Commons Sitting of 2 April 1953

Preamble
The House met at Eleven o'Clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS

  N.A.T.O CO-ORDINATION
  The following Question stood upon the Order Paper:
  Mr. A. HENDERSON: TO ask the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Defence, what recent information he has received from the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation on plans to co-ordinate the defence of the West; and whether he is satisfied that these plans are adequate.
  Mr. A. Henderson: On a point of order. Following the speech made two days ago by Field Marshal Lord Montgomery, in which he severely criticised N.A.T.O., I addressed a Question to the Prime Minister for answer today in view of the fact that the House is going into Recess. It has now been transferred to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Defence and is Question No. 68. It is most unlikely that It will be reached in the normal course of events, and I wonder whether, with your permission, Mr. Speaker, a reply could be given at the end of Questions.
  Mr. Speaker: As I have previously stated, the transfer of Questions has nothing to do with me or with the Clerks at the Table, Only Ministers themselves can be the judges of their own spheres of responsibility. As to answering Questions after Question time, I think we should proceed and see how we get on. We may reach No. 68.
  Mr. Shinwell: As this is an important Question and calls for an answer from somebody in the Government, can we have an assurance that, if a Minister is willing to answer the Question at the end
  1336
  of Questions, on the assumption that we do not reach it, you, Mr. Speaker, will not withhold your permission?
  Mr. Speaker: The proper procedure is that if the Minister desires to answer such a Question he asks my permission. I will say that if my permission is asked I will not withhold it.

  COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS

    Military Co-operation
    Mr. Gordon Walkerasked the Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations when Her Majesty's Government intends to open discussions with our partners in the Commonwealth about better methods of military cooperation, including the establishment of an advisory Commonwealth Defence Council and combined staff.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations (Mr. John Foster): I doubt whether the sort of measures the right hon. Gentleman seems to have in mind would be appropriate in present-day conditions. The existing arrangements for Commonwealth consultation and co-operation in defence are, however, kept under constant review in order that improvements may be made wherever practicable.
    Mr. Gordon Walker: Is the hon. and learned Gentleman aware that these words are taken wholly from "Britain Strong and Free," and does his answer mean that the policy which was set forth before the electors of this country has been abandoned?
    Mr. Foster: No, Sir. Discussions have always taken place about the importance of military co-operation with other Commonwealth countries.
    Mr. Shinwell: Can the hon. and learned Gentleman give us the date of the last occasion when discussions with Commonwealth countries on military co-operation took place?
    Mr. Foster: No, Sir.
    Mr. Shinwell: Does that mean that the hon. and learned Gentleman does not know anything about this?
    Mr. Foster: No, Sir, it does not.
    Mr. Shinwell: If the hon. and learned Gentleman does know something about it, will he inform the House?
    Mr. Foster: I cannot state all my knowledge in answer to one Question.

    Ceylon (Trade with China)
    Mr. H. Wilsonasked the Undersecretary of State for Commonwealth Relations what representations he has made to the Government of Ceylon about the recent barter deal with China, in which rubber is exchanged for rice; and what was the reason for, and the result of, such representations.
    Mr. J. Foster: Since the shortage of rice in Ceylon became acute, and particularly since the possibility arose of Ceylon obtaining rice from China in return for rubber, informal exchanges of view have taken place with the Government of Ceylon. The United Kingdom Government have at no time made any formal representations to the Government of Ceylon on this subject, and have appreciated Ceylon's urgent need for rice in order to protect her standard of living. Whilst it is not customary to give particulars of representations made by the United Kingdom Government to Commonwealth Governments, I can assure the House that the United Kingdom Government did express their concern, before the agreements were signed, at the conclusion of agreements involving the supply of rubber on a large scale to China.
    Mr. Wilson: Is the hon. and learned Gentleman aware that these representations, no doubt made under American pressure, are going entirely in the wrong direction at the present time, and that the Government ought to be seeking every possible means of expanding East-West trade instead of expressing their concern about the extension of it? In view of the severe need for rice in the sterling area, will the Government inform Ceylon that this country at least is very happy about what has taken place?
    Mr. Foster: I see no reason to make any further communications to Ceylon on this matter. The representations were not made under American pressure.
    Mr. Snow: Is the hon. and learned Gentleman aware that we seem to be getting an impression in this country that
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    the United States are not up to date about the structure of the Commonwealth? They hold us responsible for actions taken on an autonomous basis by self-governing Dominions.
    Mr. Foster: It is difficult for me to answer hon. Members who sometimes have misapprehensions about the Commonwealth themselves. I cannot say anything about the apprehensions or otherwise of the United States Government.
    Mr. Harold Davies: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman make available in the Library, for the information of hon. Members, the report which is expected to be given every 30 days at the request of the Additional Measures Committee of the United Nations as a result of the resolution of 18th May, 1951, under which we are expected to report what embargoes we have imposed? No hon. Member of this House knows whether Her Majesty's Government make that report every 30 days or, if they make it, what commodities are mentioned in it.
    Mr. Foster: That Question should be addressed to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.

    Migration Board (Members)
    Mr. H. Nichollsasked the Undersecretary of State for Commonwealth Relations whether he is yet in a position to state the composition of the new Migration Board.
    Mr. Foster: Yes, Sir. The following have been invited to become members of the Board and have accepted:

    The Countess of Bessborough.

    The right hon. The Lord Huntingfield, K.C.M.G.

    My hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Mr. Dodds-Parker).

    The hon. Gentleman the Member for Nottingham, Central (Mr. Ian Winterbottom).

    The hon. Gentleman the Member for Nottingham, North-West (Mr. O'Brien).

    Mr. R. F. Harrod, F.B.A.

    Sir Colin Anderson.

    Mr. E. G. W. Hulton.

    Mr. Nicholls: Is my hon. and learned Friend aware that his answer will give great satisfaction, as showing that the first step has now been made to set up this Board? Is he further aware that the real test will be the energy and initiative that they put into the work?
    Mr. Foster: Yes, Sir. The Board hope to begin their activities as soon as practicable after Easter.
    Mr. J. Johnson: Will the Minister consider the need for co-opting an African member on the Board, in view of the importance of the land question, particularly in Central Africa?
    Mr. Foster: I will naturally consider anything that the hon. Gentleman suggests.

    Troops (Coronation Procession)
    Mr. Dodds-Parkerasked the Undersecretary of State for Commonwealth Relations what arrangements are being made for a proper film record of troops from the Commonwealth participating in the Coronation procession.
    Mr. J. Foster: No arrangements are being made by the United Kingdom Government for a separate and comprehensive film record of troops of the United Kingdom or of the other members of the Commonwealth participating in the Coronation procession.

  TRADE AND COMMERCE

    Industrial Modernisation, N. Staffordshire
    Mr. Ellis Smithasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will appoint a committee to advise the Government on the need for the industrial modernisation within the locality of the city of Stoke-on-Trent and North Staffordshire.
    The President of the Board of Trade (Mr. P. Thorneycroft): No, Sir.
    Mr. Smith: That answer means that the Board of Trade have taken up a negative attitude with regard to the need for modern ideas. Is the President of the Board of Trade aware that such a committee has been set up for South Wales? Is it not right to apply the same policy for North Staffordshire? In view
    1340
    of the importance of modernisation in this area, will the right hon. Gentleman reconsider his answer?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: No, Sir. The problems of South Wales differ in a number of important particulars from those of Stoke-on-Trent.

    Advisory Service and Research
    Mr. Albuasked the President of the Board of Trade (1) to give details of the advisory service to be financed out of counterpart funds, in accordance with paragraph 3 (a) of Appendix A of Command Paper No. 8776;
    (2) to state the funds to be allocated in the forthcoming year to research in accordance with paragraph 3 (b) of Command Paper No. 8776, the subjects to be studied and the institutions which will be responsible for them.
    Mr. P. Thorneycroft: Arrangements are still being discussed with the wide range of interested parties concerned with each section of the programme outlined in the White Paper. I am, therefore, not yet in a position to make any announcement.
    Mr. Albu: Who will be responsible for the organisation and administration of the advisory service set out in the document mentioned in Question No. 7? Secondly, in view of the very strong criticisms made by the advisory council to the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research of the Government's cutting of industrial research, are the funds to be allocated under paragraph 3 (b) likely to do any more than make up for the restriction on research that has already been put into operation?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: Any Question on the subject of organisation should be addressed to me. The Board of Trade take general responsibility for the application and working out of this scheme. With regard to the second part of the supplementary question, I cannot give an answer to the hon. Gentleman without looking at the figures.

    Welsh Tinplate (Chinese Offers)
    Mr. Harold Daviesasked the President of the Board of Trade what orders have been offered by China for Welsh tinplate.
    Mr. P. Thorneycroft: I have been informed that a South Wales tinplate manufacturer was recently approached about the supply of some 10,000 tons of tinplate said to be required by the Chinese Government. I have also heard that other inquiries for tinplate for China have been received by the tinplate industry, but I am not in a position to give details of the quantities involved. The supply of this tinplate would be contrary to our strategic controls.
    Mr. Davies: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the position in the tinplate industry, and of the fact that there is some doubt whether the demand at the moment for the products of the hand mills will revive sufficiently to stop the permanent closing of the remaining 114 hand mills in South Wales? I beg the right hon. Gentleman, if he is in a position to do so, to send the orders to China, even if he has to obtain permission of Senator Battle or somebody else. Otherwise we shall have to shoulder the difficulties of unemployment in the South Wales tinplate industry.
    Mr. Thorneycroft: The hon. Gentleman is raising rather wider issues. The Question refers to the export of tinplate to China, and I said that, although these orders have been offered for the export of tinplate, they would, as the hon. Gentleman knows, be contrary to the existing control.
    Mr. H. Wilson: Is the Minister not aware that the case for at least some review of the control is now very long overdue? While we all recognise that it will not be possible to make large shipments to China if we cannot get payment from them, cannot we take a leaf out of Ceylon's book and see how far it is possible to export to China against China's exports of rice to the sterling area?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: The right hon. Gentleman is aware that the application of these strategic controls was begun by my predecessor in the previous Government. Circumstances have not changed so dramatically as to justify substantial alterations at the present time.

    Conference, Manila
    Mr. Ellis Smithasked the President of the Board of Trade (1) what action is to be taken arising out of the
    1342
    Trade Promotion Conference held at Manila in March, 1953; and what policy is to be adopted on the suggestions there made for world trade expansion and price stabilisation.
    (2) what action is to be taken on the barter trade recommendations made at the Manila Conference.
    Mr. P. Thorneycroft: The Trade Promotion Conference recently held in Manila was an informal meeting between representatives of a number of Governments and business interests for an exchange of views on a wide range of trade matters. Her Majesty's Government have not yet received the final report of the conference. When we do we shall study it sympathetically and with interest.
    Mr. Smith: Having read the report of this conference, may I ask the Minister whether he does not agree that there were very encouraging signs for the expansion of world trade? In view of that, should not the Minister have worked out proposals to let the world see that we have studied the results of the conference? Has he read the recent Economic Survey, and does he not agree that greater responsibility than ever now lies on his shoulders to deal with this problem?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: I have read the recent Economic Survey, and I would agree with the general sentiments expressed by the hon. Gentleman on the expansion of world trade; but I had better wait until I receive the official report before I comment upon it.
    Mr. Smith: Has the Minister read the report of the last annual meeting of Associated Electrical Industries, in which Sir George Bailey is stated to have said that with regard to deliveries, prices and quality this country could hold its own with any country in the world, but that we were running into difficulties with regard to financial facilities? In view of that report, does not my Question show the need for action to be taken?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: That raises rather a different point.

    Imports from Europe
    Mr. Fletcher-Cookeasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is satisfied that the recently announced permission for the increased import of

    1343
    cotton textiles into the United Kingdom from the Continent of Europe will not damage domestic production; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. P. Thorneycroft: The restrictions which were recently removed were imposed for balance of payments reasons and it was always the Government's intention to remove them as soon as circumstances permitted. I feel confident that the United Kingdom cotton textile industry is fully capable of meeting competition from Western Europe.
    Mr. Fletcher-Cooke: Is my right hon. Friend then satisfied that the domestic market is in a healthy enough condition to absorb the additional textiles that are bound to be thrown on it by the recent Government decision?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: I am satisfied that the recent Government decision about relaxation of quota restrictions in Europe was rightly timed and right in scope, and that if it had not been taken very considerable damage would have been done to the general cause of wider expansion of trade throughout Europe and to our export trade generally.
    Lieut.-Colonel Liptonasked the President of the Board of Trade to what extent the recent relaxation of restrictions on imports from Western Europe will affect the import of stationery from Italy.
    Mr. P. Thorneycroft: Paper stationery may be imported from Western European and certain other foreign countries under the quota for paper manufactures, and this has been increased from a value of £350,000 for the first half of 1953 to £500,000 for the second half. The quota for other stationery has also been increased from £140,000 for the first half of the year to £155,000 for the second half. I cannot say how far these increases will affect imports of stationery from Italy.
    Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Does the President of the Board of Trade realise that, as Italian stilettos come into this country in the Italian stationery quota, the announcement he has made holds out a prospect of a vast and substantial increase in the import of these lethal weapons to this country?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: No, Sir. Thanks to the vigilance of the hon. and gallant Member, arrangements have been made to prevent the imports of these weapons under the description of stationery.

    Engineering Contracts, Middle East
    Mr. Stokesasked the President of the Board of Trade in view of the fact that the German Government are subsidising the heavy mechanical engineering and civil engineering contracting industries which are in consequence steadily outbidding British industry in the Near and Middle East, what steps he proposes to take.
    Mr. P. Thorneycroft: The evidence at my disposal does not suggest that United Kingdom firms in the industries referred to are being steadily outbid by their German competitors in these markets. Her Majesty's Government are, of course, strongly opposed to the use of export subsidies, overt or concealed, and I should be glad if the right hon. Member would bring to my attention any cases in which such devices appear to have been responsible for our losing orders.
    Mr. Stokes: Is not the Minister aware that while the Germans were quoting 25 per cent. above us 18 months ago, they are now quoting about 30 per cent. below us, for the same goods, without any appreciable difference having taken place in our prices at all? Does not that indicate that there must be a subsidy of some sort?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: There is some substance in the point which the right hon. Gentleman has put forward. We have taken a leading part in seeking to get rid of these subsidy arrangements, both in the International Monetary Fund and in the resolution passed recently in the O.E.E.C., calling upon the sterling board to make an investigation. If the right hon. Gentleman has any specific cases in mind, or any views he would like to put in some detail, I shall be happy to consider them.
    Mr. Gaitskell: Is it not the case that the German Government have recently made available very substantial export credits to assist their industries? Has the President of the Board of Trade considered the implications of that, and could not we do something more on those lines ourselves?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: We have, of course, considered the question of credit policy, and we have sought to assist our industrialists by a generous credit policy in the same way. The Question refers specifically not to credit but to export subsidy arrangements, and it is towards that that we are directing our particular attention, both in the International Monetary Fund and in the O.E.E.C.
    Mr. Stokes: While I shall be very glad to supply the Minister with any information that I have, it is only on particular cases. Will he give an assurance that he will examine the position in regard to these particular matters?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: Certainly, Sir.
    Mr. Fletcher-Cooke: Is not one of the objectionable practices of the Germans the giving of discriminatory taxes to relieve these exports?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: That is one of the points which I think the right hon. Member has in mind.

  RELIEF AND DISASTER FUNDS
  Mr. Sparksasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will state those publicly subscribed national relief and disaster funds known to be in existence; the amounts subscribed; and the balances at present held in each fund.
  The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. John Boyd-Carpenter): I regret that complete information is not available.
  Mr. Sparks: In view of what the hon. Gentleman says, that complete information is not available, will he publish such information as is available? Could he also confirm that there are quite a considerable number of such funds in existence with balances, and that the purposes of those funds have become defunct with the passing of time? Would it not be in the general interest for some inquiry to be instituted with a view to applying such balances to the general purposes to which subscribers would have agreed had they been alive today?
  Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Part of the difficulty is that a large number of these funds are not funds for which Her Majesty's Government have any responsibility in administration and, therefore,
  1346
  no certainty of knowing of their existence. But I will consider what the hon. Member says about funds of which information is available. I am bound to say that in considering that I shall have to bear in mind whether even the partial information might not be misleading and, therefore, do more harm than good.

  NATIONAL FINANCE

    Education (Cost)
    Mr. J. Johnsonasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the cost of education, as a percentage of the Government's total expenditure, for 1873–74, 1913–14 and 1953–54, respectively.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Approximately 3 per cent., 9.7 per cent. and 6.4 per cent., respectively.
    Mr. Johnson: Does the Financial Secretary attach any significance to statements by leaders of the teachers' unions that we are economising not merely this year on last year, but cutting a smaller slice of the national cake this year than we were 40 years ago?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I think that anyone who is impressed by that idea would be reassured by the fact that the expenditure in this year's education Estimates is £88 million in excess of the total national Budget expenditure in the years to which the hon. Member referred, and also by the fact that large new social services, which were non-existent or rudimentary in 1913–14, now affect the total.

    Secret Service (Expenditure)
    Mr. Emrys Hughesasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if, in view of the fact that the Vote for the Secret Service has risen from £2,500,000 to £5,000,000 a year in recent years, an increase of 100 per cent., he will appoint a committee of businessmen with a view to securing economies.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: No, Sir.
    Mr. Hughes: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that yesterday it was announced that an independent committee of this kind is to be set up to inquire into the question of hospital beds and false teeth? Is it not just as important to economise in this Department? Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the enormous new vested

    1347
    interest growing up, that it is useless to try to prevent secret information going to the enemy and that it would be cheaper to exchange secret information with the other side?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: That supplementary question raises a number of interesting and intriguing issues, but the two subject matters seem to me somewhat different.
    Mr. Hughes: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the answer, I beg to give notice that I shall raise the matter again.

    Equal Pay
    Mrs. Castleasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he has considered the resolution on equal pay sent him by the Blackburn Teachers' Association; and whether he will now implement the promise made to the House on 16th May, 1952, as requested by the association.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I have noted this resolution, but I have nothing to add to the reply given on 26th March to the hon. and learned Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hector Hughes).
    Mrs. Castle: Will the hon. Gentleman draw the attention of the Chancellor to the fact that he himself was responsible for giving the House a definite assurance, 11 months ago, that a start would be made at an early and definite date in the operation of this principle, and that if the opportunity of the forthcoming Budget is allowed to pass without that promise being implemented, the hon. Gentleman will stand under the slur of political dishonesty?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I am perfectly satisfied that the assurance I gave this House—which has not been precisely quoted by the hon. Lady—which was to the effect that we desired to make a start with this matter just as soon as it was economically possible, stands, and I have nothing to add to it.
    Mrs. Castle: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Motion he accepted had no such qualifying phrase about when the economic situation allowed, but was a specific guarantee that an early date would be announced for a start in the existing economic situation?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I am glad to see that the hon. Lady shifts her ground and now accepts that my assurance, as made, has been complied with. So far as the resolution is concerned, I have noted its contents.

    London Taxicab Service (Report)
    Lieut.-Colonel Liptonasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is now able to announce when the Report of the Runciman Committee on the London taxicab service will be published; and what action he is taking on the Report.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I hope it will be possible to publish the Report early next week. The second part of the Question will be answered after publication.
    Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Does the Financial Secretary realise that the London taxicab trade faces a very serious financial crisis at present, that all the London taxicabs are running at a loss, and that it is most urgent that the Government should make up their mind what to do about this Report?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: All those are matters which I think can be more fruitfully discussed when hon. Members have had an opportunity of discussing the Report.
    Mr. Vane: Is my hon. Friend aware that, if taxi fares go up, taxis will not only run at a loss, but will run empty?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: That no doubt is one of the matters which will have to be considered in the light of the Report.

    Peruvian Debt
    Sir Edward Keelingasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that although the Peruvian Government has ratified its agreement with the Foreign Bondholders' Protective Council, New York, for the settlement of its debt, it has not yet come to any agreement with the Council of Foreign Bondholders for payments to be made to holders of sterling bonds; and whether he will make a statement.
    The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. R. Maudling): I am aware that the Peruvian Government has ratified its agreement for the settlement of its dollar debt, and strong representations have been

    1349
    made that the sterling debt should also be settled. I am not without hope that these may prove effective, but I have no statement to make at present.
    Sir E. Keeling: Do I take it that my hon. Friend agrees that Peru is not being quite fair to British bondholders at present?
    Mr. Maudling: Strong representations have been made to them that they should consider the sterling bondholders better than they have been doing.

    Cost of Living
    Sir E. Keelingasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer how the cost of living and the value of the £ in 1919 compare with the cost and value now.
    Mr. Maudling: As the answer is rather long, I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Sir E. Keeling: Has my right hon. Friend guessed that the purpose of my Question is to draw attention to the unjust treatment of officers who retired under the 1919 scale of retired pay, some of whom today are getting 9½ per cent. less than they got under that scale, although they were promised that if the cost of living went up retired pay would rise?
    Mr. Maudling: I must say that that supplementary question seems to go somewhat beyond the orginal Question.
    Following is the answer:
    There is no official index which serves to measure the change in the cost of living, on a comparable basis, between 1919 and the present time. If the various indices of price for the period are used it is possible to calculate that, taking the purchasing power of the £ as 20s. in 1919, the corresponding figure for February, 1953, was 12s. 2d.
    The basis of this calculation is as follows:

    (a) Between 1919 and 1938 the Ministry of Labour Cost of Living Index is used.

    (b) Between 1938 and 1952 the price index for all consumer goods and services calculated annually for national income purposes is used.

    (c) Since 1952 the index is provisionally brought up to date by using the Ministry of Labour Interim Index of Retail Prices, which is the only official price index available monthly.

    Judges' Pensions
    Sir E. Keelingasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer when pensions for judges and their widows and children were introduced; and how the rates then fixed compare with the pensions and lump sums now payable on retirement or death.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The answer to this Question is long and complicated. I am, therefore, with permission, circulating it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Sir E. Keeling: I am quite happy about that, but will my hon. Friend tell us now when pensions for judges were made universal?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: That is the difficulty, since it turns upon the construction of a number of early statutes and also upon understanding the position prior to the enactment of those statutes. One of the earlier ones that I have looked at is the Judges Pensions Act, 1799, but there were apparently pensions before that.
    Mr. Emrys Hughes: Will the Secret Service be employed on this?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Perhaps the hon. Member will put that question down.
    Mr. Glenvil Hall: Will county court judges also be included in this statement, or only puisne judges and others?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The statement, I think, relates entirely to High Court judges and judges of similar status. If there is any difficulty about that, there can be no reason why the figures should not be given. I think that the answer as drafted deals solely with High Court judges and their equivalents.
    Sir E. Keeling: As my Question referred to all judges, I hope that the answer will do the same.
    Mr. Pannell: If the Financial Secretary is taking his researches back to 1799, will he also include in the answer an essay on the general level of corruption in the country at that time, when hon. Members on the other side of the House had undisputed charge?
    Sir E. Keeling: What about the Whigs?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I did not have undisputed charge at that time.
    Following is the answer:

    JUDGES' PENSIONS

    —

    Pension prior to 1950 Act

    Date From which this amount was Payable

    Latest statutory authority for the pre-1950 Act pension

    Superannuation provision under the Administration of Justice (Pensions) Act, 1950

    Pension

    Lump Sum on retiremenet (d)

    or

    Gratuity on service (d) death in

    £

    £

    £

    £

    Lord Chancellor

    5,000

    1832

    The Lord Chancellors'Pension Act, 1832

    3,750

    7,500

    10,000

    Lords of Appeal in Ordinary

    3,750

    1876

    The Appellate Jurisdiction Act, 1876

    2,812

    5,625

    6,000

    Lord Chief Justice

    4,000

    1825

    The Supreme Court of Judicature (Consolidation) Act, 1925.

    3,000

    6,000

    8,000

    Master of the Rolls

    3,750

    1825

    Ditto

    2,812

    5,625

    6,000

    Lord Justices of Appeal

    3,500

    1873

    Ditto

    2,625

    5,250

    5,250

    Other Judges of the High Court

    3,500

    1825

    Ditto

    2,625

    5,250

    5,250

    Lord Justice General and Lord President of the Court of Session.

    3,750 (three-fourths salary)

    1887(a)

    The Judges Pensions (Scotland) Act, 1808

    2,812

    5,625

    5,625

    Lord Justice Clerk

    3,600 (three-fourths salary)

    1887(a)

    Ditto

    2,700

    5,400

    5,400

    Other Judges of the Court of Session

    2,700 (three-fourths salary)

    1887(a)

    Ditto

    2,025

    4,050

    4,050

    Lord Chief Justice, Northern Ireland

    3,000 (two-thirds salary)

    1926

    The Supreme Court of Judicature of Northern Ireland Act. 1926.

    2,250

    4,500

    4,500

    Judges of the Court of Appeal, Northern Ireland.

    2,333 (two-thirds salary)

    1926

    Ditto

    1,750

    3,500

    3,500

    Other Judges of the High Court of Justice, Northern Ireland.

    2,000 (two-thirds salary)

    1926

    Ditto

    (b)1,500

    3,000

    3,000

    (c)l,750

    3,500

    3,500

    NOTES:

    1. Pensions for judges themselves (as distinct from their widows) have been in operation for varying lengths of time, in some cases since 1799 when the Judges' Pensions Act provided pensions for the Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, the Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench, the Master of the Rolls, the Chief Baron of the Exchequer and many others. Some of the offices covered by this Act have since disappeared and new offices have since been created.

    2. Pensions for widows and children of judges were first introduced by the Administration of Justice (Pensions) Act, 1950. This Act replaced the pensions item payable by smaller pensions plus lump sums payable on retirement or on death in service and pensions for widows and children. The widows pension is one-third of the judges pension, and is supplemented for children. These new benefits are broadly equivalent in total value to the pensions they replaced.

    3. The Table above covers all the judges dealt with in the current Judges' Remuneration Bill. It shows the dates since which the various pension rates payable immediately before the change of system in 1950 had been in force. The Acts quoted in the fourth column indicate the last occasion before 1950 on which the pensions had come under legislative notice.

    The significance of (a), (b), (c) and (d) in the Table is as follows:—

    (a) The pensions in these cases have represented three-fourths of salary since 1808, but lower salaries were paid before 1887.

    (b) Before 1st July, 1951.

    (c) Since 1st July, 1951. The salaries were increased by the Judicial Offices (Salaries, etc.) Act, 1952.

    (d) Subject to reductions by the amount of the contribution towards the cost of widows' pensions.

    Gold Revaluation (Washington Discussions)
    Mr. Stokesasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he can now make a statement on representations made at the recent conference in Washington on the urgent necessity of revaluing gold in terms of dollars.
    Mr. Maudling: No, Sir.
    Mr. Stokes: As the question of balance of payments must have been considered at that conference, may I ask if it is not a fact that had the price of gold been allowed to vary in terms of dollars in proportion to commodities in the United States of America, the sterling area would have been in balance with the dollar area every year since 1945? Surely the Government can tell us something about it?
    Mr. Maudling: The Washington discussions covered a wide range of financial and economic subjects, but I am afraid I cannot add anything to the statements that have been made.
    Mr. Stokes: The Chancellor keeps saying that. Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the cost of producing this valuable metal is now so high that no one can afford to do it? Does not that make humbug of the whole situation?
    Mr. Maudling: People still seem to be producing it. I agree as to the importance of this subject, but I think that if the right hon. Member will reflect on some of the monetary implications, he will also see the great importance of them.
    Mr. Stokes: I have been reflecting for years about this and cannot get any sense out of Her Majesty's Government. Can the hon. Gentleman say when the Chancellor will tell us what happened about this matter at the Commonwealth Conference and in Washington?
    Mr. Gaitskell: In order to satisfy my right hon. Friend, will the hon. Gentleman be a little less coy on this matter? Cannot we have a full and frank statement from the Government and a reply to my right hon. Friend; I am sure we should all enjoy it?
    Mr. Maudling: I think that the right hon. Member should not confuse discretion with coyness.

    Development Charge (Compensation Claims)
    Mr. McAddenasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in view of the provisions of the Town and Country Planning Act, he will make a statement about the treatment for Estate Duty purposes of claims on the £300,000,000 fund established under Part VI of the Town and Country Planning Act, 1947.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Yes, Sir. As the House was told by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Glenvil Hall) on 24th March, 1949, claims against this fund were regarded as property the payment of duty on which could be deferred under Section 6 (3) of the Finance Act, 1894, until their actual amount was known. Duty on most of these claims passing on a death has been deferred accordingly and, on the assumption that the Town and Country Planning Act becomes law, will not now be claimed. Similar treatment will be accorded in the relatively few cases in which duty has already been paid; in such cases the Estate Duty Office will be prepared, on application after the Town and Country Planning Act becomes law, to repay the duty with interest.
    Mr. McAdden: Is my hon. Friend aware that this answer will give general satisfaction on this complicated matter?

    Land Fund (Housing Sites)
    Mr. Vaneasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether, in order to encourage local authorities to use difficult sites rather than good agricultural land for housing, he will make good the extra cost to them by drawing on the National Land Fund.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: There is no statutory authority to use the National Land Fund for this purpose.
    Mr. Vane: Would not my hon. Friend see whether the Finance Bill, which I expect we will soon be considering, cannot include a Clause enabling us to use the National Land Fund for this purpose, which is surely in keeping with its original objects?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I dissent from the last part of my hon. Friend's supplementary question. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I do not think that the

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    original object of the National Land Fund had anything to do with this consideration, which is much more a planning matter and is in general, therefore, a question for the Minister of Housing and Local Government.
    Mr. Stokes: Does not the Financial Secretary think that if the Government introduced a comprehensive rate on site values, local authorities would be encouraged to use difficult sites?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: That is another matter.
    Mr. Vane: Will not my hon. Friend look at this matter again? Does he not realise that from exhortation alone local authorities will never turn from the easy to the more difficult sites? Surely the Fund, which has become larger from interest receipts as the years have gone by, could usefully be drawn upon to save much good land for the country and to add to its beauty without additional burden upon the ratepayer or taxpayer.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: This Fund was set up for a different purpose. I am not without sympathy for the considerations relating to planning which my hon. Friend has in mind, but as I have already said, those are matters for my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government.

    STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS
    Lieut.-Colonel Liptonasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury how many Statutory Instruments were made in 1951 and 1952, respectively.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The figures are: general orders: 1951, 1,166; 1952, 1,029. Local printed orders: 1951, 545; 1952, 296. Local orders (not printed): 1951, 624; 1952, 987.
    Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that when all these figures are added together this attack on the volume of delegated legislation since the present Government came to power does not match the hon. Gentleman's vocal attacks when he was in Opposition? When is he going to produce better results to match his former protestations?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: When the hon. and gallant Member has had the chance to study the figures, which, I agree, are difficult to take in as they are read out, I think he will see that there has been a satisfactory reduction in general orders and in the more important and, therefore, printed local orders, and that the emphasis is now increasingly upon the smaller kind of local order, such as an order affecting the movement of cattle during foot-and-mouth disease, which is in our view the proper use for delegated legislation. When the hon. and gallant Gentleman studies the figures, he will see that we have made considerable progress.
    Sir W. Smithers: Can my hon. Friend give the total number of Statutory Orders in existence to-day? If not, will he have the number put in the Library?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I think that my hon. Friend has in mind the number of orders that are today effective. The Question, of course, relates to the numbers made during particular periods.
    Mr. Marlowe: Have not a large number of the orders made during the past year been made to cancel orders issued by the previous Government?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Yes, Sir.

  AGRICULTURE

    Advisory Service
    Mr. Alportasked the Minister of Agriculture to make a statement on the future of the National Agricultural Advisory Service and the prospects of restoring this link between this service and the university agricultural faculties.
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture (Mr. G. R. H. Nugent): In view of the need to concentrate our energies on the production drive, my right hon. Friend is not at present proposing to make any change in the organisation of the National Agricultural Advisory Service.
    Mr. Alport: Does my hon. Friend realise that this change would restore the sense of confidence which the agricultural community have had in the National Advisory Service by feeling that it is an independent body and one to which farmers may go with the knowledge that they will get objective advice

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    on the problems which affect them? Does not my hon. Friend think it important that this change should be undertaken in the near future?
    Mr. Nugent: I cannot agree with my hon. Friend's premise that farmers have not confidence in the existing advisory service. My right hon. Friend has, however, set up a working party under my noble friend Lord Carrington to look into this general matter, and in due course we shall study the result in their report.

    Fruit Research
    Mr. Alportasked the Minister of Agriculture whether he will consider the establishment of a fruit research station to serve the large fruit-growing areas of East Anglia.
    Mr. Nugent: Research on fruit is considered to be adequately catered for by the East Mailing Research Station, the Long Ashton Research Station and the John Innes Horticultural Institution.
    Mr. Alport: Is my hon. Friend aware that, although the growers in East Anglia appreciate the services of these stations, they feel that the facilities are not sufficient for a section of the industry which is growing rapidly under modern conditions, and that they would welcome any action by the Minister to look into the adequacy of the existing facilities?
    Mr. Nugent: I would remind my hon. Friend that these are national stations. They provide for the whole country, and the fact that they are not situated in East Anglia does not mean that their services are not readily available there.

  SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH (MINISTERIAL RESPONSIBILITY)
  Mr. Albuasked the Prime Minister whether he will appoint a Parliamentary Secretary to the Lord President of the Council's Department so that a junior Minister will be available in the House of Commons with responsibility for scientific research and its application.
  The Lord Privy Seal (Mr. Harry Crookshank): I have been asked to reply.
  No, Sir. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works takes Questions in the House of Commons about the responsibilities of the Lord President for scientific research.
  Mr. Albu: Without reflecting in any way on the amiability or competence of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works, may I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman realises the considerable anxiety in scientific and industrial circles at the lack of interest shown by the Government in scientific research? Is not this reflected by the invidious comparison drawn by the Prime Minister between science and the humanities in his letter to the T.U.C. on adult education?
  Mr. Ellis Smith: Will the right hon. Gentleman convey to the Prime Minister the desire of many people that if any changes should be made, a senior Minister should deal with these problems? Will he also convey to the Prime Minister the disappointment of many people in industry that economies are being made at the expense of scientific research?
  Mr. Crookshank: Those supplementary questions are rather wide of the Question on the Order Paper. All I can say about the original Question is that the previous Government, of course, as well as the present Government, have reaffirmed that the responsibility for civilian research should rest with the Lord President.

  AMERICAN AIR CRASH, WILTSHIRE
  Mr. Awberyasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is aware that at Bowden Hill, Wiltshire, on 7th February, a large area of the countryside was cordoned off and the Queen's highway closed by orders of American officers after an air crash; what arrangements have been agreed with the United States authorities with regard to measures to be taken by them after such accidents; and if he will discuss with them future methods by which the minimum disturbance may be caused to civil rights and by which access may be granted, in particular, to journalists on similar lines to those agreed between the Air Ministry and the National Union of Journalists.
  The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sir Hugh Lucas-Tooth): The report my right hon. and learned Friend has received from the chief constable does not bear out the suggestion that any large area of the

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  countryside was cordoned off or that any highway was closed. He understands that for a short time there was a ban on taking photographs, but that this was soon lifted. While my right hon. and learned Friend does not think that this incident shows that the arrangements with regard to the photographing of crashed United States aircraft give rise to serious difficulties, he is considering whether any modification in these arrangements should be suggested.
  Mr. Awbery: Is the Minister aware that when the crash occurred, and journalists presented themselves for the purpose of taking photographs, as they usually do with the agreement of the Ministry, they were prevented from doing so by a foreign Power, which had cordoned off the area of the crash? Will he take steps to give the same facilities to journalists in areas occupied by Americans as he does when one of our own planes is involved?
  Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: I assure the hon. Gentleman that the Wiltshire police were present throughout. There is no question about them being there at all times. There was a period of about an hour when the taking of photographs was prevented, and my right hon. and learned Friend has that matter under consideration.
  Mr. Awbery: Is the Minister aware that the National Union of Journalists have an arrangement with the Ministry that photographs are taken which, if necessary, are submitted for examination before publication? Will he give the same facilities where American forces are concerned?
  Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: As I have already said twice, my right hon. and learned Friend is considering whether any amendment of these arrangements should be suggested.

  POLICE

    Negotiating Body (Scheme)
    Mr. Edeasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what progress was made at the recent meeting of the Police Council on the question of negotiating machinery for the police.
    Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: I am glad to say that the Police Council for England and Wales and the Scottish Police Council
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    both unanimously agreed, at recent meetings, on the general principles of a draft constitution for a new negotiating body for Great Britain, and recommended that the body should be set up, in advance of legislation, as soon as possible. Although certain points of detail on the drafting of the constitution have still to be discussed with those concerned, my right hon. and learned Friend and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland hope that it will not be long before final agreement is reached and that it will be possible to bring the scheme into operation later this year.
    Mr. Ede: May the House voice its accord with the hope expressed at the end of that answer, and wish good luck and every prosperity to this machinery when it is set up?

    College (Permanent Site)
    Mr. Edeasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what progress has been made in finding a permanent site for the police college, which is now in temporary accommodation at Ryton-on-Dunsmore.
    Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: My right hon. and learned Friend is glad to say that the Government has acquired Bramshill House and part of the surrounding park for a permanent home for the Police College. The House, which is of great historical interest and of outstanding architectural merit, will form the nucleus for the college, and the new building which will be necessary will be put in hand as soon as economic circumstances permit. He has throughout acted in consultation with representatives of police authorities and of all ranks of the police service, who have expressed their confidence in the work which has been carried on since the college was established in 1948, and their hope that it would be possible to find a permanent home for the college fully in keeping with its objects.
    Bramshill has been purchased from Lord Brocket, who has taken great pains over its maintenance, and my right hon. and learned Friend has given assurances that the utmost care will be taken to see that the house is not impaired by the development which will be necessary on the site. Lord Brocket had given certain restrictive covenants to the National Trust

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    and these covenants will, of course, be strictly observed. My right hon. and learned Friend is most grateful to Lord Brocket for his ready understanding of the desirability of providing as the centrepiece of a college which is devoted to the training of the higher ranks of the police a building rich in history and tradition.
    Mr. Ede: Will the hon. Gentleman see that the additional buildings put up do not in any way detract from the architectural interest of the building which now exists?
    Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that my right hon. and learned Friend has that consideration very much in mind.
    Mr. Sparks: Would the hon. Gentleman say if it is possible to increase the scope for serving constables to graduate to the police college to become qualified for the higher appointments in the service?
    Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: That is going rather wide of the original Question.
    Mr. Ellis Smith: Can the Minister say what we have paid for this place?
    Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: Not without notice.

    DISPUTE, AUSTIN MOTOR COMPANY (INQUIRY)
    Mr. Chapmanasked the Minister of Labour whether he will now announce what steps he intends to take to help to bring to a conclusion the industrial dispute involving vehicle builders at the Austin Motor Company.
    The Minister of Labour (Sir Walter Monckton): I have decided that it is in the public interest for all the facts to be established by an independent body, and I am accordingly appointing a court of inquiry under the Industrial Courts Act inquire into all the causes and circumstances of the dispute, and to report. The constitution of the court will be announced in the course of today.
    Mr. Chapman: May I first thank the Minister for the courtesy with which he has dealt with this matter all the way through, and express on behalf of many hon. Members congratulations on his
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    decision? May I ask whether he can yet say if the management concerned are willing to co-operate, and if they have given any indication that they will accept the result of this inquiry?
    Sir W. Monckton: I should make it plain that, having had a request from the union concerned to appoint a court of inquiry, I thought it right to give the management an opportunity of expressing a view. While they did not think the facts needed to be ascertained, they said that they welcomed the opportunity of seeing an independent body going into the matter. It is not a case in either instance of asking for conditions, because the consent of neither party is required, but I thought it right to ascertain the position.
    Mr. M. Lindsay: How soon does my right hon. and learned Friend hope to receive this report?
    Sir W. Monckton: I am afraid it is impossible to give a date. I have done all I can. I shall appoint the members today and tell them I want expedition.
    Mr. Wigg: Would the right hon. and learned Gentleman take into account the view held by many men who have been excluded from work but who are not on strike? They think that has come about because there has been misrepresentation of the facts. For example, a number of sheet metal workers in my constituency were prevented from getting unemployment pay and forced on to the receipt of National Assistance for a period of some four or five weeks on the basis of a statement said to have been made by the Austin Motor Company that seven sheet metal workers were on strike. On investigation it was ascertained that of those seven, four had been continuously employed and three others could not be traced.
    Sir W. Monckton: That, of course, is a matter for the court, who will determine whether it comes within their terms of reference.
    Mr. Ellis Smith: Is the Minister aware that the unions were meeting in London last night, and their confederation this morning, and that it is their desire that there should be a full statement, and full production resumed as soon as possible?
    Sir W. Monckton: I am delighted to hear that.
    Mr. Chapman: Can the Minister say whether the court will hold their proceedings in public or in private?
    Sir W. Monckton: That is a matter for the court to decide, but when they make their report I shall have to lay it before both Houses.

  PUBLIC HEALTH

    Smallpox Outbreak, Lancashire and Yorkshire
    Mr. Hobsonasked the Minister of Health the ages of the persons in Lancashire and Yorkshire who are recorded as having developed smallpox in the recent outbreak; what was their original vaccinal condition; how many of them had been vaccinated as contacts or otherwise before the development of the smallpox eruption; and for what reason the Mons Mill at Todmorden was closed.
    The Minister of Health (Mr. Iain Macleod): The ages of the 19 cases confirmed up to yesterday ranged from one year nine months to 60 years. Of these, ten had no original vaccination, seven had not been vaccinated since infancy and two had been vaccinated in infancy and again in the 1914–18 war. Fourteen were vaccinated or revaccinated after the outbreak had started. The mill closed voluntarily for a short time when smallpox was confirmed so that investigations could be carried out and the risks of contact reduced.

    Mental Patient (Refusal of Leave)
    Mr. Marloweasked the Minister of Health why the young inmate of a mental colony who has been identified to him has been refused leave to spend Easter with his parents at Hove; if he is aware that this young man has had previous periods of leave and during such leaves has been well-behaved; upon what grounds leave has been refused on this occasion; why no explanation has been given to the parents; and whether he will ensure that leave is now granted in the absence of any satisfactory reason to the contrary.
    Mr. Iain Macleod: The granting of leave to this patient is entirely a matter for the medical superintendent of
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    the hospital, and I have no power to give him directions in the matter. As to the reasons for refusal of leave, I regret I cannot add to the information given to my hon. and learned Friend in my letter to him of 25th March.
    Mr. Marlowe: Will my right hon. Friend give some reasons to the parents? He will realise that it is most distressing for parents merely to be told that the son cannot go home, as he has always done before, without being given any reason. If there is good reason, should not it be given to the parents?
    Mr. Macleod: The medical superintendent has a discretion in this matter. He tells me, and I tell my hon. and learned Friend, that after careful investigation of this many times it has been decided that it is not in the best interests of the patient at present that this leave should be granted. I must say that I think that it is better for the parent that the position should be left there.
    Mr. J. Johnson: Is the Minister aware that there is a feeling among some members of the public, especially in the Midlands, that young well-behaved men of this type have been kept in mental colonies because they are useful, for instance, for cutting the doctor's hedge or cooking in the kitchen? Will he inquire into alleged abuses of that kind?
    Mr. Macleod: Of course I will. I will inquire into any cases brought to my notice.

  EDUCATION

    North Staffordshire
    Mr. Harold Daviesasked the Minister of Education what new schools are being allocated to north Staffordshire; and how many of these are to be built in the towns of Leek, Biddulph and Cheadle.
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education (Mr. Kenneth Pickthorn): Two primary schools and one secondary school are now being built in Newcastle-under-Lyme. No new school is at present being built in Leek, Biddulph or Cheadle, but one new school has been opened in Biddulph and one in Leek since 1939, and existing schools have been and are being extended.
    Mr. Davies: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that because of the opening of new coalfields in the area the National Coal Board are coming into the towns of Biddulph and Cheadle, where there is now a terrific population problem? May I suggest that the Ministry are not allocating any new schools to this part of North Staffordshire, and that if the position continues there will be chaos in elementary education in these three towns in the near future?
    Mr. Pickthorn: I will make sure that the considerations suggested by the hon. Gentleman are kept fully in mind.
    Mr. Harold Daviesasked the Minister of Education to state the number of children now in the schools of Leek, Biddulph, Cheadle and Kidsgrove; and how they compare with the school population in 1938.
    Mr. Pickthorn: In January, 1953, there were 9,160 pupils on the registers of maintained schools in these towns, compared with approximately 7,650 before the war.
    Mr. Davies: Does not the hon. Gentleman agree that those figures illustrate exactly the point I made in my last supplementary question? Therefore, will he increase the pressure on the Ministry to grant the new schools?
    Mr. Pickthorn: I am sure that the Ministry will continue its urgent activity in these matters. It is fair to add that there have been 1,000 or more places provided between the dates of these two sets of figures, and there are 300 now in course of provision by current programmes.

    Adult Education (Grants)
    Mr. Edeasked the Minister of Education if she will publish in the OFFICIAL REPORT the text of the communications which she sent to the Chairman of the Universities Council for Adult Education and the General Secretary of the Workers Educational Association in which she proposed to reduce the rate of her grants from the beginning of the educational year, 1953–54, by 10 per cent.
    Mr. Pickthorn: No, Sir. As the right hon. Member will be aware, these letters were sent to the two gentlemen in question as the first steps in negotiations and discussions which are not yet completed.
    Mr. Ede: Why is not the House entitled to have this information? This is a matter of very great controversy.
    Mr. Pickthorn: My right hon. Friend has been, and is, plainly of opinion that, at the stage at which discussions and negotiations now are, they would not be assisted by this publication.
    Mr. Chetwynd: But would not the publication of these letters show that the Minister's proposal was in fact a decision to make a cut, and is not it only because pressure has been put on the Prime Minister since then that she has tried to wriggle out of it? Is not this a case where woman proposes and the Prime Minister disposes?
    Mr. Pickthorn: I do not think that it would be wise for me to try to indicate what something unpublished would show.
    Mr. H. Morrison: This is a matter of considerable public importance, and discussion has been going on for some time. Surely Parliament and the nation have a right to see the letter which the Minister sent to these bodies, and which originated the controversy? May I press the hon. Gentleman to urge on the right hon. Lady that the request of my right hon. Friend is very reasonable and that Parliament and the nation have a right to the communication?
    Mr. Pickthorn: I do not deny, but I do not think that I should be taken as assuming either way, that there is in any strict sense a right in this matter. I do not think that it will be proper for me now to attempt to add to what I have already said and to the answers which were given on an earlier occasion.
    Mr. Morrison: Will the hon. Gentleman draw the attention of the Minister to what has been said and ask her to consider whether in the circumstances Parliament and the country have not a right to know what was in the letter?
    Mr. Pickthorn: I apologise to the right hon. Gentleman. I had meant to say that I will, of course, draw the attention of my right hon. Friend to the points mentioned.
    Mr. Ede: I beg to give notice that immediately after the Recess I shall put down a Motion calling for this information to be given.

  N.A.T.O.

    Unidentified Submarines
    Mr. Russellasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Defence if he will instruct our representative in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation to call for information in regard to the number of occasions in which unidentified submarines have been sighted oft the coasts of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation countries recently; and if he will make a statement.
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Defence (Mr. Nigel Birch): No, Sir. There are satisfactory arrangements for the exchange of intelligence information in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, but it would not be in the public interest to make any statement on matters of this kind.
    Mr. Russell: Is my hon. Friend aware that there have been many reports recently of unidentified submarines in these areas, and that this naturally causes a great deal of anxiety? Can he say anything to allay the anxiety on this score?
    Mr. Birch: There have not been many justifiable reports.

    Co-ordination
    Mr. A. Hendersonasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Defence what recent information he has received from the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation on plans to co-ordinate the defence of the West; and whether he is satisfied that these plans are adequate.
    Mr. Birch: A military command system has now been established covering the whole of the North Atlantic area. I am satisfied that the necessary plans have been made for the defence of the region.
    Mr. Henderson: Has the attention of the Parliamentary Secretary been drawn to the public statement made by Field Marshal Lord Montgomery on Monday last in Washington, in which he severely criticised the organisation of N.A.T.O., of which he is Deputy-Commander, specifying in particular that no positive or master plan for the coordination of the defence of the West was in existence? Does not the hon. Gentle-
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    man agree that this is a most serious allegation, and can he say whether Lord Montgomery has made a report to this effect to the Government? In any event, will the minister dissociate himself from this allegation made by Lord Montgomery?
    Mr. Birch: The responsibility of N.A.T.O. extends only to the N.A.T.O. area and plans are satisfactory there. I think that what the Field Marshal was talking about was the co-ordination of world strategy and not of strategy within his own sphere.
    Mr. Henderson: With great respect, Lord Montgomery spoke of the West. The published report indicates that he referred to the co-ordination of the defence of the West, which is co-terminus in present circumstances with N.A.T.O.
    Mr. Shinwell: May I press the hon. Gentleman on this point? Is not it true that, addressing a Press conference in Washington, Field Marshal Montgomery indulged in very harsh strictures of the organisation at S.H.A.P.E. and referred to too much paper and the need for eliminating waste? May I ask the hon. Gentleman whether Lord Montgomery, who is still on the active list and on the pay roll of the War Office, made any representations at any time to the noble Lord the Minister of Defence on these matters with a view to finding a remedy for this state of affairs?
    Mr. Birch: As the right hon. Gentleman says, Field Marshal Montgomery is on the staff of S.H.A.P.E. and is a servant of that organisation. It is to be hoped that he will address himself to this question of cutting out waste when he returns.
    Mr. Shinwell: But, with great respect, the hon. Gentleman must not shirk the obvious difficulties that appear for him in this Question. What we want to know, and what we are entitled to know, is whether the Field Marshal has at any time made any representations to the Minister of Defence or to Her Majesty's Government on the need for improving the organisation at S.H.A.P.E.
    Mr. Birch: Expenditure on these headquarters is controlled by international committees, on which my noble Friend is represented by his officials. It is our task to see that money is not wasted, and we do our best to see that it is not.
    Mr. Henderson: May I follow up the question which I put before my right hon. Friend intervened? In the report which I have in mind, it was made quite clear that Field Marshal Lord Montgomery was referring to the co-ordination of the defence of the West. Will the hon. Gentleman make it quite clear that, so far as Her Majesty's Government are concerned, they do not agree that there is no master plan for the co-ordination of the defence of the West in the event of war?
    Mr. Birch: I have said in my answer that we consider that the N.A.T.O. plans are satisfactory.
    Mr. Henderson: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I shall raise the matter on the Motion for the Adjournment at the earliest opportunity.

PERSIAN GULF SHEIKDOMS (FRONTIERS)
The following Question stood upon the Order Paper:
Mrs. CASTLE: TO ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will make a statement on the progress of negotiations with the Government of Saudi Arabia on the boundaries of the Persian Gulf sheikdoms.
The Minister of State (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd): With your leave, Mr. Speaker, I will now give the answer to Question No. 71.
The House will be aware from the written reply which my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary gave on 18th March that Her Majesty's Government have proposed to the Saudi Arabian Government that this matter should be settled by impartial arbitration. It is four months since this offer was first made and nearly three months after being rejected it was renewed.
In the meantime, the representative of the Saudi Arabian Government who improperly established himself in the Buraimi Oasis has continued, contrary to the Standstill Agreement, to exploit his position in Buraimi, to tamper with the traditional allegiance of the tribes and further the extension of Saudi influence over a wide area. Indeed, an attack was
1370
instigated under the Saudi flag against a levy post in an area never previously claimed as Saudi territory. On the arrival of our local forces, the attackers dispersed.
The Saudi Arabian Government themselves, both in official communications and in propaganda, gave the clearest indications that they intended to press still further their claims to the territory of the Trucial Sheikhdoms and the Sultanate of Muscat and Oman. More recently a second Saudi Arabian official, with an armed force, moved through Abu Dhabi territory into Buraimi and thence to various places in Central Oman, and although, according to my information, he later returned to Saudi Arabia, his activities were clearly contrary to the spirit and the letter of the Standstill Agreement, and they were also at variance with the purpose of an earlier Agreement concluded in 1951, which limited certain movements in areas claimed by Saudi Arabia.
In these circumstances, Her Majesty's Government conclude that the Saudi Arabian Government have rendered both Agreements inoperative. On behalf of the Rulers under their protection, and with the authority of the Sultan of Muscat, Her Majesty's Government have decided to reserve complete freedom of action in regard to all matters covered thereby. They have informed the Saudi Arabian Government accordingly. At the same time, they have once more renewed their offer to submit the whole question of the frontiers to impartial arbitration.
Her Majesty's Government have no wish to allow this state of affairs to affect their traditional friendship with Saudi Arabia. Her Majesty's Government greatly value that friendship. Equally, I am sure the House will agree that Her Majesty's Government cannot abandon those other less powerful friends to whom they have obligations or who have asked for their support.
The text of the communication which Her Majesty's Ambassador at Jedda has today made to the Saudi Arabian Government has been placed in the Library.
Mrs. Castle: Could the right hon. and learned Gentleman tell the House whether it is true that the Saudi Arabian Government intends to raise this matter in the Security Council, and, if that is

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not true, whether Her Majesty's Government would not themselves consider doing that, in view of the aggressive behaviour of the Saudi Arabian Government? Could he also tell the House whether we are getting diplomatic support in this matter from the United States of America, in view of the obvious justice of our case?
Mr. Lloyd: So far as the question of raising the matter in the United Nations is concerned, I do not think we have yet had any formal intimation that the Saudi Arabian Government are going to do it themselves. So far as Her Majesty's Government are concerned, that is a matter which certainly cannot be ruled out of consideration, but we still hold the view that impartial arbitration is the better way of dealing with the matter, and we hope that, even now, the Saudi Arabian Government will accept that proposition. The Government of the United States have been kept in close touch with the actions which Her Majesty's Government have taken.
Mr. N. Macpherson: Is it the fact that the Saudi Arabian Government disowned the sovereignty over this territory in the inter-war period, and declined to accept responsibility for it?
Mr. Lloyd: I think the fact really is that the frontiers of this area have always been very ill-defined.
Mr. Younger: In view of the fact that there are a good many boundaries in this area which are not very well established, and that, consequently, genuine disputes do arise, which disputes may become very serious and important by reason of the belief, mistaken or otherwise, that there is still hidden oil in some of these territories, is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that he will always have the full support of this House in establishing in the minds of everyone in this area that such disputes must be settled in a civilised manner, through arbitration or through some international body, and not by force? Can he also give an assurance that, while this dispute is going on, he will take the necessary steps to see that no new situation is created by force majeure?
Mr. Lloyd: In my answer I used the phrase that we reserved complete free-
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dom of action, and we certainly intend to see that the situation does not deteriorate during this period.
Mr. A. Henderson: May I ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman whether, in view of the very close friendship which has existed between the two countries up to date, he has given up all hope of a settlement by direct negotiations between the two Governments, apart from the question of arbitration?
Mr. Lloyd: Certainly, we have not given up hope—and that would be a foolish thing to do—but there has been a great deal of direct negotiation about this matter. However, we are still hopeful that we may persuade the Saudi Arabian Government to adopt the course of impartial arbitration.
Major Legge-Bourke: While welcoming what my right hon. and learned Friend has said about the attitude of Her Majesty's Government to the other States concerned, may I ask him, first, whether there is any indication of the motive of the Saudi Arabian Government in this matter; and, second, whether there is any financial obligation arising?
Mr. Lloyd: I think perhaps the guess of my hon. and gallant Friend as to the motive is as good as mine. I am not certain that I understand the purport of his second question.

INTERNED BRITISH CIVILIANS, NORTH KOREA (REPATRIATION)
Mr. H. Morrisonasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has any further statement to make about the repatriation of interned British civilians in North Korea.
Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: Yes, Sir.
As the House is already aware, the Soviet Charge d'Affaires in London informed me on 18th March that, in response to my right hon. Friend's request to Mr. Gromyko on 17th February, the Soviet Government were willing to use their good offices with the North Korean authorities to secure the release of Captain Holt, formerly His late Majesty's Minister at Seoul, eight other British civilians and an Irish missionary detained in North Korea since June, 1950.

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On 28th March, the Soviet Government informed Her Majesty's Embassy in Moscow that six British subjects are interned in North Korea including Captain Holt: Mr. George Blake and Mr. Norman Owen, of the Legation staff; the Reverend A. C. Cooper, Bishop of Seoul; Commissioner H. Lord, of the Salvation Army; and Mr. Philip Deane, Correspondent of the "Observer." They also gave the name of the Irish missionary Father Quinlan.
The Soviet Government stated that they had also been informed by the North Korean authorities that two British civilians, Father Hunt and Sister Mary Clare, had died in 1950; and that a third, Father A. W. Lee, was not among those British subjects interned in North Korea and that nothing was known about him or his present whereabouts.
Consultations between the Soviet Government and the North Korean authorities are now continuing regarding the precise whereabouts of those interned and the method and route of their repatriation through China and the Soviet Union to Moscow. The Soviet Government have said that these arrangements may take some time to complete but that Her Majesty's Embassy will be informed in good time of their arrival in Moscow.
Her Majesty's Embassy have asked the Soviet Government to use their good offices to obtain from the North Korean authorities the cause and proof of death of Father Hunt and Sister Mary Clare, and to ask the North Korean authorities to pursue their inquiries regarding the present whereabouts of Father Lee. The Soviet Government have undertaken to transmit these requests to the North Korean authorities.
Mr. H. Morrison: We are all glad that the Soviet Ambassador has informed the Foreign Secretary that the Soviet Government are interesting themselves beneficially in this matter, and we are glad that that should be so. But this reply does leave us in some condition of anxiety as to the speed with which this lady and these gentlemen will be released. We must also express some concern about the death of the two citizens to whom reference has been made, and the lack of knowledge as to where another one now is.
None of us wishes to say anything to stimulate friction at this point, but per-
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haps the right hon. and learned Gentleman would convey to the Soviet Ambassador the fact that all of us in this House are most anxious for the early release of these people and the settlement of this problem; and that, if it can be done with speed by the North Korean Government, through the representations of the Soviet Government, it would be beneficial to genuine international relations.
Mr. Lloyd: I entirely agree with what the right hon. Gentleman has said, and certainly these views will be conveyed to the Soviet Ambassador.
Mr. Driberg: Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman say whether, before he made this generally very welcome statement today, he took steps to see that relatives of the two persons reported dead were informed?
Mr. Lloyd: Yes. The next of kin were all informed before the statement was made.
Mr. Mott-Radclyffe: While deeply regretting the death of the two persons to whom my right hon. and learned Friend referred, I ask him whether he could say if there is any information as to the remaining eight, and whether or not they are thought to be in good health?
Mr. Lloyd: I do not think we have any precise information about that.

SUDAN (MINISTER'S VISIT)
The Minister of State (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd): With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I should like to make a statement about my recent visit to Khartoum.
My purpose was to see things at first hand, and to do what I could to remove the various misunderstandings and difficulties which were hindering the carrying out of the Anglo-Egyptian Agreement of 12th February. I had talks with the Governor-General, many leading Sudanese, including a delegation from the Southern Sudan, and senior officials of the Sudan Government. I also received a deputation from the Senior Civil Servants' Association. On my return through Cairo I had a full discussion with the Egyptian Prime Minister and Foreign Minister.

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I made it clear to the Sudanese leaders that Her Majesty's Government for their part intend to honour the Agreement of 12th February in the spirit and the letter. We intended to try to make the Agreement work and to bring into being as soon as possible a Sudanese Government. I also stressed the importance of refraining from recrimination and of concentrating upon the coming elections.
To the Northern Sudanese leaders I spoke in particular of the need to pay special attention to the problems of the South. I urged them to make friendly contact with the South. Some of the Southern leaders felt that they had not been sufficiently consulted about the negotiations between the Northern parties and the Egyptian Government. I encouraged them, nevertheless, to take a full part in the elections and in the normal working of Parliament within a united Sudan.
I also met many members of the Sudan Civil Service. Their task is now no easy one. Not only is it beset by all the difficulties that ordinarily attend a transfer of power, but it has, I am sorry to say, been further complicated by a series of mischievous and uninformed attacks upon them. I am confident that these attacks are unfounded. The House is already aware of the fine quality and splendid traditions of these officials. They have understandable anxieties about their future, but, in fact, their first object is to do what is best for the Sudan. I assured them that during this difficult transitional period they would have the full support of Her Majesty's Government.
It is obvious that if the Sudan is to hold its elections in an orderly and peaceful atmosphere there is an urgent need for restraint in all quarters. This Agreement will break down if there is a flood of propaganda throughout the Sudan against the Administration. I emphasised this to General Neguib, and he assured me that the Egyptian Government did not desire to interfere with the elections in the Sudan.
Another object of my visit was to try to remove the difficulties which were holding up the appointment of the Governor-General's Commission, and in consequence, the elections themselves. I have
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already informed the House of the steps taken in this matter. Arrangements for the appointment of the Sudanese members of the Electoral Commission now appear to be going ahead rapidly.
Her Majesty's Government's position in these matters remains clear. We shall carry out the Sudan Agreement, and we shall see that the Sudanese have the opportunity to make a free choice regarding their future status. Whatever they choose, our feelings of friendship for the the people of the Sudan will continue, and I can assure them that whatever difficulties may arise, Her Majesty's Government will carry out their promise that the Sudan shall have self-government and then the opportunity to determine their own future.
Mr. H. Morrison: Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman say whether the Southern Sudanese, if they so desire, will still have the advantage of the advice of British officials? I entirely agree with what the right hon. and learned Gentleman said about the British officials and Civil Service in the Sudan. They are a fine body of people, and we should certainly do the best we can for them. One would hope that their services would be available if the Sudanese desire them.
Finally, is the Foreign Office aware of the difficulties of the situation, and that it is important that we should be as capable of expressing our point of view and making it known and understood, as the Egyptians appear to have done rather more quickly in recent times?
Mr. Lloyd: With regard to the right hon. Gentleman's last question, that is a matter which is ever present in my mind. I hope that the situation in that regard will be satisfactory in the future. I am grateful far what he said about the members of the Sudan Service, and I am sure they will be too. With regard to the British officials in the South, in certain categories their position is governed by the Sudanisation Clause in the Agreement, that is to say their future will depend upon the Sudanisation Committee.
That Committee will not be set up until after the elections. Its recommendations have to go to the new Government and then to the Governor-General, and, if there is any disagreement, to the Commission. If there is still disagreement

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about the implementation of any recommendations, they have to go to some international body which has not yet been precisely specified. The position is not altogether clear, but I am quite certain that a great deal will depend on the wishes of the Sudanese themselves, who have adequate opportunity for expressing those wishes.
Mr. Stokes: May I press this particular point? Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman say whether in this interim period which will elapse between the time of independence, and so on, the Southern Sudanese will continue to be able to have the advice of British officials, or will there be a hiatus? I quite understand that it is only a question of whether they want such advice and that it will not be imposed on them, but will they have a continuous opportunity of getting that advice if they so desire?
Mr. Lloyd: I think they will have a continuous opportunity if they so desire.
Mr. Dodds-Parker: Can my right hon. and learned Friend say whether there is now any reason why the elections should not be held before the rains? I congratulate him on what appears from all accounts to have been a most successful personal visit, particularly as he succeeded in keeping his shirt on.
Mr. Lloyd: So far as the elections are concerned, there are certain technical matters of which the Electoral Commission will have to dispose. The Indian Chairman of that Commission is already proceeding vigorously with his task, and when I was there he was holding consultations and considering how to tackle the matter, but I do not think I can anticipate the result of the work of that Commission. When I was there the American representative was present, as was the British; the Egyptian was available and the Indian Chairman was already working. I am confident that, so far as that Commission are concerned, they will do everything possible to have the elections before the rains.
Mr. Rhodes: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that his decision to go to Khartoum was a very welcome one, especially as no Minister or official from either the Foreign Office or the Embassy in Cairo has visited Khartoum since
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these protracted negotiations began? I want to ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman two straight questions, and to the point. Did the Minister of State make it quite clear to the Egyptians that no undue interference will be tolerated while the Sudanese are achieving their independence? Secondly, did he make it quite clear to General Neguib in Cairo that such comments as he made a week today about cleansing the filth of British Imperialism from the Nile are bitterly resented by many hon. Members of this House—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—very well, by all hon. Members of this House and the country in general, and that it is impossible for the British officials properly to do their work if they are subject to such abuse as this during the next three years?
Mr. Lloyd: One of the purposes of my talk with General Neguib was to try to diminish the amount of propaganda that was exchanged or initiated, and, therefore, I think that I must be very careful in the answer that I give. But I did make it quite clear that I thought Egyptian interference in the elections and their continuance of propaganda against the Administration would cause the Agreement to break down.
Mr. Driberg: Whilst the main point is to proceed as rapidly as possible to self-determination and a genuinely free choice, could the Minister say a little more about the possible future tempo of Sudanisation? Is he aware that as recently as a year ago responsible Umma Party leaders were quite prepared to accept a tempo of Sudanisation, after self-government, much more reasonable than the tempo which has been recently mentioned? Is that still the case?
Mr. Lloyd: I think that it would be very unwise for me to attempt to forecast the way in which the Sudanisation Committee will approach this matter. There are several different factors to be taken into account with regard to Sudanisation, such as whether one should seek to Sudanise quickly the senior posts or the junior posts. Varying opinions are held. All that I can usefully say is that in my talks with the heads of Departments and British officials the principal matter with which they were concerned was to try to continue efficient administration. I can assure the House that their

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personal interests in this matter were secondary. Their first interest was how the administration could be continued as efficiently as possible. I think that with regard to the length of time that the process will take and matters of that sort it is better for me not to comment at this stage.
Mr. N. Macpherson: Could my right hon. Friend elaborate a little further on the reasons that are holding up the appointment of the Governor-General's Commission, and the extent to which that is likely to hold up the elections?
Mr. Lloyd: The Governor-General's Commission has been appointed.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."— [Mr. Buchan-Hepburn.]

CITY OF LONDON (REBUILDING)
12.23 p.m.
Mr. Kenneth Robinson (St. Pancras, North): I am very glad to have the opportunity of raising today a matter which is of very deep concern to the people of London. I refer to the recent decision of the Minister of Works to approve licences for £10 million for the construction of office buildings in central London. The main point which I want to emphasise in initiating this debate is the need for an absolute priority for the building of fiats in the inner London area over every other kind of construction.
I want to make it clear to the Minister and to the Minister of Housing and Local Government that whatever arguments there may be in favour of licensing office construction in the City, those arguments are negligible beside the overwhelming need to rehouse the people of London. In the past there have always been two arguments in favour of licensing office construction at a time of housing shortage. They were arguments that were used by the Labour Government, and the Labour Government approved the building of several offices for Government Departments.
The first of the arguments was that these offices, when built, would release residential accommodation. As far as the Civil Service was concerned to a large extent that was true. Government Departments were occupying large blocks of flats all over London. But the licences which we are discussing today are, I understand, for private firms. Perhaps the Minister will tell us what is his estimate of the amount of private residential accommodation, if any, that will be released as a result of the construction of these offices.
It was also said that the construction of offices did not compete with house building. To some extent there was a measure of truth in that also, but only in so far as it applied to the building of houses. In London, and particularly in the inner London area, we cannot build houses. We build flats, and where flats are concerned the position is entirely different.

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We use precisely the same type of material, the same type of constructional equipment and the same type of labour for building a block of offices as we do for building a block of flats. Furthermore, exactly the same type of site preparation, which is a big job as the Minister knows, is required in each case.
I say that the two forms of building compete directly with one another for resources and manpower. I wanted to discover the effect of this decision and I asked the Minister a Question just over a month ago. I invited him to
"estimate the number of flats of average size which could be provided by local authorities in London out of the building resources which will be required to construct the £10 million worth of office accommodation in central London."
He passed the baby to the Minister of Housing and Local Government and his right hon. Friend side-stepped very smartly in his reply. He said:
"This would depend upon the design and method of construction of the flats."
I am left therefore to make my own calculations. I believe that the average cost of the average size flat in central London is roughly £2,000. From that figure I estimate that Londoners are being deprived of no fewer than 5,000 flats as a result of this decision to build offices. If the right hon. Gentleman does not accept my calculations. I hope he will give the House his own.
To do the Minister justice, he did not fall back on those two old arguments. When I put a Question to the right hon. Gentleman on the same day as to why he had authorised these licences, he produced some new ones of his own. He said:
"It is of national importance to begin the rebuilding of the City of London."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 24th February, 1953, Vol. 511, c. 202 and 204.]
We all agree that the City had its share, indeed more than its share, of bombing. The City looks a mess and we all look forward to the day when it can be rebuilt. We hope to see it rebuilt just as soon as the country can afford it, but I do not believe that London is ashamed of its battle scars. On the contrary, London is rather proud of them, and the people of London do not want to see those scars removed at the cost of dealing with the housing problem.
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The right hon. Gentleman claims that the erection of these offices will add to the economic strength of the country. In what way will it do that? Does he not agree that it is far better for the economic strength of the country that the workers, both office and manual workers, should be decently housed? I believe that not enough attention has been paid to the relationship between productivity and good housing. It is an important factor. Of course, there is bound to be some overcrowding in offices in the City, and no doubt it causes some discomfort, but what is discomfort of this nature compared with the ghastly conditions in which tens of thousands of Londoners are still condemned to eat, to live, to sleep and to bring up their children? I believe that the office workers themselves would take this view if they could see some of the conditions under which these people are living.
Then the right hon. Gentleman offered the most astonishing argument of all, that since housing sites in London are limited, the housing programme will not suffer. It is true that the bombed sites resulting from the war are now largely built on or in the process of development—the larger ones at any rate. There are still plenty of small sites, but these are mostly infilling jobs and are unsuitable for large schemes.
But what about slum clearance? By now the London boroughs ought to be hard at work on programmes of slum clearance. There are many authorities who are anxious to get ahead, who want to use their powers under Section 3 of the 1936 Housing Act but the Government will not give them the permission for which they are asking. There are enough areas in London in urgent need of demolition and reconstruction to keep the building resources of London busy for 10, 20 and probably 30 years, but we are not allowed to get on with the job.
Does not the Minister appreciate that London is still in desperate need of rehousing? Despite everything we have done in seven years, the problem seems still as serious as it ever was to those of us who come face to face with it every day. I want to quote one or two illustrations taken from my own borough of St. Pancras. I am especially fortunate here in that St. Pancras was one of the selected areas for the sample tables of the 1951 Census recently published by

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the Stationery Office, so that the figures which I shall give to the House are accurate and up to date. I make no apology for quoting these figures because they are an index of human discomfort, frustration and, in some cases, sheer misery.
Out of 48,000 families in St. Pancras 33,500 live in shared dwellings. That means they have not got their own front door. The Minister will know what that leads to in the way of trouble with neighbours, difficulties about the pram in the hall, the use and cleaning of the stairs, and so on. This means that 70 per cent. of the population are sharing a dwelling as compared with 15 per cent. for the whole of England and Wales.
More than half the families in St. Pancras lack their own water closet; more than three quarters of the families in St. Pancras lack their own bath; and more than one quarter of them are without their own stove and sink. Nearly 4½ per cent. of the population are living in overcrowded conditions of more than two persons per room, and for this purpose rooms include kitchens.
All these figures, which are not untypical of London, are just about double the national average. My own borough council recently overhauled their housing list and the resulting figures are an accurate index. There are now 6,000 families on the housing list, one in every eight in the borough. Over a quarter of these are really urgent cases on grounds of ill-health, of sanitary conditions and serious overcrowding, and, even if the past rate of housing is maintained, many of these families will have to wait up to four years at least.
In this category of urgent houses there are families where there is tuberculosis, where perhaps, a parent is in a sanitorium and the doctor forbids them to come home to a damp and overcrowded basement. There are families where the parents have to share the same bedroom with adolescent children of opposite sexes. There is, of course, the equally tragic group of young married couples living with in-laws who can see no hope of being able to live a normal married life in their own home, because their cases are not even priority.
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I could weary the House with endless individual cases to underline the point I am trying to make, but I shall quote just one letter which I received only yesterday from a hospital almoner about a patient who is a constituent of mine. She is suffering from a serious complaint, and is expecting a baby shortly. The husband and wife and one child
"are living, eating and sleeping in one room at the top of the house. The fresh water supply is out in the yard, which means that the wife has to go up and down two flights of stairs for this and also to empty out used water, as there is no sink in her room and no lavatory in the house. You will appreciate that this is an extremely difficult situation for her as she has a young baby and, from a medical point of view, it is serious as she must avoid all undue strain."
That is not the worst case by any means, but it happens to be the most recent one I have had.
The Metropolitan borough housing lists are only half the story. The London County Council have on their waiting lists nearly 200,000 families, 70,000 of which are categorised as priority A. My hon. Friend the Member for Clapham (Mr. Gibson), if he is fortunate to catch your eye, Mr. Speaker, knows a lot more about the L.C.C. aspect of the problem than I do.
I hope I have said enough to convince the Minister that there is still a desperate need for rehousing the people of London and that it is utterly wrong to divert building resources away from housing at this time and in this situation. The position is that 18 months ago, possibly longer, an absolute ban was placed on the building of offices and no further licences were to be issued. The £10 million grant which the Minister has just made is the first breach of that principle. I want to ask him certain specific questions about those licences and to ask for one or two assurances.
Is there any way in which these licences can be rescinded or suspended? If so, will the Minister take appropriate action? Over what period is the £10 million to be expended? How many licences does it represent? There are rumours that it represents a very small number of large licences. Which firms have been granted the licences? Is the Bank of England one of them? How are these firms chosen by his Department out of what must have been hundreds of applications

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from City firms? Rumour in the City has it that there has been an ugly scramble for licences. How does the right hon. Gentleman discriminate? On what basis does he select his fortunate candidates for these licences?
Has he given any starting dates? If so, how many? Will he give an assurance that he will not give starting dates for a long time in those cases which have not been awarded them already? Above all, will he give an assurance that no more licences for offices will be issued for a long time to come? Finally, will he tell the House and the country that he and his right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government will in future see that the maximum building resources of London are devoted to housing the many ill-housed people there, who have suffered for so long and perhaps too patiently?
12.40 p.m.
Mr. C. W. Gibson: We are indebted to my hon. Friend the Member for St. Pancras, North (Mr. K. Robinson) for raising this question, which is of very great importance to London and, in particular, to the tens of thousands of families on the waiting lists there.
Unfortunately, both the Minister of Works and the Minister of Housing and Local Government have been extremely coy in answering Questions on this subject. They have dodged quite straightforward requests for information as to what effect the granting of permission to spend £10 million on office building will have on the supply of materials and labour for the housing work of the London County Council and the London boroughs.
On Monday last I put down a Question for Oral answer. It was not reached, but I have had an answer in writing. I asked if the Minister of Works could tell me the estimated number of skilled building operatives who would be employed on this work. His reply was that he did not know. I have tried to find out what would be the effect on the supply of materials, but, again, the reply I received from the Minister was that he did not know. Are we to understand, therefore, that this enormous sum of money—£10 million—has been allowed for the building of offices in the City of London without any inquiry as to its effect either on
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the supply of building materials or labour in London?
The Minister of Works (Mr. David Eccles): No.
Mr. Gibson: The Minister mutters "No," but he has not answered any Questions which we have put to him on that point. None of us is against the rebuilding of bombed offices in the City of London. We all want to see them rebuilt. But there must be priorities in this matter, in view of the housing position in London, and up till now the first claim on building materials and labour has been given to housing. That has gone, and I am afraid that this is only the beginning —although it is a very big one, of £10 million—of a break into the supply of building materials and labour for London housing.
The Minister cannot avoid breaking into the labour supply which is used on housing if he goes on with this proposal. The suggestion that there is a pool of unused labour which can be used on this work and which will not in any way interfere with the development of housing is quite wrong. The figures published by the Ministry of Labour Gazette prove it. I took the trouble to look them up yesterday, and the Minister will find them on page 97 of the March Gazette. The number of unemployed building trade workers, including civil engineering contractors' labour, is only 36,700 over the whole country. That is a tiny-proportion of the 1,250,000 men employed in the industry, and it gives no slack for additional large work anywhere.
I am much more interested in the position of London. The returns show that for the four weeks ending 14th January, roughly 29,400 building trade and civil engineering contractors' men were placed in work, but there were 16,932 vacancies unfilled, apparently because the Ministry could not find men to fill them. For the next period—the four weeks ending 11th February—the number placed went up to 34,152, but the number of vacancies unfilled also increased, to 18,059.
With a labour market of that kind in the building industry it is futile to think that we can start several million pounds' worth of new work in the City of London. I admit that the work in question is important and that it ought to be done at

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some time, but it is futile to suggest that we can start on it now without drawing labour from housing work. We are short of skilled labour on all our housing sites in London.
Mr. Eccles Mr. Eccles indicated dissent.
Mr. Gibson: The Minister shakes his bead, but it is true. We have been short of skilled labour ever since the war. We have been short of bricklayers, carpenters, plumbers, tilers and similar people. There is plenty of unskilled labour. The figures of unemployment in the building trade in the London area, which were given to me by the Minister some weeks ago, showed that most of these men were unskilled workers.
They have probably been absorbed again since then, but the skilled operatives out of work in the building industry in these days are out of work only because they are changing their jobs. They find themselves without jobs only when the jobs on which they are working finish and they have to transfer to others. They may lose a day or two, or sometimes a week, in getting on to new sites.
The figures published in the Ministry of Labour Gazette this week prove that the granting of permission to commence the large rebuilding of offices in the City of London will inevitably draw labour from housing work, and that will be a crime. I do not want to go into a lot of illustrations, which we could all give. What my hon. Friend the Member for St. Pancras, North has said is quite true.
The tragedies which exist in London just now are appalling, in spite of the fact that large numbers of houses have been built in the London area since the end of the war. The fact that the London County Council urgent and priority list is well over 70,000 is proof of the tremendous need for getting on with house building as fast as we can and doing nothing which would in any way reduce the speed of that building.
If this work on office building in the City of London starts it will act as a magnet which will draw all the best skilled operatives from house building work. As one who has spent a lifetime in the industry, either as a worker or as a trade union official, I know that if a
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big rebuilding job starts in the City it will be regarded generally as good-class work, and the men know that they will be offered more money to go to it. That will also have the effect of drawing them from other work.
Men can express their skill more fully in work of this kind, and that will mean that thousands of skilled operatives— bricklayers, carpenters, plumbers, plasterers and tilers—will be drawn off work which they are now doing, because none of them is out of work in the London area and the London suburbs. It is a crime that the Minister of Works should have suddenly announced in the House, quite off the cuff, that he will permit £10 million worth of work to be done in respect of the rebuilding of offices in and near the City of London. He cannot do that without seriously interfering with the flow of housing production by all the housing authorities in the London area.
I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will have another look at this question, take the hints that have been thrown at him by my hon. Friend, and change his mind about this. There is no immediate urgency for office accommodation. All the work has been done. It may not be in the best of conditions, but if we have to balance that against the tremendous housing shortage in the London boroughs, the needs of the people on the waiting lists must come first and we should not allow such an enormous slice of the materials and labour which this proposal will involve to be drawn off the housing work which is being done.
If the Minister carries out this proposal he will deserve the censure of every elector in London, and he will earn the contempt of the thousands of people on the waiting lists, whose opportunity to be properly housed will be postponed for years. With all the best will in the world, it will take London another five or six years to rehouse only its urgent cases, assuming that no more are added to the list. If that work is to be hampered by labour being withdrawn to other work and by the creation of a shortage of materials of all kinds, the opportunity to rehouse those people will be postponed for a few more years.
I am glad my hon. Friend raised this matter and I hope the Minister will be able to tell us that he has changed his

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mind and that he will give those on the waiting list of London a little brighter hope than they have at the moment.
12.51 p.m.
The Minister of Works (Mr. David Eccles): I am glad of the opportunity to say something about the building programme in Central London. May I thank the hon. Member for St. Pancras, North (Mr. K. Robinson) for giving me notice of one or two questions which he would like to have answered? I will try to give him the answers.
First, however, may I make one or two comments about the building situation as a whole? New building is going very well and, if we take the aggregate of all kinds of building in the country, we find that the volume of new construction has been expanding steadily over the last year.
We want to maintain the rhythm of expansion in step with the increasing supplies of building materials, and in that connection the Ministry of Works have a part to play in managing the flow of licences. We divide each region into zones which are based on the distance from their homes which the majority if building workers can be expected to travel to and from their jobs. That gives us the basis of a zone. We look at each zone all the time and try to feed in new work, sufficient to replace the jobs which are coming to an end.
I am glad that the hon. Member for Clapham (Mr. Gibson) raised the point of the labour statistics, for it simply is not good enough to look only at the latest statistics in the Ministry of Labour Gazette for this purpose. That, I am afraid, is how my predecessors always tried to work the building programme. They would have done very much better if they had listened to what the industry itself could tell them about the situation six or 12 months ahead.
That is what we do, and the reason is that it takes a long time for the architects to prepare the drawings and the civil engineers to get the sites ready, and if we are not looking forward all the time, and if it is a fact, as it is in London, that the big jobs are coming to an end—they are all getting near the stage of completion—we shall be in very great trouble next autumn and winter.
May I give the figures? The average amount of work fed into London in 1950
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was £17,500,000 a month. It is now running at only £12,500,000 a month, which is a drop of £60 million a year. This £10 million will, therefore, be seen not to be a very large sum.
Mr. K. Robinson: Do not the figures suggest that, whatever success the Conservative Government's housing drive may be having elsewhere, it is clearly running down in the London area?
Mr. Eccles: If the hon. Member will await the figures he will see that he is entirely wrong. I will deal with London housing in a minute. The decision to hold down the rate of building, other than houses, in London was deliberately taken to free men to travel to the outskirts of London where housing estates were being built. That was the decision taken before my time and it was quite sensible, but it is a policy which cannot be pursued beyond a certain point, and it has now been pursued beyond a sensible point.
One quarter of the building workers in the country live in London. That is a formidable army—over 250,000. I cannot follow the figures of the hon. Member for Clapham, which suggest that only 36,000 men are in work.
Mr. Gibson: I did not say that. I said that 29,469 were placed in vacancies during the four weeks ending 14th January.
Mr. Eccles: I beg the hon. Gentleman's pardon.
The total number is approaching 300,000. We can see that there will not be enough work in London in midsummer and autumn. What extra work should be fed in? This is the point of difference between the two sides of the House. For obvious reasons, there is no defence work in London; we cannot put airfields or camps or storage depots in such a vulnerable place as London. There is very little industrial building, for it has been the policy of all Governments to steer factories away from Central London.
We come now to social service building, if that is the right expression, including housing. In London, the programme has been expanding at least as fast as in the country as a whole and, in fact, a little faster than in the country as a whole; and I think the hon. Member for St. Pancras, North might give

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me some credit for having done so much better in this matter of housing than Socialist Ministers have ever done. Let me give the figures. In 1952, 27,500 flats or houses were completed in the London area. Of course, most of them had been started under a Labour Administration. To-day, 40,000 flats or houses are under construction in the same area—an increase which is greater than the average increase for the country.
Mr. Robinson: The right hon. Gentleman is not comparing like with like. Large numbers of these are flats, which take very much more than a year to construct. He has given figures of buildings under construction and compared them with figures of buildings which were completed.
Mr. Eccles: No doubt the average time of completion could be worked out. We will see what the number of completions is. I believe that we shall get very nearly 40,000.
I do not believe that there is an area in the country where it is more difficult to find and prepare sites for houses or flats than it is in London. The borough which the hon. Member for St. Pancras, North represents is rather fortunate in that respect. If the hon. Member does not think so, I can tell him that the rest of London is in a much worse position; there are more sites in the hon. Member's borough. As he knows, however, they take time to prepare, bearing in mind the demolition work and all the other work which has to be done. These difficulties are bound to increase in London and, with the best will in the world—and although this is not our main reason for building offices—we do not think that we can spend £10 million as quickly in housing as we could elsewhere. But that is not our main reason.
For reasons which the House knows, repair work in London has been falling off. In spite of the big increase in housing which we have achieved, the total volume of work in London is steadily declining and the position of the main contracts —their average life before they reach completion—is becoming less favourable to employment. I need only cite the work on the Coronation. If we were not doing that work, a considerable number of
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craftsmen would be out of work today. All that work is coming to an end. Much more formidable than that is the fact that the large buildings in London are nearing completion, because very few licences have been issued since the ban, to which the hon. Member for St. Pancras, North referred, was imposed over two years ago.
Hon. Members are aware that the blitzed city procedure was applied to all blitzed cities except London. Since 1949 the other blitzed cities have had a special allocation of licences which is running at about £4½ million a year, or something like that. London was excluded from the blitzed city procedure. I am not quite sure for what reason. It cannot have been simply that in the case of houses against offices houses were preferred, because if that had been the principle applied it could have been applied quite as much in Bristol as in London.
I imagine that the reason was that the headquarters of the great City companies in London were not really looked on with much favour by the Socialist Party. They had their rules of snobbery as other people do, and they felt that they did not wish to see those great buildings go up again. Be that as it may, I think that to exclude London from the blitzed city procedure was a very bad decision, because the offices of those great companies play a most important part in the balance of payments.
Mr. Gibson: So do houses.
Mr. Eccles: One must keep these things in perspective. A £ earned in the overseas business of bankers or merchants or insurance brokers or shippers is just as good, when it comes to paying for food and raw materials, as a £ earned by visible exports.
Mr. Robinson: But we do not have to build palatial offices to earn it.
Mr. Eccles: We know this will help. I will come to that in a moment.
When I reached the conclusion that we ought to take steps now to increase the building work in Central London the Government applied a criterion, which was something that the hon. Gentleman asked about. Our criterion was that those buildings should strengthen the national economy. We applied this criterion on a wide basis. I was asked about the buildings within the £10

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million. It is quite true that there are only about 30 buildings. Among them are the Baltic Exchange, two bank buildings—one the Bank of England building—two insurance offices, the headquarters of a coal exporting firm, new headquarters for the Federation of British Industries.
Further, as hon. Gentlemen opposite will be glad to know, new headquarters for the Trades Union Congress, new headquarters for the diamond trade, and a number of university extensions connected with laboratories where chemistry can be taught. I think the House will agree that these are buildings of a nature to assist the vigour of our economy. About three-quarters of the £10 million is being spent within the boundaries of the City itself.
I was asked several specific questions about licences. Licences are issued as soon as the architects are ready to start. I do not believe in the system of instalments, of which my predecessors were very fond. It is not efficient to give part of the licence for a building this year, and say, "Come back again later and get the rest." We are giving the licences for the whole of the building. I suppose that it will take three years at least to spend this £10 million, which, after all, is not a really great amount when we are short by £5 million of work a month compared with what was being put into the London area in 1950.
Six licences have already been issued: two are about to be. Naturally, the starting dates follow automatically. The whole point of this operation is to get some more work going in London on picked projects as soon as we can.
Mr. Gibson: At the expense of housing.
Mr. Eccles: We need more large building projects for precisely the reason the hon. Gentleman referred to and rejected, namely, that this is the kind of work necessary to keep the skilled craftsmen employed and on which to provide training of apprentices. This point has been represented to me by the leaders of the building trade unions, to whom I refer the hon. Gentleman for further information. Let me give one instance. It is absolutely necessary to put in more work for stonemasons, and the T.U.C. themselves have come forward with a building project that is to provide quite
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a lot of work for London stonemasons. That is a very good thing.
How many skilled men would be employed at the peak of this programme? At the outside 1,500, I think, but it is very difficult to give an accurate estimate because I really do not know what amount of the £10 million will be spent over any period. The labour situation, put shortly, is that unless we start more work of this kind either skilled craftsmen will leave London or leave the industry, and we wish neither of those things to happen.
Those are the economic reasons for what we have done. There is another consideration. I am sure that the pride of a great many people is wounded when, eight years after the war, the City of London still shows all those ugly scars and shapeless ruins.
Mr. Gibson: It is more important to house the people.
Mr. Eccles: I believe that any hon. Member who takes a walk around St. Paul's, past all those bombed sites, must feel shame at all the ragged, toothless gaps in an area which has been and will be for many years the centre and home of the greatest financial and trading community in the world. It is our view, on this side of the House, that it is our duty to heal those scars. What can we use those bombed sites in the City for except offices, and offices selected with a view to increasing the earning power of the country? It would be quite wrong to put factories there. It would be a waste of space to put up houses or flats there.
Sir Leslie Plummer: Blocks of flats?
Mr. Eccles: We are carefully picking out the sites suitable for the work to be done. It is in our national interest—and here I firmly disagree with the hon. Gentleman the Member for Clapham— to have a programme of balanced expansion going on all the time. When the Russians recaptured Stalingrad they refused to allow a single house to be built until all the factories and offices had been rebuilt. We are not going to take the exactly opposite view. We take the view that it would be wrong to put all our eggs into the housing basket, to give it, as I was asked to give it, absolute priority.

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We have done so much better than the last Government in housing that I think that at least we are entitled to see that some of this expansion in the total of new construction which we have brought about should be used for other purposes. We are going to push on to reach 300,000 houses a year—far more than the Labour Party would ever dream of doing.
Mr. Gibson: Just a dream.
Mr. Eccles: Wait and see whether it comes true.
If the hon. Member really thinks that we ought to give absolute priority to housing let him ask himself what happens if one lives in a fine house but cannot earn the money to pay the rent, or cannot afford to pay for the articles necessary for a good breakfast. That would be our problem if we neglected the all-round expansion of the buildings and assets which earn for us our income in the world. Therefore, we have decided to give these licences for offices and for other large buildings in Central London for three reasons: because the employment prospect calls for more work, because the buildings selected will help our national economy, and because we have a debt of honour to pay to our capital city. I hope, therefore, that the hon. Gentleman the Member for St. Pancras, North is convinced that what we are doing on a modest scale is right.

WAR PENSIONS
1.10 p.m.
Sir Ian Fraser: The British Legion, I venture to submit, is a patriotic body of men and women who seek to look after the interests of their disabled comrades but are, nevertheless, mindful of the needs of others. They are a responsible body, and I am convinced that any action they take does, in their view, take into account the best interests of the country as a whole.
Her Majesty's Government have decided to ask Parliament later in the year to consider the merger of the Ministry of Pensions into a new Ministry to be called the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance. Some part of the work of the Ministry is to go to this new Ministry and another part of it is to go to the
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Ministry of Health. There will, I understand, be a White Paper and later a Motion.
I do not propose to take up more than one minute of my brief time today in discussing this matter. Some may think that it would be better to wait for the White Paper to see what the proposals are before forming any judgment, and I do not wholly deny the validity of that suggestion. Nevertheless, I think it should be placed on record at this early stage that, so far as my knowledge goes, certainly the British Legion—
Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Hopkin Morris): I do not think the hon. Gentleman is now in order. This would need legislation, I understand.
Sir I. Fraser: With respect, I believe that the merger is an executive act which will be based upon a Motion to Her Majesty.
Mr. Deputy-Speaker: If it is purely an administrative matter the hon. Gentle-ment is in order, but if it involves legislation then, as he knows, it cannot be discussed on this occasion.
Sir I. Fraser: I think, with respect, that my submission is a correct one. This Motion will come before the House and I do not propose to deal with it for more than a minute now, but I think it right at this early stage to place on record the fact that, within my knowledge, the British Legion, B.L.E.S.M.A., St. Dunstan's and, I fancy, most other organisations concerned with the welfare of ex-Service men are most anxious about this merger. They feel that they will be losing a friend in the Ministry of Pensions; a friend with whom we have argued many times, but who, nevertheless, has over the years come to know our needs.
However well the new machinery may work, we doubt whether the well-being of ex-Service men will, when they are only part of a big Ministry, be so well cared for as it has been during the past years, when they have had what they regard as their own Ministry. However, final judgment on whether the merger is a good thing or not will, in my view, depend much more upon what Governments do for disabled ex-Service men by way of improving their war pensions.

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That brings me on to the main matter I wish to raise today. Before continuing with that, may I have the sympathy of the House if I most reluctantly make a personal statement. Being a war pensioner myself I am interested in this matter. Though I have not in 35 years had any increase in my own basic rate of war pension, I have had an increase of 7 per cent. in the total money that I take away each year by way of a special allowance. I have had that 7 per cent. in the 35 years, but no increase in my basic rate; nor do I expect one; nor do I ask for one; nor do I make any complaint that I have not had one.
I mention this most reluctantly, but it is right to declare an interest. I would add that except for myself and a few others, almost the whole membership of the British Legion conducting this campaign are wholly disinterested in this matter. There can scarcely be many pleas that come to this House from great bodies of citizens—in this case numbering over a million—who are wholly disinterested. The greater part of the membership of the British Legion does not receive a war pension, and I submit that makes the appeal we make more important than it would otherwise be.
The British Legion has, in the constituencies, by communications to the House and by deputations to Ministers, invited us all to consider their case. They have carried out what they have called their war pensions campaign. I believe they have carried it out with accuracy and courtesy, and I should like to thank hon. and right hon. Members for the way in which they have met my comrades all over the country and dealt with their requests. I would just add that we have made no discrimination between our claims upon any Government of whatever party.
The British Legion asks that the basic rate of war pension should be increased to 90s. a week, and I want to clear up some misunderstandings about this. This does not mean that hundreds of thousands of men are to have 90s. a week. If our claim were granted and the basic rate for the 100 per cent. disabled private soldier were raised to 90s. this year, the average increase in the war pensions of all war pensioners would be 14s. l½d. a week. Not 90s., not 35s., but 14s. l½d.
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Last year, it will be remembered, Her Majesty's Government gave a rise of 10s. a week on the 100 per cent. basic rate. That was the highest rise we had had, and involved more money than all the benefits that had been provided for war pensioners in the past six or eight years. Nevertheless, it did not give everybody 10s. a week. It gave to war pensioners an average of 4s. 0½d. a week. At the same time, in the same Budget, about that amount was taken away.
Now the Chancellor, economists and many hon. Members may think that the incidence of taxation, or of the alterations that are made in subsidies in a Budget, are irrelevant to the war pension. Taking a very precise economist's view, one may think that is so. But the man in the cottage or the street who is getting so many shillings extra is bound to take into account how many shillings less he is getting at the same time, and if to him the result is either negative or all square, he says, "I have had a Dutchman's rise."
I make these points in order to clear away the idea, which I have heard expressed in some quarters, that "Ninety bob is much too much for us. You should not ask for so much. You should ask for less." Let me just show in terms of a typical example what this rise to 90s. a week in the 100 per cent. basic rate means. A man who lost his leg above the knee—what is called a 60 per cent. pensioner—got 24s. in 1919; today he gets 33s.; we say he ought to have 54s.
We say that if 24s. was right then, an increase to 33s. now does not make up for the fall which has taken place in the value of money during that time. We claim that the basic rate of war pensions is, as a whole, 38 per cent. below what it ought to be if it were put in its proper place in the cost of living scale. Our argument is not so much that we want a rise, or even a preference, but that we have been left behind, and that our disabled men ought to be put in their right place in the cost of living scale.
That brings me to the cost-of-living scales, which I wish to discuss very briefly. There are two. One is the index of consumer goods and services, a very reputable index upon which this Government and previous Governments have based the Economic Survey. Thus,

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it is an official index and not an invention of the British Legion. According to this index, in order to have the same purchasing power today as it had in 1938, the basic war pension for a 100 per cent. disabled man ought to be a little over 90s. Let me remind the House again that it is 55s. at present.
Of course, the Treasury might rind some other index upon which to base its calculations or some other datum line from which to start. There are two main indexes, and hon. Members may be sure that the British Legion has chosen the better. Clearly, the Treasury might choose the other, but, if they did, they would be appealing to an index which had its origin in the Boer War and was so out of date that the Government changed it, knowing that it was unrepresentative.
Moreover, in 1948, during the period of office of the first Labour Government after the war, a large number of my hon. Friends, including most of the notable figures on the Front Bench, voted against the Labour Government when they refused to set up an impartial outside inquiry into this matter. Although we did not vote on a rate of pension, we clearly implied to our ex-Service citizens that we had in mind to do better, and many of us said that we thought that the basic rate of that time was inadequate. Therefore, I cannot believe that the Minister would appeal to the Boer War index. On the other hand, if he thinks that the index of consumer goods and services is too good and raises too high the point at which we think we ought to be on the index, the British Legion would always be very willing to talk to him about that.
What we ask is that the Government shall accept the principle that compensation for loss of limb, health or sight should at least be on the basis that it buys now as much as it did in earlier years. The Minister might argue that the cost of living was very high in 1919. So it was, but thereafter it fell rapidly and it did not return to that point until the last war began, so that for 20 years our older ex-Service men were enjoying a higher rate of pension. I say without fear of contradiction that the basic rate of war pensions buys less today than it
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has done at any time in the last 30 years. That surely is a prima facie case for action or for inquiry.
I would also add that there are many widows of ex-Service men who did not receive widows' pensions for technical reasons or for reasons of administrative convenience, which the Legion does not think is just, and that there are many civilian widows who get more from National Assistance than war widows get from the Ministry of Pensions, which we also do not think is right.
I promised to be very brief, but I do not want to be accused of being unfair, and, therefore, I want very shortly indeed to indicate what has been done in recent years for war pensioners, because it will set the scene for consideration of this matter and will also lead me to my concluding point. Five major acts have been taken by Governments over the past 20 years by way of improving war pensions. The first, and, in some ways, one of the most important, was the stabilisation which took place in 1928 of the war pension at 40s. per week. According to the fall in the cost of living at that time, it could have been dropped very considerably. But it was not dropped; it was stabilised. The importance of this point is not merely the benefit it then gave to all the pensioners of the first war but that for 20 years the nation established that as the minimum basis. Many thought it was inadequate, but it was at least established as the minimum basis. Therefore, it does not seem unfair that we should take the basis in 1938 as the basis from which to calculate what our figure ought to be now.
The next very important act of State was that in 1943 the benefit of the doubt was given to the pensioner in discussions as to his eligibility and the onus of proof as to his rights was transferred from the claimant to the Ministry. It is impossible to say how much that cost the nation, but it was a most generous gesture and a most just gesture, and it brought into the ranks of the war pensioners very large numbers who were not in in earlier days.
Then in 1945 came the extension of children's and wives' allowances to all children and wives instead of only to women who had been married or children who had been born to the man at the time the disability occurred. That was a generous act by the new Labour

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Government of 1945 which was very much appreciated. In 1946 the Labour Government added 5s. to the basic rate, and last year a Conservative Government added 10s. to it.
It is clear that all parties have had a share in dealing with this matter over the last 20 years, and I make no point as to whether one party has done better than another. I merely say that at this moment the basic rate of war pension buys less than it has ever done in the past 30 years and that 94 per cent. of our war pensioners do not get adequate allowances, or compensation of any other kind, to make up for that deficiency. The Budget is due on Tuesday week. We earnestly hope that it may contain provisions which will recognise the duty which this great nation owes to its disabled ex-Service men and women.
1.29 p.m.
Mr. Harold Finch: I join the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale (Sir I. Fraser) in his plea for an increase in the basic rate of war pensions. There can be no doubt at all that, with the increased cost of living and the increase in the standard of living, disabled ex-Service men are at present finding themselves in a very precarious position. That applies particularly to those who are totally incapacitated. We marvel sometimes how they exist on the present rates. We are justified in making a strong plea to the Minister to reconsider the whole question of basic pensions.
This takes on added importance as the bulk of those in receipt of pensions are less than 100 per cent. disabled. Apart from the basic pension which they receive, the only other allowance they may get is that for loss of occupation or for "lowered occupation"—under the Industrial Injuries Act we term this a hardship allowance—at a maximum of 20s. per week.
There are many disabled men who, before disablement, were in occupations which, in many cases, afforded them a high standard of living and large remuneration. I need only cite the cases of skilled engineers, those in the profession and skilled miners underground who became disabled after serving their country and are now unable to follow their pre-accident occupation. In recent years there has been an increase in
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remuneration in the professions and in industry generally.
We have only to cite the case of the skilled miner. Formerly, he was earning £6 or £7 a week, but now it has gone up to £10 or £12 a week. The disabled miner has no redress in these circumstances. He is tied to the 20s. He may be following an occupation which gives him £5 or £6 a week, which is a big difference compared with the money paid in his former occupation The maximum he can get on that £5 or £6 a week is 20s. a week.
Mixing with large numbers of these disabled men, I find this is a greater cause of discontent than anything else. These disabled men see around them their contemporaries of pre-war days getting a fairly high remuneration in the trades or professions of which they were members before disablement, but which they cannot follow any longer. They cannot, therefore, enjoy the benefits of these high wages. No wonder there is a growing feeling of discontent in those circumstances. I hope that as a result of this debate consideration will be given to what I term the occupational rate or special hardship allowance, because it does not make up at all for the loss which these men have made as a result of being disabled.
There is one other point I should like to stress before I sit down, and that is the unemployability allowance. We are inclined to get confused about these allowances. Under the Industrial Injuries Act, unemployability allowance is payable to a person only in respect of himself, whereas if he is in receipt of sickness benefit he receives an amount for himself and his wife and first child. I understand that, in the case of war pensioners, if a person is not entitled to sickness benefit he may be entitled to unemployability allowance at the rate of 35s. for himself and a certain amount for his wife. If he is entitled to sickness benefit the amount paid for his wife is £1 1s. 6d. If he is entitled to unemployability allowance he gets a lower rate than he would get if he were entitled to sickness benefit. I hope that the Minister will give attention to that.
Those are the two points I wanted to make. They are very important and are causing a good deal of discontent to our war pensioners. If something could be

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done by the Minister to remedy that position it would be widely appreciated. I hope he will look at the problems of lower occupation allowance and unemployability allowance in order to ease the serious situation in which many of these disabled war pensioners find themselves at the present time.
1.35 p.m.
Major H. Legge-Bourke: I should like to support as warmly as I can what my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale (Sir I. Fraser) said today, and I hope that the Minister will look into the points put by the hon. Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Finch). I myself feel that we sometimes overlook one of the most important features of this war pensions matter. We tend too often only to give war pensions for war disability at the same time as we are able to give increased social service benefits of other kinds to the civilian population.
I do not in any way wish to make the division any more marked than it is at present, but I believe that there is a difference between those who have rendered service to their country very often abroad, and have been injured as a result in a time of grave national emergency, and those who have been injured in civilian employment when they have been within reasonable access of their homes or have actually been living in them. I have always felt that that distinction has never been made clearly enough in this House, nor has any Government of any party been prepared to make that distinction and to appreciate the fact that the war pensioner is in a special position.
I want to declare an interest, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale. I am in receipt of retired pay as a result of war disability and in consequence I have an allowance in respect of my family. I am probably in a more fortunate position than a great many people. There are some disabilities which never can be fully compensated. For instance, a person who follows anything in the nature of a cultural activity like piano playing, or one which depends on hearing, suffers irreparably if war disability interferes with those interests. Minor injuries to ear or limb can cause
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an amount of suffering for which no money will ever compensate.
I hope we will try to encourage the House and, indeed, the country to take a rather different attitude in this matter.-I see a paradox in the arguments for and against treating differently the volunteer or the conscript soldier. It can be argued, on the one hand, that a man who volunteers knows what risks he is taking when he volunteers, and, therefore, ought not to be entitled to greater compensation than those who have been conscripted into the Forces. On the other hand, it can be argued that the man who volunteers is a better man than the one who is driven and, therefore, he should be paid more. My belief is that those two arguments cancel each other out.
I know that there are many hon. Members who feel that those who volunteered for the First World War before conscription was ever brought in ought to be in a different category from everybody else. I have a great deal of sympathy in favour of that view, but there is the argument that the person who is taken into the Forces whether he likes to or not ought to have, as a result, a greater assurance from the State as to his security if he is injured during the course of his activities in the Forces, because it was something for which he did not volunteer.
As I have said, those two arguments about cancel one another out, and it is a pity to allow them to influence the bigger decision with which we are faced, namely, should not the ex-Service man who has been disabled in the service of his country be paid a higher rate of benefit than those who suffered in civilian life, whether in peace or war?
Of all the things I disliked in the last war nothing equalled the aerial bombardment of London. Although I served for a good many years overseas and had many unpleasant experiences, the bombing of a big city was about the most unpleasant. Civilian populations in the last war went through unpleasant times which were comparable to those being suffered by the people in the Forces, but there was one great difference to which the House and the country have never given enough regard. It is that the civilian population were among friends and within reach of home or the homes of their friends, to which they could go. Forces overseas were not in that position.

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I hope the House will not think I am saying that the nursing services and all other services responsible for the wounded in war-time were not the splendid people I know they were, but there is a difference between being treated for injury in a place where relatives can visit us in a homelike atmosphere, and being treated in a military hospital miles away from this country.
I was one who welcomed the Government's decision in the last Budget to increase the basic rate of disablement pension by 10s. It was a generous gesture and it was made clear that it was a first step. I very much hope that the Government will take further steps in the forthcoming Budget. If there is anything going at all in the way of increased social benefits, I hope that the ex-Service men disabled in war will have an absolute priority over everybody else. I grant my right hon. Friend that it will require considerable courage to take such a decision, because much pressure will be brought to bear to prevent it; but if that courageous decision could be taken it would put heart into ex-Service men all over the country in a way that would be immeasurable and immensely great. We have a Minister of Pensions whose heart is in the right place with regard to the ex-Service man, but we are not certain whether the Treasury have quite the same view as he has on matters of this kind. We give as much support to him as possible in putting his case to the Treasury.
I would go so far as to say that if it should come about as a result of the Budget that any social benefits which are given do not give priority to the ex-Service man, I should seriously consider putting down a Motion of censure about it. The time has long gone when this priority ought to have been given; nevertheless, better late than never. For that reason I would be prepared to take that step if it appeared, as a result of what comes out of the Budget, that the ex-Service man is not being given the priority which he ought to be given. It is very easy in this House to play the demagogue and want to spend money lavishly all over the place, and it is easy to think of ways in which money can be spent.
If Parliament had spent more time since the First World War in looking at these matters from the slightly different
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angle of compensating those who, through no fault of their own, had to make immense sacrifices in the causes for which the country stood, this debate would not be necessary today. The fact that they did not means that somebody has to do it some time. That is why I hope that if there are any social benefits in the Budget they will go to the ex-Service man before they go to anybody else. If they do not, the Government must realise that there will be very serious criticism.
1.46 p.m.
Dr. Horace King: For the first time since the war we have tried to deal fairly with the men who made sacrifices on our behalf. A great line of Pensions Ministers have built up a great national, humane institution, which people of all shades of opinion would be sorry to see go. From my own knowledge and the various contacts I have had with the Minister of Pensions, I am sure that he will regard the present debate very sympathetically.
People who are in trade and industry can sometimes raise their profits, and workers who are powerful enough can raise their wages, to meet increases in the cost of living, but these increases fall also upon those who have fixed incomes. It ought to be the duty of any Government to assist those groups in the community who find rises in the cost of living a great burden. If that is true generally, it must be acutely true of ex-Service pensioners whose fixed income is our tribute to the sacrifices they made during war.
I hope it will be possible for the Minister of Pensions to give very serious consideration to the request from the ex-Service men for some increase in their basic pension.
1.48 p.m.
Lieut.-Colonel Marcus Lipton: I support the plea that has been made in favour of review and reconsideration of pensions, and I concentrate upon the position of the vast majority of disability pensioners who are not drawing the 100 per cent. basic pension. When an increase in pension is awarded, it does not mean that more than a very small percentage of the present pensioners will get the 90s. The problem concerns those who do not get that supplementary allowance, and who draw only 20 per cent., 30 per cent. or 40 per cent. of the disability rate.

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The disability pension is based not upon the cost of living but upon compensation for injuries and loss of amenities, and it therefore has no relation to wages or earning capacity in any specific trade or occupation. No attention is paid to whether the pensioner is in one occupation or another or to the rate of wages. Many of these 20 per cent. or 30 per cent. disability pensioners are living as best they can. It is sometimes overlooked that they carry on their jobs at very considerable inconvenience of pain and suffering, which may last only two or three days, or for such a short time as to make it not worth their while to claim the sickness or other benefit to which they may be entitled.
Nevertheless, they are subject to not inconsiderable pain and suffering, for which there is no financial recompense, because it does not last long enough to justify them in going into hospital or taking to their beds, or drawing from the other social services which are provided for the general population.
These less than 100 per cent. disability pensioners are, of course, getting older. The disability from which they are suffering becomes just a little more irksome and difficult to bear as the years pass by, and what may seem to be a slight disability at the time the original assessment was made tends to increase with age. I hope, therefore, that when considering all these other things the Minister will not ignore the plight of the vast majority of the people who now draw disability pensions and who are not entitled to supplementary allowances, and who do not draw even the 100 per cent. disability rate.
In these circumstances, the cost of giving some measure of justice or consideration to the vast majority of pensioners would not be anything like as great as the public are sometimes led to believe.
1.52 p.m.
Mr. W. R. Williams: I ought to say a few words on this subject, because I had the privilege, a fortnight or three weeks ago, of meeting a delegation of ex-Service men from all parts of my constituency in the Droylsden division. It was made clear to me at the outset that the delegation were a good
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cross-section of ex-Service men from the whole of the constituency. They were an entirely non-party delegation, and they came to try to convince me that they had justification for asking for my support in any effort that was made in the House to try to improve the conditions of our disabled ex-Service men.
I agree with most of the points which have been made by hon. Members opposite and by my hon. Friends. There are, however, one or two points that I wish to emphasise, but I do so with very great diffidence, remembering the help that I have received both from the Minister and from his very able and sympathetic Parliamentary Secretary. Whenever I have had occasion to deal with them, apart from one case in which I might have thought that they could give a more favourable decision, they have been most sympathetic in stretching the regulations to the utmost in order to do something for the people whose cases I have represented to them.
There are, however, one or two arguments which the delegation put to me which I ought to transmit to the House and to the Minister. The first is the growing feeling of some of these pensioners that they are at a disadvantage compared to other people in the community with whom they live together and are correlated in their amenities and activities. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Brixton (Lieut.-Colonel Lipton) made the point very well when he said that as the years roll on, disability becomes more aggravated. More than that, the disabled person himself recognises the full force and effect of his disability and feels it more.
A number of the men who came to see me—many were disabled in the 1914– 18 war—said that they now feel so tired because of their disabilities, as a result of the exacting nature of the work they have to perform, that when they finish their duties they must return home to rest. They cannot take part in the normal amenities and community life of the area because they are too tired. Their disabilities make them tired men, and, therefore, they are losing a good deal of the ordinary amenities and pleasures of life.
The second point which they put to me is the differences that have taken place in the emoluments in certain occupations.

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Two of the men told me that before the war they were in occupations which afforded them a high standard of life and emoluments. Now, however, they cannot return to those occupations because of the effect of their disabilities. They feel, therefore, that they are penalised because they have served their country.
I do not say that I agree entirely with the hon. and gallant Member for the Isle of Ely (Major Legge-Bourke), who may have exaggerated, but these men have the feeling that their wounds and disabilities were in many cases incurred voluntarily in order to save the freedom of the country. I agree that for some things no amount of money could provide recompense, but having regard to the fact that they are losing the amenities of life and are not now able to follow the normal occupations of their pre-disability days, these men feel that it is not too much to ask. as some slight compensation for all these things and so that they may have a little of the pleasure that money can buy, that a grateful country should be able to help.
I sincerely hope that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will listen to the Minister, who, I am certain, will transmit faithfully to him the feeling on all sides of the House that he might do something for these men. It may not be possible to meet their claims in full, but a gesture of good will at this stage would be welcomed by a large number of disabled ex-Service men.
1.58 p.m.
The Minister of Pensions (Mr. Heath-coat Amory): We all feel that it is a good thing to have a talk every now and then in the House on war pensions, and I only wish that this afternoon we could have had an opportunity when it would have been possible for more Members to be present and to take part in the discussion. I know of no one in the House who has a better right than my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale (Sir I. Fraser) to speak for the ex-Service man, nor anyone who puts his case with more skill or with more persuasive advocacy. I thank my hon. Friend also for the very reasonable and moderate way in which he has made the substantial points that he has put forward.
I should like to take this opportunity, because I do not often have the opportunity of standing at the Dispatch Box
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and may have even less chance in the future, of thanking hon. Members in all parts of the House for the help they have given me, as they gave to my predecessors, in trying to do our best to look after the interests of the ex-Service man. However efficient and keen are my staff —and I am proud of them and I believe that they are keen and on their toes—it is impossible for us to ensure that we always keep in touch with the changing circumstances of individual cases.
It is most helpful when Members send us information which we do not possess. When we find that we can do something to assist, no one is more delighted than my staff and myself; when we find that we cannot do more we wish that we could. I am getting the same help in the wider field all over the country from the thousands of voluntary workers who are helping me in this task.
I should like to refer, first, to the question of the basic pension, of which my hon. Friend has spoken. I have received a deputation from the Legion and have promised them that the views that they put before me would be conveyed to the Government and would be considered. I will not go into the history of the basic pension, because time is short, beyond reminding Members that in 1919 the rate was 40s., in 1946 it was increased to 45s. and in 1952 was raised to 55s.
We were glad that at a time of rather exceptional economic difficulty it was found possible last year to increase the basic pension by 22½ per cent. and the basic pension for war widows with children or the widow over 40 by 20 per cent., a 25 per cent. increase in the constant attendance allowance and 25 per cent. increase in the means standards for parents' pensions.
Is the present rate the right one? What a difficult thing it is to decide what the right rate should be. One can get very tangled up in statistics. My hon. Friend referred to two different methods of calculation, one of which he called the Boer War method, which is a sort of mixture of the old cost-of-living index and the present retail price index. Adopting that one the relative rate compared with the 40s. in 1919 would work out at 52s. 4d. Comparing the 45s. rate in 1946 the relative rate would be 62s. 3d. But adopting the purchasing power

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formula which we sometimes call the Legion method—
Sir I. Fraser: That is not fair; it is a Government method.
Mr. Amory: I have even heard it called the Fraser method.
Sir I. Fraser: No. It is quite respectable; it is the Government method.
Mr. Amory: I agree, it is the purchasing power method and is most official in every way.
Adopting that method the comparable rate to 40s. in 1919 would be 65s. 10d. and the comparable rate to 45s. in 1946 would be 64s. 6d. We can get all kinds of results. The one which I think is not very appropriate is comparing the 40s. in 1938. If we did that the figure would work out today at 90s. 6d. It will be seen why I call it the Legion formula. I do not think it is appropriate, because the cost of living dropped between 1919 and 1938 and in that year the comparable figure would have been 29s.
Sir I. Fraser: Is my hon. Friend suggesting that the Government of 1928 should have let it drop to 29s., or is he approving of their stabilising it at 40s., because if they stabilised it at 40s. it is surely not unfair to start from that datum line?
Mr. Amory: No, I thoroughly approve of the highest possible rate being given and of the Government not having reduced it, but when the Government made a fresh start the rate they took was not 40s. but 32s. 6d. in 1939 and that was the rate they applied to peace-time injuries in the Services at that time.
Getting away from statistics for a moment, we have to face the fact that no Government have ever accepted an obligation to vary pensions automatically with rises in the cost of living. I doubt whether any Government could accept the obligation to do that automatically unless they agreed to do the same downwards if and when the cost of living fell. Of course, the trouble in the whole of this business is inflation. As we all know that is a terrible disease, because it hits those sections of the community hardest who can do the least to help themselves. So long as that disease is rampant and continues it is an appalling job for any
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Government to hope to catch up and any increases in rates are bound to be palliatives. Also, any increase in Government expenditure is obviously in danger of aggravating the trouble.
The best service which any Government can render to those in receipt of pensions —and the disabled in particular—is to tackle this problem at the source and do their utmost to kill inflation so that we can ensure that pensions shall continue to retain their value. That is what the present Government are trying their best to do at present, I think with some success, because during the last nine months the Interim Index of Retail Prices has been held about steady at 138 to 139. What it will do in the future I have not the courage to predict.
My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Ely (Major Legge-Bourke) referred to the link with industrial injuries. Quite clearly, a link of a sort does exist because that scheme when it started was actually founded and based on the war pensions scheme. The provisions are not identical and where there are differences between the provisions for war pensioners and industrial injuries pensioners those differences are to the advantage of the war pensioner.
Sir I. Fraser: Except in the supplementary.
Mr. Amory: My hon. Friend refers to the miners' supplementary, but that is quite a separate matter and outside the industrial injuries scheme itself. I think there is some substance in the view that the circumstances behind war pensions and industrial injury pensions are not precisely similar and that that link should not be carried too far nor made too hard and fast.
Some people point to increases which have taken place in wages as if that were something which was hitting at war pensions but we have to remember that, fortunately, a very big majority of the war disabled are able to be in employment and so benefit from increases in wages. Fortunately, that even applies to the 100 per cent. disabled, a very substantial proportion of whom are in employment at present.
Mr. Finch: The point is what they would have been earning had it not been for their war injuries. With the rise in

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wages they have lost that when the lower occupation allowance is restricted to a maximum of 20s.
Mr. Amory: I will refer to the point which the hon. Member raised during his speech in a moment.
My hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale mentioned that under the last Budget although they had this improvement, 4s. had been taken away. He may have been referring to the food subsidies and the effect on a family of three, but we have to remember—
Sir I. Fraser: The extra 9d. a week stamp which, together with food subsidies, knocked out 4s. or 5s.
Mr. Amory: Many of them were in work and there would be substantial advantages in regard to Income Tax.
There are the special allowances. Some people say that they only refer to a small percentage of total pensioners. It is true that only a small proportion of total pensioners fall into categories of severely disabled and that is something about which we all rejoice. The proportion is tending slightly to increase and is about 6½ per cent. at present.
I will now refer to what the hon. Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Finch) mentioned, the question of the allowance for the lower standard of occupation. I admit that this allowance is a rough and ready thing and does not fit comfortably and well into the war pensions provisions. In principle, it almost cuts across them because it is related to earnings. It is also limited. All we can claim is that it makes a limited but, we think, useful contribution to those who, because of war disabilities, have had to change their job and take one on a less remunerative scale. I agree that it is only a limited contribution because it is limited to the 20s. While I agree it does not compensate in full the kind of case the hon. Gentleman mentioned, we find it much appreciated, and we do not get many complaints. But I will examine carefully what the hon. Member has said.
His second point concerned the unemployability allowance. I am not sure that I understood his point, but I think he is wrong. Unless the wife is working —and that may have been his point— we increase the unemployability allowance by 11s. 6d. per week, and for the
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first child by 3s. A wife should be slightly better off than if there were sickness benefit going into the household. If the hon. Member will write to me on that point I will inform him further, but I do not think the figures he quoted were right.
Mr. Finch Mr. Finch rose—
Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Hopkin Morris): I hope the hon. Member will not interrupt too often, because we are running a little behind time.
Mr. Finch: I merely wish to point out that the sickness benefit for the wife is £1 1s. 6d.
Mr. Amory: That is the rate we pay in the case of an unemployability allowance if the wife is not working. Owing to the lack of time I do not propose to say anything about widows except that I realise that a widow with no other income, and with children, must experience extreme difficulty in making both ends meet. No one will dispute that.
I appreciate the tone of this debate and the tributes paid to the work of the Ministry of Pensions. I do not think there is anything much wrong with our service at present though we must not be complacent. I agree there is room for difference of opinion about whether the rates are all of them adequate for the present price level. I would emphasise once again that the enemy is inflation. While the Government have been able to go part way to making good the loss of purchasing power caused by inflation the only satisfactory solution is to beat inflation and to stabilise, and eventually to bring down the cost of living.
The national economic and financial position is still serious and our dominating aim must be to put that right. In the meantime, let us seek out and try to mitigate every case of hardship. I hope hon. Gentlemen will continue to inform me of any individual cases when they think hardship exists. The Government have the very difficult job of trying to ensure, within the resources available and without aggravating the basic troubles from which we are suffering, that justice is done to many competing and sometimes conflicting claims. With resources limited, as they clearly are, help must be given where it is most

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needed and we are trying our best to do that.
I can assure hon. Members that the Government realise that it is the wish of the whole House that the needs of the war disabled and their dependants should be kept well to the fore, and that we will continue to do.

DRIVING TEST EXAMINERS
2.15 p.m.
Mr. Charles Pannell: My subject has evoked a good deal of publicity. As I see it, by this Adjournment debate we should try to achieve three things. First I hope it will convince all people in the country that a genuine attempt will be made to make them feel they are being dealt with justly. The second thing I hope will be achieved by this debate is that motorists will be convinced their position is appreciated, and that when they submit themselves for a test it will be governed by straightforward rules and not fancy tricks. Third, that the driving test examiners will feel any slur which they may think was cast upon their name has been removed. We should, however, make it perfectly clear that the driving test examiners serve the public and are not served by the public. Their interests are secondary to the interests of the public in this matter.
I received a letter from the vicar of a parish in my constituency. The Minister has a copy of the letter. I maintain that when such a constituent complains in the way he did it is reasonable that his Member of Parliament should write to the Minister about it. I wrote to the Minister a full week before I asked the Question during Question time. I told the Minister that the Question related to the case of the vicar, and so it should have been no surprise to him if in supplementary questions on 16th March reference was made to the Rev. Kenneth Fawcett.
I wish also to make clear my own position. When I received the vicar's original letter I wrote to him and warned him about the publicity which would follow. I asked whether he would reflect further on whether he wished me to proceed with the case. It was on receipt of his second letter that I proceeded, and I hope, there-
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fore, I shall be acquitted of any suggestion that I have handled this matter in an irresponsible manner.
The Minister said he did not keep statistics of driving tests revealing whether applicants were "ploughed" on the first, second, third or fourth attempt. Since then I have learned that 40 per cent. of the people who undergo driving tests are failed, and that refers to whether they are being tested for the first, second, third, fourth, fifth or sixth time. Those are all the statistics which are kept. After reflection, I still think that there is no better test than the one I posed originally in my Question about the sort of statistics needed to establish this claim.
I wish to take up one matter rather strongly with the Parliamentary Secretary because our relationship was quite friendly in this matter. I wish to know why he should hand out a "stooge" Question to the hon. and gallant Member for Wembley, North (Wing Commander Bullus), a written Question, when it was known that this debate was to take place—
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. Gurney Braithwaite): On a point of order. Is it in order to make the implication against my hon. and gallant Friend that the Question was a "stooge" Question planted anywhere? Secondly is there anything wrong in circulating in the OFFICIAL REPORT a reply to an oral Question not reached during Question time?
Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Hopkin Morris): There is nothing out of order in circulating a reply. It is not in order to refer to a "stooge" Question, but that is a matter of comment about which I have no knowledge.
Mr. Pannell: Well, then, shall I say that that Question was an inspired Question from the Department. It was not a Question which the hon. Member put of his own volition. I should have thought that the Minister could have waited until this debate today. He could have stopped the Question rather than put out a written answer on which obviously I could not put a supplementary question. We all know that if a Member gives notice of his intention to raise a matter on the Adjournment Mr. Speaker then stops any further supplementary questions. That is a normal rule of the House.
Mr. Braithwaite: On a point of order. This is a very serious allegation. May I again put it to you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that Mr. Speaker did not circulate the allocations for today's Adjournment until late on Monday last. The hon. and gallant Member for Wembley, North put down a Question on Friday last which he believed would be answered on Monday, when the House did not sit. He was perfectly in order in putting down that Question. The allocations for today's Adjournment were not published until later.
Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I have no knowledge of the facts. I do not think that there is a point of order for me to decide.
Mr. Pannell: I take it that I am in order in making my complaint in this debate. I have had conversations with the hon. and gallant Member for Wembley, North. I know how that Question emanated. The point I make is that the reply to the Question on 31st March was an overstatement of the facts. It has tended to cloud the issue in the Press. I make my protest at the beginning of my speech. I will now attempt to prove my case.
By Tuesday the Minister knew that this debate was to take place. It would have been within his competence to have withdrawn the Question.
Mr. Braithwaite: The Minister?
Mr. Pannell: I am making my case. The hon. Gentleman will take plenty of time later, as he usually does, to reply. The answer made by the Minister was:
"I have had an inquiry made on the spot by a senior officer of my Department, together with the Chief Driving Examiner, and find there is no evidence whatsoever to support these allegations. The Rev. Kenneth Fawcett, the Vicar of St. Mary's, Leeds, whose letter was mentioned by the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Pannell), when confronted with the gravity of his assertions unreservedly withdrew any suggestion of a ' racket' and confined his complaint to his own individual test."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 31st March, 1953; Vol. 513. c. 140.]
I am sorry, but that report of what took place varies from the Departments' note of a meeting between Mr. Fawcett and their officials, from which I now quote:
"Mr. Fawcett said that he would like to make it clear that he had never alleged that there was ' graft' in connection with driving tests or that examiners were acting improperly in their relations with driving schools. His
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argument was that the tests he had experienced were capricious tests not based on a proper appreciation of ability to drive a car; individual examiners had personal and peculiar views about driving which resulted in unfair tests."
That is very different from what the Minister suggested in his answer.
The literal interpretation of the word "graft" is the making of illicit profits or dishonest gains especially in connection with political and municipal business. The word "racket" does not appear in a modern dictionary. It is an American colloquialism, but Members can draw their own conclusions. I suggest that in this sense the word "racket" can be used only in the plural, and that Mr. Fawcett in using it inferred that somebody besides himself was concerned. The Minister's answer was an overstatement.
Another point is that the inquiry did not attempt to establish all that had been said. There were other matters for consideration. It may be remembered that Mr. Fawcett also said this:
"Between the tests I took a course at a motor school and the driving instructor, Mr. Maurey, of the Leeds School of Motoring, said that in his opinion my control of the car and road sense were all that could be desired. When I determined to write this letter to you I asked him to put this in writing but when he knew for what purpose I required it he said he would say it verbally but would not put it in writing for if it was found out by the Ministry of Transport examiners they would fail his pupils right and left and he would lose his means of livelihood. He also strongly advised me against carrying the matter any further because, ' If I touch those people I shall never get through the test.'"
That was part of the complaint, but the official inquiry is silent on that point. It is well known that representatives of the Minister met representatives of the Leeds School of Motoring. What is the answer on that? Although the Rev. Kenneth Fawcett caused a spark, and whatever explanations are given in the debate, the case against driving examiners does not rest on him alone. This is a matter of broad public policy which has provoked for me a considerable mail.
The Parliamentary Secretary knows that I spent yesterday morning in his Department and, as fully as possible, I told his officials the course I intended to pursue today, so at least I have tried to treat him fairly. I rest my case upon the second paragraph of the letter to the Minister on 10th March in which I said:

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"His letter does disclose what is generally common knowledge up and down the country, that there is a close liaison between certain motoring schools and driving test examiners. The idea has grown up that unless one goes to a certain motoring school, one never passes out at all. The driving test examiners are, in the main, far too talkative importing all sorts of fancy ideas into what should be a practical test."
I stand by the original statement. I shall attempt to bring such evidence as I can to prove the point. It is not sufficient for the Minister to shoot down the Rev. Fawcett in flames. He will have to conduct his investigation over a much wider field.
I want to deal with one or two letters which have been sent to me. I suggest to the Parliamentary Secretary that between now and the time when he answers the debate he might think whether or not it would be a good idea to take the whole of my mail and Mr. Fawcett's and have a spot cheek on these people who have been prepared to write about this matter. The check would have to be conducted by somebody outside his Department. The audit department cannot audit itself.
I have here a letter from South Leeds —from the city in which the original complaint arose. It is curious because of its opening sentence, which says:
"I have passed my test first time but nevertheless …."
Obviously the writer has no axe to grind. He says:
"I had some training from my business partner and a relative and then went to a school for a couple of lessons before the test. The instructor prevailed on me to have my second lesson an hour before the test and en route we stopped at the examiner's office (outside) so that he could find out who was to examine me …"
There is the relationship—
"He got back into the car and said he had not found out but later we were stopped by a car from another school and he gained the information that I was to be taken by the chief examiner and I was informed that this individual was very crochety.
When I reported for the test I noticed on the ' order sheet' of my examiner that my name had been substituted for another."
I can understand that. The other person may have dropped out for some Teason—
"Luckily I punctured after about 300 yards and had another test arranged for seven days later when I passed in a quarter of an hour."
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I received another letter from Dagenham, which says:
"I entered for my test in November, 1951— and failed. A few days later I had a letter from the Progressive School of Motoring, Aveley, offering to help me pass my test the next time."
Who told the school of motoring?
I am suggesting that there is a deep-seated suspicion in the country about these things, and I will tell the hon. Gentleman why. There is another constituent of mine who approached me personally about it, and to whom I said "Look here, you had better write to me, and you had better understand that you had better not write to me unless you are prepared for your letter to be used."
After that warning, this constituent wrote me this letter:
"My experience is as follows: In October, 1952, I had my first driving test, and failed. The reason given was that I gave too many signals and too long. A month later, I had my second test, and, during the test, I said to the Examiner "You will notice that I am driving at the near side of the road, because the previous Examiner had said that I drove on the crown of the road too much.' He immediately told me that I should not have said anything to him about the first Examiner, and this would probably spoil my chance of passing.
I therefore pointed out to him that I thought he would expect me to tell him of my failures, whereupon I would have tried to correct them. From that point, the conversation became heated, for then I knew, although I had not completed the test, that I would fail. I did. But not until he had given me a thorough examination on the Highway Code. He then suggested, in a very subtle way, that I should take lessons from someone who knew the finer arts of driving, such as the School of Motoring. After about six lessons, I asked him what he thought of me now. He replied by saying ' When is your next test? ' I told him it was 10 days hence, so he said ' Well, don't lose any sleep over it; you will be all right.' On the morning of the test, I had about half an hour in the city, and then we went for my test. Before we went into the office, my instructor said to me ' Unless you break the law in your test, you will pass.' I did. But how did he know? I will leave you to guess."
A gentleman from Abingdon, in Berkshire, said:
"I went to the Ministry of Transport office, accompanied by my school instructor, and we were met outside by Mr. So-and-So "—
I shall not mention his name, because the Minister would probably like to have it—
"and he asked the instructor ' What's the weather like?' The instructor replied ' Not so bad.' I found it hard to believe that, at

1421
10.30 in the morning, he could not have formed his own opinion about the weather, which was quite good, and, in fact, I concluded that, for some reason, a code was used to enable the examiner to gain knowledge of the pupil's driving ability."
[Laughter.] It is all very well for the Minister to laugh, but he will have to bear in mind that these people who write these letters are not untruthful.
The Minister must not assume that what these people are saying is untruthful. It may be wrong, but they are not deliberately perjuring themselves in writing these letters. A man in Manchester expresses the opinion that an examiner might feel liverish, hold a grudge against any race or creed, or he may have had a row with his wife, and that passing the test depends entirely on the goodness of his heart, and not on the pupil's ability to drive.
I can only say that I can remember on one occasion speaking to the chauffeur of one of the learned judges, at assize, and he told me:. "If anybody gets across the old man today, he will get 10 years," and a man did get 10 years that day. Naturally, that is not evidence, but it merely shows the sort of feeling that exists. It all rests on the basis that these people believe that these things are true.
Again, here is a letter from a professor in Exeter:
"My driving instructor told me after my first failure that professional people always seemed to need longer practice than working-class. Those who took longest to learn were the educated people, doctors, nurses, university people, clergymen and solicitors. It has occurred to me that it is very curious that the most intelligent people seem to be failed most. Could it be that they have the money to go on paying for driving lessons and are kept at it? One of my university colleagues paid £25 in driving tuition before he got through at the third attempt. I paid out £23 all told and passed at the third time."
These are university people and professional people, and I hope nobody suggests that this letter is deliberately mendacious. He goes on:
"Attractive girls and women get through very easily, I understand. If they analysed failures in relation to (1) sex and age, (2) income and (3) social class, some very interesting revelations would turn up."
A lady from Stoke-on-Trent writes:
"The first thing the examiner asked her was ' Who taught you to drive? ' He advised her to take a course of lessons with a driving school. She took a course of lessons, and the first time her tutor took her out he said
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'You are a splendid driver.' He admitted that she was fully competent, and spent about half the time he usually did with pupils. At the next test, he took her down for it instead of her brother. This time, the tester did not keep her out long, nor did he ' put her through it' half as much as had been done before. Needless to say, she passed."
A university lecturer from Nottingham writes to me:
"Though the instructor told me they would fail me the first time, and probably the second (which seems customary), I was astounded. Finally, some random statements between ourselves. ' A pretty face goes a long way with the examiners. A long face helps to fail a man under test—or a naturally somewhat worried or harassed look (in my case a frustrated look) in the case of an elderly man'."
After all, the Minister will appreciate that I have had a very considerable mail, and he has had enough experience as a back bencher, when he used to assail the last Government, to know that people did write letters to him, and that is a point of which he must be sufficiently aware. He must know that, although these people may be misguided and mistaken, they do write letters to their Members of Parliament, and if they write letters like these after being warned, as I have warned these people, that their letters will be used, we must assume that they are honest witnesses.
If there are enough honest witnesses who really believe that something is wrong—whether they are right or not— the matter should be inquired into. The Minister always rides off with talk about integrity. We expect our public servants to be honest. What sort of people are we to get in this country if we are always to be harping on this question of integrity? Generally, we refer to one another in this House as hon. Members, because we always believe that what we say we believe to be true. If we accept that in the one case, we should accept it in this case.
What does the Minister really think about his driving test examiners? They get between £410 and £550 a year, and there is no equal pay between men and women. Is this enough for integrity? Is it enough to keep them above corruption? The Minister, of course, had a chance of answering these questions when these people had a pay claim before the National Arbitration Tribunal. If I was fixing the rates I should fix them between £500 and £550 and leave it at that.

1423
The Minister asked for some opinions which have been expressed about this, and here are some of the opinions expressed in a statement by the Ministry of Transport on a claim for revised salary scales for the grades of chief driving examiner, supervising driving examiner and driving and traffic examiner:
"Driving examiners continuously employed in testing duties tended to exaggerate the possibility of their work subjecting them to nervous strain."
Regarding tests, we find this:
"The Acts and Regulations are, of course, concerned with many other subjects than traffic examining, and examiners need to know only the effect of small portions of them."
Then, they sum it all up with this opinion:
"The duties of the traffic examiner grade call for qualifications which are either reasonably commonplace (the ability to drive well and considerable experience of driving, which are being acquired by a wide and ever widening section of the community) or such as are within the competence of an average Clerical Officer."
The examiner has to decide whether the candidate passes or fails, and must immediately issue a certificate of competence or a statement of reasons for failure. That certificate is a very important thing to many people.
I have referred to the question of the local driving schools and their relations with the examiners, and I have a long letter here from a very well-known business house in Leeds supporting this claim. There is nothing political about this. I still feel that something is wrong. Incidentally, I would say that, possibly with the exception of my hon. Friend the Member for Southall (Mr. Pargiter), who may be fortunate enough to catch your eye, Mr. Speaker, I have had as much experience of professional driving as any hon. Member.
How much is spent on learning to drive at driving schools? Some people have written to me saying that they have spent as much as £40 in this way. I suggest that the Minister really ought to look at this matter, and that a further regulation should be brought into force which would keep the driving schools rather further apart from the matter of driving tests than they appear to be at the moment.
The present system of driving test examinations was started in 1934 during a period of savage unemployment, and
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this was an attractive job to all sorts of good garage foremen and people of that sort. I suggest that at that time the calibre of the examiners was a little higher than it is now. How are the driving examiners now recruited? I agree that they are recruited quite openly. The job attracts a large number of ex-policemen. That is not a bad thing, because policemen are concerned with traffic examinations and have usually a way with them.
In a time of full employment, I certainly am not going to make out a case against the employment of ex-policemen, but what sort of experience has an ex-policeman of driving commercial vehicles? People who have driven double-decker and 10-ton vehicles know that the whole technique is completely different from that employed in driving light vehicles. I suggest that many of the other people employed as driving examiners are recruited from driving schools, and that that is part of the "hook up" about which we are complaining today. Driving examiners were not placed under the local authorities in 1934 because it was thought that they might be subject to local pressure. I quite appreciate that. Who checks up on them from time to time?
No passenger is allowed in the vehicle when a driving test is being carried out unless he clearly undertakers, as of course he should, that he will not interfere with the test. I can give evidence of examiners who very strongly object to having passengers, but one of the points made in the case of the Rev. Kenneth Fawcett is that had he wanted to he could have taken somebody with him on the test.
Quite recently the suggestion was before this House that the salaries of judges should be raised by £1,000 a year free of tax, and many hon. Members opposite agreed with that suggestion. But driving test examiners are also judges. On their integrity and ability rests the consideration of road safety and of public danger, and, more important still, the preservation of justice as between man and man. A citizen's livelihood may depend upon the capacity or the caprice of a driving test examined, but in their case there is no jury at all.
No one who has read the sort of mail which I have received can be blind to the degree of distress which is often caused through a person failing to pass

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the driving test. At the same time, I should be the last to attempt to stigmatise a whole body of public servants merely on the ground of this case or on the ground of the large number of letters I have received on the subject. I believe that there are certain elements on the administrative side as well as certain individual examiners who fail to appreciate the conception of high integrity which should be brought to this job. I hope I have said enough to show that there is considerable public uneasiness about the matter which calls for a speedy public examination.
2.45 p.m.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. Gurney Braithwaite): I rise now, first, because of the gravity of the charge made against driving examiners which requires a reply at some length, and, secondly, because we are somewhat behind the schedule which you, Mr. Speaker, laid down for us for the matters to be raised on the Adjournment today.
On 16th March, the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Pannell) put a supplementary question to me in the following terms:
"Will the hon. Gentleman consider making this information available?"
That is, the information for which he asked about failures at the first attempt.
"As he will appreciate, I have already sent a letter to his Department indicating that a vicar of one of the parishes in my constituency has described the present arrangements in the City of Leeds as a 'racket.' Is the hon. Gentleman aware that, as a result of my mail, I have reason to believe that this sort of thing is fairly widespread?"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th March, 1953; Vol. 512, c. 1821.]
"This sort of thing," of course, being the racket.
I am glad to have this opportunity of saying a few words on this subject which, as the hon. Gentleman quite rightly points out, has raised a good deal of public disquiet, disquiet stimulated by certain events which I shall now relate to the House. The driving tests were instituted under the Road Traffic Act, 1934, and. therefore, except for the war period, have been a feature of our national life for some 18 years.
To the best of my knowledge—and I have made some research—this is the first occasion during that period on which these tests have been debated in the
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House, either on the Adjournment or through other procedural machinery, a fact which, I suggest, goes to show that they are, on the whole, a satisfactory instrument for road safety which, after all, is their primary object. The whole essence of the driving test is to have people on the roads who drive safely, and as such, I suggest, they are generally accepted by public opinion.
In view, however, of certain allegations made by the Vicar of St. Mary's, Leeds, the Rev. Kenneth Fawcett. who complained recently that the driving test was a "racket." and whose views were repeated here at Question time on 16th March by the hon. Member for Leeds, West. I think it as well to have this question ventilated so that a body of men and women who carry on a difficult and often thankless task with integrity and tact can be cleared of the wholly unjustifiable criticism that they are engaged in a "racket."
It is this of which the Vicar of St. Mary's, Leeds, complained. He stated in his letter to the hon. Gentleman, which was given wide publicity in a number of the national daily papers, that—and here I quote the letter and leave it to hon. Members to draw their own conclusions as to what it is intended to convey:
"After four years spent as a resident full-time chaplain to H.M. Prisons, Wandsworth and Armley, I think I can spot a racket when I see one. Whoever invented the three-card trick was a babe in arms compared with the person who laid down the conditions of the driving test"
What can that convey other than the most wounding allegation of corrupt conduct? When I saw the publicity which this unjustified statement commanded, I immediately arranged to send one of the senior officers from the headquarters of the Ministry of Transport, together with the chief driving examiner, to Leeds, when the matter was discussed most fully with the Rev. Kenneth Fawcett, who then withdrew unreservedly his remarks about corruption. He said in the discussion that he would like to make it clear that he had never alleged that there was graft in connection with driving tests or that driving examiners were acting improperly in their relations with driving schools. He maintained that his criticism was in connection with his own case, in which he claimed that he had twice been unfairly failed.

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Frankly, I find these two statements difficult to reconcile. I think that the right thing to do, however, is to accept the withdrawal while, at the same time, expressing my astonishment, because I cannot do otherwise, that a clerk in holy orders of the Church of England should have made such grave and grievous allegations merely because he felt that he ought to have been classed as a competent driver.
The hon. Member referred to a Mr. Maurey who was quoted by the Rev. Kenneth Fawcett in a letter of great length which, owing to the lateness of the hour, I will not quote now but which is familiar to the hon. Member and myself. During the visit of our official to Leeds Mr. Maurey described the allegations made as ridiculous and added that he had no complaints whatever about the fairness of the examiner. He also denied that Mr. Fawcett had had a course of lessons at his school. On the contrary, Mr. Fawcett had had only two lessons and had exhibited during them faults which, apparently, he reproduced in some degree during his driving test.
The direct allegation against Mr. Maurey was not dealt with at the conference at Leeds; I admit that at once. But we have since spoken to him on the telephone and he categorically denies that any such conversations as described by Mr. Fawcett ever took place. I think, therefore, that we can leave the reverend gentleman who skedaddled from the stricken field at the first whiff of grape-shot to the onerous task of reconciling his conduct with his conscience on the eve of the Easter festival. I am satisfied that there is no support for the suggestion that the driving examiners are corrupt.
Mr. Pannell: If I may intervene, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will at least separate me from my constituent in this regard. I think that I have been quite above board in my statement and I made it perfectly plain during my speech—and I sharply pulled up my speech in referring to what happened—that I made no allegation of corruption.
Mr. Braithwaite: Nor did I say so.I was dealing with Mr. Fawcett. I will break off as abruptly as the hon. Member did and get on with another matter.
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Another supplementary question was asked on 16th March by the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, West (Mr. Popplewell), who occupies an important official position on the benches opposite as a representative of the usual channels. He asked me whether I was aware that in Leeds, Newcastle and other areas there was a fairly general opinion that
"there seems to be something 'phoney' about it."
He added:
"Will he have a look at the percentage of failures? …"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th March, 1953; Vol. 512, c. 1822.]
I wrote to the hon. Member saying that I should be quoting this and, with his usual courtesy, he rang me up to say that he could not be here today owing to his having an engagement in his constituency. But he gave me leave to say that he never for one moment suggested or intended to suggest that the word "phoney" implied that there was something suspicious and not above board with regard to the conduct of driving examiners. He merely thought it odd that so many people faded at the first attempt. I will deal with that point later in my remarks.
These ladies and gentlemen examiners are permanent, pensionable civil servants, recruited after open examination, with special qualifications as to driving ability and experience in driving. Their work is closely watched by supervising and senior examiners. We are, therefore, in a good position to detect at an early stage whether there happens to be any danger of any examiner getting into trouble.
I have been into this matter most carefully. I was greatly disturbed by the whole incident, as the hon. Member for Leeds, West would have been if he had been in my position. I can say with conviction that there is no more upright body of men and women in this country dealing with a difficult task than our driving examiners, and, like their colleagues in the public service, they are, have been, and will continue to be honest and fearless in their work.
The hon. Member for Leeds, West will not be surprised to learn that I have heard from the trade union which looks after these ladies and gentlemen. It is not impossible that he may have had a

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communication from Mr. C. E. Redhead, General Secretary of the Society of Civil Servants. This is what Mr. Redhead said in his letter to me:
"As the representative staff organisation of Driving and Traffic Examiners of the Ministry of Transport, this Society has been seriously perturbed of late concerning a number of recent references to members of the grade in the House of Commons and the resultant Press publicity. I refer in particular to the Parliamentary Questions of Mr. Norman Dodds, M.P.. on 15th December and 26th January, and of Mr. T. C. Pannell, M.P., on the 16th instant and the subsequent exchanges in the House.
I feel it my duty to draw your attention to the fact that there is in consequence widespread indignation and dissatisfaction among the officers concerned, who, as you will appreciate, have no means of publicly correcting any misapprehensions that this recent publicity may have aroused.
There remains a strong feeling of resentment and frustration and the uneasy feeling that public confidence may be undermined to a degree that is not only unfair to the officers concerned, but which can be an administrative embarrassment."
I now turn to the more important part of this debate which concerns the driving test itself. I propose, in the first instance, to explain how these tests are organised and the way in which they are supervised, as I think that this will clear up a number of doubts which exist in the minds of hon. Members and which have been raised. I also propose, at the end of my remarks, to refer to a few complaints about the driving test and this may perhaps deal with other points that are in the minds of hon. Members.
The prospective candidate for a driving test is told in very general and simple terms of what it consists when he first applies for a provisional licence. He is sent a form, D.L. 68, a copy of which I have in my possession, which should be a useful introduction to the test. When he has had sufficient training for the test he applies for one at the local office of the Ministry of Transport traffic areas.
Great Britain is divided for driving test purposes into 11 such areas in which there are 17 supervising examiners, 71 senior examiners and 381 examiners. The men and women work at 130 regular test centres and, from time to time, at 175 occasional centres. They work under carefully drawn instructions and the arrangements for the test are such that no candidate ever knows beforehand which examiner is to take the test.
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I will now read extracts from the instructions, which, I think, show the essentially practical and sensible approach which we require the examiners to adopt. The instructions state:
"In applying the test examiners should remember that in most cases candidates will have had only a limited experience of driving and most of them will not have driven without either a 'nurse' or an instructor. It would, therefore, be unreasonable to expect the degree of skill and road-sense which might be displayed by a driver with years of experience. It must also be remembered that many candidates will display a degree of nervousness when driving under the eye of an official examiner from which they might be free when driving alone or with friends. …
The main object of the test is to ensure that the candidate is well grounded in the basic principles of safe driving, and is sufficiently practised in them to be able to show, at the time of the test, that he is a competent driver and is not a source of danger to himself or to other road users, and is likely to become a fully qualified driver with more experience. The standard of driving of a candidate who is given a certificate of competence should be such that the examiner would be willing to accompany him, as a passenger in the back seat, on an ordinary journey.…"
Hon. Members will have noted the stress which the instructions lay on competence to drive safely. I should also mention that in another part of the instructions it is stated that:
"… a candidate who shows a lack of courtesy or consideration for other road users should not be regarded as a competent driver."
This is an important matter which candidates often overlook.
It is often said by foreigners that there is in this country a much higher standard of courtesy and consideration for other road users than elsewhere. If this is true it is no doubt due partly, at least, to the emphasis we place on this point in the driving test.
Another important point in the instructions is that all routes used for test must be carefully chosen to avoid serious inequality of conditions as between one candidate and another. Every hon. Member knows that with so many examiners and so many driving test centres the problem of maintaining a uniform standard throughout the country is a serious one. It is part of the job of senior examiners and the full-time job of the supervising examiners and the chief driving examiner himself to maintain, as far as possible, a standard test and uniform standard of

1431
competence for the grant of pass certificates, and there are careful instructions to that end which I should have quoted had I had time.
I am told that supervising examiners probably accompany examiners on 700 tests every year, not specially chosen in any way, and spread over the whole of the staff in each area. The method used is for the supervising examiner to mark the candidate's faults simultaneously with the examiner and, after the test is over, to compare notes with the examiner. The chief examiner has the onerous task of co-ordinating the standards throughout Great Britain and spends a great deal of his time travelling around from one centre to another with that object. By seeing individual examiners conducting tests in all sorts of conditions, he is able to determine whether the tests are being conducted both in the letter and the spirit of the instructions.
Uniformity in method does not mean that every area should show the same percentages of passes and failures. In any form of examination one finds differences in the personal characteristics, aptitudes and perhaps foibles of those who mark our papers or put us through our tests. However, I would like to deal with the suggestion made so widely that everybody is failed the first time on principle. Knowing that this debate was pending I had a test check made in one area for the month of February, before the Question was put down and before this matter received publicity. In that area the figures show that 55 per cent. of those who passed did so at their first attempt. I think the hon. Gentleman said that 40 per cent. failed or, in this case 45—
Mr. Pannell: A national figure.
Mr. Braithwaite: These are for a certain area taken in February. Candidates who fail receive a statement of failure, on the back of which the examiner marks the points to which the candidate should give particular attention before he takes the next test. The examiner is instructed not to enter into a discussion with the candidate who has just failed about his driving performance, as this may lead to a good deal of difficulty on both sides. The wisdom of this is shown by our experience with
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Mr. Fawcett. Experience has shown that candidates who have failed are seldom in a frame of mind, at that time anyhow, to accept advice from the examiner who is responsible for that failure. The yellow ticket, as it is often called, is intended to assist candidates to improve their driving before coming up again, which they cannot do until a month has elapsed from the date of their failure.
As 'regards one criticism, which Mr. Fawcett seemed to have in mind when he wrote to the hon. Member for Leeds, West and which has been suggested again this afternoon, namely, that a candidate does not pass unless he goes to a driving school. Neither Mr. Fawcett nor the hon. Member has produced a thread of evidence to substantiate any suggestion that driving schools have special influence which they can bring to bear—I think it was called a "hook-up" this afternoon. Nevertheless, if a candidate goes to a good driving school, he is likely to be taught to drive in the right way and to avoid common pitfalls, and is, therefore, a more competent driver. On the other hand, we know of driving schools which are not good and their results in the test are obviously not so favourable.
There is a second common criticism to the effect that there are two other reasons why candidates fail the first time. The first is because the examiner wants to keep his job and will be regarded as incompetent unless he fails a considerable proportion of the candidates The second is far more interesting—indeed, I see my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury on the bench beside me— that they are failed in order to stimulate the Revenue because there is a 10s. fee for taking the test.
Mr. Pannell Mr. Pannell indicated dissent.
Mr. Braithwaite: These things are said and I am here to refute them. Both of those criticisms are blatantly and palpably absurd, precisely because the examiner is a permanent and established civil servant, whose position does not and cannot depend upon the number of candidates coming forward because he has other duties to perform. Secondly, let me disclose the horrid fact to the House that each test now costs appreciably more than the fee of 10s., which is the maximum at present authorised under the Road Traffic Acts.

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The Government are, therefore, making a loss on each test and it would be in their financial interest to reduce the number of tests rather than to increase them. Those who make that complaint are putting ideas into the head of my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary, not to mention the Chancellor of the Exchequer, at an extremely vulnerable period of the year.
I think I am right in saying that a large number of the complaints, when boiled down to essentials, amount to little more than an indignant assertion that the candidate knows he is a good driver and that the decision that he has failed can, therefore, be attributed to only one of three things: the incompetence of the examiner, the prejudice of the examiner or even the corrupt character of the examiner. This attitude is engendered by the too commonly held belief that good driving is an accomplishment which can readily be picked up given only average intelligence and a modicum of practice.
The fact is that good driving is an art involving a combination of ability to handle the vehicle, knowledge of the correct procedure to follow when manoeuvring in a wide variety of road and traffic situations, and the ability to put into practice that knowledge and the precepts of the Highway Code. The learner who sets out to practise driving and undergo the test without first taking steps to ensure that he is working on the right principles of safe driving is reasonably sure to fail.
Having now picked up 10 minutes of the late starting period, let me say, finally that I do not want to give the House the impression that we have a lot of complaints about the driving test, which would appear to be the case after listening to the hon. Member for Leeds, West. We received less than one in 1,000 for the tests we arrange, which is again a tribute to the way in which they are conducted. Moreover, the numbers of complaints are diminishing.
In view of the wide publicity this subject has had during the past 10 days, owing to the efforts largely of the reverend gentleman in Leeds and those who have associated themselves with him, one would expect a large number of disappointed candidates to have written to the Ministry with complaints about the conduct of tests, whether justified or not. Hon. Members will be interested and comforted to know that out of between
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five million and six million drivers in this country we at the Ministry have received only 30 letters of complaint during the past 10 days. Of those, one-third were anonymous and hon. Members know exactly what to do with them.
These facts speak for themselves. The House will wish me to pay a tribute to the driving examiners whose work in difficult circumstances calls for tact, integrity and devotion to duty which we have learned to expect and receive from our public servants. I should also like to thank the hon. Member for Leeds, West for raising this matter, because it has given me an opportunity to make a number of points which I am sure will be of interest to hon. Members and to members of the public generally, not least to the driving examiners who have felt themselves so unfairly criticised.
We are, of course, prepared to investigate the mail bag of the hon. Member. It will mean the expenditure of a good deal of time and of the taxpayer's money, and if the other witnesses in his mail bag are of the same calibre as the Reverend Fawcett, I am bound to say that their evidence will be of no particular value. I hope that the Press will have the necessary space to give the same publicity to my remarks as has been given to the allegations.
My right hon. Friend and I are always prepared to receive from hon. Members details of cases where it is thought that their constituents have been unfairly treated in the matter of these driving tests. But this whole matter has proved itself to be entirely without foundation. Not a shred of evidence has been produced either by Mr. Fawcett, in his correspondence, or by the hon. Member today—
Mr. Pannell: That is absolute rubbish. The hon. Gentleman's speech was prepared for him before he had heard my evidence.
Mr. Braithwaite: In conclusion, I cannot do better than quote the statement which was made by my right hon. Friend in reply to a Question which was put to him by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Wembley, North (Wing Commander Bullus). This was the Question to which the hon. Member for Leeds, West took so much exception, although it was tabled before he had got his allocation for the Adjournment.
Mr. Pannell: At least I wrote my own speech.
Mr. Braithwaite: My right hon. Friend said:
"I am glad to take this opportunity of expressing my complete confidence in the integrity of the Ministry's staff of driving examiners."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 31st March, 1953; Vol. 513 c. 140.]

INCOME TAX REFORM
3.11 p.m.
Mr. Anthony Crosland: The matter to which I want to draw the attention of the House may seem rather more abstruse and of less human interest than the sad experience of Mr. Fawcett, but it is nevertheless a matter of great importance, which the House should discuss.
It will be remembered that in January, 1951, my right hon. Friend the then Chancellor of the Exchequer set up a Royal Commission to inquire into the present system of taxation of profits and income, including its incidence and effects. Last summer the Chairman of the Royal Commission sought a ruling from the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the terms of reference should or should not be interpreted as permitting a discussion of:
"the type of expenditure tax which has been advocated by the late Professor Irving Fisher, the American economist, namely, a graduated tax under which the measure of a person's liability is determined, not by his income as such, but by the amount of personal expenditure which he meets out of his resources of all kinds, including capital as well as income."
In October last year the Chancellor of the Exchequer replied negatively. He said that this matter could not be considered as falling within the terms of reference. The purpose of this debate is to discuss the Chancellor's ruling and urge him to change it.
At this point I should like to describe the nature of the proposals which were made by the late Professor Irving Fisher and other people, in respect of which the Chairman of the Royal Commission was asking for a ruling. Put very briefly, the proposals are that instead of taxing the whole of a person's income—as income is now defined—regardless of the use to which that income is put, we should tax only that part of the income which is
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spent, so that that part which is saved is not taxed. In addition, we should tax that part of a person's expenditure which is met out of his capital and which is not at the moment subject to tax.
In other words, put very crudely, it would exempt current savings from tax while at the same time taxing current dis-saving. In effect, the tax would become one on a person's total annual expenditure or, in the phraseology of the late Professor Irving Fisher, it would be "a tax on net cash yield income." This involves a change in the definition of the word "income," but that definition has frequently been changed for tax purposes, and there has always been a great deal of argument as to what was the correct definition for tax purposes. The idea of changing the definition of either "income" or "profits" for taxation purposes is certainly far from being an unknown one.
After all, many hon. Members opposite and also leaders in the business world have recently been urging the Chancellor to change the definition of the term "taxable profits" for the purpose of having a replacement cost basis for depreciation instead of an historical cost basis. I mention that merely to show that there is nothing particularly novel about the idea of altering the definition of either "income" or "profits" for taxation purposes.
It will be at once clear to hon. Members that any change such as this, which would exempt current savings from tax but at the same time bring current dis-saving under taxation, would give an enormous incentive to save and provide a very strong disincentive against dis-saving.
Having given that brief summary of the point at issue, before deploying my main argument against the Chancellor's ruling I want to make two preliminary points. First, this is not, or should not be, a party matter. There is not the slightest reason to believe that all hon. Members on this side of the House would support a change in the taxation system such as that proposed by Professor Fisher—nor is there any reason to believe that hon. Members opposite would oppose it. Indeed, to judge by the insistence of hon. Members opposite on the need for more personal savings and more incentives to personal saving

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one could imagine that many of them might support such a reform.
The fact is that nobody has any idea how the support would be distributed among the Members of the different parties. It is not a party issue and there is no suggestion that the Chancellor was actuated by any party or political motive when he gave his ruling. My own belief is that he gave it under a misunderstanding, and either through insufficient time or inadequate advice he failed to grasp the exact nature of the issues involved.
My second preliminary point—although it is hardly necessary to stress it—is the extreme importance of this issue. When my right hon. Friend set up this Royal Commission he presumably did so because he was concerned about the effects of taxation on incentives of one kind and another, and I imagine that in his mind at that time—as in the minds of most people who think about the whole tax question—the dominant worry was the possibility that our present levels of taxation, or even lower levels, might have a serious effect on the incentive to save.
Most people would think that this was the most important single question which the Commission could discuss—how, within a rather high level of taxation such as is necessary by reason of the social services and the concept of a welfare State, we can retain sufficient inducements to save. I do not need to spend any further time in emphasising just how important the whole question of savings is under a weight of taxation which, whichever party is in power, is bound to remain far higher than before the war.
In the light of these considerations, why did the Chancellor decline to allow the Commission to discuss this very important proposed reform, which at first sight promises such beneficial results in terms of the incentive to save? In a reply to my right hon. Friend on 17th March the Chancellor gave two reasons for his decision. The first was that this proposal is equivalent to a tax on expenditure— which is quite correct—and therefore it does not come into the scope of an inquiry into the taxation of income and profits. His second point was that it was impossible to consider this tax without also inquiring into the whole system of indirect taxation, because a tax of this sort came into the field of indirect taxation
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and it could not be considered without the consideration of the rest of that field.
I want to deal briefly with those two points in reverse order. The first argument is that we cannot consider a proposed reform of this nature without considering the whole field of indirect taxation. Is there any reason for believing that this is true? What is the difference in principle between direct and indirect taxation? I am not aware that there is the slightest argument as to what is that difference in principle. I want to quote from a standard and well-known text book on taxation which sums the matter up in a way which I think would be agreeable to everybody—Mrs. Hicks, on "Public Finance." Mrs. Hicks defines direct taxation as including.
"… taxes for which the liability varies with the circumstances of the taxpayer"
and indirect taxation she defines as:
"Those taxes whose liability depends on the amount or value of a particular product or service purchased."
That is a perfectly clear distinction, agreeable both to common sense and a normal usage.
If one accepts those definitions, it cannot be considered that the sort of reform which has been suggested falls into the category of indirect taxation. If we modify Income Tax in the way proposed, so as to reduce the liability to tax to the extent that people are currently saving and to increase the liability to tax to the extent that people are currently dis-saving, it is quite clear that the tax will still involve a liability which varies according to the circumstances of the individual concerned. In other words, it is a direct tax. It is equally clear that it will not involve any liability which varies with the price or amount of any product or service consumed.
It is clear, therefore, that it does not fall into the category of indirect taxation. I do not think there can be any possibility of argument about it; the definitions are precise, and it is clear into which of the two categories this proposal falls. It falls very clearly into the category of direct taxation, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer has allowed himself to be misled by the phrase "expenditure taxation" into thinking that what is proposed is a general tax on all commodities —and that, of course, is not what is proposed in the slightest degree.

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So much for the argument that this is merely a matter of indirect taxation. The other argument which the Chancellor used in reply to my right hon. Friend—and it was couched in rather vague and general terms—was that this proposal does not come within the scope of an inquiry into taxation on income and profits. This was rather a surprising argument to fall from the lips of a Chancellor of the Exchequer who, when he was at Cambridge, was a historian.
Mr. Hugh Dalton: No; modern languages.
Mr. Crosland: My right hon. Friend, I fear, is misinformed. I looked this up, and the Chancellor took modern languages in Part I and modern history in Part II. His historical knowledge does not seem to have helped him in considering this point because the fact is that suggestions along these lines have formed a part, historically, of every discussion on Income Tax and Profits Tax which has ever taken place in this country.
The "Manchester Guardian," in a leading article this morning, has been digging out a number of precedents into which I have already looked. If we go back to the first Government inquiry in this country into the system of income taxation, the Hubbard Committee of 1861, we shall see that a large part of the discussions of the Committee were taken up in dealing with the proposal of John Stuart Mill —very respectable antecedents after ail-that they should do precisely what is now suggested and exempt current savings from taxation. It was only the sinister influence of Mr. Gladstone's hirelings on that Committee which secured the defeat of this progressive suggestion.
Alfred Marshall wrote a very well-known article urging this reform in Income Tax while Keynes, in his evidence to the Colwyn Committee on taxation, described this as an ideal form of direct taxation. Professor Pigou has discussed this in his writings over and over again and Irving Fisher, whose name has already been mentioned, wrote innumerable books and articles about the subject in the course of a fairly long life-time.
I mention those precedents merely to show that this kind of reform has always played an important part in any debates
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and discussion on the principle of income and profits taxation. The reason why previous individuals and committees have turned the scheme down has almost entirely been on grounds of administrative practicability. I think that is a fair comment. That may or may not be an important argument, but it is not the argument which has been used against allowing the Royal Commission to discuss the matter. The whole question of administrative practicability is something which ought to be considered again, for it has not been considered for 30 years, since the Colwyn Committee.
If the Royal Commission do not discuss this method of reform, theirs will be unique amongst all discussions on Income Tax for 100 years past. Moreover, such proposals for reform have not only historically formed a very important part of all debates on the matter, but they are also being discussed a great deal at the moment wherever people are thinking or writing about the present weight of income and profits taxation.
I have three examples, chosen at random, of recent discussions of a reform along these lines. In the course of a debate in the columns of the "Economist," between my right hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) and Lord Brand—a well matched pair of extremists—a very interesting and authoritative anonymous letter was written which raised precisely this scheme of Irving Fisher's. Next, the third of the three articles recently published by "The Times" and written by Professors Edwards and Paish, also referred to the possibility of exempting savings from Income Tax. Lastly, the leader in today's "Manchester Guardian" shows that an increasing degree of interest is being aroused by this proposal.
But such a reform not only occurs in recent discussions on this subject but is actually embodied in the present Income Tax practice of at least one important country—Germany.
Mr. Dalton: Western Germany.
Mr. Crosland: The taxpayer in Western Germany can, if he so chooses, allot a part of his income to a special bank account, and, provided that the money remains frozen in the bank account for three years, one-half of that part of his income becomes exempt from Income

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Tax. This is a limited application of precisely the proposal which is under discussion—namely, the exemption of savings from Income Tax.
Surely, therefore, when a reform along these lines is already embodied in the tax practice of one other important country, and when it has played a large part in both present and previous discussions, the Chancellor of the Exchequer cannot possibly maintain that it does not fall within the scope of an inquiry into taxation of income and profits. I can only believe, quite seriously, that the precedents, the current discussion and the current practice were not brought to his attention by his officials when he gave his ruling.
I can go further still and say that such a reform would in fact not be a revolutionary departure or a complete departure even from the existing basis of the British income and profits taxation system. It has never been true in this country that Income Tax fell equally on all income irrespective of the use to which the income was put. That has never been the case. A great number of exemptions from Income Tax are already made, according to the use to which the income is put, and the most significant aspect of our present Income Tax system from this point of view is that income is already relieved from the full weight of taxation for one form of savings—namely, the premium on insurance payments. That is a modification precisely along the lines suggested in this scheme.
A similar position occurs with profits taxation. The profits taxation system in this country already distinguishes between profits according to the use which is made of them. There is a distinction between distributed and undistributed profits. Surely it is fair to say that this distinction between distributed and undistributed profits, one bearing a heavier weight of taxation than the other, is a discrimination in favour of profits which are saved against profits which are spent. It cannot be said to be an absolutely novel principle, therefore, to suggest that this discrimination should also be applied to Income Tax.
I should have thought that in the light of this argument the case for permitting the Royal Commission to discuss the matter was overwhelming. There is ample historical precedent for treating this as part of the whole theory of income and profits taxation. There is a great
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deal of discussion taking place now on the subject in relation to Income Tax. The German Government have already adopted a modified example of this principle. Our own income and profits taxation laws even now include some concessions to this principle.
I have no idea until the Royal Commission has examined and reported whether or not it would be a desirable reform. That is not what we are debating today. We are only saying that it appears to be a matter of sufficient importance for the Royal Commission to discuss. Of course, it is a matter of far greater importance today than it was when those previous discussions and debates took place, because the weight of taxation is very much heavier today, and the need for savings is very much greater today than it ever was before, so it is infinitely more important to discuss this subject now than it was 30, 50, 100 years ago.
As the "Manchester Guardian" pointed out this morning, we have a Royal Commission only once about every 30 years, and it would surely be a tragedy if a subject which everybody agrees to be of central importance to the future of our national economy were not to be discussed in the slightest degree by the Royal Commission when we shall not have another Commission of this kind for probably another 20 or 30 years. The value of their report would really be halved if they were not permitted to discuss this subject, and I do beg the Financial Secretary to carry some of these arguments, and others that will be adduced, back to the Chancellor, and to urge him to reconsider this decision.
3.31 p.m.
Mr. Austen Albu: I should like briefly to support the plea of my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucestershire, South (Mr. Crosland) to the Financial Secretary and to the Chancellor to reverse the decision in this case. I have read a great deal of the published evidence that has been put to the Royal Commission, and I had the very exhausting experience of giving evidence myself for some two and a half hours. It is pretty clear, I think, that the great problem with which they are faced is this of dealing with taxation, particularly of company profits, in such a way as to enable savings to be created in the community for investment

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without at the same time reversing the achievement of the greater equality in the distribution of the national income.
The Commission are able, owing to the terms of reference given them when my right hon. Friend was Chancellor, to consider such matters as a capital gains tax, which they may have to consider if they have to make other concessions particularly to companies, but it may well be that that is a far more clumsy way of dealing with this problem in a socially equitable way than some sort of tax such as that my hon. Friend has been describing. I cannot pretend that I have the knowledge he has of the actual details of the tax. I know some of them.
Let me put this point to the Financial Secretary. One of the great difficulties we have been faced with in the years since the war, in a time of full employment and sometimes of some inflationary pressure, when we have had continuously to ask the trade unions to adopt very considerable restraint in regard to wage claims, has been the obvious retort that, however much dividends may have been limited, there has been a considerable degree of very conspicuous consumption. Try as we may, when speaking to trade unionists of these matters we cannot persuade them that there is not a very much higher degree of expenditure in this country than the figures of the actual distribution of the national income as officially printed and published show. There does seem to be a very good case for the examination of a method of taxing which is a taxing of the demands made by individuals on the product of the community, rather than entirely of their incomes.
I put that to the Financial Secretary because these matters must be very much in his mind, as they are in ours, at the present time. I suggest that there is a good case very fully put forward by my hon. Friend for reversing this decision, and for our having a report which will take into consideration the present situation in regard to taxation and income distribution, and the other problems with which we are faced.
3.35 p.m.
Mr. Hugh Gaitskell: My hon. Friend the Member for Gloucestershire, South (Mr. Crosland) has explained, in his usual lucid and able manner, the reasons why we are raising
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this subject today. He deployed with very great skill all the reasons and all the arguments in favour of allowing the Royal Commission to consider what has been termed an expenditure tax, and I want only very briefly to support what he has said.
We are raising this now, perhaps I may say in passing, rather than leaving it to the Budget debates, partly because we do not want it considered in the heat of party controversy, which tends to surround Budget debates, and partly because we think that this is something that should be considered on its own, as a long-term matter, quite apart from any immediate financial issues that may arise.
I think we are all agreed—at least, I would hope so—that the relationship of Income Tax to saving is a matter of the very greatest importance. I should like the Financial Secretary, if he will be so kind, as to listen to my questions on this matter. I want to know whether he agrees, as I am sure he does, that the relationship of saving to Income Tax is of the greatest importance, and that there is an obvious danger that any attempt to extract more money by increasing Income Tax is liable to be partially at least frustrated by reason of a decline in savings. To refresh his memory I would remark that the Conservative Party, when they were in Opposition, put that argument very frequently from the benches on this side of the House. Then I should like to ask him, if he agrees with that, whether he would also agree, as presumably he would, that the Royal Commission should consider the relationship of taxation and savings.
Next, I should like to ask what his attitude is to the problem of dis-saving, because it surely is perfectly clear that we cannot really consider the one without the other. If we are to consider proposals for encouraging savings by tax reliefs of one kind or another, unless we at the same time do something to prevent dis-saving, or to discourage dis-saving, there is an obvious danger that the taxpayer will get the benefit of the reliefs given to him for increasing saving by simply drawing on his capital. In other words, he maintains his standard of living by drawing on his capital and proceeds then to save and show the results of saving to the Income Tax authorities and get relief from taxation accordingly.

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I therefore submit that we cannot really possibly separate these two things.
The next point I would put to the Financial Secretary is that the problem of dis-saving is itself, in any case, a rather serious one. There is, with the present rate of taxation, a very great temptation to a man with a substantial amount of capital, to maintain a high standard of living, perhaps a higher standard of living than the country can really afford, by drawing on his capital.
Then I should like to ask whether the hon. Gentleman would not agree with what my hon. Friend suggested, that the present arrangements under which insurance premiums, for instance, obtain substantial reliefs in Income Tax, are a matter which the Royal Commission should surely investigate. How can it be beyond their terms of reference to consider further moves in that direction? If he agrees with these propositions how can it possibly be explained that the Chancellor of the Exchequer ruled that in effect a change in the system of taxation under which savings were exempted from taxation and dis-savings were included as part of income was not to be discussed?
I confess that I find it extremely hard to think of any plausible answer whatever to this proposal. I have looked at the original terms of reference which we laid down and at the revised terms of reference which the present Government introduced. I would draw the hon. Gentleman's attention to these. The terms of reference said Commissioners shall:
"inquire into the present system of taxation of profits and income, including its incidence and effects."
Presumably, the effect on savings was one of them. They said:
"to consider whether, for the purposes of the national economy, the present system is the best way of raising the required revenue from the taxation of profits and income."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 14th December, 1950; Vol. 482, c. 183.]
Obviously, the question of whether there is not too serious an effect on savings should come into that.
Finally:
"… to make recommendations bearing in mind that in the present financial situation it may be necessary to maintain the revenue from profits and income…."
That would involve considering any schemes or suggestions put forward which
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in the views of, at any rate, some persons and, as my hon. Friend has pointed out, of some extremely eminent persons, which would be of considerable assistance to the national economy.
We put this forward in no party spirit. I confess that I have been very disturbed by what has happened, and I must tell the House that if I had been in the present Chancellor's position when this question came from the Royal Commission, I have not the slightest doubt that I should have ruled that it was within their terms of reference, as I had previously ruled that the question of a capital gains tax was within the terms of reference. It may be argued by the Financial Secretary that, on a narrow definition of income, this sort of thing cannot be considered—even that, I think, is open to some dispute in the light of the arguments put forward—but, as my hon. Friend has said, the plain fact is that every Royal Commission has considered as one of its major problems whether the present legal definitions of income are appropriate or not. Once that is conceded, it seems to me that really it would be absolutely appropriate and right for the Royal Commission to look into this matter.
I therefore urge the Financial Secretary to ask his right hon. Friend to think the matter over again. Could he, in particular, at least give us this assurance—I agree with my hon. Friend, and I have no doubt that there may have been some misunderstanding on the terminology— that it is no part—I particularly want an answer to this—of the Chancellor's intention that the Royal Commission should not consider ways and means of stimulating saving and discouraging dis-saving by reforms in the Income Tax. I particularly ask him to reply on that point, because that may perhaps provide a way out of the rather unfortunate situation into which the affairs of the Royal Commission seem to be in danger of drifting.
3.42 p.m.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr, John Boyd-Carpenter): As I understand it, the House is this afternoon not seeking to discuss the merits or the de-merits of the very ingenious set of proposals which are associated with the name of the late Professor Irving

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Fisher. We are on the much narrower point as to whether the elucidation of the terms of reference of the Royal Commission which my right hon. Friend gave to the Chairman of the Royal Commission was, or amounted to, a proper and accurate interpretation of those terms of reference. We are really on what lawyers would call "a point of construction."
There has been no suggestion from the right hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Gaitskell) or his two hon. Friends that the terms of reference themselves required amendment or should be amended. They directed their argument to what seems to me to be the much narrower point as to whether consideration of this set of proposals did or did not come within a sensible interpretation of the terms of reference. I think it is desirable, if we are to consider this matter on its merits, that I should make quite clear the way in which the terms of reference were laid down and have developed.
Perhaps I might say in passing that I was very glad that both the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friend the Member for Gloucestershire, South (Mr. Crosland) disclaimed any desire to make any party issue out of this matter. It seemed to me that when the matter was earlier raised in the House one or two hon. Members, particularly the hon. Member for Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins), were somewhat departing from that line. I was the more glad, therefore, that this afternoon both the right hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Gloucestershire, South threw that line overboard and put the matter forward as a matter to be considered solely on its merits. I will certainly endeavour to follow that admirable example.
The Royal Commission, as hon. Members will be aware, was set up by, and with terms of reference settled by, the late Administration. The terms of reference were announced in a written reply by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. H. Morrison) on 14th December, 1950. I will read them, because, though the right hon. Gentleman quoted them, he quoted them only in part, and I think it is desirable, if we are to consider what they mean, that the House should have the whole of
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them in front of them. The terms of reference were:
"To inquire into the present system of taxation of profits and income, including its incidence and effects…."
These are the words the right hon. Gentleman did not quote:
"…with particular reference to the taxation of business profits and the taxation of salaries and wages to consider whether for the purposes of the national economy the present system is the best way of raising the required revenue from the taxation of profits and income, due regard being paid to the points of view of the taxpayer and of the Exchequer: to consider the present system of personal allowances, reliefs and rates of tax as a means of distributing the tax burden fairly among the individual members of the community: and to make recommendations consistent with maintaining the same total yield of the existing duties in relation to the national income."
Just to complete the picture, at the time when the then chairman, Lord Justice—now Lord—Cohen, resigned the chairmanship on his appointment as a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary, the ending of the terms of reference was modified in a way which does not, I think, affect our present discussion but which, for the purposes of completeness, I should like to mention. The closing half sentence was taken out and replaced by the words:
"To make recommendations bearing in mind that in the present financial situation it may be necessary to maintain the revenue from profits and income: and, in so far as they make recommendations which would on balance entail a substantial loss of revenue, to indicate an order of priority in which such recommendations should be taken into consideration."
Finally, to complete the picture, at a fairly early stage of the Royal Commission's proceedings they had apparently some doubt as to the meaning of their terms of reference. They referred, as has been mentioned, to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Leeds, South, who told the House, in reply to a Question put by his hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Mr. Albu), on 6th February, 1951:
"The Royal Commission have been informed, in reply to an inquiry received from them, that their present terms of reference entitle them to consider the question of charging to Income Tax or Profits Tax any profit ranking as a capital profit under the existing law which might reasonably be brought within the scope of those taxes."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th February, 1951; Vol. 483, c. 1529–30.]
Two small points arise from that First, the right hon. Gentleman con-

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sidered it proper—if I may say so, rightly considered it proper—to give the Royal Commission guidance as to the interpretation of their terms of reference. Secondly, he did not then seek to extend the meaning of the terms of reference beyond the original conception of taxation of profits or income. What he made clear was that the inquiry need not be limited to the sort of profit which had hitherto been regarded as a revenue profit but could properly include capital profits.
Mr. Gaitskell: In other words, a redefinition of profits and income was involved?
Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: A re-definition of profits and income was involved, and therefore we can take it at this stage that the right hon. Gentleman thought it proper by inquiry to give them the guidance as to what he understood their terms of reference to include.
I should like now to follow up the suggestion by both the right hon. Gentleman—no doubt in an inadvertent turn of phrase—and his hon. Friend the Member for Gloucestershire, South that my right hon. Friend was not allowing the Royal Commission to discuss these proposals. The facts of the matter have, of course, appeared in the first Report of the Commission. The Commission, apparently having doubt as to the interpretation of their terms of reference, asked my right hon. Friend as the Minister departmentally concerned for guidance on their interpretation. I do not think it is quite fair to use—it was perhaps inevitably telescoped into other things and I do not make great complaint about it—the phrase "was not allowed to discuss." What my right hon. Friend did was what the right hon. Gentleman did before, when he gave his interpretation as to the meaning of certain words as he understood them when asked by the chairman.
Mr. Gaitskell: This is a very important point. Am I to understand that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would have no objection whatever if the Royal Commission decided nevertheless to consider this expenditure tax and discuss it?
Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: That is quite a different question.
Mr. Gaitskell: Oh, no.
Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Oh, yes, it is, and it is, of course, straying, as the right hon. Gentleman quite deliberately did, from the very argument which has been raised here. That argument was not whether these were good proposals or not or that it was good for anybody to discuss them. The argument raised was that my right hon. Friend's interpretation of the terms of reference themselves was wrong. Let us get this quite clear. The material parts of the terms of reference were drafted under the late Administration, and I have no doubt at all that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Leeds, South had some considerable share in settling them. I must not be led into comments on what might or might not in other circumstances be a good or bad thing. We have been here challenged on my right hon. Friend's interpretation of the terms of reference, which the right hon. Gentleman himself had some responsibility for settling.
I particularly do not want to enter into any discussion on the merits or demerits of Irving Fisher proposals, not the least because to do so would appear to prejudice any consideration of them which may at any time have to be made. It is not, of course, material to this argument. It may well be that these proposals have conspicuous merits. But that is quite irrelevant to the present issue. The point we are concerned with is the terms of reference given to this Royal Commission.
The right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends have tried to establish the argument that income could be redefined so as to mean expenditure. That is a perfectly fair paraphrase of the argument advanced. It is a proposition which, I think, has only got to be stated for its invalidity to be seen.
Mr. Dalton: No.
Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Income and expenditure are, as some hon. Members have discovered in their own personal experience, very different considerations from each other. To argue that a tax which is described by its authors and supporters as a tax on expenditure can be brought within the definition of a tax on income simply by saying that for this purpose income can be construed to mean expenditure is, I think, an argument that will not wash.
Mr. Crosland: The Financial Secretary is not dealing now very seriously with the argument. It is frivolous to dismiss the whole of our case as resting on an odd-sounding definition of income as being the same as expenditure. He must know there is a great deal of argument from a tax point of view as to a sensible definition of income. Irving Fisher, after all, did not define these proposals as a tax on expenditure but as a tax on "net cash yield income." These proposals have always been treated as a form of Income Tax, and cannot be swept away with a lot of very amusing but not very serious juggling about with income and expenditure.
Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: If the hon. Gentleman can contain his impatience, I think I shall satisfy him on that aspect. I gather that I start with his assent to the proposition that merely to define income as meaning expenditure is not an intellectually respectable way of bringing these proposals within the terms of reference which his right hon. Friend gave to the Royal Commission.
I will concede for the purposes of argument that there is within the body of these proposals a part which relates to exemption, not from Income Tax but from Surtax, of savings, which are matters material to the taxation of incomes. I concede that at once. We are being asked, not to rule that particular and arbitrarily selected parts of the Irving Fisher proposals are within the terms of reference of the Royal Commission, but to say that the whole body of those proposals comes within the terms of reference,
Hon. Members: No.
Mr. Gaitskell: I am sorry, but I must interrupt the hon. Gentleman again here. The report does not say there was any suggestion that it was precisely this tax. The words in the report are:
"The second ruling concerned the type of expenditure tax which has been advocated by the late Professor Irving Fisher, the American economist … namely, a graduated tax."
It is the type of expenditure tax to which reference is made.
Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The right hon. Gentleman need not argue about the exact tax, but he must, for the sake of his argument, deal with the general body of the proposals and not with an
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arbitrarily selected part of them. For the purpose of his argument he has, quite legitimately, selected those parts which relate to savings, no doubt for very obvious reasons. He did so no doubt because they have a greater appeal.
It is an essential part of these proposals to include in the liability for taxation on expenditure, expenditure financed out of, for example, bequests and gifts. The right hon. Gentleman really cannot argue that these proposals, taken as a whole, are within the terms of reference of a Royal Commission inquiring into taxation on profits and income unless he says that a tax on expenditure from bequests and gifts also comes, as a matter of ordinary definition, within the definition of a tax on profits and income. It seems to me that whatever we may say about a proposal to exempt savings or—and this is going still further—whatever we may say about taxation on expenditure, it is straining the English language beyond the limits of its not inconsiderable elasticity to say that if the right hon. Gentleman receives a bequest and spends it on the purchase of a television set the tax falling on that expenditure is a tax upon income.
Mr. Gaitskell: On expenditure.
Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: It seems a complete misnomer to suggest that on a specific capital sum bequeathed to the right hon. Gentleman by some benevolent admirer—I hasten to express the hope that this is not merely a theoretical possibility —can attract Income Tax when it is spent. That it should be taxed may be a good or a bad thing, but such taxation is quite clearly not upon income or profits.
Mr. Albu Mr. Albu rose—
Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: No. I have given way already quite a lot. What I have said applies with redoubled force to imposing taxation in respect of gifts. Suppose some one gave to the right hon. Gentleman a sum of money at Christmas to buy a bottle of lemonade and the right hon. Gentleman, in loyal fulfilment of the gift's purpose, went out and bought it. It is quite beyond the limit to say that any taxation of the expenditure on that gift which comes—rightly or wrongly, I am not arguing that point—under expenditure taxation has any relevance to taxa-

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tion on income or profit. That, I think, is the essence of the difficulty.
These ingenious proposals contain a number of conceptions and ideas which, without undue pressure upon the terms of reference, might well come within them. They also contain elements—on my view, I should say essential elements of the proposals, without which the proposals would seem to be wholly incomplete—which, such as the examples I have quoted, seem to us to be quite outside any question of taxation of income or of profits.
That is why it seemed to my right hon. Friend, when this matter was referred to him as a matter of doubt upon the construction of the terms of reference, quite inevitable that he should have to say to the Royal Commission that proposals for an expenditure tax, some items of which have, quite clearly, no relevance to taxation of incomes and profits, could not be held to be within those terms of reference. That is the matter as I understand it on the narrow point.
I should like, if I may, to trespass further on the time of the House very shortly in order that I should not seem discourteous to the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends on the broader issues which they were good enough to raise. I say at once that my right hon. Friend's view, for the reasons which I have given, that on a proper construction of the terms of reference this body of proposals or anything like them was not within those terms of reference, does not mean that he takes any detached view, or feels that the Commission should take any detached view, on the inter-related questions of taxation of income and profits on the one hand, and of savings and dissavings on the other hand.
I give the right hon. Gentleman that assurance without any hesitation because, as he knows, my right hon. Friend has on a number of occasions in public stressed, as did the right hon. Gentleman himself today, the very great importance in our present position of encouraging and stimulating savings. And it is, of course, clear that an analysis of our system of direct taxation, particularly at a time when it is at such high levels, obviously would be incomplete and unreal if the repercussions of the system upon savings were excluded. I have no difficulty in reassuring the right hon. Gentleman on that point. Indeed, I
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should only weary the House by repeating the obvious if I said that my right hon. Friend is immensely concerned that a proper level of savings should be maintained and encouraged from the point of view of the very broadest national interest. My right hon. Friend has himself made that point far more eloquently than I could do and I need only refer the House to what he has said.
There is one other practical point The Royal Commission was appointed as long ago as 2nd January, 1951. It has now been at work for a considerable time and, as hon. Members are aware, has produced its first report, mainly dealing with certain aspects of taxation on overseas enterprise. Hon. Members will appreciate that the question of the system of taxation upon profits and income is, obviously, of the very greatest significance for a country which is fighting for its economic life, and which is doing so at a time when it has to sustain the massive burden of a great defence programme. As the right hon. Gentleman or one of his hon. Friends said, when taxation is at present levels, that the system should be sound becomes proportionately the more important as the burdens themselves become the heavier.
I therefore suggest that unless there were some compelling reason to amend the terms of reference at this stage, there is a very strong weight of considerations which go in favour of our not doing so. We do not wish, if we can avoid it, to delay the consideration by the Royal Commission of the major matters remitted to it and the receipt from it of its report. I am sure that all hon. Members are anxious that while work of this seriousness and importance calls for hard thought and serious work, nothing that we do should operate in any way to delay the bringing forward of the Royal Commission's report or reports. It was no doubt that reason therefore which impelled hon. Members opposite to found their argument on the narrow point of interpretation rather than, as I thought they might, on the probable suggestion that new terms of reference might be devised and transmitted to the Commission.
I think I can speak for all hon. Members when I say how grateful we are to the noble Lord, Lord Radcliffe, and his most eminent colleagues for the tremen-

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dously valuable public work they are engaged in doing. I know we are extremely anxious that they should be able to carry on that work with the greatest possible expedition and speed. It will be a matter of great satisfaction to my right hon. Friend and all hon. Members when that Report becomes available and we are able to see what the result of this expert analysis of our system of taxation of profits and income has produced.
I am sure the right hon. Member will appreciate that the fact that we do not think these matters come within the terms of reference of the Royal Commission does not by any manner of means exclude their consideration in other ways by other people at other times. My right hon. Friend, as I think hon. Members will admit, has a very open mind and I should not like to seem, by saying what I have said on the narrow point, to imply any disrespect for the late Professor Irving Fisher and those perfectly sincere and honourable people who share his views. What I have said relates solely to the terms of reference of the Commission and if the right hon. Member, or those associated with him, have any proposals or suggestions to make on any part of our complex system of national taxation, I am sure he does not need telling that my right hon. Friend is always very glad to hear the views of right hon. or hon. Members.
Mr. Gaitskell: I am slightly reassured by some of the remarks made by the hon. Gentleman towards the end of his speech, but may I ask him this? Do I understand him to say that, so far as the Chancellor is concerned, he would regard it as perfectly appropriate for the Commission, within their existing terms of reference, to consider the relationship of taxation to saving and dis-saving and to make recommendations for encouraging saving and discouraging dis-saving?
Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I think I can say that my right hon. Friend would clearly take the view that in doing what the terms of reference tell the Royal Commission to do, questions of saving and dis-saving must inevitably arise on a proper construction of the terms of reference. That does not mean that every proposal which could have such an effect—such, for example, as those we have been discussing —is necessarily within the terms of reference. But my right hon. Friend could
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not rule that questions of saving and dis-saving are divorced from questions of taxation on income and profits.
Mr. Gaitskell: Therefore, recommendations on these matters can be made.

SPONSORED TELEVISION
4.9 p.m.
Mr. John Rodgers: It is nearly a year since the Government announced their intention of ending the B.B.C. monopoly and allowing an experiment in commercial television. It is 10 months since they published their White Paper giving their exact proposals. Those proposals were approved by the House but since then the public at large have known practically nothing about what has happened in that field, and very little progress seems to have been made so far. In every debate on this subject the right hon. Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. H. Morrison), who I regret is not in his place, has maintained that the demand for commercial television comes only from advertising agencies and big business. That is something with which I wish to deal later.
Let me say at the outset that I am, and have been for many years, a director of an advertising agency whose associated companies are among the biggest producers of commercial radio and sponsored television, not only in the United States of America and other countries, but in each of our Dominions. Lest I should be accused of "private log-rolling," to use the characteristically charitable phrase of the right hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Ness Edwards), who I also regret is not present, let me say that for the last six years I have been a member of the B.B.C. General Advisory Council. To a certain extent, therefore, I may claim to have a foot in both camps.
Be that as it may, I ask the House to believe that my advocacy of commercial television has nothing to do with my own commercial interests. I feel as deeply and passionately on the subject of breaking the B.B.C. monopoly as does the hon. Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew) on the other side, and I ask him to believe that. Indeed, my own narrow commercial interests would best be served by leaving things as they are, but I believe that in the public interest the television

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service should be extended as quickly as possible. I think that television will soon supplant sound radio for all general purposes, in very much the same way as the talking film supplanted the silent film. I have, therefore, great sympathy with those sections of the British community who, under the present set-up, will not be able to witness the Coronation ceremony.
A White Paper issued some 10 months ago contained, broadly speaking, four points. The first was that the Government recognised that the monopoly of the B.B.C.
"has done much to establish the excellent and reputable broadcasting service for which this country is renowned."
The White Paper stated that the B.B.C. services must remain intact. In all the debates we have had on this subject, it might have been assumed from the speeches of hon. Members opposite that we were proposing to abolish the B.B.C. and supplant it by commercial television. That is not and has never been the intention of the Government. They intend that the B.B.C. shall remain exactly as it is, with its revenue unimpaired, but parallel to it there shall be some competion in the form of sponsored or commercial television.
The second point made in the White Paper was that the Government have come to the conclusion that
"in the expanding field of television provision should be made to permit some element of competition"
when calls on capital equipment make that feasible. Thirdly, the White Paper said that a controlling body would have to be established to safeguard the public against abuses, to lay down the terms on which those independent stations might operate, and generally to oversee the programmes. Fourthly, the Government stated that they would rely on the Television Advisory Committee for all technical matters. For example, the Committee would advise on what wavelengths would be available, how many independent stations could operate, and so on. Were the Government this afternoon to announce new frequencies and how many stations would be licensed, no new sets capable of receiving those programmes could be available in this country before 1954 at the earliest. Therefore, my first point is that it is absolutely vital for industry to have this information now in
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order that they may develop new sets, and so that adaptors may be made available next year.
When will this Television Advisory Committee report? Will it be next week, next month or next year? We know that under the Socialist Government the Committee were zealous enough in the discharge of their duties to meet three times in three years. I hope we shall not emulate that record, but that the Assistant Postmaster-General will be able to tell us they have met frequently, and are in a position to report.
In introducing the White Paper, the Assistant Postmaster-General gave an assurance that, while the Government wanted to go ahead with these alternative methods of television, the B.B.C. would have priority in building their own five T.V. stations which would give something like 90 per cent. coverage. I think I am interpreting the sense of the debate correctly when I say that did not mean that the Government gave any assurance that the B.B.C. would complete all its stations and all its development plans, including those for the development of very high frequency. I should like to quote from what the hon. Gentleman said on 11th June. He said:
"The Government are in earnest, not only over breaking the B.B.C. monopoly, but also in permitting sponsored television. They have decided that the B.B.C. shall be allowed to have priority over the completion of the programmes that were held up because of the capital cuts. But that does not mean that, when adequate resources of money and materials are available, competitive television must wait until the B.B.C. extension is complete in all respects. It does not mean that the B.B.C. will have to put the last coat of varnish on any building that they may put up before competitive television can be started. In fact, it is the hope of the Government that it will be possible before long that this experiment can actually be started and that the controlling body should be set up."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th June, 1952; Vol. 502, c. 328.]
My second question to the Assistant Postmaster-General, arising from his own speech, is: when will the B.B.C. have allotted to them the necessary resources? Are we to wait until the five stations are completed? Are we to wait until they are started or merely until the money has been granted? Or are we to wait until the whole of their V.H.F. plans have been developed? The B.B.C. themselves are responsible for a great deal of

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the failure to develop television. The amount of capital resources they have expended on the Third Programme, which caters for 1 per cent. of the populace—and in that figure I am generous— could equally well have been devoted to the development of television if the B.B.C. had desired.
Many believe that this capital cost argument is being used to delay progress, and that the B.B.C. is being unnecessarily liberal in its plans and programmes. But even if the capital investment argument were truly valid, which I do not accept, why on earth have the Post Office allowed a 10-month delay in appointing the controlling body they themselves recommended? This is the body which must consider and lay down the conditions under which the licences to operate these independent T.V. stations will be granted. It is the body to consider representations made from any quarter, and must so arrange its plans that they can be debated in this House before they are finally approved. The Post Office have shown excessive dilatoriness in appointing the controlling body.
My third question is whether the Assistant Postmaster-General can give an assurance that the controlling body will be set up forthwith. While the bureaucrats have dawdled, delayed and dallied, private enterprise has been, as I believe it always is, zealous in its duty. Private enterprise has approved a "Code of the Air," a copy of which has been forwarded to the Postmaster-General. According to Labour Party propaganda and the speeches of hon. Gentlemen opposite, especially those of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Lewisham, South, the proposals of the Government are a menace to all our home standards and to the impressionable minds of our children. I do not know whether this is a Parliamentary expression, but I say that is utter poppycock. I have no hesitation in stating that this "Code of the Air," which has been prepared by the Incorporated Institute of Practitioners in Advertising and the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers, lays down proposed standards far higher than those which would be accepted by most newspapers or music-halls and considerably higher than the standards which the B.B.C. set themselves.
Mr. Christopher Mayhew: Why does the B.B.C. not require a controlling body?
Mr. Rodgers: It has a Board of Governors subject to Parliamentary control. The advertising industry has already set itself exceptionally high standards in its work in the Press and on the hoardings —standards which are maintained by voluntary co-operation, and which are unsurpassed anywhere in the world. Yet the Labour Party are extremely distressed —and I accept that they have some fears for which there may be grounds—about ending this monopoly. They have distributed talking points and leaflets with headlines such as "Not Fit for Children." All this suggests that independent television operators would put out programmes that would offend public taste and do damage. I only hope that the sponsors of this very liberal and very high-principled "Code of the Air "will publish it so that we can all read and study it. I think that if hon. Members opposite study the specific regulations regarding broadcasts to children they will find that their arguments are tendentious nonsense.
If hon. Gentlemen opposite really think that advertisers would go out of their way to put on programmes that would deliberately offend public taste, they are not only remarkably credulous but also display crass ignorance. The desire of all those who would operate independent television stations would be to attract an audience and provide first-class entertainment and vital and stimulating programmes. The same sort of people who run our newspapers and work in the B.B.C. today will be the people who will take part in these independent television operations. I do not see why we should assume that when people from the B.B.C.—and I mention the name of Mr. Norman Collins in this connection, because he was good enough to be head of television programmes—work on independent stations they will debase their high standards. Of course, not. It is no use quoting United States experience, because we all know that the United States did not start quite as well as we did, and they have no parallel B.B.C. or public corporation to operate and set a very high standard, which undoubtedly the B.B.C. have done.
My third reason for urging the Assistant Postmaster-General to go ahead with his

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plans is that I believe that the public have already shown that they want commercial television in addition to the B.B.C. programmes. Various newspapers have carried out public opinion tests on this question—"The Economist," the "News Chronicle" and the "Daily Mirror," all of varying political persuasions—and each one shows a majority of people in favour of competition with the B.B.C. and alternative programmes to those of the B.B.C.
I ask my friends in the Press who, I know, have tended to back up the arguments of the hon. Member for Woolwich, East to remember that all the arguments used by the Labour Party in defence of the B.B.C. monopoly could equally be used—and, indeed, have been used—in favour of the freedom of the Press. It took centuries of hard struggle to arrive at such freedom of the Press as we now enjoy, and I myself believe that the freedom of the air is vital to the continuance of the freedom of the Press itself. I urge hon. Members to remember that, when the B.B.C. itself started, the Press opposed the B.B.C. putting out news bulletins and refused to print B.B.C. programmes because they thought they would lose circulation. Of course, that has not happened, and the circulations of newspapers have tended to increase, as, indeed, have the sales of radio sets.
In case my friends of the Press think that they would lose advertising revenue from the introduction of commercial television, let me quote some figures of the experience in America. I have here the figures of the national advertising expenditure in newspapers and magazines and on television and radio for four years. In 1942, newspaper revenue from advertising was 152 million dollars, which, incidentally, excludes 2,000 million dollars of local advertising; the magazine advertising revenue was 153 million dollars; there was no television, but competitive radio advertising amounted to 185 million dollars. In 1945, newspaper advertising revenue was 240 million dollars, magazine revenue was 290 million dollars, and radio advertising revenue was also 290 million dollars. In 1949, 445 million dollars was spent on advertising in the Press, 430 million dollars in the magazines, and 395 million dollars in radio. In 1951, the last available year, the newspapers had an all-time high in-
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come of 513 million dollars from advertising, the magazines 480 million dollars —also an all-time high income—sponsored television, 128 million dollars and radio 375 million dollars.
I understand—although I am not going to ask the Assistant Postmaster-General for confirmation of this—that all newspapers, with the obvious exception of "The Times," have applied to operate commercial stations should the Government decide to go ahead with their plans, as I hope they will.
I wish to query one thing, and it is a very serious point. I hope the Government will not be backward in coming forward, if I may use that phrase, because of the efforts of the B.B.C. itself. It is obvious to listeners and viewers, of whom I count myself one, that in the last few days the programmes in the B.B.C. have been specially selected to present commercial radio in a very unfavourable light. This has extended to school broadcasts, to "Any Questions"—
Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Hopkin Morris): I am not quite certain whether the Postmaster-General has any jurisdiction over the programmes of the B.B.C.
Mr. Rodgers: I submit that he is responsible for the general over-all policy of the B.B.C.
The second point about the B.B.C. is that in the last few days there has been an announcement by the B.B.C. Staff Association to the effect that they are meeting to discuss measures to be adopted for opposing commercial radio. This raises an important constitutional issue. If Parliament has decided on giving independent television a chance, by what constitutional right does a State monopoly and its servants set out to oppose and flout the will of Parliament? I would welcome the Assistant Postmaster-General's views on that.
Finally, I will sum up the reasons why the Labour Party oppose the introduction of independent television stations. I believe that all monopolies are dangerous. They like them. I also believe that any monopoly over the things that influence the mind is doubly dangerous. The party opposite do not believe in trusting the people. We believe that the people should be allowed freedom to choose their programmes and the form of entertainment they want. To the gentleman

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in Whitehall who knows best they now add the gentleman in Portland Place who apparently know best on this issue. They so misunderstand the economics of advertising that they believe the public will pay more if there are sponsored programmes. That is economic lunacy and nonsense, because the use of effective advertising allows goods to be sold cheaper to the public. Through effective mass selling the public are able to enjoy the fruits of mass production.
The party opposite say that we have no mandate for it. That is nonsense. We believe in freedom and in trusting the people, and we made a point of that at the last Election. I hope the Government will not be deterred from going ahead bravely with their plans. If we are wrong, the public will soon tell us once they have experienced commercial television. But I believe the public will find it a blessing and a boon, and that the alternative programmes can only come from some form of independent commercial television. Despite the gross misrepresentation by the party opposite, the majority of people want these alternative programmes to supplement the very scanty fare now offered by the B.B.C. I hope we shall go ahead with our plans, and that we shall be fortified in doing so by the words of an ex-Director-General of the B.B.C, Sir Frederic Ogilvie, who said:
"The B.B.C. itself, good as it is, would gain vastly by the abolition of monopoly and the introduction of competition. The dangers of monopoly have long been recognised in the film industry, the Press and the theatre and active steps taken to prevent it. In tolerating a monopoly of broadcasting we are alone among the democratic countries of the world."
I believe we have taken the first step in freeing the air. Therefore, I urge the Assistant Postmaster-General and the Government to go ahead without further delay with implementing their proposals for partially freeing the air and providing a better service for the British public.
4.30 p.m.
Mr. Christopher Mayhew: The hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Mr. J. Rodgers) began by stating that there had been delay in the Government's plan for introducing commercially sponsored television. There has been no "delay" at all. The Government are
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pledged not to bring in commercial television for several years. To clear the matter up I should like to read into the record the pledges given by Government spokesmen.
The Lord Chancellor said, on 26th May, 1952:
"…it cannot but be several years before any licences can be granted…."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 26th May, 1952; Vol. 176, c. 1441.]
On 11th June, the Home Secretary said:
"We intend that the B.B.C. shall be allotted the resources to complete its programme of lower-power television stations and to make reasonable progress with the introduction of high frequency sound broadcasting before any competitor is admitted to a share of the national resources."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th June. 1952; Vol. 502, c. 218.]
The Assistant Postmaster-General said, on 30th May, 1952:
"The limited experiment which the Government has now approved is probably as far as most people want to go at this stage. It will be limited to television only and will not be allowed to start until the B.B.C. have finished their own development plans which were held up by the last Government."
Therefore there has been no "delay."
Mr. Richard Fort Mr. Richard Fort (Clitheroe) rose—
Mr. Mayhew: No, I cannot give way.
Mr. Fort: I see that the hon. Member cannot stand controversy. He cannot take it.
Mr. Mayhew: The Assistant Postmaster-General has asked me to limit my remarks to give him an opportunity to reply, and I do not intend to give way.
I suggest that there has been no delay and that the Government are pledged not to introduce sponsored television for several years at least. I think that the Government are wise in their own interest not to hurry too much, and that the Assistant Postmaster-General is beginning to understand the practical difficulties and the weight of opposition which will be aroused if and when he starts this scheme.
We all know of the extraordinary lack of support for these proposals in all responsible sections of opinion in this country. Royal Commission after Royal Commission have reported on this subject and have turned down the views of the hon. Member for Sevenoaks. The churches, the trade unions and the Press are against it.
Mr. Anthony Fell: The hon. Member is making a deliberately untrue statement.
Mr. Mayhew: It is true that some of the Press have applied for licences. But how many of them in fact want commercial television and how many have been drawn in simply because they feel they cannot afford to be left behind? Noble Lords in another place, including the most distinguished Conservative peers Lord Halifax, Lord Hailsham and Lord Waverley, are all against it. This House is against it. The large majority of hon. Members are firmly against it. I recall particularly the hon. Member for Southgate (Mr. Baxter) speaking most openly and persuasively against it.
The Church of England Newspaper states the position in this House correctly, as follows:
"Certain vociferous Members want recognition for the principle of sponsoring, and to hold them firm the Government is throwing them this sop. Otherwise there is no doubt that the proposal would be driven out with ignominy. But the Whips were on, and the minority won."
That newspaper is absolutely correct.
What about the Government themselves? It is an open secret that the Cabinet itself is divided on this issue. The Assistant Postmaster-General would be very wise to fulfil his pledges not to introduce commercially sponsored television for many years to come. But possibly the Minister will argue that the business world is on his side. I do not believe it at all. From my observations, the great majority of public-spirited business men in this country are dead opposed to commercial television. Most of them dislike it on principle and they would not touch it, even if it paid them to do so. Many of them, however, realise that television advertisement is far too costly for them.
I saw an estimate, which I think is an under-estimate, made by a champion of commercial television, Mr. Macmillan, in "World's Press News." He is a director of Feature Programmes Limited. His estimate for a half-hour play was £2,200. One and a half minutes of advertising— let us say—£2,200. How many businessmen in the country can afford that kind of cost? Those who do not dislike it on principle, as a majority of public-spirited businessmen do—[HON. MEMBERS:
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"Nonsense."]—oppose it because they know it will give a powerful weapon to the big commercial companies against the small businessman.
Who, then, is in favour of this? A handful of the less responsible Conservative Members of Parliament, backed by one of the most powerful vested interests which this country has ever known. Some of the individuals concerned are known, others prefer to remain in the background. It is possible to forgive these businessmen who are pushing it; no doubt, by their lights, they are doing their duty by their shareholders. It is not possible to forgive the Government for not resisting this pressure in the public interest. That is one of the things which disturbs this House considerably.
I agree with the hon. Member for Sevenoaks that the Minister has been extremely uncommunicative in the past few months. He will not tell us the names of those who have applied for licences. he has not told us about his plans and the difficulties into which he is getting. What he has stressed in his answers to Questions, and what the hon. Member stressed, was the "controlling body."
The first thing I want to say about the controlling body is what an ironic thing it is that those who tell us so often that the commercial advertisers will, in their own interests, not offend public taste or will not give the highest class of programme, need a kind of cultural Gestapo to keep those advertisers in order. The hon. Member for Sevenoaks proudly insisted that his was about the most rigorous code, the most restrictive and tyrannous imposition that man could devise—
Mr. Rodgers: Not tyrannous.
Mr. Mayhew: What kind of public-spirited broadcasters are these? The B.B.C. Governors do not need a controlling body to keep them in order. They are chosen because they are men who can be trusted by the public. They are chosen because the public knows that they will give broadcasts in the interests of the listeners and not for any ulterior motive
This emphasis on the "controlling body." moreover, shows that the Minister misunderstands the danger of commercial television. It is not the censorable things, it is not the obscenity, it is not the horror. which are the main dangers of commercial television. If one manages somehow

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to establish a rigorous censorship one can prevent obscenity on the screen. The real danger is the effect of the unending banality of commercial programmes day after day, night after night, especially on children—[HON. MEMBERS: "Nonsense."] —and the irreconcilable conflict between good viewing and good advertising.
Let me give a few instances of this conflict. The hon. Member, in his naive way, said that it was in the interests of the advertiser to give a good programme, which shows that he knows nothing whatever about television—although I do not want to be personal. At every stage the interests of the viewer and the interests of the advertiser conflict—[HON. MEMBERS: "How?"] Take the most obvious one. The viewer wants the advertisement to be as small as possible and as inconspicuous as possible. The sponsor wants them to be as long as possible and as conspicuous as possible. The viewer wants a programme to be a British type—
Mr. Rodgers Mr. Rodgers rose—
Mr. Mayhew: The viewer wants the programmes to be in British taste and in British style; the sponsor does not want a British-type programme. The sponsor wants a television programme which, when it is recorded, will sell well in the United States of America. That is the first important thing the sponsor wants. I can give an instance of this from a quotation which I have. Last year, the chairman of the Beecham group of companies said:
"Sponsored radio programmes recorded here and shipped round the world could have been heard by huge potential overseas markets. As it is, U.S. operators have seized the opportunity to increase their sales at Britain's expense. It is to counteract this that Beecham's have announced their huge new expenditure on sponsored programmes over Radio Luxembourg."
What is the effect of this? It means that from the point of view of the sponsors the test of a programme becomes whether it will suit the American market when it is recorded. That is another instance of the conflict between the interests of the British viewer and the interests of the sponsor.
Mr. Rodgers Mr. Rodgers rose—
Mr. Mayhew: I cannot give way. The hon. Member asked for instances of this
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conflict and I am giving them. I have a list of six. I have not time to give them all, but I shall give as many as I can. The viewer wants good plays; the sponsor wants plays tailored so that the curtain falls every 15 minutes. I quote from the "Advertisers' Weekly." One of their main contributors—a producer of sponsored broadcasts—wrote on this subject as follows:
"Writers of half hour dramas are careful to have a curtain line somewhere round the fifteen minute mark "
There is a tremendous difference between the interests of the sponsor and those of the viewer. Above all. the viewer wants a programme which is tailored to his own tastes and interests, and the sponsor wants one which is tailored to no particular taste and no particular interest, so that, even if nobody keenly enjoys it, nobody feels inclined to switch it off. All along there is this clash between good television and good advertising. I could quote many other instances. Television is bound to be debased when the underlying motive of the programme is not to give pleasure but to sell toothpaste.
To the sponsors the programmes are not ends in themselves but means to an end. This is the lie in the heart of all commercialised programmes. Whether these are high-brow or low-brow, the dividend purpose which motivates them corrupts them in the end.
I would ask the Minister first to state that this Government, who are divided on this issue, and who have no mandate from the electors, and no support from any responsible section of the community, will drop this sordid project once and for a!!. If he will not do that, let him at least reaffirm the pledges which he has given not to introduce it for several years to come.
4.42 p.m.
The Assistant Postmaster-General (Mr. David Gammans): My hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Mr. J. Rodgers) should feel rather flattered by the speech of the hon. Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew), who quite sincerely believes that my hon. Friend and one or two others have managed to persuade a very reluctant Government to adopt this policy. I suppose that the hon. Member for Woolwich, East is suggesting

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that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and his colleagues are so weak-minded that they are prepared to give way to the pressure of a small group of people behind them. If the hon. Member believes that he will believe anything.
I find it increasingly difficult to understand the attitude of the Labour Party towards sponsored television. I gather that the hon. Member for Woolwich, East would like to make this an election cry, and go barn-storming up and down the country. I hope he does so, and the sooner he starts the better. Nothing could be of greater advantage to the Conservative Party. For one thing, it will be plain to the general public that it is the Socialists who propose to prevent their enjoying a variety of programes.
There is no reason why the new television sets should not have a device whereby they can be switched from one programme to another. Number one programme could be that of the B.B.C. and Nos. 2, 3, 4 and 5 could be sponsored television broadcasts. Are the Labour Party prepared, at the next election, to say, "If we get back to power we propose to put a label on stations 2, 3, 4 and 5 so that you shall not hear them, because the right hon. Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. H. Morrison) thinks it improper that you should do so"? If the Labour Party regard that as a good election cry, by all means let them start barn-storming up and down the country. I should be very pleased if they would do so.
Another result of the hon. Member's idea would be to deny to artistes and technicians greater chances of employment. Unemployment exists today among musicians, and I cannot see that any great electoral advantage would be gained by telling these people that they should have no chance of further employment. Perhaps I am an amateur at electioneering; perhaps the hon. Member can see some advantage in saying that, which I cannot see.
Next, the hon. Member sets out as the high priest of monopoly. There are many people in this country, neither Socialist nor Conservative, who hold very strong views on monopolies, and I think they would take a rather poor view if the hon. Member said, "We will decide what you should look at. We do not think you are to be trusted to show your children
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what they ought to see." If the hon. Member wants to go up and down the country making speeches, by all means let him do so, and as far as we are concerned, the sooner he starts the better.
My hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks feels that more progress might have been made. Let me re-assure him straight away—and re-assure the hon. Member for Woolwich, East—that the Government are very much in earnest about sponsored television and that they hope to see it in operation at the earliest possible opportunity. I hope I shall persuade by hon. Friend that real progress has been made in the comparatively short time of 10 months.
There are, however, three distinct factors which have to be kept in view. The first is technical—that of providing radio manufacturers with information about the frequency bands. They require that information before they can make the new sets and the adaptors for the old sets. The task of advising the Government on this matter is entrusted to the Television Advisory Committee which has been sitting under the chairmanship of Sir Charles Daniel. The Committee and its technical sub-committee have worked with very great vigour and I have great expectations that their first report will be submitted to my noble Friend either this month or at the beginning of May.
This first report will advise on what frequency bands will be available for the sponsored television stations, and I see no reason why manufacturers should not, at a very early date, have available the necessary information to enable them to undertake the development and design of sets to pick up the new stations. In other words, as I said, I imagine that before very long new television sets will have some sort of device whereby they will be able to pick up not only the present B.B.C. stations, but the sponsored stations as well. The present intention of my noble Friend is that the report of the Television Advisory Committee should be published, and in any case the information contained in it will be made available to the radio industry without delay.
The second factor which must be taken into account—and here I think I answer the second point raised by my hon. Friend —concerns the setting up of the controlling body. The need for such a body was set out in paragraph 9 of Command

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Paper 8550, and I need not go over that again; but I must impress upon the House the vast amount of thought and consideration which must be given to the nature of that body and the functions it will be called upon to perform.
In this country, with commercial television we are entering a completely new field. Let me give some idea of the questions which have to be decided. For example, should any action be taken to prevent monopolies or even partial-monopolies being set up? Ought there to be any regulation concerning the number of stations which can be started in any particular area? Should foreign capital be allowed and, if so, on what conditions and with what limitations? For what number of years should a commercial station be licensed? Is it desirable to control the number of hours during which television of any sort should be allowed during the course of a day?
As to the controlling body itself, how should it be composed and what are to be its powers? What is to be the Ministerial responsibility for the decisions of the controlling body? Finally, how are we to create a healthy code of the air? I am very glad that my hon. Friend mentioned what he called the code of the air which the advertisers of this country have in mind. I sincerely hope that it will be published, and that a copy will be sent to the hon. Gentleman the Member for Woolwich, East. I believe that, if he reads that, many of his misgivings will be allayed. I hope they will be, that is, if he wants them to be. Incidentally, I should be glad to have any suggestions from any part of the House or any quarter outside the House.
The critics have concentrated, like the hon. Gentleman, almost entirely on the possible abuses of commercial television. That is an argument that has never impressed me. In dealing with the British people we are not dealing with a lot of children. We are dealing with an adult race that can very well look after itself. I am quite convinced that any organisation that set out to debase standards would very soon find itself put out of business by public opinion.
I have given that long list of questions to indicate that a lot of thought has to go to the setting up of the controlling body. I am glad to be able to tell the House that a lot of work has already
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been done. There has been a working party in the Post Office for some time past, and we have examined all the experience of the United States and the Commonwealth countries that have had sponsored radio or sponsored television in operation for some time.
I would remind the House—and, perhaps, this will satisfy the hon. Member for Woolwich, East on one point—that we are under an obligation to give the House the opportunity of considering the nature of the controlling body and the licence of the first commercial station before it begins to run. I hope I shall reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks when I say, without the slightest hesitation, that by the time that commercial television is in a position to start operations the controlling body will have been constituted. To put it another way, whatever delays there may be in starting the first commercial station they will not be because of the lack of a controlling body.
There is the matter of national economics. I would remind the House that in the original White Paper there was this proviso in relation to commercial television:
"…when the calls on capital resources at present needed for purposes of greater national importance make this feasible."
That must be an overriding consideration, not merely in television but in every phase of our public life—whether we are thinking of new roads or more telephones or the rebuilding of our railway stations. That, of course, is a factor which is not solely within the control of the Postmaster-General.
The late Government took the unpopular step of holding up the building of the five low-power stations for the B.B.C. programme. They did this, quite rightly, because they had to sacrifice non-essentials at a time of rearmament. The Government have been able to relax the ban in two areas, on the North-East Coast and in Northern Ireland. However, as the House is aware, hon. Members from the other three areas and other parts of the country press me every Wednesday about television for their areas, and I have had to say that, while the Government would have liked to have provided it, they have not been able to do so.
I would put this economic argument in all its aspects. Some people may well

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have criticised us for the fact that at a time when we were fighting for our very national economic existence we allotted any capital resources at all to television. As we go round the country and see these rather ugly aerials on the chimneypots it is not easy to persuade people from abroad that our economic position is as difficult as we all know it to be. However, the decision to restart and extend television was taken, and I for my part am not going to quarrel with it. Today, over 80 per cent. of the country is within television range, or soon will be—a higher percentage, incidentally, than that in any other country in the world.
I am not going to criticise the attitude and the decision that the late Government took. They presumably felt that they wanted to provide people with incentives to increase production. They also probably felt that this country could not afford to be left behind in the technical advance in electronics, of which television is one example. It is an industry with great potentialities for export and an industry which, from a defence point of view, is absolutely vital.
I give these arguments because, judging by the many Questions which hon. Members have raised in the House, I do not believe that all the complexities of the economic aspect of television are realised. However, let me reiterate that in the finality it is the economic argument which must take precedence over all the others—the extent to which the Government feel they are justified in allowing national resources to be devoted not merely to the completion of the B.B.C. programme, but also to the new television stations and the sale of the sets and the adaptors which will be needed.
I have dealt with this matter at some length, because I hoped to persuade my hon. Friend of three things. The first is that, on the technical side, the information which our radio industry needs will soon be provided. Secondly, so far as the controlling body is concerned, a vast amount of work has already been done and the introduction of commercial television will not be held up because of the lack of any controlling body to supervise it. Thirdly—and most important— in the finality, whether it be the extension of the B.B.C. or the commercial stations,
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this must depend, as everything else must depend today, on the economic resources which this or any other Government can afford to devote to it.
I hope that my hon. Friend has no doubts whatsoever about the Government's belief in this policy and their determination to introduce it at the earliest possible moment. They stand by the White Paper in all its aspects. The reasons why the Government have taken this attitude have been explained to the House on several occasions and all I need to do is to summarise them once more. The Government are convinced that it is only by introducing an element of competition that the public will get the best advantage from television; and, after all, we should remember that it is the interests of the public and not a doctrinaire theory which should guide our policy in this matter.
We are convinced that there will be greater opportunities for both artistes and technicians if there are alternative employers to whom they can offer their services. I believe that from the B.B.C. point of view itself competition will prove to be a good thing. In the last few weeks hon. Members opposite have put questions to me suggesting that artistes and technicians might offer their services to other employers and that the B.B.C. might lose them. If this should happen, and well it may, the B.B.C. are certainly not grumbling about it. They appear to me to be taking a most sensible and robust attitude, in fact, the very attitude which I should expect them to adopt, and that is that, in all walks of life, the public is best served if there is an element of competition and some incentive to greater endeavour.
I hope I have answered the points raised by my hon. Friend. I hope, too, that I have dealt with the points raised by the hon. Member for Woolwich, East. I know I have not satisfied him; I do not think I ever shall. I do not know that I even want to try. However, he is, after all, a great artiste on television and perhaps he may find that not only is there scope for him on the B.B.C. but we may also have the pleasure of seeing him performing with his great skill and adroitness on commercial stations at a very early date.
4.59 p.m.
Mr. Eric Fletcher: The whole House will regard the statement by the Assistant Postmaster-General as most unsatisfactory. It is a complete betrayal of the interests of the nation. He has sacrificed the true interests and welfare of the country to a few commercial concerns who are interested in commercial broadcasting: indeed, he has gone back on the promises made in the White Paper.
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The Government are pledged not to introduce commercial television for a great many years. They are pledged not to appoint this controlling body until Parliament has had an opportunity of approving the terms and conditions on which the first licence is to be granted—
It being Five o'Clock, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put till Tuesday, 14th April, pursuant to the Resolution of the House yesterday.