HC Deb 01 May 1952 vol 499 cc1806-20

11.5 p.m.

Mr. James Callaghan (Cardiff, South-East)

I beg to move, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Bread (Amendment No. 2) Order, 1952 (S.I., 1952, No. 527), dated 14th March 1952, a copy of which was laid before this House on 15th March, be annulled. We feel that we cannot let this occasion pass without drawing attention to the fact that the Government, by their own policy, have increased the price of bread very considerably. Incidentally, it will also give the Parliamentary Secretary an opportunity of making a new speech; and my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. F. Willey), who has been moving many Prayers on the subject of increased food prices, must have become a little inured to hearing from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food a speech which, in the past, has gone something like this: "We do not like this very much and we are sorry that we have to increase the price, but, of course, you were going to do this anyway. Had you not left office when you did, you would have moved this Order, so you cannot vote against it now." I do not think that is an unfair interpretation of his speech, although the hon. Gentleman put it far more elegantly than I did. That is the effect of it.

Now the Parliamentary Secretary has something to answer for himself. What is more, he has to answer for the Minister of Food. He does not have to answer for the co-ordinator, because the co-ordinator says he is not responsible to Parliament at all. We shall have more to say about that on another occasion when it will be in order. At any rate, the Parliamentary Secretary has to answer for Government policy.

The policy to which effect is given in this Order is to take £48 million from the subsidy in the price of bread and to place it upon the shoulders of the consumers. The purpose of the policy is to make us pay a real price for our bread. At least that is arguable, and it certainly has been argued at great length by hon. Members opposite, but what is not arguable is that we should have to pay a real price for our bread, the proper price, but, nevertheless, should have transport at less than cost price.

The Government have certainly come to the House in the last few weeks to tell us that we had to pay the real price for our loaf of bread, but that, in the case of the increased fares, we could pay something less than the real cost of transport and no harm would be done to the moral fibre of the nation. I am sure the Parliamentary Secretary would be wonderful at explaining that sort of policy, particularly to an audience of butchers or members of the Housewives' League, but he will find that we are a little more critical than perhaps some other audiences.

At any rate, let us be quite clear: what the Government have done is to place upon the shoulders of the consumers some of the £48 million and to take it off the food subsidies. This we believe to be wrong, against the national interest and unfairly penalising the poor by comparison with the rich. I shall proceed to demonstrate that during the course of the few remarks I want to address to the House—and I have promised to be brief.

This Order raises the price of the small loaf by ¾d. to 3¾d. I am speaking of the great body of the country, not the exceptions. The price of the large loaf is raised by l½d. from 6d. to 7½d. We are told by the Ministry of Food and by the Chancellor of the Exchequer that this increase in cost will be, on average, 4½d. a person a week. Averages are very untrustworthy things to deal with, and this average is more untrustworthy and more misleading than most, but an in- crease of 4½d. represents an average consumption of three large loaves per person per week—I hope my arithmetic is right: I am sure the Parliamentary Secretary is much better at this than I am. The 4½d. is the amount which the Ministry of Food say the mythical average family will find to be the increase in their budget.

If this is so, it means that this mythical average family, which I take for my purpose as two adults and four children, will be eating 18 loaves a week, and that their old bill was 9s. a week and their new bill will be 11s. 3d. a week. It is going to cost them another 2s. 3d. a week.

What I should prefer to do, instead of dealing with these averages that the Minister is so fond of, is to look at some actual cases. In fact, as the Parliamentary Secretary knows better than most of us, the people who eat the most bread are manual workers and children. This was recognised when we introduced bread rationing in 1946, because it will be remembered by the House that at that time—I have looked up the figures—whereas the normal allowance, the average allowance, of bread was 63 ounces per week, for men manual workers it was 105 ounces, and for adolescents it was 91 ounces. It was expected that the average consumption would not apply to families which included in their numbers either manual workers or children. When the Parliamentary Secretary and his Minister come here to tell us about the average increase in price they make no allowance in their calculations for the fact that many families include both manual workers and children.

So I want to submit tonight—and, indeed, it is well known to the Parliamentary Secretary, who was once known as the "Radio Doctor"—that in the working-class diet bread plays a most important part. The National Food Survey estimated—and the Parliamentary Secretary knows these figures very well—that 30 per cent. of the average value in working-class diet came from bread and flour—a third of the value in the diet of the urban dweller of the working-class. What this means is that when the price of bread goes up the amount of bread that is eaten does not decrease.

That, I understand, is not true of other foods, and especially of some of what I may call fancy foods. I was reading, for example, in the newspapers only the other day that after the last increase in the price of milk the demand for milk fell off, and for the first time in this country since the war it did not recover. Apparently, the demand for these commodities always falls off after a price increase, and then, as people gradually get used to paying the new price, they begin buying again. In the case of milk that has not happened. That is deplorable, but, at least, it means that people have adjusted their budgets and are drinking less milk. This, I suppose, is what the Government wanted them to do, that being their idea of maintaining and stabilising the Welfare State; and they have achieved it, and people are drinking less milk.

This does not happen, though, in the case of bread, because, as we have already seen, in the case of the manual workers, in the case of children, this demand for bread is what, I believe, the economists in their jargon call "inelastic." That is to say, they still eat the same amount of bread, no matter what the cost. Therefore, there was a special responsibility upon the Minister of Food and the Parliamentary Secretary to protect this item in the diet of the working-class and of the manual workers from the depredations of the Chancellor. The Minister of Food has failed in his duty to protect this essential item in the working-class diet.

I want to take some examples from my own constituency of families and their bread consumption. One instance I want to give—and I give these to the Parliamentary Secretary in good faith: they have been given to me by a local tradesman as actual examples culled from his bills—is of a family of two adults and four children. The husband is a postman. I know him quite well. They eat four loaves of bread a day. The Parliamentary Secretary will notice that this is above the average. It is what I should have expected, because a postman does a lot of walking and, therefore, with the four children in the family, they consume far more than the average amount of bread. Their old bill for bread was 2s. a day. Their new bill is 2s. 6d. a day—6d. a day more; 3s. 6d. a week more.

Mr. Gerald Nabarro (Kidderminster)

What about the increased family allowances?

Mr. Callaghan

I shall come to family allowances in a moment.

I want to deal first with what the Parliamentary Secretary said in the Budget debates. He said that a man can make it up by working an extra hour overtime. I do not see any of my hon. Friends present who have been in the postal service, but they would tell us that a postman does not go to his overseer and say, "I am going to work overtime tonight." The overseer would say, "You work overtime when I tell you and when it is on the rota." These people are being asked to find another 3s. 6d. as from 15th March and family allowances will operate—

Mr. Nabarro

May I intervene?

Mr. Callaghan

Only if the hon. Member is going to answer the question. I know the answer, indeed it was meant to be rhetorical. The family allowance will operate from sometime in the autumn. What are those people supposed to do meantime? Three shillings and sixpence from a postman's wages for bread alone is something serious.

Mr. Nabarro

While on the case of the postman, perhaps the hon. Member will be strictly truthful and point out that this "wicked" Tory Government gave the postman a 13s. a week rise last November and that that will help him.

Mr. Callaghan

I am sure that the 13s. a week rise, which I do not recall, was not in respect of the cost of living but in respect of a fresh valuation of the postman's duties and has nothing at all to do with the cost of living. I say the Government have deliberately weighted the scales against this sort of man by altering their policy in relation to food subsidies in such a way that the postman is worse off than he was before.

Here is the example of a large family—and we have plenty in my constituency—not an average family. There are three adults and six children in the family. Two adults are not working; there is the one breadwinner. This is interesting because these are actual facts. The man is a labourer and they are consuming seven loaves a day. That is well above the mythical average of which the Parliamentary Secretary is so fond. Their bill was 3s. 6d. a day—it sounds incredible, but it is a fact—and their new bill is 4s. 4½d. a day, an increase of 6s. 1½d. a week.

Sir William Darling (Edinburgh, South)

The "divi" from the Co-op.

Mr. Callaghan

If the hon. Member will make that point to his constituents they will give him an appropriate answer, I can assure him of that. I know that it is a difficult objective for the hon. Member, but let him try to apply his mind to this for a moment.

The labourer has to find another 6s. 1½d. a week for bread alone. I do not know what his wages are, but as he is a labourer I am sure they cannot be very much, £6 a week maybe, or may be less. The family allowance will come in September, but what is he supposed to do in the meantime? It will at least have what we on this side of the House argued earlier would be, the effect of Government policy, which would be to precipitate substantial wage demands throughout many classes of industry.

Mr. Harmar Nicholls (Peterborough)

I think we should have this clear. We recognise that the increases are there but the Chancellor has recognised it by increasing the family allowances as part of an overall policy. There is a delay and the two do not synchronise, but I think the inference that this is peculiar to the Conservative Government is not right. I am sure the hon. Member would agree that when his right hon. Friend the Member for Fulham, West (Dr. Summerskill), increased old age pensions there was the same time lag, that she admitted that it was no one's fault, and that it was one of the administrative difficulties which all Governments have to face.

Mr. Callaghan

What the Labour Government did not do was so to alter the financial policy that we took £48 million deliberately off the food subsidies and increased the price of bread deliberately against the working class.

I want to draw out this point. Let me take, by contrast with my postman, with two adults and four children in the family, a middle-class family, friends of mine, whose income is about £1,500 a year. They eat not four loaves of bread a day but one and a half. Their bill was 9d. a day and it is now to be 11¼d.; a weekly bill of 5s. 3d. is now to be 6s. 7d. The increase is 1s. 4d. a week on £1,500 a year; the increase for the postman is 3s. 6d.

But that is not the whole story. The postman has to wait until September until he gets family allowance; he gets no relief from income-tax. The £1,500 a year man has started to accumulate from the beginning of the present financial year Income Tax reliefs amounting, over the whole year, to about £75, or 30s. a week. I put it to hon. Gentleman opposite that when the Budget and the increased price of bread are surveyed, it must appeal to them that this reversal of the Government's economic policy is likely to precipitate really grave industrial trouble and substantial wage demands. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Spelthome (Mr. Beresford Craddock) shakes his head, but it can only be because he has not followed the figures.

How can we possibly justify a situation in which the country is in difficulties and we say to the £1,500 a year man, "You will pay only another 1s. 4d. a week for your bread a week, because you are not a manual worker and therefore do not eat so much," and in which we say to the postman, "You are going to pay another 3s. 6d."? At the same time, we say to the former that he is to receive 30s. a week Income Tax rebate.

Mr. Beresford Craddock (Spelthorne)

The hon. Gentleman is doing what he has done so often: he is taking extreme cases. He ought to be fair and point out that in the Budget another two million people have been relieved of paying Income Tax altogether.

Mr. Callaghan

No, I am simply not taking the mythical average of the Parliamentary Secretary, which disguises the effects. I am taking cases at both ends, for which I can vouch.

It is for this reason we feel bound to bring this issue to the House and to show that we deplore this departure from the policy of the late Government. The Parliamentary Secretary went to the butchers' conference the other day, and my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North, tells me that they sang, "For he's a jolly good fellow." It might well have been "Charlie is my darling." I would suggest another song he might well be starting to sing, an old negro spiritual: Not my brother, not my sister, But it's me, O Lord, Standing in the need of prayer. Really, when we contrast the position in which the hon. Gentleman has allowed himself to be put with what was said in the Conservative Election manifesto about maintaining the food subsidies, he and his right hon. and hon. Friends ought to be thoroughly ashamed of defending a policy that flies in the face of every promise they made to the electorate.

11.25 p.m.

Mr. Frederick Willey (Sunderland, North)

I beg to second the Motion.

On the last occasion we debated food questions I said I then felt charitably disposed towards the Parliamentary Secretary, tonight I feel positively sorry for him, because I recognise that he was only an accessory after the fact. He has been forced to take this distasteful action because of the action the Chancellor of the Exchequer took without consultation with the Minister of Food. The Chancellor, in effect, halved the food subsidies.

The relevant figure is not the so-called reduction of £160, but the ceiling of £250. It is obvious that when we look at the Price Review and other increased costs that the subsidy has been halved. There was a very good case, as the T.U.C. asked, for increasing the food subsidies, because it seemed possible by so doing to stabilise food prices. But with that very opportunity the Chancellor has halved the subsidies. The Minister of Food's dilemma now is either to be grossly unfair to the people of this country by making them pay increased prices before they get increased family allowances and the other concessions, or, alternatively, if he delays six months he will have to double the price increases to recoup what he has lost in the first half of the financial year.

We suffer gross unfairness both ways. We get the unfairness of which my hon. Friend has complained tonight, and, later, when the families concerned receive the increased family allowance some of the price increases will be doubled, because it is clear that the Government are hesitant, knowing the opposition this has created in the country, to pursue this present path of unfairness. But it means they will pursue an unfair path when we come to later in the year and have to pay steep price increases. However, these present price increases in themselves are really very steep increases.

As you indicated, Mr. Speaker, we are dealing with flour and bread for the purposes of this debate. This is the second occasion on which the price of flour has been raised by the present Government. It was raised by a halfpenny on the first occasion and is now raised by three halfpence. If we are to go on raising the price of flour on this scale, what is the next increase going to be? But the increase in the price of bread is the steepest and largest we have ever experienced in this country.

Mr. Nabarro

No.

Mr. Willey

Yes. It is a 25 per cent. increase in price. That is a very steep increase indeed. But the hon. Gentleman, I know—because he will follow the path of his previous argument—will refer to what was done by my right hon. Friend and myself when we were at the Ministry of Food. During the whole of that period we increased the price of bread by one-halfpenny, but we improved the quality; we lowered the extraction rate and so improved the bread.

My hon. Friend has dealt with the question of family allowances. May I put the case very simply? The figures are these, and they are obtainable for any hon. Member to check; they have just been published. As the Parliamentary Secretary explained to the House, in answer to a Question I asked him, by these Orders he is recouping £48 million for the current year. He is thus making the housewives' budgets £48 million greater. What is his right hon. Friend doing by way of family allowances? The Chancellor this year will give by way of family allowances £23 million. That is a sorry picture.

This single price increase far outstrips the whole of the advantage that is being given by way of family allowances. In fact, housewives will be £25 million worse off even if we regard only these present price increases. This is a very serious matter; it is a toll which the housewife is paying for having a Tory Government. Every time she buys bread she realises that this is in fact a tax upon her.

My hon. Friend mentioned the Housewives' League. I do not know what they are saying today, but I do know that the Minister met them today. I hope he referred them to the paragraph quoted so often from "Britain Strong and Free." It provides a very good example of the Tory Party tearing up pledges within six months, although this is nothing to what is going to happen in the next six months. It is enough to ensure that at the municipal elections next week the housewives, whether through their League or in other ways, will demonstrate against this Government.

I hope we shall express our strongest indignation at the way in which the poorest have been the more harshly treated. Those with large families and those doing heavy manual work have been the more harshly treated. That is what Tory policy means to the working people of this country.

11.30 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food (Dr. Charles Hill)

We are becoming accustomed in this House to the efforts of Her Majesty's Opposition to discuss separately the financial results of the crisis through which this country is passing so that they may themselves seek to escape their responsibility for that crisis and deliberately exploit the inevitable hardship that results from the determination of Her Majesty's Government, first and foremost, to put this country on its financial feet once more.

Tonight we have had an example of that, together with, in the case of the hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. F. Willey), some inaccuracy that I hardly expected from him. He stated that the amount of the reduction in the food subsidies announced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, from £410 million to £250 million, plus the sum of the order of £50 million which the Chancellor said must also be found, would, in fact, be secured in the current financial year. That is not what my right hon. Friend said, and it is not what he intended.

The hon. Member for Sunderland, North, then sought first to criticise the precipitancy of one increase and then, when tackling another and later increase, criticised it because the increase in price necessary to recoup the whole of the amount in the remainder of the financial year was heavier than it need otherwise have been. He not only sought to have it both ways but he urged an unsound argument in support of a conclusion which, no doubt, he was determined to reach in any case.

It is always a pleasure to hear the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) speak in the House because of his vigour and clarity. But as I listened to him deploring the effect of price increases and the tardiness of the Government in making the compensations which, he implied, went a long way to meet the position, I would hardly have thought that there were three price increases in bread imposed by the Government of which he was a member, none of which was accompanied by the compensation he urged in his statement.

The hon. Member for Sunderland, North, referred to two price increases. He left out what happened in May, 1946, when, by a reduction in the size of the loaf, a price increase was achieved—so devised, no doubt, in the hope that the public would not notice it. Then in September, 1949, following devaluation, the price of the new 1¾lb. loaf went up by 1d. to 5½d. Then on 8th April, 1951, the price of that same reduced loaf was raised to 6d. Why? What led the Government of the day to raise the price to 6d.? It was to reduce the expenditure on the food subsidies. It was an exercise to bring down the level of subsidy to £410 million, and, incidentally, the price increase on bread was not bravely announced in this House by the Chancellor of the Exchequer as part of his Budget speech; it was quietly announced to the Press.

Mr. Callaghan

Quietly announced to the Press?

Dr. Hill

Yes, quietly to the Press.

Mr. F. Willey

I do not wish to interrupt the hon. Gentleman; I want him to make his case, but I would point out that I was only dealing with the period of office in the last Parliament, and I compared the price increase by the present Government in six months with a third of the price increase over the 18 months of the previous Government.

Dr. Hill

I agree that by a reduction in the period of the last Government's office selected for the purpose the hon. Gentleman can, no doubt, make it two instead of three price increases.

The problem before us was how best to achieve this saving of approximately £210 million in the food subsidies, and perhaps I may get to grips with the point so vigorously put by the hon. Member—namely, why select bread? I think that fairly summarises his point. He pointed out, accurately, that for years 30 per cent. of the calories in the national diet have been obtained from bread. He also pointed out, again quite accurately, that within a narrow margin that percentage has not been found to fall with increased prices. I would qualify that by saying that I believe where there is a danger of reduction of consumption it is in the very large family in particular, but, again, it is the large family which will be helped by increased family allowances.

But when we are confronted with the problem of deciding where to make the price increases we are at the same time faced with other problems. A price increase in milk which reduced consumption below the available supply would carry with it serious difficulties. On the other hand, an increase in the price, say, of butter leading to a demand upon margarine in excess of the available supply would in itself be dangerous.

But examine the field of £250 million—the new field of subsidies—in another way. Rather more than £100 million of that field of subsidies is covered by the welfare field, animal feedingstuffs, the fertiliser subsidy, the ploughing-up grant, the calf subsidy and the white fish subsidy together. Therefore, we are left with £150 million of subsidy to cover the other items. A sum of £48 million has been taken off bread, but £48 million still remains as the subsidy on bread. It is the food with the highest subsidy expressed as a percentage of the unsubsidised price even allowing for the latest reduction.

I will also mention milk, because the Chancellor included that in his announcement. Even with the projected increase there will still be a subsidy of £50 million on milk. If we take into account the £48 million remaining on bread—I do not pretend to give the exact figures—the two subsidies together amount to rather more than a £100 million in a full year, and it will be seen that the rest of the field is relatively small. I am not discussing the underlying policy, but it will also be seen that without a reduction in the bread subsidy it would have been impossible to distribute the subsidy reductions over the field and still take reasonable care of price levels and human needs.

To return to the hon. Gentleman's 30 per cent. argument. Suppose the price increases had been disposed on other foods—butter, milk, bacon, and the like We know by experience that in this field consumption is more susceptible to price change, and the fact that bread consumption remains level can be adduced as an argument in favour of a reduction of the bread subsidy and not as an argument against such a reduction. The situation we must face is that subsidies must be cut by some £210 million, with bread, enjoying a subsidy of some £96 million, as an inevitable candidate for selection. I am not seeking now to minimise the effect.

I am not seeking to deny that there is involved a substantial increase, widely distributed, of food costs. I am saying that the decision to reduce the food subsidies to a level of £250 million having been made, it is reasonable and proper that bread, bearing as it does a subsidy of some £96 million, should bear a substantial proportion of the reduction. At the same time, it is true that there still remains the sum of almost £50 million in subsidy in bread, including flour, and there still will remain a subsidy of the order of £50 million on milk after the planned price increase.

Let us see these things as they are; part of the effort to put this country on its feet again. They are part of a scheme which will involve the distribution of reliefs in places where they are most needed; part of the task of clearing up the appalling mess left to us by the previous Government.

11.45 p.m.

Mr. Ede (South Shields)

I have never heard a less satisfactory answer to a Motion of this kind than the one to which we have just listened. All the Parliamentary Secretary said, when it was boiled down, is this. "We decided we would reduce the food subsidies to £250 million and we are jolly well going to do it." There is nothing more in what the hon. Gentleman said than that.

In view of the pledges given by the right hon. Gentlemen who are in office now, particularly in view of the speech of the present Chancellor of the Exchequer at North Berwick, in which he told the country that any suggestion that there was to be any monkeying about with food subsidies was one of the things they should not believe, we say that the Government have no right to make these reductions in the food subsidies and that, therefore, the whole of the argument, if one can call it an argument, which the hon. Gentleman has addressed to the House, falls to the ground.

Napoleon said that an army marched on its stomach. The way in which the present Government appears to think this country should march forward to something better, is to make quite sure that the stomach is one of the first things to suffer in any scheme they have for

getting the country, as the hon. Gentleman said, on to its feet. I do not think that the troops which he will have to command, if he is going to achieve his object, will feel that this attack on the stomach is an incentive to march. I hope that my hon. Friends will show dissatisfaction with the statement made by the hon. Gentleman by going into the Lobby in support of this Prayer.

Question put, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Bread (Amendment No. 2) Order, 1952 (S.I., 1952, No. 527), dated 14th March 1952, a copy of which was laid before this House on 15th March, be annulled.

The House divided: Ayes, 44; Noes, 74.

Division No. 114.] AYES [11.48 p.m.
Awbery, S. S. Freeman, John (Watford) Shawcross, Rt. Hon. Sir Hartley
Bevan, Rt. Hon. A. (Ebbw Vale) Gibson, C. W. Silverman, Julius (Erdington)
Bing, G. H. C. Grey, C. F. Slater, J.
Bowden, H. W. Hall, John (Gateshead, W.) Sylvester, G. O.
Bowles, F. G. Hudson, James (Ealing, N.) Usborne, H. C.
Burton, Miss F. E. Hynd, H. (Accrington) Wallace, H. W.
Callaghan, L. J. Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe) White, Mrs. Eirene (E. Flint)
Castle, Mrs. B. A. Lever, Leslie (Ardwick) Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W.
Collick, P. H. Mikardo, Ian Wigg, George
Deer, G. Mitchison, G. R. Willey, Frederick (Sunderland, N.)
Delargy, H. J. Morley, R. Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)
Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C. Morris, Percy (Swansea, W.) Yates, V. F.
Edwards, John (Brighouse) Pearson, A.
Evans, Albert (Islington, S. W.) Proctor, W. T. TELLERS FOR THE AYES:
Field, W. J. Robens, Rt. Hon. A. Mr. Wilkins and Mr. Horace Holmes.
Finch, H. J. Shackleton, E. A. A.
NOES
Aitken, W. T. Hudson, W. R. A. (Hull, N.) Powell, J. Enoch
Alport, C. J. M. Hurd, A. R. Price, Henry (Lewisham, W.)
Amery, Julian (Preston, N.) Hylton-Foster, H. B. H. Profumo, J. D.
Anstruther-Gray, Maj. W. J. Jenkins, R. C. D. (Dulwich) Redmayne, M.
Arbuthnot, John Kerr, H. W. (Cambridge) Renton, D. L. M.
Barber, A. P. L. Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H. Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)
Beach, Maj. Hicks Linstead, H. N. Roper, Sir Harold
Bell, Philip (Bolton, E.) Lockwood, Lt.-Col. J. C. Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard
Boyle, Sir Edward Longden, Gilbert (Herts, S. W.) Russell, R. S.
Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. W. H. Macdonald, Sir Peter (I. of Wight) Shepherd, William
Buchan-Hepburn, Rt. Hon. P. G. T. Mackeson, Brig. H. R. Smithers, Peter (Winchester)
Bullard, D. G. MacLeod, Iain (Enfield, W.) Strauss, Henry (Norwich, S.)
Clarke, Col. Ralph (East Grinstead) Macmillan, Rt. Hon. Harold (Bromley) Thompson, Lt.-Cdr. R. (Croydon, W.)
Conant, Maj. R. J. E. Marples, A. E. Thorneycroft, R. Hn. Peter (Monmouth)
Craddock, Berestord (Spelthorne) Maude, Angus Tilney, John
Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E. Medlicott, Brig. F. Turton, R. H.
Darling, Sir William (Edinburgh, S.) Mellor, Sir John Vaughan-Morgan, J. K.
Drewe, C. Molson, A. H. E. Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)
Fisher, Nigel Morrison, John (Salisbury) Ward, Hon. George (Worcester)
Heald, Sir Lionel Nabarro, G. D. N. Waterhouse, Capt. Rt. Hon. C.
Heath, Edward Nicolson, Nigel (Bournemouth, E.) White, Baker (Canterbury)
Hill, Dr. Charles (Luton) Noble, Cmdr. A. H. P. Wills, G.
Holland-Martin, C. J. Oakshott, H. D.
Horobin, I. M. Ormsby-Gore, Hon. W. D. TELLERS FOR THE NOES:
Howard, Gerald (Cambridgeshire) Partridge, E. Mr. Butcher and Mr. Vosper.
Howard, Greville (St. Ives) Pitman, I. J.