must point out to him that in the Estimates, under Vote 8, there is this item: "Home married quarters: New works to be started in 1948–49—Nil." I do not see how, if he has no money to start new works, any new works can be started. Perhaps the Under-Secretary or his right hon. Friend, whoever replies to this Debate, will set our minds at rest. Speaking for myself and for my friends on this side of the House I hope that what he said in his reply is correct, and that there is some mistake in the Estimates themselves.

I should like to ask a question about the number of Infantry battalions that remain in the Army today, and that it is planned to keep in the active Army when it finally takes its peacetime shape. The Under-Secretary was not able to answer that question at the time, but I hope he can do so when he winds up tonight. Some questions were asked about the striking force, to which his right hon. Friend referred. We were glad to hear him refer to it in his opening statement on that day. We asked whether that striking force was ready, and whether he could say of it, as was also said by the Minister of Defence in regard to the naval striking force, that it would be ready to go forward in 10 days. I personally should like an answer to that. I should also like to know what is the right hon. Gentleman's attitude towards pay rates. I would remind him that his predecessor, who is not in the House at the moment, told us last July that there was a case for the reconsideration of the pay rates. We admit that it might be if the pay rates were raised some of the recruiting difficulties might be got over.

Now I turn to the Territorial Army. I did not want to refer to it last week because it had been covered separately already; but perhaps I may now make this plea to the right hon. Gentleman. During the next two years he will rely entirely upon volunteers and he has made it clear to us that, even after that, the success of the Territorial Army will depend to a very large extent upon the volunteer Territorial as we know him. Does it not, therefore, stand to reason that everything he is doing, or plans to do in the future, should be planned for that volunteer? As one of my hon. and gallant Friends pointed out, it is one thing to deal with a long-service, full-time Regular soldier; one thing to deal with a year's service National Service man; but it is quite another thing to deal properly with a man who is giving his spare time voluntarily to the service of the Crown in the Territorial Army.

Because of that, I venture to think that there was a great deal in the old system in the War Office under which they had a Director-General of the Territorial Army in the Army Council. He could represent to the Army Council the point of view of the volunteers and he knew how to deal with them. I would stress the importance of this matter to the right hon. Gentleman and to the Under-Secretary. I believe that associations all over the country take the view that they would like a return to something like the old system. That is certainly true of the County of London association, of which I am a member.

There are one or two other points to which I would like the Minister to reply. The first is in regard to the War Office. In the other Estimates Debates, reference was made to the number of men in the Government Departments concerned. I find that in 1939 there were 3,708 people in the War Office, for which a sum of £1,308,000 was required. In 1948 there were nearly three times as many—9,915—for which the sum required was only £2,409,000, which means that there has been a great deal of Empire building going on in a lower strata. If the whole thing had been trebled, the amount of money required would also be trebled I suggest that something has got a little out of balance underneath.

In the course of this Debate, hon. Gentlemen, mostly on the other side of the House, have raised the question of information, suggesting that we want more information from the War Office. The question was also raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Eden) in the Debate on Defence. The argument which was given in reply was that for security reasons—which are well known, if not to the House, to the Select Committee on Estimates which reported to the House, in the fourth report on this subject, during last Session—no more information can be given. I have now studied that report very carefully and I find that the evidence that was given to the Committee on which they based their report seems to have produced these curious points: first, that there was a consideration of this matter in between 1938 and 1939 and that when the 1939 Estimates were issued—at a time when war seemed very near—a number of details which were in the 1938 and previous Estimates were omitted. That will be found in the evidence on page 8.

If the House will remember that, they will then see that the argument for non-publication now—which is based on evidence from German sources, I believe, of the value the prewar Estimates were to them—rather falls to the ground, because though the 1938 Estimates and pre-1938 Estimates may have been of value, the 1939 Estimates may have had no value at all. Therefore, we want to give this matter full consideration, and if hon. Members will look again at the 1939 Estimates they will see that a lot of details for which we have been pressing on this side were supplied in that year—and which, I must give as my opinion to the right hon. Gentleman, could not possibly have helped the enemy at that time. For instance, he will see that we could easily have found from the 1939 Estimates the relation between tooth and tail, and so on, and between one arm and another.

The second point which comes out of the Committee's evidence was the difficulty the experts had in giving an example of the sort of thing which must not be given in Estimates—the first thing they gave was that Naval construction programmes must not be in the Estimates. That was the opinion of the expert intelligence man. Most curiously, we find the naval construction programme has been given in this year's Navy Estimates. It is quite clear, therefore, that there is no certainty in the minds of the experts on this subject. Thirdly, there is a constant harping on U.N.O. What has the United Nations Organisation got to do with what information we publish in this House? I hope there is no holding back of information, which is to be presented to the people of Britain, just because it has not yet been agreed as to what to do in front of the Military Staffs Committee and in other places.

I ask the right hon. Gentleman to look at this again. Nobody wants information to be published which will be of definite value to potential enemies, but we do want information from which we can see whether the money for which he asks is properly required and is being properly spent. I understand we have not yet had a report that should have been made to the House about the consideration of this matter by the Government—it was mentioned in the ninth report of the Select Committee last Session—and I urge the right hon. Gentleman to look into that and see that we get a report. I hope he does not think we are being unreasonable; had he been in our position he would have pressed for more information. I ask him to see what he can do to put the House in possession of more information about the valuable Service which he now controls.

6.58 p.m.

Mr. Gallacher (Fife, West)

I wish to speak for only about two minutes and to raise the question of land for the training of Forces. I thoroughly agree with the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes). I noticed that the hon. Member for West Aberdeen (Mr. Thornton-Kemsley) was very anxious to have a striking force in defence of freedom, justice and the right, and I gathered from his remarks, as he placed these virtues in relation to their opposites, that he and his associates stood for the virtue and I and my associates stood for the opposite. I gathered that was the intention he wanted to convey. I would not like to place the responsibility on the Minister for adjudicating between the hon. Member for West Aberdeen and myself so far as the fight for these particular virtues is concerned.

Let us come back to the question of land. If the Minister is looking towards Scotland he is locking in the wrong direction. I would like to give the Minister a little bit of advice. Let him study the Debates that have taken place in this House in connection with the other Estimates, on the possibility of a war and of the character of that war, and he will find where to look for land for housing and for training the soldiers. Maybe he has read what was said by one of the leaders of the Opposition Front Bench in the Air Estimates, that we could not defend the aircraft factories and that we should get them off to Winnipeg. Does that convey any meaning to the Minister? In the Navy Debates we were told we cannot defend the docks and harbour installations—get them over to Canada. Does that convey any meaning to the Minister? The Minister should understand what he is being let in for. The idea is gathering force of the possibility of a war of a particular character, where we send all the war potential to Canada and let the people perish. I am with the hon. Member for South Ayrshire in saying that every serious and intelligent Member of this House must understand that the main responsibility of the Secretary of State and of every one else concerned, is to make certain that there is never such a thing as a third world war.

7.0 p.m.

Colonel Gomme-Duncan (Perth and Kinross, Perth)

I shall be brief, as I understand the time is short, and I shall cut out a great deal of what I had meant to say. The hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) and the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) will forgive me if I point out to them with the greatest respect that a striking force is absolutely essential to any military force whatever, and that it is not of the slightest use to have a military force if it is not to have a striking force. That is a plain bit not only of military sense but of common sense.

Mr. Gallaeher

It must have bases.

Colonel Gomme-Duncan

I am not to be led away on the matter of bases, for I have only a few minutes and there are one or two other things I want to talk about. I hope the Secretary of State will amplify what the Under-Secretary of State said in the Debate last week. I particularly hope that, in view of the fact that he said he would undertake to consider certain things, that we shall hear something more not only of the Gurkha troops themselves but of the British officers who are called upon to serve with them. There were several points that we were told would be looked into.

I should like to hear, as would other hon. Members too, what the Secretary of State has to say about the organisation of the British Army. How is it to be organised in future, and what is it to do? Above everything else, has the right hon. Gentleman got 100 per cent. co-operation with the Royal Air Force? In future, the Army, if it is not interlinked with the Royal Air Force, might just as well stay at home; indeed, it had better do so. I was very much disturbed the other day when the Under-Secretary of State said that the territorial connections of the soldiers—their connections with the places where they live—were not a very practical consideration in these days of mechanisation. That astounded me, and, I think, most of the House. What possible connection can there be between mechanising the Army and the place whence a soldier comes and the unit he is to join? I hope that the Secretary of State will realise that to cut off the territorial connections of units in a voluntary Army, such as we have in Britain now, would be the greatest disservice that he could do to the Army.

I come to the question of the dress of the Army, which is a very important matter in connection with esprit de corps. What is this Dress No. 1 to be? I do not think I like the sound of it at all. Walking out dress of that type is of no use to the British Army, and I feel sure that the right hon. Gentleman will come to realise it. Is the kilt to be restored to the Highland Regiments? If not, why not? At the beginning of the last war the kilt was taken away, not on account of danger of contagious gas, or anything of that sort, but because the Master General of the Ordnance said he would not have any more kilts made. That was the sole reason for taking the kilt away. There was an undertaking given then that the kilt would be restored as soon as peace was restored. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will tell us that the kilt will be restored. We have heard that full dress for the Army is obsolete except for the Brigade of Guards and the Household Cavalry. Does that apply to the pipe bands of the Highland and Lowland Regiments? If so, why? Example is very great in this matter, and it is so in the Army, particularly in peacetime. Would the right hon. Gentleman persuade the Chief of the Imperial General Staff to go about dressed as a field-marshal and not in a dress not laid down in any book of regulations on dress in the British Army?

7.5 p.m.

Earl Winterton (Horsham)

The very witty and useful contribution of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Perth (Col. Gomme-Duncan) has covered some of the points that I had in my notes on a previous occasion, although I thought that, perhaps, on the whole, I had better not make them; but my hon. and gallant Friend has led me up the garden path, and I must say, looking around in London, that one sees a most extraordinary discrepancy in the standards of smartness. The Brigade of Guards still remain the smartest looking, the best set-up men of any army in the world; but we see some other gentlemen walking about in uniform, both officers and men, who seem to have carried out to a very excessive degree, the idea of a very distinguished soldier, that negligé is desirable in the Armed Forces. There is a very serious side to this matter, and I think some importance is to be attached, at any rate, to a very considerable extent—though, perhaps, I had better be cautious in the presence of my hon. and gallant Friend—to retaining some of the outward symbols of the Army even in these days. My hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Mr. Keeling) has left the House. No doubt, he has some engagement——

Colonel Gomme-Duncan

It was as well he did. I was "going for him."

Earl Winterton

He has left the House, but I must make a comment or two on his speech. He was perfectly entitled to ask for the facts and figures he did, but I must point out, with, I hope, a strong sense of responsibility in this matter, that it is quite impossible to suppose that the British Army can be trained on the meagre allowance of land for training it had before the last war. I would say—this is not an accusation against my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham—that nothing gains popularity more easily in this House or in the country than the complaint that such and such a beauty spot is being taken away for Army train- ing. Naturally, the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) said—and the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) supported the idea—that there should not be land for training; but they do not want an Army, or an Army to fight for Britain, so, of course they do not want any land for its training. No one has a greater respect for the enemies of this country than I have for the two hon. Gentlemen. I admire people with the courage of their convictions, and I admire people who, openly, in this country confess themselves enemies of this country.

Mr. Emrys Hughes

Is it in Order for the noble Lord to describe me as an enemy of this country?

Earl Winterton

Enemies of what the majority of people in this country stand for. Perhaps, I had better substitute those words, They are enemies of what we fought for in two wars, and for what millions of people laid down their lives.

Mr. Hughes

I think the noble Lord is an enemy of this country.

Earl Winterton

I think I have disposed of the hon. Gentleman. One has to draw a balance in this matter. I hope—and I put this to the right hon. Gentleman—that he will consider some of the suggestions made by my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham, as to whether or not it is possible, for example, to coalesce the training programmes, to some extent, of the Army, the Royal Air Force, and, to a limited extent, of the Royal Navy. That, I think, was a very substantial suggestion which my hon. Friend made. The hon. Member for West Wolverhampton (Mr. H. D. Hughes) in an admirable speech—in an "interesting" speech, perhaps, would be a more correct term—referred to a point put by my right hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Eden) and me in the last Debate. He asked again, as my right hon. Friend and I asked, whether or not the figures which were given in the "New Statesman" of the effective fighting formations were or were not correct.

The Under-Secretary made an excellent speech on the last occasion, and, for reasons which he was entitled not to give, he did not give way to me when I wanted to ask a question; but today I am perfectly prepared to give way to him or his right hon. Friend if either of them will answer the question whether or not those figures were correct. They have now been referred to on so many occasions that the right hon. Gentleman should consult his advisers about it. Perhaps "consult" is a rather discourteous way of putting it; he cannot consult with his advisers, because he has the responsibility. At any rate, he should consider—I will not press him further today—whether, the figures having been given, and their accuracy or otherwise having been twice asked for from both sides of the House, more harm than good is not done by the attitude of concealment which the Government are at present adopting.

My hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeen (Mr. Thornton-Kemsley) referred to a matter on which we should have an answer, namely, the increase in Colonial troops. He said that the number now in the Estimates is 150,000, and asked whether they could not be used to a greater extent—and this is a matter which really affects the Minister of Defence, who I hope will consider this valuable suggestion—than they were ever used in the past, in order to avoid what is always bad for the British Army, namely, the single-garrison station. That is bad for the Army because, as anyone who has been a Regular soldier or a Territorial knows, it means that a unit in that single-garrison station has no proper opportunity for training. I very much hope that the Colonial or Gurkha troops will be used for garrison service to a greater extent than in the past.

I should like to support my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Perth in his very strong plea for the essentiality of territorial connections in the Army. I hope that the last word has not been said on that subject. No party issue arises here; it is a problem which has been experienced by successive Secretaries of State for War. From the recruiting point of view there is great value in maintaining territorial connections. I must press once more—I and my hon. Friends did so on the last occasion, but we obtained no reply—the question of married quarters. I tried to ask a question of the Under-Secretary, but for reasons with which I do not quarrel, he was not prepared to give way. Cannot something be done to increase the number of married quarters for both officers and men? In other words, there must be an increase in the building programme. That would be of the greatest assistance to recruiting.

I do not wish to detain the House further, but before sitting down I must say a little on a point which is more important than the transcendental question whether or not hikers shall hike, picnickers shall leave their paper about, or soldiers shall train in a particular area of Britain. It really resolves itself into the question: what is the Army for? At this time it is impossible to press that question too strongly, because of the present political international complications. I repeat—even if mine is the only voice in the House to do so, although I know others will agree, as they did with what I said on the last occasion—it must be obvious to anybody from recent events the tragic extent to which international relationships in Europe are rushing downhill, and the tragic resemblance which this period bears to the years before the last two wars. That must mean, sooner or later, a re-orientation of our military policy. I shall not press the right hon. Gentleman today to say what that re-orientation should be, but I make a most earnest appeal. I make it as one of the few hon. Members who like yourself, Mr. Speaker, were in this House before the two wars. I think I shall have the unanimous consent of my hon. Friends, together with that of certain hon. Members opposite, in saying that we must relate our commitments in foreign policy to strategic possibilities and our strength as a military Power. The fact that we did not do so at the commencement in either of the two last wars was at any rate one reason why those wars lasted so long.

I most sincerely hope—although I know I am verging on being out of Order when I am dealing with foreign policy—that after the Foreign Secretary returns from abroad, and when we have had the inevitable Debate, at least some hint will be given to the House, so far as it is proper to do so, into what commitments, if any, we have entered. There can be no party issue here. I sincerely hope that those commitments will not be of a character beyond our strategic power to carry out, for that is the essence of the whole situation so far as we are concerned. We certainly do not want to repeat the mistakes made in previous wars. I hope the Minister will be able to give answers to some, if not all, of the questions that have been put to him.

7.17 p.m.

The Secretary of State for War (Mr. Shinwell)

The noble Lord concluded his speech on a most interesting note. However, as he will understand, it is quite impossible for me to offer any observations on that matter. It is a question for the Government as a whole to consider in the light of all the circumstances, and there I leave that question.

In the course of this very interesting Debate I estimate that something like three score questions have been asked. That is certainly no exaggeration; indeed, it may be an under-estimate. Therefore, clearly it is quite impossible for me at this stage—nor would hon. Members opposite expect it—to reply in detail to every one of those questions. Indeed, there are some to which I would not care to reply, particularly those questions which relate to our national strategy.

In the course of a short speech I will not offer my views on why it is undesirable for me to enter into minute detail on that particular issue. I do not complain that hon. Members opposite, and my hon. Friends, have asked a great many questions. On Estimates of this character it is appropriate, and denotes—and I am very glad to observe it—a keen appreciation of the importance of the British Army; otherwise these questions would not have been asked. Hon. Members are entitled to be fully informed on what the Army is doing. I go further, and say that they are entitled to be so informed on the objectives of the British Army, in so far as it is possible to furnish information on that latter point in terms of security. However, there are other outstanding points which have emerged in the course of Debate. I hope that Members opposite will not regard it as discourteous on my part if I deal with what I consider to be the major points and not with the other matters which seem to me to be of less importance.

The hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Keeling) made an interesting speech in the course of the Debate, as he did on the last occasion when the Army Estimates were before the House. He introduced the question of how much land the Army required for the purposes of training. The White Paper was mentioned. The White Paper contains a great deal of informa- tion, and it was obvious that much of that information had been absorbed by the hon. Member for Twickenham, as apparently it was absorbed by the hon. Member for West Aberdeen (Mr. Thornton-Kemsley) and by other Members opposite. It occurred to me, listening intently to what was said by the hon. Members for Twickenham, West Aberdeen and South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) and others, including my hon. Friend the Member for West Wolverhampton (Mr. H. D. Hughes), that their speeches cancelled each other out.

The hon. Member for Twickenham advised me to take the soldiers to Scotland for the purposes of training, and he was encouraged in that by my hon. Friend the Member for West Wolverhampton, but the two Scottish Members who took part in the Debate had quite different views on the subject; they did not want me to take the troops to Scotland—the further away from Scotland I took them, the better they appeared to like it. I did not detect any desire that I should take the troops to Wales. As it happens, we occupy or propose to occupy, subject to public inquiry, consultations and the like, rather more land in Wales than in either England or Scotland, in proportion to the territory involved. What is the reason for this? Some of the reasons have been stated by the hon. Members for Twickenham and West Aberdeen.

The fact is that we have to concern ourselves in the future—I say this with qualifications—not so much with the Regular Army, as with the Territorial Army, which will be increasing in numbers, as I pointed out in my speech last week, until in 1954 we shall have a much larger Army of Regulars, National Service men and men in the Territorial Reserve than we have ever had in peace time. It is because of the Territorial content of the British Army which we envisage, which is provided for to some extent in these Estimates and in our general plan denoting the shape, pattern and future of the British Army, that we require extensive training facilities.

These Territorials, as has been quite rightly pointed out, must be trained as far as is practicable within easy reach of their homes. If it were merely a question of one annual camp, it would be a somewhat different matter, but even then, it would involve considerable transport and expenditure, apart from the terrain and climate, which are factors that cannot be ignored. We have to envisage continuous training, with weekend training in particular, and the suggestion that we should take Territorials from Lancashire or from the Western counties, much less from the Southern counties, to the North of Scotland for the purposes of weekend training, which has to be continuous in character, is too ludicrous to justify any further argument. Hon. Members who have discussed this have, if I may say so, convicted themselves out of their own mouths.

I would point out at this stage what is the precise procedure which has to be adopted in connection with the acquisition of land for training purposes. It is all contained in the White Paper, as hon. Members know, but as some hon. Members may not have acquainted themselves with the procedure, I will direct their attention to the facts. On page 12, the procedure is laid down. There has to be regional consultation by the Ministry of Town and Country Planning with the local authorities concerned. Moreover, there has to be consideration of proposals by an Inter-Departmental Committee in the light of objections which may be expressed by any of the civil departments. Over and above that—and I would direct special attention to this—there are to be public local inquiries into proposals where objections have been made. The procedure relating to the acquisition of land for training purposes is so watertight that we are profoundly concerned—I must say this to hon. Members—as to whether we shall be able to acquire land within this procedure as easily as we desire it. I am now having to consider, in the light of this procedure, whether it is not necessary to ask for further powers. We have to face facts. I ventured to put this before the House on the previous occasion, but it bears repetition, and, to put it rather vulgarly, it ought to be "rubbed in."

We are to have an Army, as the House agrees, apart from one or two exceptions that do not matter a great deal—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear"]. While recognising that these Members sincerely hold their views, they do not matter, because once the House has decided by a huge majority, that is an end to it for the time being. The House has decided that we shall have an Army, and the country fortified us in that decision—there is no question about that. If we are to have an Army, we must see to it that it is trained in the most efficient fashion. We do not want a "half-baked" or half-trained Army, and if the Army is to be smaller in numbers, there is all the more reason why it should be highly trained and kept up to the highest pitch of efficiency. That, of course, is not a party matter. It is the sort of thing one expects sensible men to agree about. If that is so, we must acquire land in the most accessible spots, and we are trying to do so. On the other hand, we are anxious not to disturb agriculture; we are doing our very best not to do that. We are trying to meet every possible objection which is raised by agricultural interests and, over and above that, we are endeavouring to meet the views of all those people who, quite properly, are concerned about the disturbance of amenities.

I was asked about national parks, which is a matter, very largely, for my right hon. Friend the Minister of Town and Country Planning. It may be necessary for us to impinge on these preserves, but only to a limited extent. Our present plans do not contemplate our taking over more than 5 per cent, of the total area of the parks which are at present planned. That is not a high percentage. Even with that percentage we shall pay attention to the objections which may be raised by interested parties. We have discovered that there are reasonable people in the country, who are interested in this matter of the use of land for training purposes, who have expressed the view that we should not be inhibited in the use of land. I am sure the House will agree that we should proceed along the lines of the procedure laid down in the White Paper. I can give the assurance that the War Office will do nothing which can reasonably be regarded as objectionable to the interests concerned, and that we shall meet them in every possible way.

I leave that, and come to what some Members opposite regard as vital, the provision of full information, or, rather—I must not be unfair—fuller information. Indeed, that qualification to a very large extent provides the reason why I should not furnish more information than is contained in the Estimates. Hon. Members must recognise that it is quite impossible, in the circumstances, to furnish detailed information. What would they say if I disclosed the disposition of our Forces in the Middle East?

Mr. Low

Everybody knows about it.

Mr. Shinwell

They do not. Some people may know about it, but it must not be assumed that because a statement appeared in the "New Statesman"—a very important and highly intellectual weekly periodical—on the subject of certain military formations and disposition of our Forces it was accurate in every particular. We read these paragraphs with interest, but we understand the position rather better ourselves. I say, frankly, that I am not prepared to come to the House, however much I am tempted, or if Members prefer it "provoked," and furnish information about the deployment of our Forces, particularly at this time.

Mr. Low

When a periodical of the importance of the "New Statesman" makes a statement like that, does not the right hon. Gentleman appreciate the effect that must have outside this country? Will he not add something to it, or say whether it is right or wrong?

Mr. Shinwell

I am not prepared to be caught with that very tempting bait. If the hon. Gentleman had the experience of this House and Parliamentary dialectics which I believe I have, he would not try it on. The fact is that it is quite impossible to furnish information of that kind, but there is another reason why I cannot produce fuller information about divisions, brigades, formations, and the like, which has been asked for by some Members. It is this: we are in the process of reorganising the whole of the Army because of the run-down of numbers. In that process there is bound to be—to use a term for the want of one more appropriate—some confusion. Not until we see the picture more clearly, after the run-down has run its course, so to speak, will it be possible for us to present a clearer picture to the House and the country of the actual numbers and formations of the British Army.

Earl Winterton

The Minister of Defence, in a recent speech, gave some information about battleships. Surely, if such information can be given about another Service, we can have fuller information about the Army. My hon. Friend did not ask where divisions were disposed, but whether we could have any information as to what were our effective formations.

Mr. Shinwell

I am sorry to disagree with the noble Lord, but there is no analogy between the presentation of certain figures about battleships and the furnishing of information about formations in the Army. As a matter of fact, we have given rather more information in the Estimates this year than we did last. The Estimates cover 21 more pages. It is true that four and a half of the pages are somewhat elementary in character, the sort of pabulum that is provided for raw recruits, relating to regiments, battalions and the like, but there are the other pages left, 21 more than last year.

Mr. Emrys Hughes

A waste of paper.

Mr. Shinwell

At any rate, something appears on the paper. I challenge hon. Members to deny what I have said. Members ought to be satisfied, but if they want more pages next year, and I have the opportunity—it is impossible to say in these fleeting and evanescent times—I shall give the matter favourable consideration.

Mr. Low

Will the right hon. Gentleman consider going half way by producing Vote A somewhat in the same shape as it was produced, not in 1938, but in 1939?

Mr. Shinwell

I will look into that. I am always willing to look into any point which any Member cares to raise. Something was said about the size of the Army, why we required more soldiers than before the war. Unfortunately, we have rather more commitments than we had then. That must be obvious to everybody. We have more commitments overseas but, in addition, we have a very vital commitment. Because of the National Service Act we must absorb into the Army every year a large number of men, who have to be trained. For that purpose, we must have Regulars, men who are trained, to act as instructors to the National Service men. There are commitments that we cannot ignore and set aside. Because of that we will require rather more men than before.

The hon. Member for West Wolverhampton raised another point concerning accommodation in Germany. I assure him that we do not requisition property in Hamburg, Berlin or any other part of the British zone without full consultation with the Control Commission. When I was in the British zone recently, I discovered that we are derequisitioning property very rapidly. The Army is well aware of public feeling in the British zone and is not anxious to create further difficulty. The bulk of the accommodation used by the Army in the British zone is barrack-room accommodation built before the war by Goering and others like him. It is very good accommodation, and I wish that we had as good in this country. So far as private property is concerned, we requisition it only when compelled to do so, and largely for the purpose of accommodating the wives and families of officers and other ranks. We have about 9,000 families in the British zone at the present time, and we must find accommodation for them.

I pass on to other questions which have been raised. The hon. Member for North Blackpool (Mr. Low) raised several questions on the pay of the British Army. We cannot deal with that in the course of this Debate and, therefore, I will not say anything more about it. I am conscious, however, of the need, as I said in the Debate on the Army last week, for obsorbing into the Regular Forces a large number of men on the technical side. We have this very important matter under consideration. Whether it requires incentives in the form of higher remuneration or whether some alternative incentive is sufficient is a matter which will have to be considered. I am conscious of the difficulty. Then he asked that we should have a plan to cope with the volunteers who will be coming into the Territorial Army. I thought that I had explained the plan last week. We are hoping that the numbers will expand rapidly in the course of this year and certainly next year. We shall do everything possible to attract volunteers into the Territorial Army. As I have said on a previous occasion, without keen and enthusiastic volunteers we cannot produce the kind of Territorial Army which we believe to be necessary.

The hon. Member also suggested that we might have the Director of the Territorial Army on the Army Council. That is not an original idea. There was an Army Council several years ago of which the Director of the Territorial Army was a member. He is not a member at the present time. There is, however, a very close connection. I beg the hon. Member to understand that. If it is any consolation to him, I can tell him that one of my chief preoccupations—I cannot emphasise this more than I am doing—is to endeavour to step-up the size of the Territorial Army and provide it with all the incentives necessary to produce the kind of Territorial Army we need.

Several questions were asked by the hon. and gallant Member for Perth (Colonel Gomme-Duncan). He referred to the Gurkhas. I am sorry that I cannot give him more information than he was given last week. The matter is being looked into, and we shall take it up with the hon. Member as soon as possible. As regards the question of co-operation with the Royal Air Force, the presence of the Minister of Defence is sufficient answer. We are co-operating. The Minister of Defence is responsible for acquiring as much co-ordination as is practical, and these matters are considered from day to day. He also asked if we could do anything about the dress of the British Army. I wish that we could. I should like to put them into brand new uniforms, but we have not the material, and, if we had the material, we have not the labour, and there may even be financial difficulties. We must defer consideration of new dress for the British Army for some months ahead. As to the provision of the kilt, no one would welcome it more than I, but I am afraid that for the moment those who would like to wear the kilt will have to wear just ordinary pants like every other British soldier.

Mr. Heathcoat Amory

Can the right hon. Gentleman stretch a point and give them rather better buttons instead of the things that look as if they ought to be on trousers instead of on tunics?

Mr. Shinwell

We started this Debate on a very high note, and now we have got down to buttons. Still, buttons are important, particularly when pants are under consideration, and a note will be taken of what the hon. Member has said. May I say that I thought that his speech was most interesting and stimulating, and many of the points which he raised will be considered. Finally, I must say to the hon. and gallant Member for Perth, that if I have any complaint about the Debate it is because of something which he said about the dress of the Chief of the Imperial General Staff. I regard his dress as most picturesque and attractive, and I am very proud of it. I can see nothing about his dress which would encourage any officer or any other rank to dress or appear in the streets in a slovenly fashion.

Colonel Gomme-Duncan

All forms of fancy dress are picturesque and this is also a picturesque dress, but it is entirely outwith the regulations. Is it right for the private soldier and regimental soldier to comply with the regulations and for the Chief of the Imperial General Staff not to do so?

Mr. Shinwell

I shall have to look into the precise regulation. If the Chief of the Imperial General Staff is to be castigated, we shall do it in private. I have done everything possible to comply with the wishes of hon. Members in all quarters of the House and I have tried to answer their questions. I am conscious of the fact that many questions have not been answered, but the points have been noted, and I hope that at some time we shall be able to give satisfactory reports about them.