Commons Sitting of 27 January 1953

Preamble
The House met at Half past Two o'Clock
PRAYERS
Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  HOUSING

    Sites
    Mr. Swinglerasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government if he is aware of the shortage of housing sites in the borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme and the danger that this may jeopardise the progress of the housing programme; and if he will take urgent action to assist the local authority in this matter.
    The Minister of Housing and Local Government (Mr. Harold Macmillan): I am aware of the difficulties and have written to the hon. Member explaining the steps being taken to resolve them. My regional officers are meeting the council, and the county council on 4th February.
    Mr. Swingler: While thanking the Minister for the action taken, may I ask him to watch the position very closely? Is he aware that between the natural objections of the farming community and the dangers of mining subsidence, the Newcastle Council is in a very tight position with regard to land and requires the assistance of his Ministry to find a way out?
    Mr. Swinglerasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government how many local authorities have made representations to him to the effect that their housebuilding programmes are jeopardised by the actual or prospective shortage of suitable sites; and what action he is taking.
    Mr. H. Macmillan: A detailed record is not readily available. I am sending the hon. Member a copy of two circulars sent to all local authorities during 1952.
    Mr. Swingler: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that many local authorities are confronted with this position? Has not the time come for a general survey into the land position, in view of the fact that the right hon. Gentleman has advised local authorities to look five years ahead in the planning of their sites, although very many of them are unable to do so?
    Mr. Macmillan: I will put it this way: As a result of the work done in the past, and now, there is no difficulty, as I see it, in providing adequate sites for an expanding national housing programme for the country as a whole, but there are very considerable difficulties in special localities. That is really the problem, rather than a general problem which I am convinced can be dealt with, if we take the whole national demand.

    Agricultural Land
    Mr. Langford-Holtasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government what advice he has given the local authorities concerning the building of housing estates on agricultural land.
    Mr. H. Macmillan: The most recent advice is contained in Circular No. 65/52. I am sending my hon. Friend a copy.
    Mr. Langford-Holt: Will my right hon. Friend tell us whether he is prepared, in conjunction with his right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, to call a halt to the present disastrous trend whereby this country is losing something like 50,000 acres a year, from which in the ultimate we may be compelled to live?
    Mr. Macmillan: I think the fact that Questions Nos. 1 and 2 follow one another on the Paper points to the difficulty in getting a proper balance between the needs of housing and the needs of agriculture. That we have tried to do.
    Mr. Snow: Is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied that in these cases the farmer is given adequate notice of the intentions of his Ministry or of the Ministry of Agriculture? Is he aware that only recently in my division a farmer arrived one morning at his fields to find building workers ploughing up and desecrating the standing crops? Is he further aware that when I took the matter up with the Ministry of Agriculture, I was told that neither the local planning authority nor the

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    Ministry of Agriculture were responsible or had any need to give notice to the farmer in question?
    Mr. Macmillan: I find it rather difficult to answer the details in that supplementary question without the place, the period, the time or the people concerned, but we certainly do our best. On the whole I think it is primarily with the Ministry of Agriculture, representing the farming interests, that we make our arrangements, and, generally speaking, they work smoothly and pretty well between the Departments and the interests concerned.

    Subsidies
    Mr. Osborneasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government the total subsidy per council house now being built; what is its total cost; and by how much rents would have to be increased per week if all subsidies were withdrawn.
    Mr. H. Macmillan: The standard subsidy for a council house is now £35 12s. 0d. a year, equivalent to a capital sum of £769. Upon the basis of the figures used in fixing the subsidy, rents would have to be increased by a further 13s. 8d. if the subsidy were wholly withdrawn.
    Mr. Osborne: Does my right hon. Friend not think that it would be better to withdraw all these subsidies and make the people pay the proper price for what they are getting, giving money help to those who really need it?
    Mr. Macmillan: My hon Friend is asking two very large questions which I cannot deal with by Question and answer.
    Mr. G. Jeger: Would the Minister bear in mind, when considering whether to withdraw the subsidies, that such action would be well in line with all the other actions of this Government on the subject of the cost of living?
    Mr. H. Nicholls: Is my right hon. Friend aware that if the subsidy amounts to —35 12s. over 60 years, with compound interest at 2½ per cent., it means that the subsidy for each house is about £4,840, and would it not be better to encourage those who can to purchase their houses instead of carrying on this subsidy over 60 years?
    Mr. Macmillan: I am not a mathematician, but I am informed that my hon. Friend's figures are based upon a somewhat fallacious calculation. I am doing all I can to encourage private enterprise and private building, and I think we shall see a considerable success.
    Mr. Ellis Smith: Would the right hon. Gentleman say what is the income required to enable a person to buy his or her own house.
    Mr. Nabarroasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government (1) whether he will state the total cost to taxpayers and ratepayers, over 60 years, of the subsidies on a council house built today for £1,500; how much of this total subsidy cost is contributed by Exchequer grant; how much by ratepayers, both figures aggregated over 60 years; and what would be the total saving to taxpayers and ratepayers combined if such a £1,500 house were built on an owner/occupier basis with an initial Exchequer bounty or grant of £200 and free from any further or continuing subsidy, generally in accordance with proposals made by the Kidderminster Rural District Council recently;
    (2) what communications his Department has received from the Kidderminster Rural District Council in regard to housing subsidies and reduction of future liabilites on tax and ratepayers in connection with council house subsidies; and what action he is taking in the matter;
    (3) whether he will state the total estimated cost during 1953 of subsidies on council houses and by how much this figure in 1953 will exceed the 1952 figure; how many subsidised houses he anticipates will be completed in 1953; how many unsubsidised; and the total of the two categories.
    Mr. H. Macmillan: The general standard subsidy on a council house is £35 12s. 0d. a year for 60 years. Three-quarters of this subsidy is payable by the Exchequer and one-quarter by the local rates. The capitalised value of the total payment at current interest rates is £769. No subsidy or grant is payable for houses built for owner-occupation. Nor could such a subsidy be paid without legislation, of which I see no prospect. I have accordingly told the Kidderminster Rural District Council that I cannot support their proposal. As regards the total

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    estimated cost of housing subsidies, my hon. Friend must await the publication of the annual Estimates. I am not prepared to prophesy about the number of houses which will be completed in 1953.
    Mr. Nabarro: In consideration of the fact that over a period of 60 years the total cost of subsidies must be a figure substantially in excess of £3,000. is it not desirable to consider a small bounty so as to avoid this continuing burden on ratepayer and taxpayer until 2013 A.D., rather than to transfer the responsibility forward to many generations yet unborn?
    Mr. H. Nicholls: Is the Minister aware that in the Isle of Man they have a scheme whereby they grant up to £250 per house to encourage self-building and up to £500 interest free, and if that were transplanted to this country would it not save an enormous amount of direct and indirect taxation?
    Mr. Macmillan: I am much encouraged by these questions and by the advance that they reflect. A year ago there was practically no private house building in this country, but there has been a great change and we have made great strides. I hope we shall be allowed to see how these experiments develop because a new scheme was started only on 1st January this year and it would be wise to let it progress and then see how things are going.
    Mr. H. Nichollsasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government the total number of houses already approved for construction in 1953; the number expected to carry council house rent subsidies; and the number being built under private licence.
    Mr. H. Macmillan: The numbers of houses under construction at the end of 1952 and the additional numbers approved but not yet started at that date will be shown in the Quarterly Housing Return to be published on 4th February; the Return will distinguish between subsidised and other houses.
    Mr. Nicholls: If the number of houses for rent subsidised council houses this year exceeds 200,000, as it very likely will, is the Minister aware that we are entering this year into a debt which amounts to £476 million over 60 years?
    Mr. Macmillan: I am sure that any calculation made by my hon. Friend is correct.

    Building Costs
    Mr. Osborneasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government whether he is aware that building costs have risen by 40 per cent. since 1948, as stated recently by the Stevenage Corporation; what is the reason for this; and what have been the increases in wages and materials, respectively.
    Mr. H. Macmillan: I think the most authoritative report on building costs yet published is that of the Girdwood Committee, to which I would refer my hon. Friend.
    Mr. Osborne: I am much obliged to the Minister for referring me to the Girdwood Report, but I have read it. Does he hold out any real hope of stopping these fantastic increases?
    Mr. Macmillan: I am always trying to secure a fall in costs. Perhaps the most hopeful sign is the fall of nearly a month in the period which it takes to build a house in 1952, as compared with 1951. If we can get quicker building and quicker completion that will be a form of reduction of costs.
    Mr. Sparks: Is it not a fact that a very considerable portion of the increased cost is due to the rise in interest rates? In order to try to keep down costs, will the Minister give an undertaking that the rate of interest will not be increased in future to development corporations?
    Mr. Macmillan: The fall in respect of timber and labour played a far bigger role. The fall in the price of timber has had a far bigger effect than any rise in interest rates.

    War Damage, London
    Colonel Clarkeasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government the number of housing units in the Metropolitan area damaged as the result of the last war and still uninhabited owing to repairs not having yet been effected.
    Mr. H. Macmillan: Up-to-date information is not available, but most of these houses where payment was to be on a cost-of-works basis had been brought into occupation before the end of 1951.

    Unfit Houses
    Mr. Haleasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government whether he is aware that a large number of houses in Oldham and Lancashire generally are now in a condition in which they are unfit for human habitation; and whether he is prepared to introduce legislation to suspend payment of rent whilst a house is certified as unfit for human habitation.
    Mr. H. Macmillan: No, Sir. Local authorities already have power under the Housing Acts to repair an unfit house at the owner's expense, and, if necessary, to recover the money from the rent due to him. I am considering the whole problem of houses falling into disrepair. It is not, I am afraid, confined to Lancashire.
    Mr. Hale: Has the right hon. Gentleman considered the problem of a corporation like Oldham bearing this expense of reconditioning 10,000 houses, most of which cannot be re-conditioned, anyhow? [Laughter.] I am very much obliged for that intervention. What I said was: Has the Minister considered the case of Oldham in attempting to recondition something like 10,000 houses, most of which could not be efficiently reconditioned—[HON. MEMBERS: "Ah."]— or economically re-conditioned? I am very glad that I have now made the point clear to hon. Gentlemen on the Government side of the House. Will the Minister bear in mind that tenants are having to buy more and more coal, spend more on fuel in damp and disgraceful housing, and bear very heavy burdens which are no fault of theirs?
    Mr. Speaker: Mr. Hale—No. 10.
    Mr. Hale: Am I to assume that the right hon. Gentleman is refusing to answer my supplementary question on Question No. 9?
    Mr. Macmillan: I am sorry. The Question called is Question No. 10.
    Mr. Hale: I have asked a supplementary question to Question No. 9 which the right hon. Gentleman has refused to answer.
    Mr. Macmillan: I thought the supplementary question was so diffuse that it almost answered itself. I will certainly
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    bear in mind all the points put in such a cogent and coherent manner by the hon. Gentleman.

    Completions
    Mr. Haleasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government how many houses were completed by local authorities in England in the year ending the 31st December, 1952; and how many of these had been commenced or had had plans passed and approved, prior to the 31st December, 1951.
    Mr. H. Macmillan: I fear I must not anticipate the Housing Quarterly Return. It will be published on 4th February.
    Mr. Hale: Will it not show that the right hon. Gentleman has been doing a very remarkable amount of cackling over somebody else's eggs?
    Mr. Macmillan: I must not anticipate the return, because if I do so I shall get into trouble with the hon. Member for Reading, South (Mr. Mikardo).

    Slough
    Mr. Fenner Brockwayasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government if he will exempt the Borough of Slough from the order to grant licences automatically for the erection of privately-built houses, in view of its exceptional difficulties in providing an adequate number of houses according to need, arising from the lack of sufficient facilities for drainage until its sewage disposal scheme is completed.
    Mr. H. Macmillan: No, Sir.
    Mr. Brockway: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that building in Slough is possible in only one restricted area because of the drainage difficulty, and that if privately-built houses are automatically licensed it not only means that people in other parts of Slough who are in most need will not get houses but that sewage will seep into the streets? Will he look at this matter again?
    Mr. Macmillan: I have looked at the matter, but it is not in accordance with the advice I have received either from the local authority or from my own officers.
    Mr. Brockway: Has not the Minister received a letter from the local authority which makes exactly the point I have made in my supplementary question?
    Mr. Macmillan: The information that I have is exactly the contrary.

    Land Prices
    Mr. Gibsonasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government if he is aware that land prices have, in some cases, trebled since the abolition of the development charge; and what steps he proposes to take to stop such practices.
    Mr. H. Macmillan: I have very little evidence that unreasonable prices are being asked for land. It is to be remembered that vendors can no longer expect anything from the £300 million fund and that developers no longer have to pay development charge; some increase in price may therefore be justified in some cases.
    As regards the second part of the Question, I would refer the hon. Member to paragraphs 37 and 38 of Command Paper 8699; and to the powers which housing authorities are already exercising to make land available to private housebuilders.
    Mr. Gibson: That circular does not in the least deal with the problem. Is the Minister aware that I have an instance of a group of self-help builders who negotiated for a piece of land in Surrey at a price of £3,700 and immediately the development charge was abolished the price jumped to £11,000? Does he regard that as reasonable, and in view of the fact that it is three times the original price, and therefore cannot include a development charge which surely would not be 300 per cent., does he not think it necessary for the Government to take some steps in the matter?
    Mr. Macmillan: Without knowing what was the claim on the fund and, therefore, the difference between the existing use value and the total value, I could not answer, but the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends have a remedy, because they are still in time to vote against the Third Reading of the Bill which will abolish the development charge.

    House Purchase
    Mr. H. Nichollsasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government what steps he is taking to encourage those in income groups up to £500 per annum to become owner occupiers of houses instead of rent subsidised council house tenants.
    Mr. H. Macmillan: The most powerful encouragement would be a fall in the price of new houses, and for that I must look to the building industry with its new freedom to build under licence. There are considerable facilities for borrowing from building societies, insurance companies and local authorities, and I will welcome any assistance to make them more widely known.
    Mr. Nicholls: Whilst agreeing with the Minister that cheaper building is important, would he not agree that the building society basis is that weekly repayments of the purchase of a house must not be more than a quarter of the weekly income of the borrower, and that the present buildings costs bring the price of the house to a level where some sort of a capital grant would be needed?
    Mr. Janner: Is one of the steps which the Minister is taking to encourage the purchase of private houses the increase in the rates of interest that he has imposed?
    Mr. Macmillan: No, Sir, but the increase in the Bank rate is one of the steps that has stabilised the currency and has prevented a rise in prices which would have doubled or trebled the price of houses.
    Mr. Nabarro: Can my right hon. Friend say what proposals he has in mind to prevent the present position developing any further whereby many families in receipt of an income of more than £500 a year are living in council houses and are being subsidised by other families who financially are much worse off?
    Mr. Macmillan: That is too large a question for me to deal with by Question and answer.
    Mr. Blenkinsop: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that the present rates of interest are preventing many people from buying such houses?
    Mr. Macmillan: No, we are making it possible by keeping prices down as a result of dealing with the inflationary situation.

    Allocations
    Mr. Simmonsasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government if he will circularise local housing authorities on the necessity of a points scheme to govern the allocation of housing accommodation and the dangers of allocation by individual councillors.
    Mr. H. Macmillan: I am sending the hon. Member a copy of a circular and its enclosure in which these questions are dealt with.
    Mr. Simmons: Is the Minister concerned about the proper use of £769 per house, which, he has already told us, goes on Government subsidy to housing, and would he regard it as a good use of that money to house two old age pensioners in a three-bedroom house and to refuse a house to a five-children family, with triplets newly born, which has been done by the Seisdon Rural District Council, which has no points scheme?
    Mr. Macmillan: Of course, I realise the anxieties of the hon. Gentleman, but it would not be at all satisfactory if the housing arrangements and allocations were made by a centralised Department in Whitehall. It is, broadly, more satisfactory that it should be carried out by the local authorities responsible. The only method is to issue general guidance to them, which we do, and I think that generally speaking, although no doubt they may make mistakes, like other public bodies, that method works and is the only way in which a thing of this kind could work. I do not, therefore, propose to alter it.
    Mr. Lewis: May I apologise, Mr. Speaker, for not being in my place to ask Question No. 12, and ask the Minister whether he is not aware of the difficulties under the present system, whereby people who were bombed out and now live in another area, or who have had to move from their normal place of residence, cannot get on to any housing list because some councils have a pre-1939 residential qualification and some have a residential qualification over, say, the last two or three years? We have, therefore, the anomalous position of many
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    hundreds of thousands of genuine cases who cannot get on to any housing list at all. Will not the Minister look at this position?
    Mr. Macmillan: I understand the problem, but it is a difficult one to deal with within the general structure.

    New Estates, Cardiff (Community Centre)
    Mr. G. Thomasasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government whether he is aware of the need of a community centre on the new housing estates of Caerau, Ely Racecourse and Fairwater, Cardiff; and what action he is taking.
    Mr. H. Macmillan: I have not received any proposals from the corporation in the cases mentioned.
    Mr. Thomas: Is the Minister aware that these are very large housing estates, with no amenities at all except the day school which has been put up? Will the right hon. Gentleman make some inquiries to see that the ordinary decent amenities are available to these people in the new estates?
    Mr. Macmillan: Yes, Sir, although I ought to say that I have not been approached by the corporation concerned. As I am approached in so many cases, I will not stimulate others, because the pressure is so great. If they ask me, however, we will look into it.
    Mr. Thomas: Will the Minister take it that I have now approached him, and will he show an interest accordingly?
    Mr. Macmillan: I assume that the hon. Member and the corporation are one and the same.

    Selling Price Control
    Mr. Vaneasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government whether he will modify the control over the selling price of houses built since the war so that, while an effective check is retained against speculation, a vendor is not penalised, as he is at present, where he may wish or be forced to sell his house.
    Mr. H. Macmillan: I have this matter under consideration and hope to make an announcement later in the Session.

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT

    Sewage Disposal, Newcastle-under-Lyme
    Mr. Swinglerasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government if he is aware that present arrangements for the disposal of sewage in some parts of the rural district of Newcastle-under-Lyme constitute a danger to public health; and if he will give the necessary permission to proceed forthwith with schemes for the improvement of sewage.
    Mr. H. Macmillan: I am authorising a start on work in the Parish of Audley; a scheme for Madeley has been approved but is not yet ready to start.
    Mr. Nicholson: Does my right hon. Friend take a sympathetic view of capital sums expended upon abating nuisances connected with sewage disposal? There are such nuisances in many other parts of Great Britain?
    Mr. Macmillan: I take a very sympathetic view, but we have a very large demand and we try to deal with it as far as we can according to pressing needs in each part of the country. To do the whole job would be a very long business.
    Mr. Nicholson: Would my right hon. Friend bear in mind the proposals for my own constituency?

    Playgrounds (Bombed Sites)
    Miss Burtonasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government whether, considering their menace as breeding places for juvenile crime, and as encouragement to youth in this Coronation year, the Government will institute an immediate inquiry into the problem of bomb sites and their clearance and possible adaptation as playgrounds for children living in the congested areas of big cities.
    Mr. H. Macmillan: Local authorities were given wide powers for this purpose by the War Damaged Sites Act, 1949, and I think that this matter is properly left to them.
    Miss Burton: Is the Minister aware that there are, I think, 150,000 of these sites not cleared today? Would he not agree that sufficient speed has not been shown, and would he ask the local authorities how quickly they can get on with this matter?
    Mr. Macmillan: This question and answer will help to achieve that purpose.
    Mr. Shurmer: Is the Minister aware, that, in the City of Birmingham, in the five re-development areas in the centre of the city there are bombed sites which will not be touched for five or 10 years, for re-development? To keep our youth off the streets, surely after all this time something should be done to clear these bombed sites and, perhaps, make little parks of them, or even racing tracks?
    Mr. Macmillan: I should not like anything to go from me in criticism of the City of Birmingham, because the history of Birmingham housing re-development is very fine.

    "No Parking" Notices, Tothill Street
    Mr. Chapmanasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government by what authority he places on the public highway in Tothill Street, S.W.1, two boards reading, Ministry of Housing and Local Government, "No parking between these boards."
    Mr. H. Macmillan: By no authority, save common sense. Satisfactory parking arrangements are now operating in that street.
    Mr. Chapman: Does this mean that the Minister is trying to place his Government Department above the ordinary law of the land? Is he aware that such bureaucratic acts are very dangerous indeed, and is it now open for private individuals who are annoyed by cars parked in front of their houses and offices to place these notices on the public highway?
    Mr. Macmillan: I do not think that any great harm has been done. Of course, if we have blocked up the entrance to the Fabian Society, I must apologise.
    Sir H. Williams: Is my right hon. Friend aware that on frequent occasions I have taken these notices out of the street because they are totally illegal?

    Freeholds, New Towns (Sale)
    Mr. Remnantasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government whether he will now permit new town development corporations to sell the freeholds of business premises.
    Mr. H. Macmillan: Yes, Sir.

    Durranhill Industrial Estate, Carlisle
    Mr. Hargreavesasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government if he is aware that development at Durranhill Industrial Estate, Carlisle, is being held up pending a decision of his Department; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. H. Macmillan: Yes, Sir. I am afraid that this has been an exceptionally tangled case. The City Council want to carry out road works, and following a variety of difficulties it now appears that they do not own all the land involved. As soon as they do so I hope to give them the consent they need.
    Mr. Hargreaves: Is the Minister aware that I asked him in May last year to help in connection with this case and that he promised to do so? The development is now being held up, not by the local authority, but pending a decision of the right hon. Gentleman's Ministry at regional level. Will he please look at the matter again and do all he can in aiding this development?
    Mr. Macmillan: Perhaps the hon. Member and I might meet and see whether we can hammer out any details. My information is that the hold-up is because the land has not been acquired and, of course, I cannot give the permission until the land has been acquired. I will, however, look further into the matter.

    National Parks (Draft Maps)
    Mr. Walker-Smithasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government how many county councils had prepared the draft maps of their area required by Section 27 of the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act, 1949, by 16th December, 1952; to how many an extended period for the said preparation has been granted; and what is the maximum extension granted.
    Mr. Sorensenasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government whether the county council survey of public footpaths has now been completed; and to what extent county councils have taken steps to ensure the effective sign-posting of footpaths as many did in pre-war years.
    Mr. H. Macmillan: Twelve county councils completed draft maps for the whole of their areas by 16th December, 1952. Forty-nine county councils were given extensions of time, but 12 of these had prepared maps for parts of their areas. The maximum extension was 18 months. I have no information regarding sign-posting of footpaths.
    Mr. Walker-Smith: Can my right hon. Friend say whether, on the evidence available to him, he has formed the impression that the delay is due to the dilatoriness of county councils or to the over-optimism of the period fixed in the legislation?
    Mr. Macmillan: I feel sure that the delay is due to the fact that it is a difficult job.

    ATMOSPHERIC POLLUTION
    Mr. Doddsasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government the last occasion on which an inter-Departmental committee inquired into the cause and effects of fog; and what action has since been taken to combat the worst features of this type of weather.
    Mr. H. Macmillan: This is an important problem. So far as I know, no inter-Departmental committee has investigated the weather conditions which cause fog; I believe they are generally well understood. As regards the prevention of atmospheric pollution, I would refer the hon. Member to the reply the Parliamentary Secretary gave him on 18th December.
    Mr. Dodds: Does the Minister not appreciate that last month, in Greater London alone, there were literally more people choked to death by air pollution than were killed on the roads in the whole country in 1952? Why is a public inquiry not being held, seeing that inquiries are held into air and rail disasters which do not affect so many people? Is consideration being given or will it be given to initiating a much more thorough investigation, on the lines of that conducted by the American Government in 1948? Has the right hon. Gentleman seen the report? It begins with:
    "The whole nation was shocked when 20 people died as the result of fog in the last week in October, 1948, in the town of Donora, Pennsylvania."
    Mr. Jannerasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government how many local authorities have sought and obtained special powers, since the war, to deal with the pollution of air by smoke in their areas; to what extent the operation of such powers has proved effective; and whether he will consider the introduction of general legislation dealing with the subject.
    Mr. H. Macmillan: Twenty-seven local authorities have sought and obtained special smoke abatement powers since 1945; in addition, two county councils have obtained powers for the use of district councils in their areas. The effects of these powers, as distinct from those available under the general law, cannot be readily assessed, and I am not satisfied that further general legislation is needed at present. I am, however, keeping this aspect of the matter in mind.
    Mr. Janner: But is not the Minister aware of the fact that disastrous results are following on these powers not being exercised, and is he not prepared to do something further to urge local authorities to attempt to exercise the powers vested in them?
    Mr. Macmillan: We do what we can but, of course, the hon. Gentleman must realise the enormous number of broad economic considerations which have to be taken into account and which it would be foolish altogether to disregard.
    Mr. Noel-Baker: Will the Minister take into account the great economic waste that results from the bad use of fuel, and will he use all his powers to persuade the Government to carry out the recommendations of the Ridley Committee to avoid that waste?
    Mr. Macmillan: We are doing that to a great extent in our new building, but it is a big undertaking to alter the whole of the present fuel system of the country.
    Mr. Gibson: Is the Minister aware that this is also a very serious human problem and that during the fog period in December the death rate in London was the highest it has been for a comparable period for over 50 years? Surely some step must be taken to implement the Ridley Report or some other proposals in order to avoid fog trouble in large cities?
    Mr. Blenkinsop: Can the right hon. Gentleman at least encourage local authorities in the development of a smokeless zone, which seems the most profitable way of tackling this problem?
    Mr. Macmillan: The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that there are dual problems of the right kind of fuel and apparatus in which to burn it, and to think that we could suddenly change the whole country in the twinkling of an eye from one system to another is ridiculous. On the other hand, we are making steady progress in the use of new designs and methods and in making them, if not universal, at any rate almost universal, in the new houses and in other ways. I think we can say that we have made as much, if not greater, progress in the last year as has been made at any other time.
    Lieut.-Colonel Liptonasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government what representation his Department has on the Atmosphere Pollution Research Committee; or in what other ways he co-operates in the work of this Committee.
    Mr. H. Macmillan: My Department is represented on this Committee by the Chief Inspector of Alkali Works.
    Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: What is this Chief Inspector doing as a result of the 6,000 deaths that took place in the Greater London area in December as a result of the fog? Is the Minister aware that his complacency in dealing with this problem is creating a lot of dismay, and is he further aware that the increasing use of modern domestic fires, which burn all night—[HON. MEMBERS: "Speech."] —using such smoky fuels as nutty slack, is adding to the number of—[HON. MEMBERS: "Speech."]. Mr. Speaker, may I have your protection?
    Mr. Speaker: I do not think that the hon. and gallant Member is generally in need of my protection, but I think he would make his supplementary question more easily audible and less interrupted if it was shorter.
    Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Is the Minister aware that the increased use of these modern appliances, which burn all night, using fuels like nutty slack, have during his tenure of office added another 250,000 fog-producing and air-polluting flues in this country? What is he doing about this?
    Mr. Macmillan: I answered the Question which the hon. and gallant Member asked me: which Member of my Department sat on a particular Committee. Whether the Committee dissipate or generate fog is another problem.
    Mr. Dodds: Owing to the amazing display of apathy, I give notice that I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment.

  MINISTRY OF WORKS

    Building Licences, Bradford
    Mr. McLeavyasked the Minister of Works for what amounts and on what dates since 1st January, 1946, he has granted building licences in respect of the premises of Barclays Bank, Market Street, Bradford; and what information he has as to the total amount expended.
    The Minister of Works (Mr. David Eccles): The original licence for £50,000 was issued on 19th April, 1949. Because of the increasing labour and materials costs, a supplementary licence for £5,000 was issued on 2nd May, 1951. The increased costs proved greater than the amount of the supplementary licence and the final cost worked out at £60,867.
    Mr. McLeavy: Will the Minister agree that in this case there were two very serious expenditures exceeding the licence figure? Will he inform the House whether, in view of these two breaches of the regulations, his Department decided to prosecute the persons concerned in June of last year and then, for some reason or other, within a week of having to lay the information, decided to withdraw the prosecution? If that is correct, will the Minister inform the House of the reason for this extraordinary conduct on the part of his Department?
    Mr. Eccles: In April, 1951, the Bank applied for a larger supplementary licence and justified their request, but my Department felt that they were asking for too much. In the event the Bank were right, and any form of prosecution would, I am quite certain, fail.
    Mr. Pannell: Will the Minister remember that in the last Parliament there was considerable enthusiasm on the part of his hon. Friends behind him for the prosecution of a nationalised board
    832
    upon evidence which was certainly no stronger than faces us here? Will he attempt to hold the balance fairly between nationalised undertakings and private banks, and examine this matter again with a view to a prosecution?
    Mr. Eccles: The two cases are not at all comparable. Here is a case where there has been no deviation from the original conditions of the licence except an increase in costs, which the Bank brought to our notice when they saw that it was taking place. Really, it is not comparable with the other case.
    Mr. McLeavy: Will the Minister state definitely whether his Department decided to proceed against the persons responsible in June of last year and whether my information is correct that that was discontinued in November? Will he explain this extraordinary conduct on the part of his Department in this matter?
    Mr. Eccles: I have no information of any such decision.
    Mr. McLeavyasked the Minister of Works why a Question, put down by the hon. Member for Bradford. East, to be answered by him on Tuesday, 16th December, was the subject of a Press statement by one of his Department's officials, subsequent to the tabling of the Question.
    Mr. Eccles: The inquiry from the Press was answered several days before the hon. Member's Question was circulated on the Order Paper.
    Mr. McLeavy: Apart from the extraordinary circumstances of the explanation being accompanied by the Question I put to the Minister, will the right hon. Gentleman explain the reason why the explanation by a responsible official of his Department should totally misrepresent the facts and be deliberately designed to mislead members of the public as to the facts at issue in this case? In view of the charge I make of deliberate misrepresentation of the facts by an official of his Department, will the Minister have an investigation made and make a further statement to the House on the matter?
    Mr. Eccles: Nothing of the kind is true. A statement was made on 26th November in response to an inquiry from

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    the Westminster Press who, I believe, are the owners of the "Yorkshire Observer" and the "Bradford Telegraph and Argus." On 4th December the "Yorkshire Observer" inquired whether they could use the statement. They had an absolute right to use it and the statement as I saw it in the Press was quite right.
    Mr. McLeavy: In view of the fact that the statement which was published in the Yorkshire Press is in direct contradiction of the statement the Minister has now made from the Despatch Box, may I quote—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."] —for the information of the Minister and to substantiate what I am saying—[Interruption.]? Do hon. Members not want the truth? The statement was:
    "The Ministry of Works spokesman told a 'Telegraph and Argus' London representive that the work was licensed for £50,000 before the war and begun but was stopped during the war."
    That is a deliberate misstatement.
    Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member's question is exceeding the bounds of length.
    Mr. McLeavy: In view of the very unsatisfactory reply by the Minister, I propose to raise the whole question on the Adjournment.

    Battersea Pleasure Gardens
    Mr. Doddsasked the Minister of Works what special new attractions there will be at the Battersea Festival Pleasure Gardens for the forthcoming season.
    Mr. Eccles: This is a matter for the board of the Company and I have every confidence that they will arrange a very attractive programme of new features. I understand that, in their view, publicity for new attractions will have most value if it starts about a month before the opening date.
    Mr. Dodds: Does not the right hon. Gentleman appreciate that hundreds of firms and organisations arrange their trips months before and many organisations and firms want to know about Battersea Gardens? Is it an atomic power plant? Why the secrecy? If the Minister wants to see it succeed, why does he not see that someone gets cracking on the business?
    Mr. Eccles: As a matter of fact, I put the point the hon. Member has made to the board of the Company, but from their experience in this matter they feel the disadvantages of coming out too soon are over-weighed by waiting and making it more of a surprise. I believe that these gentlemen understand their business.
    Mr. Dodds: Does the Minister really believe that story?

    Carriageway, St. James's Park
    Mr. Anthony Greenwoodasked the Minister of Works what steps are being taken to repair the carriageway at the eastern end of St. James's Park, in view of its dangerous and undignified condition.
    Mr. Eccles: The surface of Horse Guards Approach Road is patched, but I do not regard it as dangerous. As soon as repairs to underground services at present in progress are complete, the carriageway will be resurfaced. This work will be completed before June.
    Mr. Greenwood: Will the right hon. Gentleman come with me to inspect the potholes at the north end of the road, some of which are three inches deep?
    Mr. Eccles: Yes, Sir.
    Viscount Hinchingbrooke: Could the red surfacing material in the Mall be used so that there can be uniformity?
    Mr. Eccles: Yes, Sir.

    Central Lobby (Lighting)
    Mr. Anthony Greenwoodasked the Minister of Works whether he will take steps to improve the lighting of the Central Lobby of the Palace of Westminster in such a way as to improve its appearance and to conduce to the convenience of strangers visiting the Palace; and whether he will consider the possibility of floodlighting the windows from outside and of lighting up the mosaic work behind the patron saints and on the roof.
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works (Mr. Hugh Molson): I would refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 19th December, 1952. The general lighting will be improved

    835
    and the work will include the illumination of the mosaics. It is too difficult and expensive to floodlight the windows from outside.

    Peter Wentworth (Memorial)
    Dr. Kingasked the Minister of Works whether he will arrange for a memorial to be placed in the Tower of London to Peter Wentworth, Member of Parliament, who died in the Tower for asserting the right of Members of Parliament to free speech.
    Mr. Eccles: The claimants to memorials in the Tower of London are many, and I hesitate to assume the difficult task of adjudicating between them. If it were thought good to commemorate Wentworth's championship of free speech, the Tower of London does not seem to be the most suitable place for a memorial.
    Mr. Stokes: Was he guillotined there?
    Dr. King: Is the Minister aware that Peter Wentworth was an hon. Member of this House who wanted the House to be, as it is today, a representative House where hon. Members can freely discuss all matters concerning the country and where they might freely bring forward legislation? Is he aware that for this he was three times imprisoned in the Tower of London and finally died there? Does he not think that he should see that the significant martyrs in the history of freedom in this House should be suitably honoured by memorials in the Tower, where they are buried, or in this House?
    Mr. Eccles: We could look into that.

    London Builders' Conference
    Dr. Kingasked the Minister of Works whether he will make a statement on his reply to the request of the County Councils Association for joint consultation with him on the question of the part played by builders' conferences in connection with tendering and contracting procedure.
    Mr. Eccles: Bodies representative of the building industry, under the leadership of the Royal Institute of British Architects, are about to embark upon a review of the tendering and contracting procedure in the industry. This review is not intended to be an inquisition into the
    836
    activities of the builders' conferences, but no doubt account will be taken of the measures which they adopted to meet a real problem. I understand that the Royal Institute of British Architects have already been in contact with the County Councils Association in connection with the review.
    Dr. King: Is the Minister aware that the county councils are very concerned at the revelations made in the debate initiated by my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Mr. P. Wells), that they offered to meet the Minister, that they have advice and information to give him on this important matter and it is right that he should consult them as well as the builders and architects of the country?
    Mr. Eccles: I shall be very glad to hear what they have to say.
    Mr. P. Wells: Can the right hon. Gentleman assure us that he himself has not grown luke-warm over this matter since it was first raised in this House?
    Mr. Eccles: Yes, Sir.
    Mr. Walker-Smithasked the Minister of Works why he did not refer the arrangements of the London Building Conference to the Monopolies Commission or to an investigation of a judicial or quasi-judicial nature.
    Mr. Eccles: The review to be undertaken by the industry itself will cover a wider field than the activities of the London Builders' Conference and I had hoped that a special investigation of the activities of the Conference would not be necessary. I am, however, prepared to recommend reference to the Monopolies Commision or some other appropriate body, if that will assist the general review and I am consulting my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade on the suitability of a reference to the Commission.

    Building Productivity
    Mr. Osborneasked the Minister of Works what action he proposes to take in consequence of the Girdwood Committee's latest report that, in 1947, 45 per cent. more man-hours were required to carry out a given quantity of work, as compared with 1938–39; that, in 1949, productivity was still 20 per cent. below pre-war level; that average productivity

    837
    during 1951 was no higher than 1949; and if he will make a statement on this position.
    Mr. Eccles: The policy of the present Government is to create the conditions under which the building industry will be able to increase productivity. In the main these conditions are more materials, better incentive schemes, better management and more freedom. There was a marked rise in productivity last year and I am confident that this progress will continue.
    Mr. Osborne: As an expert economist, do not these figures cause my right hon. Friend great disquiet in view of the threat to our standard of life which they indicate?
    Mr. Eccles: I am much more concerned with the future, and we are getting on very well.

    Brick Supplies
    Miss Wardasked the Minister of Works what steps he has taken to ensure an ample supply of bricks in the hands of builders so that no housing scheme is held up in the County of Northumberland.
    Mr. Eccles: Production of bricks in Northumberland is increasing, but a large number will have to be imported from outside the county. Taking the Northern Region as a whole, I expect the deficiency in 1953 to be made up by substantial deliveries of fletton and other types of bricks from other regions, and by imports from abroad.
    Miss Ward: Am I assured by my right hon. Friend that there will be no hold-up at all in any of the housing schemes in Northumberland on account of shortage of bricks? Could he say anything about the quality, because I understand that some bricks leave the kilns practically red hot?
    Mr. Eccles: The Minister of Works neither makes nor sells bricks. [An HON. MEMBER: "He drops them."] I can give my hon. Friend no definite assurance; it depends on a number of factors quite outside my control, but we do our best and, on the whole, I think the situation is not bad. As to complaints about quality, if they are brought to me I will look into them.
    Mr. Tom Brown: Will the right hon. Gentleman instruct one of his regional officers in the North-West to visit some of the brickworks in Lancaster and the north side of Preston where they are wheeling bricks into stock while many men are unemployed who could be producing bricks if they would buy bricks there?
    Mr. Eccles: I do not think the hon. Member is quite well-informed. I was in Lancashire the other day talking to brick makers who have made large contracts to sell bricks to Northumberland and the North-East Coast. My information is that they are not stocking to any extent in Lancashire.
    Mr. Brown: Has the Minister not already received a letter from me concerning brickworks wheeling bricks into stock? They cannot get rid of their bricks because of the price.
    Mr. Eccles: I shall have to look into that.
    Mr. D. Jones: Is it not the case that though the Minister does not make bricks he sometimes drops one, as he did at Middlesbrough on 29th May?
    Mr. Coldrick: Is it not a fact that bricks are being stocked in some brickworks because the price is out of all proportion to those in other places? That is precisely the position in Bristol, where the Minister is trying to get local authorities to use local bricks.
    Mr. Eccles: It is true that prices of bricks differ. Naturally if a local authority can get the cheapest brick it tries to do so, but it is not really in the interests of the housing programme that everyone should specify the cheapest brick and only the cheapest brick.
    Mr. Gibsonasked the Minister of Works the stocks of building bricks on January, 1952, and November, 1952; whether he is aware of the concern expressed by brick manufacturers at the reduced stock position; and what steps he proposes to take to improve the supply of bricks for house building.
    Mr. Eccles: Experience has shown that as the brickyards receive more orders they make more bricks and it is not the brickmakers who are concerned about the low level of stocks. These were 184 million at 1st January, 126 million at

    839
    30th November and 144 million at 31st December. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government and I believe that prompt ordering and prompt payment, and buying where possible locally produced bricks, are the best measures to secure an adequate supply.
    Mr. Gibson: Is the Minister aware that these figures which he has given are very different from the figures for brick stocks as published in the Digest of Statistics, which is a Government publication, but that in any case they show a considerable drop? Is he further aware that the Midland Federation of Brick Manufacturers have themselves pressed him to conduct an inquiry into the question of brick production, and have suggested that in view of the shortage of bricks it may be necessary for the Government to import foreign bricks into this country in order to maintain their housing programme? Does the Minister consider that good business efficiency in the matter?
    Mr. Eccles: The difference in the stock figures may lie in the fact that I was referring only to building bricks and not to all kinds of bricks. We are getting on very well with brick production, which in December was 544 million against 486 million in December a year ago.
    Captain Pilkingtonasked the Minister of Works what steps he is taking to overcome the present shortage of facing bricks in the Poole area.
    Mr. Eccles: Production of facing bricks in the Poole area will rise again when the seasonal works in the neighbourhood come into production in a few weeks. Meantime, my officers will do their best to assist in any specific complaint made to them of a shortage where work is held up.
    Captain Pilkington: In view of the long waiting list for housing in the Poole area, and in view of the fact that one-third of the local unemployment is in the building industry, will my right hon. Friend do everything he can to expedite production of these bricks?
    Mr. Eccles: My hon. and gallant Friend will help me if he can use his influence to persuade local architects and builders to order local bricks.

    Redundant Churches (Preservation)
    Mr. E. Fletcherasked the Minister of Works what discussions have taken place between the Ancient Monuments Division of his Department and the Church Commissioners in relation to the problem of the care and preservation of churches.
    Mr. Eccles: The Church Commissioners have sought my views on the recommendation of their Disused Churches Committee that redundant churches of architectural and historic importance should be placed in the guardianship of my Department. The problem is complex and I propose to discuss it further with the Commissioners.
    Mr. Fletcher: As the Minister is aware that there is a growing number of redundant churches, many of great historic and architectural value, will he, wherever possible, consider assuming responsibility for their maintenance?
    Mr. Eccles: I should like to do so, but on my Ancient Monuments Vote I have no money for taking into guardianship disused churches.

    Footway, Westminster Abbey
    Mr. Hastingsasked the Minister of Works whether he is aware that the newly-constructed temporary footway to the north of the main entrance of Westminster Abbey is so narrow that two persons cannot pass; and whether he will arrange for this to be widened.
    Mr. Eccles: I am arranging for the footway to be widened.
    Mr. Hastings: Does the Minister realise how grateful the many users, like myself, of this footway will be for his statement?

    Building Materials
    Lieut.-Colonel Liptonasked the Minister of Works what steps are being taken to deal with current shortages of building materials.
    Mr. Eccles: Production of building materials for which I am responsible continues to increase. Current shortages are not widespread and appear to be decreasing.
    Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: As Questions put to the right hon. Gentleman today prove that shortages of all kinds are occurring up and down the country, may I ask whether the Minister is aware that this mad unregulated scramble for building materials, deliberately caused by the present Government, is considerably adding to the cost of housing construction?
    Mr. Eccles: It has been a surprise even to Conservative Ministers that the building industry has been able to expand and use a much larger quantity of materials with the same labour force than it did before.
    Mr. H. Nicholls: Are not these figures proof of the improvement of productivity, when the same labour force can use so much more material?

    Coronation (Westminster Abbey Building Works)
    Mr. Emrys Hughesasked the Minister of Works to what extent he is using labour otherwise available for house building for the building arrangements in, and around, Westminster Abbey in connection with the Coronation.
    Mr. Eccles: The number of men employed in the Abbey who might otherwise have been employed on housing is 95, but none of them was drawn from housing work.
    Mr. Hughes: Are no building workers to be employed on the Annexe, which is estimated to cost £50,000, and could the Minister explain why that Annexe is necessary at a time when the housing position is so difficult?
    Mr. Eccles: The figure I gave included all the work in the Abbey and the Annexe together. I do not think that the public grudge this modest expenditure of materials on the preparations for the Coronation.
    Mr. Hughes: Is it not a fact that Members opposite objected to the cost of
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    the building of the Festival of Britain, which lasted for a much longer time? Is it in accordance with Her Majesty's wish, sent to local authorities, that there should be economy and simplicity, that the Minister should set such a bad example?
    Mr. Eccles: The Prime Minister, in answer to a Question before Christmas, gave the reasons why there has to be an Annexe. I am quite satisfied that the conduct of the Coronation requires it. I do not see any comparison between the Festival of Britain and the Coronation.

  NATIONAL SERVICE (DEFERMENT)
  Mr. Langford-Holtasked the Minister of Labour the factors that govern the granting of exemption for National Service other than health and conscience grounds.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. Harold Watkinson): The only classes of men not liable for National Service are those set out in the First Schedule to the National Service Act, 1948. As regards the principles which govern the granting of deferment of call-up, I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply given by my right hon. and learned Friend to the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. J. T. Price) on 16th October last.
  Mr. Langford-Holt: Will my hon. Friend not agree that it is wasteful both of money and manpower to call up persons whom we have no intention shall serve in the Armed Forces in the unfortunate event of armed hostilities taking place?
  Mr. Watkinson: I think that question arises from a common misconception of the purpose of the National Service Act, which is to enable our commitments under N.A.T.O. and other arrangements to be fulfilled. These men are required for immediate service, not primarily for training for some future emergency.

QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS (NATIONALISED INDUSTRIES)
Mr. Ellis Smith: I desire to ask your guidance, Mr. Speaker, on two Questions of mine which have been ruled out of order. My observations will have to be confined to very narrow limits in view Of the fact that the Questions have been ruled out of order. I feel in a strong position on this, because the whole House acquiesced in the interpretation put upon this matter a few years ago.
The difficulties about which I wish to ask you are these, and I will put them as briefly as possible. The British Railway Executive, without any explanation, have sold the North Staffordshire Hotel, which is in the centre of an important export industry, where travellers arrive to consult representatives of the industry in the area. The staff are in a very uncertain position, as under the Railway Executive they were allowed fare concessions and other concessions. We are not allowed to use our democratic rights in order to raise those grievances, and therefore I want to ask what steps I can take to deal with them.
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member's question is related to the day-to-day activities of the Railway Executive, and until the Select Committee reports and some other procedure is adopted by the House, I have to exercise my discretion of only allowing those questions of administration which are of wide general interest.
The best advice I can give to the hon. Member is to communicate with the Minister concerned to see if he can help him. If there are circumstances of urgency about the hon. Member's problem, and if he explains them to the Minister, I have no doubt the Minister will do the best he can to help him.
Mr. Ellis Smith: With due respect, I shall accept that advice and endeavour to act on it. But those of us engaged in the industry do not look upon this as an everyday matter.
Sir W. Smithers: With regard to these Questions on nationalised industries, would it not be best for you, Sir, to take the lead in getting Questions answered where the taxpayer is involved, or where the ordinary citizen is involved, apart
844
from the ordinary working of that nationalised industry?
Mr. Speaker: That is a rather broad and hypothetical question. I would not like to answer it without an example before me of the sort of Question which the hon. Member has in mind.
Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: Further to that point, would it not be possible to consider this as rather more than a mere day-to-day action? After all, these hotels are accepted as centres of a great deal of social activity, and they are in some ways indispensable to the conduct of the life of a town. When they are disposed of, as occasionally they are, for office purposes, they cannot be regained for the use for which they were originally designed, and to which they have been put for so many years. I would put it to you, Sir, that it is an unreversible act and rather more than a day-to-day matter.
Mr. Speaker: The position really is that Ministers, both in this Government and in the last Government, have generally adopted the attitude that they would refuse to answer questions of detail, for which they are not directly responsible, on matters which have been transferred to the statutory bodies for decision, and to be dealt with.
There is a compromise whereby discretion was given to my predecessor to allow certain Questions. He accepted that burden on the understanding that his decision would not be argued with, and I accepted it, I hope, on the same ground. I must carry on with that discretion until we get a new system from the Select Committee.
Mr. Woodburn: Further to that point. Is it not the case that if a situation arose that a Minister considered of such importance that he was prepared to give a direction, it would come within the purview of this House?
Mr. Speaker: It might in that case, but it is not so in a case like this.
Mr. Assheton: May I respectfully inform you, Sir, that the Select Committee, of which I have the honour to be the Chairman, have in fact reported on this matter?
Mr. Speaker: But we have not yet worked out a system of questions which enables me to change my procedure.

ROYAL PREROGATIVE (DISALLOWED MOTION)
Mr. S. Silverman: I desire your indulgence, Mr. Speaker, to ask about a Motion which I sought to put on the Order Paper last night, but which, I understand, by your direction ultimately did not appear. I shall endeavour to put my point as shortly as may be and, of course, without raising any of the merits either way of the subject matter of the Motion, but I hope I may have your indulgence for a minute or two in dealing with the matter, because it seems to me that this is a question which involves the whole matter of the authority of Parliament and the right of Parliament to control the Executive in any action which a Departmental Minister takes, and I would say especially in matters where the Royal Prerogative of mercy is involved.
At a few minutes past seven last night, I took into the Table Office a Motion in these terms:
"That this House respectfully dissents from the opinion of the Home Secretary that there were no sufficient reasons for advising the exercise of the Royal Clemency in the case of Derek Bentley; and urges him to reconsider the matter so as to give effect to the recommendation of the jury and to the expressed view of the Lord Chief Justice"—
who was the trial judge—
"that Bentley's guilt was less than that of his co-defendant, Christopher Craig."
There were about 50 hon. Members who supported that Motion, not all from one side of the House, and among the 50 there were no fewer than 10 Privy Councillors, hon. Members who have held high office under the Crown. The 50 also included the former Solicitor-General and one of the former Under-Secretaries of State for the Home Department. I mention these facts as part of the claim which I would modestly make that the Motion was by no means a frivolous Motion; that it was a well-considered Motion, so far as one could make it so, and not a Motion which would be regarded in any quarter of the House as one which obviously ought not to appear upon the Order Paper.
When I took the Motion into the Table Office, it was accepted without any question of any kind. That was at a few minutes past seven. I remained in the
846
House until roughly half-past eight. No question had been raised about the Motion by that time, although to my knowledge several hon. Members, and I think one right hon. Member, had been to the Table Office and added their names to the Motion in the meantime.
I went home shortly after that, and at, I think, a quarter-past ten at night, when it was clearly impossible for me to make any representations to you, Sir, or to anyone else, I had a telephone message that, by your direction, the Motion would not appear upon the Order Paper. I do not know why that direction was given and I hope that, without disrespect, one may inquire the reason. I have looked at the authorities and I find—
Mr. Speaker: I think that perhaps the hon. Member will find what he is looking for on page 384 of Erskine May.
Mr. Silverman: I am very much obliged to you, Mr. Speaker, and to one of my hon. and learned Friends, but I am afraid that neither of you has given me the authority for which I was looking. But I will not delay you while I find the one I was looking for. I remember it fairly well. I hope that I may paraphrase it. I found two cases in which a Motion might not appear upon the Order Paper. There was only one precedent that I found in which Mr. Speaker had directly intervened to prevent a Motion from going on the Order Paper, and that was a case where the Motion clearly was put down solely for the purposes of personal annoyance to a single Member. I could find no other precedent.
The other example, which was not supported by any quoted precedent although there were references in the footnote, was to the effect that a Motion would not be accepted and placed upon the Order Paper if it were wholly out of order. Clearly the first of those two could not have applied, and I submit with respect that the second could not apply either. So far from the Motion being out of order, it is clearly established by Erskine May. The paragraph I wanted to quote is on page 379 of my edition; states:
"A notice wholly out of order, as, for instance, containing a reflection on a vote of the House, may be withheld from publication

847
on the notice paper, or, if the irregularity be not extreme, the notice is printed, and reserved for future consideration."
The other one is:
"When a notice publicly given is obviously irregular or unbecoming, the Speaker has interposed, and the notice has not been received in that form."
Those are the only two. As to whether the Motion was wholly out of order, it has been established, and I think would not be contested in any quarter, that a Minister's action in the advice which he tenders to the Crown is, like any other action he takes, action for which he is responsible to the House of Commons. There is not any doubt about that at all.
There have been doubts as to when, at what stage in the proceedings, debate upon it would be in order or not in order. That is something on which I should like to say a few words in a moment, but nobody has ever doubted that when a Minister presumes to offer advice to the Crown upon the exercise of a Royal Prerogative, he is responsible to the House for the advice he tenders. The exercise of the Prerogative of mercy in this country is not an arbitrary act as it might be in some totalitarian State: it is as much subject to the constitutional principles of a Parliamentary democracy as any other act by any other person. It is not beyond challenge.
Erskine May makes it clear that the challenge ought to be made, if it is made at all, by substantive Motion. I sought to put down a substantive Motion. There is nothing, on the face of it, that is out of order at all, so I submit with respect; still less can it be said that it is wholly out of order. It is at no point out of order It may be said, "Yes, but it is the wrong time." I thought that that, too, had been settled. I thought that it had been settled, after considerable controversy, that, whereas it would not be regular or permissible to seek to influence by Question or debate in the House the mind of the Home Secretary while he was still considering what advice he would give to the Crown, yet it became immediately challengeable in the House when he had made up his mind what advice he would give and had, therefore, tendered the advice.
On this occasion it was most important. This was the first occasion in the new reign of the young Queen of the exer-
848
cise of the most responsible of all the Royal Prerogatives. Is it to be said that this House may have its way—that the Home Secretary shall be responsible to the House for the advice he has given, but only when it is too late to overtake it? Is the House to wait until Bentley is dead before it is entitled to say that he should not die? No, Sir. I think that the decision was, quite clearly, that once the Home Secretary's mind had been made up, then he could be challenged in the House.
But, suppose I am wrong about that, there was nothing whatever in the Motion that called for debate this day. That, Sir, would have been a matter for you to determine—whether it would ever be called or whether, if it were called, debate on it would be in order. The fact, if it were a fact, that debate on it today would be out of order and debate on it tomorrow would be in order, was no reason for holding it to be wholly out of order last night. The only possible effect of removing the Motion from the Order Paper would be to remove from the control of the House a matter which is clearly one for which the Home Secretary is responsible to the House.
This is a matter which arouses interest of the deepest kind not merely in the House. I venture to think that if it were possible to put such a matter to the vote today, there would be an overwhelming majority of this House who would think that the Home Secretary had decided wrongly. I have here more than 200 telegrams, from all sorts of people all over the country —all of them except one holding the decision to be wrong, and that one telling me only that the Home Secretary would probably tell me to mind my own business.
Sir, I am minding my own business. That is why I am raising this question with you. It is the business of all of us if this boy hangs when we think he ought not to hang. This is a Parliamentary democracy, and we are all responsible for what occurs. I do not want to debate the merits of the matter. I shall debate the merits of it just so soon as you decide the House may debate it, whether or not a reprieve is ever given. But I say in these circumstances, with great respect, that you exceeded your authority in seeking to withhold this Motion from the Order Paper last night.
Mr. Speaker: I have listened to what the hon. Member said, and I fully appreciate the deep feeling that exists in many parts of the country on this matter. I should like to state what my conception of my authority was for taking the action I took. The Order Paper is a document published by the authority of the House, and the Speaker is charged, among other duties, with doing his best to see that nothing out of order or irregular appears upon it. Frequently the Speaker has had to intervene—I have myself —when Motions are offered. I have convinced an hon. Member that a Motion was out of order or taken some action myself.
In this case, the Motion of the hon. Member, which I saw late last night, dealt with the case of a capital sentence which is still pending, and there is a long line of authorities of all my predecessors saying that, while a capital sentence is pending, the matter should not be discussed in the House.
The hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) did refer to the general doctrine that any action of a Minister, and any responsibility which he exercises Departmentally, is one for which he is answerable to the House, but in this particular case of a sentence of a capital character which has not been executed, there is the strongest possible precedent for saying that the House should not discuss it, either by Questions, on the Motion for the Adjournment of the House or by any other means whatsoever. On that there is no doubt at all in my mind; it has been upheld by successive Speakers for a great number of years, and I have the precedents here, if the House would like me to refer to them.
The most recent one is that of Mr. Speaker Clifton Brown. Many hon. Members will remember the case of the executions taking place in the Gold Coast, which was not so very long ago —in 1947—and on which Mr. Speaker Clifton Brown then ruled. He was asked for a definite Ruling, and he used these words:
"I would point out that, in my Ruling of 10th March, I was dealing with the particular case of persons under sentence of death on the Gold Coast. My remarks were, therefore, directed to the question of the Prerogative of mercy in the case of persons under sentence of death. It was the sentence of death that I had in mind when I said. by
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way of supplement to my Ruling, that the Home Secretary could not be challenged on the advice he had given to His Majesty until after the sentence had been executed. This rule is, of course, not applicable to sentences of imprisonment. The practice of the House makes a complete distinction between capital sentences and other forms of punishment, so far as the Prerogative of mercy is concerned. Whereas the remission of a sentence of imprisonment, for example, can be urged upon a Minister at any time after its imposition, a capital sentence cannot be raised in Question or debate while the sentence is pending. After it has been executed, the Minister responsible may be criticised on the relevant Vote in Supply, or on the Adjournment. I have stated that that is the practice of the House, and I cannot alter the practice of the House… —[OFFICIAL REPORT. 1st May, 1947; Vol. 436, c. 2180–81.]
Neither can I. The notice of Motion, as it was submitted to me last night, was notice of a debate which would be wholly out of order and a debate which could not take place. It was therefore my view, in the circumstances, and acting under my duty, that this notice should not appear on the Order Paper because it was one which could not be debated in the House of Commons.
Mr. Silverman: Surely, what you have said, Mr. Speaker, means a considerable extension even of the Ruling—I would respectfully say the very doubtful Ruling —of the last Speaker, which you read. It is one thing to say that a debate on a particular day and at a particular time would have been irregular and out of order; it is quite another thing to say that a Motion upon the Order Paper is therefore out of order.
Every citizen in this country is entitled to bring pressure to bear upon the Home Secretary. A lot of them have been doing it during these last few weeks, and I dare say a good many more have done so today. Any hon. Member of the House, or any combination of hon. Members, may go to him and bring pressure to bear upon him or counter-pressure against the pressure coming the other way. It surely makes a mockery of the rights of the House to say that hon. Members of this House alone shall not be able to combine to put upon the Order Paper an expression of their opinions. That is not a debate. The Motion would have carried at the end of it the words "An early day." Tomorrow is quite early, and tomorrow, on any Ruling, the debate would be in order.

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I suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that the Ruling so far given was so narrow and so doubtful that it would be quite wrong to extend it, as your action last night did, to apply to a Motion which, in the normal course, would never have been debated at all unless the Government found time for it, and which could hardly have been debated today, and which, therefore, would have been wholly in order at any relevant time when it could have been debated, was out of order merely because it appeared on the Order Paper at a time when a debate might have been irregular.
I submit that in matters of this kind, where deep feelings are involved, not merely in this House but throughout the country, and on which the whole administration of justice might be brought into contempt, this is not the occasion to narrow still further the rights of Members of the House of Commons.
Mr. Paget: In my submission to you, Mr. Speaker, the Ruling on which you have relied is based upon the decision of the Executive and not on the decision of this House. I have looked up the precedents, and I find that the precedents arose from Questions put to Ministers, and the Minister always answered by saying that it would be contrary to the public interest to answer that Question. That, of course, is an answer which any Minister can always give, but, in my submission to you, it has never been applied to a Motion, and a Motion such as this has never been ruled out of order before. That is the first submission that I would make.
The second submission I would make to you is to ask for your guidance and assistance. I think the great condemnation which we made of the German people was that they stood aside and did nothing when dreadful things happened. We are a sovereign assembly. A threequarter-witted boy of 19 is to be hanged for a murder he did not commit, and which was committed 15 minutes after he was arrested. Can we be made to keep silent when a thing as horrible and as shocking as this is to happen?
I ask your guidance because I feel that the great mass of hon. Members here feel with me that we ought to be provided with an opportunity to try to prevent this dreadful thing from happening.
Mr. Hale: May I refresh your memory, Mr. Speaker, in regard to what happened in 1947? I raised the matter then in a Question, and it arose in this way. I sought the assistance and guidance of the Chair in seeking to move the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9 in order to call attention to some executions which were then imminent in the Gold Coast, and there was a very long discussion.
It will be within the recollection of all hon. Members here who were present on that occasion that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill), the present Prime Minister, intervened and made an attack on the then Colonial Secretary and said that he should go out and do something about it. That was done with the apparent permission and approval of the Chair. Subsequently, the matter was raised again in the course of debate, and further reference was made to it. Finally, Mr. Speaker was asked to give a Ruling on the question which I had raised with him, and in respect of which I had submitted documentary points to him.
That question was whether it was possible, by Question and answer, to raise questions of the Royal Prerogative. You will remember that, until 1916 or so, it was almost a commonplace to raise questions of the Royal Prerogative, and, historically speaking, this power was taken away from the House because we were executing so many decent Irishmen —[interruption.]—indeed, that is precisely what happened — that it became a burden on Ministers to defend themselves at that time. Since then, successive Speakers have ruled that Questions cannot be asked about the Royal Prerogative until the Minister's advice has been given.
I apprehend that there is a difference between the 1947 case and this case because, in the former case, the Royal Prerogative was being exercised by the Colonial Governor and the responsibility of the Secretary of State was, at the most, a vicarious responsibility for the Governor's activities, and that there was less direct connection than there is in this case.
I suggest that a search of all the authorities discloses no precedent for saying that a Motion cannot be put down on the Order Paper in these circumstances, and that no such Ruling has

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ever been given. The precedent which is called in aid, as I understand it, the one precedent which is referred to and particularised in Erskine May, is a precedent of a Member who put down a scurrilous Motion reflecting on another Member and referring to his conviction in the police court. I can quite understand that a Speaker may say, "I will not allow the Order Paper to be used for putting down purely scurrilous matters," but this is not a matter of that kind.
It may be for you, Sir, to rule that we could not have discussed that Motion today or that we could not discuss it at any time, or that we could only discuss it after this lamentable decision had taken effect and after a young life was gone. In my respectful submission, Mr. Speaker, what is happening here is this, and, with very great respect, the decision appears to me to go far beyond this unhappy youth's life.
The facts are precisely these. I came into the House yesterday at almost exactly 7·30. My hon. Friend told me of this Motion, and I went to the Table Office to sign it. It was then in the Table Office, and had been signed by a great many hon. Members. Indeed, the one remark made to me, if I may say so, was, "The paper is so full that you will have a job to get your name on it." I wrote my name in a small space.
No suggestion was then made that it was out of order. What has happened is that a Motion has been removed from the Order Paper, or has never been put on the Order Paper, after the House has risen, or after all chance of making a protest has gone. I submit that it has always been the rule of the House that the one way of raising a matter which cannot competently be raised in any other way is by putting a Motion on the Order Paper. One cannot challenge the conduct of Her Majesty's judges except by a Motion on the Order Paper, and one cannot challenge, it may be said, the Royal Prerogative except by a Motion on the Order Paper.
I want to submit one further point which I think is of very great relevance to this matter. It is within the recollection of any Member of this House who has been here during the past five years that we had a considerable discussion on
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capital punishment during the proceedings on the Criminal Justice Bill, and this House carried a new Clause which I think was moved by the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) calling for the abolition of capital punishment—[interruption.]—for the suspension of capital punishment for five years, my right hon. Friend corrects me —and my right hon. Friend was then Home Secretary and had the responsibility for exercising the Royal Prerogative.
He took a decision which I think everyone applauded at the time, that in view of the carrying of that Motion it would not be right to carry out capital sentences after the House had so determined. Capital sentences were therefore suspended, and it was announced that they were going to be suspended. It was said, "We will carry out the recommendation of the House and capital punishment shall be suspended for a period until another place in its infinite wisdom puts back the Clause." That was announced in the House by the Minister, and it was a matter on which the Minister was responsible to the House and on which the House could have put down a Motion saying it did not agree with it. It may be out of order to say that there were fewer murders in that period than ever before or since, but that is what happened.
I respectfully suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that once we have the situation where a Home Secretary can say in the exercise of the Royal Prerogative, "I am going to defer to the views of the House of Commons and am going to suspend capital punishment in deference to its decision," then, surely, it cannot be argued that this is not a matter in which there is Ministerial responsibility to the House of Commons.
If it be said that where there is Ministerial responsibility one cannot put down a Motion, then, with respect, Sir, that would be the gravest invasion of the rights and privileges of Members of this House made over the last 300 years. I speak with deep sincerity when I say that everyone respects the way in which you, Sir, have discharged your duties in the Chair, and everyone pays, not merely the respect they owe to the Chair, but a personal respect for the way in which you have carried out those duties. It is also with respect that I say that this was a

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gross invasion of the liberties of the House, and that you, Mr. Speaker, are taking upon yourself a prerogative and responsibility which will be a burden to you in the future if this is done.
If it be in the power of a Speaker to say, "This Motion is not scurrilous, not sordid or not intrinsically wicked, but in my judgment it ought to be removed from the Order Paper," then he is taking a responsibility which is an invasion of our privileges and taking up a position which makes it possible for us to suggest that he is protecting a Minister or a Government, and I respectfully submit—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—I am trying to put it with respect and courtesy, but I am going to put it, and am not going to omit one comma of it, because I am as much defending the liberties of the House at the moment as many more able men have done in the past.
I submit that Mr. Speaker has not the power, and never has had the power, to take a Motion from the Order Paper unless it be so blasphemous, seditious, scurrilous and abusive as to be an obvious degradation of the Order Paper of the House of Commons. Here was a matter referring to Ministerial conduct and a matter of grave public urgency on which the public are deeply moved, and most of them deeply shocked. In these circumstances, I submit that the Motion should have been on the Order Paper today.
Mr. Speaker: I have listened with great care to everything that has been said and I should like to assure the House, first of all—and I hope it will believe me—that I am neither trying to invade its privileges nor trying to protect Ministers. I have to decide these matters in accordance with the Rules of the House. I have no power to alter them, and, indeed, I should be false to my trust to the House were I to play fast and loose with the recognised practices and Rules of the House.
My Ruling last night by no means prevents the House from taking cognisance of this matter. A Motion can be put down on this subject when the sentence has been executed. [HON. MEMBERS: "Too late."] Hon. Members may have their views upon it, and they may want to alter it, but that is the fact and that is the law I am bound to administer. A
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Motion at that time would be in order, but the Motion which the hon. Member submitted asked the Home Secretary to reconsider his decision. Therefore, it was bound to be a Motion interposed before the sentence had been executed, and that, by all the authorities of the House, is out of order.
The hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget), if he will forgive me for saying so, was quite in error in supposing that this is some modern Ruling which stems from the Ruling I quoted earlier on. It is a thing of great antiquity in the House, and has been followed by all my predecessors. As far as I can find, there has been no precedent to the contrary of any debate in this House of Commons being interposed on a capital charge while it was pending.
Mr. Speaker Clifton Brown, as part of the Ruling to which I have referred, went back to 1887 and 1889 in the cases of Lipski and Maybrick, and that is a rule which has been followed ever since. But to come to more modern times, I find it was sought to move the Adjournment of the House on two occasions in cases of this sort while the sentence was still pending, and the Speakers at the times were Mr. Speaker Lowther and Mr. Speaker Whitley. If the general doctrine which has been propounded today were correct, it would be a fit subject for the Motion for the Adjournment of the House. In the first case I am going to quote, the case of 29th November, 1920, Mr. Speaker Lowther said:
"With regard to the Motion for the Adjournment which I understand the hon. Member was proposing to make, I must point out that I could not accept such a Motion. It would be an interference with the ordinary administration of the course of justice. It has been laid down on previous occasions in this House that no Motion for the Adjournment could be accepted in such a case."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th November, 1920; Vol. 135, c. 931.]
Mr. Speaker Whitley, on a similar Motion before the House, said:
"Before I put this matter to the House, I must make it quite clear that no question of the Adjournment can arise on the subject of the advice tendered to His Majesty by a Home Secretary with regard to a reprieve, or the converse, of a criminal who has been convicted. That is maintained by a long series of decisions by my predecessors."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 13th June, 1922; Vol. 155, c. 205.]

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Indeed, all the decisions are that way, and if I had allowed the notice to remain on the Order Paper I should have been in fact putting on the Order Paper a Motion that could not possibly be debated. That by no means prejudices the right of the House, in accordance with its own rules, to table a Motion suitably expressed at a later time. But a Motion asking for reconsideration of the decision was, I am afraid, one of those which, in my own mind, I had to come to the conclusion would be out of order. Therefore, the notice of Motion is out of order.
Mr. Bevan: There are, in my respectful submission, two issues here, upon one of which the House is very clear. It may be to the rest of the country rather stupid that the House of Commons can only intervene when the step taken is irremediable. That may appear to be silly and absurd, but nevertheless it is quite clear from the precedents that you, Mr. Speaker, are in a very strong position there and cannot be assailed.
But there is another issue. What you have done, as I understand it, is to remove from the Order Paper a Motion because it is out of order. I have never known that to happen except in circumstances that have been explained, because many Motions appear on the Order Paper which are known to be out of order. On the Committee stage of every Bill new Clauses are put down and Amendments are put down on the Order Paper and then declared to be out of order. What we are considering here is what is the precedent or the rule upon which you rely to intervene to prevent a Motion going on the Order Paper merely because in your view it is out of order. It is on that matter that we should like to have an explanation.
It would be a very serious thing if the Speaker or the Chairman of Ways and Means actively intervened between hon. Members and the Order Paper and refused to allow a Motion to be put down because in their view the Motion is out of order, and therefore estopped the hon. Member concerned from having a discussion as to why he thinks his Motion is in order. This is a very serious step and ought not to be blurred with the other one as to whether we could discuss whether the Royal pleasure has in fact
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been exercised. I submit therefore, Mr. Speaker, that whereas you rely on excellent precedents with regard to the one, you have not succeeded in proving to me that you have relied in a proper fashion —that is, in proving to the House—on proper precedents or rules in respect of the other matter.
Mr. Silverman: May I say at once, Mr. Speaker, that no one believes for a moment, or is even pretending to believe or intending to say, that in the action you took you were intending to do anything other than preserve the rules of order and therefore, by preserving the rules of order, preserve the liberties of the House. If we differ from your decision it is not because we question the motives of it, but because we are bound to look at the thing for ourselves, although ultimately we may have to accept your Ruling.
Despite what has been said, I am going to claim to move a Motion for the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9. Before asking you to rule upon that, I should like to submit, with regard to the precedents that you have quoted to the House, that in both those cases the House was attempting to interfere with the Home Secretary before he had come to a conclusion as to what advice he would give, and that it has to be afterwards.
That is borne out by the terms in which the then Speaker gave his Ruling. He said, as you have quoted, that this was the ordinary administration of the criminal law. The use of the Royal Prerogative of mercy is not the ordinary administration of the criminal law. It is directly the opposite. It is the decision of the Crown under the Royal Prerogative that the ordinary administration of the law shall not happen; and when the then Speaker was saying that the Motion was seeking to interfere with the ordinary administration of the law that could only have been true if the Motion had been put down when the Home Secretary had not yet made up his mind.
My Motion does not seek to interfere with the administration of the law in its ordinary course. That has gone by. There has been a trial and a verdict and a sentence and a recommendation to mercy. There has been an appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeal and there have been petitions to the right hon. and learned

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Gentleman the Home Secretary. The ordinary course of the law has exhausted itself. What happens then if the House and the nation do not wish the ordinary course of the law to be carried out in a particular case? It is exactly on that point that the Royal Prerogative of mercy is invoked to change the ordinary course of the law and to substitute something else. And in considering what advice he will give, the Home Secretary is entitled to the benefit of any advice that anyone may feel qualified to give him, and not least the advice of the House of Commons. I do not know what has influenced the right hon. and learned Gentleman. He has not said, and undoubtedly will not say unless there is a debate, but I dare say that representations have been made from this and that quarter.
It might be of great assistance to the right hon. and learned Gentleman and in the highest sense in the public interest to enable him to know what the view of the House is about the decision—as we think the unfortunate decision—which we hope is not going to be an irrevocable decision, that he made yesterday. It is for that reason that I seek leave to move my Motion.
I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9:
"To call attention to a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely, the decision of the Home Secretary not to advise Her Majesty to exercise the Royal Prerogative of mercy in the case of Derek Bentley."
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member for Nelson and Colne asks leave to move the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9:
"To call attention to a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely, the decision of the Home Secretary not to advise Her Majesty to exercise the Royal Prerogative of mercy in the case of Derek Bentley."
For the reasons that I have given and on the authorities that I have already cited, which are an unbroken line of cases, I cannot accept the Motion.
Mr. Donnelly: Further to this matter and on a point of order, may I alternatively seek leave to move the Adjournment of the House on a different issue? I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9:
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"To call attention to a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely, the action of Mr. Speaker in directing that the Motion submitted by the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne should not appear on the Order Paper today."
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member asks leave to move the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9:
"To call attention to a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely, the action of Mr. Speaker in directing that the Motion submitted by the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne should not appear on the Order Paper today."
I cannot accept that. It has been ruled several times that the action of Mr. Speaker cannot be a cause for the Adjournment of the House. There is another course open to the hon. Member which should be followed.
Mr. Hale: My right hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) put a question to you, Mr. Speaker, of supreme importance but, unfortunately, my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman), I think under a misunderstanding, intervened before you had time to reply. The House is entitled to hear whether there is a precedent for Mr. Speaker refusing a Motion of the kind put down by my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne. I submit to you that I have gone through the authorities and have never found a case.
Mr. Speaker: The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) mentioned two points. The first was the fact that a debate on this matter today would be out of order because of the precedents which I have cited. He seemed to agree with me about that. Secondly, he asked for information on the question whether, even admitting that the debate were out of order and it could not take place, I was in order in directing the removal of the notice from the Paper? In answer, I would say that I was, because the notice was out of order, and, in accordance with the authorities I have quoted, Mr. Speaker is the guardian of the Order Paper, which is a document of the House of Commons and which is a record, not of the views expressed by hon. Members, but of the business projected. If the business cannot be taken in the form in which it is put down, it is quite proper to direct its removal.
Mr. Bevan: Before we leave this matter, the last statement made by you, Mr. Speaker, is an extremely serious one. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I ask hon. Members to listen to what I have to say. I have been responsible for a good many Bills in this House; do I understand your Ruling to be that a Minister can make representations to the Chair and have removed from the Order Paper—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Please listen, because anybody can make representations to the Chair if he is a Member of the House. Do you, Mr. Speaker, say that if a notice, which has been put down tonight, is out of order it will be ruled out of order tomorrow? Does the Chair, then, take the responsibility of standing between an hon. Member who wishes to move it and the Order Paper? [HON. MEMBERS: "That is most improper."] If hon. Members will please let me put my point, it will help.
We are, in fact, discussing at the moment the rights of all hon. Members in all parts of the House. It is unnecessary to argue this matter as if we were in conflict with the Chair. What we are seeking to do is to find the frontiers of Mr. Speaker's Ruling in these circumstances, and I say that, whereas Mr. Speaker is the guardian of the Order Paper, the very word "guardian" has been interpreted to prevent appearing on the Order Paper today the Motion to which my hon. Friend has drawn attention.
In the whole of my experience in Parliament, the use of the function of guardian of the Order Paper has not been used to remove from the Order Paper a Motion merely on the grounds that Mr. Speaker says it is out of order. We ought to have the precedents and rules for that. If we cannot have them—and I say this with every respect—then it is absolutely essential to discuss the matter on some other occasion so that we know where we are in the matter.
Mr. Speaker: In view of the suggestion which was inadvertently made, I should like to make it abundantly clear to the House that in deciding this matter last night I received no representations from any Minister or anyone else. I hope that is clearly understood.
Mr. Bevan: I did not suggest that.
Mr. Speaker: I am glad the right hon. Gentleman did not suggest it, but it might have been thought from what he said that that was so, and I wish to make it clear that I had no representations of any sort. There was a little doubt in this matter and it was referred to me. I had to make up my mind whether this was a proper notice to put on the Order Paper. In view of what I have said—I need not again go into the reasons which I have already given to the House—I decided on the course I did, and if the House is dissatisfied with my decision it must take the proper steps.
Mr. Hale: Further to that, with very great respect I say that no one suggested, or hinted, or meant to hint or conveyed—
Hon. Members: Yes, they did.
Mr. Speaker: In what I was saying I was imputing no evil motives to the right hon. Gentleman. The words which I referred to as used by the right hon. Gentleman were—Is it to be taken that it is in order for a Minister to go to the Chair and make representations about this or that? While it was a good point on the part of the right hon. Gentleman, it might have been supposed from what he said, it having been said in the context of this case, that something of this sort had occurred last night. I want to make it abundantly clear that nothing of the sort happened.
Mr. Bevan: May I say that in the context of what I said, in the letter of what I said or in the spirit of what I said, I never attempted to convey the impression that the Home Secretary had seen Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Hale: What I was saying when I was interrupted was that no one has suggested, no one has thought and no one has implied that there was any approach to you, Mr. Speaker, by a Minister of the Crown, but once you say you have the power which today you stated you have, you cannot stop a Minister going to you and making representations, and it would be your duty to listen to any representations that a Minister might make. That is the first trouble, difficulty and abuse to which this procedure leaves the House open.

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I want to submit one further point. As I understand it, it is open to every Member of the House to present an Address to Her Majesty on any subject which is appropriate for a humble Address, and the exercise of the Royal Prerogative would always be a subject for a humble Address when the powers have been delegated to one of Her Majesty's Ministers and constitutionally exercised by that Minister. It was out of that delegation of the right of the Crown that one seeks to present a humble Address to the Crown and ask the Crown to interfere in these matters.
Surely the Ruling by you, Mr. Speaker, that you can remove a Motion from the Order Paper leaves it open to us—and regrettably open I may say—to put on the Order Paper a Motion for a humble Address to Her Majesty. That is a regrettable method of having to deal with it. No one has any desire to embroil the Crown in a matter for which the Crown constitutionally has no direct responsibility, and which is constitutionally and properly exercised on the advice of a Minister. That was always the dilemma which arose in the Gold Coast case. I would remind the House that I sought to see the Lord Chancellor as the Keeper of the King's Conscience upon
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that matter rather than make a direct approach to the Crown. I think the whole House ought to ask for a Ruling by you, Mr. Speaker, and that we should be told what are the precedents for this procedure.
Mr. Speaker: I will do my best to enlighten the House if I am asked a question. This Motion was not addressed to Her Majesty and different considerations apply there. I merely state that if the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) wants an answer to his question, I should be much obliged if he would think it over and let me have its terms, when I will do my best to answer it.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Ordered,
That this day the Business of Supply may be taken after Ten o'clock and that the Proceedings of the Committee of Supply and of the Committee of Ways and Means be exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of Standing Order No. 1 (Sittings of the House).—[Mr. Crookshank.]]
Ordered,
That this day Business other than the Business of Supply may be taken before Ten o'clock.—[Mr. Crookshank.]

ORDERS OF THE DAY

  SUPPLY
  [2ND ALLOTTED DAY]
  Considered in Committee.
  [Sir CHARLES MACANDREW in the Chair]

CIVIL ESTIMATES, SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATE, 1952–53; ARMY SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATE, 1952–53
  CLASS II. VOTE 2

    Foreign Office Grants and Services
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £10,000,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1953, for sundry expenses connected with Her Majesty's Foreign Service; special grants, including grants in aid; and various other services.

    ANGLO-ARGENTINE TRADE AGREEMENT
    4.28 p.m.
    The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. John Boyd-Carpenter): This Supplementary Estimate of £10 million is, of course, brought forward in connection with the Agreement with the Argentine, which was signed by Her Majesty's Ambassador at Buenos Aires on 31st December. As the House will be aware, Article 12 of this Agreement provides that credit facilities not exceeding £20 million should be available until 30th June, 1954. These facilities, are, of course, part of the general Agreement, and I understand that it would meet the convenience of the Committee if you, Sir Charles, were able to indicate that on the discussion of this Supplementary Estimate it would be in order to discuss the whole of the Agreement.
    The Chairman: Yes, it will be quite in order to discuss the whole of the Agreement.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I am obliged, Sir Charles. Hon. Members will appreciate that this is an Agreement which is most conveniently discussed as a whole, and your Ruling, as I understand it, Sir Charles, enables us to do so. I would stress that the Agreement ought to be looked upon as a whole.
    866
    Perhaps I might also be allowed to make one other general comment. Obviously when two independent sets of people sit down to a negotiation, the ultimate result of that negotiation is apt to embody something different from the precise wishes which either of them had when they began the negotiation. I am sure the hon. Member for Brighouse and Spenborough (Mr. J. Edwards), with his experience of that type of thing, would not dissent from that view. Of course, there is the familiar practice of give and take, and a satisfactory agreement, in particular an agreement that is going to last, can only be arrived at, generally speaking, in that sort of way.
    Therefore, I do not put this Agreement forward as being something which represents 100 per cent. of what the United Kingdom negotiators would have liked to achieve, any more than I put it forward as being 100 per cent. of what the Argentine negotiators would have desired to achieve. Any agreement, as any hon. Member with practical experience of these matters must know, is arrived at as a result of mutual concessions. It was the result of negotiations which, while not quite so prolonged as those which produced its predecessor, were none the less not unduly curtailed. They began in April of last year and concluded with the signature of the Agreement on 31st December last year.
    On their timing, if any question arises as to that, I think it is reasonable to point out that we started negotiations while deliveries under the 1951 Protocol were still going on, that there was an unhappy interruption in the negotiations owing to the death of Senora Peron, and changes in Argentine administration. The negotiations can, therefore, I suggest, be described as neither unduly dilatory nor unduly rushed.
    I should like to take the opportunity of expressing the thanks of the Government, and I have no doubt of a good many people outside, to Her Majesty's Ambassador at Buenos Aires, Sir Henry Mack, for the patience, pertinacity and clarity of mind which he showed during these negotiations, as also to the very able officials sent from this country to assist him in that very hard job of work.
    May I deal separately and specifically with a number of the more important aspects of this Agreement? I would

    867
    stress once again that I do not ask the Committee to look at any one of them in complete isolation, since they are all part and parcel of a general Agreement which I suggest should be judged as a complete whole.
    The most conspicuous feature of the Agreement is the provision with respect to the purchase of meat. That is embodied in Articles 2 to 5 inclusive of the Protocol which, as hon. Members will recall, was issued as a White Paper. I will not go in any great detail into that aspect of the Agreement, as my right hon. and gallant Friend the Minister of Food, if he has the good fortune to catch your eye, Sir Charles, will seek to speak at a later stage of this debate.
    Perhaps, in order that what I may describe—I hope without undue ineloquence—as the meat aspect of the matter can be looked at as part of the general picture, I may be allowed to say a little first of all on that topic. The Agreement, as hon. Members will be aware, provides for obtaining 238,000 tons of carcass meat and offals as compared with 200,000 tons under the previous Agreement. Inside the total of 238,000 tons, the quantity of beef—I think hon. Members will be inclined to the view that beef is a particularly important part of the meat which we desire to obtain from the Argentine—is appreciably larger than under the previous Agreement, being 144,000 tons under this Agreement as compared with 90,500 tons under its predecessor. Under this Agreement also we take a certain amount of Argentine lamb but not Argentine mutton.
    The price, of course, is higher than under the last Agreement. So also is the price we have had to pay to other suppliers. It is always difficult in a negotiation of this sort to say more or to form a clear view as to whether the price is the best, from whichever party's point of view, that could be obtained. [Laughter.] If hon. Members had a little experience of negotiation, they would perhaps appreciate that in a negotiation of this sort, that is apt to take place. No doubt, hon. Members will desire to look further into this aspect. My right hon. and gallant Friend will be very glad to deal with that aspect of the matter when he comes to reply to the debate.
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    Perhaps I may be allowed to point out that the price for what apparently is technically described as chiller beef at £161 a ton is a bit nearer our opening bid than it was to the Argentine's. That is an aspect of the matter on which it may be that hon. Members may wish to deploy their arguments, and with which my right hon. and gallant Friend will be happy to deal when he comes to reply. This 238,000 tons of carcass meat and offals provides a very valuable addition to the supplies which we shall get from other sources, notably our own farmers, and from Australia and New Zealand.
    This year, for the first time since the war, home production of meat will be almost up to the pre-war level. We hope to get 1,020,000 tons. We hope to get 140,000 tons from Australia, which is an improvement on recent years, and 360,000 tons, which is a record, from New Zealand. All this will mean that our total supplies should be something over 1,800,000 tons this year as compared with 1,555,000 tons in 1952. This figure of 1,800,000 tons is still some way below the pre-war average figure, but it is a substantial step towards it.
    Perhaps I may say a word about the credit provisions, which is the matter to which this Supplementary Estimate specifically relates. They are embodied in Article 12 of the Protocol, and the total amount provided by the Agreement is the same as that under the Agreement of 1951—that is to say, £20 million. It is in the form of what is called a revolving credit; that is, the total of £20 million cannot be exceeded at any one time but, on the other hand, the amount can be turned over from time to time. We have inserted £10 million in this Supplementary Estimate, which relates only to the remaining part of the present financial year, on the grounds that that is a figure far above what may conceivably be required in that period.
    It is interesting to recall, as the hon. Member for Brighouse and Spenborough will no doubt recall, that the £20 million provided for under the 1951 Agreement was never drawn upon at all. The Argentine, however, attached considerable importance to the inclusion of this provision in this Agreement. I cannot say to what extent they will find it necessary or desirable to make use of it. That must obviously depend upon their general

    869
    economic position and the effect of this position upon their balance of payments in the coming months.
    Their position, I am glad to say, does appear to be appreciably improving. As the Committee is aware, the Argentine suffered most severely from drought in the last two or three years, but this winter's crop looks like being generally very much better, and I understand that the Argentine sterling position has improved even since the signature of the Protocol.
    All that, of course, bears upon the question of the extent to which the Argentine may find it necessary to make use of this credit; but it is, of course, part of the Agreement, and we have every intention of honouring it if we are called upon to do so. The provision in Article 12 reproduces the substance of the provision of the Agreement of 1951 with respect to the level of the Argentine balances.
    Some criticism has appeared in the Press of the fact that the Agreement does not contain references to remittances of profits, dividends and royalties. I can tell the Committee that we pressed the Argentine very hard upon this, but they took the line that the succession of bad harvests which they have had up to the present one adversely affected their reserves of sterling, and that it was impossible for them to enter into any commitments in 1953.
    They stated that they did not want to promise what they might not be able to carry out. They did assure us, however, that they will continue to authorise the transfer of railway pensions and were prepared to consider the possibility of resuming other financial remittances in 1954 if the exchange situation permitted them to do so.
    It is disappointing that we have not been able to do better in this respect. The only, possibly small, consolation we have is that the sums awaiting remittance appear to be very much smaller than the arrears which had accumulated at the time of the 1951 protocol. I am sure that I express the view of all hon. Members in saying that we very much hope that the Argentine may be able to see its way to proceed with these remittances before too long. We did obtain assurances which will carry one stage
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    further the long standing problem of the Argentine public utilities. A Committee is to be appointed before the 31st of the present month to examine these problems, together with representatives of the interests concerned, and to report within six months.
    In Article 10 of the protocol we undertake, as the Committee is aware, to make available certain supplies of oil, tinplate and coal. These quantities, except in the case of coal, are very nearly the same as those under the Agreement of 1951. In the case of coal the improved stock position has enabled us to increase the total from 500,000 to 800,000 tons.
    Another important provision relates—and it is set out in Article 8—to what are now described, in the somewhat crude jargon of the day, as less-essential imports. The Argentine undertakes to take from this country—and here we have, I am glad to say, a firm, published undertaking, which is an advance from the position that could be achieved in 1951—£3 million worth of this type of imports, in respect of which the Argentine Government undertake to see that licences are issued.
    Mr. John Edwards: Would the hon. Gentleman tell the Committee what is to be understood by the term "manufactured goods"? I know that the precise details are to be settled by the Mixed Consultative Committee, but I should like to know what range of goods were in mind when this Article was drafted.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: As the hon. Gentleman knows, this list is now being discussed by the Mixed Consultative Committee. Views are being expressed as to categories. I do not think it would be very helpful at the moment if I went beyond the published words of the protocol, which are, I think, as far as I can take the matter at this moment.
    Mr. Edwards: Are we just talking about textile goods and the like, or are we talking about motor cars and a whole range of goods which, in a certain sense, are "manufactured goods"?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: We are not, of course, talking about articles specifically covered in the Agreement—tinplate, oil and coal. We are talking about—I use deliberately and with some care the words

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    of the Agreement—"manufactured goods." We shall have our views as to suitable candidates for the list. So, no doubt, will the Argentine. These matters are being worked on at present. I really do not think it would be very helpful if I were to mention some particular example, to which, it may then be suggested, we attach great importance, as that could very well raise a suggestion that we do not attach importance to some others. I must, I think, leave the matter where it is, for reasons that I am sure the hon. Gentleman understands.
    The Agreement contemplates that the total value of sterling trade which may be expected to develop during the year may be of the order of £167 million. That is Article 7. This is, again to use the words of the Agreement itself, a "calculation." It is in no sense a firm undertaking. It is, however, I think, a very helpful indication of the sort of scale of trade which those responsible in the Argentine have in mind, and it is perhaps an indication of the general atmosphere of co-operation and good will, to which this Agreement, I believe, has in some degree contributed.
    I think those are the main items of the Agreement. The Agreement, from a Parliamentary sense, of course, turns on this Supplementary Estimate. Therefore, in asking the Committee to approve it, I am at the same time asking it to enable this Agreement to be fully implemented, in the hope that it will secure for this country a substantial amount of valuable foodstuffs, which will not be unwelcome, and equally, as the preamble to the Agreement itself indicates, that it will help to bring in a new era in Anglo-Argentine economic relations which, with good will and good sense on both sides, may be of benefit to the peoples of both countries.
    4.47 p.m.
    Mr. Maurice Webb: It would be very easy for me to act rather mischievously on this occasion and to say things that certainly would not be in the interests of the Government, and, perhaps, would not be in the interests of the country; but I want to declare at once that it is not our desire to act mischievously about this matter in any way; nor do we seek to embarrass the Government about this Agreement, except in so far as the facts in themselves
    872
    are embarrassing, as we review them in the course of the debate.
    I say that because I think we are all learning that not the least of the crippling liabilities of a Government they impose upon themselves by irresponsible, shortsighted action when they are in Opposition. This Agreement is, I think, a vivid example of that. I want to say at once that I agree with the Financial Secretary that it should be examined as a whole. It stands or falls together, and we should like to look at it from that comprehensive point of view.
    I recall that, when the late Chancellor of the Exchequer and I announced our Agreement, the Foreign Secretary said of that Agreement that it
    "… does seem to put some pretty heavy additional obligations upon this country."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 24th April, 1951; Vol. 487, c. 218.]
    That was his view about our arrangement. I wonder what is his view, as Foreign Secretary, of this particular Agreement, in the light of the facts. We say that some part—not all, of course, but a large part—of the failure to secure a better Agreement is due directly to the attitude of the opposite side when we had the responsibility.
    The Financial Secretary's speech today was very different from the speeches I have heard him deliver from this side of the Chamber on this subject. He was bland, almost benign, and quite amiable, and he looked quite different from what he did when I was watching him when he was on the Opposition side of the Committee. It is easy to develop that kind of argument, and to quote past speeches of the hon. Gentleman, and the past speeches of other hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite, but that will not help us to get anywhere at all, and we do not want to encourage the Argentine to go ahead with their demands.
    If the Government, when in Opposition, had not encouraged the Argentine to go ahead with their demands when we were faced with even more complex negotiations, these negotiations would have started from a position of much greater strength, and part of the price this Government have had to pay to the Argentine arises directly from the attitude they adopted when we were negotiating. If, at that time, they had supported us and enabled us to resist a little longer and to

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    keep the price we settled then down at a lower level, they would have started negotiating from a position of greater strength.
    We do not want to emulate them in that course, because what matters in the end, not only in the short-run but in the long-run, are the interests of the country, but let me give as an example of our rectitude in this matter just one fact. I see the Secretary for Overseas Trade is here, and he will remember that by arrangement with Mr. Speaker I had proposed to raise this question of the Agreement on the day we adjourned for the Christmas Recess, but because it was pointed out to me that it would be difficult to do so when the negotiations were going ahead I agreed at once not to press the matter because it would have been embarrassing.
    I wish the noble Lord responsible for the overall direction of our food policy—whose health, by the way, we are all glad to hear is improving—had acted equally responsibly at the time when we found ourselves at a most critical stage of our negotiations. At that time, the Committee will recall, a debate took place in another place which had a most adverse effect on those negotiations, and a most crippling and limiting effect on our spokesmen out there at that time. It would have been better if our negotiations had been free from that time of political disability.
    While wishing to avoid that kind of rash and reckless partisanship, it is our duty to express our view, and our view is that by any test this is an unsatisfactory Agreement. That is not merely my own view. It is not merely the view of those on these benches. Anybody who studies the responsible Press will have seen that the Agreement was viewed with varying degrees of disquiet. I exclude the irresponsible Press, which sees sunshine in every little concession and never weighs the cost of that concession.
    The responsible Press, the technical Press, the trade Press and the economic Press, have, in varying degrees, expressed widespread disquiet and alarm about the nature of this Agreement, the tendency of the Agreement and the failure to get better terms. Even that blacklisted word which I was chastised for using has appeared in certain organs since this Agreement was published.
    As it is better for me to quote from my own constituency, I wish to quote
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    from the "Telegraph and Argus," an excellent paper which comes from Bradford, and which, on the whole, tends to support this Government. On Thursday, 22nd January, it had this headline:
    "Disgust In West Riding Over Argentine Pact"
    and went on to use words like this:
    "Criticism of the Government for failing to make adequate provision for wool textile exports to the Argentine is mounting in the West Riding. The annoyance registered when the preliminary details of the pact were announced has been increased since Mr. Butler's latest statement"
    Mr. Ernest Overton, who is chairman and joint managing director of Holroyd Bros. Ltd. of Huddersfield, a very experienced and responsible fine worsted manufacturing firm, said that he "nearly passed out" when he read the statement of the Chancellor in the House last week. This is not the view of a reckless, irresponsible Member of the Labour Opposition, but the view of a responsible business man. Mr. Overton went on to say:
    "I think it is about time we kicked out the lot."
    I am being careful not to use our own language, as was done by hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite when they were in Opposition. I am quoting from responsible, independent and, presumably, objective sources of opinion.
    Mr. Overton added that it was disgusting that the Government had been unable to make a better Agreement. Another Huddersfield manufacturer —they do a lot of talking in Huddersfield—commented:
    "It used to be one of our best markets, and we are terribly disappointed that nothing has been arranged to open it up again."
    That is one example of a wide range of some strident, critical views which express some of the anxiety and alarm that has been shown about this Agreement.
    I wish now to examine the Agreement in rather broad detail, and to raise points that we should like considered, and where questions arise perhaps answers could be given later in the debate. First, the question of meat. I think the whole House will be glad that we have got a little more meat. It is wrong for any party in the Committee to feel happy when any Government is embarrassed by a shortage of meat. The meat situation is a critical one for this country. It will

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    be a critical one for a very long period of time, and any improvement, however small, is to be welcomed. Therefore, we are glad that we have got another 30,000 tons of meat from the Argentine.
    Now, what about the price? We must measure the price against the background. In June, 1949, we signed an Agreement under which we got meat at an average price of £97 a ton. Devaluation followed that, the Korean war started, and, obviously, we had to pay more when we entered into the next Agreement. However, we finally got a settlement at an average price of £128 10s. with specified quotas of the different categories of meat, thanks to the excellent negotiations of my hon. Friend the Member for Brighouse and Spenborough (Mr. J. Edwards). This average is somewhere in the region of £165. I am not a mathematician, and perhaps I might be corrected, but I make that an increase over 1949 of some 75 per cent. That is a considerable increase, and an increase which is adding to the burdens of the housewives of this country.
    It was precisely because, when we were responsible, looking ahead to this year, we were aware of the general world meat situation that this country would have to face this year, whoever was responsible for Government, that, despite the political difficulty, we decided to resist to try to get the best possible bargain we could at that time. Obviously, on this occasion more had to be paid, but I must say that I am surprised that the amount that has been paid is as high as it is.
    I should have thought it would have been possible, difficult as the situation is for us, to have got a fairer price, a lower price. Admittedly, it must be a higher price than we had to pay, but I should have thought it would have been possible to have got a price not so acutely stepped up as this one obviously has been. We could apply to this price all the epithets and condemnation used by our critics about our price, but I do not want to do that. The price is there. It speaks for itself. It will be just another factor in that inflation of living costs which will cause the Government very serious difficulty in the next few months.
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    The real criticism of this Agreement must lie elsewhere. It lies in the arrangements which we have made in return for this lavish concession of price. I would just say this about meat, before leaving that side of it. It is lamentable that the authority and negotiating strength of any Government of Britain should be vitiated by fear about supplies and the price of meat. Why cannot all of us, whatever our responsibility, in all parties in this country, have the moral courage consistently to say to our people, "It really is not good enough to cripple ourselves and denigrate ourselves for another pennyworth of meat"?
    I also make these two further points about meat. It is surely essential now, in the light of this Agreement, apart from all the other facts which have been there for some time, to launch a forward, imaginative policy to develop our own resources both here and in the Commonwealth, so that we can become gradually freer and ultimately completely free from this recurring situation of reliance upon the Argentine.
    Further, I think it is quite wrong to assume that the Argentine is impregnable in this matter of meat. It is true that the situation from their point of view is more favourable than before. They can sell meat in markets which were not hitherto available to them. There is a greater home consumption of meat—their own demand is growing—and factors of that kind are there. But it is not true to say that they are impregnable. They do and must rely for the general balance of their economy on the traditional market in this country, and that factor is very strongly in our favour.
    I now turn to some considerations about the other side of the Agreement, which has, I think, raised anxiety for a number of reasons. We have been able, as the Financial Secretary has said, to increase our most vital exports—oil, coal and tinplate—but we have only been able to arrange for the export of some £3 million worth of consumption goods, or, as the Agreement calls them, manufactured goods. This £3 million is, I think, an almost ludicrous figure. I hope we can have a thorough explanation of the nature of the arrangements that are contemplated. I realise the difficulty of the Minister in giving us the full details, but

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    surely the Board of Trade has some prospect in mind. Certainly, the Chancellor of the Exchequer did indicate—and this led to criticism from the wool textile part of the country—that a large part of it would, in fact, be used in the cotton textile trade.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I do not think that my right hon. Friend, who was replying to a supplementary question, said quite that. He intimated that there were a number of articles which, as I have said today, are under discussion with the Mixed Consultative Committee.
    Mr. Webb: I can only say that he did give a strong hint that it was going to Lancashire—and that conclusion has been widely drawn in the West Riding, and there is some apprehension about it.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: If there is, I hope that the position is now quite clear. What I have said is in fairly considered terms.
    Mr. Webb: The point that we must make is this: wool textiles alone, on a reliable estimate that I have been given and which I have no reason to doubt, at pre-war values, accounted for some £10 million worth of trade per annum, long before the war, in the Argentine. Wool textiles are merely to have some unknown part of this ludicrously small figure of £3 million. Surely it ought to have been possible to have got a better agreement than that.
    Then, what about tinplate? The hon. and gallant Member for the Isle of Ely (Major Legge-Bourke) will surely be concerned about this. I do not think that he is here at the moment, but he has constantly expressed, quite rightly, the anxiety of his constituents who are engaged in the fruit and vegetable markets at their inability to sell their crops because of the large amount of tinplate that was going out of this country. We would like to know how far the agreement about tinplate will have an adverse effect on the vegetable and fruit canning industry in the country at this time. I think it is important that such information as can be made available should be given, because their there is some anxiety about that in many quarters.
    Of course, we admit that some part of the tinplate must be sent to pack that
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    quantity of canned meat which we get from the Argentine, and there can be no complaint about that. We are talking about the free tinplate which is used for national commercial purposes. On the question of canned meat, can any general figure be given of the position which we are now in about our stocks of canned meat and what improvements are now likely to take place?
    Canned meat seems to have disappeared completely. It has become a great source of mystery. Some people always thought that it was a mystery as an edible commodity, but canned meat is a very valuable supplementary food, and housewives like it. In summer it can be used in preparing a light meal. Is it possible for the Minister of Food to tell the Committee whether, as a result of this arrangement, he can make available, at some time in the summer, some supplies of canned meat, which, I am sure, the housewife would like to have?
    I want to return to the question of remittances. I deplore the rather casual way in which the Financial Secretary dismissed that matter. There is acute anxiety and disappointment on this question in all sorts of quarters, expressed by quite responsible Members of the party opposite, and quite rightly so. This is a running, grievous sore—it never seems to get better; it seems to get worse—and, so far as we can judge, this arrangement is certainly no better than the one which we were able to make, and is conceivably a worse arrangement. In any event, we deplore the way in which the Financial Secretary seemed to regard it —as something of very small consequence. We think that it is a matter of very serious consequence to very important sections of our community, and we must press for more information on this matter before the debate is over.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I would remind the right hon. Gentleman that I went out of my way to say that we had pressed very hard on this matter and to express my regret that we had not been successful. In the light of that, it is quite wrong to say that I treated this matter lightly; I did not and I do not.
    Mr. Webb: I can only assure the hon. Gentleman that that was the impression he left on my mind. It may be that the strength he exerted was not strong

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    enough; I do not know. But I feel—and I cannot withdraw from it —that his attitude was rather casual about it.
    We say generally that this Agreement is far short of the expectations aroused by the statements made by hon. Members opposite when they saw our efforts to safeguard our interests merely as a means, as it was then to them, of causing us political embarrassment. At that time, by implication and, in many cases, explicitly, they aroused expectations that their more skilful, businesslike, effective and efficient handling of this kind of concern would lead to improvements and concessions. Not one of these expectations has been realised. We have only, as a result of this long, tedious process of negotiation, an Agreement that is in no way nearly as good, on any ground at all, as the one which we were able to make when we were in office.
    At no stage were they caused difficulty by us throughout these negotiations. We have acted responsibly and quietly and refrained from asking Questions or pressing the matter in any way. All the difficulties with which they have been confronted in these negotiations have arisen from their own past behaviour, and we hope that they have learned some lesson there, and that they will take that lesson into account when they resume their normal functions on this side of the Committee in due course.
    Frankly, our concern is with the feeding of the people and not with any specious device to secure power. Our policy is to try to improve the diet of our people and, with the best use of our resources and of our position in the world, to give our people better food, more food at prices which they can afford, and food which is more fairly shared among the population than is now the case.
    It is not a good thing for this nation to be so dependent, as it clearly is upon the Argentine or upon any other country outside our own great British family of nations. The National Farmers' Union speeches yesterday show where the root causes lie, and I hope—indeed, I know—the Government will have taken very serious account of them. The Government have provided no long-term constructive policy for improving the use of our own land at home or the development
    880
    of the skills and techniques of our associate farmers in the Commonwealth. The Government have chosen rather to engage in a reckless process of demolition of all the machinery for fair shares for producers and consumers which the Labour Government created.
    We have seen in the case of eggs and other commodities that the Government are destroying the balance which is necessary to maintain guaranteed prices and fair shares throughout the whole community. The price we are paying for that kind of reckless policy is seen in this Agreement, which is but one of many similar burdens which the country must shoulder as a result of the incoherent, fumbling attitude of the Government.
    5.12 p.m.
    Mr. Charles Fletcher-Cooke: Since I was not in the previous Parliament, it is perhaps easier for me to deal with this Agreement than it is for some others. My criticism of it is that it is so similar to the two previous Agreements, particularly in the lax method of its drafting. It does not seem to me that it lies in the mouth of the Opposition to criticise it. Insofar as it is different it certainly moves a little way along the line of imposing some sort of obligations upon those with whom we are dealing as well as upon ourselves.
    My hon. Friend the Financial Secretary said that under Article 8 of the present Agreement there was now a firm undertaking, or at least a firm publication of intention, on the part of the Argentine Government to import manufactured goods up to a total of £3 million. I wonder to what extent that could, even in the hazy realms of international law, be regarded as any sort of obligation that could be enforced. It has to be decided by the Mixed Consultative Committee, a body which figures in all these Agreements but whose exact composition is not set out in any of the Agreements.
    I shall be glad if my right hon. and gallant Friend will tell us what happens when the Mixed Consultative Committee gets so mixed that it cannot agree at all. Is there any provision for arbitration? Is there any independent chairman? Or is it simply an agreement to make an agreement, which, as we all know, is no agreement at all? Article 11, dealing with

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    remittances, on which the Argentine Government have been in default, does not even have that limited amount of sanction of applying to it the Mixed Consultative Committee.
    We have had experience of the two previous Agreements and we know to what extent they have been honoured. It is, therefore, very surprising to find precisely the same form of words used here in relation to default on shipments by the Argentine exporters. Article 4 of the present Agreement says that the contracting Governments will conclude before 31st January, 1953, a contract for the supply to the United Kingdom of carcase meat, etc., and it goes on to state what the contract shall include and paragraph (c) is a precise repetition of words used in both previous Agreements which do not seem to have been very effective in keeping the shipments up to time, up to date and in full supply.
    The provision begins with the words:
    "Concrete measures"—
    whatever that may be—
    "to ensure the compensation of the party which suffers any loss in respect of charges for dead freight, demurrage or storage arising from failure to deliver f.o.b. or to ship the quantities agreed as in (b) of this Article."
    The words "concrete measures" appeared in Article 6 of the 1951 Agreement and in Annex A to the 1949 Agreement but in those cases the measures did not prove to be concrete. I wonder whether my right hon. and gallant Friend thinks it will be any better this time since precisely the same words are used. What were the "concrete measures" provided in the contract which was to have been formed under the 1949 Agreement, and if they did not prove satisfactory, does my right hon. and gallant Friend believe that the form of contract used this time will make them a great deal more concrete?
    This is not exactly a debating point on drafting because in the debate, at which I was not present, which the hon. Member for Brighouse and Spenborough (Mr. J. Edwards) initiated after negotiating his Agreement, he explained that owing to the drafting of the previous Agreement we should have to give away £10,500,000 as the result of devaluation of sterling. He said that the Agreement had been
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    drafted so loosely that his legal advisers assured him that they could not be certain whether they had a good legal case on that point or not. So this drafting point has already hit the country hard, and from our experience of the misdeeds of the Opposition when they were in power, I am wondering whether we have really learnt a lesson in view of the fact that the present Agreement contains repetitions from the previous Agreements.
    Throughout this Agreement one finds a sort of unwillingness on the part of Her Majesty's Government, and His late Majesty's Government previously, to mention the question of sanctions when it comes to the delivery of meat. The hon. Member for Brighouse and Spenborough explained that away in his speech in July, 1951, by saying that it was important to improve the atmosphere and climate of opinion, and he indicated that to do that one always had to give away something. Whenever one hears the Foreign Office saying that it is very important to get the climate of opinion or the atmosphere right one knows it is about to give away some hard-won British asset.
    I hope that we shall not have that form of words used on this occasion. It is the most menacing form of words one could hear. It does not improve the climate of opinion to say to the man with whom one is negotiating, "No sanctions will be put on you, but sanctions will be put upon us if we fail in our obligations." It is not offensive to a country to say, "We trust you but, at the same time, we want sanctions against you if you fail." If one plays cards with someone, one cuts the cards before one deals even though one trusts the other person completely; it is the normal thing to do. It would not be offensive to include in these contracts something a little stronger than we have had.
    I hope that my right hon. and gallant Friend will assure us that we have learnt our lessons from the bitter experiences of the two previous Agreements and that we have now something a good deal tighter on which we can rely. If so, that is worth the increased price which we have to pay, because it is better to be sure of something and pay more for it than to think one has a bargain and then find that one has nothing.
    5.19 p.m.
    Mr. Frederick Willey: We are having such a nice, quiet debate that for a moment I thought I was in one of the courts in the Chancery Division. I did not think we should be so quiet when discussing meat. I congratulate the Financial Secretary—he knows that we all know that he has a very bad case—upon expressing himself with appropriate modesty and moderation. Nevertheless, he has a bad case.
    I do not want to embarrass anybody, and, indeed, nothing that I say could embarrass the Government because the Government are already far too embarrassed by what they said in their other capacity when they were the Opposition. They must have been in a very difficult position in negotiating with the Argentinians. I am very glad that Lord Woolton has recovered but he, too, must have made those negotiations far more difficult by what he said during the General Election because the Argentine Government know how heavily committed are the present Government to get meat at any price. They have got some meat, and they have got it at a high price.
    When I say that this is a bad Agreement I speak relatively. It is a bad Agreement compared with the preceding one. The circumstances were much more difficult then than they were at the time of this Agreement. The Argentinians had an excellent wheat crop in 1951, which put them in a stronger position As we all know, world food prices were soaring then and the financial position of the Argentine was better than during these negotiations.
    But the first thing that strikes one about this Agreement is its background. We cannot divorce it from its background of the discussions we had on the earlier agreement. I remember the intervention of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food in one of our discussions. He said:
    "The first function of the Minister of Food is to provide all the necessary food to sustain the health of the people."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 8th February, 1951; Vol. 483, c. 2012.]
    All he has done so far is to reduce practically every ration—I am speaking of the year as a whole. If the Minister cares to deal with that point I shall be obliged.
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    But the remarkable thing about this Agreement is seen when we turn to the page giving the signatories. The only signatory on our behalf is that of our Ambassador. It is a remarkable thing that the present Government should have negotiated an Agreement such as this when the only signatory is Her Majesty's Ambassador. In addition, as far as I am aware—and the Financial Secretary has not enlightened us on this point—there has been no suggestion of any trade mission having gone out there to advise or assist the Ambassador. No businessmen went out there, "combing" for increased meat supplies. There were no experts. There was just Her Majesty's Ambassador, apparently advised and assisted by some admirable civil servants. As far as I know—and I shall be corrected by the Minister if I am wrong—no very high-powered civil servants were out there. It was all in the hands of Her Majesty's Ambassador.
    This is remarkable, because the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food must have some influence and he has committed himself on this subject. I know he is not here today because he would be particularly embarrassed if I spoke about it. I do not blame him for avoiding embarrassment, because when there is any question of that he is apt to intervene too much and to prolong the discussion. But in October, 1951, he said that the State machine was a slow, clumsy, expensive affair in the business of buying. He is not the only one who has said that. During one debate on meat supplies the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that the system of State trading had entirely outlived such usefulness as it ever had.
    In the debate we had on the last Agreement the Conservative Party made their position abundantly clear. The bon. Member for Stafford and Stone (Mr. H. Fraser) said:
    "When we have rid the country of this Government, we will he able to send out a proper trading mission to negotiate a wide agreement for trade between our two countries."
    It is surely relevant to inquire why this has not been done. The hon. Member who is now Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of National Insurance wound up a debate for the Conservative Opposition by saying that Senor Derisi had told the British that the Argentinians

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    were prepared to abandon the bulk selling system immediately and to allow our meat to go into private trade provided Britain re-opened Smithfield. He added:
    "That is what we believe should be done in this situation."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 5th July, 1951; Vol. 489, c. 2536–2558.]
    He expressly made the point that the meat negotiations must be divorced from the other negotiations.
    This has not been done, but we have had no explanation from the Government why it has not been done. I ask the Minister this question: During the course of these negotiations did he make any approach to the meat importers in this country? If he did not make such an approach why did not he? If he did why was it that the meat importers refused to co-operate? Is it because they regarded him as so incompetent that they could not be associated with any such negotiations? Surely those are matters which we might have expected the Financial Secretary to deal with. He did not deal with them because he knows that it is on those matters that the Government could not help but be embarrassed.
    With regard to the meat situation generally, I remember, as we all do, a very entertaining speech by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House. He gave us figures for the meat consumption in 1938 of an inmate of a Public Assistance institution run by the London County Council. I congratulate the Government on the fact that they are at any rate providing us with just a fraction more meat than the right hon. Gentleman said the inmates of the Public Assistance institutions were getting in 1938. I do not necessarily accept his figures; they may or may not be right; but I should have thought that the Minister of Food, when he repeatedly makes claims about our meat consumption, should say—expressing it in the terms used by his right hon. Friend the Leader of the House —that it means that we are slightly better off than the inmates of Public Assistance institutions were in 1938.
    The position during 1952 was that we had less meat than we had in 1950; less meat than in 1949; less meat than in 1948; less meat than in 1947 and less meat than in 1946. That is in spite of the fact that 1952 was a year in which we got meat from the Argentine. Apart
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    from carcase meat, as a result of Government policy, during 1952 canned meat was cut by 32,000 tons, or 18 per cent., in the first nine months of the year.
    I want to touch upon the meat supply position as given by the Financial Secretary. I do not think the Minister would contradict the fact that his estimate of 1,800,000 tons for 1953 is an estimate on the most optimistic expectations. To make that estimate he has assumed that we are to get 238,000 tons from the Argentine. I hope we do; but we have never before in recent years received the amount that the Argentine have undertaken to supply. There has always been a very big shortfall, as there was last year. If we were taking a realistic estimate I think we should have to write that down.
    He is saying that we are to get 140,000 tons from Australia. I hope he is right, but in 1952 we received not 140,000 tons but 34,000 tons. In the case of New Zealand he said that we should get 360,000 tons. Last year we got 348,000 tons, which was a very good effort by the New Zealanders. He puts home production at just over one million tons. However, if we are talking about adequate meat supplies, we have to remember that this is a very serious shortfall. Even this expected figure—which is an optimistically anticipated one—is a very great and serious shortfall from the pre-war position.
    I do not accuse the right hon. Gentleman for giving these figures to the House, but I make the qualification, with regard to the figures he gave for the pre-war years, that in those years there were fewer people to feed. If we are given the bulk figures we have to translate them into individual consumption.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I did not give the figures for pre-war. They can, therefore, hardly be wrong.
    Mr. Willey: I am sorry. I thought that the hon. Gentleman did. In any case, the figures have been given.
    The first point I make is that if we are taking the meat supply position as it is this year it is seriously below what it was pre-war. Moreover, even according to these most optimistic estimates, it is about—and only about—what we had in 1950. Then we imported 1,723,000 tons. The Minister of Food is saying,

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    following this Agreement, that if we make the most optimistic estimates conceivable of the meat supplies, the position this year will be about the same as it was in 1950.
    The reason I emphasise this point is that on this side of the Committee we know why the Minister is putting out "puffs" about the meat supply position. It is because he intends to deration meat as soon as he can do it without too great a public outcry. He will be derationing meat in circumstances in which we shall have no more meat than we had in 1950, and far less meat than we had in prewar days. He hopes to be able to do that, and already in his own mind he is translating into price terms the effect of the increased prices that will result as a repercussion of the Agreement, and the effect of the derationing, decontrol and desubsidising of feedingstuffs.
    There will be a steep increase, whether it be at one blow or several blows, in the price of meat. The consumption of meat will be so reduced that even what was regarded in 1950 as quite an inadequate ration will be sufficient in the circumstances, so effectively will demand have been diminished by price increases. That is why I have been mentioning 1950. What the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food said subsequent to taking office was:
    "We shall solve our meat problem only when South America gets back to full production."
    I hope nobody will suggest that the present figure represents full production. It is nowhere near even the stipulated amount of the original Agreement.
    It is significant that instead of the Ministry of Food expressing themselves as dissatisfied, realising how woefully short we are of meat supplies, we have had, immediately after this Agreement, exaggerated accounts of the meat we might get and suggestions that it will be adequate. This is the same course of events as had a drastic effect upon the production of the Argentinians before, when they cut back production and we cut back meat consumption in this country and then effectively distributed it through higher prices.
    It is no good our saying to the Argentinians, "We want you to get back
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    to full production," and it is no use the Parliamentary Secretary saying that the only solution of our meat difficulties is to have full production in South America when, at the current levels of production, the suggestion is being made that we have, or are getting, the red meat that Lord Woolton promised the electorate. We are not getting it. The shocking thing is that within the next year or so this inadequate supply of meat, by de-rationing, may be spread unevenly among the people. I should have thought that that was something that none of us wanted.
    I therefore appeal to the Minister of Food not to exploit this Agreement and the fact that he has had to pay this very large increase for the meat that he is receiving, so as to force the derationing of meat here through the inability of large numbers of people to consume even the current ration. Perhaps I have embarrassed the Government a little. Paradoxically, I did not intend to do so, but the course that the Government are pursuing on food matters makes it extremely difficult not to speak with indignation despite the moderation or modesty with which one may try to express oneself.
    5.36 p.m.
    Mr. Cyril Osborne: The hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) started his speech pianissimo and then lurched into his usual party speech. He himself confessed to having done it. He has done it so often that he did it unconsciously. I sometimes think he must do it in his sleep when he thinks of meat.
    He said that we had a very bad case and that the Financial Secretary to the Treasury had to walk very warily and state his case very carefully because he had such a bad case. The hon. Gentleman quoted the Chancellor of the Exchequer on a former occasion to the effect that State trading was bad and gave unsatisfactory results. Both sides of the Committee ought to agree with one another, however, that Argentina will sell neither better nor worse meat because the Conservative Party or the Socialist Party are in power in this country. They will drive as hard a bargain as they can for their own people, and they are neither more tender nor harder. They go into conference as hard bargainers and they

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    get the best they possibly can. Whether we go as private traders or bulk buyers, all we can do as Socialists or Conservatives, is to bargain with such cards as we have in our possession.
    The former Minister of Food made a statement about lavish concessions in price that we are now making to the Argentinians for their meat. He went on to say that by any test this was a bad Agreement and that the West Riding of Yorkshire felt considerable dismay that better terms had not been obtained. The hon. Member for Sunderland, North, knows full well that it is against the background of world conditions that this Agreement and other agreements must be judged.
    I have said that several times and I always stick to that point of view. Anyone who reads the reports of the United Nations on the Food situation, or the F.A.O. report from Rome knows full well the three factors that control what we do in this Government and what was done by the former Government. There is the enormous world population and the fact that there are not so many food surpluses available; the fact that we have not the money to buy the surpluses that are available, and lastly, but perhaps the most important, the demand by the coloured peoples for a fairer share of what is going. Against that background we cannot dictate and say exactly what we are going to do.
    It has been stated that we have made lavish concessions in price, but the price that we have paid is not dictated ultimately by the Argentine but by ourselves. In this Agreement we can see clearly that trade is barter between the two countries, and the price we pay to the Argentine for their meat is fixed first in terms of the prices that we charge them for the goods that we supply.
    The Chancellor said in reply to a Question I put to him last Tuesday that under this Agreement we shall pay for frozen beef, chilled type, £161 a ton. The pre-war price was £36 2s., which is an increase of 345 per cent. The frozen lamb price which he gave was £148 a ton as against £52 5s. pre-war, or an increase of 183 per cent. Freight charges, an important factor, are up from a pre-war figure of £5 8s. 7d. to £14 12s., an increase of 168 per cent.
    Mr. J. Edwards: I wonder if those comparisons are right? The hon. Member
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    has given a figure of £161 for chiller quality beef shipped frozen. Is he comparing frozen beef today with frozen beef before the war, or is he comparing frozen beef now with chilled beef before the war? There is a lot of difference.
    Mr. Osborne: I obtained those figures from responsible quarters of the trade. I take it that they are comparable figures since those were what I asked for. I can only give them to the Committee in good faith. The Committee will see that we are paying for the highest quality beef 345 per cent. and for frozen lamb 183 per cent. more than before the war. The point is what we are asking them to pay in return, because we decide their price by what we ask them to pay for what we supply.
    Under this Agreement we are to supply to the Argentine 800,000 tons of coal. Before the war our charge to the Argentine for coal was £1 4s. 6d. Today it is £5 13s., which is an increase of 361 per cent. So we are charging the Argentine a greater increase in price for our coal than they are charging us for their best quality meat. Therefore, if we want cheaper meat from the Argentine the remedy is in our own hands. It is to supply cheaper goods from our country. Obviously, if we charge them more for what we supply to them, they will charge more for what they supply to us. If hon. Members opposite were arguing for the Argentine, that is the line they would take and it is the line that any nation would take.
    The freight charges for the coal we sent out there before the war were 12s. 7d. a ton. Today they are £2 14s., which is an increase of 329 per cent. In fuel oil the increase is infinitely smaller. I am not quite sure why, but in fairness I must give it, although it does not suit my case so well. Before the war the sea bunker cost £1 18s. 6d. It is now £3 16s., an increase of only 97 per cent. However, under this Agreement we are to supply the Argentine with 27,000 tons of tinplate. Before the war the price of 112 sheets was £1 0s. 3d. and today it is £4 5s., an increase of 319 per cent.
    What we have to face, no matter who is in power, is that if we continually put up the prices of the goods we send to the Argentine, we must expect them to put up their prices—
    Mr. A. G. Bottomley: I am sure the hon. Gentleman does not want to argue for the Argentine against the case we put forward. In the case of sterling there has been a devaluation, so that the currency rate is different today from what it was before the war, whereas the Argentine made adjustments in their rate of exchange to suit themselves to our disadvantage, so the comparison is not fair.
    Mr. Osborne: The Argentine complained that when we devalued the £ they suffered considerably because of their sterling balances and we have had to make compensatory allowances to them. Again it was our own action that caused us to pay more. My point is that it does not matter who is in power. These are the facts we have to face. I would like to see the leaders of both sides of the House explain to their respective followers and to the country these simple facts. We can get more meat if we pay for it. If the price is too high the answer is that our coal and tinplate and steel prices are too high. Incidentally, I tried to get the pre-war comparable steel prices, I failed to do so, and that is why I cannot give them to the Committee.
    We shall reduce the price of meat when we bring down the price of our coal, tinplate and steel, and not until then. It is useless pretending to our people that we live in a world where we can demand high prices for what we produce and at the same time demand from the man overseas his goods at a cheap rate. That is to try to live in a fool's paradise, which all of us know is impossible. I beg hon. Members to face that fact at least.
    Mr. George Jeger: I am very interested in the point of view of the hon. Gentleman. Would he follow it up by urging his party leaders to refrain from the stupid, misleading propaganda in which they have been indulging for many years, that the enemy is not the argument he has just put forward but State buying and bulk purchase, and that the remedy lies in using private traders?
    The Deputy-Chairman (Mr. Hopkin Morris): We must not get too far from the Estimate.
    Mr. Osborne: I am afraid I should be out of order to pursue that, but my
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    answer is, yes. We live in a difficult economic. world, and the need for this Supplementary Estimate and the sacrifices it involves in tax can only be understood by our people if we are all frank with them and tell them the facts we know. [An HON. MEMBER: "Rather a death bed repentance."] That is better than none at all. Hon. Members opposite are so sanctimonious about their own self-righteousness that if they do not get to Heaven I am afraid St. Peter will be disappointed.
    The Deputy-Chairman: That is out of order, anyway.
    Mr. Osborne: May I now ask one or two questions about the trading Agreement as affecting textiles? It says in the White Paper that the Supplementary Vote is part of the protocol of 1952 supplementing the Trade and Payments Agreement, Command Paper 8079, and Command Paper 8268 provides the facilities which it says in small type were never used. The former Command Paper on page 18 refers to £13,675,000 of textiles that the Argentine then agreed to buy; cotton, £6,800,000, wool, £4 million, silk, rayon and linen £2,875,000. This time the Argentine has agreed to purchase the modest amount of £3 million worth.
    I should like to ask first to what extent did the Argentine fulfil that previous promise to purchase £13,675,000 worth of textiles. Not fully, I think. Therefore, what reliance can we have that she will buy £3 million worth which she is promising to do under this Agreement? I further ask, why did they not buy? Was it because our prices were too high, our quality too low, or because we could not deliver? If that was the case what steps is the President of the Board of Trade taking, through the trade associations, to see that these factors do not prevent us from selling again, if the fault was on our side. I am not sure who was to blame.
    Last Tuesday I asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer about this £20 million, and following his answer I asked him if the £20 million had to be granted as a condition of our getting any meat at all. His reply was, in effect, that he would not like to put it as baldly and frankly as that. My hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) said he understood that the Argentine was

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    to buy a lot of things, including £3 million of textiles, mostly cotton piece-goods. The Chancellor said in reply that in general terms that supplementary question was correct. Can I have an assurance from the Minister who is to reply to the debate that we have a firm promise from the Argentine that what the Chancellor said last Tuesday will be carried out, that £3 million worth of cotton piece-goods will be taken during this year?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I do not think my hon. Friend was in the Committee when I intervened during the speech of the former Minister of Food. If my hon. Friend had been present he would have heard me deal with that matter and, I hope, make it clear that my right hon. Friend did not indicate that the whole of the £3 million would be expended on textiles.
    Mr. Osborne: I am much obliged to my hon. Friend. My hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster said:
    "and £3 million of textiles, mostly cotton-piece goods, are to be supplied from Britain as a direct further aid to the difficulties that have occurred in Lancashire in the last 12 months?"
    In reply the Chancellor said:
    "In general"—
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: "In general."
    Mr. Osborne: What does "In general" mean? The Chancellor said:
    "In general, the intervention of the hon. Gentleman is correct and I thank him for it." —[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th January, 1953; Vol. 510, c. 17.]
    So a fair inference was that £3 million was going to Lancashire for cotton piece-goods.
    Lieut.-Colonel Sir Walter Smiles: I hope it is not to be all cotton piece-goods. There are other textiles in the United Kingdom as well as cotton.
    Mr. Osborne: I hope so too, because I happen to manufacture some textiles which I should like to sell out there.
    Mr. J. Edwards: May I point out that on the basis of what the Financial Secretary has said today we have no reason to suppose or take it absolutely for granted that any of the £3 million will comprise cotton piece-goods.
    Mr. Osborne: I hope that we shall receive some enlightenment when the winding-up speech is made. [An HON. MEMBER: "The hon. Member should have listened."] I have listened, and will listen again, because I think this is important. Furthermore, speaking for the textile industry, I should hope that the Board of Trade or whoever will deal with the matter will see that as many of what I call final or end products will be sold rather than yarns and piece-goods. We want to see exports of goods into which we have put as much labour as possible.
    I cannot see, when this Agreement comes to an end, that we are ever to get cheap meat again. The Argentine is developing its own secondary industries; it does not really want our textiles and consumer goods; it wants to produce them itself. The things which the Argentine does want are tinplate, steel, petroleum and coal, the price of all of which we are raising. If we could only say to our people that the remedy is in our own hands, that while the amount of meat we can have is not unlimited but the price is the price we demand for our own products, and if the Financial Secretary to the Treasury would use his great powers to put that over to the public, I think he and we would be doing a service not only to the Government but to the whole country.
    5.56 p.m.
    Mrs. Jean Mann: I am surprised at the atmosphere in the Committee tonight. We are discussing something of the utmost importance to every home in the country. I am more than surprised when I look at the empty benches opposite, because I remember that on the last occasion on which we debated the Argentine Agreement the party opposite turned out in great numbers, with very forceful criticism. Tonight I count four back benchers opposite, one asleep, dead to the world, including the Argentine, and the Front Bench looking like a bunch of extinct volcanoes.
    On the previous occasion this was called the "housewives" battle." Members opposite, including the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Osborne), talked about telling the people the real position, but what did they tell the people? The last time they confronted the people they told them that their aim would be a cheap

    895
    and plentiful supply of food—that would be the Conservative aim. When this Argentine Protocol was last discussed in the House I sat and listened, and I noted that the right hon. Gentleman who is now Leader of the House had a terrific amount of criticism to offer. He first criticised the delays; there were to be further talks. That did not suit the Opposition. I have heard the same sort of thing tonight from the Government benches.
    The right hon. Gentleman on that occasion criticised the Andes Agreement. He said that the Labour Government paid for meat in advance, which was a very foolish thing to do, but when the party opposite went before the electors they did not tell the electors that we had actually paid our accounts in advance: they said that we were bankrupt. I understand a bankrupt to be a person who pays no one. He then went on to ask whether anything had been done about the moneys for the bus and tramways undertakings or to increase the import licences for British trade.
    He said:
    "There is nothing about feedingstuffs in the Protocol … we … depend on … especially maize.
    Now this is a very serious matter from the point of view of British agriculture…"
    He then finished by criticising the price of £120 per ton. He talked of the battle that was now lost, and he quoted the then Minister of Food, who said:
    "Our fault, if it be a fault, is simply that we believed that the great and proud country of Great Britain was prepared to stand up to Argentina." —[OFFICIAL REPORT, 8th February, 1951; Vol. 483, c. 1977.]
    The present Leader of the House said:
    "So did everybody. We hoped they would, but they collapsed like a pack of cards."
    The right hon. Gentleman finished that speech by criticising State trading. We heard that over and over again, but what is being done now? The right hon. Gentleman said:
    "I shall be interested … to hear the explanation which Ministers are to give. But I am afraid—I cannot help it … —that we shall find that it is just one more case of inefficiency and muddle." —[OFFICIAL REPORT, 5th July, 1951; Vol. 489, c. 2510–2517.]
    That was the song that was constantly being sung by hon. Members who now occupy the benches opposite.
    "Double, double, boil and trouble,
    Fires burn and cauldrons bubble."
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    Everything the Labour Government did was wrong; they could do better.
    I remember hearing a broadcast by an hon. Lady Member of the party opposite. She is not present tonight, although I should have thought she would be very interested in the Argentine Agreement. This is what she said over the wireless:
    "Dad has got more in his pay packet, it is true. He has got nearly double what he got pre-war, but somehow people do not seem to be any better off. There is the meat muddle—."
    It was a meat muddle when it was in the hands of the Socialists; it is a piece of first-class bargaining when it is in the hands of the Tories, at least they would have us believe so. The hon. Lady went on:
    "Six months after the Socialists had refused to pay £120 a ton they agreed to pay the Argentine £128. A Conservative Government would leave the buying of meat to men who knew their job and who could do it at their own risk."
    We have had a Conservative Government in now for more than a year, and how much are we paying for Argentine meat? I notice from the Protocol that chiller quality beef shipped chilled was £181 per ton. What have those who criticised the Labour Government for giving £128 to say to this £181? Are they going back to the electors to apologise? Will there be apologies in the "Daily Express" and all the other newspapers that whitewash the views of hon. Members opposite? Not a bit of it. The "Daily Express" will be filled tomorrow with Rita Hayworth's divorce proceedings.
    For frozen beef sides the price was £161 per ton, and for frozen pork cuts it was £262 10s. per ton. These are the prices being paid by the people who promised the electors that they could do so much better if they were just given a chance. "Time for a change"—and the electors believed it.
    There is a serious side to this. I noticed that the reply of the Ministry of Food last week to a Question of mine as to whether the price would increase was that it would not be increased at present. When will it increase? The reply was very indefinite. I want to know if the right hon. and gallant Gentleman can assure us that there will be no further increases in price.
    The main alternative to butcher meat is cheese. I pay Is. 4d. for 3½ oz. That works out at approximately 6s. per lb.

    897
    I am talking of the nearest in taste and texture that I can get to what was known as "Webb's Cheese." Webb's Cheese was 1s. 2d. a lb., and now, if we can get rationed cheese at all, it is 2s. 2d., and we cannot even get it when we are due for our ration.
    The Deputy-Chairman: It is not clear to me at the moment how the hon. Lady relates this argument to the Supplementary Estimate.
    Mrs. Mann: Well, Sir, it is protein and so is beef. It has a very near relation; every housewife knows that. If butcher meat is too dear she has to find an alternative.
    The Deputy-Chairman: It may be related to meat, but it is not related to this Supplementary Estimate.
    Mrs. Mann: The butcher meat is bound to go up in price and, therefore, the children, who are already suffering, will suffer more. I think it has been proved that there are 2 million rations which are not being taken up, and it is chiefly children who are not getting the rations. I know there is an enormous amount of sympathy for old age pensioners. They are so thoroughly organised that every hon. Member on both sides of the Committee talks of the old-age pensioner. But I am the mother of a fairly large family and I am very concerned with the possibility of our growing children being deprived of protein. They need all the butcher meat that can be put on their plates for them. The Minister of Food has to deprive us of eggs, which is another source of protein, and of cheese, and is now making butcher meat dear. He is making a very serious mistake.
    The whole tendency of the present Government has been away from fair shares and towards increased prices so that food is available, not to the people who have big families, but the people who have big purses. I am surprised and astonished that in view of the criticism which hon. Members opposite made of the Labour Government they should make such a hash of this new Argentine Agreement.
    6.9 p.m.
    Mr. Anthony Hurd: The hon. Lady has reminded us of the prospects which the Conservative Party put before the electors at the last General Election. In the case of meat, as in the
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    case of other essential food supplies, those promises are being brought to fruition and consumers are in fact getting more red meat now than they did in the days of the Labour Government.
    It is well to remind ourselves of the figures. In 1952 the total meat supply was 1,550,000 tons and in 1951 it was 1,456,000 tons. That is a satisfactory advance in which the home producer as well as our very good friends in New Zealand have played full parts. As far as Argentine meat is concerned, I think it must be obvious to all that the present Government have done the best they could under the circumstances which they inherited from the last Government.
    In some phases of food policy, the Government have taken courageous steps. They have recognised that State buying and State trading is a bad way of doing business. They have recognised that it is not really the job of the Foreign Office, the Board of Trade, the Ministry of Food or the Treasury to be trying to haggle in the world's markets. We have the most admirable civil servants, the finest in the world, but they are just not qualified for that task and it is not fair that it should be put upon them indefinitely.
    I imagine that had we gone on with Socialism, that would have become a permanent feature of our commercial life. Thank goodness, the electors decided not to go on with Socialism. We Conservatives want this Government to take the earliest possible opportunity of doing just what the hon. Lady reminded us that we said we would do: that is, to leave the buying of meat to men who know the job and who will do it at their own risk. I am sure —and so, indeed, are the electors who supported the Conservative Party—that this will be a better way, a less embarrassing way so far as our diplomatic relations with other countries are concerned. I believe, too, that it is a better way from the point of view of our traders who are seeking to develop export markets abroad.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Louth (Mr. Osborne) spoke of the importance of developing and expanding the trade for finished textiles in South America. That is vitally important, but I do not believe that these matters can be arranged by civil servants here in this country. Indeed, if it is made a Government-to Government deal, it may well happen

    899
    in practice, as it did under the last Government, that difficulties are put in the way of completing those undertakings.
    After all, full undertakings were given at the time when the hon. Member for Brighouse and Spenborough (Mr. J. Edwards) was Economic Secretary in the last Government and went to South America. Unhappily, as we now know, those undertakings were not carried out by the Argentine Government. That kind of Government-to-Government undertaking may be accepted in spirit, but there is not the commercial urge to carry it through successfully.
    We hope that under this new arrangement, we shall move towards a freer economy in meat trading, and, indeed, in the whole of our business with the Argentine. I urge Ministers to press ahead in freeing the meat trade, just as they have done courageously within the last week in freeing the trade for feeding-stuffs and cereals. I am sure that the country will support them and that in that way we shall get additional meat. We shall have to pay realistic prices, but it is no good the hon. Lady pretending to the Committee that meat is a cheap or easy commodity to buy in the world —it simply is not.
    Mrs. Mann: Was it not hon. Members opposite who did that pretending on the platform during the Election?
    Mr. Hurd: What we said was that we would get more red meat if our policy was effected.
    Mrs. Mann: And cheaper.
    Mr. Hurd: I have given the figures, but perhaps the hon. Lady was not present. We are getting more red meat and we will get further increases in the coming year.
    Let my right hon. Friends the Ministers lose no opportunity of pressing ahead with freeing the meat trade, as has been done, and as will, I believe, be proved to be of great advantage, in freeing the cereal trade. Do not let us drift into another year and find that we are still faced with these unsatisfactory circumstances under which the Government have had to negotiate this latest trade deal with the Argentine.
    6.15 p.m.
    Mr. Frank Bowles: I did not expect to speak when I came into the House this afternoon, but as the debate proceeded and, obviously, was confined to meat—home meat, New Zealand meat, Argentine meat and Australian meat—I was reminded that during the Summer Recess, when in my constituency when the cattle markets were being held, I was talking to a New Zealand farmer who commented rather adversely on some of the conditions about our own meat.
    That farmer told me what happened in New Zealand. I think it is almost law there that every cow and bull has to have its horns cauterized or caustic soda'd. In other words, one is not allowed to have cattle with horns because of the damage that they do to other cattle on their way to market. Having been to various abattoirs, that farmer went on to say that he was amazed at the amount of damage that was done by cows and bulls, when being taken to market, when herded in the various trucks, carts and lorries in which they are taken.
    I asked him how much he estimated to be the loss of beef on each cow, and he said about 1 lb. on each side—that is, 2 lb. per cow. I understand that the figures which I have been given are not all for beef, but the Minister will know how much is sheep and how much is cow. We have a million tons of homegrown meat per year. I am advised that there are about four cows to the ton, and if 2 lb. of meat is lost on every cow, my calculation shows that 8 million lb. of meat is lost every year through the method of marketing these various beasts.
    Mr. Frederick Pearl indicated dissent.
    Mr. Bowles: My hon. Friend shakes his head. He obviously does not know the difference between what happens in New Zealand farming and marketing and what happens in, say, Cumberland.
    Mr. William Shepherd: Perhaps his hon. Friend is worried as to how this argument fits into the Argentine Meat Agreement.
    Mr. Bowles: The hon. Member for Cheadle (Mr. Shepherd) has not, unfortunately, been in the Committee for more than four minutes.
    Mr. Shepherd: Oh, yes, I have.
    Mr. Bowles: I noticed that the hon. Member was not here. Had he been present, he would know that the debate had ranged over the whole question of meat. I dare say that my figures are exaggerated. Briefly, however, if 2 lb. of meat is lost on every cow, with four cows to the ton, 8 million lb. of meat is lost if all the cattle are cows. Therefore, I put it to the Minister, who is most conversant with meat and marketing, that he might save the home market quite a lot of meat if he consulted with his right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture and saw that the farming community got a little more up to date and did not get quite so much damage to their cattle and sheep when bringing them to market.
    6.19 p.m.
    Mr. John Edwards: Last Saturday I was in an aeroplane coming from Kano to Tripoli, when I was given a copy of the "Manchester Guardian" for Friday last, which told me that there was to be a debate on the Argentine Trade Agreement. I had not then seen the Protocol, but when I had got back and seen it I at once found myself in a very familiar world. If imitation be a sincere form of flattery, the members of my mission and I have been very highly flattered, for there is only one new feature in the protocol that has been published in the White Paper.
    In 1951, no one on the Opposition benches had a good word to say for the Agreement that I had signed. Yet this protocol in all respects, except Article 8. contains exactly the same principles as the 1951 protocol, except for one or two omissions, to which I shall have to call attention. I entirely agree with what the Financial Secretary had to say about the work of the Ambassador and all the people who took part in the negotiations. I know most of them personally. I have sat up through the night with many of them, and I would add my very sincere words to what he has said about their work.
    I am very glad that agreement has been reached, for I still hold the view that there are great possibilities for co-operation between the Argentine Republic and ourselves. I do not believe that we ought
    902
    at any time to do anything which interferes with the best possible relationship between our two countries. I hope the Government will not think me ungenerous if I do not feel able to extend my compliments to the members of Her Majesty's Government.
    I was interested in what the Financial Secretary had to say. He said, very properly, "Of course, we did not get all we wanted. We started off with some ideas, and no doubt the Argentine Government started off with some, and of course, we had to reach a compromise." I did not interrupt him, but I felt like asking whether Her Majesty's Government really tried to get what they wanted. For if we are to believe what they told us when they were in Opposition, and if we are to believe what they told us during the General Election, then they wanted many things they have not been able to get.
    They wanted to abolish bulk buying. The hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Hurd) said he hoped they would get on with it. Who prevented them? Not the Argentine Government. Did they try to abolish long-term contracts? I will bet my boots they spent a good deal of time arguing with the Argentine representatives against making spot purchases. The truth is that what was wrong when the hon. Gentleman and the right hon. and gallant Gentleman and their colleagues were in Opposition now becomes right when they are in power.
    Take all the talk there was that these negotiations ought to be in the hands of experts; that it was monstrous, it was said, that they should be handled by ignorant bureaucrats. Let us remember what the present Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of National Insurance said when he chased us round with questions when I was away in the Argentine, and in the speech which he made in July, 1951. Who prevented all this happening? My own guess is that the rumours in Smithfield were right; that Her Majesty's Government put out feelers and found nobody in Smithfield was prepared to take on the job. To all of this we have had no explanation from the Financial Secretary and, indeed, no reformed drunkard ever preached temperance with such vehemence as the Financial Secretary now espouses the causes he thoroughly condemned in his salad days when he was on the Opposition benches.

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    So too with other hon. Members. Where are they? There is not a single hon. Member here today who took part in the debate which we had when I came back from the Argentine in 1951. Not a single hon. Member who spoke in that debate has graced us with his presence at all. Where is the present Under-Secretary of State for War who said that the only redeeming feature of the Agreement I made was the fact that it was to be reviewed in 12 months? Where is the hon. Member for Stafford and Stone (Mr. H. Fraser) who made what was in some ways a slightly offensive speech? Where is the Leader of the House, with all his questions to me about feeding stuffs and the like—about which there is not one word in this Agreement now signed on behalf of the present Administration?
    I wish to ask the Government a number of questions on points which I think rather important. I do not propose to say anything more on the question of meat prices, but I would like to ask the right hon. and gallant Gentleman if he can tell us anything about the prospects for chilled beef. Again Article 5 has been reproduced, and as I said when I last spoke on the subject in 1951, nothing I did in my negotiations excited the imagination of the Argentine people and Press more than the offer I then made to buy as much chilled beef as the Argentine cared to produce.
    I should like to know from the right hon. and gallant Gentleman—as I have no sources of information on this matter—what has been happening about that? What really caused the trouble? What are now the prospects, since the Article has been reproduced again in this present Protocol? I, as I think would most people in Britain, would welcome a resumption of the trade in chilled beef if that were possible.
    The second thing to which I must refer is the interpretation to be placed on Article 8 which talks of permitting the importation of United Kingdom manufactured goods to be agreed up to a total of £3 million. I would say quite frankly to the Parliamentary Secretary that I found his answer on this point entirely unsatisfactory. I was not present last week when the matter was raised, but it is perfectly true that in reply to the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) the Chancellor left the impression that the
    904
    £3 million was to cover textiles, mainly cotton piece goods. It is equally clear now that that is not the position. The Financial Secretary has made it perfectly plain that that is not so. Unfortunately he has left us completely in the air, because all we know now is that there are to be £3 million worth of manufactured goods.
    But, as I very rightly said, when I interrupted an hon. Member who spoke earlier, we do not know for certain that it will include any textile piece goods at all. I asked the Financial Secretary what we were to understand by this term "manufactured goods." If we take the meaning that attached to it at the time of the original Agreement of 1949, and if we go through the Schedules there—I have not done it in great detail and I cannot do it precisely —I should be surprised if the manufactured goods included in Schedule 3 of the original Agreement did not amount to £50 million. Because it covers not only cotton manufactures, wool and worsted manufactures, silk, rayon, linen and other textile manufactures, but it covers steel manufactures and non-ferrous metal manufactures. It includes electrical goods and appliances of all kinds. It includes manufactured articles like cutlery, ironmongery, instruments, and a whole host of other things. Even if I am wrong about £50 million, it is of the order of £40 million or £50 million worth of manufactured goods.
    Mr. Fletcher-Cooke: It is £92 million. It is all added up for the hon. Gentleman on page 19.
    Mr. Edwards: I am sorry but the hon. Member is quite wrong. It is true that the aggregate total of Schedule 3 is £92 million. But he will understand that the Schedule includes coal, iron and steel and a number of materials, and my difficulty has been to distinguish between the materials, or semi-manufactured things and the wholly manufactured things. But my rough estimate is that it cannot be less than £40 million or £50 million, maybe more, that could properly be regarded as manufactured goods. It is against that background that we have to consider this offer of £3 million.
    Mr. Osborne: How much of this £40 million or £50 million of manufactured goods were actually taken in textiles.
    Mr. Edwards: We can come to that. It is difficult to form a precise figure, but

    905
    let us suppose, as we can from the figures here, that cotton manufactures were of the order of, say, £6 million, and that the wool piece goods and knitwear were a bit over £3 million. Then we get some sense of the relationship of this to that. It may be one-fifth, it may be one-sixth; I do not know. But if this £3 million were distributed in anything like the way in which it was in 1949, then it would not be £3 million of textile goods that we should expect. At most it would be £500,000 or something like that. That is derisory.
    It may be said that this is an advantage over the arrangements in the Protocal of 1951. I should like to remind the Committee of how I left the matter when I completed these negotiations. The Minister of Economy, as he then was called, and I, together left an agreed minute of instruction to the Mixed Consultative Committee. In that minute we recorded the fact that the Minister of Economy had proposed that 10 per cent. of the import licences should cover what were called non-essentials. In other words he would take the goods he really needed —the tractors, the cars, machinery and whatever it might be—and that he would issue permits for those articles not regarded as absolutely essential to the extent of 10 per cent, of the total.
    Again the Financial Secretary has been silent about what happened on that. I should like to know. This is an occasion for us to be brought up to date. What happened as a result of that minute? I know that many of the arrangements I made have not taken place. I should like more information as to the extent to which import licences were issued under this arrangement. I wish to put it on record that I do not regard that £3 million token figure as really worth putting in. I am not at all sure that it is not a bad thing to have that figure in, because it can perhaps be regarded as a maximum figure—that is the risk —whereas in fact it is really only a token figure, and in terms of any reasonable expectation of trade it is absolutely derisory.
    I do not want Lancashire or Yorkshire to be left with the slightest doubt about this. The impression left by the Chancellor of the Exchequer is entirely wrong. Nothing that so far has been said should be used by people in Yorkshire to build
    906
    up an expectation of any trade worth the name under this heading, because within such a small figure as £3 million a good deal of the trade obviously can go in goods which have nothing to do with textiles. I should be grateful if the Minister would tell us more about that.
    I put it to the Financial Secretary that to leave this completely in the air would be a mistake. I know that the final niceties about what are to be manufactured articles are not details which he can give us today, but he can tell us whether, broadly, manufactured articles are to cover what were regarded as manufactured articles in the original Agreement of 1949.
    I turn to Article 11 which is concerned with the public utility companies. The present protocol repeats word for word Article 13 of the protocol that I signed except that the word "again" appears in front of the word "reviewed." It is nearly two years since that protocol was signed. I ask the Minister to tell us what has happened in that period. While the original Article 13 was one that I was prepared to defend in the circumstances, I should expect that something would have happened in the period of nearly two years about these public utility companies. If we are asked, in a sense, to approve this Article again, we ought to know what has been happening in the meantime.
    The final question is that of remittances and arrears. Before I say anything about financial remittances I should like to ask the Minister to tell us whether he has any estimate of the present state of commercial payments. What, if any, are the commercial arrears today? One of the matters that troubled me during the last negotiation was this question. We had to deal with it.
    The question of remittances is not mentioned in the protocol. I share the regret of the Financial Secretary about the omission of any provision for remittances. I pointed out in a speech I made on 5th July, 1951, that from the point of view of the Argentine Government it was essential for remittances to be maintained. The reason I then gave, I give again. The Argentine Government, if they are still of the mind that they were when I negotiated with them, would like more foreign capital in the Argentine. Both the President and the then Minister

    907
    of Finance made that plain to me when I was there. As I said in 1951, the attraction of foreign capital must depend very largely on the regularity with which reasonable remittances are made possible.
    I would say—and here I speak as much to the Argentine Government as to our own—that the remittance problem is of very great importance for proper commercial relationship between our two countries. I know that if the country has not got sterling the position is very difficult. I know that it is difficult to earmark sterling for remittances when it is needed for coal, oil or semi-manufactured goods to keep industry going. But, taking a long view, I am sure that this remittance problem is central to any decent commercial relationships between our two countries. I am extremely disappointed that at no point in this document is there any reference to it.
    I have today opened my mouth after having kept a self-imposed vow of silence during the whole of the time that the negotiations have been taking place lest an indiscreet word of mine might put a pound or two on the price of beef, which is what I suspect happened as a result of indiscreet words used by some people during the course of my negotiations in the Argentine. I should be grateful if I could have answers to the specific questions which I have put.
    Much as I appreciate the great work that has been done in reaching this Agreement, glad as I am that an agreement has been reached, I have no doubt that this protocol that has now been signed is the final evidence, if any were needed, of the fact that when the present Administration were in opposition they were either lamentably ignorant about the situation or, if they were not ignorant, they were grossly irresponsible in the way in which they sought petty party advantage and neglected national interest.
    This document is, from a purely party political point of view, the complete refutation of nearly everything that right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite said at the General Election about the Argentine Agreement of 1951. It tears in pieces their Election pledges about bulk
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    purchase, long-term contracts and the like.
    6.40 p.m.
    The Minister of Food (Major Lloyd George): I have made as careful a note as I can of the many points that have been raised, and I will do my best to deal with them. I am not surprised that most of the speeches have dealt with the question of meat. Many other important points have been raised, and I will do my best to deal with them.
    The first comment I should like to make as a result of this discussion today is that, however much the Opposition may say that this is a bad Agreement, judging by the number of hon. Members, not only on this side of the Committee, but, I would remind the hon. Lady the Member for Coatbridge and Airdrie (Mrs. Mann), on her own side also, it does not indicate to me that there is any great feeling such as one would have expected to find. As a matter of fact, I have been here the whole time, arm, on the whole, we have had a bigger majority than our real Parliamentary one ever since the sitting of this Committee started.
    We are told that this Agreement is a bad Agreement. I think the hon. Gentleman the Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey), who is not now in his place, said that one reason why he thought it was a bad Agreement was that there is only one signatory on our side—the Ambassador. If the hon. Gentleman were here, I would remind him that the previous Agreement had only one signatory on our side, and that signatory was the hon. Member for Brighouse and Spenborough (Mr. J. Edwards), who has just resumed his seat. That fact did not make it a bad Agreement; I am certain of that.
    With regard to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford, Central (Mr. Webb), the former Minister of Food, which has been repeated by many other hon. Members, suggesting how very much worse we managed the question of price than they did, I should like to say a word or two concerning the price. First of all, in regard to the Agreement as a whole, we can at least say that, while not so very much more expeditious, it certainly did not take as long as the previous Agreement.

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    May I say something else which is of great importance? It did not lead to any feeling of any sort this time, nor did it lead to what the right hon. Gentleman opposite called an impasse. At no period did the negotiations break down. It is true that the negotiations took about nine months, but the whole of that period could not be attributed to any delay in the negotiations themselves, because two events intervened which have been already referred to by one of my hon. Friends. The first was the General Election and a consequent change of Government, and, after that, there came the death of Senora Peron, which further delayed the resumption of negotiations. There was no breakdown during that period, and we have no need to send a Minister out there to try to get the thing settled.
    The Agreement, of course, covers a much wider field than just meat by itself. We are to receive under this Agreement 38,000 tons more meat and offal than we received in the previous year, and, what is even more important, instead of receiving 90,000 tons of beef, which we took the year before, we shall receive 144,000 tons, an increase of 60 per cent. in beef, which is the one thing we want. We shall not be taking any mutton, which, I am sure, will be very well received by the people of this country.
    Before we started these negotiations a price of £250 per ton was mentioned, and, when the negotiations actually started, the price was just under £200 per ton. We have been able to secure this contract at a price—what is called a pilot price—of £161 per ton. The hon. Lady the Member for Coatbridge and Airdrie quoted a price of £181, which appears, it is true, in the protocol, but that is for chilled beef, and represents a difference of £20 per ton, which was also the difference under the previous Agreement. We settled at a price well below that at which the negotiations started.
    Let me say a word about the negotiations which took place the previous time. When the Argentine Government talked in terms of £140 per ton, although we had entered into an agreement at a price of £97 10s. per ton, the figure mentioned from this side was only £90 per ton. In a period of what the hon. Member for Sunderland, North described as soaring prices, in order to make sure that the
    910
    negotiations were to go through successfully he and the previous Government offered the Argentine £7 10s. per ton less than they had paid the year before. No wonder we had what the right hon. Gentleman opposite called an impasse; I am not surprised. What is much more important, the late Government did not take the care that we took to husband meat resources at the time of the negotiations, with the result that they were weakened in their negotiations as time went on. We know how the ration went down at that time during the period of the negotiations; it changed six times.
    Mr. Webb: The right hon. and gallant Gentleman cannot have it both ways. He says that we did not take care to husband our meat resources, and immediately says that the ration went down and down. The fact of the ration going down was evidence of husbanding our resources.
    Major Lloyd George: The right hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that he did not husband the resources, and, because he did not do so, the ration went down. If he had realised, as he ought to have done, that the negotiations were becoming dangerously protracted, surely he would have brought the ration down before he did, and would have been able to prevent bringing the ration down to the lowest ever seen in the history of this country—a ration of 8d. for carcass meat and 2d. for canned meat.
    The right hon. Gentleman himself, in a debate at that time, said that the Argentine Government had asked for an average rate of £120 per ton. This figure, he said, represented an increase of 25 per cent. on the price paid last year, which he thought was too high. Therefore, he said, quite resolutely, they were not prepared to pay that price. Their resolution was not to pay £120, but, eventually, they paid £126.
    A lot of comment or criticism has been directed at the price we have now paid, but the £126, if it comes to that, was not the total price which the Government paid for the meat at that time. There was a back payment—a very substantial one of £6½ million — and, if we take that into consideration, as we ought to do, the price they paid for the meat they got was nearer £158 per ton than £126. When it comes to criticism of the price we have offered to pay, all I can say is that it is

    911
    not fair to compare £126 with £161, because, when we take into consideration this very substantial sum which, owing to devaluation, had to be paid, surely, in all logic, that must be debited against the meat we were getting. That is really the true comparison.
    Mr. J. Edwards: I think the Minister is very much less than fair. We received a good deal of meat on conditional invoices; that is to say, what was to be paid was to be settled hereafter. One of the things I tried to do in the negotiations was to settle what that payment was to be for the conditional invoices, and that figure was £6 million-odd. It is quite unfair to say that the price agreed for meat we have already had is to be regarded as though it was part of the price for meat we have still to come.
    Major Lloyd George: The claim was made—I am not criticising it—that, because of devaluation, they were entitled to a better price than that which we had agreed to pay. I think it is nearer to our figure than to the figure of £126 per ton, but let us put it no higher than that. So much for the question of price.
    Among the other questions raised was that of the amounts we expect to receive. The hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey), who is never an optimist in this Committee, seemed to think that we had exaggerated the amounts that we expect to get. I do not think we have exaggerated the New Zealand supplies. They have shown in the past what they can do. He said that we had exaggerated the Australian supplies because we only got 34,000 tons last year and we are expecting 140,000 tons this year. The fact is that last year there was exceptional trouble in Australia which made it impossible to get anything like the quantity of meat. This year we are expecting to get 140,000 tons.
    Let it not be forgotten, though, that one of the difficulties may be, not this year but the following year, that the full effect of the two serious droughts may be felt on beef in particular. I do not put it higher than that. At any rate, at the moment we do not think that we are exaggerating when we say that we expect 140,000 tons.
    As to the Argentine, it may be said that we are being over-optimistic with
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    respect to shipping. I do not think we are being too optimistic at all. I have not even taken into account the possibility that the position will be better than it was last year. The hon. Member for Sunderland. North suggested that my sole object is to get out of rationing. I can assure him that that is not so. Nobody would be more happy than I to get out of rationing, but I am not so devoid of a sense of responsibility that when a basic food commodity is in short supply I would consider doing anything of the sort, and so long as I am responsible there will be proper regulation of scarce commodities. It is only right that I should say that.
    Further questions were raised with regard to canned beef and tinplate. One question—a perfectly legitimate one—dealt with the possibility of our exporting 27,000 tons of tinplate. We need have no fear of the effect of this upon our canning industry in this country because we have removed in the last two weeks all the controls on canning of fruit and vegetables as tinplate is in free supply.
    With regard to corned beef, the policy of this Government is the same as that of the last Government—namely, not to use canned corned beef for current consumption but to add it to the general food reserves. The reason the last Government had to issue canned meat was that they had not got enough fresh meat to make up the ration. I am happy to say that I have not been in that position yet. In fact, if I may use an expression which has been used frequently, we have a little more red meat than canned beef. Therefore, I do not intend to depart from the policy of putting it to reserve. In any case, there are ample supplies of canned meats in the shops today. Indeed, the complaint we get is that they are sticking a bit in their sale. If the right hon. Gentleman has any difficulty in getting any, I shall be very glad to give him any assistance I possibly can.
    The hon. Member for Coatbridge and Airdrie referred to the very common complaint which we have from time to time from hon. Members opposite with regard to the inability of some people to take up the ration. She quoted a figure which, I believe, was given the other day. I think it was the right hon. Lady the Member for Fulham, West (Dr. Summerskill) who said that two million people had not been able to take up

    913
    their meat ration. A little arithmetic is required here and I hope that I can make it as simple as possible.
    The figure of two million represented a period of a month. Therefore, I think I am right in saying it is 500,000 for a week. So far, I think we are in agreement. A figure of 500,000 for a week is something just over 1 per cent. of the people who receive a ration. The figure of just over 1 per cent. has hardly changed in the last 12 months. One of the reasons for that is to be found in the bacon position. Instead of having three ounces, at the time of the last survey we were having five ounces. Even though the take-up was down, there was a greater consumption of bacon, and in addition a much greater consumption of ham.
    We have more availability of other foodstuffs such as ham and canned meats. Therefore, it is on the cards that what is happening is what we like to see happening—a greater exercise of freedom of consumer choice, which has for so long been denied to us, and I think it is a good thing to have it back.
    Mrs. Mann: It still means that there are 500,000 rations of butchers' meat not being taken up weekly. It is quite possible that there are children who are not getting it. Would the right hon. and gallant Gentleman indicate what are the likely alternatives?
    Major Lloyd George: It is a very small figure. The position has not changed at all. One of the reasons may be that people move from place to place—
    The Temporary Chairman (Mr. George Thomas): I think that if the right hon. and gallant Gentleman continues to answer the hon. Lady, he will be leaving the Estimate which is before the Committee. I shall be very glad if he will confine himself to the Estimate.
    Major Lloyd George: I shall be very happy to return to that question, Mr. Thomas. I should be prepared to continue with my answer to the hon. Lady's question if I were allowed to do so, but as it is out of order I shall not go any further with it.
    I was also asked by the right hon. Gentleman a question relating to bulk purchase. This is a very popular theme
    914
    with the Opposition. I am not complaining; I do not want to deny anybody a bit of fun now and again, but, so far as we on these benches are concerned, our opinion on that has not altered at all since we came into office. It remains the Government's policy to restore the trade to the private trader as soon as we possibly can. I should have thought that plenty of indications have already been given during the last few weeks, particularly by myself, that whenever the opportunity arises that is what we propose to do.
    I should, however, like to take each commodity on its merits in deciding whether to exercise decontrol. I would never dream of saying that because I do not believe in bulk purchase, whatever the circumstances, I shall do away with it. Let me give one example. The meat position being what it is, we could not restore the trade to private enterprise at the moment. I have been in consultation with members of the trade and they fully appreciate our difficulties. It is 14 years since we had a free market in meat. I suggest that the amount of meat which we should require in this country would not be 2,100,000 tons which we had before the war, but nearer 2,300,000 tons.
    We hope to get increased supplies this year. Actually, we have steadily increased the supplies of meat since we came into office. It is already 15 per cent. more than it was in 1951, and I hope that this year will be the best year since the war. But that still means that we might be 500,000 tons down on any possible estimate which we can make if we had a free market. If we were to free the market that would mean that we must free this commodity from control, quite apart from the obligations to the Dominions and others as to contracts, and so forth. While we have a commodity of this importance in short supply nobody with a sense of responsibility would say, "All right, let it go."
    Mr. J. Edwards: Our complaint is not about any general views that the Conservative Party hold about bulk purchase. It is that hon. Gentlemen who are now Members of the present Government said in the House of Commons at the time of the negotiations in 1951 that we ought to have the negotiations conducted by the trade and that we ought to stop State

    915
    buying. Our complaint is that in those days the same hon. Gentlemen did precisely what the Minister now condemns as acting irresponsibly.
    Major Lloyd George: Fortunately, I was not in the House of Commons at that time, so nobody can say a word to me about that. Apart from that, there is no question at all that in the case of bulk purchase other things, like the balance of payments, are involved. The hon. Gentlemen must not forget that we inherited an extraordinary position from the previous Government. After all, we found a situation that none of us had dreamt of until we saw it for ourselves.
    When one comes to a product like wheat, where the question of supply is much nearer the question of demand, there are totally different considerations. Therefore, I and my hon. Friends still stand by what we said before—that, in our judgment, eventually when we can see our way to it, the system we advocate is the only way in which one can really ensure an adequate supply of meat and a supply which, in the long run, will be much cheaper than that which we have today.
    I do not think that I can add very much to what my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary has said about Article 8 of the protocol. I think that he has made the position perfectly clear with regard to the £3 million worth of manufactured goods. As the Article says:
    "The list of these goods and their values will be decided by the Mixed Consultative Committee referred to in Article 4 of the 1949 Agreement, before 15th February, 1953."
    There is this difference between the position now and the position in which the hon. Member for Brighouse and Spenborough found himself. At least we have here an undertaking in the protocol itself. We had absolutely nothing out of the previous Agreement, except an exchange of letters; but this is an admission in the protocol itself and this is at least better than what we had before.
    The hon. Member for Brighouse and Spenborough also asked what we meant by manufactured goods. They are not all the goods mentioned in the 1949 Agreement but the least essential of them, that is those which otherwise would not be licensed The non-essentials are, of course, very important to us as indeed
    916
    they are to the Argentinians, as opposed to the goods that can be licensed. They are as much to our interest as to the interest of the Argentinians; and it is on these manufactured goods that the Mixed Consultative Committee have to come to a decision by 15th Febraruy. I cannot add much more to what the Financial Secretary has said about remittances. We are in complete agreement about them and we are most anxious that something should be done.
    Mr. J. Edwards: Can the Minister give a figure for the amount of financial arrears as well as the amount of commercial arrears?
    Major Lloyd George: I cannot answer precisely, but they are much smaller than they were in 1951.
    Mr. Edwards: It is rather important. Many people in the business world are concerned about this. I am not asking for precise figures, but can the Minister give in broad terms what are the financial arrears at the moment? Are they of the order of £6 million or £10 million? What is the order of magnitude?
    Major Lloyd George: I am informed that they are about half of the lower figure which the hon. Member gave. I hope that I have dealt with all the points raised during the discussion. It only remains to say—
    Mr. Bowles: Will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman say something about bruised meat?
    Major Lloyd George: I am quite prepared to look into that matter, but it is quite outside this Estimate.
    Mr. Norman Dodds: Will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman answer the question that many millions would like answered? In view of the greatly increased price of meat per ton will there be an increase to the housewife? If so, how soon and by how much?
    Major Lloyd George: I answered that question the other day. There is no immediate prospect of meat prices rising.
    The hon. Lady the Member for Coat-bridge and Airdrie wanted me to give an undertaking that meat prices would not rise. Obviously, nobody could give an undertaking that nothing would ever rise in price. At the moment, there is no

    917
    prospect of it. Assuming that the extra price paid for Argentine meat alone went directly into an increased price for the ration—and there are many other things like freight charges involved—it would make a difference of ½d. per lb.
    Mr. Dodds: Is the increased price expected to be more than ld. per lb?
    Major Lloyd George: If one takes the increased price for Argentine meat direct into the ration the increase will be about ½d., but freight charges, farm prices, and all kinds of things come in.
    Mr. J. Edwards: Will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman say a word or two about the prospects of chilled beef?
    Major Lloyd George: I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman for reminding me. The position with regard to chilled beef is more or less as it was when the hon. Member made the last Agreement. We are most anxious, as he was, to get the chilled beef over here. As he knows, what we get is the "chiller" beef. But there is a quite formidable technical obstacle which has not yet been removed. We are expecting small shipments, but I believe that it is roughly 14 years since this kind of beef was shipped and a great deal of technique has to be re-acquired and there must be a good deal of readaptation of ships. We are doing everything possible and the Argentinians have said that they will do all they can to give us chilled beef and, of course, it is that beef that we want above all else.
    We have increased beef shipments or the promise of shipments by 60 per cent. over the previous Agreement, which I think is a great advance. I believe that I have shown that this is a pretty good Agreement despite what hon. Members opposite have said. It is to the interest not only of the people of the Argentine but to the interest of the people of this country that we should do as much trade as we possibly can. This is a very old market between the two countries. Therefore, I personally commend this Agreement to the Committee as an Agreement which will take us a further step forward towards the time when we can have the fullest possible trade relations.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Resolved,
    That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £10,000,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1953, for sundry expenses connected with Her Majesty's Foreign Service; special grants, including grants in aid; and various other services.

    Army Supplementry Estimate, 1952–53
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £35,000,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1953, for expenditure beyond the sum already provided in the grants for Army Services for the year.

    SCHEDULE

    Sums not exceeding

    Supply Grants

    Appropriations in Aid

    Vote

    £

    £

    1. Pay, &c., of the Army

    11,300,000

    *—690,000

    2. Reserve Forces (to an additional number not exceeding 6,000, other ranks, for the Regular Reserve and to an additional number not exceeding 29,000, all ranks, for the Army Emergency Reserve), Territorial Army, Home Guard and Cadet Forces

    400,000

    —

    4. Civilians

    3,800,000

    *—630,000

    5. Movements

    4,500,000

    —

    6. Supplies, &c.

    4,400,000

    *—300,000

    7. Stores

    7,500,000

    *—250,000

    8. Works, Buildings and Lands

    1,950,000

    *—410,000

    9. Miscellaneous Effective Services

    150,000

    400,000

    10. Non-effective Services

    1,000,000

    —

    Total, Army (Supplementary) 1952–53…£

    35,000,000

    *—1,880,000

    * Deficit

    7.10 p.m.
    Mr. R. H. S. Crossman: We were interrupted yesterday evening in the early stages of our inquiry into this Supplementary Estimate. I should like to continue the inquiry, which I thought was yielding a little fruit in its early stages.

    919
    We had reached the point where we had all agreed that a large part of this Supplementary Estimate is concerned with expenditures incurred in the Middle East. About £3 million was for extra movements and certain unspecified sums for additional civilian personnel who were taken on because of the withdrawal of the Egyptians.
    The Under-Secretary of State for War (Mr. J. R. H. Hutchison): I do not want the hon. Gentleman to continue under a misapprehension. A good proportion of the £3 million was for the purpose he has stated, but not all.
    Mr. Crossman: I should not wish to press the hon. Gentleman to give a precise percentage, but a good proportion of the £3 million is due to that and I think the hon. Gentleman will agree that one of the things we have to face in the Canal Zone is the appalling effect of seeking to squeeze 80,000 men into an area where the pre-war garrison was one brigade. The effect of squeezing those 80,000 men into this area is to produce overcrowding and a terrible shortage of married quarters. I want to ask the hon. Gentleman one or two questions and I should be glad if he can give me the answers.
    The first question is: How many married quarters have we now in the Canal Zone for officers and for other ranks respectively? In dealing with that subject I might also deal with another point which was raised by many of the men to whom I talked out there. They were asking for new or increased separation allowances. That is covered by Vote 1, dealing with pay. I gather that the Secretary of State for War was in the Canal Zone and that he listened to this not unreasonable suggestion that a special separation allowance was due. If a soldier merely has his marriage allowance and if, through no fault of his own, he is sent to the Canal Zone and has to pay for his wife and family staying at home in Britain, should not there be a special separation allowance?
    I gather that this point was put to him when he was out there and I was told by some of the men that he seemed very favourably impressed and that they were all eagerly anticipating his final decision. This is a long-standing grievance, but one which has a substantial basis in fact. The men who are living there are having to
    920
    support their families at home and they are at a grave disadvantage compared with troops in other areas overseas. When the Secretary of State was there he apparently gave the impression that something would be done. They asked me what would be done and I said that I would find out when I returned. I am hoping to hear this evening how far the Minister will fulfil in reality the impression he created when he accepted the legitimacy of that demand.
    The next question is: How many of our troops in the Canal Zone are now living in hutted camps and how many are living under canvas? No one can get any impression of that by motoring through the area. If one motors through 35 miles of unbroken depots and camps one touches only a small section of this gigantic area. Can the Minister give the percentage of men living under canvas compared with those living in hutted camps? What is the policy in regard to essential repairs, and what hopes have these units that some of the dilapidations will be made good? How much of this Supplementary Estimate is designed for at least maintaining this vast establishment without too obvious signs of deterioration?
    The next question concerns the withdrawal of Egyptian labour and its effect on the introduction of Mauritian and East African troops and civilians to take their place? How much Egyptian labour did we lose last January and in what proportion are we making it up by the use of pioneers from East Africa and Mauritius and civilians? These are vital questions which we have an obvious right to ask before we agree to pass this Supplementary Estimate.
    We have also to consider the central issue, which is the strategy and the policy on which this vast increase of expenditure is based. Is it the fact that this specific increase of expenditure is justified only by the continuance of the emergency and the crisis in Egypt? What is the Government policy which justifies this increase? What has happened? The soldiers told me, as I am sure they told the Minister, that the base is useless without Egyptian co-operation. As anybody who has been to Cairo knows, there is no sign whatsoever of any Egyptian co-operation with what they regard as an occupying army.

    921
    If that is common ground between the Minister and myself, what are we doing in the Canal Zone? Why are we expending these sums? Why are we keeping these 80,000 men there? What good are they doing? What the Minister is doing, in fact, is gravely to accentuate the crisis between ourselves and the Egyptians. If I may make one suggestion, which the Minister may pass on to one of the colleagues, it is that the Egyptian Government today is not what one would call a friendly Government. I had a good many talks with them and they left me in no doubt of their intention. They made it clear that if we do not withdraw they will eject us by force.
    If that is the situation I want to know in what way it can possibly assist to sell 12 jet aircraft to the Egyptian Government.
    The Temporary Chairman: Order. The hon. Gentleman will find that these Estimates do not cover the sale of jet aircraft.
    Mr. George Wigg: With respect, surely my hon. Friend is completely in order, because under Vote 7 we are dealing with warlike stores. Though it may be true that my hon. Friend is not in order in mentioning jet aircraft, he could just as easily have mentioned Centurion tanks. We are disposing of equipment and I should have thought he was completely in order.
    The Temporary Chairman: I am very grateful for the assistance of the hon. Gentleman, but I still think that the hon. Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman) is not in order.
    Mr. Crossman: I fully appreciate the point about jet aircraft. I would say, in my defence, that we are discussing whether to pass a very large Supplementary Estimate for the purpose of maintaining a large Army in the Middle East. Part of the justification for maintaining the Army must be the reason why it is there, and if I am to find out whether I should vote this vast sum of money I must try to elicit from the Minister some justification. To find that justification we have to study the actions of the Government and their relations with the Egyptians, and one of those actions, which I have just mentioned, was that of selling 12 jet aircraft to General Neguib.
    922
    In my view, that action makes complete nonsense of this Supplementary Estimate. If we are to have large numbers of troops in the Suez Canal Zone how does it help if we provide the Egyptian Government, who are determined to eject us, with a large number of modern aircraft? Is that really a justification? I was taking the example of jet aircraft in asking the Secretary of State for War what that sort of policy—which I regard as a typical piece of appeasement—is intended to achieve. In effect, it seems to me that we are saying to the Egyptians, "Do not notice our 80,000 soldiers because we will please you so much with 12 jet aircraft that you will not notice the presence of 80,000 troops in the Suez Canal area." But I shall not press that point any further.
    The Temporary Chairman: I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He must leave that point now.
    Mr. Crossman: I think the Secretary of State for War has seized the point, but I think he is unable to answer it, because it is for the Foreign Secretary to tell us why we should pass this vast sum of money, and that is asking too much.
    Now I turn to recruitment, because, though that is an excursion from the Suez Canal Zone, a subject in which I am interested, it is an excursion which baffles me as a layman. I seem to remember the Secretary of State for War—and I used to listen to him with the greatest attention —when he was just a back bencher like myself, giving lectures to Labour Defence Ministers on how to run the Army. I remember those lectures and what he used to say.
    He used to say—this is on Vote 1 which deals with the increase of pay and allowances—that it was all absolutely simple, that all one had to do was to pay the Army enough. I remember listening and thinking, "That is wonderful; it must be right, because the right hon. Gentleman has been a soldier himself and knows all about the mentality of soldiers. He knows that people can be recruited by the simple, mercenary method of increasing their rates of pay."
    It is interesting to see in this Supplementary Estimate the effect of increased pay on the figures. I must say I think my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) did a very useful job last night when he pointed out these figures, and I intend to point them out again.
    The Secretary of State for War (Mr. Antony Head): I would point out to the hon. Gentleman that this increase in pay is not due to an increase in rates of pay, but is an increase in pay caused by an additional number of Regulars owing to recruitment, and some of it, as I explained, to a slight under-estimate of the average rate of pay.
    Mr. Crossman: I quite see that if there is a differential between National Service men and Regulars the bill will go up. It is all quite simple. Make a differential between being a National Service man and being a Regular, and people will switch from being National Service men to being Regulars.
    My hon. Friend broke down these figures. The number of the total additions was 40,157, and of that total 35,570 were National Service men who were attracted by the differential. So the argument is there. Give a differential and a man will switch, and we shall get an extra year out of him. Instead of serving his two years as a National Service man, he will serve three years. I can see that that is a powerful argument, but what I want to ask the right hon. Gentleman is this. I have an impression that under the Labour Government Regulars served for five or seven years.
    Mr. J. R. H. Hutchison: Five and seven or seven and five.
    Mr. Crossman: Yes, so we have got men for five and seven or seven and five. I understand that under the right hon. Gentleman's scheme we get men with the Colours for three years and with the Reserve for four years. We also get men for the famous 22 years' service, but they can opt out at the end of every three years, so we really get them for only three years.
    I do not think this is a good bargain because we have men for five and seven and seven and five, and all we get is a large number of National Service men attracted by the differential who at the end of three years get out. Therefore, we are to have a decline in the numbers as the new scheme comes into force. All we are going to get, apparently, is one extra year, and, that being so, we can say goodbye to any hope of getting rid of National Service through the building up of a big Regular Army. It seems to me this proves that this short-term policy
    924
    of the pay differential is not producing the desired result.
    Mr. Wigg: I do not think my hon. Friend is being quite fair to his right hon. Friend because it was the Labour Government who introduced the differential. The right hon. Gentleman opposite did not discover the differential. What he did was something quite different; he went baldheaded for an increase in pay.
    Mr. Crossman: Let that be sorted out between those responsible. I was not responsible.
    But to come back to the question of pay, what this proves, of course, is that pay is not the only factor, or indeed the main factor. I was told that the biggest single obstacle to Regular recruitment today is not a question of pay, but the existence of the Canal Zone. I do not believe the right hon. Gentleman will deny that so long as there is an even chance of their doing "three years' hard" in the Canal Zone we shall not get young men making up their minds to become Regular soldiers. They are going to say, "That is not the life for me."
    Therefore, from a strictly War Office point of view, this Canal Zone, which, in my view, represents political suicide, where we are doing nothing whatsover and where we have a useless base, is creating the major obstacle. It is a War Office disaster of the first magnitude, and it is creating major obstacles to recruitment. No one knows what it is for, least of all the soldiers there.
    I will conclude by saying that we must pass this Supplementary Estimate because of the unfortunate men who are out there, but if the right hon. Gentleman really cares about the British Army and about Regular recruitment to it he should join with us in impressing upon the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister that the sooner we get the men home from the Canal Zone and reach an agreement with the Egyptians the better not only for the peace of the world, but for the health of the British Army.
    7.27 p.m.
    Mr. Anthony Marlowe: The hon. Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman) has, with his usual ingenuity, managed in discussing this Estimate to make a speech on foreign affairs. Therefore, I am probably not in order in taking

    925
    up the points with which he has dealt. I sometimes think the hon. Gentleman would be incapable of extending a vote of thanks at a church bazaar without referring to the Middle East.
    However, I want to deal with a more specialised matter which refers to Vote 10 in this Estimate. I was rather surprised, when the right hon. Gentleman went through these Votes and dealt with every one in turn, that he omitted, when he got to Vote 9, to turn over the page where we find Vote 10 which deals, under Subhead A, with the question of retired pay and half pay for non-effective Services.
    This is a matter which the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) and I raised on the Adjournment just before the Christmas Recess, and it is one I am raising again, because I want to make it perfectly clear that I do not intend to let it rest until the Government do justice in this matter. As I say, the right hon. Gentleman completely failed to deal with the matter, and I would draw the Committee's attention to the fact that there is a Vote for an increase of £400,000.
    The Minister has not explained what that increase involves, and therefore I can only assume that it is an increase caused by the Royal Warrant which is, in effect, the counterpart of the Pensions Increase Act, 1952. That Act gave rises to civil servants and to local government servants, and the Service Departments have fallen into line to the extent that they have given increases equivalent to those given to the Civil Services.
    I suppose that this sum of £400,000 is the amount required to cover those increases, although I am not certain because the right hon. Gentleman did not deal with the matter.
    Mr. Head: I accept my hon. and learned Friend's point about not dealing with this matter, but he will appreciate that I was not trying to shirk the matter, because it is an inter-Service matter, and I am concerned with the Army only. The responsibility for policy does not rest solely with me, but rather with the Minister of Defence, and I think it would have been wrong of me to have discussed Government policy on this matter, as I represent only one of three Services.
    Mr. Marlowe: I appreciate my right hon. Friend's position, and as to his shirking the question—he said he did not —I assure him that I have no intention of letting him shirk it, although I accept what he said about that, and that I have every intention of taking up this question with him and his fellow Secretaries of State as often as it is possible for me to do so. Naturally, I do not propose to bring about a vote on this matter tonight, but the time will come when the Government will have to face the fact that they will run the risk of a vote on this matter. Certainly, I for one shall not shirk voting against the Government on this issue if I feel the occasion is one on which it is necessary that that should be done.
    Lieut.-Colonel Marcus Lipton: Do it now.
    Mr. Marlowe: I said that I did not think the moment was ripe. I am giving the Government a little more time—
    Mr. James Simmons: Rope.
    Mr. Marlowe: —but it must be understood that our patience with the Government is not limited, and that sooner or later the Government will have to turn their attention to this matter.
    I want to deal with one or two of the arguments which arise upon it. Here is a sum of £400,000. I suppose—again, I have to suppose, because it has not been explained—that it is to cover a number of pensions which will be paid retrospectively to those entitled to them, regardless of the date upon which they came to pension. I particularly wish to draw attention to that, because whenever this issue has been raised the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Defence—and the Minister of Defence recently in another place—have staunchly maintained in the matter of increased pension that there is fixed Government policy against retrospection, and, although time and again I have pointed out to them that that is quite untrue, that there is no principle against retrospection, they still go on endeavouring to maintain it.
    The fact is that there is no principle against retrospection, but only a fixed policy that retrospection must be limited to a certain figure, and within a certain

    927
    ambit retrospection has been increasingly recognised. So that the issue is not whether there should be retrospection in granting increases of pension, but only the question of the figure at which retrospection should apply, and the present position that the Government have taken up in this matter is, roughly, that up to about £400 a year there should be increases made retrospectively, but that once the pension exceeds that there should be no increase.
    I am proposing to urge upon my right hon. Friend—and I have to do it in this form on this particular day, although I see that possibly one should do it on the Estimates of the other Services in turn—the hope that my right hon. Friend will convey to his colleagues who are responsible in this matter—I accept what he said a moment ago, that he is not himself responsible for the policy in this matter, but he is at the moment the spokesman of the Government I hope he will convey to those who are responsible that there is a very strong feeling in this Committee and in the country on this matter.
    It is a feeling which is certainly reflected by the fact that my Motion relating to this matter, and which expresses concern at the Government's attitude in it, has now 200 signatures to it. That is a substantial body of opinion. It is irrespective of party. The signatories are drawn from all parties in this Committee. I think that probably something like from 120 to 130 of the signatories are supporters of the Government. When one allows for the fact that probably something like 100 supporters of the Government are supposed by virtue of their positions as Parliamentary Private Secretarys to be disqualified from putting their signatures to a Motion of this kind, I think that my right hon. Friend and his colleagues will recognise that this number of signatories constitutes a substantial body of Government supporters who feel that the time for action in this matter is ripe.
    There is only one other matter in connection with it to which I want to refer, and that is this. It is often said that this particular claim cannot be dealt with in isolation, and this argument was repeated by the Minister of Defence himself in another place the other day. He sought to defend Government policy on the
    928
    ground that the claim for increased retired pension could not be dealt with without admitting a whole host of other claims. There is no validity in that argument at all. If a case is worthy of being treated by itself, and if its being treated in isolation can be justified, then there is certainly no reason why it should not be so treated. Everyone who has examined this case is, I think, fully satisfied that there is a sound case for treating it in isolation.
    The only other argument which has been put against the matter is on the question of expenditure. Apparently some £400,000 is to be voted under this Supplementary Estimate tonight. The total which we should like to see allotted to this matter is £2 million. I can only say that I am shocked by a Government who refuse £2 million to a deserving cause of this kind when I find the Minister of Materials coming down yesterday and saying, "I made a slight mistake in my Estimates for my Ministry, and instead of making a profit of £14 million I found I made a loss of £33 million, so there is a slight matter of £47 million that I want found so that the errors made in my Estimates can be made up." I find it shocking that the Government can do that and at the same time say they cannot find £2 million for officers and warrant officers who have served their country through two world wars and are now asking for what is, indeed, a paltry sum.
    I hope that my right hon. Friend will bring this matter to the notice of those who are responsible for it, because, as I say, he can rest assured that if he does not persuade them to take action in the way that I have indicated in some reasonably foreseeable future I certainly shall have no hesitation in taking action in the way I have indicated
    7.35 p.m.
    Mr. James Simmons: When I intervened in the debate on the Army Estimates in March I said I did so with diffidence as an ex-private in the face of so many experts of higher rank. As many of them are not here tonight I feel a little more confidence, and I am considerably encouraged by the Secretary of State himself, who said on 10th March:
    "I am asking the House for £491½ million and 555,000 all ranks … that is an extremely large sum … when the nation is

    929
    undergoing great economic difficulty and when that amount can ill be spared. It is my chief responsibility, and, indeed, that of the House also, to see that in return for these two very considerable figures, the nation gets good value for money."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th March, 1952; Vol. 497, c. 1023.]
    Then, speaking last night, he was even more forthcoming. He said:
    "I am fulfilling a task which will not be welcome to most hon. Members on either side, because … at the present time, when I think hon. Members on both sides of the Committee are agreed that expenditure must, as far as possible, be held down for obvious economic reasons, such a Supplementary Estimate is bound to be one on which hon. Members on both sides will wish to satisfy themselves as to the reasons."…[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th January, 1953; Vol. 510, c. 781.]
    That is my reason for getting up tonight—to satisfy myself on the reasons. We, as Members of this Committee, before we part with this Supplementary Estimate, must ensure ourselves that first of all, the expenditure is necessary, and, second, that we are getting value for money in this respect.
    The Supplementary Estimates asks for £35 million. That is a fairly stiff sum of money—£35 million—and that does not tell the whole story of this Estimate, because I see that they are underspent by £15,700,000 on the Estimates. So that means that a sum of £50,700,000 is being discussed tonight. Many people will want to know why we must find this extra £35 million when we voted £49½ million in March. The disabled ex-Service man might ask why the Department whose activities cause casualties gets mare than the Department which cares for the casualties of war.
    No Supplementary Estimate is provided to meet the needs of those who have lost arms, eyesight and health in the service of their country. They will be suspicious that the profligacy of one Department is responsible for the parsimony of the other Department, that the arm of the Forces is valued higher than the lost limb of the ex-member of the Forces. But that is by the way. I know I must not discuss that any further. I merely use it in order to compare the way in which money is spent, and I do not want to elaborate that any further.
    Part of the increase, we are told, is due to the additional expenditure on pay and the maintenance of personnel. On one occasion the Under-Secretary snapped at me, "I know you do not like the
    930
    Army." He is quite wrong. I have a great affection and veneration for the Army in which I served. I should like to see a world in which there was no need for armies, but as long as there are armies I have no animosity against the Army as an army.
    I rejoice that in the new Elizabethan age there are no down-and-outs who have to take refuge in the Army and take the Queen's shilling. The common soldier is no longer a member of a sub-race apart from his fellows. Technical training, better pay and conditions have raised his social, mental and economic status. I rejoice at these things, and I have no objection to make about the increased expenditure on the pay and maintenance of Army personnel. I notice, however, that the increase pay for officers is £1 million and for other ranks £6,250,000. That is a little out of proportion, is it not?
    Mr. Head: Perhaps I might make it clear to the hon. and gallant Gentleman —I always insist on calling him hon and gallant, in view of his service—that those figures have nothing to do with rates of pay; they are purely on numbers. There are variations in number. The figures do not represent any change in the rates of pay as between officers and other ranks.
    Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Does that mean there is one officer to six other ranks?
    Mr. Head: The number of officers now in the Army and the number of other ranks now in the Army are not exactly the same as at the time of the Estimates, and these figures represent a numerical difference and not a difference in rates of pay.
    Mr. Simmons: I accept that explanation. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Brixton (Lieut.-Colonel Marcus Lipton) has rather stolen my thunder, because I was about to suggest that it looked as though there was one officer to six other ranks. How much of the sum for the maintenance of personnel goes in improved amenities and services and how much is due to higher prices as a result of Government policy? Are we in these Supplementary Estimates, as the housewife is when she goes shopping, paying for the policy of the Government which has resulted in increased prices of food and materials?

    931
    How much are the racketeers getting out of it?
    In Vote 4 we see provision made for a lot of new civil servants, and I should like to ask one or two questions about that, if the right hon. Gentleman has no objection. On 10th March, when debating the Estimates, the Minister said:
    "The War Office has been reduced considerably since the war, but I felt that with this intensive comb-out, it was not really right that the War Office should be exempt. The experience I have had of reductions in establishment is that it is no good arguing over every man, every clerk. The only way out is to have an arbitrary cut. Therefore, I gave instructions that the entire staff of the War Office should be cut by 10 per cent. That has been most loyally implemented and will result in a saving of 750 soldiers and civil servants."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th March, 1952; Vol. 497, c. 1036.]
    Now we come to this Vote 4—
    Mr. Head: I apologise for intervening again, but I think it may save time. The War Office comes under Vote 3, which is not concerned in this Supplementary Estimate. This Vote 4 concerns civilians at certain establishments, which I went into last night when explaining the Supplementary Estimates. They are not concerned with civil servants in the War Office in any way.
    Mr. Simmons: Well, civilians employed by the War Office are civil servants. For instance, under Subhead K of Vote 4 we are spending £1,150,000 above the Estimate, and the total increase over the original Estimate is £3,800,000. They are all people employed as civil servants by the War Office. It is no good lopping a few branches off the top of the tree and then letting it blossom out somewhere else, as apparently has happened here.
    Last night the right hon. Gentleman gave us some information about the necessity for the increase under Subhead K. Let me quote its words to make sure I am not misrepresenting him, which I should hate to do. He said:
    "In addition, contained in Subhead K particularly, is an added expense caused by the disappearance of civil labour in Egypt. When the situation deteriorated the majority of civil labour in Tel el Kebir and other big depots walked out and essential jobs had to be filled by substitutes. Some of the substitutes were expensive."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th January, 1953; Vol. 510, c. 788.]
    932
    That sounds rather cryptic to me. Labour in Egypt was always unreliable. Arms and stores were frequently stolen in the Canal Zone. I have a son who served in the Canal Zone, and he told me what went on there. Officers have been cashiered for dealing in arms. The Egyptians were being armed by us all the time our troops were there, and I suppose sonic of this labour was what might be called dangerous as well as expensive. In what way is the substitute labour expensive? I think the right hon. Gentleman might expand a bit on that.
    This concerns the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman). Why are we in Egypt at all? Why have we men and equipment in the Canal Zone when we are uninvited and unwelcome guests, and are bound to get out in the near future? If democracy in the Sudan means anything at all we are bound to get out When looking at this Vote which, we are told, is the result of happenings in the Canal Zone, we are entitled to ask why the taxpayer's money is being wasted in that way, because we have very grave misgivings about this. I have talked not only to my own son but to many others in the Canal Zone, which is regarded as one of the most dreary of the stations of the British Army. There are few provisions for amenities, enjoyment, or the entertainment of the troops there. I do not want to go into a lot of detail about it, but I think we ought to have a full explanation why this labour in the Canal Zone is regarded as specially expensive.
    I want to come to the question of stores. We cannot say much about some of the stores because they relate to estimates which have not been fulfilled—warlike stores and engineer stores. On the other hand, the cost of equipment and allowances and general stores have gone up by about £21 million, food and ration allowance by £3 million, solid fuel, electricity and gas by £1 million, and so on. Once again, I would emphasise that this is the outcome of the economic policy of the Government—the policy that leads to higher prices. We are paying, as the housewife is paying, through the Supplementary Estimates for the inefficiency of the Government in that direction.
    I now come to the non-effective services. I was considerably intrigued to

    933
    read Command Paper 8741, part of which the Minister told us last night was included in this Supplementary Estimate, dealing with Forces family pensions. As the House knows, I was a private, and had I stayed in the Army for 32 years and never got a stripe—
    Mr. Ede: In the right place.
    Mr. Simmons: If I had left a wife, she would now be getting the marvellous pension of 10s. a week.
    Mr. Wigg: That is quite wrong. My hon. Friend's widow would have got nothing. If he had been in the House and listened to the announcement by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Defence, he would have been encouraged to think that his widow would get 10s. a week, but when the White Paper was published, he would have discovered that the fulfilment was not equal to the promise. He would have shared the disappointment which I certainly feel—not on account of my widow—that the Government have not faced up to their promise.
    Mr. Simmons: I am quoting from the White Paper, which says that families of ranks below warrant officer, class 1, who have 32 years' service, corporal or private—there is no distinction—get 10s.
    Mr. Wigg: If my hon. Friend will look at the top of page 4 of the White Paper he will find that these pensions are in respect of long service engagements in the case of other ranks, after 31st August, 1950.
    Mr. Simmons: The widow of a man serving for 32 years as a private and not rising above the rank of corporal would get 10s. and the widow of a man serving 37 years would get 12s. 6d. On the other hand, the widow of a field marshal has had the rate of pension increased from £300 a year to £500 a year. When we come down the list—I will not quote them all—we find that the pension of a colonel's widow has gone up from £100 to £220 a year, and of a lieutenant's widow from £45 to £110 a year.
    In his speech on the Estimate, the Minister said that not only did we need an adequate number of Regulars in the Army, but we wanted to encourage them to stay in the Army. What encourage-
    934
    ment is there for a man to stay in the Army when he knows that at the end of 37 years, if he is unfortunate enough to get killed or to die from an accident, his widow will be fobbed off with a miserable 10s. a week?
    We must rid the Army of class distinction. We have to see that the ordinary n.c.o. or the ordinary private—I do not say that they should get equal pay because I am not talking about equal pay for equal work, which is a controversy which has arisen between the sexes over the past several years—gets something more approximating to the pay of the higher ranks, and that his dependant has something more approximating the compensation of the dependant of the higher ranks when anything comes along to cause distress in the family. I think that is reasonable.
    After all the backbone of the Army is the non-commissioned officer, and compared with the commissioned officer he is not too well paid. There is too big a gap, and I do not believe in this big gap so far as widows' pensions are concerned. I have always been in favour of a basic pension for all ranks. I would not have basic pay the same for all ranks in the Army, because I think that we have to pay for ability, but I think that there should not be such a gap as there is at the present time.
    We shall not vote against this £35 million Supplementary Estimate because we should be harming the men in the Army and preventing them from getting the pay and maintenance and the other things with which we are dealing in this Supplementary Estimate if we did. A lot is being spent on defence today. A general Estimate of £491 million and a Supplementary Estimate of £35 million in respect of the Army is a very big lump out of the national income.
    I am one of those who believe that the best thing the Army could do would be to remedy some of these anomalies which I have mentioned, to encourage the recruiting of Regulars into the Service. If we hastened this we should get what I long for, and what every other true Britisher longs for—the best of our young men going into the Army as a profession and no longer be under the necessity of relying on compulsion to get men into our defence Forces.
    7.59 p.m.
    Mr. Frederick Gough: There are one or two points which I should like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary to deal with when he replies. Before mentioning them, I should like to correct the arithmetic of the hon. Member for Brierley Hill (Mr. Simmons). He referred to the ratio between the increase in the pay of officers and the increase in the pay of other ranks, and, although my right hon. Friend gave him the answer, I still like to check up on his mathematics, because he rather drew attention to this as being a small ratio. It is in the nature of 1 to 6 or 1 to 6¼ He should look at the Estimate where he will see that the pay of officers is £26,600,000 and the pay of other ranks £63 million, so the ratio there is 1 to 3, and an increase on the basis of 1 to 6 is, I think, an improvement.
    The other point which I should like to mention was referred to by the hon. Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Cross-man), who I am sorry is not in his place. He referred to the question of the Canal Zone. I do not want to get out of order, but surely in regard to these Estimates we have to estimate whether there are troops in the Canal Zone or not. We must pay regard to the effect of the very serious situation in the Canal Zone which the Government inherited 12 months ago.
    I want to ask my right hon. Friend for a little more information on Vote 4 about civilians. Unfortunately, I was not here when he spoke yesterday afternoon, but I have read his speech carefully. I understand the matter of the replacement of Egyptian labour which, I gather, absorbs the best part of £1,150,000 under Subhead K, but there is an increase of over £2 million.
    I had a lot of correspondence with my right hon. Friend and the Parliamentary Secretary about 12 months ago over a very respectable old gentleman, named Mr. Christmas, who was employed at an R.A.S.C. depot in my constituency. He was one of the most robust gentlemen at the age of 70 that I had ever met. He was a handyman and had worked at the depot almost since the reign of Queen Victoria. Suddenly, in the first flush of cutting down civilian staff, Mr. Christmas was told to go. He was not given a month or two's notice or anything like
    936
    that: he was more or less bundled off at very short notice.
    If people like Mr. Christmas were sacked 12 months ago, surely we ought not now to bring in new people and increase the cost of civilian labour. I understand and realise the difficulties here but at the same time I ask my right hon. Friend to reassure us that he is keeping watch on the regular soldier who, I am afraid, is all too often apt to allow his staff, both military and civilian, to grow unless he is persistently and regularly checked.
    Vote 5H refers to the conveyance of personnel and animals by sea or by air, and an increase of £1,750,000 is shown. Does the cost of the conveyance of airborne troops for both their operations and their exercises fall under that heading, and is the increase due to a large increase —a most welcome increase, I should say at once—in the training of our airborne soldiers?
    My right hon. Friend deserves a great deal of congratulation upon the admirable increase in the Regular Army. I was glad to notice in the explanation that that has largely accounted for the big increases in Vote 1. But I have heard on very good authority that the situation in our dwindling Airborne Forces—that is, our Parachute Brigade—is one that causes grave concern. I am told that they are finding great difficulty in getting a sufficient number of volunteers. I am told—I should be glad to have a reassurance about this— that the Brigade is below strength and, what is even worse, that the many young Regular soldiers, in what I believe to be a corps d'élite, are taking the first opportunity of leaving the Army. If that is the case, the increase of £11,300,000 ought really to be bigger because there should be reflected in the increase a deduction for the drop in the numbers of Airborne Forces. I shall be very grateful for some information on that subject.
    Mr. Head: It might save time if I referred now to the Parachute Brigade, in which I know my hon. Friend takes so much interest. It is true that the recruiting situation has been causing anxiety and has been the subject of examination. We are, I hope, shortly going to make certain changes in the recruiting regulations in order to help

    937
    the Parachute Brigade, which, I am sure all hon. Members will agree, is a most valuable part of the British Army.
    Mr. Gough: I am extremely grateful to my right hon. Friend. I hope he will not think I am full of carping criticisms, but I have another point to raise about Vote 9—" Miscellaneous effective services "—Subhead M—" Pay, etc., of Arab Legion, Special Units and Reserve." Perhaps I may claim indulgence as a new Member of Parliament because I do not understand that item. A decrease of £200,000 is shown there. That may appear to be welcome. I hope I shall be within the rules of order when I ask my right hon. Friend if any allowance is made there for the old Transjordan Frontier Force. If this subject is examined the record of this country —it is not really of this Government; it is of the previous Government—is rather poor. When the Transjordan Frontier Force —
    Mr. Emrys Hughes: On a point of order, Sir Charles. This item shows a decrease in the amount of money allocated to the Arab Legion. Are we in order in discussing the Arab Legion when a decrease is shown in the Supplementary Estimate?
    The Chairman: No, it is not in order to discuss it, but it is in order to ask a question.
    Mr. Gough: I have asked my question, and I will go no further than that.
    I want to end on the note which was struck by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hove (Mr. Marlowe). Like every other hon. Member, I have case after case of pensioners who are suffering more than anybody else at the moment and I hope that the words which my hon. and learned Friend very courageously uttered will be most seriously considered by Her Majesty's Government.
    8.7 p.m.
    Mr. Michael Stewart: I want to say a few words about recruiting. The increase in Vote 1 of the Supplementary Estimate is, as we have been told, due to increased numbers in the Regular Army, and the reason why the increased numbers in the Regular Army result in an increase in the Estimate is partly the differential in pay between Regular and National Service and partly the effect of the three-year engagement
    938
    scheme in giving us as Regulars men whom we should otherwise have now or in the future as National Service men. That means that, in a sense, the Estimate results from two acts of policy, the differential in pay between Regular and National Service men and the three-year engagements scheme, both of which were acts of policy for which the right hon. Gentleman was not responsible. We are not quarrelling with him that either of those things should be done; very far from it.
    However, he is now beginning to see in the figures of recruiting which he has been able to give us how much and, in one sense, how little can be expected from policy of this kind. I want to draw his attention to the fact that, despite the recruiting figures he mentioned, there are still a number of grave anxieties about recruiting which will confront him in the future. So far the policy adopted in recruiting, with which I certainly do not quarrel, has involved an increased expenditure which is reflected in the Estimate, but it would be wrong to suppose that it has by any means solved the recruiting problem.
    As the right hon. Gentleman pointed out, by far the greater part of the increased recruiting which he has had this year as compared with the previous year comes from recruiting into the Regular Army young men who otherwise, probably in a year's time, would have been entering the Army as National Service men. I believe I am correct on that point.
    Mr. Head: Six months' time.
    Mr. Stewart: That is bound to be reflected in a decline in the number of men registering for National Service in the succeeding period. My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) mentioned that there was a disquieting decline in the recruiting figures for the last quarter of last year, but the right hon. Gentleman says that the figure is rising again. The more successful the right hon. Gentleman is in recruiting the greater will be the effect on the National Service intake in the future.
    Mr. Head: That is a rather specious argument. If the hon. Gentleman says that by getting Regular recruits for three years we are diminishing the National Service intake, what it amounts to, if we take the whole field of young men who

    939
    are available to come into the Army, is that we will get some for three years and some for two years. The more we get for three years, the better off we are.
    The hon. Gentleman says that because of the three-years period the recruiting difficulties will be worse, but we are assuming that none of those young men. whom one assumes have a liking for Army life, will remain after three years. There is, however, every indication that a certain number are keen to join the Army. As I said to the hon. Gentleman privately when he raised this matter, it so happens that the 22-years, or long-term, engagement coincides very nearly in numbers with the short engagement figures for Regular recruiting.
    Mr. Stewart: I do not want to be too despondent, but it will be noticed that all we have got for the moment is one extra year from these men. I agree that we must hope, and it may well happen, that many of them will continue to serve in the Army for a longer period, but I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman has taken the point, to which I was coming and which, I think, is the moral of this, that what is really necessary to improve Army recruiting permanently is to widen the section of the population who will look upon a lifetime of service in the Army as a normal profession to take up.
    The right hon. Gentleman may remember that I made that point last time we were discussing the Army Estimates; that if we do not do that, temporary large increases in the recruiting numbers mean that we are doing no more than eating into the future. At present, we do not yet know whether we are doing anything very much more than that. We may well, and not unreasonably, hope that we are doing more than eating into the future, but it is still a point that must be watched. Also, of course, we are doing it by a method which, since the term of engagement is shorter, means that we cannot have the same certainty about the size of the Army in future as we had when there were longer terms of engagement, at least until we know more about the long-term reaction of men to this three-years engagement scheme.
    Also, we have to notice that if there is a big bulge of recruiting, such as occurred between 1951 and 1952, unless we get
    940
    an increased number of men who are prepared to re-engage for a further term we might be faced with an equally big drop within three years from now. I think the right hon. Gentleman will find that those who advise him at the War Office, while always glad to see increases in the number of Regular recruits, always feel happier when the curve of that increase is a steady and cheerful rise, maintained over a long period, and not a sudden jump up in one year. That does not mean that we ought to be ungrateful for a sudden jump in one year if it comes, but it brings with it not only the immediate advantage, but the possibility of a serious headache in the future.
    I should like to say one further word about recruiting. The history of this matter is that when the late Government were in power, we were repeatedly adjured by the right hon. Gentleman and by his right hon. and hon. Friends to raise the rates of pay. They particularly adjured us to do that at a time when the whole community was being obliged to exercise restraint over its income and when, had we acceded to their pressure, we would have taken the step that would have made it impossible to hold that restraint and would have damaged the economy of the whole nation. While the right hon. Gentleman urged that policy upon us, his right hon. and hon. Friends at the same time urged upon us increases of public expenditure in every other Department, coupled with reductions in taxation.
    After a time, of course, it became possible to do that under the late Government. The national economy was such that it was possible to produce the increases of pay. They are now reflected in the figures of improved recruiting, which so far as they go are welcome, but which we have to view with a certain amount of caution for the future and remembering all the time that it is essential to try to widen the section of the population who are prepared to look upon the Army as a profession.
    To do that, regard must be had particularly to conditions of service —a point that was very properly made by my hon. Friend the Member for Brierley Hill (Mr. Simmons), who speaks with experience of the Services in the First World War. This question of conditions is bound up very much, particularly when considering

    941
    the Supplementary Estimate, with the points about service in Egypt which were made by my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman).
    I remember, when I was stationed for a time in that country during the war, hearing one of my fellow soldiers, during one of our less pleasant experiences, remark in a tone of extreme bitterness, "There is only one country I want to see again. Its name begins with E, and it is not Egypt." That was a fairly common feeling among soldiers stationed in that country.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, East mentioned particularly the inevitable separation of families that is imposed on the Army by the present Egyptian situation. He mentioned that the Secretary of State had discussed with soldiers and officers in the Canal Zone the possibility of introducing some kind of allowance to deal with that problem. I remind the right hon. Gentleman that he went further than my hon. Friend reminded us. He also said in the House that he was considering whether some way of dealing with this problem could be found. As he knows, I have addressed inquiries to him, to which he has courteously replied, and I understand that he is still trying to find a way of dealing with this problem of separation allowance. If the right hon. Gentleman is able to come to the House, as I hope he may be before long, with the result of his considerations, we shall welcome them because it is something which the situation in Egypt very earnestly needs.
    I should be inclined to say a good deal more about the lack of amenities for soldiers in the Canal Zone did I not feel that that was really going round the edge of the problem. The right hon. Gentleman must take to heart very much the advice given to him by my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, East to consult those of his senior colleagues who deal with higher policy in this matter as to whether the maintenance of our Forces in the Canal Zone any longer serves any useful political or military purpose.
    Mr. Emrys Hughes: Hear, hear.
    Mr. Stewart: As the right hon. Gentleman well knows, while the present uncertainty persists, there is not anything very effective that can be done as regards either amenities or married quarters or
    942
    anything to make the life of the soldiers in that part of the world more tolerable.
    As I have ventured again in correspondence to point out to the right hon. Gentleman, not only will men be deterred from taking on three-year engagements in the ranks, but more and more officers, as the opportunity arises, leave the Service if they have had experience of this in the Canal Zone. It is a matter which has been drawn to public attention by organs of the Press commonly favourable to the right hon. Gentleman and his party, and it must be causing him considerable anxiety.
    I want now to refer briefly to one or two other items of detail in the Supplementary Estimates. We have not so far had an explanation of why the figures of the Reserve—the Regular Reserve in particular—are 6,000 larger than was estimated. There is an increase of some 25 per cent. over the Estimate. I expect that the right hon. Gentleman will be able to provide us with the reason, but it is an interesting point. With this increase in the numbers of the Reserve, we ought also to consider whether the right hon. Gentleman can say with confidence that the training, equipment and provision for clothing of the Reserve, should it be necessary to make use of them, is in a state that affords him complete satisfaction.
    From the explanation which we have been given, I understood that very little of the figure in Vote 4 is due to any greater number of civilians having been employed, with the exception of the special situation in Egypt and the numbers that it is necessary to employ owing to an increase in covered accommodation. I am very glad that there is this increase in covered accommodation, because it tends to save money. The saving of valuable vehicles from having to be left in the open often more than repays itself over a period of time.
    But, apart from that, we gather that there is not any substantial increase in the number of civilians. I am wondering whether that is really good news. For some time the Army has considered what is called "a barrack house-keeping" scheme in an attempt to relieve the serving soldier as far as possible of domestic chores and get the work done by civilians — preferably, if they can be obtained, by men who have been soldiers.

    943
    elderly, retired and perhaps partially disabled men, who can do the job with advantage to themselves and to the Army. I hope that we shall have an answer to the example quoted by the hon. Member for Horsham (Mr. Gough) in his interesting reference to this problem. I should like to hear that it has proved possible to go a little further with the barrack house-keeping arrangements.
    On Vote 5, in regard to movement, the Secretary of State estimated that the number of men in the pipeline is 30,000. There was a little argument whether that was the right figure. I find that the Prime Minister gave the figure as 30,000, although, when we remember some of the excursions of the Prime Minister into figures, we wonder whether the fact that he agrees with the right hon. Gentleman is a reassurance to the Secretary of State.
    Mr. Head: As the hon. Member has raised that and I was got at by his hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman), I had the actual figure checked up this morning and found that it comes to 28,500 approximately. I do not think it was a bad extemporary guess as it is varying from day to day. I think that not only myself, but the Prime Minister comes very well out of that estimate.
    Mr. Stewart: I am sure that is very gratifying to all concerned. It was suggested that this figure might be reduced by air trooping. I want to ask what I think will be a difficult question to answer. Can the right hon. Gentleman give any estimate of the saving which he anticipates may be made in anything like the near future by the development of air trooping? Would it be reasonable to say that by development of air trooping if one set out diligently to do it one could reduce the number of men in the pipeline by 20 per cent., 25 per cent., or anything much smaller?
    I am not suggesting that the right hon. Gentleman should give an estimate which we should hold against him, but, as the whole nation is interested in the question of saving manpower in the Army, it would be helpful to find out whether there is any expert opinion as to how far this particular channel of saving might be useful.
    Mr. Head: We have been going into this matter and are now going into the question of saving non-effectives to air transport. Practically all the trooping in the Middle East is done by air transport, but the units have to move as well. Therefore, it is to some extent limited. There are savings in the closer journeys such as Germany where it is rather doubtful whether replacing ship and train transport, which only takes 24 hours, is justified by air transport. I feel that the saving would be considerable, but it would not be dramatic and it would not solve the problem by introducing this method everywhere where it is possible.
    Mr. Stewart: I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman and I will endeavour not to provoke him too much, or to take up too much of his time.
    I wish to refer to an item to which I think no hon. Member has referred "Telegrams, telephones and postage," in Vote 9. If an increase of half a million pounds had occurred in that Supplementary Estimate under the late Government, what an outcry there would have been. What pictures would have been drawn of bureaucrats writing each other letters and sitting in their chairs ringing each other up on the telephone.
    Mr. Head: That would have been carried on the Post Office Vote when the hon. Gentleman's party were in power.
    Mr. Stewart: We have this increase and I was happy to observe that one reason given for it was a very sensible one. It was that the public are probably more aware of concession rates and are making great use of them. I mention the item because it brings out an important point. If we are to provide conditions of life in the Army which the public will look upon with approval and which, therefore, are likely to be helpful to recruitment, it will cost something in money and manpower.
    We sometimes hear comparisons made of the number of men in the British Army who are in what is called the "teeth arms" with the proportion of men in the Russian Army in the "teeth arms." The nation should realise that if we were prepared to provide for the men in our Army as low a standard of general amenity, possibilities of communication with their families and everything else

    945
    which makes their lives decent as is provided in the armies of some other countries, we would have more men in the "teeth arms" but fewer in the "tail."
    There is a limit to what one can get by way of economies of that kind without doing something which the nation would resist and react to adversely on Army recruiting. The moral for hon. and right hon. Members opposite, perhaps, is that now they are learning that being economical in the administration of the Army is not quite the facile task some of them supposed it was when they sat on this side.
    I will say no more on Vote 10 than to invite the right hon. Gentleman to give diligent attention to the reference by my hon. Friend the Member for Aston (Mr. Wyatt) and more than one of his hon. Friends to a particular item in which we are all very much interested.
    The general conclusions one may draw are, first, that while the responsibilities of the right hon. Gentleman, under our present defence arrangements, are really limited to the administration of the Army, he will realise that that cannot be completely divorced from large questions of defence and foreign policy and he must go away from the debate resolved to see that the Egyptian question is very seriously discussed by his senior colleagues.
    The second is that while we noticed with interest the figures of the recruiting we did draw his attention to the fact that there are still many difficulties ahead. The third is the general fact that after so much criticism of the previous Government on the ground that they were not giving the nation value for money in the fighting Services, we should now have a Supplementary Estimate for £35 million which, if it were not for a shortfall in delivery of warlike stores, would be nearly £50 million, suggests that economy in the administration of the Army is not to be found quite so easily as has sometimes been supposed.
    The right hon. Gentleman will get his Supplementary Estimate tonight, but I hope that the experience of having had to ask for it will make him realise the size of the problems with which he is struggling, as I daresay he has already realised, and that when he returns to this
    946
    side he may possibly do so in a more chastened mood than when he last sat on these benches.
    8.30 p.m
    Mr. W. A. Wilkins: Unlike my hon. Friend the Member for Fulham, East (Mr. M. Stewart), I am not an expert on the Army or on the Army Estimates. I know a little more about Portsmouth, Rosyth and Scapa Flow than about any of the Army establishments. I wish to make one very short and, I believe, interesting and not, I hope. unimportant point. From time to time I am concerned, as I am sure other hon. Members of the Committee must be, when I get complaints from young men who are called upon to do their training, and especially when they are recalled to do Territorial training, about the amount of time which they consider they are wasting.
    I had one such complaint on Saturday last which concerns the point I wish to raise. I have here a document sent out by the 40th A.A.—I believe that is Anti-Aircraft—Workshop Company of R.E.M.E. advising a constituent of mine that he is to be called to do 15 days' training in camp this summer. It would appear that the Army authorities are not quite certain about the way they will employ this man, and possibly some others with him for in the notice telling him what he has to do, where he has to report and what things he has to take, it is stated:
    "It is visualised that there may once again be a shortage of practical work for the vehicle mechanics, therefore it has been agreed that repairs to private cars may be undertaken free of charge."
    I presume that no company in the British Army would send out instructions of that sort without having had some authority from Whitehall. In other words, I presume that the Secretary of State for War is responsible for this permission having been given. I wish to ask the Secretary of State whose cars they are to repair. Is it to be only the officers' cars, or will it be the cars of the privates and the corporals? [Laughter.] This is a very serious point. Can my constituent take my car and have it thoroughly overhauled free of charge? I am rather concerned because I am wondering what the garage proprietors in Bristol will think about this. After all, they are, with us.

    947
    taxpayers who have to find the money to keep these men in camp while they are doing their training. Surely they will be deeply concerned about the permission to which I have referred being given.
    I do not want to be too provocative about this, but I know of a case myself in which the man who is to be called on for service of this kind is a builder. He is to be taken away for 15 days from a job which is one of the most profitable to the community at present in order that he can, if he wishes, repair his own or somebody else's car. Surely he can logically argue that he could, if he wished, dismantle his car and overhaul it and do whatever is required to it in his own garage just as well as he could do so in some Army camp. I suggest to the Secretary of State for War that if we are to call these men up for 15 days' training, we should at least ensure that they shall have some useful work to occupy their time.
    One other point about which I would like to ask the Secretary of State for War is the amount of training to be done by those National Service men who are drafted into Territorial units. I am not suggesting that what I am about to say is necessarily right. I just do not know, and I am seeking information. I have tried to get it from some of my hon. Friends, but I have not been entirely successful. Some seem to think it is a period of 60 days over some length of time.
    I have here a letter and again a notice —it is strange that one should get two such notices in a matter of three days—calling on a young man to do his 15 days at camp. The young man says he understood, when he was transferred to the Territorial Army, that he would be required to do 30 hours Army training, plus 15 days camp per year. His complaint is that, though he has done his 26 drills, he has also been called to three week-end training camps, for which he gets credited with 16 hours per week-end. In other words, he is suggesting to me that he actually exceeds the requirements of his military training of 30 hours. even by doing these three week-ends.
    I do not know whether this is a fair complaint. I am asking for information. I would like the Secretary of State for War to make some reference to it and
    948
    at least to put me square, so that I shall know what I have to say to my constituent.
    8.37 p.m.
    Mr. Emrys Hughes: I am not one who is surprised to hear that the Secretary of State for War is asking for another £35 million, because when the Chancellor of the Exchequer made that very eloquent appeal for economy, I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman never dreamed for one moment that it applied to him. I am also quite sure, if any circular went from the Exchequer to the War Office, that somebody stole it on the way. Indeed, I am agreeably surprised that only £35 million has been asked for. Knowing the enthusiasm of the right hon. Gentleman for the Army, I expected a great deal more, and I am surprised at his moderation. If the advice of the right hon. Gentleman had been followed we should have had to find at least £600,000 more, because we see that, if the original Home Guard proposals had been carried into effect, it would have been £600,000 more. So I am thankful for small mercies.
    I am not one of those prepared to give hints to the Army as to how to increase recruiting. I believe there are far too many recruits already. I want to be perfectly plain about that. My constituents are not interested in getting more recruits for the Army. During the last Election, when we were dealing with the cost of the Armed Forces, there was a great deal of excitement among the members of the Conservative Party who came to my meetings to ask me about the position in Persia. They were then anxious about it.
    I said that I was not in favour of interfering in Persia or of sending Armed Forces to Persia, but if any gentleman in the audience wished to enlist for Persia I was prepared to give his name and address to the recruiting authorities. I did not hinder recruiting at all. In all my experience as Member for South Ayrshire I have had no constituent who has asked my advice about how he could get into the British Army. All they come to ask me is how to get out of the Army or how not to get into the Army. So I am entitled to say that my constituents are not interested in this recruiting business.

    949
    When the Secretary of State for War says that this Supplementary Estimate is an increase of only 8 per cent., I wonder what check his Under-Secretary has upon him. At least the Under-Secretary used to be a business man, and if anybody had said casually to him that there was an increase of only 8 per cent. in an estimate the Scottish Under-Secretary, with his wisdom and shrewdness, would have said that 8 per cent. was an enormous sum at a time of national difficulty and possible financial trouble.
    Mr. Head: That is what I said.
    Mr. Hughes: It is not a matter of what the right hon. Gentleman says; it is a matter of what he does. It is a question of what he brings to this Committee. When he brings a bill for £35 million I say that I am most reluctant to pay it. I am sorry that there is not enough enthusiasm on this side of the Committee for us to say, "Take back this Estimate and have another look at it." That is exactly what would be done by any sensible local authority.
    The Secretary of State prides himself on the fact that he has got 26,000 extra recruits. What is that compared with the Russian Army or the Chinese Army, or all the other armies which, presumably, we are competing against? It would be easy for the Communist countries to raise a further 26,000 men. I do not see that we are any stronger from the point of view of numbers than we were 12 months ago. Where has the right hon. Gentleman got the men from? There is a strong complaint in my constituency that he is getting many recruits from the agricultural industry. When he says, "We have signed on 26,000 men for three years," my farmers say that some of them have come from agriculture and that when they go into the Army they do not come back.
    The Secretary of State has succeeded in taking people who are doing real work in industry or producing food and sending them to rot somewhere in Suez or East of Suez, as my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman) said. I do not think that the country is in any stronger position as a result of these recruiting efforts by the right hon. Gentleman.
    I wish to ask a question about the expenses of recruiting. Can we have
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    some estimate of the expense of advertising. What is the nation paying for these most elaborate advertisements which appear in our papers. For example, an indignant constituent has sent me a copy from a publication called, "Woman." It is not calling for men recruits; but here is an elaborate and, I presume, a most expensive advertisement which says:
    "It's a better life in the W.R.A.C."
    I am amazed to find the statement that if one enlists in the W.R.A.C. one not only gets a new uniform but one gets a new independent life. One does not get much independence when one goes into the Army. In my experience with a Welsh regiment in the First World War, they did a lot of things to me, but nobody insulted me by saying that I was more independent.
    Here is the attraction that is offered: "No rent to pay." It sounds almost Communistic. I do not know whether hon. Gentlemen opposite with an interest in rent have realised the implications of this. Here is this advertisement saying that they can join the Army because they will have to pay no rent, and what kind of social responsibility is that instilling into the readers of "Woman"? "No rent or clothing to pay for"; something for nothing:
    "No having your meals alone. No season tickets to buy. No crowded buses or trams to face every day. Post the coupon for details now."
    I could bring some advertisements probably paralleling that for the male section of the community, but I would like to know what is the cost of this advertising campaign and what we are paying in order to insult the intelligence of the women of this country.
    I quite agree with the main part of the argument of the hon. Member for Coventry, East and I am waiting with interest to see what reply we are going to have from the Front Bench. The argument of the hon. Member for Coventry, East was precisely the argument used in the time of Pharaoh, because, in the time of Pharaoh, the Israelites wanted to leave Egypt, and they had the leadership of Moses. I am hoping that the Secretary of State for War will earn for himself the immortal fame of being the Moses of Britain by leading these useless soldiers out of Egypt into the Promised Land of Great Britain.

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    I would carry this argument of the hon. Member for Coventry, East a little further. I am not so sure that the Suez Canal area is the most unpopular area with the British Army. I believe that Korea is a very unpopular part for the British Army, and, in the term movements, we presume are included all the movements to Korea, but the only movement of which I am in favour as far as Korea is concerned is a movement out of Korea.
    In this Estimate there is, presumably, another additional item for movements into Korea, and I do not believe that there is in this country at the present time any enthusiasm at all for the movement into Korea, especially when, presumably, those movements include taking lads of 19, calling them up in February, taking them out of this country in July and finding them in the casualty lists in Korea in October.
    I should be very glad if these movements were stopped, and, to carry the argument of the hon. Member for Coventry, East to its logical conclusion, if we are likely to ease the recruiting headache of the authorities by saying, "Well, you will not need to go to the Suez Canal," we could also ease the problem by saying, "Well, you do not need to go to Korea," and that applies to every sphere of military activity covered by these figures about movements.
    Then, presumably, there are movements into Germany, and, when it comes to discussing Germany, I should like to know if the amount on page 5 for £1,400,000 covers any constructive works in Germany. It is really a curious position as far as Germany is concerned. We have come to the conclusion that we cannot trust the present Government to suppress the movement started by the ex-Nazis, and at the present time we are building up this base on the borders of Germany at an enormous cost to the British taxpayer. Therefore, I do not think that this Supplementary Estimate of £35 million can be defended, and I only wish there had been a Motion to oppose it.
    I believe that all these Supplementary Estimates should be opposed, because then right hon. Gentlemen opposite would not be encouraged to bring them before the House. I oppose them because I
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    believe they are against the interest of the country and because I do not think we are getting any real value for the £35 million proposed. I hope that by this time next year the party on these benches, instead of giving encouragement to the Government by not voting against these Estimates, will take their courage in both hands and will be prepared to vote against them.
    8.53 p.m.
    Lieut.-Colonel Marcus Lipton: There are one or two fundamental objections that ought to be recorded in the discussion on these Supplementary Estimates, the first being, of course, the very curious statement made by the Secretary of State for War when explaining why these Supplementary Estimates have become necessary. When speaking last night, the right hon. Gentleman said that the Government had budgeted very close, though "close" is not quite the right word.
    What does that mean? It means that they under-budgeted, the reason being, presumably, that the right hon. Gentleman received orders from the Chancellor of the Exchequer to cut down and to budget as closely as he could on the main Estimates to which they had to ask the House to agree. The Chancellor, presumably, said something like this to the right hon. Gentleman, "I want to give away a few millions to the higher range of taxpayers, to the people earning £2,000 a year or more. I cannot possibly justify that to the extent I would wish unless these Army Estimates are budgeted for on a very close basis."
    So we have an admission from the Government that the main Estimates were budgeted for on a very close basis or else that they did not budget for what was really required for reasons which have become only too manifest in the various announcements made by the Chancellor and other members of the present administration. It is quite true, of course, that a considerable proportion of the Supplementary Estimate of £35 million, namely £10¼ million, is in respect of increased expenditure on pay and maintenance of personnel.
    No one will object to an improved rate of pay for those of our fellow citizens who are serving in the Regular Army, but it is rather curious to have this

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    further demand from the Secretary of State for War. I quote from yesterday's
    OFFICIAL REPORT:
    "There has been some under-estimate in the War Office of the average or mean rate of pay throughout the Army. This is always a difficult problem. Army pay is calculated by taking a mean rate to cover the whole field and it is proved by events that that was slightly too low."
    I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) will be able to bear me out that there are so many different grades of service in the Army—National Service, Regular Service, five and seven years' service, four and eight years' service, and so on—and such a vast assortment of engagements that it must make it very difficult for the various pay officers to put up a figure for the War Office when they are asked to provide an estimate of pay to personnel.
    Another of the main reasons that were given by the Secretary of State for War as an explanation of these Supplementary Estimates was that the increase had been caused by
    "Increases in respect of such items as petrol, oil, lubricants, food, movements…"— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th January, 1953; Vol. 510, c. 785–786.]
    The comment that I would make on that is that one arm of the Government does not seem to know what the other arm is doing, because increases in prices, wages, fares and freight rates have been deliberately brought about by the policy of a Department other than the War Office, namely, the Treasury to which we on this side of the Committee on other occasions have recorded our strong objections.
    It would not be in order to go into detail on that aspect of this matter but, if I may, I will quote one example. An increase in the Petrol Duty must have imposed upon the Service Departments a very considerably increased cost, because the Departments have to pay the increases on petrol, oil, lubricants and so on. What we are doing is taking money out of one pocket and transferring it to the other, and the result is that the War Office have to ask the Committee for another £35 million tonight.
    Reference has been made to the rather shabby treatment to which ex-officers in certain categories have been subjected. I hope that in due course the hon. and learned Member for Hove (Mr. Marlowe)
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    will overcome his natural reluctance and, with his hon. Friends, take a strong line and bring real pressure to bear upon the present Administration. He will have to take very much stronger action than he has taken up to now if he is to persuade the Government to do justice to this small but, nevertheless, very deserving section of pensioners.
    The Secretary of State for War dealt with the various Votes and on them I will not take up the time of the Committee in any detail. A number of hon. Members have referred to the Canal Zone. The only comment that I should like to make on the very substantial expenditure that is being incurred in the Canal Zone at present is that to a not inconsiderable extent that expenditure is being utilised, if not entirely wasted, on the arms with which we have provided the Egyptian Government.
    The other day there were reports of a great demonstration in Cairo where the principal slogan seemed to be, "Down with the British at the earliest opportunity." At the time that that demonstration was taking place, British jet aircraft supplied by this country to the Egyptian Government were flying overhead to lend force, colour or additional prestige to the demonstration. It strikes me as being fantastic that we should be asked to agree to this increased expenditure in the Canal Zone when, as a result of decisions for which the Parliamentary Secretary for War may not be solely responsible, we are either neutralising or wasting the military expenditure that is at present being undertaken in the Canal Zone.
    Mr. Harmar Nicholls: What about sending the jets to Russia?
    Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: The hon. Gentleman suggests that the jets might go to Russia. If he suggests that it is preferable that they should go to Russia rather than Egypt I trust that he will take advantage of a more suitable opportunity than this to put forward that point of view.
    Mr. Nicholls: The hon. and gallant Gentleman did not hear me clearly. I am not arguing that two blacks make a white. I meant to remind him that we sent jets to Russia when the last Government were in office.
    Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: I should be out of order if I took up that particular point. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will find time, after I have sat down, to say a few words which will clarify the situation so far as he is concerned.
    One thing which has struck me about this debate on the Supplementary Estimates which is in contrast with the debates in previous years is the virtual absence of hon. Members opposite from these discussions and the negligible quality of the contributions they have made to this debate. It seems very odd that hon. Gentlemen opposite, with the wealth of Service experience and knowledge at their disposal, should not have found it possible to make the valuable contributions to this debate which we know they are capable of making and which they have not hesitated to make on previous occasions.
    Hon. Members on this side of the Committee, irrespective of what Government were in power, never failed to take advantage of such opportunities as presented themselves on Army debates to say what they thought, even though they were at that time members of the Government of the day. But I must not allow myself to be diverted by irrelevant interruptions by hon. Gentlemen opposite.
    I come now to Vote 8. which covers works, buildings and lands. The Secretary of State was not very communicative on that Vote. I gave notice to the right hon. Gentleman that I would ask a question on it. I did so in the hope that he would arm himself with the required information to enable him to answer the points which I am now seeking to raise as fully and as accurately as possible. I want to know to what extent the net increase of nearly £2 million on Vote 8 has been affected by the commencement of the construction of a new headquarters for the British Army of the Rhine. In the Rheindahlen Forest, near Dusseldorf, a tremendous piece of construction is going on which, in its magnitude and folly, can be compared only with the Pyramids constructed by the Pharaohs in Egypt a long time ago.
    I understand that this particular headquarters is costing £12½ million. I put a Question to the Secretary of State for War on 9th December last, seeking to find out to what extent the cost of this
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    grandiose scheme would fall upon British funds. The answer I got on that occasion was:
    "… that is dependent upon a certain number of factors into which I cannot go now."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 9th December, 1952; Vol. 509, c. 222.]
    As some time has elapsed since 9th December I hope it will be possible for the Under-Secretary to give a little more information than the Secretary of State was able to give me on that date. It strikes me as particularly odd that we should have embarked upon this tremendous scheme which, so far as I am able to ascertain, will provide quarters for anything up to 8,000 people and require the services of something like 7,000 German workers. What is to happen about all this? Is this an extension of something provided for in the main Estimate, or is it included in the Supplementary Estimate without any information being given to us at all?
    I must say that if the public relations branch of the War Office are responsible for the veil of secrecy which has been drawn over this particular operation, if they are responsible for the paucity of comment which has appeared in the British Press on the subject, they have done a very remarkable job of work. So far as I am able to ascertain, only two newspapers—a curious combination: the "News Chronicle" and the "Evening Standard"—have made any comment on this very strange proposal.
    We know that in the very near future part of the cost of this particular project may be recoverable from occupation costs. Nevertheless, the occupation costs are to be reviewed in the very near future. The position is most uncertain. We are not quite sure as to what the proportion is going to be between the occupation costs of the German Government and the direct expenses the British Government will have to incur.
    I would ask the Under-Secretary of State to give us a little more information about this fantastic folly, because I cannot think of anything more strange than this £12,500,000 satellite town which is being constructed in Germany at present for the purpose of housing our troops or, perhaps of housing the contingents which the Germans may be making to the European defence forces in due course.

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    I do not know, but I do hope the Committee will, perhaps, be given some information on this very strange episode.
    This is an immense expenditure that is being incurred, for which, I hope, some provision has been made, otherwise we shall be faced with even more demands in Supplementary Estimates before the next main Estimates come before the Committee, or before those main Estimates have been in operation for any length of time.
    9.9 p.m.
    Mr. J. Grimond: I am extremely hesitant to do anything tonight to encourage the Army to spend more money, because anyone who has served, even for a short time, knows that all too often success in the Army—and I suspect that this may also be the case in the other Services—is all too often attended by an accumulation of large quantities of stores and staff, and Army officers need no encouragement to exceed any estimates; but there are three points which I should like to make.
    The first is one on which I hope I may get some sympathy from the right hon. Gentleman, and that is about Catterick Camp. He was kind enough, in answer to a Question of mine, to give some figures as to the age and condition of the huts at that camp, and I understand that a fair proportion of them date from before the First World War. I ask him how he is getting on with the private battle with his colleagues to get something done at that camp, and whether the increase in the Supplementary Estimate reflects any success on that field.
    The second point relates to the use of the engineering services of the Army for public works. Mention has already been made of soldiers being employed on mending private cars. No doubt that is very undesirable, but I am not sure that it is so undesirable for the Army occasionally, in special circumstances, to assist with public works. In the time of the late Government there was a suggestion that the engineers should assist certain public works in the Hebrides. I do not know why that fell through, and it would be interesting to know.
    Where work of that kind would be in the public interest, but where it is very unlikely to be undertaken by any ordinary process of contracting, it might provide a valuable exercise for troops who
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    have to be exercised. It is surely not out of the question to use the Services for that purpose. I merely make that suggestion, and I should like to know whether those possibilities are still being considered by the Government.
    Thirdly, I wish to add my voice, for what it is worth, to the continual plea for an increase in the pensions of retired officers. I realise that nothing I can say could possibly weigh as much with the Government as the threat, even though it was rather remote, of the hon. and learned Member for Hove (Mr. Marlowe), that in course of time he might lead some of the Government supporters into the Lobby against them. I see that as a compelling reason for giving these increases. I have no doubt that the right hon. Gentleman himself has sympathy with this plea. He must have. It involves a very small sum of money for a very deserving body of men who have given great service to their country.
    I reiterate what has so often been said, that even with all the extra inducements today he cannot expect to get more officers unless they have confidence, not only that they will be treated well now, but that in future they will be looked after and not be cast aside when they get beyond the age at which they can be of service or use to the country in the Forces. Both sides of the Committee would be happy if something could be done for these men—and I realise this applies to all the Services—who have given the best part of their lives to the defence of their country, but who, in their old age, are shabbily treated.
    9.13 p.m.
    Mr. John Strachey: I should like to address a few words to the Committee on the two major issues which have emerged from our debate, namely, recruiting and the Canal Zone.
    Our discussion on recruiting has turned on the three-year scheme. I am certainly not here to denounce that scheme; indeed, I am virtually stopped from doing so even if I wished to do so, which I do not. Although it was certainly not my scheme, it is not, in a personal sense, the right hon. Gentleman's scheme. These schemes are evolved gradually in the Department. As a matter of fact, the last session of the Army Council over which I had the honour to preside was concerned with that scheme. It is true to

    959
    say—and I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will agree—that it was based a good deal on the experience of the Royal Air Force, which had a similar and very successful scheme.
    Mr. Head: It should have been adopted earlier.
    Mr. Strachey: That is an arguable view, but it was adopted in the closing weeks of the preceding Government.
    Mr. Head indicated dissent.
    Mr. Strachey: Well, it was adopted in the sense that the Army Council adopted it at that period.
    Mr. Head indicated dissent.
    Mr. Strachey: The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but I would refer him to the records of the minutes of the Council meetings. That does not mean that it becomes Government policy, so that I would never claim it was my scheme. Nor could it be claimed that it was the right hon. Gentleman's scheme. It was a scheme evolved in the Department through the example of the Royal Air Force. I think it was a good scheme, well worth trying and well worth adopting. It is very important to realise that this scheme is no panacea for Regular recruiting.
    After all, what could the Minister do? He could simply give an extra year's service, in a large number of cases, we hoped, and this has come true, for men who would now, in the vast majority have served as National Service men. The result could only be a fairly limited number, and, at any rate, a purely immediate result. I agree with the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) that a misleading impression has been created by some of the publicity which has been put out on behalf of the War Office in respect of this scheme, because it gave an impression that an immense new volume of Regular recruits had been obtained, when, of course, that is only partially true, because they were obtained under this quite new basis of service, which, I think, was a right one, but which was of a different character.
    I think that I carry the right hon. Gentleman with me when I say that the real test of this scheme is still to come. The real test of it is in the proportion
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    of three-year men who sign on for long engagements. They sign on for 22 years —a very long term—but, of course, with the option —and I think that it is a right option—to break that service every three years. As soon as I heard of the development of this scheme, I favoured it because I thought that it was a point in the right direction of making the Army a career, and, in many respects, like any other career which a man takes up with the intention of making his life career, and which he is able to leave after proper notice.
    It is a progressive move to have adopted this 3–22 year scheme, but the success of any scheme of that sort absolutely depends on the Army making itself, and seeing that it keeps itself, attractive to the men who are in it. Obviously, a scheme of that sort makes the Army more vulnerable if its remunerations and general conditions in every respect are of a kind which do not attract men, because then they will have the option of leaving the Service every three years.
    That brings me to the other subject which has been ventilated in these discussions. We are asked for considerable quantities of money, which have been specified—and the right hon. Gentleman spoke of them—in respect of service in the Canal Zone by the very largely augmented Force which is out there. In this debate we cannot discuss the whole question of the maintenance of the very substantial force—several Divisions —which is in the Canal Zone today; but we can, I think, discuss the strictly military side of that—the Army side of it. That is a very important side, because from all the impressions that I have received, certainly when I was at the War Office, I endorse the impressions given to us, by my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman), for example, of the very serious liability to the British Army which the maintenance of this unprecedented large force in the Canal Zone represents today.
    In the very nature of things, it must be a most unpopular station. It is the least-favoured station by nature that one can imagine, and neither the right hon. Gentleman nor any other Secretary of State for War will ever persuade the Treasury to make a job of that station. We cannot expect them to, because our

    961
    tenure there is uncertain in the extreme. Therefore, the account which my hon. Friend gave us of that station being delapidated and as far more lacking in amenities than all the other foreign stations, particularly in the most important amenities, such as married quarters, is not any criticism of the War Office or of the right hon. Gentleman. That must be in the nature of things so long as we attempt to maintain this very large force in that particular place.
    Of course, we are not doing it just for the fun of doing it. The purpose of the troops out there is supposed to be the defence of the Middle East. Certainly, no one can doubt that that is a most important purpose. I am sure no one on this side of the Committee wishes to deny the importance of having some means for the defence of the Middle East—I am sure my hon. Friend does not—but what we do question, and what the Committee is bound to question when it comes to consider these matters more closely, is whether the defence of the Middle East is really served any longer by attempting to station several British divisions in that place.
    It seems to me that, whatever may have been the balance of advantage and disadvantage in the past, that balance is obviously changing today. It is a military question. However, referring again to the last period of office of the late Government, very considerable reinforcements were sent out to the Middle East at that time. I am sure the right hon. Gentleman has looked that up and will have seen the remarkably short period it took to send very substantial forces, with all their equipment, from this country to the Middle East.
    The possibility of the rapid reinforcement of that part of the world in the desperate event of general war from troops having their permanent station in the United Kingdom must be very striking. I am not thinking entirely of air transport. By air, troops can reach Egypt in a matter of hours, but even by sea, with the modern fast-steaming vessels which are obtainable from the Navy, it is striking how very short the period is.
    Quite apart from political considerations, with which we are not dealing this evening but which seem to make some change in our dispositions there absolutely
    962
    imperative, and, taking it on the narrower military issue, the purpose of maintaining several British divisions in that area is not the defence of the Suez Canal as such—surely that is not the relevant factor today —but, from the strictest military considerations, the defence of the Middle East as a whole.
    If this matter could be looked at with a really fresh mind, if people could come to it without traditional preconceptions and the fear of being said to have given way to pressure, and all those other considerations which are very natural but are not rational, I believe it would be possible to see overwhelming disadvantages in the dispositions that we are making today. Hon. Members should think of the effect of reaching that conclusion. It is a very important conclusion which would have to be given the most mature consideration politically and by technical, professional and military advisers, but if it were reached, enormous benefits would result not only to the British Army in the way of conditions and morale, but also to our general Commonwealth dispositions by freeing all, or at any rate some, of the troops held in that position today —we are not seriously calling in question their utility—for other purposes.
    There can be no doubt—the Secretary of State will agree—that the British Army is stretched to the utmost by its present tasks while three divisions are held in that position. What an advantage it would be if they were available as a Commonwealth strategic reserve in this country, the building up of which, I know, has been the most cherished objective of a succession of military advisers to successive Secretaries of State.
    All those considerations are of such enormous importance that I suggest to the Secretary of State that nothing would be more important for him and his advisers to consider than the balance of military advantage, which today, I suggest, is shifting and may make a reconsideration of this strategic disposition of the very greatest importance to the whole Commonwealth.
    Mr. Wigg: In view of the importance of knowing the up-to-date figures on recruiting, would the right hon. Gentleman be good enough to make available in the Vote Office, before we have a debate on the Army Estimates, the latest possible

    963
    recruiting figures; and would he be good enough to see that they are presented in such a form as makes it possible to relate them to the latest return by the Ministry of Defence?
    It seems that the figures are coming out in two different forms. Those coming out quarterly from the Ministry of Defence can only be correlated with the War Office figures after considerable scratching of the head, and it is difficult to square the two sets of figures. If we could have a War Office statement along these lines immediately before we debate the Army Estimates, it would be of assistance to the whole Committee.
    9.28 p.m.
    The Under-Secretary of State for War (Mr. J. R. H. Hutchison): To deal, first, with the short point just made by the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg), my right hon. Friend says that he will study the possibility of being able to do what is wanted. Before I pass to the large number of detailed questions, to which I should like to try to give detailed answers, there is one general point on which I should like to touch which has cropped up in one or two of the speeches. That is, the question of the size of the Supplementary Estimate which has come before the Committee today.
    If we consider under present circumstances the number of chances that there are for any estimating to go wrong, one would find that the margin between estimate and out-turn has been very reasonable. When it is considered that there is an acute re-armament programme, a delicate balance in the nation's economy, a campaign to speed up exports, a sudden change in the fortunes of the textile industry and the introduction of a new recruiting programme, there are plenty of ingredients to upset a method which is largely empirical anyhow.
    If we add to this witch's cauldron of calculations such things as Korea and Malaya, and the disturbed and anxious situation in Egypt, there is every excuse for the shot sometimes to miss the target. As my right hon. Friend said, out of a total of £585 million there is only a difference of 6 per cent. at the end of the day. In other days, of course, when the world led a more tranquil life, it was much simpler to estimate accurately.
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    After that general point, I should like to try to deal with the many and varied questions that have been put and which, if I am to cover them completely, will take a little while. Great interest has, naturally and properly, been displayed in the Supplementary Estimate. In that way, the probe has gone deep—sometimes deeper than our responsibility— and questions have been put which it would be inopportune for me to try to answer. Hon. Members have shown two main concerns in the speeches they have made—and rightly so. The first is that there should be no waste of public money, and the second is that the security of this country should not be prejudiced. We have to keep that delicate balance of considerations in mind when we steer our way through the figures and questions which have been put.
    Perhaps the main question asked by the hon. Member for Dudley was about the success of the recruiting campaign. He was at pains to show that the new recruiting engagement and the results that had flowed from it were not really a success. That was his criticism and I think that is scarcely fair. I agreed with later speakers and the right hon. Member for Dundee. West (Mr. Strachey) who said that we cannot judge of that yet. There are certain difficulties and considerations ahead, but at the moment the figures speak for themselves and the figures which my right hon. Friend gave yesterday are, for the moment, very impressive. They were, for the year 1951, at the very latter end of which the new terms of enlistment were introduced, 23,000 Regular engagements and, for this last year, 49,000.
    It has been claimed, and there is a certain amount of basis and justification in this claim, that those who were recruited in 1951, the 23,000, were committed to an Army life for a longer period than those in now. That is true of the five and seven years, or seven and five years engagement, which is now changed to 22 years or three and four years. But the statistics I have been studying of those who have taken on for the 22 years engagement show that latterly they have been about 40 per cent. of the total.
    We must start off with the assumption that if a man engages for 22 years he has some serious intention of making the

    965
    Army his career, and if we take 40 per cent. of 49,000 we get back very nearly to the figure of those who signed on for the longer engagement in the previous year. Thus we have comparable figures for those who have signed on for five and seven years and the seven and five years previously and for those who now sign on for a Regular career. Those who sign on for the three and four years engagement are additional.
    It has been said that latterly there has been a falling off in this recruiting. It is true that towards the end of the year the totals of those engaging did drop, as there is always a tendency for them to drop, but they have been rising again. I made a comparison this morning between the figures for this year and the comparable figures last year, when the same engagements were available, and this year was slightly better. So I do not think there is anything in the idea that the engagements are now falling off and that the first flush of enthusiasm has disappeared.
    So much on the point of recruiting. I thoroughly agree that the real test will come later, but it is going much too far to say at this moment that the scheme has failed. There are problems to face in the future and for those we must provide.
    Mr. E. Fernyhough: Can the hon. Gentleman say out of the 40,000 how many were men who had completed their National Service and otherwise had no military obligation at all, and how many are merely National Service men subject to two years' service anyway and therefore only taking on, under the new scheme of three year periods, an additional year?
    Mr. Hutchison: Recruits from civil life were 35,000 of that total. The next point of criticism by the hon. Member for Dudley was that in connection with these ameliorations which had been brought about in pensions, widows' pensions and so on, it was always based on the principle "jam tomorrow but never jam today." That also is not quite fair and not quite accurate. If the hon. Member will study the two Papers which introduced these improvements —the Forces Family Pensions and the increases under the Pensions Increase Warrant, 1952—he will find that although it would be true to say that cases in which the retired pay has been increased are subject to a number of tests, the increase extends back the whole way for someone who can comply with
    966
    those tests. Cases under the terms of the Forces Family Pensions scheme are all retrospective, in that they cover those who have been given full-time service since 31st August, 1950.
    I should like to turn to the point made by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for York (Mr. Hylton-Foster), who wanted to know at what point civilianisation became economic. It is very hard to say at exactly what point it becomes more economical to employ a civilian to do a military job. Many factors have to be taken into consideration. The number of soldiers replaced by civilians during the past year was 700.
    Before we decide that military labour shall be replaced by civilian labour we have to consider the availability of civilian labour in that part of the country or indeed of the world; the efficiency of the soldier and whether his efficiency is being impaired by his not having enough time to devote to his military duties; the suitability of a civilian being in that employment in war; and finally the question of economy, because by and large it is a little more expensive to employ a civilian than a soldier. All these factors have to be balanced in each case or series of cases before the conclusion can be reached.
    I wish to pass to the speech of the hon. Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Cross-man). It was a curious speech because it seemed to me to contain, as is frequently the case in his speeches, two complete contradictions. He first seemed to me to be advocating a broad basic policy for this country —which it would be inopportune if not out of order for me to discuss now—in connection with the defence of the Middle East and our presence in the Canal Zone. In the same speech he went on to say that the buildings there were in a state of dilapidation and by implication suggested that we ought to be making those buildings into something much more enduring and respectable.
    The right hon. Member for Dundee, West put his finger on the spot in saying that we first have to decide major policy. It would be mad, until major policy has been decided, to erect monumental buildings in the Canal Zone.
    Mr. Crossman: I cannot have made my point clear to the hon. Member. I was trying to force the Government to

    967
    make up their mind and to point out the really outrageous situation, namely, that it is 14 months now since these reinforcements went, with no decision made and the situation getting worse and worse, and we having to vote Supplementary Estimates. It is not for us to lay down policy. It is for the Government to make up their mind and not go on prevaricating.
    Mr. Hutchison: If it is not for the hon. Member to make up his mind now, nor is it for me to make up my mind, during this Supplementary Estimate, on questions of foreign policy.
    Mr. M. Stewart: Does the hon. Gentleman propose to say no more about that topic?
    Mr. Hutchison: I do not propose to be led into a discussion as to whether the number of our troops in the Middle East is right or wrong. I do not believe that I ought to express an opinion of that kind in a debate of this sort.
    Mr. Stewart: I would agree with the hon. Gentleman in what he has just said. But may we at least have an assurance that the right hon. Gentleman will draw the attention of his colleagues in the Government to what has been said by hon. Members on this side of the Committee —and I think to a considerable extent felt by hon. Members on the other side—on this subject?
    Mr. Hutchison: I have no doubt that it has been said so much that what has been said will not escape the attention of the Government.
    The hon. Gentleman assumed that all the increases in Vote 5 which applied to C in fact applied to the Middle East. I think I made the point earlier that that is not so. There are a good many other things, including the Cyprus leave scheme, which have gone to inflate this figure. He criticised conditions out there. He asked about married quarters. I am coming in a moment to the numbers in tents, and what is the position about married quarters. He seemed aggrieved that we had not been able to build more married quarters. I can remember a story about some other visitors to Egypt who felt very aggrieved at being invited to make bricks
    968
    without straw. The hon. Member is asking us to make married quarters without bricks or labour or materials—
    Mr. Crossman: I am not asking the hon. Member to do anything. I am pointing out that it has not been done.
    Mr. Hutchison: If the hon. Gentleman reads his own speech he will see that that is one of the troubles he would like put right. I would point out that it is not really necessary for us to go to the hon. Member for Coventry, East to know all this, because my right hon. Friend went out quite recently and inquired into exactly the same points. He is fully appraised of them, and ever since he has been back has been considering what can be done.
    I wish to pass on to the question of the withdrawal of Egyptian labour; the hon. Gentleman asked what withdrawal of Egyptian labour there had been, because it has played its part in these items for civilian pay. Here are the figures. Before the abrogation of the Treaty, and before the situation became critical, we had some 33,000 civilian employees. When it boiled up and boiled over, and they left, we had only 3,400. The number of Egyptians has been gradually building up again, and, in September we were again employing 14,000, which gives us about 50 per cent. of our present requirements. But we have only 33⅓ per cent. of the skilled labour needed. If we are to bring in Mauritians and other outside labour it must be more costly because we have to move them, to begin with—
    Mr. Crossman: Is the hon. Member proposing to give us information about the married quarters?
    Mr. Hutchison: I will have a look and see what I have been able to get. I am not sure how clear it will be. The percentage of troops in the Canal Zone living in huts is 3 per cent.; in tents 38 per cent.; in camps, partly hutted and partly tented, 58 per cent., and in permanent accommodation, 1 per cent. That gives the hon. Gentleman his answer.
    The hon. Member went on with the question of the separation of married officers out there from their families at home. My right hon. Friend has been closely into this question and hopes to

    969
    be able to do something to alleviate that situation. Indeed, there are a number of other things in his mind for the alleviation of the conditions of the troops serving out there.
    Mr. Wigg: Can the hon. Gentleman tell us when we shall get the announcement?
    Mr. Hutchison: I cannot tell the hon. Member that tonight.
    I think I have dealt with all the points which the hon. Gentleman made. There are others here, but I have either dealt with them or they came up in the course of questions from other hon. Members. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hove (Mr. Marlowe) returned to the charge on the question of the pensions of retired officers. He asked whether the entry under Vote 10 was the counterpart of the Civil Service increases of 1952. It is in fact the same thing as applied to officers and other ranks in the Army. He asked whether it covered any retrospectively? The answer is that some of them are retrospective provided that they qualify for the conditions.
    The next speaker was the hon. Member for Brierley Hill (Mr. Simmons) whose speech, after some of the blistering speeches I have heard him make, this afternoon seemed to have a content that was more mild than bitter. I very much welcomed that. He wanted to be sure that the nation was getting value for money. He asked what provision had been made for those who, like him, gallantly lost their limbs in the service of their country. There has been an increase during the year, but it is not the War Office who makes the payments; it is the Ministry of Pensions.
    Mr. Simmons: The hon. Gentleman must not credit me with so much ignorance that I do not know which Department is responsible for war pensions. I was pointing out that there was no Supplementary Estimate for war pensions but there was one for the Army.
    Mr. Hutchison: A Supplementary Estimate for war pensions would come under another Ministry.
    Mr. M. Stewart: But there is not a Supplementary Estimate.
    Mr. Hutchison: The next question which the hon. Gentleman asked was
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    under Vote 4K. The question was about the number of civilians employed. Inquiry was made why it was that Mauritians had to be brought in and paid more than the Egyptians who, as I have already explained, left our Service. I think that it is clear that if we have a run-out of civil labour of that kind, and we have to shift people from elsewhere, it will cost a good deal more under that part of the Estimate which applies to civilians.
    The hon. Member complained that too little was being done under the non-effective Vote and under the Forces Family Pensions Scheme, and that there was too big a gap between the remuneration of ranks in the Army in general. That is a question which could be argued for a long time. All that I can say is that the gap between the officers and other ranks in some of the Continental armies, and especially in the Russian Army, is very much greater.
    Mr. Simmons: But I am not a Russian.
    Mr. Hutchison: No, but we are by no means the greatest sinners in that way. The hon. Member ended by saying what, of course, we all want—that the sooner one can get recruiting for the Regular Forces up to a point at which we can do without National Service—and the world situation allows of it—the better we shall all be pleased.
    There was a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Mr. Gough). He told us the story, which I well remember, of one of his constituents named Mr. Christmas who was of a very advanced age. It is true that some who are over 65 have been found not to be equal to the task which they had been performing in the past. If the Committee is anxious to see that we get value for money, they will say that we are right to make sure that a man is capable and efficient to carry out the task that he has been allotted.
    But as the Army, on the whole, has been increasing so that more depots are being built and seven new battalions being formed, it has been necessary to expand the civilian force behind it. So we have had the situation in which a few of the older people have been leaving our employment and new and younger people coming in. But I can assure him that we do try to be extremely careful to see

    971
    that the totals of civilian employment are not inflated. It is because we underestimated the number of civilians that would be necessary, and the amount of money necessary to pay them, that we have had to come to the Committee with Vote 4 this evening.
    The hon. Member went on to ask about the Trans-Jordan Frontier Force, and whether there was any money in Vote 9, Subhead M, for that purpose. The answer is that there is not, because the Trans-Jordan Frontier Force was disbanded when we left that part of the world.
    Then, there was a speech by the hon. Member for Fulham, East (Mr. M. Stewart), but I am not quite sure that there were any new points that I have not already covered. He referred to the question of recruiting, to the problem of personnel in the Canal Zone, to the difficulty of keeping up recruiting in the future and to the fact that a period of test in this problem of recruiting is to come quite soon, and I agree with most of what he said in that connection. He correctly underlined the fact that the presence of amenities in the life of the Army is one of the great considerations for those joining, apart altogether from pay, and it is very prominently in the mind of my right hon. Friend and one of the matters with which he is concerned at the present time.
    Next, there was the question whether we could give any sort of estimate of the numbers in the pipeline, that is in transit at any one time, which now stand at 30,000, and the possible reduction of the figure by introducing air trooping. I think my right hon. Friend answered the question at the time. It is very difficult to make a guess, because it would depend on the availability of aircraft, how far we could use aircraft for moving larger bodies of men, and on the amount of money we could expend, as well as on the number of aircraft available. I am sorry that I cannot give him any more information than that at present.
    With regard to the speech of the hon. Member for Bristol, South (Mr. Wilkins), I am afraid I must ask him to send me the particulars of the first case he mentioned. It certainly sounds a very odd one about a builder being told that he was needed for training in order to help
    972
    with the repairing of private cars. The hon. Gentleman seemed to be rather interested in the possibility of getting private cars repaired in that way, and if he would send the particulars to me I will see what can be done, but it seems to me as if the repairs might be pretty hazardous if builders are to be used to carry them out. I may have got his point wrong, but it is obviously a case which I could not discuss here and now, but about which I should be glad to hear from him.
    Mr. Wilkins: Surely, the point is that the man was trained in R.E.M.E., and was called up to do his 15 days, and what I quoted was part of the instruction actually sent to him.
    Mr. Hutchison: We ought to try to see, when a man is called up for training, that he does a job that he knows something about and in which he will be useful to the Army. If the hon. Gentleman will send me the papers in the case, we will have a look at them and see if this case has gone off the rails.
    The hon. Gentleman also asked me about the training of National Service men, and what, in fact, they were liable to do. The answer is that National Service men, after having finished their whole-time service with the Army, normally go to the Territorial Army, where they have to do three and a half years' part-time service. During that time they have to attend three camps, one each year, of 15 days each, which makes 45 days in all, and they have another 15 days to do either by doing hourly or two-hourly drills or by attending week-end camps. These week-end camps start from midday Saturday and finish on Sunday evening, each week-end training camp counting as two days. In addition four one-hour drills are reckoned as the equivalent of one day of training. The hon. Gentleman can work out for himself the number of hours a man will have to do in order to satisfy this requirement of 15 days' service. If that is too complicated to take in just at the moment, and if the hon. Member will write to me, I will send him the particulars on that case also.
    Then we had the typical and amusing speech of the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes). The gist of his speech was, of course, the same as it always is. He is perfectly logical

    973
    and consistent. He wants to see the Army reduced as far as possible. But, of course, so long as we have a world of the kind we have just now, we must remain armed. The possibility of disarming will perhaps come along one day, but, as M. Herriot said the other day, "the verb to disarm is a very irregular one; it has no first person singular and only a future tense." As long as that continues, we must, I am afraid, continue to differ from the hon. Member's point of view.
    The hon. Member was concerned about some of the expenses incurred in recruiting for the Women's Royal Army Corps. He read out an advertisement and read from a coupon in a woman's journal, and then asked a whole lot of questions. I suggest that if he wants an answer to those questions he might camouflage his name, fill in the coupon, write to the address given in it and get his answers in that way.
    Mr. Emrys Hughes: Can the hon. Gentleman give us the cost of advertising for purposes of recruitment to the women's Forces and also tell us how much per recruit that advertising costs?
    Mr. Hutchison: Not without notice, but if the hon. Gentleman cares to write to us, we will see if we can find out for him.
    The hon. and gallant Member for Brixton (Lieut.-Colonel Lipton) asked about the headquarters in Germany. The answer to his question is very simple. It is that we are not at present paying anything at all, but that the cost is being borne at present entirely by the West German Government. That is why he has heard so little about it. He complimented us on the secrecy we have been able to maintain over this operation. The present headquarters, of course, though suitable for an occupation force, is not suitable for a force which will be part of the defence of Western Europe.
    Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Although we understand that these headquarters are on such a scale that they are not likely to be completed before 1954, surely, by that time, the occupation costs may have risen, and, therefore, there is still the possibility of a Supplementary Estimate being required if and when these headquarters are occupied by British troops?
    Mr. Hutchison: I do not think so, because, in fact, provided that those headquarters are built by the Germans and remain German property, no Supplementary Estimate would be needed under the War Office Vote.
    I come now to the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) who made some remarks about Catterick when I was absent for a moment. I know that Catterick could do with an awful lot of improvement, but I am afraid we could say that about a great many of our establishments. One can only cut one's coat according to one's cloth, and we will give such attention as we can afford to those parts of Catterick which need it most urgently.
    With regard to public works in the Hebrides, the hon. Gentleman suggested that the Royal Engineers should take part in those activities. I do not think that could be done, firstly, because we are short of Royal Engineers, and, secondly, because it would have to be done in consultation with the appropriate trade unions with whom we are in constant touch on these sort of questions.
    Finally, the right hon. Member for Dundee, West put the case very fairly in pointing out that the Army must remain attractive if we are to maintain the level of recruitment to it and that attraction does not reside exclusively in pay, but that there are other considerations. As I said earlier, I think also that he put his finger on the heart of the matter—that none of the questions about the Canal Zone which have loomed so prominently in this debate can be properly decided until the whole big question, which is in my view far beyond this debate tonight, of the defence of the Middle East has been decided.
    I hope that the Committee will consider that I have been carefully and punctiliously through the questions that have been put. It may or may not satisfy hon. Members, but at any rate I think that they have all been noted and in one form or another answered. It only remains for me to take up the pledge which hon. Members opposite gave that this Supplementary Estimate should be granted and to ask the Committee so to do.
    Mr. Gough: Before my hon. Friend resumes his seat, and I rather hesitate to

    975
    ask him because I agree that he has tried to answer everything, there are two small points about which I should like to ask specifically. The first is whether, under Vote 5 (C), which covers the conveyance of personnel and animals by sea and air includes the transporting of the parachute brigade by air for training.
    Mr. Hutchison: I beg my hon. Friend's pardon. I had the answer but in the great number of questions which I answered it slipped by. It does not. That comes under other Votes.
    Mr. Gough: There was one other point. My hon. Friend mentioned the Trans-Jordan Frontier Force. I was fully aware that it had been disbanded, and I merely drew his attention to the fact. This £200,000 under Subhead M might well be used to put right the very mean treatment which members of the Trans-Jordan Frontier Force received at the hands of the Government when they were disbanded.
    Mr. Hutchison: I have noted my hon. Friend's point.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Resolved,
    That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £35,000,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1953, for expenditure beyond the sum already provided in the grants for Army Services for the year.
    Resolutions to be reported Tomorrow; Committee to sit again Tomorrow.

    WAYS AND MEANS
    Considered in Committee.
    [Sir CHARLES MACANDREW in the Chair)
    Resolved,
    That, towards making good the supply granted to Her Majesty for the service of the year ended on the 31st day of March, 1953, the sum of £160,855,920 be granted out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom.—[Mr. Boyd-Carpenter.]
    Resolution to be reported Tomorrow; Committee to sit again Tomorrow.

    ADJOURNMENT
    Resolved, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Kaberry.]
    Adjourned accordingly at Four Minutes past Ten o'Clock.