Commons Sitting of 13 June 1950

Preamble
The House—after the Adjournment on 26th May, 1950, for the Whitsun Recess—met at Half past Two o'Clock.
PRAYERS
[Mr. Speaker in the Chair]

MEMBER SWORN
The following Member took and subscribed the Oath: Reverend James Godfrey MacManaway, M.B.E., for Belfast, West.
Mr. Bing: On a question of Privilege. The hon. Gentleman who has just taken the Oath was found by a Committee of this House to be a priest of the Church of Ireland. The Select Committee of this House were unable to decide whether or not a priest of the Church of Ireland was disqualified from sitting in this House. It is quite clear from innumerable precedents that this House has a duty not to admit to its deliberations any person who may not be a Member or permit him or her to vote in this House. Under these circumstances, I beg to give notice, if I may follow the tradition of the House in the ancient form, that I shall move tomorrow:
"That the return from West Belfast be taken into consideration."
Mr. Speaker: I have allowed the hon. and learned Gentleman to give notice that he will move his Motion tomorrow, but that does not mean that I shall accept the Motion. In the meantime, I shall give it earnest consideration, and, therefore, without prejudice I allowed the hon. Member to give notice.

PRIVATE BUSINESS
  ILFORD CORPORATION (DRAINAGE) BILL
    IPSWICH DOCK BILL
    As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.
GATESHEAD AND DISTRICT TRAMWAYS BILL [Lords]
  LEYTON CORPORATION BILL [Lords]
    LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (WOOLWICH SUBSIDENCES) BILL [Lords]
      RUNCORN-WIDNES BRIDGE BILL [Lords]
      Read a Second time, and committed.

SUNDERLAND EXTENSION BILL (By Order)
King's Consent, on behalf of the Crown, signified;
Bill read the Third time, and passed.

BRITISH TRANSPORT COMMISSION BILL (By Order)
Consideration, as amended, deferred till Wednesday, 21st June, at seven o'clock.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING

    Form L.39
    Sir John Mellorasked the Minister of Town and Country Planning why Form L.39, issued by the Central Land Board, contained no notice that claimants would be entitled to recover from the Board the same scale of expenses as for the completion of the optional part of Form S.1; and if he will inform persons, upon whom Form L.39 has been served, of their rights.
    The Minister of Town and Country Planning (Mr. Dalton): Because it was not desired to encourage small people to incur expenses which they would not, in the geat majority of cases, be able to recover. I am considering whether it will be useful to issue any further information on the subject.
    Sir J. Mellor: I would like a definite assurance on this point. Will not the right hon. Gentleman agree that each claimant upon whom Form L.39 has been served should be sent express notice of his right to costs?
    Mr. Dalton: I have had a conversation with the hon. Baronet about this matter and I will undertake to consider it. The point, as he knows very well, is that in the great majority of these cases expenses would not be likely to be recoverable because the claimants would not be successful, being within the 10 per cent. tolerance. For that reason I am anxious not to encourage people to engage in appeals if expenses are not recoverable. I will undertake to look into the matter to see whether the suggestion which the hon. Baronet has made can usefully be met.
    Mr. R. S. Hudson: In that case, does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it would be reasonable, when sending this form, to issue a covering memorandum explaining to the unfortunate recipient of the form what is at the back of it and its objective, and the rights of the people concerned?
    Mr. Dalton: I do not want to criticise any of the departmental arrangements made under the Central Land Board, but
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    they believed that by issuing this form they were assisting people who otherwise might not be aware of the possibility of claiming. In the great majority of cases there is no doubt that claimants would not succeed. I have agreed, in reply to the second part of the hon. Baronet's Question, to look into the matter and see what can be done.
    Mr. Derek Walker-Smith: Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that the claimants themselves are in a position to estimate whether they are likely to succeed and does he think that this right would be too daring an experiment in freedom?
    Mr. R. S. Hudson: Does not the right hon. Gentleman realise in this connection that the information given to the House on this very subject by his Parliamentary Secretary on 25th May and reported in column 2392 of the OFFICIAL REPORT was, to say the least of it, misleading, and in certain cases untrue?
    Mr. Dalton: I do not think that is so.
    Mr. Hudson: Well, it is.

    Rifle Range, Llangollen
    Mr. Garner-Evansasked the Minister of Town and Country Planning whether his attention has been drawn to the proposed extension by the War Department of the rifle range in the vicinity of Valle Crucis Abbey, Llangollen; and whether he will make representations to that Department with a view to preventing the destruction of the amenities of this district.
    Mr. Dalton: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War informs me that this requirement has been reconsidered and that Valle Crucis Abbey, Llangollen, and the grounds, will not now fall within the area required.
    Mr. Garner-Evans: Is the Minister aware that the destruction of the amenities of this district is not so much due to extension of the land as to extension of user by which there is a constant encroachment?
    Mr. Dalton: I shall be very glad to help the planning authority in any way I can to maintain the amenities. The question is whether the War Office are claiming this land. The answer is that they are not claiming it.

    Claims and Disputes
    Mr. Walker-Smithasked the Minister of Town and Country Planning (1) whether he has given consideration to the proposals of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors for payment in full of Part VI claims under the Town and Country Planning Act, 1947, in accordance with a scheme for deferred payment certificates explained in the Memorandum of the Royal Institution; and what decision he has reached;
    (2) whether he will now introduce legislation giving power to prescribe by regulation procedure for the settlement by the Lands Tribunal of disputes arising out of the determination of development charges.
    Mr. Dalton: Both these proposals, the merits of which are debatable, would require legislation, and this, as I have already stated, is not practicable this Session.

    Planning Permission
    Mr. Walker-Smithasked the Minister of Town and Country Planning whether he is satisfied that the procedure of Section 17 of the Town and Country Planning Act, 1947, is in all respects appropriate for deciding whether operations and changes of use require a planning permission.
    Mr. Dalton: According to my information, this procedure is working reasonably well, but if the hon. Member will send me any evidence to the contrary. I shall be glad to look into it.
    Mr. Walker-Smith: Does the Minister appreciate that, generally speaking, questions under Section 17 are those involving interpretation of law? Does he think that the present procedure is best qualified for dealing with these matters?
    Mr. Dalton: We often get on more quickly by consulting the local authorities on the matter, because they are the planning authorities, rather than by elaborate legal inquiries. On the whole, the local authorities apply common sense to these problems. I repeat that if the hon. Gentleman can give me any real evidence that the procedure is not working well, I will look into it.
    Mr. Walker-Smith: Will the Minister accept as real evidence a case in which
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    his Department has failed to come to a decision on Section 17 more than a year after the argument was heard?
    Mr. Dalton: I would like to see that question before me so that I may see whether the facts are as stated.

  NATIONAL INSURANCE

    Unemployment Fund (Investments)
    Sir J. Mellorasked the Minister of National Insurance whether the loss, amounting to £11,623,193, at current market value, on the Unemployment Fund holding of 2½ per cent. undated Treasury Stock was written off before this stock was transferred to the National Insurance Fund on 4th July. 1948; and what resources were applied for this purpose.
    The Minister of National Insurance (Dr. Edith Summerskill): The position about the investments is explained in the notes to the published accounts of the National Insurance (Reserve) Fund for 1948–49.
    Sir J. Mellor: Does not the Comptroller and Auditor-General there state that this loss was not recorded anywhere? Was it the hope of the Ministry that this £11 million would not be missed?
    Dr. Summerskill: The hon. Baronet cannot have read the report very carefully. I think that my Permanent Secretary told the Auditor-General that the matter was explained fully, and if the hon. Gentleman will read page 2 of the acounts he will see the explanation.
    Sir J. Mellor: Did not the Auditor-General say:
    "The loss on revaluation … has … not been recorded either in the accounts of the absorbed funds, etc., or in these accounts"?
    Dr. Summerskill: The Auditor-General said that it was not in the figures, but he was told that there was an explanatory note. I would ask the hon. Baronet to look at page 2, where he will see the explanatory note.

    Retirement Pensions (Married Women)
    Sir Richard Aclandasked the Minister of National Insurance whether, in reviewing the working of the National

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    Insurance Scheme, she will consider the desirability of reintroducing, if necessary in modified form, the former practice of setting off a married woman's earned income allowance against any retirement pension to which she becomes entitled in her own right, so as to ensure that any retirement pension paid to a wife does not result in increased Pay-As-You-Earn contributions being demanded of her husband if he be still in work.
    The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir Stafford Cripps): I have been asked to reply. My hon. Friend's suggestion will be brought to the notice of the new Committee on Income Tax in relation to superannuation to which I referred in my Budget speech.

  EMPLOYMENT

    Bookbinders
    Sir Ralph Glynasked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware of the widespread shortage of bookbinders and the consequent delay in the publication of books; and what steps he is taking to deal with the matter.
    The Minister of Labour (Mr. Isaacs): I am aware of this shortage, and courses open to disabled persons have for some considerable time been available under the Vocational Training Scheme. In 1946 an arrangement was made for whole-time training for four years in employers' establishments which has been completed by four persons, and seven are at present in training. Since March, 1947, a course has existed at Queen Elizabeth's College, Leatherhead, which 16 have completed and where six are now in training. In December, 1948, another course was commenced at the Letchworth Government Training Centre which five persons have completed, and five are in training. I recently initiated some discussions which are not yet completed, but which I hope will improve the rate of intake of skilled workers into this important industry.
    Sir R. Glyn: Can the right hon. Gentleman assure the House that he will give special consideration to disabled people, injured not only in the Services but injured in industry, and who are suitable?
    Mr. Isaacs: Yes, Sir.
    Lieut.-Colonel Sir Thomas Moore: Can the right hon. Gentleman also ensure that the trade unions concerned will allow disabled men to have the ticket for their unions so that the men can practise the jobs for which they have been trained?
    Mr. Isaacs: I have not specially inquired into this matter because I had no notice of it, but all the evidence I have is that these men have been admitted to the unions.

    Poles
    Sir R. Glynasked the Minister of Labour what number of Poles, ex-members of the Polish Resettlement Corps, are still unable to find employment in this country; and how many have been repatriated to Poland since the winding-up of the Corps.
    Mr. Isaacs: I regret that the information asked for in the first part of this Question is not available. Since September, 1949, seven former members of the Corps have been repatriated to Poland.

    Building Operatives (Overtime)
    Mr. Charles Ian Orr-Ewingasked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware that a number of building operatives want to work longer hours in order to earn more; and whether, in view of the need to speed the building programme, he will initiate negotiations to ease the ban on such overtime during the summer months.
    Brigadier Medlicottasked the Minister of Labour if his attention has been drawn to the wish of a number of building workers to work longer hours; and if he will consider ways and means of allowing such extra efforts to be made provided the general standards of labour in the building industry are not depressed thereby.
    Sir Waldron Smithersasked the Minister of Labour, in view of the housing shortage, what steps he is taking to ensure that building operatives who volunteer to work additional time are allowed to do so.
    Mr. Isaacs: I assume the hon. Members are referring to a case of certain workers employed by a firm of builders

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    in Essex where the question of the overtime hours to be worked has been the subject of dispute. This matter has, however, been settled by an award of the National Arbitration Tribunal and I have no authority to intervene.
    As regards the general question of working hours in the building industry, this is a matter for the two sides to determine and is dealt with in a series of voluntary agreements, in which provision is made for overtime. The overriding consideration must be that of output and, as the House will be aware, the industry is studying the problem of increasing productivity.
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: In view of the fact that overtime is being worked both upon the 1951 Exhibition and in Parliament Square on Saturdays and Sundays, could we ask the Minister to encourage this tribunal to reconsider the question of overtime in building houses for the people?
    Mr. Isaacs: Surely that is quite another question. I have to assume that the question which the hon. Gentleman and others have raised is related to a certain matter, and so far as I am aware no objection is being raised to the working of overtime where the regular conditions relating to overtime are being observed.
    Mr. Gibson: Is it not a fact that in the industry there is an inclusive agreement dealing with overtime and is it not also true that the unions and the employers are very ready to grant the necessary overtime and are doing so all over the country?
    Mr. Isaacs: This matter was examined by the industry's own tribunal. The facts in the particular case under notice were that there were other circumstances relating to working hours which are in dispute.
    Sir W. Smithers: Has the Minister read the case of Mr. Norman Johnston in Mr. Frank Owen's article in the "Daily Express"? It relates to a man who left the union because he was not allowed to work overtime. Will the Minister stop these selfish practices, not only because of the shortage of houses but because the policy of control by the Socialist Government involves so many human tragedies?
    Mr. Isaacs: I am not sure that I would accept as absolutely correct the story in the "Daily Express."
    Mr. Stanley Prescott: When the right hon. Gentleman says that the specific case has been settled, does he mean settled to enable the men to work longer hours?
    Mr. Isaacs: Yes, and settled to enable the firm itself to obey the rules relating to working conditions.

  SCOTLAND

    Animal Slaughter (Humane Killer)
    Colonel Gomme-Duncanasked the Secretary of State for Scotland to what extent the captive bolt humane killer is now alone used for the killing of animals for food in Scotland; and what steps he has taken to forbid the use of the electric stunning method.
    The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. McNeil): The captive bolt humane killer is extensively used throughout Scotland, but at some of the larger slaughterhouses and bacon factories pigs are stunned by electricity. I have no power to forbid its use.

    Angus Hospitals (Board)
    Captain Duncanasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he is satisfied that adequate consultations with the board of management for Angus hospitals took place before the numbers of the board were reduced from 23 to 21.
    Mr. McNeil: This decision was taken by the Eastern Regional Hospital Board, who in the circumstances were not legally bound to undertake consultations on the point.
    Captain Duncan: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in the Schedule to the Act there is provision for consultation? Why was there no consultation in this case which deprived the Angus Hospital Management Committee of one member of the board?
    Mr. McNeil: I think there were consultations in this case. I am asked whether the consultations were adequate but I do not express an opinion as to that. The Schedule, according to my recollection, refers to the filling of vacancies, but here vacancies were not filled.
    Captain Duncan: As this cannot be decided by Question and answer, I beg to give notice that I will raise the matter on the Adjournment.

    Fire, Ballingry (Damages)
    Mr. Hamiltonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland why he has not shared with the county council the liability for damages arising from the fire at Ballingry, Fife, particulars of which have been sent to him by the hon. Member for Fife, West.
    Mr. McNeil: There are no grounds in my judgment upon which I could be expected to share liability in this case.
    Mr. Hamilton: Is my right hon. Friend aware that these houses were built to the specification of the Health Department? Should not the Health Department therefore bear some share of responsibility for what has occurred?
    Mr. McNeil: Surely my hon. Friend will agree that the houses were accepted completely at the discretion of the county council?
    Mr. Hamilton: Can my right hon. Friend tell us what is being done now to prevent a recurrence of fire in that type of house?
    Mr. McNeil: Some considerable steps have been taken, particulars of which I shall be delighted to send to my hon. Friend.

    Hill Cattle Subsidy (Inspectors' Visit)
    Sir David Robertsonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland why two senior inspectors chose Sunday, 25th September, to visit Brabsterdorran Mains Farm without prior notice; and why they failed to disclose their presence to the farmer or her grieve in view of the importance of the visit which resulted in the hill cattle subsidy being withdrawn.
    Mr. McNeil: I understand that the inspectors in question called on the farm grieve on Saturday, 24th September, when visibility happened to be poor. On Sunday, 25th, when the weather had cleared, they viewed the land. I am sorry if the farmer's susceptibilities have been outraged by these proceedings. Of course, no discourtesy was intended.
    Sir D. Robertson: Is the right hon. Gentleman wholly satisfied that this visit took place, because the farmer, her family and her staff—and her dogs—were all there and they allege that on this flat Caithness plateau no one could possibly go in there in daylight without being seen? Is he aware that there is a widespread belief in Caithness among the agricultural community that the visit did not take place?
    Mr. McNeil: I have interviewed the officer myself and I have already written to the hon. Gentleman. I am, therefore, quite certain that the hon. Gentleman will play his part in disabusing the minds of the Caithness community of this misapprehension.
    Sir D. Robertson: Is it not a fact that I have had to dig out this information over a long period of time from an apparently reluctant Department, and is the right hon. Gentleman aware that I share the views of the agricultural community there?
    Mr. McNeil: Well, Sir, I am quite certain that the visit took place and I am also quite certain that the land, as I have already explained to the hon. Gentleman, does not qualify, and, of course, that is the real grievance, not the visit.

    Local Authority Houses (Rents)
    Mr. Niall Macphersonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he will publish the consolidated list of rents charged by local authorities for houses provided by them under the various Housing Acts.
    Mr. McNeil: A recent return from local authorities is now being analysed and will be published as soon as possible.

    Stroma (Harbour)
    Sir D. Robertsonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will now authorise the grant for a new harbour at Stroma, in view of the dangerous conditions which prevail there and as a means of providing employment for some of the unemployed civil engineering labourers and general labourers who are now registered at Wick and Thurso employment exchanges
    Mr. McNeil: I am unable to add to the answer which I gave the hon. Member on this subject on 4th April last.
    Sir D. Robertson: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the entire fishing fleet suffered very serious damage in the storm a few weeks ago and is he also aware that the economy of this important island, which is capable of making a great contribution to agriculture, is being destroyed for lack of a harbour? Having regard to the fact that the cost of the whole thing would be about £15,000, why not give it to them?
    Mr. McNeil: I am not certain that I should accept that figure, but, at any rate, I agree that communication here needs to be improved and I have taken counsel with the requisite people.

    Maidens Harbour
    Mr. Emrys Hughesasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what decision he has come to on the question of a new harbour for Maidens, Ayrshire.
    Mr. McNeil: Proposals relating to Maidens Harbour are at present under discussion with the County Council of Ayr.

    Land Improvement (Fertilisers)
    Captain Duncanasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he will now give details of the schemes for encouraging the use of fertilisers for improving grass land and marginal land in Scotland.
    Mr. McNeil: As the information required is detailed and lengthy, I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Captain Duncan: Are the announcements which the right hon. Gentleman is making in addition to the existing schemes or do they supplant the existing schemes?
    Mr. McNeil: I am asked here about the supplementary schemes.
    Mr. Snadden: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether the statement is an agreed statement with the National Farmers' Union of Scotland, and can he assure the House that this has nothing to do with the long-term marginal land
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    production policy referred to in the Gracious Speech?
    Mr. McNeil: I am quite certain that systematic consultations have taken place with the N.F.U. in Scotland. I should like to answer the second point more carefully.
    Following is the information:

    Land Improvement (Fertilisers)

      FERTILISER SUBSIDY SCHEME (SCOTLAND)
      1. Grants for Fertilisers Applied to Grassland.

      (a) For fertilisers applied to grassland other than rough grazings and one-year leys, the Grant will be one-third of the farmers' expenditure or 25s. per acre, whichever is less, limited in any year to one-half of the total area of such grassland on each farm. Grant will not be paid if the area on the farm under crop is considered to be insufficient.

      (b) For fertilisers applied with the prior approval of the Agricultural Executive Committee to rough grazings, grant will be at the same rate.

      (c) For fertilisers applied on marginal, hill and upland farms to grassland that is to be used in the same season to provide silage, dried grass or hay … one-third of expenditure. Maximum grant £2 per acre.

      2. Grants for Fertilisers Applied to Grassland after ploughing up.

      (a) For rough grazings and poor permanent pasture to be improved by direct re-seeding … one-half of expenditure. Maximum grant £2 per acre.

      (b) For grassland ploughed up on farms listed as marginal and on semi-derelict land that is considered by the Agricultural Executive Committee to be capable of being brought into proper agricultural use … two-thirds of expenditure. Maximum grant £3 per acre.

      (c) For rough grazing and poor permanent pasture that is ploughed and either put under a green crop to be eaten off by stock or fallowed, i.e., ploughed in the autumn and fallowed until the late summer of the following year and properly cultivated to keep down weeds), before being re-seeded … two-thirds of expenditure. Maximum grant £3 per acre.

    Wild Life Conservation, Sutherland
    Sir D. Robertsonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he is aware of the objections of the people of Sutherland to the recommendations of the Scottish Wild Life Conservation Committee to reserve a large part of the county as conservation areas; and if he will withhold approval from this plan which would restrict the mode of life of the people and the important contribution which they are making to increase the nation's food.
    Mr. McNeil: The Scottish Committee of the Nature Conservancy with whom responsibility rests have no proposals for reserving land in Sutherland, but should any such proposals be made, I can assure the hon. Member that the county council would be fully consulted.
    Sir D. Robertson: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that the wishes of the people of Sutherland must come before all others in any consideration given to this matter?
    Mr. McNeil: The hon. Gentleman must not work himself up into a frenzy of indignation about something which has not happened.
    Mr. John MacLeod: Will the Secretary of State realise that we hope to populate the Highlands with people before extending wild life any further?
    Mr. McNeil: There is no question here of extending wild life. I should be delighted to have the aid of the hon. Gentleman in exterminating undesirable political life.
    Lord Malcolm Douglas-Hamilton: Will the Secretary of State give the House an assurance that there is no question of denying the public access to any areas of the Highlands above the 2,500 feet contour mark?
    Mr. McNeil: I must assure hon. Gentlemen opposite that this is a piece of hypothesis. The suggestion was made, but the organisations with which responsibility lies, have made no proposals at all.
    Sir D. Robertson: The right hon. Gentleman referred to the extermination of political vermin or something like that. Are not the people of Sutherland, Caithness and all Scotland capable of exterminating all that they do not want?

  BRITISH ARMY

    Rifle Range, Idless
    Mr. Geoffrey Wilsonasked the Secretary of State for War why the Truro Battalion Home Guard Rifle Club have been prohibited from using the full-bore rifle range at Idless, by Headquarters, Southern Command, although still paying his Department on a per capita basis for
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    the use of ranges; and when this ban on their use of the range will be lifted.
    The Secretary of State for War (Mr. Strachey): Examination of this range has revealed that to ensure the public safety, firing rights must be acquired over an additional area. All shooting at the range has been suspended pending the conclusion of negotiations for these rights. If the range remains closed for a considerable period, and no other range can be made available, an adjustment in the amount paid by the Truro Battalion Home Guard Rifle Club will be considered.
    Mr. Wilson: Does the Minister agree that this rifle club would form a very useful basis for the re-formation of a local defence force in the case of an emergency, and will he see that every possible facility is given for them to continue as a rifle club?

    Private Linsell (Court-Martial)
    Mr. Braineasked the Secretary of State for War if his attention has been drawn to the case where orders were given to sentries in Germany to shoot to kill in certain circumstances and subsequently Private Gordon Kenneth Linsell of the 1st Battalion the Black Watch was sentenced to death by court-martial for murder; and what action has been taken in respect of the authority issuing such orders.
    Mr. Strachey: Yes, Sir. My attention has been drawn to this case. The proceedings of the court-martial which tried Private Linsell have not yet been confirmed and the case must therefore be considered as sub judice. I cannot therefor comment at this stage on the case itself or on any orders which may be connected with it. In this connection I must point out that Private Linsell's legal adviser has intimated that he is instructed to prepare and submit a petition on behalf of Private Linsell for consideration by the Confirming Authority before the latter takes any action in regard to confirmation, and he has stated that he is fully aware that by his so doing some further delay in the confirmation or otherwise of the proceedings may be occasioned. The petition has not yet been received by the Confirming Authority.

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    I will make a statement on the case when the proceedings have been confirmed or otherwise.
    Mr. Braine: Yes, but in view of the grave anxiety which this matter has caused to relatives of men serving in the Forces everywhere, will the Minister see that orders given to sentries in the future are framed in such a way that men clearly understand them and are not afraid of the consequences of carrying out their duty?
    Mr. Strachey: That is another issue and I do not think I could comment on it without commenting on the substance of the case.
    Mr. Paget: Could the Minister tell us at this stage whether or not soldiers are expected to obey their orders?
    Mr. Strachey: Certainly, but again I should be going into the merits of the case if I said whether or not in my opinion that question was involved here.
    Lieut.-Colonel Lockwood: Is the right hon. Member aware how much the public conscience has been stirred, and indeed shocked, by the Private Linsell case, and in order that public anxiety may be allayed, will he give the House an assurance that these proceedings will be reviewed at the earliest possible moment?
    Mr. Strachey: I cannot help feeling that the hon. and gallant Member is beginning to express views on the case, which is still sub judice, and it would be a great pity if the House committed itself to a particular view in this matter.
    Mr. Sydney Silverman: Can my right hon. Friend say, without reference at all to the case cited in the Question, whether he was aware that any military authority in Germany at this time was giving orders that, at a time when there are no active hostilities going on, sentries should be given orders to shoot to kill anybody?
    Mr. Strachey: That is an entirely different question.
    General Sir George Jeffreys: Will the Secretary of State tell the House why there has been this unusual and long delay in confirming the proceedings of this court martial?
    Mr. Strachey: I thought that was stated in my reply—that it is at the wish of the defence, which is putting in a petition
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    and desires, naturally, that the decision on the confirmation or otherwise should not be reached until the confirming authority has considered this petition from the defence.

    Recruitment (Expenditure)
    Mr. Emrys Hughesasked the Secretary of State for War what was the expenditure incurred on recruiting by his Department from 1st January to 31st May, 1950; what was the sum spent on publicity; and what was the cost per recruit.
    Mr. Strachey: I regret that the figures for the period in question are not available. During the financial year, 1949–50, £187,750 was spent by the War Department on Regular recruiting and publicity services, of which £26,100 was on publicity alone. This worked out at £7 4s. for each Regular recruit.

    Rifle Range, Llangollen
    Mr. Garner-Evansasked the Secretary of State for War whether he will make a statement regarding the proposed extension of the rifle range near Valle Crucis Abbey at Llangollen.
    Mr. Strachey: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given to his earlier Question by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Town and Country Planning.

    Firing Practices, Tonfanau
    Mr. Goronwy Robertsasked the Secretary of State for War if he is aware of the disturbance and damage to property in Pwllheli, Caernarvonshire, caused by firing practices at Tonfanau, Merioneth; and if he will take steps to discontinue or moderate these practices.
    Mr. Strachey: Although allegations of disturbance have been made, no actual damage has been reported. I regret that the requirements of the training programme make it impossible to close down Tonfanau or, during the summer, reduce its use.
    Mr. Roberts: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, despite repeated protests by the local authority to the unit, these cannonades continue with increasing vigour, with the result that the blast causes not only damage to property but is a danger to the health of the inhabitants in the area?
    Mr. Strachey: If the hon. Member can show us evidence of damage to life or property or health, we shall be most willing to consider it.

    Rations
    Mr. A. R. W. Lowasked the Secretary of State for War what additions and adjustments have been made to Army rations during the past six months; and what further changes he has in mind.
    Mr. Strachey: No adjustments have been made to Army rations during the past six months. Improvements in the home service ration scales are under consideration.
    Mr. Low: Are these improvements under consideration because of changes in the civilian ration and, if that is so, should not the right hon. Gentleman's Department see that there are no improvements in the civilian ration which are not immediately followed by improvements in the home service ration scales?
    Mr. Strachey: Yes, in principle I agree, and the home service ration scales are under consideration to bring them into line with the improved food situation.

    Colonial Forces and Gurkha Brigade
    Mr. Lowasked the Secretary of State for War how many British officers and other ranks respectively are now serving with Colonial Forces; how many with the Gurkha Brigade; and whether he will make a statement about the period of their service with those Forces.
    Mr. Strachey: The period of service with Colonial Forces and the Gurkha Brigade is normally three years, with the option of extending up to five years. In the Royal West African Frontier Force the period is a fixed term of three years three months, with three months intermediate leave in the United Kingdom. The numbers of British officers and other ranks concerned are being ascertained and I will write to the hon. Member.
    Mr. Low: Is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied that he gets all the officers and N.C.Os. he requires and, if he is satisfied about numbers, is he satisfied about quality?
    Mr. Strachey: The recruiting of officers for these Forces is a matter which is of much concern to myself and the War Office authorities, and we regard it as of the utmost importance that adequate quality and quantity should be secured.
    Mr. Emrys Hughes: May I ask the Minister whether this is the Brigade that worships the baton presented by Queen Victoria, and whether the officers are expected to do the same thing?
    Colonel Gomme-Duncan: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is discontent among the British officers of the Gurkha Brigade at the conditions which they have been asked to accept in comparison with what they had when they were part of the Indian Army? Will the right hon. Gentleman look into this carefully, as it must seriously affect the intake of new officers into the Gurkha Brigade?
    Mr. Strachey: We cannot separate the conditions of service in the Gurkha Brigade and the Colonial Forces on the one hand and the British Army on the other. However, it is certainly important to give conditions of service which attract the right quality and quantity of officers.
    Colonel Gomme-Duncan: Would not the Minister agree that in the case of the officers of the Gurkha Brigade they served in the Indian Army before, and therefore they are not on a par with those serving with Colonial troops who have been in the same service right through?
    Mr. Strachey: They are not on a par, but they must be kept in line to some extent.

  TERRITORIAL ARMY (NATIONAL SERVICE MEN)
  Mr. Mitchisonasked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that National Service men will be joining their Territorial units either as reservists or volunteers from 22nd June onwards and what will be the pay, bounty and other terms of their service in either case.
  Mr. Strachey: For periods of training in the Territorial Army, all National Service men will receive pay and allowances at the same rates and under the same conditions as existing volunteers.

  21
  National Service men who undertake and carry out the full training obligations of the normal volunteer, in lieu of their statutory liabilities, will receive a bounty. I regret that I cannot say today what the bounty will be, but an announcement will be made very shortly covering the position of National Service men in the Auxiliary Forces of all three Services.
  Mr. Mitchison: Is my right hon. Friend aware that any further delay in announcing the bounty is likely to hinder the efforts of those who want to get volunteers for these Territorial units?
  Mr. Strachey: I agree entirely with my hon. and learned Friend about the urgency of the position.

  WHITE FISH INDUSTRY
  Mr. Duthieasked the Prime Minister whether he has any statement to make on the white fishing industry.
  Brigadier Medlicottasked the Prime Minister if he is now in a position to make a statement in relation to the white fishing industry.
  The Prime Minister (Mr. Attlee): The Departments concerned have been giving careful consideration to this question, but no statement can be made until the Government have had an opportunity of considering their report.
  Mr. Duthie: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Government have given a promise to treat this as a matter of urgency for the last two months, that conditions are going from bad to worse, and that it is a most serious matter for the economy of the whole coastside? Will he give it absolue urgency?
  The Prime Minister: Yes, absolute urgency is given to this matter, but it is not an easy problem.
  Mr. Edward Evans: Can the Prime Minister tell us what proposals have been received from the industry itself, and do not these involve substantial subsidies? Can he tell us whether the industry is prepared to accept an over-riding authority in order to integrate the varying elements in the industry?
  The Prime Minister: I should like to see that question on the Paper.
  Lady Tweedsmuir: Can the Prime Minister say what action the Government are considering in regard to restricting foreign imports?
  The Prime Minister: That is one of the matters to be taken into consideration.
  Mr. Malcolm MacMillan: Is the Prime Minister aware that telegrams have been coming in from the Scottish White Fish Producers' Association asking for consideration of the immediate setting up of a white fish industry board, and is he aware that this has great support from hon. Members on this side of the House?
  The Prime Minister: Yes, I am aware of that.
  Brigadier Medlicott: Can the Prime Minister give an approximate idea of how soon this statement can be made?
  The Prime Minister: As soon as possible. I cannot tie myself to a day.

  WALES

    Revenue and Expenditure
    Mr. Emrys Robertsasked the Prime Minister if he will set up a committee of inquiry to assess revenue and Government expenditure in Wales; and to prepare an economic balance sheet for Wales.
    The Prime Minister: No, Sir.
    Mr. Roberts: Can the Prime Minister give any reason to the House why different treatment should be meted out to Wales as compared with Scotland? Surely a Question of this character deserves a more considerate answer than the abrupt one which the Prime Minister has just given.
    The Prime Minister: The hon. Member will realise that the Committee set up to consider the matter of the Scottish finances is, first of all, to consider whether it is possible or not to make this division. As I think will be agreed, the question of dividing Welsh and other United Kingdom expenditure is more difficult than that between Scotland and England, and it would be well to await the result in that case before embarking on anything with regard to Wales.
    Mr. Roberts: How can the right hon. Gentleman say that the question is more difficult until the Committee have had a look at it?
    The Prime Minister: That matter has been before most of us for a great number of years. I think we all know that.
    Mr. Rhys Davies: If my right hon. Friend is considering this subject at all will he consider a very much larger inquiry to cover England, Scotland. Wales and Northern Ireland?
    Mr. Goronwy Roberts: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that the desire for the kind of facts and figures which are asked for in my hon. Friend's Question is widespread among men and women of all political persuasions in Wales, and particularly among his own supporters in the Principality?
    The Prime Minister: Yes; therefore we had better see whether it is practicable to get them.

    Capital City
    Mr. Llewellynasked the Prime Minister whether he is aware that the newly-elected Lord Mayor of Cardiff in his inaugural speech repeated Cardiff's claim to be recognised as the capital of Wales; that the Chairman of the Welsh Advisory Council on the same day endorsed that view in his private capacity: and whether he will now seek the opinion of the Welsh Advisory Council on this matter.
    The Prime Minister: My attention has been drawn to the inaugural speech of the Lord Mayor of Cardiff, and I notice that, while Alderman Williams repeated Cardiff's claim to be recognised as the capital of Wales, he clearly admitted that other cities also put forward this claim. I am not aware of any views which the Chairman of the Welsh Advisory Council may have expressed in his private capacity, nor do I think it right that in a matter of this kind I should be asked to take into account privately expressed views. I do not propose to seek the opinion of the Welsh Advisory Council on this matter for the reasons explained in my answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. G. Thomas) on 18th April.
    Mr. Llewellyn: Will the Prime Minister say on what principle Wales should be a country without a capital?
    The Prime Minister: There is no question of principle. I understand that there is some dissension among the Welsh people as to what should be the capital
    Mr. George Thomas: In view of the obvious disagreement in various places on this question, would not the Prime Minister allow the Welsh people to settle it themselves by referring it to this Council?
    The Prime Minister: That point, I notice, was made by the Lord Mayor of Cardiff. He thought that it was a domestic matter. He said:
    "I think we should take the responsibility ourselves,"
    —which is a very good idea.

    Statistical Information
    Mr. Llewellynasked the Prime Minister whether, when statistical information is requested for England and Wales, he will ensure that whenever practicable he will have such figures published both for England and Wales, respectively.
    The Prime Minister: It is already the practice to include in official statistical publications separate information for Wales, whenever practicable.

  PETROL RATIONING (COMMONWEALTH GOVERNMENTS)
  Mr. Blackasked the Prime Minister whether he is aware that the Prime Minister of New Zealand was not officially informed of the decision to abolish petrol rationing in the United Kingdom; and what action he proposes to take.
  Mr. Prescottasked the Prime Minister why the New Zealand Government were not consulted prior to petrol rationing being abolished in the United Kingdom; and if he will make a statement generally on what consultations took place with Dominion and Colonial Governments before this decision was taken by His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom.
  Sir J. Mellorasked the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations why the United Kingdom Government, having requested the New Zealand Government to continue petrol rationing, failed to inform them of the intention to abolish rationing in Britain.
  The Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations (Mr. Gordon-Walker): I have been asked to reply. In accordance with practice, we informed other Commonwealth Governments, through our High Commissioners, of the discussions which were proceeding and which led to the decision to abolish petrol rationing in the United Kingdom. In the small hours of 26th May, further telegrams were sent to our High Commissioners notifying the decision, which at that point was even then subject to final confirmation. In the case of the telegram to New Zealand, an unfortunate combination of circumstances resulted in the delivery of the telegram to the High Commissioner's Office being delayed until after the announcement had been made in the House. An explanation was given to the Prime Minister of New Zealand, who entirely accepted it.
  I understand that Colonial Governments were notified after the announcement had been made.
  Mr. Prescott: Is it not apparent from the answer which the right hon. Gentleman has given that no preliminary discussions took place with our Dominions or with the Colonies and that all that was intimated to the Dominions was that something might happen in future; and does this not show a lamentable lack on the part of the Government of full collaboration with our Dominions, particularly when we had requested earlier that they should retain petrol rationing in the interests of the whole sterling area?
  Mr. Gordon-Walker: No, Sir. I think the question shows a lack of knowledge on the part of the hon. Member about the way in which consultations are carried on in the Commonwealth. It is the normal thing to inform Commonwealth Governments, as was done in this case, of the discussions that were going on in this country, and it was of course up to them, as it always is, to reply to or to comment on that information.
  Mr. Eden: Will not the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is also the normal
  26
  practice to inform Dominion Governments in advance of their learning this kind of information from the Press, and in view of the very loyal co-operation which New Zealand, whatever the political colour of their Government, have always shown us, will not the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that a mistake of this kind will not occur again?
  Mr. Gordon-Walker: I have already taken steps to make sure that this particular set of accidents, which was very extraordinary, does not occur again. It concerned a very narrow time limit, and involved a delay of about two hours in delivery in New Zealand, and that made just the difference. We did not have longer than that to inform the Governments at the last stage, although they were informed fully of all the consultations which were going on here and how near we were to reaching that decision.
  Sir J. Mellor: What was the "unfortunate combination of circumstances"? This is becoming a familiar phrase from the Government.
  Mr. Gordon-Walker: If the House wants me to go into details, there was a delay between the time the telegram was received in the telegraph office in New Zealand and its delivery to one of our High Commission staff. After that, there was another inexplicable and unprecedented delay after it had reached our staff in the High Commission. It has never happened before and it will never happen again.
  Mr. Blackburn: If advantage is to be taken of this incident to improve upon the past, would my right hon. Friend consider whether in future it might not be a good thing to inform Colonial Governments as well as Dominion Governments, in advance of statements of this kind?
  Mr. Gordon-Walker: That is a question which should be put to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Colonies.
  Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: In view of earlier communications and in all the circumstances, would it not be a graceful act for the Government to thank Australia for showing the way in the de-rationing of petrol?
  Mr. Gordon-Walker: I fail to see how that arises out of any of these three Questions.

  SCHUMAN PLAN
  Mr. Harold Daviesasked the Prime Minister if he is now in a position to make a statement on the Government's policy towards the Schuman Plan and to give an account of the negotiations.
  The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir, with permission I propose to make a statement at the end of Questions.

  TEMPORARY CIVIL SERVANTS (REDUNDANCY)
  Mr. John Grimstonasked the Prime Minister what arrangements are being made to assist temporary civil servants, displaced by the economy drive, to find alternative employment.
  Mr. Isaacs: I have been asked to reply. Temporary civil servants who become redundant are informed that if they require further employment they should register with the Ministry of Labour and National Service. The Ministry assists those who register to find other suitable work.
  Mr. Grimston: Will the Minister be as generous as possible to these people, because the more generous he is now, the more easy it will be to make further economies?
  Mr. Isaacs: If generosity means giving them the opportunity of employment, they will get the absolute maximum of generosity from us.

  PRESS COUNCIL
  Mr. Blackburnasked the Lord President of the Council what further communication he has received from the Newspaper Proprietors' Association as to the establishment of a Press Council; and what action he now proposes to take to encourage this.
  The Lord President of the Council (Mr. Herbert Morrison): I have just been informed by the Councils of the Newspaper Proprietors Association and the News-
  28
  paper Society that the difficulties in connection with the proposals for the formation of a Press Council have proved more considerable than was supposed when I last heard from them in March. They have been considered by the Committees of the Association and the Society at separate and at joint meetings, but they have not all been resolved. Matters are held up by the absence at the Imperial Press Conference in Canada of leading officers of both organisations, but consideration will be resumed on their return in mid-July.
  I trust that this Question and answer will be a sufficient encouragement to the organisations to bring their discussions to an early conclusion. My friends of the Press often complain that governmental bodies take too long over their deliberations, and I had hoped that they themselves would set a good example.
  Mr. Blackburn: Will the Lord President keep this matter well in mind, because the Right-wing French Government have introduced legislation to set up a Press Council and, therefore, there can be no question whatever of this being an extreme Left-wing point of view; on the contrary, it is a point of view accepted by reasonable people on all sides?
  Mr. Morrison: I can assure my hon. Friend that I keep it in mind every morning when I read the newspapers.
  Mr. Deedes: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether he now envisages that this Press Council will be a statutory body and is he further aware that until that point is decided the discussions will be considerably protracted, as this is one of the problems under discussion?
  Mr. Morrison: No, Sir. The recommendation of the Royal Commission, which was approved by this House in the last Parliament, was to the effect that it should be a voluntary body set up by the Press on certain lines. I still feel that would be eminently the best way of dealing with it.
  Mr. Driberg: Is it not obvious that the N.P.A., or considerable elements in it, are simply stalling for time and will my right hon. Friend remind them fairly sharply that the setting up of this Press Council was the wish of both sides of this House?
  Mr. A. Fenner Brockway: Will my right hon. Friend say whether he has received any communication from the National Union of Journalists on this matter?
  Mr. Morrison: I have not—not lately.
  Mr. Blackburn: Is it not a fact that the National Union of Journalists are only too anxious to proceed with the proposals and have indicated so?
  Mr. Morrison: I think that is so, but I was answering my hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway).

  HOUSE OF COMMONS CATERING (SELECT COMMITTEE'S REPORTS)
  Mr. Stewardasked the Lord President of the Council whether he will provide time for the Motion in the name of the hon. Member for East Croydon and others on the Reports from the Select Committee on the Kitchen and Refreshment Rooms.
  Mr. H. Morrison: I feel that there is a desire on all sides of the House to debate the Reports from the Select Committee and the Government will, of course, do its best to meet the convenience of the House. The difficulty is to find time. With so much essential business before us, it is not easy. However, I hope that we can come to some arrangement by discussions through the usual channels and the possible form of Debate can also then be agreed.
  Lieut.-Commander Gurney Braithwaite: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind the importance of this Debate being held at as early a date as possible, if only to enable the public to get the matter into proper perspective?
  Mr. Keeling: Will the Lord President say whether the Government intend, before any Debate, to state their attitude to the proposal of the majority of the Committee that the entire cost of the cooks and waiters, not only during the Recesses, but on every Saturday and Sunday, should be paid by the taxpayer?
  Mr. Morrison: We will consider that.

  B.B.C. (BEVERIDGE COMMITTEE)
  Sir W. Smithersasked the Lord President of the Council when he expects that the Beveridge Report on the British Broadcasting Corporation will be published; and if he will arrange for the publication of the written and oral evidence in full.
  Mr. H. Morrison: The Committee has been asked to report by the end of the year, and its Report will be published as soon as possible after it has been received. As to the publication of the evidence as a whole or in part, the Government will be guided by the views of the Committee.
  Sir W. Smithers: In view of the fact that this inquiry is being held behind closed doors, will the right hon. Gentleman realise the importance of publishing a verbatim report of the evidence, so that the British public may know the extent to which Communism has infiltrated into the B.B.C.?
  Mr. Morrison: I have already answered the Question on the publication of the evidence. I would point out to the hon. Gentleman that, as to the Committee meeting in private, that was their decision and not the decision of the Government and it followed the precedent of 1935, I think it was, against which I have no recollection of the hon. Gentleman then protesting.

  NATIONAL FINANCE

    Drop Forgings Industry (Report)
    Mr. Nabarroasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his attention has been drawn to the recent report of the Anglo-American Council on Productivity on the Drop Forgings Industry; and what steps he proposes to take to implement the recommendations contained therein.
    Sir S. Cripps: Yes, Sir. I have seen the Report, which is welcomed by the Government. Its implementation is, however, a matter for the industry, which organised the visit to the United States.
    Mr. Nabarro: Can the Chancellor say whether his attention has been specifically drawn to the contents of section 13 of chapter 3, entitled "Incentives," which condemns the inflationary tendencies in Britain, the penal rates of direct and indirect taxation and the high cost of living as causes for the disparity in the rates of production?
    Sir S. Cripps: Certainly, I have read this document and all these documents. They are well worth reading by everyone interested in them.

    Foreign Currency Allowances (Motorists)
    Mr. Donnerasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he is aware that British tourists travelling to the Mediterranean sea-board by rail can purchase their tickets for sterling in London, whereas those travelling by road are obliged to expend a not unsubstantial part of their £50 allowance on petrol; and whether he will remove this unfair discrimination by granting an increase in the basic allowance of £50 to the latter.
    Sir S. Cripps: I am considering the matter and hope to make an announcement in a few days.
    Mr. Donner: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman bear in mind that he has hitherto discriminated rather heavily against the motorist who preferred to cross the Channel rather than the North Sea in view of the fact that the Anglo-French balance of trade is certainly not five times worse than the Anglo-Scandinavian?
    Mr. Keeling: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that anyone can buy in sterling hundreds of pounds worth of foreign railway tickets, sleeping berths, and even meal tickets, and is not the limitation of the motorist to £10 a breach of the principle of fair or equal shares for all?
    Sir S. Cripps: No, Sir, certainly not.

    Post War Credits
    Mr. Prescottasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that there is a shortage in post offices of forms for claiming payment of post war credits; and what steps he will take to remedy this position.
    Sir S. Cripps: I am not aware of any shortage of these forms, but if difficulty in obtaining them has been experienced in any particular locality, I shall be glad to have inquiries made if the hon. Member will send me particulars.
    Mr. Prescott: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that an aged man in my constituency sent his daughter to a Post Office to obtain a form, but none was available and subsequently he died before any form could be obtained, and as a result post war credits were denied to his family? Will he do his best to ensure that cases of this kind cannot occur anywhere else in the country?
    Sir S. Cripps: We certainly take steps to see that forms are available and if the hon. Gentleman will send particulars, I will have the case looked into.

    Development Value (Claims)
    Mr. W. J. Taylorasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) if he will consider making interim payments in respect of claims made for development value payable under the Town and Country Planning Act, 1947;
    (2) if he will instruct the Central Land Board to notify, as soon as possible, claimants for compensation for development value under the Town and Country Planning Act, 1947, of the amount which it is proposed to pay against their claims.
    Sir S. Cripps: The amounts of the payments to be made under Section 58 of the Act will depend on the provisions of a scheme to be made by the Treasury and submitted to Parliament for approval. The scheme cannot be made, and, therefore, the amounts of the proposed payments cannot be announced, until the development values in the bulk of the claims have been ascertained. This precludes the possibility of making interim payments in advance of the scheme itself and the Act contains no provision authorising the making of such payments.

    Marshall Aid
    Mr. Osborneasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer how much has been received by the United Kingdom in Marshall Aid in the last 12 months to the latest convenient date; and principally in what commodities, and the volume of each commodity.
    Sir S. Cripps: For receipts and values of commodities I would refer the hon. Member to the quarterly reports (which are presented to Parliament) on operations under the Economic Co-operation Agreement. I regret that figures for volumes of commodities are not readily available.
    Mr. Osborne: Is the Chancellor satisfied that in two years' time we shall be in a position to buy these commodities which are today being given to us?
    Sir S. Cripps: That is a completely different question.
    Mr. Osborne: It is a very important one.

    Personal Savings
    Mr. Selwyn Lloydasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what were the totals of net personal savings for 1938 and 1949, respectively.
    Sir S. Cripps: The White Paper on National Income and Expenditure—Command 7933—estimated these figures at £139 million and £174 million respectively, though stating that the estimates were most precarious.
    Mr. Lloyd: In view of that statement by the right hon. and learned Gentleman, was it not a little misleading to say, on 16th May that
    "personal savings in the years 1948 and 1949 were almost precisely the same percentage of disposable personal income as they had been in 1938–4.8 per cent. in each case"?—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 16th May, 1950; Vol. 475, c. 1155.]
    Sir S. Cripps: I am afraid I have not worked out the percentage of the figures I have given.
    Mr. Nigel Birchasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the total of gross personal savings, given in Table 12 of Command Paper 7933, included amounts raised in Death Duties.
    Sir S. Cripps: Yes, Sir.
    Mr. Birch: Would it not have clarified his speech on the Second Reading of the Finance Bill if the right hon. and learned Gentleman had pointed out that he was including in gross personal savings amounts raised in Death Duties and Special Contribution? Will he tell the House in what way Death Duties constitute personal savings?
    Sir S. Cripps: If the hon. Gentleman will look at the tables in the document with which we were dealing, he will see that the matter is made quite plain in table 33.
    Mr. Churchill: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman look into the matter about which he was not informed and perhaps, if he will let us know on this side, another question could be put down to elicit the facts?
    Sir S. Cripps: I have not stated that there was any matter on which I was not informed.
    Mr. Churchill: It is in the recollection of the House that the right hon. and learned Gentleman was unable to state the percentages and had not looked into their bearing. Will he do so and let us know?
    Sir S. Cripps: That was the last Question, which we have passed.
    Mr. Marlowe: Would it not be advisable, before the right hon. and learned Gentleman makes categorical statements of that kind, if he worked out the figures beforehand?
    Sir S. Cripps: That does not arise out of this Question.

    Haifa Refinery
    Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyreasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the direct loss to the revenue incurred through the shutting down of the Haifa refinery.
    Sir S. Cripps: If the hon. Member refers to Exchequer revenue, it is not possible to give an estimate of the loss. If he has in mind the loss of foreign exchange, I would refer him to the reply given by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Fuel and Power on 8th May last.

    European Payments Union
    Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyreasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the terms of settlement to be adopted under the European Payments Union.
    Sir S. Cripps: I regret that I am not yet in a position to make a statement, since these matters are still under discussion in the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation.
    Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: In view of the importance of the subject, will the Chancellor of the Exchequer give an undertaking to make a statement at the earliest possible moment? Could he further give an assurance that no further releases from blocked sterling balances will be made as part of any arrangements under this plan?
    Sir S. Cripps: No, certainly not. We cannot bind ourselves on any matters of this kind if we want to arrive at an arrangement with other countries, but I shall certainly make an announcement to the House at the earliest possible moment.

SCHUMAN PLAN
The Prime Minister: I desire, with permission, to make a statement in reply to Question 49.
On the afternoon of 9th May, the French Ambassador informed the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs that the French Government had prepared a proposal for the pooling of the French, German and other European coal and steel production and that a public statement would be issued by the French Government on this subject in the course of the day.
His Majesty's Government appreciate that there were good reasons for seeking to achieve the greatest possible impact for this new departure in Franco-German relations and the method was justified by the enthusiastic welcome which the statement received on the German side.
It is not my intention on this occasion to give a detailed account of the exchanges of view which subsequently took place between His Majesty's Government and the French Government. His Majesty's Government have thought it appropriate, in view of the high importance of the matter, to publish the relevant documents without delay. The agreement of the French Government has been obtained and a White Paper is being laid before the House today. I only wish now to make one or two comments.
It became perfectly clear in the course of informal discussions between M. Monnet, the Chief Planning Officer of the French Government, and British officials that while the French Government had
36
not worked out how their proposal would be applied in practice, their views on the procedure for negotiations were definite. They were that Governments should accept at the outset the principles of the pooling of resources and of a high authority whose decisions would be binding on Governments, and the next step should be the conclusion of a treaty in which these principles would be embodied. Shortly thereafter the French Government secured the agreement of the German Government to the proposed basis on which the negotiations should proceed. This fact naturally determined the course of the subsequent exchanges of view between the two Governments and made difficult the achievement of His Majesty's Government's desire to play an active part in the discussion of the French proposal but without commitment to the acceptance of its principles in advance. His Majesty's Government fully appreciate the reasons for the procedure adopted by the French Government, and this has not affected in any way His Majesty's Government's attitude of approval and support for the French initiative.
The consequences, as far as His Majesty's Government are concerned, were stated in the communiqué which they issued on 3rd June, and from which I quote the following passage:
"His Majesty's Government do not feel able to accept in advance, nor do they wish to reject in advance, the principles underlying the French proposal.
They consider that a detailed discussion, which would throw light on the nature of the scheme and its full political and economic consequences, is a normal and, indeed, essential preliminary to the conclusion of a treaty. They feel that there is a substantial difference of approach between the two Governments as to the basis on which the negotiations should be opened. An unhappy situation would arise if, having bound themselves to certain principles without knowing how they would work out in practice, they were to find themselves, as a result of the discussion, compelled to withdraw from their undertakings. They have accordingly, to their regret, found it impossible, in view of their responsibility to Parliament and people, to associate themselves with the negotiations on the terms proposed by the French Government."
The position is therefore clear. His Majesty's Government will be kept regularly informed of the course of the negotiations which will open on 20th June between the French, German and other Governments. They themselves had

37
initiated studies of the French proposal immediately it was put forward and these studies will continue. But there is no question of putting forward any alternative British proposal at the present time. It would not be right to take any step which might be regarded as a diversion or as an attempt to modify the course which the French and other Governments have decided to take. His Majesty's Government desire to help and not to hinder in this matter, and the manner in which they can best do so will only appear after the negotiations have begun.
I am sure that the whole House will hope that the practical working out of the scheme will show ways by which the United Kingdom may be able to associate itself with this valuable piece of European co-operation.
I conclude with two points. In its attitude to a proposal of this kind His Majesty's Government must have in mind the basic economic needs and security of the country and the necessity to ensure that the United Kingdom is in a position to discharge its responsibilities in every part of the world.
Secondly, the discussion of the French proposal has naturally tended to obscure from view the steady progress which is being made towards greater unity of action among the democracies in the political, strategic and economic fields. In European and other international organisations there is a continual process, supported and, indeed, often led by United Kingdom representatives, by which governments are increasingly merging their interests and restricting their individual freedom of action. Throughout the last three years a continuous effort has been made to build up and consolidate by every means the strength and solidity of the West. Now, as a result of the recent conferences in London we are, I believe, about to enter a formative and decisive phase in the organisation of the Atlantic Community. This will require, by a more effective pooling of resources, the surrender in an unprecedented degree by each country of the ability to do as it pleases. His Majesty's Government will be in the forefront of this great endeavour.
Mr. Harold Davies: While thanking my right hon. Friend for that full state-
38
ment, which I am sure is appreciated on both sides of the House, may I ask him how it was that Mr. William Hayter was able to say that 90 per cent. of the people of Britain approved this plan before even this House had had an opportunity of discussing it? Might I further ask that whatever line we take we shall say that no supra-national authority will be allowed to interfere with the Socialist Government's planning for full employment? [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] Why not?
The Prime Minister: I am not aware that Mr. Hayter gave expression to anything except general approval of the plan.
Mr. Churchill: I am sure that we have all listened with great interest to the statement which the Prime Minister has made. May I ask him if this statement has been collated with or is to be read in accordance with the other statement issued this morning by the National Eexcutive Committee of the Labour Party?
The Prime Minister: The Labour Party document to which the right hon. Gentleman refers is a general statement of party policy, and it sets out, in the section on the problem of the basic industries, what the party considers to be the ultimate necessities of a fully developed scheme of European co-operation in this field. But the Government have always made clear both at the O.E.E.C. and elsewhere that they are fully prepared to co-operate in the closer integration of the European economy with other countries which hold different economic views. The Labour Party document is not, of course, a statement of Government policy in this matter. Government policy is as I have just now stated.
Mr. Churchill: It is evident, I am sure, that we should have a discussion on this matter at an early date. It is very complicated, and we have two versions presented to us of the policy of the party opposite. There are also many difficult aspects of this question. May I ask the right hon. Gentleman if we can have a Debate on this matter next week? I do not think it should be left too long in view of the uncertainties there are. May I also ask whether the Prime Minister will publish a White Paper—I think he intends to do so—containing the text—
The Prime Minister: I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman quite caught what I said. I said that a White Paper was being published. It was available at 3.30 this afternoon.
Mr. Churchill: I am very much obliged. I presume that the Prime Minister will give us an opportunity of discussing this matter next week. I am sure that everyone will welcome the opportunity. Meanwhile, may I assure the right hon. Gentleman of the sympathy we all feel with him in his position as the only Socialist Prime Minister, outside the Iron Curtain and Scandinavia, in the whole of Europe, the whole British Commonwealth of Nations or the whole of the English-speaking world.
The Prime Minister: Regarding the last point of the right hon. Gentleman, I would remind him that during the war he was the only Conservative Prime Minister among the Allies and in the British Commonwealth and he was indebted to strong support from the Labour Governments in the Commonwealth. With regard to his first question, perhaps the Lord President of the Council will reply.
Mr. Churchill: I would assure the right hon. Gentleman that I was only expressing my sympathy with his loneliness.
The Prime Minister: I shall fortify myself by the example of the way the right hon. Gentleman stood up to it during the war.
Mr. H. Morrison: In reply to the Leader of the Opposition, by all means let this be discussed through the usual channels, but I am bound to say that the real difficulty which will affect both sides of the House is that at this stage we do not know what is the scheme—none of us does—and consequently we shall be in some difficulty in discussing it through the usual channels.
Mr. Eden: Perhaps I might ask the right hon. Gentleman to bear in mind that what we would like to discuss is not only the Schuman Plan, but also the document which has just been presented to us.
Mr. Morrison: If I may say so, that is partially rather a quaint proposition; but in any case the real issue before the House is the Schuman Plan and we are
40
all in the difficulty—all of us on both sides of the House—that we have not yet got the details. I quite agree that as soon as adequate details are available, an opportunity ought to be available to the House to debate it. But in any case it can be discussed through the usual channels, and we can see what we can agree or what we cannot agree.
Mr. Churchill: The question of having any Debate, and so on, is suitable to the usual channels, but Parliament has its rights in regard to whether large questions should be debated on particular occasions; and is not this exactly a topic on which the House of Commons should express an opinion? May not we have an assurance—apart from any discussions through the usual channels—that we will be given an opportunity next week when we can discuss this matter?
Mr. Morrison: I cannot give an assurance about a day next week. I do say it is quite proper that at the right time Parliament should discuss it—
Mr. Churchill: The right hon. Gentleman is not the judge.
Mr. Morrison: I quite agree with the right hon. Gentleman. If the right hon. Gentleman wants to be the only judge, then the course is perfectly clear. He can take a Supply Day for the purpose as soon as one is available. On the other hand, I am not laying down a dogma when I say that when the House debates the Schuman Plan it would be an advantage if we had the details so that we would know what we were talking about.
Mr. Clement Davies: What has been put by the right hon. Gentleman is a matter of such importance that it is regarded by many of us as being the most important step which has taken place since the termination of the war, and it is pre-eminently a matter upon which the House is entitled to express its views while other nations are meeting and we are not there. Could not the Leader of the House say that next week we could have a full Debate, and not limit it to a mere Supply Day?
Mr. Morrison: I say that we can discuss it through the usual channels, but it really will not be effective if the House debates vague and indefinite proposals. Nevertheless, it is a great idea which I am not, and which the Government and my

41
right hon. Friend are not, rejecting out of hand. But really the House ought to have some degree of detail as to the scheme; otherwise we shall be wasting our time.
Mr. Churchill: Does not the proposal suggested by the right hon. Gentleman give him or the Government absolutely indefinite power of delaying a Debate on this matter? They have only to say, "We do not know all the facts and so we will put off the Debate." But the House is the judge and not the Government of whether a Debate should take place upon a grave public matter, and I ask expressly and explicitly that this matter should be discussed next week. As to the right hon. Gentleman saying, "Take one of your Supply Days," that really is not worthy of a Government which, although it has only a majority of four or five, still presumes to rule over these vast spheres.
Mr. Morrison: The right hon. Gentleman is really once more being unreasonable. I do not presume always to be expressing the opinion of all the Members of this House, and I wish that the right hon. Gentleman would not always assume that he is speaking for the whole House. There is a difference of opinion about this, and all I say at the moment is that it would be better for the House to debate it when we have more information and know what we are talking about. However, the right hon. Gentleman is quite right; the resources of Parliament are considerable, and if he insists upon a Debate, and if he wants to force the issue and have it on a certain day, then we will meet him on a Supply Day; but if the Government are giving the time, the Government must have the right to consider when the time is appropriate.
Mr. Rhys Davies: Can the Prime Minister at this stage give an answer to a question about the Schuman Plan which bothers some of us? There are three-quarters of a million coal miners in this country who are now employed by the National Coal Board; who will be their employer if the Schuman Plan comes to completion?
The Prime Minister: That brings out the difficulty of discussing this plan. There are no details whatever. This is a sketch of a great idea, but it has not
42
yet been filled out in any detail, and I cannot give an answer to that question.
Mr. Bellenger: May I ask the Prime Minister whether he has given consideration to the impact that these discussions between Germany and France will have on the present arrangements on a tripartite basis for considering and agreeing on matters relating to Germany?
Mr. Eric Fletcher: In view of the fact that the French Government have nominated a very senior official as liaison officer to keep the British Government informed about the day-to-day negotiations during these meetings in Paris commencing next week, and in view of the importance of the Government being informed of the negotiations as they develop, will the Prime Minister appoint somebody on behalf of the British Government to act as liaison with the French and other Governments?
The Prime Minister: Full arrangements have already been made for complete liaison in this matter.
Mr. Donner: Is not it perfectly plain from what has been said by the Prime Minister and by the Lord President of the Council that the Government are most anxious to avoid a Debate on this all-important matter?
Mr. Bellenger: May I have a reply to my question?
The Prime Minister: I could not quite understand the question of my right hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Bellenger).
Mr. Harold Davies: In view of the fact that the House has demonstrated its keen interest in this problem, will the Prime Minister endeavour to bring to the notice of France the intense interest of the House in the problem, and ask the French authorities to give us detailed information to discuss intelligently in this House; and then give us an opportunity to debate it?
The Prime Minister: In a matter of this kind it really is not for us to ask the French Government to put themselves out for the convenience of this House. This House should debate the matter at the right time when they get the information, and in due course we shall get notice from the French Government.
Mr. G. B. Craddock: May I ask the Prime Minister whether, before the Government replied to the invitation of M. Schuman, there was any consultation between His Majesty's Government and other members of the British Commonwealth?
The Prime Minister: I do not think there was time for any consultation. This is a specific invitation addressed to His Majesty's Government.
Mr. John Hynd: Will not the Leader of the House reconsider the question of a Debate, in view of the fact that it is clear from the questions put this afternoon and the answers given that this is regarded as one of the most important issues at the present moment, and that there is considerable misunderstanding on the Continent and in this country about it? We have been told by the Government, in the first place, that they accept the principle of this and regard it as a most important issue, and we have just been told by the Leader of the House in quite other terms that they have not rejected it out of hand—which is not at all reassuring. In view of the fact that this has aroused so much interest in the Press and this House, do not the Government consider it is desirable, irrespective of the presence of detailed information, that the broad principle and the very wide implications of this plan should receive full consideration in this House, so that the French and other Governments, and the people abroad and in this country, can understand precisely what is the British feeling in this matter?
Mr. Morrison: My hon. Friend is falling into the same error as the Leader of the Opposition. If there is to be a Debate, the House will naturally expect to have the views of the Government on this proposal. I must be absolutely frank with the House. We cannot express a firm view when the material elements and reasonable details are not available. This is a matter of great importance which affects the livelihood of millions of our fellow countrymen and others. We cannot discuss it in the void as if we were debating the programme of the Liberal Party.
Mr. Churchill: Is it not, instead of a discussion of these detailed proposals, rather an account which we require of the negotiations which have taken place
44
and of the Government's action and policy and the general principles by which they will be guided in any discussion of detail?
Mr. Morrison: As to the negotiations, the right hon. Gentleman will find that they are fully reported in the White Paper.
Mr. Edelman: Will the Prime Minister confirm that, while having reservations about the structure of the particular authority proposed by M. Schuman, His Majesty's Government give their full support to the idea of a European coal and steel organisation which will have as its object the co-ordination of these industries in the interests of full employment and general European well-being?
The Prime Minister: If the hon. Member will read the statement I have made in this House, he will see that the attitude of His Majesty's Government is perfectly clear. We accept this as a great idea, but it is quite impossible for us at present to accept it in all its details—or indeed the exact principle—before we know how it will work out in fact.
Mr. Eden: While I understand that it may be difficult for the Government to add to what they have already said, is not it desirable that on an issue of vast importance, accepted as such by every nation, and by the whole House, Members should have the opportunity to express their views both on the actual statement and on the White Paper?
The Prime Minister: I entirely agree. The only point we have made is that if it is to be a fruitful discussion, it should be a discussion on definite proposals. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman can see the implications of this scheme or indeed the general framework of the scheme at present. I cannot. I think we should do better when we know more about it. That is the only point. There is no intention whatever of avoiding a Debate. This is a matter of very great importance to this country, to Europe and to the world. If the right hon. Gentleman will consider the matter carefully, I think he will see that a mere Debate in the void on some general question of what we can do on this matter would not take us very far without seeing more in detail what the French Government have in mind.
Mr. Churchill: Surely it may be a long time before the French Government, having had only preliminary pourparlers with other countries, are in a position to state their detailed proposals? Are not the detailed proposals of the French Government to be put forward as a basis of discussion among a large number of Powers to be assembled round a table? How long is all that going to take? Are we really to be denied a Debate in Government time upon an issue of this importance?
The Prime Minister: I understand that the meeting is to take place on the 20th.
Mr. Clement Davies: A proposal has been put forward and accepted by the French and the Germans. That proposal, to take part in a round-table conference, has been turned down. The Government refuse to take part in it, but are awaiting details. Surely, the action of the Government in refusing to take part is debatable by this House. It is a matter upon which the House is entitled to express an opinion. I understand that one other country—Holland—has agreed to take part subject to certain conditions. Why could not action of this kind have been considered by the Government? Surely, those are matters which the House could debate and discuss.
The Prime Minister: If the right hon. and learned Gentleman will read the White Paper, he will see exactly what took place. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman thinks that we should have accepted this position and bound ourselves to agree to something about which we had no details, that is a matter which he might debate; but as I understand the position, the general view expressed in this country is that we should like to see more details before we bind ourselves. It was not the case that we refused to go to a round-table conference. We were perfectly willing. We were not prepared to go to a round-table conference binding ourselves to do certain things which we might have found we were not able to do.
Mr. Churchill: Would not it be very easy and appropriate for the right hon. Gentleman to expound at greater length in a Debate what he has just been saying in answer to the last question? The Government have to declare and explain their conduct in relation to these matters as far as they are known to us. To say
46
that we shall have to wait until the cut-and-dried detailed proposals agreed upon by all the different countries can be placed before us is, I think, very abusive treatment.
The Prime Minister: All I say to the right hon. Gentleman is that he is again mistaken about what I said. I never suggested that we should wait until agreed and cut-and-dried proposals have been reached by all the Governments. What I did suggest was that we might see what was the actual scheme put forward. I suggest that if the right hon. Gentleman would read the White Paper first of all, he would see the course of the discussions. My statement today will not add much to what is in the White Paper, which sets out, I think very clearly and in a way which can be understood on both sides, exactly the reasons why we could not go in with our hands bound.
Mr. Churchill: I was not prejudging the issue, because it requires very careful consideration in many of its different aspects, but I do ask that we should now have a Debate next week promised to us. It would be a proper thing in a matter of this extreme importance for the Government to have the Debate in their time.
Sir Richard Acland: Might it not be useful to take an early opportunity of making a statement in some form showing what are some of the details which His Majesty's Government would like to see included in the working out of this great idea, so as to make it easier for us to associate ourselves with it?
The Prime Minister: We do not want to embarrass the discussions by putting forward proposals ourselves at this time.
Mr. Hugh Fraser: Is not it strange that through their alter ego the Socialist Party, the Government are prepared to discuss this matter with other international Socialist Parties during the coming weekend, but they are not prepared to discuss it in this House?
Mr. Blackburn: On the question of consultation with Dominion Governments, while fully understanding that it has been impossible to do this so far, might I ask the Prime Minister to take steps to see that Dominion Governments are consulted, and is it not clear that they are fully entitled to be informed?
The Prime Minister: They have been kept fully informed all the time. The general practice in these matters has been stated over and over again. On matters of this kind Commonwealth Governments are kept fully informed. It is up to them, if they wish to make any statements or suggestions, to do so.
Sir Peter Macdonald: If it is impossible to make any decision on participation in the Schuman Plan without further knowledge of the scheme, what justification have the Government for making it known, as it is pretty well known on the Continent, that the reason they will not participate is because other countries do not share the same Socialist ideology as they hold?
The Prime Minister: It is not pretty well known on the Continent. It happens to be entirely contrary to fact.
Mr. Julian Amery: If there was enough information available for the Government to decide to refuse the invitation from the French Government, then is there not enough information for the House to debate whether the Government were right or wrong?
Mr. Gammans: Why was it necessary to give such an immediate answer to the French Government, that proper consultations could not have taken place with the Dominions? Consultations would only have taken two or three days? Why was it necessary to reply so quickly?
The Prime Minister: Because the French Government asked for a decision by a certain time.

ORDERS OF THE DAY
  SUPPLY
  [16TH ALLOTTED DAY]
  SUPPLY

    CIVIL ESTIMATES, 1950–51
    Considered in Committee.
    [Major MILNER in the Chair]
    Motion made, and Question proposed.
    That a further sum, not exceeding £40, be granted to His Majesty towards defraying the charges for the following services connected with Emigration for the year ending on 31st March, 1951, namely:

    £

    Class II., Vote 6, Commonwealth Relations Office

    10

    Class II., Vote 8, Oversea Settlement

    10

    Class V., Vote 6, Ministry of Labour and National Service

    10

    Class IX., Vote 4, Ministry of Transport (Shipping and War Terminal Services)

    10

    Total

    £40

  EMIGRATION
  4.0 p.m.
  Mr. Butcher: Before I rose in the hope of catching your eye, Major Milner, I felt that, after the remarks made by the Prime Minister, I ought to have come here today armed with the most specific proposals on this matter, and then I thought that the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations might have definite and specific proposals to put before us this afternoon. In the last half-hour there has been a certain amount of controversy from all sides of the House, and, if I might do something to unite the Committee, perhaps it might be useful if I were to indicate now that, on this particular item, my hon. Friends and myself do not feel that it will be necessary to divide the Committee, but that, rather, we might look forward on another occasion to defeating the Government. Doubtless, the opportunity will arise during this week.
  I am sure hon. Members in all quarters of the Committee will wish to join with me in saying how happy we were to know that the Secretary of State will shortly be making a visit to Australia and New Zealand, returning via Canada. We feel quite sure that his visit will be useful, will

  49
  be of value to the right hon. Gentleman in the discharge of his high office and, indeed, will be most pleasurable for him personally. The only danger that I see is that he is likely to be killed with kindness, but I see that his immediate neighbour on the Front Bench is the right hon. Lady who is now in charge of the Ministry of National Insurance. As she was able to survive that experience, I think that the right hon. Gentleman will be equally capable of coming back here safe and sound, even if he does weigh something more on his return.
  It is opportune that we should discuss this matter, which is of great importance, because it is a long time since we had a Debate on it. Indeed, the last statement on the subject was made, I believe, in the White Paper of 1944. A great deal has taken place since the appearance of that White Paper. There has been a change in the whole strategic context of the problem of world defence. At the time when the White Paper was issued, we looked forward to permanent friendship with Russia and to the United Nations being a more lasting and permanent influence in world affairs than is our experience at the present time. Therefore, these matters must be considered by the right hon. Gentleman during his journey.
  There are other matters which equally need consideration now. The White Paper of 1944 was prepared at a time when the thoughts of everybody were on the return of their own ex-Service men to the countries which they had left in order to discharge their military duties. The problem confronting this country and all the Dominions, in those days of the White Paper, was the problem of how to get our own men back to their own homes, reestablish them in civil life and find houses for them to live in. What happened was that the soldier came back from abroad, and no sooner was he home than he married the girl of his choice. Naturally, they wanted a home of their own, but it was not possible then to provide the houses. The same thing took place in the Dominions overseas, although they were more fortunate in having rather different Ministers of Health from those we have had in this country since the war.
  The time has now come when this matter should be reviewed again by the
  50
  Dominions, and I hope that one result of this Debate will be to focus attention on it in order to enable the right hon. Gentleman very seriously to consider, in consultation with the Dominions, whether the time is not now ripe for the issue of a further statement on Government policy regarding emigration, by way of a White Paper or in some other way, which would clearly show how the Government are thinking on this question.
  There are certain thoughts which must be in the minds of each and every one of us. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition has put one forward very bluntly. It is whether these islands can maintain 50 million people at their present standard of living and in full employment. Equally, there is the fact that the Dominions continue to possess, undeveloped and unutilised, their undoubted resources; and there is the pressure of population which exists in some parts of the world and the desire for expansion, development and making use of all possible opportunities.
  When considering the Dominions, it is fair to say that the principal ones to which we must automatically turn when we think in terms of emigration—Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Southern Rhodesia—would most definitely be advantaged by a regular and definite increase in the numbers of their populations. It would be rather more difficult to argue that we would sustain as heavy a loss if there were to be an orderly migration from these shores. I rather dislike the way in which this question of the movement of population between one part of the Empire and another is often discussed. Some people say, "Can we afford to let our people go?" I do not think that is the way in which this problem should be approached.
  We must realise, as I am sure the Committee does realise, that the Empire and Commonwealth is one unity, and that it is as cheap, if, indeed, it is not actually cheaper, to move goods from London to Sydney than it is to move them from New York to San Francisco. There is less difficulty in doing the latter. Certainly, the natural, physical barriers are no greater, and, therefore, we must not think of people who are leaving this country for overseas as representing a loss to this country, but must rather pay regard to the

  51
  better distribution of our population as a positive and definite gain to all parts of the Empire. I believe that one of the most useful things that might result from our Debate today would be an assurance of the determination of the Government to do all it possibly can to make it easy for people, for business and for trade to flow freely and uninterruptedly through all the countries which owe a common allegiance to His Majesty.
  I find that I have used the word "Empire" on more occasions than is perhaps customary nowadays, but I confess that this is a link with the occasion when I visited Australia and New Zealand. The Government Chief Whip will remember how eager we were to conform to the wishes of our Dominion hosts, and that some of us were very punctilious never to use the word "Empire." But, having trained ourselves very hard to do so over a period of time, we found that among large sections of New Zealanders and Australians it was a word which they used with pride, and I use it, therefore in the sense in which it would be used by a New Zealander or an Australian.
  We must try to secure this movement within the Empire in the freest possible way, because emigration is no new thing. Since the 17th century there has been a tide and a movement, usually outward, from these islands to other parts of the world with inestimable advantage to ourselves and also to the countries to which our kinsfolk have gone. Of course, things are a little different today from what they used to be. In the past, people used to move from these shores on a very personal and independent basis. My own grandparents were among the early emigrants to New Zealand, travelling at their own expense with a family of 12 children all under 16, and baking their own bread on the voyage. I do not think we would wish to see that sort of thing come back, but we want to know that there is now just the same ease of movement as before.
  In this age in which we live an attempt must be made by the Governments of the Dominions as well as by the Government of this country to see that there is a movement of a fair cross-section of the population. As we are placed in this country, we cannot afford to lose only
  52
  our younger age groups. They are, I know, the groups which all countries who look for emigrants immediately select, but we cannot exclusively lose those groups. Nor, indeed, can we view with particular pleasure the loss of skilled farmers and farm workers, and, at the present time, we can ill afford the loss of skilled building and engineering operatives unless, at the same time, there is a movement overseas of those dependent on them.
  When I say that, I mean dependent in two ways. The first is in the family sense, that is to say, wherever possible there must be family emigration. The children and the elderly must accompany those of the working section. Secondly, they must be dependent in the social and the economic sense. There must be a movement of the transport worker together with the bricklayer, of the lawyer with the hospital nurse. There must be a unity—a cross-section must move overseas.
  Mr. Ellis Smith: Not many lawyers have gone.
  Mr. Butcher: The hon. Gentleman says that not many lawyers have gone. I believe there are some very competent lawyers in Australia anyway, but, nevertheless, they could still make a useful contribution to Australia.
  Much can be done if we ensure the full interchangeability of social insurance throughout the Empire. I should like the right hon. Gentleman to say how far this has gone at the present time, and whether he is taking energetic steps to develop it wherever possible. It is not a matter that can be dealt with entirely in terms of ordinary accountability of money. There must be an acceptance of the broad principle that a person normally qualified to receive insurance benefit in this country would be similarly qualified and entitled to benefit throughout all the Dominions where such schemes exist.
  Any debate on matters concerning the Dominions and the Commonwealth almost invariably develops into a Cook's tour from one Dominion to another. I hope I shall be forgiven if, having tried very hard to avoid it, I find that pattern almost forced upon me. I look back—and I think that all of us in this House should—to the admirable work done by the late Minister for Immigration in the

  53
  Australian Government who ardently believed and did much to ensure that the population of that great continent should be increased. We are happy to know that under the new Prime Minister there is a similar enthusiasm for immigration, and, particularly, for the entry into Australia of British stock. When we consider these matters, we always ask, what is the ultimate population which Australia has in mind? I am sure that when the right hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Eden) was there, he asked what was the optimum population of Australia. I put that question on many occasions and received many different answers. The figure varied from 15 million to 50 million, but every figure showed a large and substantial increase over the present population.
  Australia is definitely eager to increase her population, and is most anxious that the largest increase should come from people of British stock. The idea of a white Australia is not a matter which can be argued in Australia. It is an article of faith which one must accept. Indeed, anyone having dealings with that country knows how keen she is to avoid the difficulties that have arisen in other parts of the world over questions of colour. However, I hope that in the development of some of their territories, our Australian friends will cast their eyes on some of those other Colonies, such as Malta, which have a long tradition of loyalty to the Crown and which have populations larger than can be comfortably accommodated within their own confines.
  What else can we do to assist Australia in these matters? We do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman will be in a position to give us any information about the availability of shipping. It may be that there has been a satisfactory increase in shipping during recent months, but my own feeling is that we have not been quite so progressive as we might have been in placing shipping accommodation at the disposal of the Australian Government. In view of the diminution of orders in our own shipbuilding yards, it might very well be that, in consultation with the Australians, we could place orders for additional vessels to be built in this country and to be utilised for the conveying of people overseas.
  54
  The problem of Australia is that in two wars she has felt the lack of secondary industries and is determined to build up such industries with all possible speed. Those of us who have seen Australian industries, know how efficient they are. I believe that by assisting Australia to build up her secondary industries we shall be providing markets for our own manufactured goods. The technical, large-scale machines that will be required will, I believe, find a very ready market in Australia.
  Before leaving the question of Australia, there is one other point I wish to put to the right hon. Gentleman. Nobody examining that great continent can fail to note the comparative scarcity of towns with populations of between 30,000 and 80,000 people. There are either the big populations in the cities of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth, or, alternatively, the smaller populations in the very small towns, or, indeed, right out on the sheep stations. I wonder whether anything will be done to ensure that the population emigrating from these islands will go to new towns of roughly that size, which are regarded as being most suitable for a full and sufficient social life, based on industries taken from this country and thus forming almost a colony of Old England in the heart of Australia. They would thus avoid much of the home-sickness and also some of the difficulties of abrupt acclimatisation in great cities on the one hand or the loneliness of Australia's countryside on the other.
  New Zealand is a country of which I could speak for a long time, but I should be trespassing on the time of the Committee if I did so. All I would say is that the problem of New Zealand is as great as that of Australia, and her desire to increase her population from these shores is equally strong. The numbers required are not as great, but the proportionate increase desired is exactly the same. In discussing New Zealand we really must pay a tribute to the magnificent schemes which the New Zealand Government have operated in the past, under which so many of the people who have travelled there on assisted and sponsored passages have been absorbed within the New Zealand economy and under which so very few have returned. It is a matter for which the New Zealand

  55
  Government should be thanked and praised.
  I prefer to leave the problem of Rhodesia and other parts to hon. Gentlemen who have far greater experience than I have, hut I should be neglecting my duty in opening this Debate if I were not to refer to the problem of Canada. This is a special and great matter to which this Committee should give the greatest possible attention at this moment. The problems confronting Canada and confronting this country in her relations with Canada must be solved. We have in Canada a member of the dollar area bordered by the United States, with very rapid access across the common frontier. So easy indeed is the common frontier, that I believe there is quite a steady drift southwards of Canadians to the more easy climatic conditions of the United States.
  Canada has a population of 12 million only, giving a density of 3.3 per square mile, compared with 507 in the United Kingdom. She is a Dominion capable of supporting a far greater number of people than she has ever supported up to now. She has enormous undeveloped resources, with a cultivable area only half of which has yet been brought under cultivation and enormous possibilities of expansion in forestry, minerals, oil and coal reserves. There is no doubt at all that these will be developed in the quite near future.
  The question which is confronting this House and the Dominion of Canada is who will be the partner, of Canada in this development. In Canada is the point where the United Kingdom and the United States very largely learn to understand one another. That may, indeed, be the great and glorious mission of Canada. It is an amazing thing that there is there a currency in terms of dollars and cents, reminiscent of America, while every stamp carries the head of the same King who is King of the United Kingdom.
  Present figures are rather disturbing. If we are going to play our part in Canada there must be some greater movement towards that Dominion from this country. Over 360,000 people went to Canada in the first four years after the war. Since then there has been a substantial fall. I cannot help feeling that a great deal of it is due to the restriction
  56
  on the transfer of currency which exists at present. There is a £1,000 limit on the transfer of currency. This is one of the greatest possible mistakes. It penalises young people. There are many young people in this country who have secured or saved £1,000 or more but, under this restriction, they are having to split their capital.
  Mr. Beverley Baxter: My hon. Friend might just clarify that point a little. The sum is £1,000, but migrants cannot take it out all at once. It is spread over four years, and that makes it far worse. I did not want my hon. friend to think they could draw £1,000 at once.
  Mr. Butcher: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for assisting me and clarifying this point. It takes a brave man to convert £250 into dollars and use that as his sole resource in landing in a new country in which he is unknown. It is time some action was taken on the lines of the letter to "The Times" by my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Mr. Dodds-Parker) in which it was suggested there might be a migration loan to assist people in these matters. These restrictions prevent the elders moving to be near their children. We prevent the Dominion—and this is the only Dominion against which we discriminate—
  The Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations (Mr. Gordon-Walker): The only dollar Dominion.
  Mr. Butcher: The right hon. Gentleman says it is the only dollar Dominion. I am quite sure he and his Government must take steps to ensure that people in this country who are thrifty and who, for personal reasons, wish to move to any Dominion are not held back by Treasury regulations. The Government should so order their affairs that there can be free movement of people to any Dominion they choose. We are looking forward to hearing from the right hon. Gentleman that, as the dollar position improves—and his Government tell us it is improving—the Government, as a first step, will restore the limit to £5,000 to be taken out in far larger sums.
  We hope that that will not be regarded as the completion of the job but will be regarded as one step towards ensuring full transferability of persons and of cash in the case of genuine migrants from this

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  country to any Dominion of their choice. I believe that that, perhaps, will be the greatest point of controversy between the right hon. Gentleman and those who may follow me in this Debate. All sections of the House are united in a desire to ensure that in these Dominions there is a full transfer of freedom and of population and of ideas from one section to the other.
  Years and years ago, there went out from these shores people who founded 13 Colonies on the other side of the Atlantic and from that developed the great United States of America. The development of that great country was our salvation on more than one occasion. Indeed, we are still constantly receiving help from them. But there are other parts of the world which should and could benefit equally by the flow of people from these shores.
  So I come back to where I started by saying to the right hon. Gentleman that we wish him well on his journeys overseas. We believe he has a post in which he can do much to spread the ideals of liberty and of freedom wider and wider throughout the whole of the Dominions—Dominions of which we form a part. We believe we are not several countries but one great unit, and that the prosperity of each part is only a part of the prosperity of the whole.
  4.30 p.m.
  Mr. Richard Adams: I should like to begin by congratulating the National Liberal wing of the Opposition upon bringing up this important subject for discussion today. I should also like to comment on the solidarity of the support of that party which results in a rather higher proportion of attendance than is perhaps usual in some of our other Debates. As this is a short Debate, which I understand is due to conclude towards the hour of 7 o'clock, it is obviously not possible to go into any great detail, and if I do not weary the Committee in that way but confine myself to a few broad generalisations, I hope it will not be taken as an indication that argument is lacking for the proposals which I wish to put forward.
  It would be unrealistic and useless to discuss the subject of emigration in an academic vacuum. It must be related to the wider overall policy which we intend pursuing in this country in the future.
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  For instance, in the first place it would be possible for this country to give up the race in world affairs and to accept the position of a tiny island off North-Eastern Europe. That would inevitably lead, without any action on the part of the Government, to a mass emigration of all the young, virile and adventurous sections of the population to other parts of the world.
  We should be left in this country with a very small population, perhaps 10 million or 12 million or so, consisting of a few craftsmen keeping alive some of the old industries which have made this country famous, and perhaps a considerable number of hotels to cater for the American and other tourists. In this event our national wealth would lie in our possession of Westminster Abbey, Stonehenge, Stratford-on-Avon and one or two other national features. But for the rest, this country would become a small, widely dispersed agricultural community. That is one aspect of emigration. If by our wider policy we were to accept that position in world affairs, then without any governmental action whatsoever the population of this country would be run down in the course of a few generations to something like that which I have described. But I am sure that there are few hon. Members who would willingly contemplate a future of that sort.
  So I turn to another possibility, which is for this country to take its part in the full integration of Western Europe. That is a matter which was discussed indirectly before this Debate started. Obviously if we were to pursue that policy there would be no place for emigration at all. There would be the need for an intense industrial development which would provide work for every pair of hands in this country, subject to any fluctuations of fortune in Europe over which we would have little control. Again, I think that such a policy is not very promising. I notice that the right hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Eden) wished to discuss an excellent pamphlet which first saw the light of day only this morning.
  Mr. Eden: I did not call it excellent.
  Mr. Adams: I am very well aware that the right hon. Gentleman has not had time to study it in detail, and so I am applying the adjective which is most

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  appropriate after a full examination of the facts contained in it. I am certain that excellent booklet is a useful indication of the way in which the Labour Party is thinking. When the right hon. Gentleman has had time to read it he will find clearly set forth the fact that we on this side of the Committee realise our responsibilities in the Commonwealth and we realise that the future of this country does not lie in complete integration into a European economy. Our whole history makes that impossible. This country has an important part to play as a link between Western Europe, the Commonwealth and the United States of America. We cannot play that part if we have sunk our identity completely in Western Europe.
  Mr. Baxter: The hon. Gentleman must not think that that view is held only on his side of the Committee.
  Mr. Adams: I am well aware, or I hope, that that view is held by all people who have taken the time to examine the problems that are involved, but the hon. Member will agree that a great many hon. Members who have spoken in this House and outside have given the impression that the future of this country lies in being integrated with Western Europe. I say that to sink our identity in that way would be almost to commit suicide.
  I turn to the third alternative, which to my mind offers the greatest future for this country. This is a new conception or a new development of the Commonwealth, for it is there and there alone that emigration has an important part to play. Unlike the hon. Member for Holland with Boston (Mr. Butcher), although I appreciate the point that he made in regard to Australia, I do not intend from now on to refer to the Commonwealth and Empire. I prefer to refer solely to the Commonwealth, because that is what it is. It is a matter of bringing into a fuller state of responsibility those dependent Colonies which have so often been referred to as the Empire, and bringing them more and more into line with the self-governing Dominions. I think the future lies in the development of the Commonwealth as a single entity. That involves the best disposition of all our economic forces, including manpower. It is that subject which requires a great deal of further study.
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  I believe that the greatness of this country lies in the full development of the Commonwealth as a single entity; I believe, moreover, that that entity can make the best contribution to world security and to social happiness. But there are a number of points which have to be considered in connection with such a development. Take, first of all, the important question of defence strategy. I do not consider that we can make the best contribution to peace in the world or in Europe by standing in the front line in Europe itself. I believe that the resources of this country and of the Commonwealth as a whole can best be used as a valuable reserve and as an outpost of defence. That has been our rôle in the past and I think fuller consideration should be given to it in the light of possible developments.
  Again we have this question of the economic development of all our resources. What we have to ask ourselves is where best can existing manpower be used. That can only be decided by consultation and discussion among all the members of the Commonwealth. Instead of busying ourselves discussing the Schuman Plan for the beginning of the integration of Europe, we ought to be busy discussing with our fellow members of the Commonwealth how best our industries can be developed in the Commonwealth as a whole. We ought to consider where the iron and steel industry could best be developed from the strategic and economic points of view. We ought to consider whether manpower can best be used in this country, or to develop certain products in Canada or new projects in Rhodesia or Australia.
  These are some of the wide problems which we can discuss only in a general way today, but which we ought to be discussing at the present time. If we were to apply ourselves with relentless efficiency to a solution of such problems as these, we could once again make the Commonwealth a great trading area, with this country as a clearing house between the Commonwealth, Western Europe and United States of America. To my mind that holds the biggest possibility of future greatness for this country.
  If we are to undertake that venture, if we are to do our best to develop the Commonwealth as a single entity, politically, economically and strategically,

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  then we need an over-all Commonwealth plan. We must not be content simply to look at this problem of emigration from the point of view of this country or from the point of view of Australia or of any other single Dominion; the whole problem of migration, together with these other problems I have mentioned, must be studied by a central conference or committee. Those old Botany Bay days have gone for ever—the days when we exported convicts from this country to other parts of the Empire.
  These problems must be discussed equally between ourselves and the other parts of the Commonwealth. There must be a new sharing of responsibility. Such things as defence costs must be shared fairly between all parts of the Commonwealth in the proportion to which they are able to bear them. The days are rapidly passing when this country can prepare and subsidise defence plans involving the protection of the whole Commonwealth.
  What I have said about defence costs also applies to the National Debt. If, in agreement with other parts of the Commonwealth, this country is prepared to see 100,000 workers or more go to more profitable projects overseas, then those countries which accept the workers must be prepared also to accept a corresponding share in such items as the National Debt and the social services of this country After all, our ability to bear the National Debt is based upon our ability to produce wealth in this country. If, as part of a voluntary agreement, we encourage workers to go to other corners of the Commonwealth, then those countries must be prepared, as a quid pro quo, to give us some support in the debts which remain in this country.
  The same problem arises with the social services. The problem which confronts this country perhaps more than anything else is the problem of the increasing proportion of old-age pensioners in the total population. We can visualise younger and more energetic members of the population going to other parts of the Commonwealth only if they are able to carry with them some responsibility for the National Insurance Scheme in this country. I do not want to weary the House unduly on this subject, but I must point out that these two or three
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  items which I have mentioned are some indication of the fact that we ought to do some over-all planning of migration if we are to go in for it at all, and that our responsibility and interest does not end with dispatching a shipload of would-be emigrants to some other part of the Commonwealth, but that such problems as those which I have mentioned must be considered in relation to the Commonwealth as a whole.
  What I have said about the transfer of responsibilities also applies to the transfer of certain rights of the individual. It ought to be possible in the future to arrange such matters as pensions and superannuation rights on a Commonwealth basis. It ought to be possible for an engineer to do a term of duty of five or six years in, say, Kenya and then to transfer for 10 years or so to Australia; then, perhaps, to come back to this country, and eventually to make up his mind to retire in the West Indies. It ought to be possible for him to carry his superannuation rights through those different jobs and in those different parts of the Commonwealth so that he is left perfectly free in his decision about where he is to retire.
  I turn to the last point I want to make in this connection. If we are to have a successful emigration policy we must look to the development of our air and sea transport. I wonder how many hon. Members realise that today one can travel from here to Australia or any other part of the Commonwealth just as quickly as 200 years ago a man could travel from Scotland down to this great city. Time and distance are being annihilated by modern inventions and we must be ready to take full advantage of them. In the days of Botany Bay, as I said a few moments ago, a man was despatched from this country to Australia and his connection with this country was ended; he became an inhabitant of Australia. That is no longer true. With developments in transport, and with other improvements which I have suggested, labour should be perfectly mobile within the whole Commonwealth. A man should be able to move freely from one job to another and should not feel cut off from his relations who, for the time being, may be living in some other part of the Commonwealth.

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  It is only if we look at such problems as these and then decide to go for an all-out policy of Commonwealth development that emigration begins to make sense. In short, the planning of all our Commonwealth resources as a single unit is absolutely essential if we are to contemplate a policy of emigration, if we are to contemplate a policy whereby we are to develop our resources. Here I agree with the hon. Member for Holland with Boston; there are tremendous projects in some parts of the Commonwealth where manpower and capital are urgently required and which, if developed properly can make an immense contribution not only to the Commonwealth but to the world as a whole. But these things can only be done if we are prepared to look at the Commonwealth as a single economic unit.
  That is why, in conclusion, I invite the Government as a matter of urgency to set up a Commonwealth study group to examine these and many other problems. I believe that a new development, such as that which I have broadly described, can be the beginning of a great future again for this country. It can lead to a new greatness, prosperity and security, far beyond anything which appears possible art the present time, but we have to make up our minds. We cannot play around in European affairs, we cannot ally ourselves wholeheartedly with the United States of America and, at the same time, try to develop the Commonwealth. We have not the resources available. We have to choose where our future lies; and to my mind the future of this country lies in a new, sound development of the Commonwealth in which emigration has its proper part to play.
  4.49 p.m.
  Sir Ralph Glyn: I am sure that most of us on this side of the Committee will agree with a very great deal of what the hon. Member for Wandsworth, Central (Mr. R. Adams) has said, and that we welcome the fact that more and more members of the Socialist Party are showing a greater interest in Commonwealth and Empire affairs. That is something for which I am sure all of us in this Committee ought to be very grateful. I remember the days, not many years ago, when there was not by any means the same enthusiasm in that party
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  about the Commonwealth and Empire, and I am sure that we on this side welcome the fact that the Socialist Party now find themselves able to make a contribution to Commonwealth affairs.
  We are all grateful, too, to the hon. Member for Holland with Boston (Mr. Butcher) for having brought forward this subject today. It is, indeed, most appropriate that the hon. Member should raise any matter that has to do with the Empire, because there are associations between Boston and Parliament and the Empire, and it may very well indeed be a good thing for us to have those associations ever in our mind's eye, in order that we may ensure that we do not make similar mistakes again. Therefore, it is most appropriate that this matter should be raised by the hon. Member for Holland with Boston.
  However, what I rose to say was that I, personally, do not believe that there is any Government policy for migration—or any Opposition policy for migration. There seems to be no policy at all. I do not believe that this matter has ever been properly tackled, and I believe that it is high time it should be. When the hon. Member for Wandsworth, Central, pleaded for a study group or something of the sort, I sympathised with him; indeed, I would go further, and say that there should be a migration board set up on which there ought to be representatives of the Dominions. I think it ought to be based on the fact that we want a continuity of policy in this matter. We do not want it to be a party matter. We want this great affair to be dealt with on very broad lines.
  For some time I have had some experience of the way in which shipping companies have been attempting to deal with this problem of migration, and I think the Committee would be astonished if it knew the efforts that have been made to find accommodation for the people who have wished to go overseas. It is very difficult, at the conclusion of a war, during which there were a great many sinkings, to get the ordinary trade of the country going, let alone to find sufficient tonnage for migration. People who do not appreciate the difficulties of shipping say such things as, "Why not use the Aquitania instead of breaking her up; why not use her for taking emigrants to the Dominions?" It was quite impossible. It would have cost

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  far more to do that than could ever have been met by any returns on the venture.
  However, there are large numbers of vessels now allocated for this service, and the accommodation is very good. The limiting factor, so far as Australia is concerned, is not ships or shipping accommodation, but homes for the people when they have reached their new country. That is a matter of supreme importance, and it is important that this House should realise that not only have we here a housing problem but that Australia has an even greater one. It is necessary, therefore, for a definite scheme to be devised. When we talk about our economic capacity here, and our ability to send out a quota of British people abroad, who are necessary to people in other parts of the Empire, it is essential to remember that they should have homes to go to when they go out to those other countries.
  Moreover, those homes ought not to be to the exclusion of the people living, say in Australia. We cannot, I think, in this country find the timber for our own houses, so we cannot do much in that direction, but there seems to be very little reason why the Australians should not attempt to get timber from Sweden, or somewhere in Scandinavia, for houses. That timber would be very appropriate for the climate, and it could be transported with considerable ease. But until we can get more houses—until Australia can arrange for the provision of more houses—it is quite impossible to take more people out there than are being taken at present to that part of the world.
  There is what is called the Assisted Passage Scheme. It was mentioned by the hon. Member for Holland with Boston just now. It has worked extremely well, but the type of people who can benefit by it are limited, and there ought to be a broader definition of the categories who can benefit by it, because we cannot get away from the fact that we do want to send to the Dominions such people as superior craftsmen, operatives of every sort, men who have a certain amount of money put by, and who badly want to go to the Dominions, but who are not now eligible for assistance under the Assisted Passage Scheme.
  I agree with the hon. Gentleman that owing to dispersal and war conditions it may be necessary for complete factories
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  to be sent to the Dominions, and these will require the best operatives, supervisors, foremen, and so on—and their families, including old people. I believe that that is the sort of thing which a migration board would have to consider and could well consider, and that it is high time a body of that sort was established to ensure continuity of policy.
  There are tremendous developments impending in Canada. Nobody knows better than my hon. Friend the Member for Southgate (Mr. Baxter) that that is the fact. In a short time the whole position in Canada may change, even within the next few years. The immigration into Canada will be from the United States if the new development of oil in Saskatchewan results as anticipated. I have had letters from friends of mine in Canada who say they are quite certain that there is more oil in Saskatchewan than ever there was in Texas. If that is so we are going to have a complete change in the economy of that part of Canada. All of us who have been to Canada and are admirers of that great Dominion realise that there has always been a flow of people across the border from the north of it to the south, and from the south to the north. A great many people who have gone to Canada have crossed to the United States, and others have crossed from the United States into Canada.
  However that may be, it is the economic laws which will govern these things. I believe the time is coming when we shall want a migration board which would consider all these problems in all aspects—the shipping aspect, the aspect of economics generally, and take into account all the social matters which were mentioned by the hon. Member for Wandsworth, Central. We ought to have representatives of the Dominions on such a board, and, I hope, of the House of Commons, showing what an interest we have in meeting what is an ever new situation. The situation is like a kaleidoscope; it keeps changing; there is nothing static about it.
  Communications are of tremendous importance in helping us to keep abreast with the situation and to understand it. Are we satisfied about broadcasting? Have we come to an end of what can be done by broadcasting? Cannot we do something more? Are we quite sure that we are on the right lines in that respect? Then, again, are we quite

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  sure that the people who go out from Britain as family units—certainly to some parts of the Empire—know to what they are going? Are they quite certain what to expect? People do, in fact, go to some Dominion or to some Colony and come back again? Why do they? Is it because the women-folk are bored? In some parts they have not the same cultural amenities at the present time that we have here. There are not the same opportunities for art, music, the drama.
  Why cannot we do something to tell our people more about life elsewhere in the Commonwealth? Perhaps the British Council could help. Perhaps it would be more useful for it to do that than to concentrate its efforts behind the Iron Curtain or on the approaches to the Iron Curtain. It seems to me that we have things here which we ought to show to other parts of the Commonwealth; and for goodness sake let us have their stuff here so that we can see it—their pictures, their sculptures, and so on. I know that it is difficult and will cost money to arrange, but we ought to be able to manage it with a little bit of effort.
  Then there is the question of the Press. There is at the moment the Imperial Press Conference being held in Canada, and I know the results of previous conferences held under the able direction of Colonel Astor. They have done a great deal of good. But, there is very little doubt that very little news gets into the Dominion Press about affairs here, and it is equally true that little Dominion news gets into the newspapers here. I do not know what the solution is. I quite agree with the hon. Gentleman that we must always remember that Britain is a part of a much greater whole, and that we are always inclined, whenever there is a General Election about, to think more and more about internal affairs, whereas we ought to think more largely. I think the Press can help in teaching our people about the Commonwealth, and vice versa. The Press can help tremendously. I believe something might be done to enable the newspapers, the weekly ones especially, to reach all parts of the Commonwealth much more quickly than they do today. I believe that that could be done quite well with a little bit of organisation.
  I think it is very urgent and vital that we should be able to send a quota of
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  our British stock into the Commonwealth overseas, but we cannot do it alone. We have got 50 million people in these small islands. How can we alone revivify the whole of the Commonwealth? We want to get that flow of people into the Commonwealth, and we need a policy on migration. We do not want such examples of settlers as the Dukoubers in Canada, and we have to remember that there are difficulties of that kind.
  As we have had all this movement and change as a result of the war, it is surely all the more important that we should really get down to this matter. What is the right policy that we should pursue on migration? How can we help our own people to live a more fruitful and happy life? How can we help the great Dominions and the Commonwealth generally? Nor must we forget that our responsibilities do not end there. The right hon. Gentleman is Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations—a new title for an old office—but these are all questions of migration within the Common wealth. Where are Indians to settle? What is to be the future of coloured races in different places? What are we going to do about the West Indies? At the moment this migration is undoubtedly Colonial and Commonwealth migration, but that does not fall altogether within the responsibility of the right hon. Gentleman: it is a Colonial Office matter. For instance, India and Pakistan, very great countries which are now under the administration of the right hon. Gentleman—
  Mr. Gordon-Walker: Not my administration.
  Sir R. Glyn: No, but I take it they would be as regards migration. There is the problem of this enormous increase in the population of the West Indies. Where is it to find an outlet? How far will it work in with Dominion policy? Those are some of the things which I venture to mention today to try to emphasise what, to my mind, is the most urgent need to be considered in looking at this matter as one of the first importance, to be dealt with by a migration board, or something of that kind.
  5.2 p.m.
  Mr. Malcolm MacPherson: I think that both sides of the Committee will find a great deal

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  to agree with in much of what the hon. Member for Abingdon (Sir R. Glyn) has said, but I must join issue with him on one or two matters. For instance, when he says that we have at present no policy on emigration he is surely wrong. It may be that, taking a very long-term view, looking to the future of this or the next generation, possibly the country as a whole has not decided upon a long-term policy. But I think that the statement made in another place on behalf of the Government only a week or two ago set forth quite clearly a perfectly reasonable and specific policy. As was pointed out in that statement, we must remember that the initiative in migration today is largely at the receiving end; that we in this country do not feel a particularly strong urge to send from our shores young and active people, while on the other hand many of the Dominions would very much like to receive them.
  In that situation it seems to me that our policy—and a perfectly reasonable policy—should be to say to the Dominions, "We do not particularly want to shoot out to you these young people of ours; we do not want to lose them; but if you would like a proportion of them we will not merely put no obstacle in your way but will help you as far as we can." Surely that is what we are doing, and it is a fairly simple policy suited to the needs of the moment.
  Although I agree with the hon. Baronet if his contention was that this was not a long-term policy, we do not know what policy we shall be following for the next 20, 30 or 40 years. The country generally has come to look at emigration in a completely different light from that in which it has been viewed in the past, in our history and in the history of our Dominions. We look upon it as one step that we can take towards the proper organisation of the development of our resources, and it is that, more than chance—or even, as with a number of my fellow countrymen from the northern part of this island, clearing out because of eviction from their own holdings here—which affords a policy based on reasonable and clear objectives. Those objectives will have impingements beyond our borders and beyond the borders of the Commonwealth. They will strongly affect our international relations, and, whatever policy we pursue from time to time, it is essential that the changes
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  we make in it, should be, so far as possible, co-ordinated with the policies of the Dominions and of other countries. I was very glad to note in the statement of Government policy to which I referred earlier that this topic is under discussion by the I.L.O.
  The economic aspect of Commonwealth development is the most obvious one to be considered. I think it is reasonably fully understood. It is a question of developing under-developed areas and undeveloped spaces. I was glad that the hon. Baronet referred to the tremendous impending development in Canada. Canada is already taking her place as one of the leading nations of the world, and her position in the world will be more firmly based on a strong economy when the development is not merely of oil but of iron and steel—which are just beginning—when they are more fully worked out.
  There is no doubt that the Dominions have tremendous resources to be developed, and they need men and capital for that development. However, we must avoid the simple view that it is merely a matter of sending persons, or even families or business firms to the Dominions. There is also a very serious problem at the receiving end. To send a citizen from this country to another country is to make, to the extent of that one citizen, less demand on the capital resources of this country—in roads, streets, houses, shops, and so on—and a correspondingly greater demand on the capital resources of the receiving country. The shortage of houses in Australia is only an instance of that very much wider problem. To accept a large number of immigrants means either a lowering of the general standard of living, or increasing capital equipment in order to keep the standard high enough while still accommodating the immigrants. That is a serious problem, particularly for the younger countries. If they can import capital, so much the better; if they can save the capital, so much the better again There is fairly clear evidence now that Canada is getting into such a position that she can equip herself largely from her own savings, but it is by no means a simple or easy task.
  I should like to cross swords with the hon. Member for Holland with Boston

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  (Mr. Butcher) in connection with the emigration to Canada. I think he was a little too facile in dealing with the subject. He suggested—I am not sure that he did not specifically say so—that to increase the amount of capital an emigrant could take with him to Canada would be the solution to the problem. Well, for one thing, that is a rather cavalier method of dealing with the dollar problem. Apart from that, it must be remembered that for some months now, Canada has had an unemployment problem of considerable magnitude; certainly not one that we can lightly dismiss.
  Mr. Baxter Mr. Baxter indicated dissent.
  Mr. MacPherson: The hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but for last year the unemployment figures in Canada corresponded to unemployment of about one million or a bit over one million in this country. That is an unemployment problem of no small magnitude.
  Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that one of the consequences of this currency restriction is to prevent a number of people who would be glad to go to Canada and start businesses there, thereby absorbing the unemployed, from being able to do so?
  Mr. MacPherson: Yes, I think there is a point in that, but it is not everyone who wants to go to a country where there are unsettled economic conditions and unemployment and who is ready to risk his capital. It is an important factor that the would-be emigrant must take into account, but the great majority of emigrants are not going abroad to start businesses; they are going to look for jobs.
  I would like also to bring to the notice of the Committee one point which may well have come to the attention of Members already, and that is the direction in which emigrants into Canada are going. They are not, according to the latest figures, going to the wide, open spaces. They are going to Ontario and Quebec and the highly-industralised parts of Canada.
  Mr. Lennox-Boyd: That is what we have been saying all along in connection with the effect of the currency restrictions. How can one possibly buy or equip a farm on £250 a year for four years?
  Mr. MacPherson: The great majority of emigrants to the far west of Canada do not buy a farm when they arrive there. They take employment. That still remains true of the majority of people who would like to go to Canada. They are not expecting to start as industrialists or farmers in their own right, straight away. They are, for the most part, expecting, as their predecessors did in previous generations, to find employment, and the present situation in Canada is not propitious from that point of view.
  I think that the general economic questions involved in emigration are questions which have received fair canvassing and discussion; but there is another set of questions, the more purely political set, which do not, it seems to me, get anything like the amount of discussion that they should have. The hon. Member for Abingdon referred to them at the end of his speech, and I was very glad that he did. He suggested that the Commonwealth is a great deal wider than it appears to be to some people. It is not a Commonwealth established only of the old Dominions; it now consists of new Dominions in the Far East, and, in point of fact, we are members today of a Commonwealth which is predominently non-white in race and non-British in its traditions of thought, religion, culture, and so on.
  When we are talking, as I think we should talk, about the development of the Commonwealth and the various nations of the Commonwealth, we should, I think, remember that the Commonwealth has this tremendously important new side to it. Before the war, these new nations were not members of the Commonwealth. That is to say, they were not self-governing units in the British Empire. Today, they are. We have an example in one of the old members of the British Commonwealth of the tragedy that can be caused by any mishandling, whether just now or in earlier generations, of the racial question.
  We have to realise, in fact, that while we are talking quietly and peacefully, as indeed we should, about emigration, there is another side to the whole question, and that is set out in the grim phrase liebensraume that Hitler used before the war. It is put in rather grim enactments, whether resulting from the past or present, like the present Group Areas

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  Bill in the Union of South Africa; and we, I think, should today begin to face up to the desirability of getting together with our Dominions in the East on this question of emigration.
  The West Indies and India have both been mentioned as other countries which, like ourselves, are highly-populated and from which emigration could well take place; but while our emigrants can find places easily elsewhere in the Commonwealth, we cannot say the same about the potential emigrants from the West Indies or from India. That is a different matter altogether and a very difficult problem to settle. I do not want to follow the implications that would arise from that particular policy; I want simply to draw the attention of the Committee to the fact that the problem of race does exist. I want to suggest, for instance, that if a migration board is set up—and the proposal made in another place was turned down, but that was a proposal which asked for a migration board simply connected with the old white Dominions—it should be a board on which the non-white Dominions are also fully represented. If that were to take place, I think we might well be tackling a problem that exists within the British Commonwealth. We must tackle at some time the problem of finding places for the people of the British West Indies and of helping the great self-governing nation of India with its task of finding places for its emigrants. If we do that, we shall be tackling, within the framework of our own Imperial constitution, a problem which is becoming world-wide. If we could find a way of dealing with it, we would be giving a lead to the world in one of those matters in which a well thought out, strong and clear lead is most needed.
  5.18 p.m.
  Mr. Anthony Nutting: I was most encouraged by the speech made by the hon. Member for Wandsworth, Central (Mr. R. Adams) in that it seemed to me to herald a very different approach on the part of certain hon. Members of the Labour Party to the question of Empire and Empire development. It seemed, at any rate, to portray a very much greater consciousness of the need of Empire development than that which appeared in the Labour Party election manifesto on which they fought
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  the last General Election. I was somewhat amused to hear the hon. Member suggest to his own Front Bench that they should have yet another study group. Perhaps he was a little jealous at being left out of the Dorking week-end party; but perhaps he will get his own way, and the Government will give him the study group he requires and invite him to join it.
  I welcome this Debate; indeed, I believe that it is the first Debate on the subject of emigration which we have had in this Parliament, and also the first we have had since the Labour Government got into office. When I was in Australia, about this time last year, I had borne in on me with due force the desperate need of that Dominion in the realm of population. I was most impressed by the very great efforts which the Australian Government had made to solve this problem and to assist in getting British emigrants to go to Australia. In fact my admiration of the Australian effort was only equalled by my depression at the efforts made by the British Government over here.
  I believe that I am right in saying that up to date, the only shipping which has been put upon the emigrant service between this country and Australia has been put on to that line by the Australian authorities. There are, I am told, 12 ships serving emigrants and carrying them to Australia. So far, His Majesty's Government in this country have done precisely nothing, and have not put on one single ship to serve this vital traffic. I hope that the Government will, despite its poor performance in the past, take a new view about this situation.
  When I was in Australia, I visited the then Minister of Immigration, Mr. Caldwell, and I can certainly corroborate what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Holland with Boston (Mr. Butcher) about his very great efforts and desires to help with this immigration policy. Mr. Caldwell told me, and I have his permission to quote his remarks, that he was really appalled, when he visited the United Kingdom, at the attitude of His Majesty's Government to this problem, and by their utter and complete refusal to do anything, either by providing shipping for this traffic, or in other ways to speed up and help the solution of these difficulties.

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  I have asked His Majesty's Government to bring a new outlook to bear upon this problem. It is, of course, true that much can be done by way of small-scale development, and we shall be thankful for small mercies and small driblets of population which may find their way to Australia through the meagre shipping facilities that are available. But there can be no doubt that what is really needed in a continent the size of Australia is large-scale development. There has been a lot of nonsense talked about the wide open spaces and possibilities of development by a few squatters here and there on large tracts of undeveloped and underdeveloped territory.
  Take, for example, the large wide open spaces of North-West Australia, often described as the land where men make money to spend somewhere else. That surely has been the whole trouble with tracts of under-developed and undeveloped territory such as in North-West Australia. The money which has been made and I do not dispute that considerable quantities have been made by some fortunate people, has not gone back into the territory, with the result that living conditions have remained, and still remain, poor and primitive. Such things as the hon. Member for Wandsworth, Central has spoken about, like social services, housing and Hospital services, just do not exist in many parts of Australia, where medical help and succour depends on that overworked, through sterling, service of the flying doctors and nurses. There can be little doubt that these poor social conditions, taken together with the very poor climate which is found particularly in the North-West, must have a discouraging effect on British migrants.
  There can be no doubt that if we are to get over these difficulties, if we are to get over these discouragements, we must stimulate to the utmost of our ability development on the largest and widest possible scale. Perhaps at this moment that is beyond our immediate capacity. Therefore, I ask the Government whether they are taking any steps or considering any steps with the United States to make joint plans to get large-scale development going throughout the Commonwealth. I would ask the Minister for Commonwealth Relations whether he recollects a speech made by the President of the United States
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  in which he referred to investment by the United States—what is now known as the Point Four Programme.
  Are we following up this lead? Are we doing anything, for our part, to prepare plans with the United States to cash in on this American initiative? Are we discussing with the United States any plans for American help in the field of investment, so that we may develop these large tracts of territory throughout the British Commonwealth and Empire? I sincerely hope that the answer from the Minister will be in the affirmative, or will at any rate be encouraging, because there can be no doubt that if we are to solve our own economic problems, and particularly our dollar problem, we can only find the solution in the development of the British Commonwealth and Empire.
  5.25 p.m.
  Mr. A. R. W. Low: Like all those who have spoken in this Debate, I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Holland with Boston (Mr. Butcher) for having raised this subject. I should like to cross swords with my hon. Friend the Member for Melton (Mr. Nutting). I would remind him that we have debated this subject once, if not twice, since the end of the war, and that the things that worried us during those Debates are still worrying us today, which is a reflection upon His Majesty's Government and also an indication of the difficulties inherent in this problem.
  I regret that the Government Front Bench has been unoccupied for so long by any Minister, although I do not wish to cast any reflection on the importance of the Government Whip who has been present. I say that because this is a subject which concerns not only the Commonwealth Relations Office, but also the Ministers of Transport and Labour, as well as the Service Departments, in view of the important strategic element involved in this discussion. It seems a pity that the right hon. Gentleman, who we know is so hard worked, should be left to bear the burden on his own. The right hon. Gentleman indicates that he is quite happy to do so, but we shall have to await his reply to the Debate.
  We are in the happy position, in dealing with this problem, that there is really no dispute on principle between either side of the Committee, or between His

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  Majesty's Government and the Governments throughout the British Commonwealth. I think it would be unwise, however, in discussing migration from this country to bring in the enormous racial and over-population problems of India. The hon. Member for Stirling and Falkirk Burghs (Mr. Malcolm MacPherson) suggested that a migration board, having been set up, should have on its agenda the racial problems that face India and South Africa. I cannot think of any better way of bringing its proceedings to an immediate stop, if not to a break-up with almost a show of fisticuffs. Many Members will have had some experience of discussing these matters with our friends overseas. Feelings run very high on racial questions, and Members in this country sometimes do not have at their command sufficient knowledge of the facts and feelings of people in other countries to make a sound contribution.
  The important point is that on the question of the need of migrants of British stock from these islands to the British Commonwealth, particularly to Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Southern Rhodesia, there is a large amount of unanimity both in this Committee and between the Governments concerned. It is one thing to have agreement about a plan, but it is quite another thing to put that plan into effect. It is because some of us are concerned at the speed with which migration is going on that we welcome this Debate. It seems to me that the Government have a duty to support the intentions of those who wish to migrate to Commonwealth countries.
  The hon. Member for Stirling and Falkirk Burghs said that the initiative must remain with the Dominions. Why should it? If we are agreed that it is a good thing for the Commonwealth that there should be migration from this country, it must also be a good thing for this country, which remains the heart of the Great British Commonwealth. It is, therefore, in our interests, as well as in the interests of the whole British Commonwealth, that this matter should be tackled properly. It is not helping at all to sit back and say, "The question of transport to Australia is one for Australia; we need not worry about that," or, "The question of housing is one for Australia; we need not worry about that." To be fair to His Majesty's Government,
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  I understand that they have tried to help with transport in some way or another, but I agree with what my hon. Friend the Member for Melton said about the Government's lack of active assistance in providing any of those 12 ships which are on the migration route.
  I understand that they have helped in discussions with the Australian authorities about the quicker provision of houses. I should like to hear from the right hon. Gentleman how much the slow provision of houses is holding up the reception of emigrants at the other end, and how much His Majesty's Government have been able to help in this matter. The question of transport is the most worrying of all.
  Mr. Gordon-Walker Mr. Gordon-Walker indicated dissent.
  Mr. Low: The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head. If he is correct about that I have no doubt that he will be able to tell us that there are only short lists of applicants waiting to go overseas, that there is very little hold up, and that there is very little limitation on the number of people leaving these shores.
  Mr. Gordon-Walker: We are able to ship as many as can be housed.
  Mr. Low: The right hon. Gentleman is saying that housing in Australia is the limiting factor. We would like to hear from him what steps he has taken to help the Australian authorities on this, because if His Majesty's Government think it is important that there should be re-distribution of British stock, and, in particular, more encouragement given to leave these islands and go to Australia, then we ought to help the Australians to tackle this housing problem. It is no good sitting back and saying that it is a matter for Australia.
  There are other ways in which His Majesty's Government can help. The first I have in mind is by assisting with passages. I understand that that has been done mostly under the Empire Settlement Acts, which have been extended until the end of 1952. Can the right hon. Gentleman say what he has in mind about the future of those Acts? I understand that it was said on behalf of the Government in another place that they were now under review. It is important that there should be a review in the near future, so that this House can express its opinion on the

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  Government's decision when it is announced. We do not want to leave it until the end of 1951 or the beginning of 1952.
  There is a further and more intricate way in which the Government can help, and that in their encouragement of people to migrate. There have been references once or twice this afternoon to the idea that a man who migrates from Scotland or England to Australia is lost to this country. He is not lost at all. It is the fundamental and proper consideration of this problem that we should realise that he is not lost. I agree with something which was said by the hon. Member for Wandsworth, Central, about our consideration of the placing of an industry, if an industry decides to shift part of itself over to a Dominion. Neither that industry, nor its products, are lost to this country. In fact, it is very likely that movement such as that would add to the economic and strategic strength of the country. If the idea gets abroad in this country that migrants, who are leaving this country, are leaving a sinking ship heavily laden it will not help. All they are doing is allowing the ship of State to move faster through the sea and at the same time helping a Dominion to complete the task which it has in hand. What we want is a wisely conducted migration policy.
  I have spoken so far on the ways in which the Government can help. There is one way in which the Government can hinder, and that is by the restrictions on the amount of capital that can accompany a migrant who wishes to leave this country. In my opinion, the hon. Member for Stirling and Falkirk Burghs was quite right to link the question of the movement of manpower and the movement of capital in his consideration of this matter. We cannot really consider migration apart from a movement of some capital in order to enable development to go properly ahead.
  What is happening in Canada? Those who go to Canada—and, alas, the number has been very much reduced, for in 1949 it was only 52 per cent. of the average of the years before—are allowed to take only £250 of their capital each year for four years. That has two results. It limits the type and number of persons who go, and it also acts as a direct disincentive to members of a man's
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  family, particularly the older members, from accompanying or joining him when he gets there. In other words, it is a direct attempt to move against one important point of Government policy on migration—that there should be a cross-section of our people leaving this country, and not only actively bodied persons.
  I hope the right hon. Gentleman will be able to answer these points, because it has often been stressed in this House that the limitation of currency to those going to Canada has an effect on the type and quantity of persons and is a direct discouragement to a man's family from joining him. In theory, at any rate, as I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will agree, it looks as if that might be the result. The other day my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Mr. Dodds-Parker) wrote a very interesting letter to "The Times" suggesting migration loans so that persons who have capital deposited in London can draw an equivalent sum of dollars in Canada to give them some capital to start with. What does the right hon. Gentleman think about that?
  It may be that such an arrangement could be made, perhaps not on the basis of a loan as was then suggested, but on a slightly different basis, whereby the banks in Canada would be enabled to advance dollars to migrants in that country against a deposit of sterling in this country on the promise that that sterling would be remitted in the course of 10 years. It is really worth thinking about, and bankers who are concerned have been thinking about it.
  Mr. Gordon-Walker: Would that be an advance by the Canadian Government of Canadian dollars?
  Mr. Low: It would be an advance of Canadian dollars, which would depend upon the approval given by Canadian banks and upon a promise given by His Majesty's Government that the sum might be remitted in five or 10 years. That is the point of real importance in the matter.
  I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will look into this point, because it is important. It is always being stressed on this side of the Committee, but His Majesty's Government do absolutely nothing about it. They say that it is due to the shortage of dollars, but in so

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  far as our trade position with Canada is now becoming better I would like the right hon. Gentleman to say that this matter will be one of the first things to be looked into when the dollar position is restored. It has often been said, and it cannot be said too often, that if we are to get the full benefit out of the tremendous resources of the British Commonwealth and out of the skill and quality of its people there must be a redistribution of people within the Commonwealth.
  I do not believe that the idea of mass migration that was popular in high places in Australia shortly after the war would be sensible, but it would be in the interests of this country—our purely selfish interests—as well as in the greater interests of the British Commonwealth, if His Majesty's Government did more to encourage and to facilitate emigration from this country to Australia, Canada, Southern Rhodesia and New Zealand in particular. More, I am certain, they could do.
  5.42 p.m.
  Mr. Gammans: The hon. Member for Holland with Boston (Mr. Butcher), who opened the Debate, and, indeed, all those who followed him, have dealt primarily with the question of emigration from this country to the Dominions. The only deviation from that line was that taken by the hon. Member for Stirling and Falkirk Burghs (Mr. MacPherson) who tried to bring into the Debate the very dangerous subject of this country accepting responsibility for emigration from India, for which we have no conceivable responsibility.
  I should like briefly to touch upon a matter which has hardly been mentioned this afternoon but which is one for which we have a certain responsibility, and that is emigration from overcrowded parts of the Colonial Empire, and from two areas in particular, Malta and certain islands in the British West Indies. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to say a word about Malta, especially as he is going to Australia. When this matter was raised in another place some time ago the Government spokesman there said:
  "His Majesty's Government will do everything to assist, if they are asked to do so."
  What does that mean? Who is to ask them? Malta, or Australia? I need not tell the right hon. Gentleman that the
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  problem of Malta is very nearly insoluble, unless the people of Malta are prepared to accept some form of family limitation, which is most unlikely. Unless it is solved by emigration, the island must remain a growing and permanent pensioner of this country, which the people of this country and of Malta do not want.
  The Maltese make first-class immigrants. I think the Australians will agree that the Maltese who have gone to Australia have become really good settlers. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will be able to tell the Committee whether he has any later statement to make than was made by the Government spokesman to which I have referred, and if any limiting factor exists, such as housing or reluctance on the part of the Government of Australia to accept Maltese. I do not think there is, and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will say something about Malta, which is as much a problem and a responsibility for this country as is actual emigration from these islands.
  The other colonial question relates to certain islands in the British West Indies. The two of which I am thinking are Barbados and Jamaica. Barbados is the same size as the Isle of Wight and has double the population. There is only one hope for maintaining a reasonable standard of living there, and it is some form of emigration. That is equally true, although not quite so seriously, of Jamaica. What has been done? There has been a commission, the Evans Commission, which has recommended migration to British Honduras and British Guiana. I would be the first to admit that emigration to either of those two places could not solve the problems of Barbados and Jamaica. Nevertheless, it would help. I know that this matter is not the direct responsibility of the right hon. Gentleman, but we are discussing emigration as a whole, in so far as this Committee is responsible. I hope that in regard to both Malta and the West Indies the right hon. Gentleman will be able to make a statement.
  5.46 p.m.
  Mr. Booth: This is one of the most important matters that this Committee can discuss. I am a thorough and unrepentant Anglo-Saxon. I believe that the contribution of this country in spreading its resources over the component parts of the Commonwealth is one

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  of the best guarantees of good living in the coming days. I am not at all amused by or interested in the claims from these benches or the benches opposite about who has done most for and shown most interest in emigration. To my way of thinking, the problem has hardly been tackled at all in the proper way.
  I am reminded of the old lady in London who shrugged her shoulders and said, "Australia? That's the place where we send convicts," at the time when her opposite number, an old lady in Sydney, was saying, "London? That is the shocking place where the convicts come from." Hon. Members have been talking about the problems of emigration, but I believe that housing problems, transport difficulties and currency complications will fall into their proper places if the House of Commons and the Government would make this great problem one of top-level importance.
  I remember the outbreak of the First World War. I looked at the population of Australia, which, I think, was about six million people. I read about the valour of the Australians and the great contribution they were going to make. I read equally about the valour of the Canadians. It was true, because I was with the Australians at Messines and with the Canadians at Vimy Ridge and I know all about that. It was positively true. I also knew that we could not get away from hard facts and acid figures. I knew when the six million Australians had been sorted out into people of immature years and people over military age and we had made allowances for the vital services being carried on how very few fighting men Australia could put into the field.
  I do not speak purely from the military point of view when I say that in view of the world conditions in which we are living and of what has happened in the last 25 years, we must have some regard to the probability that if Governments of the past, of any colour or calibre, had looked at this problem in the light of the commitments of the British Empire as it was then and of the Commonwealth as it now is; if there had been, in 1914, 50 million people in Canada, as there ought to have been, and 30 million in the Commonwealth of Australia instead of six million, as there could have been, the Kaiser's Germany would have hestitated a long while before entering into war in
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  1914. As a consequence we might not have had a 1939 war.
  We should not think only of British components of the Commonwealth of Nations. I believe that a country like France could be interested. I have in mind the great French contribution to the population in Canada, Canada is a living example of Gaul and Anglo-Saxon living together under good conditions and good government. We have to look at this in the light of the fact that there could be another war, though God forbid that there should ever be one. We should re collect the complete openness of the north of Australia in the last war and the talk of the complete evacuation of its population to the south. These matters are interlocked with the question of emigration. This country ought to have a say in the conditions of emigration, for there is no virtue in taking men and women from populated centres like Liverpool and Birmingham and putting them into equally populated centres like Sydney and Melbourne. That is no contribution to the solution of the problem.
  To talk all the afternoon about housing problems—they are manifest—to spend our time on currency impositions and to bleat about transport when the most important subject has not even been approached, is quite wrong, if not a complete waste of time, I hope that from hon. Members of all parties there will come a determination to see that emigration in the light of the well-being of the Commonwealth and the contribution that these people can make to the good government of the world shall have the earnest consideration of everyone here.
  5.52 p.m.
  Mr. John McKay: Listening to parts of this Debate, I began to wonder why we were discussing the subject. Was it of tremendous importance to the country? Was it a matter upon which there was a surging interest and a great desire in the country for something to be done? I have been unable to discover any great desire at this moment to spend any money upon it. Under what conditions ought we to be desirous of getting people away from the country?
  The first and fundamental condition should be that we had tremendous difficulty in employing them here. I presume that if we can employ our own people

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  effectively, our country is in a very good position and there is no crying need for us to give artificial encouragement to people to leave the country. Even if we had a certain amount of unemployment we should want some certainty when encouraging people to leave the country that they were going to a place where conditions were much better. I question very much whether there are other countries which are in a much better condition than our own. I believe that Englishmen have as much opportunity today in this country as they will have in other countries.
  In that case if we really want to encourage emigration, under what conditions should we do so? Once we have encouraged people to go out, should they not have some encouragement to return if they want to? Many of our people get assisted passages to Australia, Canada and other places, but when they reach their destination they find that the conditions are not quite what they expected and they become dissatisfied and want to return to this country. If I encouraged a friend to go to another country and met his expenses in doing so, and he then found that the conditions were not what he expected and he wished to return, I should consider that there was a duty upon me to give him the same encouragement and assistance to return as I gave him to emigrate.
  However, I do not believe that the time is even ripe for that. The need for this encouragement to emigrate does not appear to exist. It all depends, of course, upon the way at which one looks at the matter. If one looks at it from the viewpoint of a future war, one's ideas may be tremendously different from those due to other ways of looking at it. I believe that charity begins at home and that a family should be allowed to live together if it wishes to do so. The country is going along well, everyone is working and there is no unemployment difficulty.
  Therefore I do not believe that this is the time, particularly in view of our financial burdens, for us to go out of our way to spend any money in this direction. The time was perhaps some years ago, but if it should again happen that we cannot use our men effectively and we think they have a better opportunity elsewhere, it can be considered in a fresh light. Then it may be
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  worth while expending the necessary money to encourage our people to leave this country. For the moment, however, I see no necessity for spending money on this object when we are employing practically all our people.
  I have intervened to put those points because there has been too much unanimity on this subject. There is almost an assumption that there is a great demand by our people to emigrate but that they have not the necessary means. I do not think that is the position. People are emigrating, they are finding it is easy to get away, but not easy to get back. We want a free flow between countries. It is no use trying to make me believe that the Canadians or the Australians are out particularly for our good. They are ready in a friendly way to help if necessary because they want me men in Australia and Canada. That is their primary object, whereas our primary object should be to keep our people here if they want to stay and if we can give them fair conditions and full employment
  6.3 p.m.
  Captain Ryder: We are all indebted to the National Liberal Party for giving us a chance in this Debate and, until the hon. Member for Wallsend (Mr. McKay) rose, it seemed there was a wide measure of agreement for the need of emigration. Unanimity on the matter seemed to be distasteful to the hon. Member, but we should draw some satisfaction from the support we now see coming from the opposite side of the Committee. Indeed the hon. Member for Bolton, East (Mr. Booth) spoke with some force and emphasis which is encouraging. We welcome this Debate because we feel that the Government are lukewarm on the subject of emigration and are not doing enough about it. Therefore, I shall try to emphasise the importance of emigration because it is of much more urgency than has so far been indicated.
  First, there is the problem of housing our people. It has been estimated that it will take 20 years to work off the present names on the housing lists. Even if the Conservatives achieve their full hopes about the building programme, I am far from satisfied that it will provide a full solution of the housing problem. It is a great problem which cannot be solved

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  by the resources here at home. Our population is expanding at considerable speed, and standards are improving.
  Mr. Paget: Can the hon. and gallant Member suggest anywhere where people could emigrate and find a better housing programme than exists here? It is much worse everywhere else.
  Captain Ryder: The housing problem in the Dominions is capable of solution—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"]—but supposing here we built all the houses we want, sacrificing everything else, we should encroach on agricultural land, greatly increase the congestion on the railways, increase the length of time people have to wait in bus queues, and so on. From the point of view of housing alone, we should not only build all we can but should also provide facilities and encouragement for those who feel they can go abroad and start life in the Dominions. One of the things which reacts against people doing so is the erroneous belief that they are going to a foreign country. I am quite sure that this is a most urgent and pressing need if we are to overcome this great deficiency in the lives of many people, who long passionately to bring up their children in decent surroundings and now feel so depressed.
  I put housing first, but an even more important matter is that of defence. For generations we have rested secure behind the guns of the British Fleet. Now the advent of the atom bomb and, even more, the hydrogen bomb, have shown up the nakedness of our position. Surely we should realise that in this crowded island we provide a sore temptation to any man who feels reckless enough to start a war to try to blot out a large proportion of the British race? Therefore I would urge that the best means we can adopt for abolishing this temptation is to encourage those people who are able and willing, to go and build up the strength of the other countries of the Commonwealth. I consider it most unwise to hang back on this.
  It is admittedly a long-term policy and one which has no electoral appeal. There are many people who are opposed to this, from humble folk who cling to their slum street where they have lived all their lives, to vested interests of people who have
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  financial interests in the matter. They come forward in opposition and the favourite method is to over-state the problem, saying that unless we can export 30 million of our population, it will not get us anywhere at all. So we must have in mind some idea of the scale of the problem to be dealt with. I note that in 1922 we achieved our highest figure of 220,000. Now the average is more like 113,000. Maybe that is less than we have been taking into this country. Australia, on the other hand, in spite of the remarks made about housing, plans to take in some 200,000 a year. Canada and New Zealand have not given their figures.
  Our task is at once to discuss these matters with the Dominions and to find out what numbers they are prepared to take so that we can then set about trying to provide the necessary means to get them there. If, for instance, we could achieve a figure of 300,000 a year—I am not suggesting that that is desirable or possible, but let us suppose that that is the target figure—that would mean 6,000 emigrants a week or some 7,500,000 in 25 years, which would make a great improvement on our waiting lists for houses.
  We shall never achieve anything if we tackle this matter merely in a spasmodic, haphazard way. We must discuss it with the countries of the Commonwealth so that we can build up a steady and progressive plan, in which they can build the houses now so that when a shipping slump comes later we shall have the ships available to take full advantage of it. At present, however, I feel that the Government are not properly seized of the urgency of this problem and have not a proper plan. If we ignore the possibility which is now before us, if we ignore the developments amongst the races of Asia, if we overlook the lessons which our history books provide for us of the development of mankind throughout the ages, and if we fail to build up the strength of our Dominions, then in the long term, when we look ahead, there is little future for the British race.
  6.12 p.m.
  Mr. Paget: It has seemed to me in this Debate that the Committee have had some tendency to treat as a national problem something which is a European problem and to a considerable extent even a world problem. The problem of emigration, surely,

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  put in its simplest terms, is this: there are areas in the world where there are too many people for those areas to support, and there are other areas where there are not enough people to develop the natural resources. What is wanted is to move people from the first to the second kind of areas.
  When we consider this country, in which of those categories do we fall? I should have said in neither. This is a country which is proving itself capable of providing what is a pretty satisfactory way of life for the people who inhabit it, not perhaps the highest standard in the world, but a pretty satisfactory standard which is very high up in the world. There does not seem to me to be any case made out for reducing the population of these islands.
  Mr. Peter Smithers: Does the hon. and learned Member also believe that we can go on supporting that standard of living when the present favourable conditions in world markets no longer exist?
  Mr. Paget: Certainly, I do. I believe that we can go on maintaining, and indeed expanding, this standard of living still, and I do not think that we shall improve our chances by reducing our numbers. Our problem, in fact, has been rather to buy than to sell, and therefore when world markets fall and we can buy our imports cheaper—it may be that we also have to sell our exports cheaper—I do not see why, fundamentally, and after the readjustment which follows the dislocation, we should in the long run fear any serious or inevitable reduction in our standard of living. We can look forward, I think, to a normal expansion, but certainly our problem would not be improved, particularly with an ageing population, such as we have here—in fact, it would be made more difficult—by reducing that population.
  The hon. and gallant Member for Merton and Morden (Captain Ryder) referred to housing as one of the reasons why we should reduce the population of this island. If, however, we want to solve the housing problem, we want fundamentally to move people from places which are without houses to those which have houses.
  General Sir George Jeffreys: Where is that?
  Mr. Paget: I do not know whether hon. Members realise that in this country there is now something like one house to every four people of our population; that is to say, we have more housing per head of the population than anywhere else. If people are moved out of this country, they are being moved to a worse housing problem than that which faces us here. I do not want to go into the details and difficulties, for this is not a housing Debate, but I know perfectly well that the difficulty in this country is not so much a lack of houses as a maldistribution of population amongst the existing houses. The ratio of one house to every four people of the population is not really too bad. It is certainly a great deal better than is to be found anywhere else.
  A great many other Members may have shared my experience of having received a large number of letters from constituents who have succeeded in emigrating, in which they complain bitterly about the conditions, and particularly the housing conditions, which they have met in the Dominions and asking if there is not some possible way by which they could get home again. That is my experience, and I think that it is the experience of a good many other hon. Members.
  Captain Ryder: Does that not rather bear out the argument that emigration should be better planned? That is the very point which I was trying to make.
  Mr. Paget: What is meant by "better planned"? Is it intended that we should arrange for the houses to be built in the Dominions for the emigrants before their arrival?
  Captain Ryder: Yes.
  Mr. Paget: If so, why not build them here?
  Captain Ryder: Because of the space.
  Mr. Paget: Who is to build them?
  Mr. Baxter: Is the hon. and learned Member not aware that Australia is facing the problem of keeping the Commonwealth a "white" country and that the British majority in Canada is sinking to a minority? Has the hon. and learned Member any realisation that he comes from a Mother Country instead of talking about it like a spinster country?
  Mr. Paget: The hon. Member for Southgate (Mr. Baxter) is anticipating what I was going to say. I shall come to that in a moment.
  I wanted to deal with the other point, which is the question of defence. That, again, seems to me to be a completely bogus point. If we are to make this country less vulnerable, then one, two, three or even seven millions taken away from it will make no substantial difference. A million people could be taken out of London. That would not make it a substantially less vulnerable target than it is today. Again, from the point of view of building up the manpower of the Dominions for such a war, past experience is that the manpower of the Dominions always came over here to help us—and deeply grateful we were to them; but we are not substantially better off by having moved them from here in order to bring them back again.
  I agree with the hon. Member for Southgate that the real problem is that we are a Mother Country. It is highly desirable that there should be a continuous outflow on a moderate scale from this country to all our Dominions. The percentage of British blood and the amount of British feeling in the Empire should be maintained and continually refreshed by a properly planned emigration from this country. While that is taking place, however, there must be a compensating immigration into this country. We should regard this as a two-way traffic in the same way as in the past we have taken Huguenots and Flemish weavers, and in the same way as after the last war we brought populations from the Baltic provinces into this country.
  By every one of those infusions of blood into this country I believe this nation has been improved. This policy should be continued and, as a number of our people go to the Dominions, so should a number of people from Europe come into this country. The two things should be run on a more or less balancing level so that the population, certainly at this time when we are an ageing population, is not allowed to drop. If it is allowed to drop, we shall run into a great many economic difficulties.
  I have said that the problem here is a European rather than a national prob-
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  lem. The place where there are obviously more people than the country can support is Germany, and that is an explosive situation. Those homeless people in Germany, in the vast camps, mostly farmers driven from their ancient homes by the Bolsheviks and those who fled from behind the Iron Curtain, the expellees from the Sudetenland and the Polish Provinces, are concentrated in Germany and create an addition to the population of that reduced territory which it cannot support. Either those people are eventually going to win themselves a home by the sword, or they are going to find a home somewhere else in the world.
  There is the fundamental emigration problem which is facing Europe today, to find new homes for those people who are homeless in Germany. They are living in appalling conditions and they are people who are prepared to accept the pioneering conditions which emigrants from this country would not be prepared to accept. They are people who can be warned of exactly what they are going to and, provided they are given the tools, they can go to comparatively virgin country and build their own homes, as the original pioneers had to do. That pioneering life would be a vast improvement upon the frustration and misery of the camps in which they are existing today.
  That seems to be the first emigration job which is facing both Britain and Europe and that is a job to which we ought to give first place. I know the bitterness of war, but the Germans have proved admirable emigrants wherever they have gone. In America those of German descent were among the best troops who came to fight the Nazis. We have no more loyal citizens than the German inhabitants of Canada. Wherever Germans have gone to make new homes they have become loyal and enthusiastic citizens of that country and they are good stock.
  There is the problem, the really urgent problem, the movement of population problem which is facing Europe, and I hope that Europe will face it and give priority to those farmers in the Eastern provinces, at present camping under horrible conditions—and I have seen those conditions—in an overcrowded country that cannot support them.
  6.25 p.m.
  Captain Duncan: I welcome this Debate which has been so ably opened by my hon. Friend the Member for Holland with Boston (Mr. Butcher), particularly for the tone he set in his admirable speech. I regret, therefore, that the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) widened the Debate to such an extent that it would really be impossible to follow him. He mentioned housing, the Germans in Europe, and the whole host of other things far beyond the intended scope of the Debate as laid down in the opening speech of my hon. Friend.
  But on the whole I do welcome the unanimity which has been stressed in the Debate. I remember that in the days before the war the Labour Party were definitely against emigration. I remember sitting on the benches opposite and Mr. Lunn, as he then was, sitting on the Front Opposition Bench refusing to have anything to do with any scheme of Empire settlement. I remember the great work that was done by Sir Henry Page Croft, as he then was, the Member for Bournemouth, in making great speeches and going to an immense amount of trouble over Imperial settlement in Canada. Each time the Labour Party came down and opposed any scheme that was put forward. Therefore, I welcome the tone of the Debate today because, except for one hon. Member who said he wanted to voice the lack of unanimity, the general tenor of the Debate has been in favour of a policy of the distribution of the population of the Empire.
  There are various practical difficulties in the way and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman who is to reply will deal with them specifically. They have been mentioned by more than one of my hon. Friends. What is being done, for instance, in Australia to deal with housing? To what extent are we co-operating with Australia, or is it to be, in the eyes of His Majesty's Government purely an Australian matter? What is being done as far as Canada is concerned with regard to this £250 limit per year for four years on the export of currency? It really is hopeless to expect British people to go to Canada and set up in business or on a farm, and sell up everything in this country and settle with that very small sum with the high cost of living in Canada and
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  the prospect of a total sum, at the end of four years, of only £1,000.
  Mr. Malcolm MacPherson: Is not the hon. and gallant Member suggesting a completely false picture? Can he imagine farmers in this country today selling up complete farms to go to Canada, or businessmen doing the same?
  Captain Duncan: If the hon. Member will exercise patience, I shall give an instance of a man who did it.
  The third difficulty is the question of machinery. I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman what is happening to the review of the Empire Settlement Scheme. In another place there was a Debate a month or two ago in which it was stated that these schemes were under review. What progress has been made in the last few months in reviewing them? I agree that they do not come to an end until 1952, but people like to know well ahead what facilities will be available. Those are the three major questions with which I should like the right hon. Gentleman to deal.
  As I see the problem of inter-Imperial migration—and I wish to restrict myself to that problem, omitting from my remarks reference to the Germans and also to the Indians and the Pakistanis and even to the Maltese—it is in the form of a dilemma. Here we have this old country, with 50 million people in it. We have an enormous problem ahead of us to maintain them at the standard of life they now enjoy. I do not think anybody, including any hon. Gentleman opposite, really believes in his heart that the present boom conditions can last for ever. Problems will arise in the future although they have not yet arisen. Hon. Gentlemen opposite pride themselves on being the planners, but what is the Government plan in this connection to meet the circumstances of a time when things will not be so good as they are today.
  That is one side of the problem—50 million people crowded on to a small island, with all its problems of supply, employment and defence, an enormous problem into which I will not enter in the time at my disposal. At the other end of the scale there is the Empire—Australia, New Zealand and Rhodesia, Southern Rhodesia at the moment at all events—crying out for more people. The

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  Australian Minister for Immigration is crying out for people although he is not perhaps building enough houses quickly enough to house them. Canada, with the vast projects ahead there, is bound to welcome an increased population. Are those people to be British or are they to be people of other races? From both the British and the Imperial points of view, I desire to see those opportunities abroad filled by British people rather than by foreigners.
  We have in our ancient story a tremendous Imperial tradition. We may not have been the first in the age of discovery but we were one of the first. We may not have been the first in the age of exploitation but there too we were one of the first, and we have no dishonourable tradition as a nation in the exploitation—I use that word in its correct connotation—of Colonial and foreign resources. We have a great heritage. We are now becoming an old people, not only old in years but old in the balance of our population. The problem, the dilemma is, should we encourage our young people to go or should we discourage them from going because we want the young people here to help to maintain the old?
  As one who has always been an Imperialist, and I make no excuse for that word, I say that our heritage of Empire must go on. I believe that we still have a duty to our kith and kin overseas. I believe that for strategic and defence reasons it is vital in our own interests, as it is in the interests of our Empire, that we should discharge that duty. There is the other point of view, however. Last week I was in one of the wildest glens in my constituency. The teacher there told me, "I have had some bad luck this week. Two of my best pupils have left." I said, "Where have they gone?" She said, "To Australia. They were my best pupils, coming from the best of homes, that of the most respectable man and wife one could meet. The family have gone to Australia." I asked, "Why did they go?" Her reply was, "Because the man, a respectable hard-working fellow, thought there were greater opportunities in Australia than there would ever be in this country again."
  I shall give one more instance. An ex-Service man came back from the War and wished to set up a fish shop. After
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  a great deal of difficulty in these days of shortages he managed to get a place which he could convert into a fish shop. But the Town and Country Planning Act had by that time been passed and the development charge in that wee town in Scotland would have been £102. The man said, "A charge of £102 in addition to all my other expenses in getting into this shop! This is no country for me." The next week he went to Canada.
  I have given two instances of people who made up their own minds, whatever we here are doing today, whatever the Canadian Government or the Australian Government may do, that there are better opportunities overseas in the Empire than there are in this country, either because of Government controls such as the Town and Country Planning Act, or for other reasons. Those are the things which people of "go" and of energy but of small means are thinking about in large numbers. I ask the Government to make it possible for those people who want to go to be given the freedom and encouragement to go, and not to put impediments such as restrictions of currency and other difficulties in their way. I hope that the Minister in his reply will show that if he cannot in these days encourage migration, nothing will be done to discourage it, but that those people who wish to go to make a fuller life abroad will be given every chance to do so.
  6.38 p.m.
  The Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations (Mr. Gordon-Walker): I join with all those who have expressed our thanks to the hon. Member for Holland with Boston (Mr. Butcher) for raising this matter. As several hon. Gentlemen have said, there is need for new thinking on this old problem. We have to fit our migration policy into a general population policy and we have not had time either as a Government, or for that matter as a country, to digest all the arguments in the population reports which must be considered in relation to any population or migration policy.
  It is also clear, as an hon. Member has pointed out, that there are many Departmental interests involved, which means a great deal of co-ordination. We shall also need to have discussions with the Commonwealth countries concerned before we can arrive at a proper migration policy.

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  The main reason why it takes time to formulate a migration policy is that the Royal Commission on Population has only just reported. It is also a very complex matter, a great deal more complex than some hon. Gentlemen who have spoken in this Debate appear to think.
  It seems to me that many of our old traditional ideas about migration need revision, or at any rate re-examination. In some of the speeches we have heard today there were a good many echoes of the 19th century, in which there was a rapidly increasing population in this country and in which there was an automatic acceptance by everyone that emigration was desirable because on the whole agricultural workers went out and created markets for our goods and provided food supplies. It was a very simple problem in the days when England was the leading industrial country. All that has changed completely. It would be madness to base a 19th century migration policy on a 20th century population and one has to think the whole thing out again.
  Then we had the inter-war years with the new factor of trying to get rid of unemployment by exporting the unemployed physically, and by sending away men who would not have work. The hon. and gallant Member for Angus, South (Captain Duncan) said that in the old days the Labour Party used to oppose migration. I would point out that the entire circumstances in which the subject is discussed have changed. In those days when the Empire Settlement Act was being enacted, the whole idea was that the Commonwealth countries overseas were a sort of workhouse in which we deposited our people—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."] It was certainly a part of the policy of the Government of the day to help to solve unemployment by emigration. Several hon. Members have said today that we might be in the same state again; that there might not be work for the people here and it might be better to get them overseas. Perhaps I should not have used the word "workhouse" and I withdraw that word. But I still adhere to the principle that I was illustrating; it was an attempt to solve unemployment by physically moving the people from this country to other countries.
  As my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget)
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  said, there is the entirely new fact—or it is now very much more of a fact—of an ageing population. It is a complete fallacy to think that the arithmetical reduction of population necessarily solves any problem at all in terms of unemployment, if that should come upon us. I think there is a lot in what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Wallsend (Mr. McKay) and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton. Were we an isolated country and not a member of a Commonwealth, it is at least very arguable whether we would want any emigration at all. It was a striking thing to note that hon. Gentlemen who were most enthusiastic for emigration took the most pessimistic view about the future of this country. They said that the boom could not last and there would be bound to be mass unemployment. Well, I do not know, and people who take an optimistic view of the future do not think that that is necessarily an acceptable idea.
  In the conditions of full employment and a Welfare State, there is certainly no longer the need to send people away in order to solve the problem of unemployment. I would remind hon. Members that in this country there is a scarcity of labour, and if we send people abroad—as I shall argue in a moment that we should do—it creates a greater scarcity of labour which in turn creates further problems for us. A point which has not been made, and which has to be considered, is that the capital investment in a child who has reached the age of 16 is very much greater, and that that is lost capital investment if that child emigrates.
  A point which has certainly not been mentioned is that if that migrant goes to another country which has a good and well developed social security scheme, and if the country to which it goes is to keep up the level of its housing, schools and health services, it will involve that country in a considerable amount of capital investment. That is one of the problems with emigration today. It is a matter of large-scale capital investment, both for the country from which the migrants leave and for the countries to which they go. The capital investment is on a far greater scale than in the 19th century. The countries of the Commonwealth are rightly eager that they should have British emigrants, but

  99
  they are beginning to realise that it involves them in a considerable problem of capital investment if they propose to push up the figures very high.
  We of course are not an isolated country. We are the centre of a very great Commonwealth. For that reason—not to get rid of our potential unemployed or house lists and all these other things, but because we are the Mother Country—we do in fact assist, and are in fact encouraging, migration to the Commonwealth from this country. We do not regard a person who goes to the Commonwealth as a loss in any sense. I entirely agree with what hon. Gentlemen opposite have said, but I wish that they would have a word with certain Conservative candidates who, in the stress of the election, sometimes talked as if anybody who left for Australia was leaving a sinking ship; and also to their ally the hon. and gallant Member for Angus, South, who ended his speech on that note.
  The solidarity and increasing strength of the Commonwealth depends on the increasing migration of people from this country to those countries who wish to receive our migrants. We must take account of the fact that countries like Australia, New Zealand and Canada will in any case be receiving migrants from other than British sources, and it is all the more important that there should be an adequate flow of British migrants to those countries, if they will have them. Our firm policy is to facilitate and to encourage the outflow of all those people who wish to leave these islands, although we cannot compel them to go to the countries of the Commonwealth who wish to receive them. That is just a formal policy which we state and restate. We have in fact been carrying it out with vigour.
  There has been a tendency to presume that there is a sort of constriction on the part of the Government. I know these things are said in speeches, but in fact our policy has been to facilitate the outflow of people from this country to the Commonwealth. As a matter of fact, since the end of the war, no fewer than 470,000 people, in round figures, have left this country for the Commonwealth. I must point out that a very large number of people, not the same people, have come in, and the net outflow is, roughly
  100
  speaking, 260,000 since the end of the war. But the figure which reflects our policy is the gross outflow, and that is roughly 470,000 since the end of the war.
  Shipping and housing are the two prime difficulties that we have to deal with, and I was very glad that the hon. Member for Abingdon (Sir R. Glyn) paid a tribute to the shipping lines for the great endeavours they have made—I may say with the co-operation and encouragement of the Government—to help to solve this problem. I thought that the hon. Member for Melton (Mr. Nutting) was talking nonsense, and very ill-informed nonsense. He has explained to me that he could not be present when I replied, but I told him that I would have to say this about him. He talked about there being only 12 ships available, and that it had all been done by the Australians. In fact, all these things are done in close cooperation, and now, in early 1950, the number of ships on the Australian run is 25, and not 12. Ten of these are exclusively for migrants and there is another one which is soon going on that run, the "New Australia." The chief effort has been made in the case of Australia, but efforts have also been made to help the migrant movement to New Zealand and Canada.
  There is no doubt that the important problem and the real difficulty is housing at the other end. I think we can claim that we have now an outflow of migrants which is equal to what can be absorbed by the housing accommodation available in the various Commonwealth countries who want these migrants. I think it was the hon. and gallant Member for Blackpool, North (Mr. Low) who asked about the Australian Housing Mission which has been over here mainly for fact-finding purposes, in the first place to look into the question, here and on the Continent, of providing prefabricated houses for export to Australia. We have given them all the help we can, both here and in Europe. We are in a difficult position so far as timber is concerned, but we shall do everything possible to meet the placing of orders which may be placed as a result of this mission, which was in fact not an order-placing, but a fact-finding mission.
  In the main we cannot really make a very big contribution by building houses at the other end of the world. Primarily

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  that must be an Australian job, though we shall help where we can.
  Several hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Holland with Boston, asked about the arrangements for transferability of social services within the Commonwealth. I agree that that is a most important factor which creates the free movement which we ought to have in our Commonwealth. The position in Canada is complicated, as always, by the dollar problem, but the Canadians themselves have lowered to one year the period necessary for qualification for family allowances which is their greatest, or most important, social service.
  In Australia all services are available to migrants on arrival except old age pensions about which we are now in discussion with Australia. In New Zealand there is reciprocity over family allowances and we are discussing the rest of the field. These are reciprocal matters. They involve both Governments in potential cost. They have to be worked out with care. These matters cannot be rushed, but we are making steady progress. Some progress has been made since the last Debate.
  I come to the question of the limit of £1,000, spread over four years, which can be taken to Canada. We came to this decision with the greatest unhappiness. This is the one exception to what we have been doing to facilitate the flow of migrants, and we have done it solely for dollar reasons. We could have no purpose in doing it unless it was absolutely necessary. Hon. Gentlemen must make up their minds. We cannot both save dollars and spend them. Quite an important amount of dollars is involved.
  Before 1948 when this limit was imposed, dollars to the value of £17 million to £20 million were going every year with migrants to Canada. In 1949 this had been reduced to £8,500,000. The figures are not exact and they include Canada and the United States. There is still an important quantity of dollars involved. I am no better economist than the hon. Member for Blackpool, North (Mr. Low), but perhaps I am about as good. I think that all these loan devices are only devices for moving dollars from England to Canada.
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  I cannot promise on behalf of the Government that we will give absolute top priority to this matter as the dollar situation eases. There are other matters to be considered. There is the question of timber for housing in this country. There are even questions about whether it is more just to allow legacies left to people in Canada which have been blocked by exchange control to be transmitted before capital. A number of factors must be taken into account. However, as the dollar situation improves we shall give very high priority to increasing the amount of capital which can be carried with a migrant to Canada. I shall discuss with my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer the point made by one or two hon. Members about whether it would not be possible, in some cases, to allow a larger portion of the £1,000 to be carried in the first year rather than that it should be divided over the four years.
  I should like to pay my tribute to the various Commonwealth Houses in London, who have now admirable systems, which have enormously improved since before the war, for sorting out, informing and helping people who are to migrate to their countries. The system now works extremely well and very good care is taken of the migrants when they reach the end of their journey. Just as our policy has changed with the disappearance of unemployment, so has the policy and attitude of Governments elsewhere. Migrants were not treated so well between the wars. There were a lot of failures, and that did harm. All that has changed, because the Commonwealth Governments also have full employment. That makes a lot of difference to the attitude towards human beings who are moving from one country to another.
  There are still people who come back disgruntled. I have on a number of occasions looked into this question. The numbers are very small indeed, and these cases often get much greater publicity than they merit. None the less there are some, and we should reduce them to the lowest possible minimum. In almost every case they are people who did not go under an assisted scheme. They went under their own steam without fully informing themselves about housing difficulties and so forth. It is most important, if anybody is helping a friend with

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  capital, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wallsend seems to do frequently, to make sure that the person knows all about the conditions. There are still many hard conditions for new migrants in the countries to which they go.
  In this matter we should act not as a Government and an Opposition but as a Parliament and a people, because this will be a continuing policy as we begin to frame a proper population policy into which we can fit an emigration policy. We must not only consider the optimum population of Australia and Canada, but also the optimum population of this country. We cannot assume that it is automatically right and proper to take people out of this country. We must try to make up our minds—and here I might say that hon. Gentlemen who find it difficult to accept planning in general seem to jump at planning human beings in the mass—on the most difficult problem of what makes people stay in one place or move to another.
  I do not know—and I do not know how anybody can tell for a long time—whether there will be a natural desire for people to go, without any encouragement or facilities, in the proper sort of quantities to the Commonwealth. We cannot judge from the position after the war. After all wars there seems to be a sudden rush. There was after the last war and after the 1914–18 war. There then arises the question whether there should be special inducements by allowances, subsidy or propaganda. We shall have to consider in particular the question of the assisted passage scheme to Australia which expires, or has to be renewed, in March next—if it is to be renewed. I do not know. We are thinking about that.
  I am not sure whether a subsidy to encourage people to leave may be part of an outmoded and out of date policy. Certainly, it can only play a very small part in the cost of migration. An important factor will be the degree to which the receiving countries, the Commonwealth countries at the other end, are prepared to put capital into this. That may be the final limiting factor when we have finally solved the problem of shipping.
  We must decide not only whether we should encourage migration to the
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  Commonwealth, but whether we should take any steps to discourage migration to non-Commonwealth countries. That must be considered. We certainly want migration from other Commonwealth countries to this country. It is most important that there should be a movement about the whole Commonwealth. We want a net outflow from this country, but we want it made up by a bigger outflow counterbalanced by an inflow. That has been happening since the war and it is to be encouraged. It is most important that New Zealanders, Canadians and others should come to help us and to settle and work in this country.
  In spite of some strictures passed on us in perorations today, we can claim that Britain since the war has been the country with the greatest emigration and immigration record of any country in the world. We have been doing this on a very great scale. A problem which we have already had to face and about which we have taken important decisions is whether we are to allow non-British migrants into this country to balance the British emigrants who go to Commonwealth countries, on the assumption that we need an optimum population. For example, if we send 100,000 people a year to Commonwealth countries, should we bring in a similar number from non-British countries to make up the balance? I think that our policy since the war, which has been to do that, has been wise. It is easier for us, with 50 million people, to absorb 100,000 people from non-British sources than if they went straight to Commonwealth countries, which would be the alternative. It may even help to solve the German problem mentioned by my hon. and learned friend the Member for Northampton.
  One hon. Gentleman said that we want much more of a balanced emigration, balanced by age, sex and skill, than we have had in the past, though we have made great progress there. We have a system now of very close collaboration and discussion with Commonwealth Governments and Houses about the sort of people for whom they advertise, and so on. I think that we should have to carry this further than we have done, but the practice has developed to a great extent already.
  Finally, I do not think that when we discuss this problem of migration we

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  should think only of people who move permanently. There should be large-scale movements of people who want to spend their working lives in some other part of the Commonwealth than that in which they are normally resident. I am very glad that the High Commissioner for India in London said in a speech the other day that there are today more British people concerned in trade and commerce in India than there were at the time when India attained her independence. That is very good news and that sort of thing is very much to be encouraged. It is another facet of migration that we should not forget.
  I hope I have said enough to persuade the hon. Gentleman that this Government not only says that it has a policy for facilitating migration to the Commonwealth, but that it has a pretty creditable record in that direction since the war, and certainly a much better record, with a much more controlled and a greater planned achievement than in any comparable period before in our history. I hope that this Debate will have the effect of encouraging still more people to think about those very grave and still unsolved problems which attach to the whole question of migration.
  My own view is that the greatest contribution we can make by migration to the strength and future of the Commonwealth is by finding a way of increasing our own population here, to some extent by immigration but also by means of the natural increase. That is a very important fact. The people who want to empty Britain in order to populate the Commonwealth are pursuing an extremely short-sighted and stupid policy. We have to keep the reservoir full, if we are to be able to people the Commonwealth countries, in so far as those countries will accept British people.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

  TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  That a further sum, not exceeding £30, be granted to His Majesty towards defraying the charges for the following services connected with Town and Country Planning for the year ending on 31st March, 1951, namely:

  £

  Class V., Vote 12, Ministry of Town and Country Planning

  10

  Class V., Vote 14, Department of Health for Scotland

  10

  Class V., Vote 13, Central Land Board

  10

  Total

  £30

  7.3 p.m.
  Mr. Thornton-Kemsley: In asking the Committee to turn its eyes from problems of Empire emigration inwards to our own land, and to consider the problems which arise in the administration of the Town and Country Planning Act, 1947, and the corresponding Scottish Act of the same year, I think I am right in stating that this is the first occasion on which we have debated the administration of these Acts. There have been two Debates in another place on the administration of the Town and Country Planning Acts, and, in this House, we have on various occasions discussed certain of the regulations which were issued as a result of the Acts themselves.
  This is the first occasion upon which we have considered, as a whole, the administration of the Town and Country Planning Acts in this country, which is rather surprising, because the Act itself was never fully considered in this House. Owing to the operation of the Guillotine, which fell upon this Measure and also upon the Transport Act, over 50 of the 120 Clauses of the Act and six out of the 11 Schedules were not discussed at all, either in Committee or upon the Floor of the House. It is the more surprising since certain aspects of this administration, notably the development charge procedure laid down in Part VII of the Act, have given rise to the greatest dissatisfaction in the country and to the widespread desire that these provisions, at any rate, should be speedily and drastically amended.
  Let me say, at the outset, that I recognise with some regret that the rules of order prevent us this evening from discussing Amendments to the Act itself,

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  and on that point I would say only this. The Government have shown themselves by more than one recent decision to be alive to the wishes of the electorate and sensitive to the suggestions of the Opposition. We had only to give notice that we wanted to debate the direction of labour and the offending Order was quickly withdrawn. The food points followed, and, shortly after that, the "irresponsible suggestion" which was made by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, that petrol should be taken off the ration, was accepted by the Government. We have, indeed, entered upon a phase which seems likely to be recognised as Government by the Opposition.
  Few announcements would give greater satisfaction in the country today than that the Government intend to amend the Town and Country Planning Act. No one can tell how long this Government will last, and, if it should survive to face a second Session, I am quite certain that support will be forthcoming from every quarter of the House for a Bill directed principally to the correction of anomalies and injustices which have shown themselves since 1948, and, in particular, the injustices and anomalies contained in Parts VI and VII of the English Act and the corresponding Scottish provisions. But I recognise that we must confine ourselves to questions of administration under the Act, and, for my part, I prefer to devote what I have to say to four principal suggestions, all of which could be carried out by means of regulations under the Act.
  During the passage of the Bill through the House, after the weeks and months spent in Standing Committee on the Bill upstairs, those of us who took part will remember the Debates which we had on Report and Third Reading. They will remember how often it was suggested that the Act would impose a variable development charge, and the suggestion, made in the Uthwatt Report and in the White Paper of 1944, that some incentive to develop should be left in the hands of the developer, which gave rise to the further suggestion, not least by the then Minister of Town and Country Planning, that this was a useful possibility of encouraging positive planning by imposing a lower development charge in
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  respect of developments which were in the national interest, together with the encouragement of development where we wanted development to take place.
  These possibilities, which seemed so desirable to many of us and were welcomed by so many on this side of the Committee, were later rendered abortive by the introduction of regulations which imposed a flat 100 per cent. development charge. This fixed the development charge at the whole of the difference between what is now called consent value—the value of the property with consent to develop it in the way proposed—and refusal value, which, broadly speaking, is its value for existing use. It seemed to many of us then—and I remember saying so in Debate—that this failure to provide for the kind of incentive which the Uthwatt Committee and which the White Paper of 1944 had advocated, this failure to provide even I per cent. of inducement to prospective development, would result, as it has, in fact, resulted, in a lack of incentive to develop. The extent of this tendency is somewhat masked at present by restrictions upon capital investment, but it exists nevertheless, as every surveyor knows.
  I am not going to say anything tonight which I cannot substantiate by practical illustration. As a chartered surveyor there come to my notice, both in my own practice and in the practice of some of my friends, many examples which I could bring to the attention of the Committee. Let me say at once that I am not bringing forward these examples tonight simply because I want the Government to take them up individually, but because they are typical of many that I could give to substantiate the statements that I make in this Debate. I will give a few examples of the deterrent effect upon desirable development of the imposition of the 100 per cent. development charge.
  The first is the case of the former Turkish Baths in Northumberland Avenue, not very far from this House and known, no doubt, to some hon. Members. It was proposed to convert those baths into offices, and the development charge suggested was in the neighbourhood of £40,000. That figure was reduced, after discussion, to £24,000, and, at that stage, the developers considered that the scheme was not worth proceeding with and

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  abandoned it. Then there was the case of a large Victorian house in a business area in Nottingham. The occupier of that house proposed to release the ground floor for use as four consulting rooms—a very desirable project in the public interest. The development charge proposed in respect of this change of use was £4,000, and the development was abandoned.
  Another Nottingham case was in respect of staff and stock room accommodation over a row of shops. The proposal there was to change the use and to turn the accommodation into offices. The development charge proposed was £7,000, and, again, the proposal was abandoned. Another case was that of a commercial property in Bristol which it was proposed to redevelop by the erection of buildings for milk distribution. The value of the site was not increased by more than about £5,500, which was the estimated cost of building, and, therefore, the development charge ought, in fact, to have been nil or, at any rate, purely nominal. But, in fact, a charge of £1,150 was proposed, and the redevelopment was abandoned in consequence.
  Just one further example which concerns a laundry at Bexley, in Kent, with land opposite upon which the owner proposed to erect a workers' canteen. Though the proposed development charge was only £250—in this case there was no quarrel with the amount, which was very reasonable and which was thought by the owner's advisers to be very reasonable—the owner abandoned the project on principle as he considered that provision for the welfare of his workers, which would in any case cost him several thousand pounds, from which he would derive no direct benefit, ought not to be further penalised by the assessment of a development charge.
  Personally, I should like to see development charges restricted to 75 per cent., as proposed in the Uthwatt Report, which would give intending developers an incentive to carry through projects which accord with the needs of the day and the requirements of the development plan. In addition, I should like to see provision made for the charge to be reduced still further by ministerial regulation in the case of specified classes of development in particular areas, thus enabling the Minister to give practical encouragement to
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  positive development which, from time to time, accords with the national needs.
  I am quite certain that it is important that not only should justice be done, but that it should appear to be done. However willing district valuers may be to discuss with applicants the amounts of the determinations which they make on behalf of the Central Land Board—and they are very willing indeed to discuss those determinations—there ought to be some impartial tribunal to whom an appeal might be made in the case of failure to agree. This, I am certain, is the more important since it is becoming clearer with every month that passes that the development charge procedure is resulting in what it was doubtless intended to be, a new method of levying indirect taxation. Lest it should be said that the giving of a right of appeal would impose further delays to those which I shall shortly describe, I would add that the development should be allowed to proceed in the case of appeal subject to the developer giving security for the amount claimed by the Central Land Board pending the result of the appeal.
  My first point is, therefore, the undesirability of a 100 per cent. development charge, and my second concerns what are called "changes of use." I think it is very generally agreed that control over the changes of the use to which properties are put is unnecessarily detailed, and that rigidity in this respect is hampering development which, in many cases, is in the public interest. Once a development plan has been approved, it ought not to be necessary for owners to obtain planning permission to change the present use to which their land is put to any other use which accords with the zoning of the development plan. Until the plan is approved, planning consent may be necessary, and probably will be necessary, in the interest of good planning.
  In few cases, if in any, ought it to be necessary to levy a development charge upon these changes of use. Personally, I would do away altogether with charges for change of use. We live in a world of change and to fine a man—for that is what it amounts to—for performing a public service by changing the use of his lands or his buildings to a purpose which accords with the needs of the day is neither good sense nor good planning.

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  But since the Act requires the levying of some charge for changes of use I must confine myself, for debating purposes, to the plea that the Regulations which, in this respect, impose far too detailed and complex a control, be amended in ways which I shall presently suggest. During the long Committee stage on the English Bill and the corresponding Scottish Bill I formed the fairly strong impression that the party opposite felt sincerely and strongly that a man ought not to be allowed to reap any benefit from increased values which he himself had done nothing to create. It seems to me that the converse has not been squarely faced.
  Let us take the case of a country house, the kind of house that until comparatively recently, and by that I mean within the present century, was worth a large amount for private occupation. Now, owing to changes of needs, owing to changed requirements, changing social conditions and owing, above all, to the high rate of taxation and to the incidence of Death Duties, these houses are what is commonly called a drug on the market. Owners are rendering themselves liable to what again I must call a heavy fine by the imposition of development charges if they attempt to recover some small part of the loss they have sustained by selling their houses for some purpose which accords with present day needs. I wonder if the Committee realises that, apart altogether from industrial uses, there are under the existing regulations, no fewer than nine different classes of use to which a house of the size and type to which I am referring might be put. Each one of these uses requires a separate determination of the development charge.
  I know that the Minister has, and I believe that many hon. Members have, the most admirable memorandum on the Town and Country Planning Act published in May, 1950, by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. May I say, in parentheses, that the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors has 17,000 members, including myself, and that it appointed a committee of 24 members who sat for six months examining in detail the administration of this Act. It was a most representative cross-section of private practitioners and public servants, including county planning officers, eminent planning consultants and experts in planning law.
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  Their recommendations on this question of changes of use are contained in Chapter 7 of their report. They should be summarised because I advocate that these be adopted by an amendment of Statutory Instrument No. 955 of 1948 and corresponding amendments to another regulation. There it is suggested that the classes should be very widely amalgamated. At present, for example, Class 1, broadly speaking, deals with shops and Class 2, broadly speaking, with offices. It is suggested that these should form one use class and that there should be no development charges if one changed the use of premises from offices to shops and vice versa.
  It is suggested that Class B should consist of industrial buildings. Light industrial building are at present in Class 3, general industrial buildings in Class 4 and warehouses and depositories in Classes 10 and 11. It is suggested that all these should be included in one sort of light industrial class and that the third category should be all those premises which are used for special industrial purposes and which are at present covered by Classes 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 of the present regulations.
  I could elaborate on this, but I do not propose to weary the Commitee. It is all set out in the proposals made by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, with the additions of one extra class which would cover all residential purposes. They will thus make, in all, six categories, instead of the present 22. That would be a very desirable amendment. Although it is not strictly relevant to the argument I am advocating, every simplification which can be made on these lines will reduce the claims on the global £300 million fund. It will help to lessen the injustices which will arise if that fund is distributed in the way at present proposed.
  Let me pass to the third point I want to make, about delay—the time taken by planning authorities to give decisions upon applications for planning permission. The one to two months laid down as a maximum tend to become a minimum. In London, the practice seems to have grown up, immediately upon receipt of an application for planning permission, of requesting an extension of time from one to two months. Theoretically an applicant who is unwilling to agree to an extension of time may appeal to the Minister. In practice, the appeals to the Minister are

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  not dealt with in less than three or four months, so the right of appeal is of little practical use. A particular irritating form of delay is that experienced when application is made during the normal holiday months, because for a period of two or three months the committees seem to go into a state of suspended animation and nothing gets considered at all. I hope the Minister will look into this.
  I should like to give one or two examples. One was at Sanderstead. Application for development of an estate was made in November, 1948. Notice of refusal was issued by the planning authority in April, 1949. An appeal was lodged in May, and the Minister fixed a hearing for 4th November, 1949. It so happened that the professional adviser to the owner was quite unable to manage that date of 4th November. He informed the Ministry and the only other date they seemed able to give him was 20th January this year. The hearing of the appeal was held up from the beginning of November to 20th January, and no decision has yet been given, although over 18 months have elapsed since the original planning application was made.
  Let me give an example from Central London. A bombed site which was formerly occupied by warehouses and offices was to be used temporarily, pending a licence to rebuild, for the erection of wooden huts for which permission had been given for use as offices and storage. Negotiations over the liability for development charge dragged on for nearly two years. The first assessment was £300, the second assessment was £100, the third £940, and the final assessment was nil. There is a further example from Westminster. Application for consent to change the use of land was made on 2nd November, 1949. It was refused on 10th December. An appeal was entered on 9th January this year. The hearing was on 21st April and an official intimation has been given in the last few days that the appeal will not be allowed. There has been a delay of seven months since the making of the original appeal.
  I am sure that one of the chief causes of delay is the number of consents that are required under the Act. For example, in the case of a proposed industrial development it is necessary first of all to get an industrial certificate from the President of the Board of Trade under
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  Section 14 (4) of the Act as regards the location of the proposed expansion. One has to get an application for a building licence, an application for bylaw consent, an application for planning permission and an application for determination of development charge.
  In the case of industrial development, until it is known whether one is to get an industrial certificate from the Board of Trade and whether one will get the application for a building licence, there is no point in going to the trouble and expense of putting in all the other applications, requiring, as they do, drawings and plans, which it would be a complete waste of time and money to make until one knows whether those first two points are to be met. In Scotland, I am glad to say, the decision is given very much more speedily. There, we have a combined form of application for planning permission, by-law consent, and determination of development charge. I recommend the Minister to have a look at that and see whether that can be applied to England and Wales as well.
  My fourth and final point deals with the way in which development charges are assessed. We all know of examples of the wide disparity that has been made between the original assessment by district valuers and the amount finally agreed. I heard this morning of a case in Faringdon Road in London. A site was being developed for the use of an American Press organisation. The development charge quoted was £25,000, and after negotiations it was settled at £4,000. I do not cite that example as being particularly wrong. I think the district valuers have an immensely difficult task, and that they are doing it as well as they possibly can. I think these wide disparities are often due to the fact that district valuers are pressed to give an assessment of what a development charge is likely to be without being given full information. When they meet the proposed developer face to face, as, I am glad to say, they do so often, and discuss the matter with him over the table, they often find that when they get fresh information the development charge ought not to be so much.
  I am not blaming the district valuers one bit. I think they are doing a very difficult job as well as it can be done. At the same time, I must say that the

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  high amounts asked lead in many cases not only to the abandonment of desirable schemes of development, examples of which I have already given the Committee, but they make it difficult for the man of moderate means who does not employ and cannot afford professional help to undertake development. This is hitting the poor man hardest and I think the Minister ought to consider that point. It is very hard on the man who does not employ a professional adviser to represent him before the district valuer.
  I think there is a remedy for this. I would not have mentioned these things unless I had thought there was a remedy. I think a remedy can be imposed by regulation or by direction from the Minister. The remedy is for the Minister to lay down by regulation some statutory basis of valuation. Under Section 61 of the Act there is laid down in some detail the basis to be adopted in ascertaining development values. Similar provision should be made by regulation in respect of valuations for development charges. The statutory basis for development charges should be as definite as possible and it should be set out plainly in terms somewhat similar to those used in the Second Schedule of the War Damage Act, 1943.
  I feel that Government action has destroyed the market by creating a monopoly value. It is the more important that the principles upon which valuers are to base their valuations should be clearly stated. The levying of a development charge is a taxing device, and we ought to be told the basis upon which the tax is to be levied. I am well aware that this is a highly technical problem, and I think it will be sufficient if I refer the Minister to the memorandum to which I have referred, issued by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, where the basis suggested is set out in Chapter 7 The essential thing, in my view, is that the basis of valuation under Parts VI and VII of the Act should be the same.
  Let me give an example. I was tempted to allude to it at Question time today, if there had been time, on Question No. 2 which was asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir J. Mellor). This is the last case that I shall quote. There was brought to my notice a case of a row of
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  houses at Woodford Green in Essex, which were thought suitable for conversion to shops. A claim for loss of development rights was submitted, but the optional part of Form S.1 was not completed as the agents were in communication with the district valuer for a preliminary assessment of development charge in respect of one of those five houses which it was proposed to convert into a shop at once.
  Last March the agents were served with Form L.39 in respect of the properties, on the grounds that since further development was not likely to add more than one-tenth to the restricted value, the owner was not thought to qualify for compensation. The Minister knows that it is stated on that form that if the owner objects the Central Land Board will require to know the development proposed and the additional value which will attach to the properties in respect of this. The Central Land Board are pressing for this information and have stated that unless it is provided by 28th June this year no consideration can be given to the claim. Meanwhile, the district valuer has said that the development charge on the house which is at once to be converted into a shop will be £400, which is greatly in excess of the 10 per cent. increase on the present value of the house.
  I remember Sir Malcolm Trustram Eve saying to us upstairs, and telling chartered surveyors and others—I used to go round listening to him—"What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander." If we have one basis for valuations under Part VI of the Act and another basis for valuations under Part VII, we do not achieve that. There must be the same basis for both valuations. Why should the district valuer whack in a charge of well over 10 per cent. in respect of one development when, for exactly the same development, the Central Land Board say that it is well under 10 per cent. and adds, "We will not allow anything; we will wipe out your claim under Part VI of the Act."
  I have taken too long and I apologise to the Committee for having done so. Let me summarise. A Government spokesman in another place said recently that the Minister had called for a report from the Central Land Board on improvements which might be made in the administration of the Act. Has the Minister received that report? I understand

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  that he will reply at the end of this Debate and I hope that he will then tell the Committee whether he has received that report and, if he has, whether he is ready to announce some more "experiments in freedom." I hope very much that he is. Above all, I hope he will give us some hope of an amending Act, should this Parliament last to another Session.
  Short of that, I urge upon him the four points I have tried to make today. First, that he should create incentives for development which accords with development plans by reducing the rate of charge to 75 per cent. or, at most, 80 per cent. Second, that he should simplify the regulations for payment of charges on change of use. Third, that he should continue the efforts which I know he is making to reduce to the minimum the causes of delay. Fourth, that he should lay down, in agreement with the representatives of the surveying profession, the basis to be adopted in the assessment of development charges and ensure that this is on all fours with the statutory basis of valuation for the loss of development rights.
  If he would do those things and make other concessions of a minor nature—such as, for example, increasing the tolerance for permitted additions to small dwelling houses—he would give great encouragement to those of us who believe that the planning provisions of the Act are on sound lines and who are genuinely anxious that its financial provisions and its administration should be brought into line.
  7.43 p.m.
  Mrs. Castle: On a lovely evening such as this it is natural that the thoughts of the Committee should turn to green fields and cool mountain streams and to the fresh air of the hill-tops. I propose to indulge the Committee this evening, for I shall not follow the hon. Member for Angus, North and Mearns (Mr. Thornton-Kemsley) into the arid realms of development charges but will turn to more pleasant fields of the Minister's activities, as set out in the Estimates we are discussing today—activities such as access to mountains, the creation of our great proposed system of National Parks and earmarking of areas of outstanding natural beauty.
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  The hon. Member for Angus, North, flattered himself that we have reached in this House today something like a situation of Government by Opposition. But these activities to which I shall refer are entirely the initiation and creation of this Government. Indeed, they are very important fields of immense value to thousands of people living in our teeming industrial areas, people who have lived their airless and hopeless days there through many a long summer of Tory rule. They are fields in which previous Conservative Governments completely missed the bus but in which, I am glad to say, this Government have lost no time in acting—and not merely in placing legislation on the Statute Book for, barely was the ink dry on that Act, when the Minister's predecessor and now our present Minister began following the Act with action.
  This is the first opportunity we have had of discussing the application of the National Parks and Access to Mountains Act since it became law and for discussing the financial provisions which have been made in the current Estimates for carrying it out. I believe that the rapid application of this Act is one of the most important steps for the health and happiness of thousands of our people at this time and I want this evening, having caught your eye, Mr. Mathers, to have a look at the situation and to find out what progress we are making.
  Those of us who are concerned with this very warm and colourful human problem were delighted that the National Parks Commission, set up so quickly by my right hon. Friend's predecessor, announced that this year they would designate three areas as national parks—the Peak District, the Lake District and Snowdonia; and that, in addition, they would proceed to the establishment of the first long distance route in the Pennine Way. That is pretty good going, as far as it goes; it is a good year's activity. It is also a very good augury for the future work of the National Parks Commission that they should have chosen, as the first National Park, not the Lake District, as some of us might perhaps have thought they would, but the Peak District.
  That seems to me to show that the National Parks Commission have the right approach; that they will not be a

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  body of aesthetes concerned merely with preserving the existing beauties which are enjoyed by the privileged few but will look at the problem from the point of view of liberating thousands of urban dwellers and giving them access to the country as rapidly as possible. At the time of the Second Reading of the National Parks Bill, when he was Chancellor of the Duchy, my right hon. Friend the present Minister of Town and Country Planning stressed the importance of the Peak District and pointed out that half the population of England lives within 60 miles of Buxton. He said that
  "from the point of view of access of great numbers of urban populations the Peak is by far the most important, more important even than the Lake District, of all the proposed National Parks areas."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 1st April, 1949; Vol. 403, c. 1592.]
  I am very glad that his emphasis on the importance of the Peak District has been taken up by the National Parks Commission. I think anyone who has been in London Road Station, Manchester, in the summer, on a Sunday evening, and has seen the "hikers' special" come in from the Peak District, laden from stem to stern with healthy, happy people—not only youngsters but old people as well—who have escaped for the day into the fresh air of that lovely area, would appreciate how vitally important it is to people around Manchester and in areas like that which I represent to escape into the country, and to be helped to escape by this Act and by this House.
  I want this evening to ask my right hon. Friend some questions. Perhaps I am rather greedy. I am glad that we have had his recent announcement on the question of designation, but I want to ask him whether he has anything more to tell us. After all, he made that announcement in March. Some four months have passed and we know that he and his Department are a Minister and a Department of rapid action. Has he any more information to give us tonight about the progress in carrying out this National Parks scheme? We have read in the newspapers that the National Parks Commission have been busy in the past few weeks visiting the Peak District and Lake District in order to consult the local authorities in demarcating the boundaries of the National Parks. I should like
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  to ask my right hon. Friend if he has had a report yet, and whether any agreement has been reached. Perhaps he could tell us tonight that the boundaries of the Peak District Park have, in fact, already been established, and that we can go ahead.
  I want to urge him to take all possible action to stimulate the National Parks Commission in this matter, because there is no time to lose. The summer days are slipping by. I think any hon. Member of this Committee who represents a congested industrial constituency and who spent some, at any rate, of the Whitsuntide Recess in visiting that constituency during those hot days must have been struck once again by the airlessness of those back streets, by the way the heat strikes up from the cobbled stones in the gardenless areas of industrial development, where there is not a flower to give colour or a tree to give shade; and I think he must have come back impassioned by a sense of the urgency of doing everything possible to enable the people who live there to escape into our beautiful English countryside.
  This job of stimulation in this field could not be in better hands than those of my right hon. Friend. I know he does not only talk access to mountains: he practises it. I have had the great pleasure in the past three years of accompanying him, along with some of my other Parliamentary colleagues, in his explorations of the great mountain areas of this country. We have filled our lungs together on the heights of the Pennine Way and the Lake District, and in the very beautiful Cheviots, and we have had the experience of walking all day in those remote and lovely areas, and of striving up the hills, and of resting in the valleys; and we have many pleasant memories of visiting farmhouses where the good local people, far from being hostile to the strange ramblers, welcomed us with open arms and regaled us with our great national beverage—I refer, of course, to tea.
  I want my right hon. Friend, who, I know, loves those open spaces himself, to have a real sense of urgency—and to make the National Parks Commission have a real sense of urgency—about getting on with this job. Because the designation of a National Park is only the beginning of a quite long process. Even when the boundaries have been decided

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  we are, in fact, no nearer to the practical enjoyment of that park on. the lines foreseen in the Act, because after the boundaries have been decided the Minister has then to set up his local planning committees and then the local planning committees have got to sit down and draw up development plans; and if it is going to take six months for each process, we shall not only not have action this summer, but we shall not have action this year. I hope we shall have some practical results not only this year but this summer. If we are to have another glorious summer as we had last year, or even only occasional weeks of summery weather, let us for the good of our people in the industrial towns obtain some practical results as our gift to them under the Act this summer.
  In particular I have in mind one aspect of the problem which is going to take rather a time to get down to, but which, in my view, is crucial to the whole question of the enjoyment of our National Parks, and that is the question of increased facilities for accommodation in those areas. (I stressed this point right through our discussions on the Measure, on Second Reading and in Committee. I have never believed that the only, or, indeed, that necessarily the primary, purpose of setting up National Parks was to preserve existing beauty and to sterilise the status quo. I wanted to see the extension of the enjoyment of those parks to a greater number of people and in a greater variety of ways.
  The Hobhouse Committee, which was set up to examine this problem, also spot lighted this point very emphatically in their Report. On page 43 they state that, in their surveys of proposed National Park Areas, they were impressed by one thing—
  ". … the general inadequacy in quantity and quality of accommodation for visitors."
  They went on to say:
  "This deficiency must clearly be remedied by the provision of a wide variety of accommodation to cater for the needs of all age and income groups if the potential value of the parks is to be fully realised."
  They went on to suggest what needed to be done—the development of controlled camping sites and caravaning sites, quiet hostels for elderly people, holiday camps or guest houses for whole families, camps and hostels for younger people, and the extension and development of the very
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  important Youth Hostels Movement. They made one thing quite clear—
  "A considerable amount of new accommodation will have to be constructed and maintained on a non-profit making basis, or even at a loss."
  if we are to make these parks accessible to the thousands of people who otherwise will not be able to share in our national heritage.
  I see in the Estimates that £10,000 is set aside this year for development of certain aspects of the National Park question. I assume that accommodation, refreshment facilities, recreational facilities, and other similar developments, are included in this estimate. That is not a great deal of money, and certainly it will not be enough to make a great impression on the problem, but unless the National Parks Commission really gets going—and gets going quickly—we shall not spend even that money this year. I know the matter wants careful consideration. We are determined to throw open those areas without destroying their natural beauty. Nobody wants to do that. However, I hope that the need for careful consideration will not be made an excuse for unnecessarily protracted consideration.
  I was also going to ask my right hon. Friend this question. The same considerations about accommodation as apply in the National Park Areas may also, we may find, as we come to examine the question, apply to some of the long distance routes. My right hon. Friend will remember that we were walking on the northern end of the Pennine Way only a week ago, and that we found we were up on some pretty lonely heights, and that the small villages, where ramblers could stay, were nestling in the valleys far below, a long trek down. Apart from anything else, there may be many a rambler wanting to traverse the backbone of England in an uninterrupted march who may not wish to go down to the valleys to find accommodation for the night. A suggestion was made to my right hon. Friend—and I should like to repeat it now—that we might establish some refuges on the Pennine Way, up on the hills themselves, where rough but adequate accommodation for a night could be got by the long-distance rambler.

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  I am wondering whether the financial provisions of the Act and of this Estimate would cover the provision of refuges of that kind, and whether Section 98 of the Act, under which the Minister may defray expenses incurred by local authorities "for the purposes of approved proposals relating to long distance routes," would also cover proposals with regard to the provision of the sort of refuges I have mentioned.
  There is another question I want to ask my right hon. Friend. I have studied the Act again, and I am not quite sure on this point, whether or not the National Parks Commission has power to provide accommodation in areas of outstanding beauty. There are many congested industrial areas in this country which may be more conveniently and regularly served by some of the areas of outstanding natural beauty than by some of the distant National Parks. I am thinking of Lancashire at this moment. I know that on a sunny Sunday or a Whit week-end thousands of the cotton workers from my town stream out by bicycle, bus, or any way they can, into the Ribble Valley, the Forest of Bewland or Pendle Hill. They might not have the time or the money to get into the Lake District, but having got into these areas of outstanding natural beauty they want refreshment, and they might want accommodation for the night. Is it possible under the Act for the National Parks Commission to give grants for this purpose, to use the money in this Estimate for helping to meet this problem?
  Finally, I want to thank my right hon. Friend for being a worthy St. George in the battle against the dragons of the Service Departments. In the Second Reading Debate on that Measure some of us were a little alarmed because we felt that the National Parks Commission had not enough powers; that it was not given enough authority to stand up to the Service Departments when they wanted to make encroachments upon the land we wanted for access purposes. I must say, though, that the Minister, far from waiting to be referred to as a court of appeal in these cases—we were told that he would always be there to be appealed to—has acted for himself and has taken the initiative. I
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  have already had one very satisfactory answer to a question I put to him about the Warcop Range, which was cutting across the long-distance route to the Pennine Way.
  Mr. Vane: Does the hon. Lady realise that the mere existence of the Warcop Range is an eyesore in itself, and that the mere modification of the proposed extension is no solution? The Warcop Range is still there.
  Mrs. Castle: I am sure the hon. Gentleman would be the first to appreciate that we have taken a very big step forward already, and there is nothing to prevent that being followed up. Perhaps he will join me in bringing a little pressure to bear on the Minister in due course.
  Mr. Vane: I already have.
  Mrs. Castle: Having myself experienced only a week ago some of the dangers of traversing an artillery range in full action, I greatly appreciate the fact that at least it is now possible to walk with physical security along the Pennine Way so far as the Warcop Range is concerned. That is a consideration of no small merit, and I am asking my right hon. Friend whether in relation to the northern end of the Pennine Way and the Redesdale artillery range, he will work with the War Department and his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War the same magic that he has worked for the Warcop Range. As a beginning, at any rate, the ramblers of the area would be very satisfied with that.
  Mr. Vane: There are other people besides ramblers to be considered.
  Mrs. Castle: I quite appreciate that. We would all be extremely happy were these training grounds unnecessary and the Service Departments completely removed from the mountain tops. Of course, that would be the long-term ideal. But surely as a practical Member the hon. Gentleman must appreciate that, as we must have Service Departments and training grounds, the best thing we can do is to concentrate our efforts on seeing that those grounds and those artillery ranges do not conflict with the great long distance routes which our Act is designed to set up. That is my limited purpose tonight.
  I ask my right hon. Friend: Will he continue the good work he has so

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  encouragingly begun? Will he see that the National Parks Commission is not allowed to rest, and that the Service Departments are not allowed to encroach upon our great national parks? If he will continue as he has begun we shall see great benefits this year, and indeed this summer, for our penned up peoples in the industrial towns.
  8.4 p.m.
  Mr. Black: I am very glad to have the opportunity of taking part in this Debate, because it gives me the opportunity of following the admirable opening speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Angus, North and Mearns (Mr. Thornton-Kemsley). That is a particular pleasure to me, not only because he opened the Debate in a most admirable way, if I may be permitted to say so, but because I happen to be a member of the profession to which he belongs, and also one of the 17,000 members of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, to which reference has already been made.
  I associate myself with what my hon. Friend said about the need at no far distant date for a general discussion on the whole of the principles underlying the Town and Country Planning Act. For the moment we are confined to administrative matters which arise under the Act, and it is on three or four matters of administration that I want to address the Committee this evening in the hope that the Minister may see his way in regard to certain matters of grievance, as I believe them to be, to seek, within the scope of such administrative action as is possible, to remedy certain defects which have become obvious as a result of three years' experience of the Act.
  My hon. Friend referred to the necessity for certain relaxations in the control of use, and the very strong case which exists for a simplification in the various categories under the Act and its regulations. On that I wish to associate myself with all that has been said. In that connection, I would particularly ask the Minister to look at one class of case which has been caught up by the Act but which, I cannot help feeling, it was not intended should be so caught up. I refer to properties purchased by charities of one kind and another and devoted wholly or mainly to use for charitable purposes.
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  At present a great many of the larger private residences, which in modern conditions are no longer suitable for occupation by a single private family, are being purchased by one or other of the many charities which are concerned with the welfare of such classes of the community as ex-Service men and old people. These houses are being used as clubs, recreational centres, or hostels for occupation by these types of people. I feel certain that every hon. Member will agree that that is a type of user which should be encouraged and not discouraged. If I may borrow a phrase used by my hon. Friend, of all types of case that type is the least suitable for the imposition of a fine or a penalty upon the charity which is desirous of using the property for such a purpose.
  It is a fact that the position of charities is safeguarded under the Act as far as properties or lands purchased prior to the coming into force of the Act are concerned. What I am asking the Minister to do is to look very carefully at the position of properties purchased for charitable purposes since the coming into operation of the Act to see whether it is possible to meet what is at present widely regarded as a very real grievance.
  Let me by way of illustration give one example from my own constituency which is symptomatic of many hundreds, if not many thousands, of similar cases which have occurred throughout the country. In my constituency a charitable body which has carried on most admirable work for many years past in the service of the community, purchased a private residence for use partly as a club for old age pensioners and partly as offices for the local youth council and the local community association. It would be difficult, I think, to imagine any clearer case of a property no longer suitable for the purpose for which it was originally erected, and being used for three public purposes of which every man and woman of goodwill must approve—a club for old age pensioners, the headquarters of the local youth council and the headquarters of the local community association.
  The charitable body that purchased this property was straight away faced with a demand for the payment of a development charge of £750. I had to do with the negotiations which took place

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  with the district valuer, and after the matter had been discussed in the most friendly and considerate manner by the district valuer, the figure of £750 was reduced to £150. But what I am asking the Minister to look at is whether that kind of case is appropriate at all for the imposition of a development charge, and I most strongly suggest that by administrative action it should be possible to exempt from development charge cases of that kind where the use of the property is to be entirely or mainly charitable.
  Second, I want to refer to a particular type of case about which there seems to be a difference of opinion among legal authorities and a difference of practice between local authorities. I have in mind the case of the marriage of units by the opening of holes or doors in the party walls separating two separate but immediately adjacent houses. May I take a case to illustrate clearly the point that I have in mind? Suppose that we have a pair of semi-detached houses of four storeys each completely separated from each other by a party wall. I think that it is quite clear that under the Act it is possible to convert both of these houses separately into two maisonettes each, consisting of two storeys each, without the question of a development charge arising.
  That is the kind of case about which there is no difficulty; but it may very well be that it is more convenient and a better form of conversion, and, therefore, a type of conversion which it is in the public interest to encourage, for these two houses to be treated for conversion purposes as one unit, for openings to be made in the party wall between the two and for there to be formed four flats dividing the houses horizontally instead of maintaining the existing vertical division which is represented by the party wall.
  Some legal experts apparently take the view that the opening of the party wall and the marriage of two separate units into one unit needs planning permission and raises the question of the levying of a development charge, while other legal authorities take the other view, and there are cases which I could quote to the Committee of different authorities taking different views on precisely the same set of facts. I am quite certain that the Minister will agree that that is eminently the type of case where it is desirable that
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  the true position should be correctly understood both by the legal authorities, by the property owners and by the public at large.
  I would, furthermore, suggest that if it is the case that the opening of holes in the party wall does of itself create the necessity for planning permission and also raises the question of a development charge, it is contrary to reason that the conversion of the houses into multiple dwellings in one form should have that effect, whereas the conversion of the houses into multiple dwellings in a slightly different form should not have that effect. I feel quite certain that there are many people who have had to deal with this problem who would be grateful if it could be finally resolved by a clear decision by the Minister.
  Third, I want to make the point that it should be the normal practice for planning permission to be given permanently and not for a limited period only, because it is impossible to secure stability in the property market and in the field of property development if planning permission is to be given only for a limited period. I think that it may truly be said that the case for that submission is much stronger at present than it would be at a time when development was able to be undertaken freely and without the necessity of obtaining a building licence, because in existing circumstances it is quite possible to obtain planning permission which is limited in its term and then find oneself unable to obtain the necessary licence to carry out the work within the period for which the planning permission holds good. Quite obviously, that uncertainty is bad.
  I will, of course, concede that there are cases where a limited planning permission is perfectly reasonable and proper. I would say that in the case of a temporary building it would obviously be right to give limited planning permission only, and, again, in the case of some development which might be urgently necessary to meet some requirement of accommodation in the district but which was contrary to long-term planning considerations. In such a case as that, planning permission for a limited period could, I think, be properly justified, but I submit for the consideration of the Ministry that permanent planning permission should be the rule applied in the widest range of

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  cases possible and that planning permission for a limited period only should be the exception confined to the smallest number of cases practicable.
  Finally, I should like to ask the Minister to look into the question of improving the procedure in respect of public inquiries held under the Town and Country Planning Act. In another connection, the phrase has been used in the course of this Debate that it is not only necessary that justice should be done but also that justice should appear to be done. The fact that justice is being done should be apparent to all whose interests may be involved in the course of a town planning public inquiry.
  It is a fact, which I want to bring to the notice of the Committee, that there have been very grave complaints, both in the Press and by local authorities and professional men of the legal and surveying professions, that certain aspects of public inquiries in connection with town planning matters have left a very great deal to be desired, for the reason that it is obviously the case justice has not seemed to have been done. I have in mind particularly the case of clearances given by Government Departments before the public inquiry comes on for hearing.
  I can give many illustrations, but I will confine myself to only one case, and that is a case in which the Ministry of Agriculture gave a clearance decision in respect of a particular site before the public inquiry was held. When the public inquiry was held, statements were made that this clearance decision had been given prior to the hearing by the Ministry of Agriculture. The Ministry of Agriculture refused to be represented at the hearing, from which it follows that the Ministry refused to submit evidence at the inquiry as to the reasons for their decision, and refused to submit a representative of the Ministry to be cross-examined.
  I ask the Minister to consider the point I am seeking to make, that that kind of proceeding is bound to create resentment and a feeling of injustice on the part of individuals or local authorities whose interests may be very greatly affected as a result of a public inquiry. I feel quite certain that the Minister, by an overhaul of the procedure relating to public inquiries, could quite easily remove a great deal of the misunderstanding and
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  suspicion that exists at present. I hope that something may be done in this field.
  I realise that this question of the procedure which should be adopted at public inquiries of this kind may very well have to be made the subject of legislation on some future occasion, but, in the meantime, I am quite certain that there is much the Minister could do in this field by administrative action, and by exercising his very great and undoubted powers of persuasion upon some of his colleagues who have not been as frank as they might have been in dealing with public inquiries in the past in the judgment of many of us.
  There are a great many matters to which reference could be made as a result of experience, during the past three years of the Act, and I have no doubt that subsequent speakers will deal with other aspects of the matter. I have endeavoured to approach this matter in a constructive and not in a critical spirit. I feel quite certain that the Minister, who, I know, has no disinclination to listen to reasonable representations on this matter, will carefully consider whether it is not possible to do something to remedy some of these matters to which reference has been made.
  8.25 p.m.
  Mr. Donnelly: I hope the Committee will excuse me if I do not attempt to follow the two Opposition speakers in the various intricacies of administration of the 1947 Act they have raised, if only for the reason that, having listened to both, I feel rather like the Member of another place who, having heard a great deal of the discussion about near ripe land and dead ripe land, felt that the argument was getting rather over-ripe and thoroughly rotten. I feel that we should take the Debate back to the principles which actuated the 1947 Act, the National Parks Act and the New Towns Act, and which are the important aspects upon which the judgment of history will be based.
  I hope Members opposite will realise that the compensation and development charges provisions of the 1947 Act are not there purely as a punitive measure against the landlords, but are there for a specific reason. Under the Town and Country Planning Act, 1932, for which the party opposite was largely responsible, any local authority which had a planning

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  scheme had to pay compensation out of the local rates to landlords whose property was adversely affected. Hundreds of thousands of pounds were paid out. At the same time, it was theoretically possible to collect a betterment charge, but I think that the files of the Ministry of Health, which was the Department responsible before the war, will show that there were only three or four cases where a betterment charge was collected.
  The compensation and betterment provisions of that Act completely failed, because frequently the local authorities most in need of replanning could not afford it. I know of one planning officer of a local authority which desired a green belt but which had not the money to obtain it. He went round to all the old ladies in the large houses on the edge of the town and after many cups of tea and considerable persuasion was able to get them to enter into restrictive covenants, as a result of which a green belt was preserved around the town. That is not the function of a planning officer, nor is it a desirable way to go about it.
  The Royal Commission set up in 1938 by the Chamberlain Government—one of the only good things that they did—stated in their Report, which was published in 1940, that there had to be some solution to this problem before we could get effective town planning. As a result, the Uthwatt Committee was set up. We must, therefore, realise that unless there is some solution to this problem, there cannot be any effective town planning control. If we have no planning control, what will happen to the desirable agricultural land which might well be taken over for industrial purposes? We all know that the farmer is at an economic disadvantage when it comes to competing for land required for industrial and housing purposes.
  I earnestly urge hon. Members opposite to remember that some form of compensation and development charge solution is essential if town planning legislation is to work. It is perfectly true that there have been some difficulties and I hope that when my right hon. Friend replies he will be able to clear away many growing pains of the Act.
  Perhaps I may with great diffidence direct the attention of the Committee to the real problems of town and country
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  planning which now face us. These are the problems of planning control and of the kind of development plans that we shall have in 1951, when the Town and Country Planning Act development plans have to be ready and be presented to the Minister. The judgment of history will be upon whether or not we, in the middle of the twentieth century, have been able to check the bad trends of industrial development, which our generation has been able to see only too clearly prevalent in the last period of the industrial revolution.
  Among the great problems which are to be faced today are the problems of over-population of big cities, the increasing growth of London, Birmingham and Manchester, and, at the same time, the increasing depopulation of the rural areas, the Highlands of Scotland, and the mountains of Wales. Upon whether or not we can settle the problem of decentralising people and industry from the big cities and taking them back to the Highlands, to the mountains of Wales and to the countryside of Britain, depends our success or failure in the effective replanning of our towns and cities.
  There are two main ways of effecting decentralisation. First, there is the new towns proposal as envisaged in the 1946 New Towns Act. That great venture, on which the last Government and my right hon. Friend's predecessor embarked, has been described by town planners all over the world as one of the outstanding contributions of this country to the whole history of urban development. The second way, which, I suggest, might be considered and investigated, is that throughout the length and breadth of Britain there are a great many small towns which, without large-scale capital expenditure could take a few factories, and, say, three or four thousand people. This would be of considerable advantage to these towns and considerable benefit to the people who would leave the big cities and go with the industries into the country towns.
  My right hon. Friend, during his very distinguished tenure of office at the Board of Trade, was responsible in its early stages, I believe, for a very important Measure, the Distribution of Industry Act, which did a great deal for the Development Areas. Under the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act it is also possible to

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  decentralise industry from the big cities to the country towns.
  It is perfectly true that some special financial assistance may be necessary to the local authorities of these towns to embark on any immediate capital expenditure in the way of roads, sewers, and so on, but a committee of the Town and Country Planning Association went into this matter in considerable detail two or three years ago and made proposals to the Ministry. Evidence was heard from several hundred small local authorities of rural and urban districts, whose proposals, suggesting financial assistance to country towns embarking upon small scale expansions of this nature, may well be investigated with considerable advantage. An immediate decentralisation drive could foe brought into force. This is the kind of decentralisation on which work could start at once without any extensive capital expenditure.
  Seen from the other end—from the viewpoint of people living in the country towns—we find that most of these country towns are market towns and almost exclusively distribution centres. There is little or no productive industry in most of them. Among the scores of them which exist are places like Sudbury and Bridgnorth, and Haverfordwest, in my own constituency. The greatest problem which faces social and economic life in these towns is that there are very few jobs for young people. The noble Lady the Member for Anglesey (Lady Megan Lloyd George), in an eloquent plea on the Second Reading of the Distribution of Industry Bill, a few weeks ago, referred to the way in which young people had been driven from their homes and their native land by force of economic circumstances. That is a very real social problem for the countryside of Britain.
  Year after year one sees families going to the railway stations to see a young member off to a job in Cardiff, Swansea, Birmingham, Manchester, or London. There they are, full of high hopes, with all their chattels packed in their bags and away they go from their home towns, probably never to return. If these country towns could be built up, new industry brought in and more money spent in them as a result of those developments, they would be much more satisfactory economic units and would provide
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  a better social life for the people in the immediate surrounding country. I earnestly urge on my right hon. Friend the needs of the country towns of Britain, which constitute a very serious problem at the moment.
  My right hon. Friend has given a lead during his short period of office in cutting through any unnecessary red tape as far as the administration of planning control is concerned. He has gone a long way in the field of planning control to meet a great many of the objections resulting from the teething troubles of the 1947 Act. I hope he will be able to do something similar in regard to Parts VI and VII, the development charge and compensation Sections. He has done enough to show that once town planning is appreciated as a means to an end and not as an end in itself, a great deal can be done to help people in carrying out desirable developments.
  Not only is speed necessary in the administration of planning control, but it is also necessary in the preparation of development plans. A great deal too much nonsense has been talked of social research. There is no obscure abracadabra as far as planning schemes are concerned; it is only common sense. We like a town or we do not, we have specific reasons for liking or disliking a place. It is the job of the professional planners and administrators to meet the likes and avoid the dislikes of the general public. The towns we live in to a great extent dictate the happiness we get out of life, because they govern the kind of lives we lead. I think it was Aristotle who said that the reason for towns was to enable men to live and that the only justification for them was that they enable men to live well.
  8.37 p.m.
  Mr. Derek Walker-Smith: We have had only one deviation from the main theme of the Debate and that was from the hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn, East (Mrs. Castle) who recounted some of the pleasures and perils of some long hikes she had undertaken with her right hon. Friend the Minister. I do not propose to follow the hon. Lady in her reminiscences, but, before coming to the theme of development charges, I should like to adopt and endorse one point made in an excellent speech by my hon. Friend the Member

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  for Wimbledon (Mr. Black). That is in regard to the procedure at town planning inquiries, in which I have had some professional experience.
  I think my hon. Friend was quite right in saying that there is a feeling that full justice cannot be done in town planning inquiries under the present procedure. I would say at once that, at any rate as far as I am concerned, I have certainly never found anything to complain about in the conduct of inquiries by the officials in charge. From my experience they are excellent in the task they have to do. The two main points I commend to the Minister in this regard are these: first, the parties should have access to the report of the inspector who holds the inquiry. In my view that is vital in order that it may be seen how nearly the decision of the Minister accords with the report of the man who actually heard the argument, saw the witnesses and heard the cross-examination. I think it was the decision of Arlidge versus the Local Government Board, in 1915, which established that there was no right in the parties to see the report, but, like so many war-time legal precedents, it was an unhappy one and there will be a bouquet for the Minister who puts that right.
  The second point is that which has already been referred to by my hon. Friend, namely, the "clearances" of other interested Government Departments. There should be no behind-the-door clearances. A Government Department should send a witness to the inquiry to give his evidence and submit himself to the test of cross-examination. That is the only proper way for these things to be done. I hope that the Minister will see his way to effect that improvement, which is merely a matter of administrative action.
  I turn to the question of development charges. The task of anyone speaking about them has been greatly eased by the wholly admirable speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Angus, North (Mr. Thornton-Kemsley), who opened the Debate. He put the case most clearly and showed exactly where the shoe pinches in regard to development charges. In this Debate we are not concerned with whether or not there should be development charges because they are a matter of statute under the 1947 Act. We are
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  concerned solely with their administration and the effect of their operation. The main question is that which my hon. Friend put first in his speech, that is to say, whether development charges as at present operating, with their 100 per cent. levy, are a deterrent to desirable and necessary development. It is abundantly clear that that is so, and it must be so. There are, of course, a large number of instances of prohibitive development charges, especially in cases of small development.
  My hon. Friend quoted some cases. Many cases have been quoted in Debates in another place by Lord Llewellin and others. But those instances, numerous as they are, are not nearly as numerous as they would be but for the fact that the primary deterrent to development today is the necessity of obtaining a licence because of the control of Building Operations effected by the Defence Regulation 56A. Were that necessity removed we should find far more instances to show the deterrent effect of a 100 per cent. development charge. Practical examples are scarcely necessary to prove what must be so obvious a proposition—that a 100 per cent. development charge must act as a deterrent to desirable development. One can give obvious examples of that. The most obvious of all is that of the owner of grazing land which is ripe for development. If there is to be a 100 per cent. development charge there is no incentive for him to make the land available for development, because, other things being equal, it is more pleasant to keep one's land in an immobilised state than to have it covered with bricks and mortar.
  Another obvious instance is in regard to decaying property. With a 100 per cent. development charge in respect of any re-development more than that of simple re-instatement of the decayed proportions, plus 10 per cent., it is obviously less trouble to go on enjoying what revenues there may be from the decaying properties rather than to face the risks of re-development with a 100 per cent. development charge. The difficulty is that the 1947 Act takes away from the owner his right to develop but vests in nobody the duty to develop. Development needs a joint interest and a joint incentive. Instead, we have a divided interest and a reduced incentive. It is rather like tearing a pound note in two.

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  Put together the pieces are worth 20 shillings, but either half is valueless by itself.
  Under the 100 per cent. development charge the Central Land Board may only sell the right to develop for the full 20s. Therefore, it follows that there can be no development unless the owner is willing to sell his part for nothing, that is to say, to sell at the existing use value without anything for development value at all. In practice, as we all know, that does not work; and may I say to the Minister that the fact that it does not work is made all the more clear by the pathetic efforts to use Section 43 of the Act as a disciplinary measure? The efforts to establish compulsory purchase at existing use value by the Central Land Board have had the minimum of effect combined with the maximum of irritation, and I hope that the Minister will announce tonight that we shall have no more of that.
  What I think the Committee must realise is that for development to take place it must be possible to do something more than just break even. After all, development is an investment in competition with other possible forms of investment. If it is not to be an attractive investment then, of course, the development will not take place. That is becoming increasingly recognised, and had I more time I would have quoted from an admirable article in the "Estates Gazette" showing an economist's view of the incidence of development charges. I shall merely summarise it by saying that, taking into account the fact that development charges have either to be paid or secured before development is begun any system which at best only makes the proposition break even is one which is necessarily lagging behind alternative forms of investment.
  In regard to the 100 per cent. development charge I hope that the Minister will tell us—because it has never yet been explained in this House—why the 100 per cent. development charge was ever instituted at all. I will tell him why I think it was; and that is because the advisers of the then Minister and the Central Land Board thought at that time that 100 per cent. was going to be paid under Part VI, and they went on thinking so almost up to 30th June, 1949 Their argument was, "If you are going to pay our 100 per
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  cent. under Part VI you must draw in 100 per cent. under Part VII."
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Town and Country Planning (Mr. Lindgren)The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Town and Country Planning (Mr. Lindgren) indicated dissent.
  Mr. Walker-Smith: The Parliamentary Secretary shakes his head, but with great respect, he was not in his present office at that time, and I do not remember that in the last Parliament we ever had the benefit of his guidance on these technical questions of town planning.
  If what I have just said is so, the 100 per cent. levy is based on a misconception and a misapprehension, and the sooner it is done away with the better. If the 100 per cent. development charge is to be amended it can be done in one of three ways. We can either retain fixed charges, but on a lower percentage, such as the 75 per cent. suggested in the Uthwatt Report; or there can be a system of variable charges, which was the Government policy at the time when this Act was actually being debated in this House; or the third possibility is to retain a fixed development charge but at differential rates as between developed and undeveloped parts of the country. That last proposition has this advantage, that it enables the development charge to be used as an instrument for safeguarding the green land of this country for the vital task of food production. That consideration, however, perhaps is going too wide for this Debate tonight.
  So far as variable charges are concerned they are open to the grave objection that it does mean that each case has to be treated as an act of policy, because the Central Land Board can merely assess what is the development value and it would then become a Departmental act of policy in each case to discriminate between different development. That, of course, is open to obvious objections. I think the Committee will come to the conclusion that my hon. Friend is right and that we should revert to the principle put forward both by the Uthwatt Committee and the Coalition White Paper, though in somewhat different figures, that there should be a fixed development charge, if there is to be a development charge at all, at a figure less than 100 per cent.—at, say, about 75 per cent.

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  I should like to make two brief points about valuation. In the Town and Country Planning Act there is no definition of value or of the normal processes of valuation, though both terms are used. But, as if to make up for the parsimony of not defining value the Act lays down three different definitions, in Parts V, VI and VII of the Act respectively, of existing use value, restricted value and refusal value. I endorse what my hon. Friend has said and what is said in the most informed and valuable memorandum of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, that there should be an effort to assimilate the methods of calculating value prescribed in the Act.
  In particular, in computing consent value for the purposes of assessing development charges, there is a tendency for district valuers to take into account the special value to a particular user. As the Committee knows. Section 2 of the 1919 Acquisition of Land (Assessment of Compensation) Act specifically excludes from that assessment special value to a particular purchaser. It would be right that the procedure of consent value should be assimilated with that procedure.
  My other valuation point concerns change of use. Again, I endorse my hon. Friend's support of the Royal Institution's suggestion for the grouping of certain use classes so as to facilitate interchange without planning permission or development charge. I should also like to support him in what he said, and what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon about development charges on change of use. There is no doubt that many changes of use are made not so much to enhance development value as to prevent a depreciation of development value. Where that takes place it seems to me that there should be no development charge if, on the long-term view, the change of use is merely keeping a mean market value for those premises. Similarly, where a certain house or property is merely being brought into line with the predominant use in the neighbourhood, there should be no development charge.
  Perhaps I just have time to illustrate how onerously a development charge can work in that respect. There is a house at Blackheath which, in former times, was
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  a private family residence. It then became a shop, then a small factory, fourthly a storehouse, and now once again, it is being used for residential purposes. All those changes of use took place before the Act, but if they had taken place after the Act, the Treasury would have taken a levy by way of development charge four times before the house could be put back to its first use. That shows that there should not be an automatic levy of development charge merely because a change of use has taken place.
  Lastly, there should be no small development charges at all. Valuation is an art and not a science. A margin of 5 per cent. between skilled valuers is very reasonable. Therefore, to read of small development charges, as one does repeatedly, shows that a wrong principle is being applied. The Treasury and the Ministry are keen enough to apply the principle of de minimis when it suits them. I invite them to apply it when it is of some aid to the developer.
  8.55 p.m.
  Mr. McAllister: The last Parliament was, from the Town and Country Planning point of view, a Parliament of great legislative achievement. It produced a body of town planning legislation which will stand for the second half of the 20th century and which will produce fairer towns and a better countryside. It is important in a Debate like this that we should recall the basic aims of planning. It is all very well for the hon. Member for Hertford (Mr. Walker-Smith) and the hon. Member for Angus, North (Mr. Thornton-Kemsley) to deal at such length, in such detail and with such lucidity—the hon. Member for Angus, North spoke for 45 minutes—with the question of development charges, when all that they wanted to say could have been said in one sentence to the effect that it was all charge and no development.
  That is a point of view with which I have some sympathy, and I have no doubt that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Town and Country Planning, who has great gifts for cutting through red tape wherever he finds it, will manage to simplify a great deal of the work being done and make it easier for ordinary members of the general public, as well as of the Chartered Surveyors' Institution, to understand exactly the principles on which the Central Land Board is working.

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  The hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. Donnelly) referred to the Barlow Report, which is the basic document of all the town planning legislation which was one of the features of the last Parliament and which was designed to give to our people a better and happier life. If there were to be a new Barlow Commission set up today to produce another Barlow Report, what would that Report say about the condition of our cities and our countryside after all that spate of legislation? It would, no doubt, pay a great tribute to the last Parliament and to the then Minister of Town and Country Planning, whose elevation was welcomed on both sides of this House, but it would also have to record the fact that, when it comes down to the vital question of the problem which that legislation was intended to solve, we have made much less progress than we might have hoped for.
  The basic theme of the Barlow Commission was that we should decentralise our great swollen cities, decentralise both population and industry. The present Minister of Town and Country Planning, when he was President of the Board of Trade, initiated all that great programme of decentralisation of industry to the former depressed areas, now known as development areas. I do not think any praise can be too high for what has been achieved in Lanarkshire, the West of Scotland, in Dundee, on Tyneside, in Durham and in South Wales as the result of his bold and imaginative Act. I think the Minister himself would be the first person to concede, however, that it was an imperfect Act, and that it was necessarily a middle-of-the-road Act. It did not go far enough, and it did not have the powers of industrial location that are necessary if we are to have proper town and country planning in this country.
  The hon. Member for Pembroke made a plea for the country towns as well as the new towns, and I would endorse that. I was a little sorry that, in the formidable array of National Liberals which graced our proceedings at one point, the hon. Member for Renfrew, West (Mr. Maclay), was not in his place, because he has been making that plea for the development of our country towns for a very long time.
  In spite of all these excellent developments, decentralisation of population and industry is not, in the net result, an accom-
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  plished fact. On the contrary, swollen London is still more swollen, and we still have the tedious journeys to and from their work which have to be endured by men who enter a hole in the ground in a place where they do not want to live and get out of another hole in the ground in another place where they do not want to work. These people still have to make longer and longer strap-hanging journeys.
  The Trade Union Congress today dealt with the impact on the cost of living of the increase in local passenger transport fares in the London area. They suggested to the Government that if something was not done by way of subsidy there would be an immediate call for an increase in wages. That is one way of tackling that problem, but are we really tackling this problem of London's over growth and the problem of swollen Glasgow, Manchester and Birmingham?
  I wonder whether my right hon. Friend has read that fascinating document, the London Travel Survey of 1949, published by the London Transport Executive, together with the address of Lord Latham to the Institute of Transport on the social aspect of travel. It is a very interesting document and shows that the number of passenger miles travelled in public transport in the London Transport Executive area has increased by 45 per cent. compared with pre-war. It also shows that the average Londoner is making 510 journeys a year as against 436 in 1937, and that the journeys are longer. The journey to work costs the Londoner 4s. 1d. a week and it takes him 42 minutes door-to-door each way.
  It is fascinating to see how the Londoner travels about in this swollen Metropolis. We find that 58 per cent. of the workers use public transport, 14 per cent. go by bicycle, 5 per cent. use cars or motor cycles, 17 per cent. walk, and 5 per cent. work at home. If we add up all those figures we find that there is 1 per cent. missing. What happens to the residual 1 per cent., I do not know. One is left to imagine that they travel by flying saucer, a form of transport which has not yet come under the London Transport Executive which serves a population of 8,710,000 people, all of whom are making these longer and increasingly tedious and expensive journeys to and from work.

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  That was one of the major facts which the Barlow Commission brought out in spite of the plea of the late Mr. Frank Pick that London must increase its population to 12 million in order that the London Transport Board might pay its maximum permitted dividend. But we are still carrying on in that way today. The families with £8 a week and more live, in the main, outside the London County Council area. The families with £4 10s. a week and less live in the London County Council area. What does that prove? It proves what common sense would suggest, that people who have the means refuse to live in our intolerably penned up cities and seek what they regard as their birthright, a cottage and a garden with some reasonable access to the countryside. But what a terrible price they have to pay for what they regard as a birthright. They spend 82 minutes a day in travelling; they add 17 per cent. to their working day, and every year they use up 800 million man hours in the London area alone. And, what is true of London is proportionately true of Manchester and Glasgow.
  If we are looking for increased industrial production, then there is the possibility of a great increase through the release of such manpower. But, of course, progress has also to be recorded. I am sure we are all glad to know that if one travels by Tube from Bond Street to Green Park one will do the journey in 23 seconds less than before the war. But, against that, if one does not go by Tube and travels by private car, one will find that around Covent Garden no fewer than 27 additional streets have been declared one-way streets. I think it is the common experience of all of us that since petrol was de-rationed the streets of London and the roads round London have become almost intolerable from the human point of view. Yet Lord Latham, echoing Frank Pick, says he looks forward to an increase in travel in the London Transport Executive area.
  That is precisely the wrong way to look at planning, but it does suggest that the Government ought to be more strongly behind the development of new towns than the Estimates now before us would suggest that they are. I do not doubt for one second the desire of my right hon. Friend to push on with new towns as
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  rapidly as possible. He ought to persuade his colleagues to give up more of the £50 million which, after all, he set aside when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer for the immediate development of the new towns. The building of new towns should not be regarded as a slowly moving process, the subject of all sorts of abacadabra and of town planning mysticism which is at present impeding it.
  Are we building at lower densities than before the war? Are we building fewer flats than before the war? I am sorry to say we are building more flats and at higher densities and at enormous expense. In New York, which is probably the most packed city in the western world, they are building a great new skyscraper town on land costing £60,000 an acre and each flat costs £2,500. The rent of each flat is £150 to £265 a year. But in London we are building in Holborn, at Tybold's Close, flats on land costing £60,000 an acre, at a density of 80 to the acre, let at £55 to £92 a year because they are getting a subsidy from the Government and local authority of from £2,750 to £3,000 per flat.
  That is housing economics and town planning policy gone "haywire." It is the absolute opposite of Barlow, Uthwatt or Scott, the opposite of everything my right hon. Friend stands for. I want to see us going ahead with new towns, not planning congestion, not prefabricating slums; not abolishing slums to replace them with super slums, but abolishing slums to replace them with houses and gardens in convenient relation to work, recreation, churches, schools and hospitals, which is the whole basis and generic idea of the new towns movement. I am sure my right hon. Friend agrees with me.
  I agree with what the hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn, East (Mrs. Castle) said about national parks, but it did cross my mind when she was speaking and telling us of the wonderful crowds of young people gathered on Manchester Station on Sunday evening that national parks as a substitute for drink as the quickest road out of Manchester was not quite the right conception of national parks. What we want are decent houses, with gardens, related to work and to leisure, nothing that would need behind it the whole weight of the Royal Institute of British Architects or the Royal Institution of

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  Chartered Surveyors and the House-builders Registration Council, but just the application of plain common sense, the application of a policy of housing and industrial location side by side, adding to them the necessary equipment of a town and surrounding all that with a green belt.
  Since it was from the green belt idea that the whole public momentum came for the levying of a development charge, I think it is also to be added with regret that we are eating more into the green belts of our great cities today than we were before the war. It has got to stop. We have got to stop all these mistakes; we have got to go ahead and see these new towns coming into being and not being delayed by too many fancy theories or by too tight a grip by His Majesty's Treasury. We want to see the towns going up, and we want to see the people living in them. Even if we make mistakes in the building of these new towns, we shall give so much joy and happiness to so many hundreds and thousands of people in the new towns and we shall give so much light and air to the people in our congested cities that we shall all agree that it is really worth while.
  9.11 p.m.
  Mr. David Renton: This Debate has dealt with three main subjects, each of which comes within the purview of the Department of the right hon. Gentleman. The hon. Members for Rutherglen (Mr. McAllister) and for Pembroke (Mr. Donnelly) have both urged the need, with which I agree, to decentralise our industrial populations. I would remind the hon. Member for Rutherglen that a solution of that matter was not started by a Socialist Government. It was started, and with some success, in the years before the war, by the National Government with their Trading Estates in what were then called "the Distressed Areas" and by various other measures in which private enterprise has taken some part. I would further remind the hon. Member that there is a very grave danger that the decentralisation to which he looks forward will be frustrated if the Town and Country Planning Act, 1947, does not work better than it is doing now.
  The hon. Lady the Member for Black-bum, East (Mrs. Castle), who, at the moment, is not in her place, made a plea
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  for health and beauty which stirred us all. I must say that I was not sure which she found the bigger thrill—braving the perils of an artillery range in action or going hiking with the right hon. Gentleman. I wish to invite the attention of the Committee to the perhaps more arid, but, I suggest, even more important, points which were raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Angus, North (Mr. Thornton-Kemsley), and which were fortified by my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford (Mr. Walker-Smith) with his unrivalled professional experience of the subject, and by the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Mr. Black) who has also professional experience, but of a different kind.
  It is perhaps also right that I should point out that the Debate is now being wound up by another lawyer, who knows far less than most lawyers do about this subject. But lawyers are the people who like the Town and Country Planning Act, not because we understand it, but because we do not understand it, and therefore it is good for business.
  I well remember wondering, over 20 years ago, when by a strange coincidence the hon. Member for Hertford and myself were members of the committee of the Oxford Liberal Association, why the Liberal zeal for the taxation of land values had never been translated into practice when we had a Liberal Government in power. Perhaps the answer is that the ideas were ahead of their time. Perhaps it was because other important reforms had priority. But I think that the most likely reason of all is that, however desirable theoretically those ideas may have been, they were thought to be unworkable in practice.
  Liberal Governments of those days differed from the Socialist Government of today in that they did not do things which were unworkable. The Socialists in the last Parliament decided "to go the whole hog" in this matter, with complete control of even the smallest development, with the 100 per cent. development charge based on merely notional changes of value, with a development charge procedure which I saw described the other day as "sheer delirium," and with detailed planning down to the most minute descriptions of changes of use.
  What we have to consider tonight in this Committee is, I suggest, whether, in

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  the light of the experience so far gained of the working of the Act, we must come to the conclusion that some of it is, perhaps, an excess of zeal. I do not think we can go further than that. We have to consider whether all the paraphernalia is worth while, or whether we cannot perfectly well dispense with some of it without doing away with the main objectives, about which both sides of the Committee are agreed.
  Last month the new Minister of Town and Country Planning announced the abolition of 40 per cent. of the controls. As we all know, he called it an "experiment in freedom." I should like to remind him that the controls which he abolished were an experiment in Socialism and an experiment in detailed planning, which very quickly failed, as he had the sense to see—and we congratulate him on seeing it. I will grant that the present phase of town and country planning may be said to be in the laboratory stage; but let us take advantage of the fact that it is in the laboratory stage. It is in that stage because capital expenditure is limited by economic policy and because of the limitation of housing development, especially development by private enterprise.
  In any event, therefore, planning development would take place rather slowly at present compared with pre-war and certainly compared with the rapid rate of great expansion which one day we hope may take place. At present we are just "marking time"; but the day will come when our economy will have to expand and the people will then insist that the Government should give the order, "Quick march." It will probably be, "By the right, quick march." Meanwhile, however, we have to seize the opportunity of making sure that our development procedure works smoothly, fairly and with encouragement to development, instead of being, as my hon. Friends pointed out, dilatory, unjust and discouraging.
  I shall be brief because I am limited in time; I wish to give the right hon. Gentleman the time he requires. Perhaps I may, therefore, deal briefly with the four main points which have been mentioned on the strictly planning side. In dealing with these four points may I mention, for the benefit of the right
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  hon. Gentleman, that I am stressing the matters with which I hope he will find time to deal in his reply.
  First of all, there is the amount and incidence of the 100 per cent. development charge. It has been pointed out, beyond a shadow of doubt, that the 100 per cent. charge is acting as a disincentive and it has been suggested, with ample reason, that some incentive should be given to the developer. With great courage, my hon. Friend the Member for Angus, North, took the bull by the horns and suggested a definite percentage—75 per cent. In making that suggestion he had, at any rate, the authority of the Uthwatt Report; and I should like to know what the right hon. Gentleman has to say about it. My hon. Friend the Member for Hertford put forward a query as to why the 100 per cent. development charge had ever been introduced. I should like to carry that a stage further. I should like to ask whether it is to be continued and, if so, why?—bearing in mind the disadvantages which have been pointed out in relation to it.
  I wish to add one argument of my own to those which have been made. Perhaps it is more an amplification of a suggestion made earlier, and it is this. At present, as I understand it, the development charge is not likely to produce more than about £2 million in the current financial year; but once the expansion of industry and of building, to which I have referred, takes place, then development charges may yield enormous sums; and we must be very careful not to let them assume fiscal importance and great revenue producing capacity, until we have made up our minds that they are sound in principle. The Chancellor of the Exchequer on Second reading of the Finance Bill said that Purchase Tax now produces £300 million a year, and he added this:
  "Whoever wants to take off the Purchase Tax will have to find another way of raising that money before he does so."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th May, 1950; Vol. 475, c. 1158.]
  We all know that Purchase Tax was not intended originally to produce revenue, and yet we find the Chancellor of the Exchequer saying that. For goodness' sake let us make sure we do not have a final blow to development through allowing development charges to become something upon which the Treasury relies.

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  The second point is the change-of-use provisions. The right hon. Gentleman, who has great powers under the Act, could easily amend the regulations of 1948, and he could simplify them as has been suggested. In doing so, I hope he will bear in mind the point made by my hon. Friends the Members for Angus, North, and Wimbledon, that large private houses are a potential asset to the community, and that owners should not be discouraged by penal charges from having them converted.
  With regard to delay in giving planning permission, there is very little that I need say, except to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, bearing in mind the numerous different kinds of consent that are required, he will use his great position to ensure some kind of co-ordination. After all, the Minister of Town and Country Planning ought to some extent to be a minister of co-ordination of the planning work of other Ministries, and we urge him to use his position in the Cabinet, and his power, to do that. In regard to development charge procedure, can he not put into it some logic and justice, so that we have the same basis for valuation, both for compensation for loss of development under Part VI and also for development charges under Part-VII? Will he tell us what has happened to the Report from the Central Land Board?
  The sum total of these arguments which have been put forward, and which I have had to summarise all too rapidly, seems to me to be this, that one day the nation will want to have a high rate of development; but development can only take place, if what I may call, using an old-fashioned word, the adventurers have confidence in their prospects and reasonable certainty in the factors on which their calculations are based. They must have those two things; otherwise, they cannot make their plans, and they will not go on with their development. The present system is creating uncertainty with regard to those factors, and is destroying confidence. This is the time to review the matter. It would be lamentable if it were reviewed too late when the flood of development which we hope will come had been spent; and the Minister has responsibility for reviewing it.
  Let me say that I am glad he is now able to justify his seat in the Cabinet
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  by holding this very important position as Minister of Town and Country Planning. His predecessor is no longer with us. He was one of the few people who really understood his own Act. The life of a Socialist politician has, of course, its ups and downs. A kick on the posterior from the electorate is quickly consoled for, by a seat for posterity in another place. The present Minister, however, has great powers for good or evil—powers to enhance or lower his own considerable reputation. We hope that what we shall hear from him tonight will indicate a step in the right direction.
  9.26 p.m.
  The Minister of Town and Country Planning (Mr. Dalton): I am sorry—and so, I am sure, are many hon. Members—that we have only been able to have a part of a Supply Day for this discussion on the Department for which I am now responsible. There are many other hon. Members on both sides of the Committee who would have liked to speak, and many other aspects of the work of this Department which might with great interest have been raised. None the less, even though it is only half a Supply Day, I am told it is the first time that the Ministry of Town and Country Planning Vote has ever been considered in Supply, and I take that to be some evidence of the wide interest in what we are trying to do.
  As has been made clear from the speeches that have been made today, there are three separate Acts of Parliament in respect of which our administration may be examined tonight: the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act, the New Towns Act, and the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act. Most of the discussion, though not all of it, has fallen on the 1947 Act, and in particular on development charges. I shall seek to deal with a number of the points that have been raised, and before I sit down I shall make a detailed announcement regarding certain administrative changes which I have decided to make, and which I hope the Committee will agree with me should be made. Perhaps, I may come to that a little later, after I have dealt with some of the preliminary points.
  We have been in a little difficulty throughout this Debate—indeed, because the subject is very technical a greater speech by my hon. Friend the Member

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  for Huntingdon (Mr. Renton) has said—in drawing the line between what it is permissible to discuss in respect of administration, and what it is not permissible to discuss so far as it would involve legislation. It has been very difficult for that line to be sharply drawn, and that must be so in a discussion of this sort. I have, of course, considered this problem with close attention since I came to my present Department. I have considered, with particularly close attention, the distinction between what it is possible to do administratively and what it is only possible to do legislatively, because it has seemed to me that in this rather abnormal Parliamentary situation, the duration of which none can foretell, it is better to concentrate upon administrative improvements, when they can be made quickly, rather than to embark upon distant projects of legislation, which might not come to pass.
  Quite frankly, as I have already said both inside and outside this House, I have concentrated my principal attention on what can be done administratively, and certain of the proposals that have been raised tonight could not, I am advised, be done administratively, and I think that strictly speaking, discussion of them would not be in order on this occasion. I shall therefore touch on them in passing without developing the argument.
  First of all, with regard to the amount of the development charge. Some hon. Members have argued that the development charge should be uniformly reduced. Two proposals have been made—one, that it should be uniformly reduced to some percentage less than 100, and 75 has been suggested. I am advised that that would require legislation, and I therefore say no more about it now. I have been careful to seek advice on this subject, and that is what I am advised. On the other hand, I am advised that a differential arrangement for the development charge would not require legislation, and the arguments for or against that can therefore properly be deployed on this occasion. The hon. Member for Hertford (Mr. Walker-Smith) did use, I think, some very telling arguments against the differential arrangement. He said—and I quote one of the phrases he used—that if the differentiation arrangement were applied to each particular de-
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  termination of development charge that would in itself be an act of administration, and evidently that is true.
  Mr. Renton: I understand that the 100 per cent. development charge was fixed by regulation in 1948. What is there, therefore, to prevent a 75 per cent. development charge being fixed by regulation in 1950?
  Mr. Dalton: We are in the hands of our legal advisors in this, as in many other matters, and that is the best advice that I have been able to get. That being what I am advised, I do not think that it would be proper for me to develop an argument of that point, although on another occasion, other than in Committee of Supply, discussion of it would be possible.
  Mr. R. S. Hudson: Surely, with all respect, Sir Charles, the Act merely laid down that there was to be a development charge, and it was made 100 per cent. by virtue of regulation. It would surely have been open to the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor, instead of inserting the figure 100 in the original regulation, to have inserted the figure 90 or 70 or whatever figure it might be, other than 100. If it was open to him to do that, then quite clearly it must be open equally to his successor to revoke that regulation and issue a new regulation with a different figure?
  Mr. Dalton: That is what I might have thought before I took legal advice, but I am told that it requires legislation, and I do not think that I can carry it further.
  Mr. Molson: I think that the Minister could explain to us what the legal argument is. It is perfectly plain, and I remember it extremely clearly, that we understood that it was going to be a variable charge until the last Minister came down with the regulation, and that was the first thing that the House knew about 100 per cent. charge being obligatory. With the utmost respect, Sir Charles, I suggest that the Minister might explain the argument to us because I cannot feel that he has just accepted the advice of his legal advisers without even seeking to understand their argument.
  Mr. Dalton: I am very anxious to oblige the Committee to the best of my

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  powers. On the other hand, I wish to reply to other points which have been made. The Central Land Board, as I have stated, have made a report at my request in which I ask them to distinguish clearly between possible changes which could be made administratively, and changes which would require legislation, and in their view, in addition to the view of other legal advisers, this proposal to have a uniform lower charge would require legislation. I repeat that I am prepared to discuss the matter on another occasion, but with respect I put myself, Sir Charles, in your hands, and I judge that it would not be appropriate for me to develop that point further.
  The Deputy-Chairman(Colonel Sir Charles MacAndrew): I should not like to express an opinion myself, but if variations had been allowed before by regulation there appears to be no reason why they should not be discussed now.
  Mr. Hudson: I know perfectly well from experience of the right hon. Gentleman that he is the last person who would wish us to back out, but if he maintains his present attitude of saying that this requires legislation he will incur the suspicion that he is endeavouring to burke the argument. Surely, it would be in order for him to say why his advisers think that what appears on the face of it to be an unreasonable interpretation is the right one.
  The Deputy-Chairman: I have said that if it had been done by regulation before it can be discussed now.
  Mr. Walker-Smith: If it be a fact that the Act prescribes the development charge, but that the actual method of levying it, which comes to 100 per cent., is prescribed only in the regulation, would it be in order, Sir Charles, to discuss a matter which would require amending regulation although not an amending Act?
  The Deputy-Chairman: I am not prepared to give an answer to such a complicated question. If it has been done before by regulation, then in my view it can be discussed now.
  Mr. Dalton: In that case, not wishing to take too long on this one point, I am prepared now not to continue to argue whether it would require legislation, but
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  to give reasons why, since the Chair has ruled it would not be out of order, I do not propose to vary the 100 per cent. I do not accept, in the broad way in which it has been put by hon. Members, the argument that a development charge at 100 per cent. is having a deterrent effect on development. It may be, as the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Renton) has said, that at some future date, when the total volume of development is substantially greater, that that may be so, but at the present moment our labour force is fully employed, and therefore there can be no deterrence on development in the aggregate. All that can happen, as a result of the charge, is that some development takes place and other development does not. The development which takes place is, on the whole, development fostered by Government policy, with regard to housing, repair of existing habitations, new towns, industrial building and so on.
  Therefore, I do not accept the view that 100 a per cent. development charge discourages the aggregate of development at this time. I do not consider that the reduction in the revenue accruing to the Exchequer, which would be the result of reducing the 100 per cent. charge, and from the Exchequer point of view would be unfortunate, would be balanced by any additional total development taking place. That is the short argument, and, whether legislation is required or not, I do not propose at this stage to take steps to reduce the charge.
  There is, I think, a good deal to be said for the view that control over changes of use is too detailed. I wish to associate myself with what has been said by several Members as to the value of the Chartered Surveyors' Report, which I have been reading and find suggests a number of proposals that I would be very glad to be able to adopt, not perhaps all at once, but in due course. It is a valuable document, written objectively and with knowledge.
  Complaint was also made of the delay by the planning authority in dealing with applications for permission, and I was asked whether I could not do something about it. I have been trying to do something about that in what I called an "Experiment in Freedom." This is a phrase I used to local authority representatives who were very doubtful as to

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  whether I was not being too rash in lifting some requirements for planning permission. That was the context of the observation I made, but I make no complaint of particular sentences being picked out of their context and misused, because few politicians have not done that to their opponents at some time or another.
  Since this has been done in my case, not for the first time, I should like to quote what I really said on the subject of lifting requirements for planning permission. I said this at a Press conference. I am quoting from a newspaper which I am sure hon. Members in all parts of the Committee will agree is well known, widely read and authoritative, the "Morning Advertiser." It gives a very good report of what I said, much better than most of the other newspapers—
  "Some local authorities are rather hesitant about this experiment in freedom. I have told them that it is an experiment. Some local authority associations have seen me. Their representatives came to see me to tell me that they were apprehensive about it, and I have told them that if they can show it is widely and appreciably abused, the question of retracing the step will be considered."
  I went on to say that I did not think it would be abused, either in regard to farm buildings, dwelling-houses or industrial establishments. This experiment in freedom rather frightened some of the local authorities, including—and here I am not drawing any political distinction—Conservative and Labour authorities, who were equally timid. Their officials persuade them very often to be timid in withdrawing any controls which the officials have ever at any time operated. That, no doubt, is human nature.
  Mr. R. S. Hudson: That is an example of how evil associations corrupt good manners.
  Mr. Dalton: At any rate, the right hon. Gentleman is not disagreeing with what I am saying. We both have experience of some of these matters, and these sort of people.
  I hope that the result of this withdrawal of the requirement of planning permission, as a result of which 40 per cent. of the applications previously made will no longer need to be made, will have
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  the effect of diminishing the delays by the local planning authorities by giving them less to do in this field, and enabling them to do quicker what is left.
  I notice that Scots are quicker on the ball than Englishmen, according to what one hon. Member said, and I am quite prepared to consult the hon. Lady the Joint Under-Secretary of State as to why that is so. My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary tells me that it is because there are fewer appeals. If there is anything we can learn in speed of action from Scotland, I shall be most happy to learn it, and to apply it in practical administration.
  I should like to conclude this part of what I am saying by remarking that the primary responsibility rests upon the popularly elected authorities, and that there is a limit to what it is proper for a Department in Whitehall to do in bringing pressure upon local authorities to alter their methods of working or their mode of holding their committee meetings, or dealing with detailed administrative matters which come before them. Subject to that, however, I will certainly do my best to see whether we cannot still further reduce delays.
  The next point, which was raised by the hon. Member, was whether we could not have some kind of statutory code with regard to valuation arrangements. That, again, at first sight seemed a reasonable proposition, and I should like to think about it. I have already had some discussions about it with my advisers. There is of course a danger that if we were to translate the present practice into a statutory code, we might get something rather more rigid than we have now, and we would not necessarily get a lower general level of development charges. It is, perhaps, a little rash to assume that the mere creation of a statutory code would help in this regard, but I will continue to examine this matter in the light of what the hon. Member and others have said.
  Those, I think, were the principal points which were raised by the hon. Member in opening the discussion, and the same points were dealt with further by other speakers. Perhaps I may turn aside at this stage, and mention some of the other matters that were put to me, returning to the question of development charges in a moment.

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  Something was said about the new towns. I welcome the opportunity of saying a word about them. Since I became Minister, I have made it my duty to visit as many of the new towns as possible. There is only one, or at the most two, which I have not visited, and I should like to say, particularly to my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen (Mr. McAllister), that the progress is undoubtedly accelerating. Two of the new towns in particular, Crawley and Harlow, which I visited recently, are hoping to have something very good to show in time for the Festival of Britain—they both told me that—in 1951, and when we get visitors from overseas, from the United States and from our own Commonwealth countries and so on, I believe that they will find a great stimulus and interest in seeing how far our new towns experiment has then gone.
  The production of houses, road works, sewerage and so on, all the preliminaries are going well ahead in nearly all the new towns. They have reached different stages, because some of the new towns are older than others, some of them have been at it longer than others, and some have more difficult problems in terms of terrain, but all are on a very definite upward curve in the building of roads, sewers and houses. I also say to my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen that I have an arrangement with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health whereby we shall not be held up in regard to housing allocations, but have a global housing allocation in respect of the new towns. It will be allocated to the new towns in accordance with their capacity to get on with the building, and if any of them can build more houses they will get authority to build more within the total national allocation.
  I must not say more now, but I would like an occasion to say more in detail about the work of these new town corporations. I am very favourably impressed by what I have seen and by the competence, spirit and keen interest taken in their work by the new town corporation members, their officers and the labour force, whom I have seen at work. I would add only a further point; at each new town I have visited, I have made a point of calling on some of the houses already occupied, and not merely on tenants who were prepared for the call
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  I have called at various times and, generally speaking, during the working hours of the day so that usually I have seen the lady of the house—[Laughter]—with witnesses present—and on each occasion I have asked her whether she liked her house. Invariably she has said, "Yes," I have asked her whether she wanted to go back from where she came, and invariably she said, with great emphasis, "No." Although in many cases the rents are higher than they paid before, the value they are getting for the rents means that there will be no stronger supporters of the new town idea than those families who were fortunate enough to be the first to go and live in them.
  National Parks were discussed by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn, East (Mrs. Castle), whom some of us find a most charming companion when we go exploring unknown areas, and who recently greatly brightened our three sunny days in the Cheviots. She asked whether I was stimulating the National Parks Commission. I think the Commission consists of a number of very keen and active people, appointed by my predecessor in office, and he chose very well. I am keeping in constant touch with them, and I have indicated to them that I want to have, between them and me, the relationship of a very active two-way traffic in bright ideas, positive proposals and eager prodding, if there should be any evidence of slow movement on either side. They are doing well, they are moving about, they have already visited the Peak District, and have met all the local authorities there, and also other people interested in public amenities and so on. They have delineated the boundaries of the Peak National Park, which are now being discussed with the various local authorities concerned, to get their agreement, which, I hope, will be got very soon and, as soon as it is got, we shall be able to set up the first planning authority in the Peak.
  Mr. Molson: Have the proposed limitations of the National Park been published?
  Mr. Dalton: So far they are only being sent to the various local authorities concerned, Derbyshire County Council and the others, for their observations, but they will be published at an early date. I think I know the answer to the question the hon. Member was going to ask. If

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  there is any objection it will be possible to have a public inquiry.
  Mr. Molson: Could the amenities societies also have an early opportunity to have a look at the plan which has been given to the local authorities?
  Mr. Dalton: They surely shall. All the legitimately interested parties in the area surely shall. I gather the boundaries of the National Park in the Lake District have been pretty well agreed already with the local authorities. Next month the Commission is visiting the North Wales area, sometimes called the Snowdonia National Park. With regard to other possible National Parks, they have a subcommittee now considering the question of the Broads. I will not speak of that in detail, or go beyond saying that there is a great need for something to be done to prevent the silting up of the Broads. That is being actively examined by a subcommittee of the National Parks Commission.
  They have another sub-committee considering the question of these long distance routes which have been mentioned. The Pennine Way has been indicated as probably the first, but they are also very much interested in the question of the possibility of the Thames Footpath, a matter about which I myself today saw Sir Jocelyn Bray of the Thames Conservancy. We are considering what can be done there. There are questions of cost, of erosion of the banks, etc., to be considered, but I shall be disappointed if we do not get something done in regard to the three National Parks, the Broads, and at least two of these long distance routes.
  I thought it right to give that report on the activities of the National Parks Commission. Perhaps, I might just say to the Committee that I first met the Commission within a few days of my becoming Minister. I said to them, "I will never be indignant with you for going too fast but I reserve the right to be impatient if I think you are going too slowly." So far, I have had no cause to be impatient. They are doing their job very well.
  With regard to the Service Departments' land requirements, we must be sensible and not imagine we can have modern and up to date Armed Forces in
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  this little island without having to surrender considerable areas in the total for the use of the Services. It does no good to talk as do some of the extreme exponents of the National Park idea, and say that within a National Park there should be no military exercises at all. That is nonsense. The National Parks will take up too big a proportion of the total area for that to be so. I have made it clear to my right hon. Friends, who are in charge of the Service Departments, that my approach will be that I begin by recognising the claims of the Service Departments to substantial areas in the aggregate, and I hope that they, in turn, will recognise my right to say that, here and there, a relatively small area should not be included in their requirements. On that basis of common sense, an arrangement can be reached between those responsible for planning and other non-military interests and those responsible for the training of the forces. So far, we have got along pretty well. A number of outstanding cases are now being discussed between myself and the Service Ministers, and we shall make announcements from time to time.
  I do not feel that I can deny the Services all the Warcop Range. I thought I had done a fairly good deal in getting the northern boundary of the danger area re-drawn southwards—the hon. Member for Westmorland (Mr. Vane) knows this area very well—so as to clear that very remarkable bit of country which he and I well know, running from Cauldron Snout in my constituency to High Cup Nick, which is in his. That was of great advantage to large numbers of people in that area. I did not think it reasonable to say that they should not have any of the Warcop Range area for the tank firing range which they wanted.
  With regard to the Redesdale Range, my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn, East, will agree with me that the guns were not really firing very near to us, and that a very minor adjustment at the boundary of the Redesdale target area should enable the Pennine Way at its northern end to run completely clear of the outermost danger area drawn by the most prudent general. I am speaking to the Secretary of State for War about that, and I hope that we shall be able to make an adjustment.

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  May I turn to the question of development charges and the report I have had from the Central Land Board. I asked Sir Thomas Phillips, the Chairman of the Board, and his colleagues, to put up to me a study of all the possible administrative improvements which would not require legislation. He did so, and put up a number of suggestions. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland, who of course is the Minister of Town and Country Planning north of the Border, and myself, are proposing, as a result of this, to lay before Parliament in the near future, new regulations, which will exempt certain classes of development from liability to development charge.
  In the first place, these regulations will provide for exempting from charge the enlargement of a dwelling-house by 10 per cent. or 7,500 cubic feet, whichever is the greater. That is an extension from the present figure of 1,750 cubic feet. The same will apply to the rebuilding of a dwelling-house with simultaneous enlargement within the limit I have indicated.
  In the second place, and this was the point raised by the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Mr. Black), the new Regulations will exempt from charge the lateral conversion into flats of not more than three adjoining dwelling-houses, provided they were in existence on 1st July, 1948. This concession will also extend to war-destroyed houses in respect of which there is an entitlement to a cost of works payment. Vertical conversion, as the hon. Gentleman said, of a single dwelling-house into flats is already exempt from charge, and we shall lateralise the vertical concession. That concession was asked for by the Georgian Group, who take a keen and aesthetic interest in Georgian and other architecture, and I am very glad to be able to agree to it. It will still be necessary to get planning permission in order to carry through these lateral conversions, but given permission, no development charge will lie.
  The Central Land Board have been authorised by me to waive the collection of development charge in all such oases as I have mentioned, arising after today. Further, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland and I are proposing to meet the well-known case of difficulty, which will be familiar to all
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  hon. Members who have studied the matter, where a man proposes to carry on his own small business in the house where he lives. We propose to exempt from development charge the use for business purposes of a part of a dwelling-house. This will need rather careful drafting, but I can indicate the lines on which we are moving. This concession is intended particularly to help the small man, and I am considering the best practical means of doing this. The rateable value of the premises is obviously one standard to be taken into account, and the amount of space in the house to be given over to business use is another standard. Furthermore, it should, I think, be a condition that there should be no material change in the external appearance of the building We are working out the details of that now, and it will be embodied in regulations very soon.
  This concession does not mean that shops may now be opened in the front rooms of dwelling-houses without getting planning permission. That, I am sure, would be wrong, and it would be very objectionable and unsightly in many cases. The introduction of a business use into a house must remain a material change of use, and must receive the permission of the local planning authority, as at present. The alteration which we are to make will be that the development charge will not be payable in cases which will be covered by that concession once planning permission has been granted.
  Finally, my right hon. Friend and I are considering whether some further easement can be made by amendment of the Use Classes Order. The effect of this change would be that certain less important changes of use would no longer rank as development, or alternatively, that certain uses, now classified as separate, would cease to be so classified, which is another way of stating the same thing; and consequently, they would no longer require permission from the planning authority, or incur liability to development charge.
  This is a rather tricky matter, and I must ask for a little more time, but it is the intention of my right hon. Friend and myself to insert a concession of this sort also in the new regulations. This is a further little "experiment in freedom", and I hope it will be accepted as

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  the next step towards the simplification of our planning arrangements and the removal of certain restrictions and certain development charges, which we do not think at this stage justify their continuance.
  It being Ten o'Clock, The CHAIRMAN left the Chair to report Progress and ask leave to sit again.
  Committee report Progress; to sit again Tomorrow

  FIRE SERVICES (APPOINTMENTS AND PROMOTION)
  10.1 p.m.
  Major J. R. Bevins: I beg to move,
  "That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty, praying that the Regulations entitled the Fire Services (Appointments and Promotion) Regulations, 1950 (S.I., 1950, No. 619), a copy of which was laid before this House on 18th April, be annulled."
  Perhaps I ought first to explain that these Regulations deal with the appointment of chief officers of fire brigades in England and Wales and also with the appointment and promotion of other ranks within fire brigades. My personal objection to these Regulations as they stand is that, in part, they are unnecessary and that, to some extent, they constitute the most unwarrantable interference with the functions of those local authorities in England and Wales which are fire authorities.
  I shall deal, first, with the lack of need for certain of these Regulations. The first deals with the appointment of chief officers and stipulates that they are to be selected on the basis of advertisement, consideration and interview, all of which is perfectly well-established procedure on the part of local authorities. There is no need whatever to incorporate it in ponderous official language in Regulations. For the appointment of ordinary firemen local authorities are told that they shall be of British nationality, of good character, strong and healthy with an elementary knowledge of the three Rs. Really, it is rather an impertinence for a Government Department to issue a Regulation of this sort for the enlightenment of local authorities. It is completely unnecessary.
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  My serious objection to the Regulations is that here and there there is wrongful interference with the functions of local authorities. For example, the Regulation No. 1, dealing with the appointment of chief officers, concludes by saying that before the appointment is ratified it must be approved by the Home Secretary. I do not think that has been the case in the past, and I hope that the Under-Secretary will tell us why the Home Office wish to assert this right. I believe that local authorities are capable of appointing officials of this sort without any interference from the Home Office or any other Government Departments. Regulation No. 5 deals with promotions within fire brigades on the basis of examination. It states:
  "before the examination is held, a draft of the questions proposed to be set to the candidates shall be sent to the central examination committee, and that committee may for not more than half of the questions proposed substitute other questions …"
  Then we are told:
  "after the examination has been held, the marks proposed to be awarded to each candidate in respect of each question answered by him shall be submitted to the said committee …"
  Further, the committee may have the privilege of altering the marks awarded by the people who look after the examinations in the various localities. It seems to me that this is a priceless example of bureaucratic nonsense which ought not to be countenanced by either side of the House.
  I should like to remind the House that, on 27th April this year, when the Home Secretary was dealing with certain questions bearing upon the Fire Service, he made the statement that the fire services are now entirely local services. A little later, on 18th May, when speaking on the same subject in this House, the right hon. Gentleman said:
  "No instructions are issued by my Department, but circulars giving advice are sent round."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th May, 1950; Vol. 475, c. 1387.]
  I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman regards these Regulations as pieces of advice or guidance for local authorities, or whether he takes them for what they actually are—arbitrary orders to local authorities to do as they are told.
  The position as I see it is that, since the fire services returned to the local authorities a few years ago the Home

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  Office has been paying a grant of 25 per cent., but, while paying only a fraction of the total costs of these services, they have been consistently seeking to gain more and more control over their administration. It has been said commonly by officials of local authorities that it is a case of a 25 per cent. grant for 75 per cent. control. It seems to me that, when the actual control of the service is divorced, as it is here, from financial responsibility, there are bound to be duplicated systems of administration and extravagance in the running of the service. I would like to point out that, according to the official statistics, in 1938 the cost of these services throughout the country was just over £3 million, whereas today it has risen, according to the right hon. Gentle man's own estimate, to £12 million.
  I could understand these Regulations perfectly if the fire authorities in England and Wales were smaller or irresponsible or mischievous bodies of one sort or another, but, in fact, they are all either county councils or county borough councils, and I believe myself that the chief officer of a fire brigade in Liverpool, Cardiff, Birmingham or any other large provincial city knows a great deal more about his own locality than his self-appointed masters in Whitehall. The effect of all these Regulations, which are now churned out week after week, is to transform the chief officers of fire brigades from the good old healthy fire-fighters which they were into a glorified uniform service.
  The right hon. Gentleman may laugh, but I do not think he has had the opportunity of sitting on a fire services committee, as other hon. Members of the House have done, or has had the experience, as a publicly-elected representative of the people sitting on one of these bodies, of being reduced to the level of a mere rubber stamp. It is true that they sit as the elected representatives of the people, but they have lost all freedom of making their own administrative decisions, because they are overridden by regulations and so-called guidance from the Home Office.
  I hope that, when the Under-Secretary replies, he will not rest his case on the possibilities of the international situation. I hope he will give us an assurance that he realises that what is important in this matter is not uniformity throughout the
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  country but efficiency. Until we lay responsibility for these services fairly and squarely on the shoulders of those who are bearing the brunt of the financial burden, we shall never get the efficiency to which I think we are entitled.
  10.9 p.m.
  Mr. Kenneth Thompson: I beg to second the Motion.
  I should like to support the remarks of my hon. and gallant Friend the Memfor Toxteth (Major Bevins), although I will not go over the argument, which he has put before the House in support of his case, that local authorities are quite well qualified to make these appointments themselves. Past experience in many large corporations has shown that satisfactory and successful appointments have been made. All those arguments are perfectly valid. These Regulations are another example of the endeavour which has been made for five years to encroach upon the proper area of responsibility of local authorities.
  In the last few weeks, the country has seen so many of the recommendations proposed by this party during the General Election put into operation by the party opposite, as belated, amended thoughts that it seems to me that they might now take some notice of the poster which we presented for their edification showing the Ministry official grabbing the responsibility of the local authority and of the local authority representative. This is precisely the kind of case we had in mind when that poster was prepared and when the case was presented to the people during the February election.
  This is not a flippant matter, although the matters with which the Regulations deal are only small. There are one or two very serious implications which can follow from the kind of practice of which these Regulations are a prime example. If it is the responsibility of the Department in Whitehall to lay down the precise and detailed form in which selection and promotion shall be made, then there is the inevitable temptation on the part of local authorities to shed their own responsibility and to cast it where the Minister would, apparently, have it lie, and to tend to say, "We can now take no responsibility for this matter, but put the blame on the Minister who approved the final selection." If that comes to pass,

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  then local authority services of all kinds—the Fire Service and others—will be the weaker and the less efficient for it.
  But there is an even more serious consideration. Appointments are made of officers who are men with a career to serve. They hold certain appointments within the Fire Service, and they seek higher and better paid appointments, and who is to blame them for that? If it is seen—as it is already in many fields of local government service—that the high royal road to promotion is to seek and obtain the favour of the Minister and his officials, then the local authority departments will have no chance at all of maintaining an independent and efficient service.
  If the final approval of the Minister is the seal to a successful career, then there is a grave danger, which, I am pleased to say, is being resisted by most officials at present, that instead of seeking to give efficiency and loyal and thorough service to the local authority, what will be sought will be the good will and the beneficent approval of the Minister. If ever that comes to pass, then the Fire Service, like other local government services, will lose efficiency and the community will be the poorer.
  10.14 p.m.
  The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Geoffrey de Freitas): I wish that the two hon. Members who have just raised this matter, and who, I understood from the hon. and gallant Member for Toxteth (Major Bevins), had some respect, if not for bureaucrats, for the duly elected representatives of the people, had read what the elected representatives of the people, sitting here in Parliament in the last Session legislated on, and had looked particularly at Section 18 of the 1947 Act. Had they done so, they would have seen that these Regulations, made pursuant to that Section, are Regulations made by the Home Secretary giving effect, except for one or two small points, to unanimous recommendations of the advisory council set up pursuant to that very Act. The Central Fire Advisory Council is not a bunch of bureaucrats, but a collection of men representing not only the firemen, the officers, and other interests, but the very local authorities to which the two hon. Gentlemen were referring.
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  The purpose of these Regulations is clear. It is to ensure that officers and firemen, no matter in what brigade they may be serving, are up to a certain standard in technical knowledge as well as in experience and in brawn as well as in brain. Regulation No. 1 much moved the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Toxteth, particularly the point that the Home Secretary must approve the appointment of a chief fire officer, which he described as an unwarrantable interference. He asked why the Home Secretary now asserts this right.
  In 1947 on Second Reading, in Committee and on Report my right hon. Friend made it quite clear that he intended to introduce a Regulation giving him the power to do just this, and there was not one word of criticism from any quarter of this House. It was not to be expected that there should be, for the very good reason that fire brigades throughout this country must be efficient. Parliament recognised that the Home Secretary for the time being is the Minister entrusted with that task; and what better way is there of making fire brigades throughout this country efficient than by seeing that only good fire officers are appointed?
  Colonel Gomme-Duncan: Does the hon. Gentleman really tell the House and the country that excellent as is the judgment of the Home Secretary, whoever he may be at that time, local authorities, properly elected and highly experienced, are not capable of appointing their own chief fire officers?
  Mr. de Freitas: I am not saying that. I am saying that the hon. and gallant Member was a Member of this House, as indeed I was, during the last Parliament when the Home Secretary made this clear on Second Reading, in Committee and on Report and no objection was taken at the time. I say, most emphatically, that it was recognised by Parliament that if there were to be efficient fire brigades then the Home Secretary must have the right to do this and, of course, the Home Secretary would not over-rule a fire authority except in extreme cases. But Parliament recognised to a man that he should have that power. [An HON. MEMBER: "Will the hon. Gentleman answer?"] I have answered that Parliament, recognising that the Home Secretary was responsible

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  for the efficiency of fire brigades, gave this power, which the Home Secretary does not and will not abuse but which is there as a safeguard for the efficiency of the fire brigades of this country.
  Colonel Gomme-Duncan: Is the hon. Gentleman telling us that local authorities are not competent to appoint their own fire officers?
  Mr. de Freitas: If the hon. and gallant gentleman reads that into what I said he will read anything. Possibly he may think he is representing the local authorities, but the fact is that even bodies as important as county councils, who have their representative on the council accepted this. If hon. Gentlemen opposite will study this Act, and the council set up pursuant to it, they will see that these authorities are represented on the council.
  Let me pass to the second point. [HON. MEMBERS: "Answer the question."] Is it really suggested that I have not made it perfectly clear that Parliament gave this power to the Home Secretary, that he will not abuse it but that it is there as a safeguard in the case of a rare occasion—
  Major Hicks-Beach: The hon. Gentleman was asked a question.
  Mr. de Freitas: And I have answered the question.
  A lot of fun was poked at the examination. Hon. Members should know better than that. This examination was deliberately set up to see that men who became station officers were worthy of that appointment, because, it is station officers who are the field from which are drawn the senior officers of the fire brigades throughout the whole country. The Regulations provide for a minimum length of service and the passing of an examination, and were unanimously approved by the fire authorities in the Advisory Council. When the 1947 Measure was debated the Home Secretary made clear his view, which the House shared, in Committee and on Report that questions of the promotion of individuals should be left to the fire authorities but that he would make regulations prescribing qualifying conditions which would cover the whole country. That is exactly what these Regulations do. They embody the Advisory Council's recommendations how best to solve this problem of an examination, leaving
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  as much power as possible to the fire authority and, at the same time, setting up this national standard.
  The hon. and gallant Member who raised this matter referred laughingly to the fact that the draft of the questions must be sent to the Central Examination Committee. This Committee is a subcommittee of the Advisory Council. It prepares a syllabus. After the fire authority sets the paper the Committee must see if the paper meets the national standard. Inevitably this will be done by senior fire officers, that is experts, and not a lot of bureaucrats. These experts will report to the Committee. The fire authority holds the examination after that.
  Of course, the Committee has these supervisory functions, because the object of the Committee is to ensure that a high national standard is set and maintained in the field of fire fighting. The idea of the Central Examination Committee is not a new idea, thought out by bureaucrats. It is operated by many joint committees of the Ministry of Education and professional organisations such as the Institute of Mechanical Engineers, the Royal Institute of Chemistry and the Institute of Gas Engineers. These joint committees exercise the same functions of looking at the way the examination papers are set so that national certificates can be issued.
  It is just as important that professional fire fighters in Cumberland or in Kent should have the same qualifications as it is that chemists in Northumberland and Norfolk should have the same qualifications. These are good Regulations. They come to us endorsed by the Advisory Council which has been set up for this purpose, and I ask the House to reject this Motion.
  10.23 p.m.
  Mr. Reader Harris: I do not dissent from the principles which have been enunciated by hon. Members on this side of the House about the local authorities having full powers to determine the appointment of their officers and that they should be given the fullest possible measure of local autonomy. At the same time, where the Fire Service is concerned hon. Members and particularly those on this side of the House, should have some regard to recent history in the Fire Service. On 18th August, 1941, the then Home Secretary,

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  now the Lord President of the Council, nationalised the Fire Service. On 1st April, 1948, the Fire Service was denationalised, much to the regret of the Fire Service because it had never been so well off as when it was under the control of the Home Secretary.
  I believe in local authorities. I like them and I want them to have the fullest possible powers, but I have not got the unbounded confidence in local authorities that some people have. I can give the name of a county council which, in the last two weeks, has issued a regulation making it imperative for a fireman whose wife dies to have time off without pay to bury her. That is a fantastic state of affairs. One would not believe it possible, but that is the sort of thing that is liable to happen when complete control in a certain matter is given to local authorities. There will always be some authorities which are good and some which are not so good.
  There are some things which are very much the prerogative of a local authority to decide, but when something which has been under national control suddenly reverts to local authority control, then we find that some parts of it do extraordinarily well while others do not do nearly so well. The attempt in these promotion Regulations to lay down some guiding principles on which fire authorities should make their promotions of chief officers and others was made to do away with the great evil which often existed before the war and which caused such a great lack of confidence in appointments when, for instance, somebody was appointed to a job who, clearly, was not fit for it but who happened to be the blue-eyed boy at the time. I do not think that sort of thing is likely to happen if there are guiding principles.
  I must take the Under-Secretary of State to task on one point. He said this part of the Regulations was unanimously approved by the Central Advisory Council. Through the kindness of the Home Secretary, I was appointed to that body and I should like to say that the local authorities did not quite like having all these things laid down in regulations.
  Mr. de Freitas: If the hon. Member looks at my speech in HANSARD he will find exactly what I said. Referring to
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  a certain section I said it was approved unanimously, but in the other connection I think I said that the County Councils' Association agreed.
  Mr. Harris: I am much obliged. There was no unanimous agreement in relation to this. Very often we get protests from the local authorities, to the council, to say that they do not want the Home Secretary to tell them what is their job. On the employees' side—and I speak for the officers on that council—we were glad to see some principles laid down. I think I am right in saying that all the representatives of the employees asked the Home Secretary unanimously to lay down some guiding principles.
  I will say no more about the promotion aspect. There is only one aspect of the Regulations which I regret, and it is that it was found necessary to set up a central examination committee. My association made this point on the council. I think this is rather a cumbersome and unnecessary procedure. We favoured use being made of the graduateship examination of the Institution of Fire Engineers. I will not elaborate the point because the local authorities would not agree in the end to the use of this examination. They very nearly came to agreement, but at the last minute they drew back because there was some doubt about admitting the principle of recognising the examinations of outside bodies.
  I believe I am right in saying that there are difficulties about it. There are two associations of town planners, and they could not make up their minds which association to accept, so they cut out the lot. Use is not to be made of the I.F.E. examination and I think that is a pity. We have a central examination committee which cannot do anything for a least one-and-a-half years because notice has to be given of the syllabus, people have to be trained for it and so on. There will be a lot of expense in that direction. That is the only unpalatable part of these Regulations, so I will say no more except to add that I support the Home Secretary in laying down at any rate guiding principles to ensure that there is no favouritism.
  Major Bevins: In view of the reply which the Under-Secretary of State has given, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

  EX-PRISONERS-OF-WAR, FAR EAST
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Popplewell.]
  10.29 p.m.
  Mr. Alport: It has been my observation that this House is always most contented not at moments of high controversy but when discussing matters on which all sides can agree. I hope that the subject which I raise tonight is one of these, because I believe every hon. Member wishes to extend the fairest possible treatment to all of those who are numbered among the casualties of the last war.
  The group to which I shall call attention particularly are those members of His Majesty's Forces who were made prisoners-of-war by the Japanese between 1941 and 1945. The ghastly cruelty to which they were subjected by their captors is not, I think, properly realised by public opinion at home, which knows little of the story of the building of the Siam-Burma Railway or of the incidents which took place in prisoner-of-war camps throughout Malaya and Siam and in Japan itself.
  If I do not go into details, it is not from any squeamishness on my part or from any lack of evidence, because I have plenty of it, but simply from deference to those men and women who suffered from these cruelties and to those parents and relations whom I do not wish to distress. Their case is different, I think, from that of those other prisoners-of-war who were captured by other enemy countries. It is sufficient for me to say that the treatment meted out by the Japanese was immeasurably worse than the vilest concentration camp of Nazi days. The lives of prisoners-of-war were in the sight of the Japanese little more than being expendable, like an empty cartridge case. Their treatment was contrary to the usages of war. It was contrary to the Geneva Convention. It has and must have left permanent scars on the minds and bodies of those who survived.
  Nothing, it is true, can fully compensate the men and women concerned. They
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  carry these scars for life. It is, however, in my submission, up to those of us who were luckier than they were to try and treat their very special problem with understanding and generosity. That there is a very special problem is borne out by the fact that the United States and Australia both treat it as such. The former has passed special legislation to compensate at the rate of one dollar a day those whose standard of nutrition in prisoner-of-war camps fell below the prescribed level of the Geneva Convention of 1929, with which the Japanese Government in 1942 undertook to comply. The Australians have introduced, or are in process of considering, similar legislation. They have also provided for a periodical medical re-examination of all such prisoners-of-war in order to keep a check on the delayed effects which become apparent, as the months and years roll on, on the physique and minds of those who have suffered from grave ill-treatment.
  Every hon. Member knows well, I am sure, how difficult it is to prove a pensions claim arising from a war disability some time after the injury to health or limb involved has occurred. It is essential, therefore, in my view, that some special system should be introduced to ensure that those who were prisoners-of-war under the Japanese have a reasonably fair chance, however long the interval may be, of proving their claim to a pension without going through all the formidable formalities of producing medical evidence which a normal claimant has to undergo. For this purpose it seems to me essential that there should be a recognised method of recording changes in the health of these men and women from time to time.
  I submit that United Kingdom ex-prisoners-of-war should have no less generous treatment from the people of this country than that the American and Australian ex-prisoners-of-war are receiving from the peoples of theirs. I wish to make it clear that I am not asking for the cost of the compensation of ex-prisoners-of-war to be met by the already hard pressed British taxpayers. I suggest that the compensation payable to ex-prisoners-of-war or to their dependants should be met either from reparations to be paid to Britain in accordance with some special clause of

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  the peace treaty which, I understand, will shortly be negotiated or, and I believe this is better still, from money to be raised by a special tariff on Japanese goods imported into the United Kingdom. I will not touch on that, in deference to your Ruling, Sir, save to draw attention to finding means which will enable us not only to compensate ex-prisoners-of-war but at the same time to prevent those, especially those working in Lancashire, from also being thrown out of their jobs as a result of competition from sweated labour in Japanese factories.
  I feel that it is possible to find some means of carrying out an act of justice to these men and women, which, however small the amount of money involved may be, will not only give them assistance in meeting the difficulties they have to face in this post-war world, but will also give them mental satisfaction, and, I believe this to be important, of knowing that their countrymen and Government recognise the problems, hardships and horrors they faced as prisoners-of-war when in the service of their country. It would also recognise that they suffered from particular disadvantages, and that as far as is humanly possible efforts are being made to overcome them. The disadvantages from which these men and women suffered are not physical but mental. They believe they are forgotten, forgotten by the people of the country, and we must, as I submit for the Minister's consideration tonight, do everything we can in their interests and from the point of view of the credit of the nation to reassure them on this score.
  10.37 p.m.
  Mr. John Tilney: I rise to support my hon. Friend in his plea to the Minister. Many people have forgotten, if indeed they ever knew, the shameful conditions in which the Japanese worked their prisoners-of-war. The diet was grossly inadequate—rice and salt, lacking most of the necessary vitamins. It was a diet on which many were expected to work 14 hours a day building a railway in the jungle. I quote from the diary of a friend of mine who was in charge of the base hospital at Tamarkan He says that those who became ill due to their diet hoped they
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  might find themselves in Tamarkan, where conditions were much better than in many other hospitals and much better than on the railway, although the ration for all hospitals was on a reduced scale.
  "Issues of drugs from the Japanese were negligible. The first I received for a hospital of 3,000 patients was a few dozen iodine crystals, 3 bandages and 5 aspirin tablets. The sick were in an appalling condition, approximately 75 per cent. of the parties were stretcher cases and men frequently arrived dead. They were brought in cattle trucks on the railway, the load being between 30 and 40 per truck. No arrangements for feeding and treatment on the journey were made by the Japanese. On one occasion a party of 60, mostly stretcher cases, were dumped off a train in a paddy field some two miles from the camp in the pouring rain at 0300 hours. They were left without a guard, and a search party had to go out from the camp to locate them. At least 10 of these men died within the next fortnight. It is impossible to describe adequately the condition of these men. As a typical example I can remember one man who was so thin that he could be lifted easily with one arm. His hair was growing down his back and was full of maggots; his clothing consisted of a ragged pair of shorts soaked with dysentery excreta; he was lousy and covered with flies all the time. He was so weak that he was unable to lift his hand to brush away the flies, which were clustered on his eyes and on the sore places on his body. I forced the Japanese staff to come and look at these parties which could be smelt for some hundreds of yards, but with the exception of the camp commander they showed no signs of sympathy and sometimes merely laughed.
  "The Japanese doctor visited the camp approximately once a month, but only on one occasion did he enter the wards, this occasion being when a Thai mission visited the camp with a Japanese major. I managed to manœuvre them into the ulcer ward, but the stink was so frightful and the sights so grim that they left at once, one of the officers retching outside."
  Is it surprising that so many of them are now suffering from the long-delayed effects of this diet and treatment in their eyes and in their mental health? Is it surprising that psycho-neurosis is so prevalent among so many? If we adopted the Australian system of compulsory medical re-examination it would bring to light many of those who are trying to make good, but whose health has broken down in making that attempt. The British Legion, at its Whitsuntide Conference, felt strongly that if America and Australia treated those who were prisoners-of-war

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  under the Japanese as special cases, we ought to do so, too. There is much to be said for what my hon. Friend has suggested about Japanese goods, many of which compete with the products of Lancashire: an arrangement whereby the Treasury would not suffer and which would give a constant reminder that it does not pay to be barbaric.
  Finally, those who were encouraged to take possessions with them have had no compensation for their lost kit, except for the bare necessities. If the Government decides that it is impossible to treat prisoners-of-war from one theatre differently from those from another, here is a reminder that the basic pension is grossly inadequate. The basic pension is 45s. today, compared with 40s. after the First World War; and the majority get only a percentage of that sum, despite all that has happened in the last 20 or 30 years to the value of money. Does not the Under-Secretary think that here is an unanswerable case for an impartial Select Committee to report on the pensions of all disabled ex-Service men and women?
  10.43 p.m.
  Mr. George Thomas: I am most grateful to both the hon Members who have raised this topic tonight. They have spoken in most moving terms. Since I have been in this House I have heard nothing more moving than the speeches of the hon. Gentlemen who have just addressed it. I want my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary to realise that there is equal feeling on this side of the House that some special consideration is due to those who were prisoners-of-war in the Far East. There is a fellowship of these men in South Wales. I believe that it is linked with that in Lancashire. The feeling is undoubtedly prevalent among these men that they are not having the consideration which is their due. They point to the United States and to Australia, and they cannot understand why it should be possible to offer some financial consideration in those countries and yet it is felt to be impossible for the same to be done here.
  I promised that I would not be long over what I had to say, and I will resume my seat after saying that I believe that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary when he addresses the House tonight, ought not to do so without giving an assurance that
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  there is some special approach for the psycho-neurosis which is present in so many. It may be that he is satisfied that the Ministry of Pensions are adequately dealing with all these cases already. But I am not quite happy on this subject. I honestly feel that the men who returned from the Far East after the experiences which have been described by the hon. Members opposite deserve special consideration. Having come from a special sphere of war activity, I trust that they will receive special consideration.
  10.45 p.m.
  The Under-Secretary of State for War (Mr. Michael Stewart): We have heard from those hon. Members who have taken part in this Debate a most moving description of what, I suggest to the House, is fairly widely known and realised throughout this country. I agree with what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. G. Thomas), that we have heard most sincere and moving speeches tonight, and that there are many homes in this country, and many streets, to which men returned from Japanese captivity.
  I do not think that the country is so unaware of the tragic story which has been so effectively described tonight as some hon. Members would have us believe, or as they seemed to fear. I do not think that any of us would under-estimate that aspect of the matter. Since reference was made by hon. Members to the action of the United States Government, I take it that one, among others, of the proposals put forward, is a special monetary award to all ex-prisoners of the Japanese theatre of war such as has been made by the Government of the United States. In that connection, I would state that the action taken by Australia has, so far, not gone farther than the appointment of a Select Committee for the purpose of inquiring into the whole matter.
  On this point of a special monetary reward, I would ask the House to consider this statement of general principle which, I believe, is sound; that a soldier, whatever his rank, should be paid for his services, and that it is recognised that, in the course of that service, he may run greater or less risk or hardship, and that at the end of his service all possible action should be taken to rehabilitate him in respect of any injury, physical or mental, which he may have suffered and to restore

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  him so that he may take his place in civilian life; and if he has suffered any lasting injury, that appropriate provision by pension, or other proper means, should be made.
  All these things have been done. What I think is being suggested is that, even where the injury is not lasting, special payment should be made because for a time special hardship was endured. Let us look at the consequences which would follow from this. Severe and terrible and almost, perhaps, gruesome, as were some of the hardships borne by our men who were prisoners of the Japanese, it would not be impossible to parallel these to the hardships of those who served in other theatres and were taken by other captors. I do not think that funds, whether from the taxpayer or from other sources, could be used to treat ex-prisoners-of-war under the Japanese as a separate class from those elsewhere, especially when one remembers that measures of rehabilitation were taken and that, where there is lasting injury, there is already provision for dealing with the man.
  Let me also tell the House of some of the actions which have been taken. At the time of the Japanese surrender these prisoners were scattered over a very wide area of the world. They were collected and repatriated as speedily as the possibilities of shipping and their own health allowed; relief ships, with clothing, food and medical supplies, both by Government action and through the offices of the International Red Cross, were made available. When they came home, those who were not immediately fit to return to civilian life found special rehabilitation camps available for them and there were not only courses of physical exercise and training for those in need of them, but instruction as to the "set up" of life in post-war Britain and everything a man might need after captivity in these particularly agonising circumstances. Six weeks' leave, during which extra rations were granted, were made available for him.
  Those who needed, for example, such things as extra priority supplies of milk were enabled to obtain them. A number, of course, required convalescent treatment or hospital treatment over fairly lengthy
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  periods. For them the working of the long-term treatment scheme provided that they remained receiving either convalescent or hospital treatment on full pay until such time as they were either completely recovered and able to return to civilian life or returned to civilian life with a disability pension.
  Further, and this was a special feature attaching to those ex-prisoners-of-war under the demobilisation scheme at the end of the war, it might happen that a man coming back from other theatres after release from captivity had a certain period to serve before he was due for release. But in the case of men returning from Japanese captivity, none of them was required to complete his service unless he was a Regular soldier who still had an unexpired portion of his contract, of was a Regular soldier who wished to re-engage, or a man, Regular or otherwise, who wished to defer his release.
  It will not be disputed that the most careful, imaginative, and generous treatment was given to meet the immediate needs of these men when they returned from captivity. Indeed, we have to consider the fact, on which considerable stress was naturally laid by the hon. Members who took part in this Debate, that some of the results of this captivity will not disappear even with the most diligent and wise care, such as was provided. But there we have the action of the Ministry of Pensions. I do not think it is necessary for me to repeat again what has so often been described by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Pensions, and his predecessors—not only the very considerable improvements measured in quantity in the way in which the Ministry of Pensions treats claimants but the whole change of atmosphere.
  Instead of the position that used to exist many years ago, when the attitude of the Ministry was an attempt, if possible, to prove, if it could conceivably be done, that they had no liability, we have now a Ministry which goes out of its way to invite claims and seeks out whether, under the framework which Parliament has agreed to, it may give help to any claimant for whom a claim can possibly be made. When we remember that, it must be admitted that for those who are suffering from what has been described as permanent scars, whether physical and mental, from their

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  captivity, proper provision has been made for them.
  It was suggested that if we had special periodical medical examinations for those who came through Japanese captivity it would be an improvement in our treatment of the matter, but, of course, it is already open for any man who was a prisoner-of-war in the Japanese theatre, as indeed for any ex-Service man who has any reason to suppose he is suffering from a disability connected with his war service, to have himself medically examined and have his claim most care fully and sympathetically reviewed. I wondered, from the tone adopted—
  Mr. Alport: May I point out that in the majority of cases the examination was carried out by a doctor quite unfamiliar with the tropical diseases from which these men are suffering? Therefore, there must be special consultants to deal with these cases.
  Mr. Stewart: Surely the hon. Gentleman will agree if any claimant feels there are special aspects to his case which require special consideration he can get that from the Ministry of Pensions. In view of the stress given to these cases, I had expected to hear one or two instances quoted which might justify the claims made but which had been turned down. If there are such claims then these claims ought to be publicised. The Minister of Pensions will not hesitate to give them the most careful consideration. I feel, therefore, that the country at the time, and by the continuing care of the Ministry of Pensions, properly discharged, and is discharging, its obligation.
  I do not think I need go into the various suggestions for raising extra funds that were made by hon. Gentlemen opposite, partly because I should be out of order if I did. I would point out, however, this, that we really cannot, at this stage, attempt to insert, unilaterally, clauses into the Japanese peace treaty; nor, even if funds were available from such sources, could we say these men were the only claimants, because other prisoners sometimes suffered very bitterly from Japanese hands; and if any claim for these men is to be made against funds coming from Japan they also would have to be considered.
  Finally, I want to say that it has been suggested that these men believe that they
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  are being neglected and disregarded by the country at large. It might, therefore, be of interest to the House if I quoted from a letter which I have received from an officer who was in Japanese captivity and, having heard that this matter was to be before the House, comments on it as follows:
  "If the proposal were accepted I should benefit from it, but it does appear to me that if any additional money were available it would be far better spent on ex-Service men whose need can be proved, rather than distributed to all members of a special group who have already received benefits which were not granted to other ex-prisoners-of-war."
  The letter goes on to restate some of the points to which I have already drawn the attention of the House. In view of one point made by one hon. Gentleman I would quote one other passage, in which the writer says:
  "Our claims for kit and personal articles lost at Singapore were quickly and generously paid."
  Mr. Alport Mr. Alport rose—
  Mr. Stewart: I cannot give way. I know very well that the opinions of men who were prisoners-of-war in Japanese hands would differ on a matter like this, but I think I am entitled, in answer to the point about neglect, to point out that not one concrete instance has been brought up in the Debate, except this one, which I have quoted, and which, I think, supports my contention that these men are not forgotten, and that the country has discharged, and still is properly discharging, its obligation towards them.
  10.56 p.m.
  Colonel Gomme-Duncan: I am not entirely happy about the answer of the Under-Secretary to the excellent case put up by my hon. Friends. He referred to symptoms of diseases which have not yet disappeared, and which will be dealt with by the medical people. There is a far more important matter, and that is the symptoms which will start to appear, not now, but in years to come. As we all know, in dealing with the Ministry of Pensions one of the most difficult things to prove is attributability to war service. I hope the hon. Gentleman will look into this matter again. It is future disease or symptoms of disease which these men may suffer because of their hardships

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  while prisoners-of-war that is so important.
  10.57 p.m.
  Mr. Fitzroy Maclean: In the moment or two left to me I would draw attention to one point The Under-Secretary of State implied in his answer to the Debate that it would not be possible to make use of any Japanese funds pending the conclusion of a peace treaty.
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  Surely that also applies to the American Government. If they can do that to help their men, why cannot we—
  The Question having been proposed after Ten o'Clock and the Debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
  Adjourned at Two Minutes to Eleven o'Clock.