MINISTRY OF CIVIL AVIATION (TRANSFER OF FUNCTIONS)

HC Deb 08 July 1953 vol 517 cc1361-411

9.0 p.m.

The Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation (Mr. Alan Lennox-Boyd)

I beg to move: That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Transfer of Functions (Ministry of Civil Aviation) Order, 1953, be made in the form of the Draft laid before this House on 23rd June. This draft Order which we are now about to discuss is made under the authority of Section 1 of the Ministers of the Crown (Transfer of Functions) Act, 1946. As my right hon. Friend the Lord Privy Seal said a week ago, when another merger of Government Departments was being discussed, it is the Government's duty to look continually at the structure of Government and he added: … what seems best in the public interest at one time may very well have to be modified at another."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 30th June, 1953; Vol. 517, c. 267.] The right hon. Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. H. Morrison) dealt with this very point when he introduced the Ministers of the Crown (Transfer of Functions) Bill in 1946. He said then: The tasks of government are so complex and develop so rapidly that Ministers can fairly ask Parliament to grant some little latitude in adapting the executive machinery to administrative needs from time to time. When commending the Bill he added that it … should prove a useful Measure both to this and to succeeding Administrations."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 25th January, 1946; Vol. 418, c. 454.] Perhaps he did not then have in mind the succeeding Administration would be a Conservative Administration but none the less we are very glad to profit by the opportunities that the right hon. Gentleman provided.

The causes that dictated this merger are not similar to those which have led to the merger of the Ministry of Pensions and the Ministry of National Insurance. As my right hon. Friend the Minister of Pensions said last week, one of the reasons for that merger was the running down of the Ministry of Pensions. No suggestion can possibly be made that either of the two Departments for which I am responsible, either the Ministry of Transport or the Ministry of Civil Aviation, are in any sense running down. We are doing our best to keep our staffs within modest limits, and any economy of staff in both Departments has been dictated not by any loss of work but by very careful husbandry.

I am glad to say that in the Ministry of Transport we have actually reduced our numbers from nearly 10,000 on 1st April, 1948, to 6,400 on 1st April last, though a major factor in this decline, of course, has been that we are no longer responsible for many wartime duties that the old Ministry had to perform. But none the less we are not all that far away from our pre-war figures, when, with fewer duties, we had at that time 5,900 in the Ministry of Transport and in the Marine Department of the Board of Trade that looked after the shipping interests.

In the field of civil aviation there has also been made an economy in staff which is, I think, quite remarkable considering the enormous increase in the duties of that Department since it was first formed—increases so significant that, for example, the number of passenger miles flown in 1946 has increased from 363 million miles to 1,229 million miles, involving, as that inevitably does, in increased work for those people responsible not only for helping the Corporations and private companies but also for the provision of many of the ground services without which none of these planes could fly at all.

I should like, in commending this Motion to the House, to kill, I hope for all time, any suggestion that in my Department of the Ministry of Civil Aviation the number still employed, about 7,000, are engaged on headquarters work. It was a very cruel mistake when it was suggested some time ago that there were a large number of people—"swollen bureaucrats," I think they were called—at headquarters engaged on these tasks. All but 1,385 of the people employed by the Ministry of Civil Aviation today are employed at the outstations, doing vital work—as, indeed, they are at headquarters—without which we should not be able to hold and increase the undoubted lead in the air which we now enjoy.

There is another difference between this proposed merger and the merger which took place last week, in that last week the Departments of two different Ministers were being merged, and tonight all I am asking the House is that two Departments, over which I have the single responsibility, should be merged. As the House well knows, a single Minister has been responsible for both transport and civil aviation since the last General Election, and the appointment of that single Minister clearly foreshadowed the merger that I am now proposing.

This is a merger in the true sense of the term, in which both Departments being merged are bringing great contributions to the aid of each other. The Ministry of Transport has gone through many changes since it was first formed in 1919 for the purpose, as the statute reads: … of improving the means of, and the facilities for, locomotion and transport … As the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Lindgren) knows, it had no responsibility for shipping.

In 1939, the Mercantile Marine Department of the Board of Trade was made into the Ministry of Shipping. Two years later, all the functions of the Ministry of Transport—as it had been—and the Ministry of Shipping were transferred to the Ministry of War Transport. At the end of the war the Minister of War Transport, with all his previous functions, became Minister of Transport. So there have been many changes even in the 30 years' life of the Ministry of Transport, and this is another chapter in what I think we should all agree is an honourable story.

If hon. Members will turn to the draft Statutory Instrument they will see, in Article 2 (1), the use of the words: The Ministry of Civil Aviation is hereby dissolved … The purpose of those words which, unless explained, might appear to be a little wounding and unfortunate, is that in order to effect a merger under the provisions of the 1946 Act—which Act was quite rightly introduced by hon. Members opposite—it is necessary to dissolve one Department and transfer the functions of the Minister concerned to another Ministry.

I am deeply concerned about the future of civil aviation, and most anxious that nothing should happen either to thwart our legitimate hopes or give rise to any doubts in the minds of those engaged in this common forward drive. We considered seriously whether it would not be better to dissolve the Ministry of Transport and transfer its activities to the Ministry of Civil Aviation. It would have amounted to the same thing in the end, but it would have made absolutely plain the great importance which we attach to civil aviation.

On reflection, however, this appeared to be much too complicated a task. The Acts governing the Ministry of Transport go back a good many years—in one way or another as much as 100 years. All the activities of the Ministry of Civil Aviation are dealt with by post-war legislation, so it is possible, comparatively simply, to carry out this merger by abolishing the younger Department and merging it with the old one.

I have said a few words about the story of the Ministry of Transport over the last few years. I see at least three hon. Members opposite with a close personal knowledge of the industry, and two with a close knowledge of the Department, and they will remember how the Ministry of Civil Aviation came to be created. It is told in Parliamentary records and debates, but it is also told very vividly in Lord Swinton's book, "I Remember." He described how, when he was in West Africa in the summer of 1944, the present Prime Minister, who was then Leader of the Coalition Government, telegraphed to him the news that civil aviation had become a pressing problem. President Roosevelt, the Prime Minister said, had convened a world conference to meet that November in Chicago, and the Government felt it was important to create a Ministry of Civil Aviation.

Lord Swinton added in his book what has now become generally understood—that one of the great disadvantages under which we suffered then was one of the compelling reasons for the creation of a separate civil aviation Department. All the affairs of civil aviation had hitherto been vested, despite Departmental divisions, in the Air Ministry. At an early stage, Lord Swinton said, in our pooling of resources with the United States, it was agreed that we should concentrate on bombers and fighters and that they should take charge of civil and transport aircraft. But after the tide of war turned and allied victory was assured, this concentration on war aircraft gave rise to a growing anxiety as to our prospects in civil aviation, so a separate Department was created—the Ministry of Civil Aviation.

Under its guidance began a great many fruitful activities which have now given their benefit to the nation and the world, and all of which will be continued under our proposals. In particular, on this point, I want to mention that among the first of the activities—to which we intend to devote considerable interest and importance—was the creation of the Commonwealth Air Transport Council and the International Civil Air Organisation. I lately had the privilege, as Minister of Civil Aviation, of opening meetings of both those organisations, and I was interested to talk to delegates from foreign countries and from the British Commonwealth and to ask how they met this need both to economise in Government resources and to see that proper attention was given to the needs of civil aviation.

I found, for example, that in the United States of America civil aviation affairs are in the hands of the Secretary of Commerce. As I think many hon. Members know, there is also in America the Civil Aeronautics Administration and the Civil Aeronautics Board. In the Netherlands, the Minister of Transport and Waterways looks after civil aviation In Italy it is the Minister of Defence. In France, it is the Minister of Public Works, Transport and Tourism. In Belgium, it is the Minister of Communications. Even in our own Commonwealth there are widespread differences. In Australia, the Postmaster-General is also Minister of Civil Aviation. In Canada, as we propose here, it is the Minister of Transport who is responsible for civil aviation, and the same is true of Ceylon. In India it is the Minister of Communications and in New Zealand it is the Minister of Defence, as is the case in Pakistan. In Rhodesia it is the Minister of Mines, Transport and Education, and in South Africa it is the Minister of Transport. So far as I know, there is no other country in the world with a separate Minister of Civil Aviation.

We have given a great deal of thought to this matter, and it is our belief that, as civil aviation is essentially, and will become more and more, a matter of transport, it ought to be in a merged Ministry of all civil transport. I think it is fair to say that it was always in the minds of many people, even at the start, that this would eventually happen, but there was much preliminary work to do and many foundations to lay which were of a specialised kind involving, incidentally, a great deal of travelling which it would have been difficult for a Minister who had any other responsibilities to undertake. It was clearly and absolutely right to create a separate Ministry. I believe the former Government were equally right to continue a separate Ministry and, if I may, without boring the House, I will recount one or two reasons for that belief as I go along.

There have been seven Ministers of Civil Aviation, I myself being the seventh. All except my right hon. Friend the Member for Renfrew, West (Mr. Maclay) and I were Members of the other House. I must say I felt a certain modesty in going through the corridors of the Ministry when I recalled that five of the previous Ministers had been peers. But I can share the feeling, I suppose, with Gilbert that No Englishman unmoved that statement hears Because with all our faults we love our House of Peers. I was waiting for cheers from hon. Gentlemen opposite, who never appointed anybody a Minister of Civil Aviation unless he was a peer.

All these Ministers have contributed to the story of the Department of civil aviation. By common consent, Lord Swinton, partly through his own character and drive and partly because he was the first Minister, laid the foundations of Commonwealth and international co-operation and made a unique contribution. Lord Winster designed the Civil Aviation Act which set up the Corporations, which have now, I think it is agreed, a unique place in the prestige of this country and have certainly come to stay. Lord Swinton also continued the negotiations which led to the Bermuda Agreements, the first of the bilateral agreements, a pattern which has now been followed in many other places.

He was followed by Lord Nathan, another nominee of the party opposite, to whom I was particularly indebted in that he created the Air Transport Advisory Council, which now, under a rather different directive, is giving the present Government, the industry as a whole and the travelling public very great help. Then came Lord Pakenham who was Minister for three years, over one-third of the total period of the life of the Ministry of Civil Aviation. I hope that, as an old friend, I may be allowed to say that, apart from his work for the Corporations and his creation of the associate company idea, he left behind him everywhere a feeling of respect and affection which it would be very hard to emulate and impossible to exceed.

As for the Parliamentary Secretaries, there have been a number to whom I should like to make brief reference. There was my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud and Thornbury (Mr. Perkins) who had originally put down a Motion on the Order Paper tonight asking for an inquiry into this matter before the merger was carried out. We know that my hon. Friend has been for long a fighter for civil aviation. I remember not long after I entered the House of Commons hearing him make a very formidable speech asking for another inquiry to be set up in order, as he said at the time, to release civil aviation from the stranglehold of the air marshals.

He came to this House one afternoon and asked, as he himself said, like the daughter of Herodias, "I come to ask the House to give me the head of the Secretary of State for Air on a charger." It certainly was a remarkable speech. It is well worth re-reading now, and I have done it lately. It was seconded by the now Lord Brabazon, who described his predecessor's speech as an aircraft philippic. It led to the Cadman inquiry and all sorts of changes. My hon. Friend has asked for an inquiry now before we merge the two Departments, but I believe that the situation today is different. We now have the information that we need and we also have the experience that we need to justify us in coming to our conclusions.

My hon. Friend was followed by Mr. Ivor Thomas, who did a great deal of good work, and then by the two hon. Gentlemen opposite the Members for Wellingborough (Mr. Lindgren) and Uxbridge (Mr. Beswick). The hon. Member for Wellingborough, according to Lord Pakenham in his recent book, believed that attack was the best form of defence. We who suffered under his thrusts in previous years can agree on that. Certainly he brought his general transport knowledge to the help of the Ministry of Civil Aviation, not a bad pointer to the final resting place of his own main interest. The hon. Member for Uxbridge, a pilot himself and, I believe, chairman of the Labour Party Civil Air Committee, soon satisfied the House of Commons, according to Lord Pakenham, that the late poacher had not lost his critical apparatus with the assumption of the gamekeeper's gaiters. I believe that those of us who have been engaged in civil aviation have on the whole kept party politics as much out of this sphere as has been possible in the case of any major industry, and a great deal of credit is due to the two hon. Gentlemen whom I have just named.

Since October, 1951, the two Ministries, though separate, have had one Minister, but in April, 1952, a second Parliamentary Secretary was appointed. I, since I have been Minister, and the same is true with regard to the first appointment by my right hon. Friend the Member for Renfrew, West have had the invaluable help of the present Economic Secretary to the Treasury and now the present Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Civil Aviation. Under our proposal there will continue to be two Parliamentary Secretaries, one dealing with transport and one with civil aviation. This was made quite clear in the Prime Minister's statement on 26th February.

As I have said, there has been one Minister since October, 1951. Now the time has come to carry out the merger which events so clearly foreshadowed. If there are critics in the House and I take it that there may be, I should like to say this: I can see the argument for a separate Minister solely devoted to the promotion of civil aviation. So far as I know, no other country has such a Minister. It can be argued, and I have no doubt that the argument can be sustained, that there is surely no case to continue definitely with one Minister and two separate Departments. The Government decided to work by stages and judge by the lessons of experience.

We have now had one Minister responsible for over 18 months and we are satisfied, not necessarily with the Minister, but with the working of his Departments, and we intend to continue that arrangement. This, in our view, does create a strong presumption in favour of the merger. There may be overriding reasons against it which would destroy that presumption, but are there any such reasons? The original reason for the creation of a separate Minister was that civil aviation, after the concentration on air in the war, was an infant industry. That problem still remains of importance, indeed, of growing importance, and our prospects in civil aviation are, I think, quite brilliant. I would pay tribute to all parties and, above all, to the technicians in the industry for this fact. But from the administrative point of view things are settling down. No one now disputes that there ought to be Corporations and in so far as that means the swallowing of words which some of us may have used before, we accept the mild reproof or whatever form it may take.

The Corporations have won the confidence of flying people all over the world. We believe that they should be subject to continuous competition, and I think it is a good thing that that should be so. We hope that with the Comets, Britannias, Viscounts and Elizabethans they will enter better financial times. The independence which they now have is thoroughly acknowledged in civil aviation, and the working of the new policy through the Air Transport Advisory Council is going remarkably well.

Internationally, 60 different countries now belong to the International Civil Air Organisation. In the case of the International Air Transport Association, the operators' own organisation, 95 per cent. of all the world's scheduled traffic now travels along lines operated by their members. In the Commonwealth, although much remains to be done, the general framework of civil air co-operation is now established. The pattern of bilateral arrangements has been reached and a large number made. The Ministerial need there is much less than it used to be.

In aerodrome policy, we have pruned down to a smaller number the aerodromes that our predecessors thought necessary—all State-owned aerodromes. The pattern of London and Prestwick—the first and second international aerodromes in the United Kingdom—has been created. In technical development and airways system considerable advances have been made in the last few years. These are, like the problems I have to deal with in the spheres of rail safety, road safety and air safety, no longer unique. They have fought their way through to a better recognition and can be fairly dealt with in the merged Department. The work is still quite vital, but we have passed the nursing stage and now considerations of administrative efficiency must play their proper part.

Are there any reasons against this step on the grounds of administrative efficiency? To my mind all the arguments are the other way. I am continually faced with problems over the various forms of transport for which in my dual capacity I have hitherto been responsible, all of them making claims on the limited material resources at the same time—trooping by civil aircraft or by sea, lower rates by B.E.A.C. to Scotland, preceded by lower rail rates by B.T.C. by the "Starlight Special," the opening of the new Dover ferry last week for motorcars, the great air ferry crossing the Channel regularly now. In this and many other fields a single Minister, devoted to getting the public the service it needs, seems surely the best conclusion.

There may be some economies, I hope there will be. There will certainly be some, but I would not put them very high. They will be in accounts and establishment and to some extent in finance. They will be in these kinds of central services and, as time goes on, they may well increase. Everybody knows that however hard those responsible may work, two separate Departments, each with their own independent pride, are bound to cost a good deal more in all sorts of unexpected ways than a larger Department covering the joint field.

I recognise that this is a formidable task for any Minister to have to discharge, but we ought to see it in perspective. All of us engaged with transport, whether we are in civil aviation or in road or rail or ships, are under the Ministry of Transport. If this merger is carried out, in the field of personnel the Ministry of Labour, in non-industrial personnel alone, will be two and a half times our size, the Ministry of National Insurance three times, the Admiralty three times, the Air Ministry two and a half times, the War Office and the Ministry of Supply nearly four times. Anybody applying their mind to this problem would agree, I think, that we have arrived at the right conclusion.

It may be said that no Minister can cope, in periods of violent controversy, with so many problems. I do not deny that, speaking personally, sudden immersion in the Transport Act and the new policy on civil aviation gave me a good deal of personal strain and some considerable anxiety. The task has been made much more difficult by the fact that my two Departments have been in two separate buildings a long way apart. It will be enormously simplified by the merging of the Departments in the physical sense, as far as possible in the one building.

A large number of devoted people will be moved from Ariel House to Berkeley Square. It will not be possible to move the ground services because there is not room to do that. Anyhow it is highly important to have the ground services of the Department of Civil Aviation, as the White Paper says, organised in such a way as to permit a rapid adaptation in an emergency to Defence needs. Nevertheless, I and my successors will have with me the Controller of Ground Services with other senior officers in both Departments engaged in a multitude of responsibilities for transport by road, rail, sea and air. Each of these Departments, through their officers, will bring to the other great advantages. The impact of the jet age, the turbo-prop and the turbo-jet, on older forms of transport will not do any harm to any of us in the Ministry of Transport.

The direct experience of many problems—of finance, a great headache in civil aviation; the patient and often unspectacular planning and achievements in road and rail; the continual and often unsung running of the railways day after day—will do no harm either to any of us in the Ministry of Civil Aviation. All over the field of transport we shall all have the advantage, which only the present Ministry of Transport has, of the knowledge of what is happening at sea and the many responsibilities at sea for which the Minister over the whole field will be responsible.

General policy to promote the welfare of the Merchant Navy; all their international duties and rights; the registration of ships; the problems of safety at sea, which are by no means solved; the well-being of officers and men of the Merchant Navy, and many coastal services—these are shipping problems. Shipping does not appear in the joint title of the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation. It has not appeared, save for a brief period as a separate Ministry in the war. Those in the shipping business know, however, that their role is vital and their place in our hearts quite secure.

Any Minister charged with responsibilities of this magnitude will need a good staff, and I should like finally to commend the proposal to the House with these words: that having served in a number of Government Departments, I can say with sincerity and gratitude that in the two Departments that, I hope, after tonight will be one, although the actual date will be October, there are as fine administrators and public servants as anywhere else in the world.

9.32 p.m.

Mr. F. Beswick (Uxbridge)

At times I thought I was at a school prizegiving. The Minister must have had a very agreeable time handing out the prizes and bouquets, and I must express appreciation for the small bunch of posies that he offered to me. I am glad to be able to agree with the right hon. Gentleman in some matters, because it is not often that I am able to put myself in that position. I should like, however, to associate myself with the tributes he paid, at any rate, to the Ministry with which I had some connection.

I also agree with the right hon. Gentleman's historical narrative of the events which led up to the creation of the Ministry of Civil Aviation. As he said, civil aviation affairs were, originally, the responsibility of a special directorate at the Air Ministry. The opinion was then very widely and deeply held that not until civil aviation affairs were taken completely out of that Department and given a separate Minister would they get the allocation of men, money and materials which they deserved. I suppose we must be grateful that it is not the intention of the Government to put the Department back into the military sphere again.

Ultimately, therefore, a separate Ministry of Civil Aviation was established. In his prizegiving the right hon. Gentleman might well have remembered the part which he himself played, as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Aircraft Production, in piloting the Bill which, I believe, set up the Ministry of Civil Aviation in 1945. The wheel appears to have turned a circle, and now the right hon. Gentleman is to some extent defacing what he helped to create.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd

My particular contribution was in trying to put forward proposals in the House under which the railways, shipping and the aircraft industry would work together, a form of integration which would have been really effective but which was prevented. I am sorry to say, by our successors.

Mr. Beswick

I was considering the speech which the right hon. Gentleman made on the Second Reading of the Bill after it had been introduced by Sir Stafford Cripps who, I notice, said that the objective of the new Ministry was to provide a much firmer foundation on which to build the future supremacy which we must get in civil aviation.

I agree that it would be churlish in the extreme on this occasion if anyone in the House endeavoured to minimise the effort, and, indeed, the success, which has attended the efforts of the Ministry and the men and women who composed it in moving towards the objective which was set before them. After all, it is only eight years since that Bill passed this House—not much more than the period between conception and operation of a modern aircraft—and the position has changed a great deal in those eight years. No one now need be ashamed to speak of British civil aviation, no matter to what part of the world he goes. That goes for aircraft and the operation of aircraft.

It is not inappropriate to remind ourselves of some of the duties that this new Ministry undertook. I think that the Minister might well have mentioned safety regulations. There is a whole field of safety regulations and in no other case do circumstances change as they do in this field of activity. There are new engines, new aircraft, new metals, new speeds, the new development of radar, new methods of control—almost every month science brings in a new item which has to be woven into the general pattern of safety regulations and airport control methods. I cannot think that the Minister has had too much time to consider these methods in the last year.

I would remind the House, as I have before, that the network of British air routes is not determined by technical developments alone. Traffic routes are dependent upon political negotiations and it would be wrong not to recognise the work done over the past eight years by that Department whose future we are considering in securing traffic rights and helping to build up the network of routes over the years. Nevertheless, it is true that there has been this idea that ultimately the Ministry responsible for civil aviation would be merged into one comprehensive Department responsible for all forms of transport.

I was very interested to hear that the right hon. Gentleman considered dissolving the Ministry of Transport. I think there is an argument for that in much the same way as many people now think there is an argument for the Air Ministry taking over the Admiralty. My own views on this matter were set out five or six years ago, when I suggested that the developing pattern of policy should be the responsibility of a semi-independent organisation constructed on the lines of the Air Registration Board, except that we would have had workers represented on that body. While the general policy would have been laid down at that level the execution of policy in particular spheres would be the responsibility of the separate executive boards. With that satisfactorily arranged, the M.C.A. would have properly joined up with its fellow transport department. We have not chosen to follow that line of development but, even so, the merger is one which we have to contemplate.

The important question is whether it is the right time. Despite the beguiling terms which the Minister has used, he has not convinced me that this is the right time. It seems a most extraordinary time to choose. Can we really say that the organisation of surface transport is running so smoothly and the air Corporations are so well established that now is the time that we should reduce their representation in the Government? Can the Minister really claim that? Can he claim that the Transport Act, 1948, is now being fully, smoothly and satisfactorily implemented?

Can he say the two air Corporations are now safely out of the "red"? Can he say that their respective responsibilities are clearly defined and that their ability to meet foreign competition is such that they no longer need a separate Minister to serve them? Of course he cannot. Can he say that he was willing and able to discuss aviation problems when representative bodies of workers wish to meet him? I am sure he was willing, but he has certainly not been able. There may have been a time in the recent past—

Mr. Lennox-Boyd

The hon. Gentleman is making rather unspecified charges of a wounding nature. There are certain constitutional proprieties which must be observed, as I am sure they were observed under the late Administration. I do not know what the hon. Member is talking about. I have never been unready or unwilling to receive representative bodies of trade unionists, or others, if it were a proper delegation. What has the hon. Gentleman in mind? I wish he would tell me.

Mr. Beswick

If the Minister had been listening he would probably have followed me more closely. There is no question of constitutional rights here involved. In the past six or seven years, under a Labour Government, if the workers wished to meet the Minister, either formally or informally, to discuss any matter, it was always possible to arrange such a meeting. But the Minister knows full well that within the first 12 months of the present Administration there was great dissatisfaction among the unions.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd

No.

Mr. Beswick

Others may speak in greater detail—

Mr. Lennox-Boyd

I wish they would.

Mr. Beswick

—but the Minister knows very well that the unions have passed a resolution deprecating this change.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd

The hon. Gentleman has made a very definite charge that I did not receive deputations of trade unionists—or, rather he said that I was not unwilling, but unable through other preoccupations, to receive deputations of trade unionists. I do not know to which particular deputations he refers. If he would only tell me I would have a checkup made to see what actually happened at that time. I am, or the Parliamentary Secretary is, always ready to receive a properly constituted body. But I cannot say here and now that anyone who wishes to see the Minister has absolute right of access, any more than would have been the case in the time of my predecessors.

Mr. Beswick

Perhaps the Minister would be good enough to look up the number of occasions on which he has met representatives of the unions during the past 12 months. I think that that was raised before in this House.

Let me make it quite plain that no one has said that the Minister or his predecessors was unwilling to meet them. But there has always been difficulty in finding the necessary time. We are discussing the time of the right hon. Gentleman and the way he has been spending that time. As he has admitted he has been going through a time of great stress. He did pilot a major Measure through this House in the shape of the new Transport Act. He showed considerable skill and great stamina during that time. But he cannot say that he has had a lot of time for considering the administrative functioning of his Department during that period.

He cannot say, either, that he has settled any transport problem. In fact, this new Transport Act settled no problem, but created a good many. Although he said that he was hoping to have more time to look round there are, in the new Act, over 60 separate references to the Minister, under which it will be his duty to consider and to give consent to changes or to initiate new Orders. We still do not know what is to be the structure of the railway system. The whole future of road transport is in the melting pot. How can the Minister say at this critical period that he needs less time to ponder over the affairs of road and rail transport and to safeguard the national interest?

Similarly, with civil aviation. The right hon. Gentleman paid an appropriate tribute which we appreciate to the work done by his noble predecessors. Things were settling down under their benevolent reign. There was steady, definite and discernible progress. What has been done by the present Administration? It has introduced a whole series of uncertainties. I am not trying to say that their new policy is right or wrong, but I say, quite plainly, that the changes of policy will entail a good deal of additional work. The number of matters needing the attention of the Minister in the first six months may well have been dwindling, but in the past year the attention they needed has been more and not less.

It seems to me quite impossible for the Minister to say that he is up-to-date with the business of the two Departments and has time to spare, because in every matter with which he is concerned there is evidence of delay. One need only take HANSARD for the week in which this Order was tabled. Let us look at Volume 516, for Wednesday, 17th June, when Civil Aviation Questions were dealt with. A number of Questions were asked, to which no definite reply was given. My hon. Friend the Member for Preston, South (Mr. Shackleton) asked about airports in the London area, and was told: I regret that I cannot at present forecast dates."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th June, 1953; Vol. 516, c. 953.] I asked the right hon. Gentleman about Gatwick Airport, and we all know the difficulties there, but the fact remains that no decision has yet been given on that matter. I also asked about fog dispersal at London Airport, and the answer was that the Minister was unable to give any decision on that matter. There was another Question on the same day put by my hon. Friend the Member for Preston, South, on the important matter of rearward-facing seats, and the Parliamentary Secretary had to say again that no answer could be given, and refer my hon. Friend to the negative answer which had been given to me a week or two earlier.

If we take transport and the time the Minister spends in that capacity, we get the same answer. There was a Question by several hon. Members about a committee of inquiry, and the Minister replied that he was not yet in a position to announce the membership of the committee.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd

I would point out that it takes longer to pick good people than bad.

Mr. Ernest Davies (Enfield, East)

It is a pity the right hon. Gentleman did not take longer.

Mr. Beswick

We saw the reception given to the announcement this afternoon.

There was another Question from my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies), who asked about development plans for improvements in North London, and the Minister had to say that he was not yet in the position to make a statement. There were several Questions on a matter of some urgency, on which the Minister had to say that he had not yet made any appointment. There was a further Question by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) about the Road Haulage Executive, on which the Minister had to say that he hoped to make an announcement on the subject very shortly. And so we can go on.

The fact is that, in both civil aviation and transport affairs, if we look at the Questions in HANSARD, delay and inaction are the themes running all through the affairs of both Departments. "Not yet" is the answer we get on all these matters, and they are matters requiring decision. Of course, the Minister does not say that these are unimportant matters; we all know that they are very important, both in road and rail transport and in civil air transport.

We have had certain assurances from the Minister, but we would like to have in the plainest terms the assurance that there is absolutely no intention to lower the status of civil aviation. We are now reaching a time when the technical needs of civil aviation are diverging sharply from the military needs. In engines, in the new air transports, and especially in the development of the helicopter, we want the proper priority to be given to civil equipment, and we should like to have an assurance from the Minister that his voice in the Cabinet or in Government circles will be heard in favour of the proper priorities for civil air transport.

In spite of all the difficulties that I have indicated, there would still be an argument in favour of this merger if it can be shown that substantial economies might result, but we have been told nothing very convincing about that. It is hoped that some economies will result, but we have not been told anything definite about them. If savings could be effected by the use of common services—accounts, finance, establishment, and so on—I do not think there is any reason why those savings should not be effected without the complete merger of the two Departments.

Mr. Charles Ian Orr-Ewing (Hendon. North)

Would the hon. Gentleman not agree that in any case one is saving the salary of the Minister, which, in this case, was £5,000?

Mr. Beswick

I shall deal with that point. I do not think we ought necessarily to take it for granted that the saving of a Minister's salary is a net saving to the taxpayer. I hold the view that it might well be advantageous to have a greater ratio of elected representatives to a given number of civil servants. In that way we might get a true economy. I understand that the right hon. Gentleman is an elected representative.

There is a too ready acceptance of the view by some people—a rather naïve view—that because a Department is bigger it is necessarily more economically run. I do not hold that view. On occasion, it may be much easier to secure the necessary economies if a Minister has a certain amount of time to spare to look into the administration of his Department.

In the past year the Minister has done two major things which he might very well not have undertaken. He has completely upset road and rail transport, and he has introduced a new policy into civil aviation, but he has not shown us that there will be any substantial direct economy as a result of this merger. The merger comes at a time when the right hon. Gentleman requires more time for the administration of his Department. It is not wanted by the transport people, it is opposed by all the unions in the air transport world, and there may well be evidence of that coming from the National Joint Council in the future. The fact is that this merger is an extreme case of mistiming and is further evidence of the capacity of the Government to get their priorities completely out of order.

9.52 p.m.

Mr. John Maclay (Renfrew, West)

I had hoped, when the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Beswick) rose, that as far as is reasonably possible this particular stage in the development of civil aviation as part of transport as a whole would have gone through with a minimum of controversy. One could expect certain comments and questions, but the hon. Member for Uxbridge has made a monstrous speech.

At the beginning, he accepted in principle that, sooner or later, a merger was almost inevitable. He then questioned the timing, and if he had done so on serious grounds one would have been impressed. But he then gave a series of Question time quotations from HANSARD which, as an attack on the Minister, was most unwarranted. If anyone cares to look up HANSARD for 1945 to 1951 he would find a stream of similar answers. When a Minister says, in reply to a Question, that he is not ready to give an answer, that is not evidence that he has not the time or is unwilling to deal with it. To be honest, in some cases between 1945 and 1951 it would have been far better if some Ministers had said that.

I wish most strongly to defend my right hon. Friend, because I know the job he had to take over when, unfortunately, I had to give it up. I know the concentration that he has given to it and the speed with which he has dealt with a great many difficult things, and I think it necessary to put that on record. I do not intend to make a lengthy speech this evening, but I want it to be clear that I believe that the decision which has been discussed tonight is right, and I think that the timing is as near right as any timing could be.

The Minister has made a complete case for the timing. There are problems to be solved about the railways, about road transport, and about sea transport, as there are bound to be in relation to all forms of transport. If ever there was a need to get policy into one Department and under one Minister it is in this case. Transport cannot be static. There can never be a time when one can say that everything is settled either in civil aviation, the railways, sea transport or road transport. New problems will always be arising, and it is a question of judgment whether this month, next month, or about now is the right time to start co-ordinating policy to cover all the major problems which have to be faced as to the relative parts which these great branches of transport are to play.

Civil aviation, internationally as well as nationally, has been dry nursed, but sea transport has not. Civil aviation is a new industry coming up, but some time, fairly soon, someone will have to decide whether sea transport is to be subjected indefinitely to air competition. Sea transport pays all its own expenses, but civil aviation is still in a very privileged subsidised position. I am not saying for a moment that is necessarily wrong, because civil aviation is relatively an infant industry, but it is infinitely better for one Minister to be responsible for balancing these matters and giving a fair judgment than to have two separate Ministers fighting a sort of battle. We shall not get the right answer to delicate problems in that way.

The ideal thing is to get a balanced judgment from one Minister who knows he is responsible and has to do his best to achieve a balanced policy and perhaps to allocate priorities in face of shortages of materials, whatever they may be. I hope (hat we shall come to a decision which will mean that transport in all its forms can go forward in Britain with every hope of maintaining its position world-wide in a way that will benefit all British transport, whether by rail, road, sea or air.

9.58 p.m.

Group Captain C. A. B. Wilcock (Derby, North)

In my very short speech I shall not attempt to follow the points made by the previous speaker, except to say that I did not notice any personal attack upon the Minister. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] We know that the Minister of Transport and his Parliamentary Secretary are very interested in aviation, and any attack that we are liable to make would be against their policy.

I believe firmly that this de-grading or down-grading—I prefer to say de-grading—of the Ministry of Civil Aviation is wrong and if it were to go to a vote I would have to vote against it. That is not a party line. I recognise that the previous Minister of Civil Aviation made exactly the same suggestion that at some time or other his Department and the Ministry of Transport should be merged, but, again, I personally would have voted against that.

It is clear to me from the White Paper that the Government regard civil avia- tion as just another means of transport. So does the right hon. Member for Renfrew, West (Mr. Maclay). That is much too limited a definition. Aviation is a fundamental development in the progress of civilisation. To shackle its progress by tying it to road and rail transport, however loose those shackles may be, reveals a complete lack of understanding and appreciation of aviation. To me, these proposals indicate that the Government do not grasp the potentialities of aviation and the influence that it can have economically on us as a nation. Six months ago the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Civil Aviation, whom I see in his place, informed the House that he was shutting down nearly 20 flying training schools for reasons of economy. Today, the Minister of Civil Aviation tells us that he is shutting the Ministry of Civil Aviation. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] All right, degrading or down-grading it. [HON. MEMBERS: "NO."] Well, reorganising it. This is a retrograde step.

The present has been said by hon. and right hon. Members to be another Elizabethan era, an era of progress and development in the air, as it was an era of progress on the seas during the days of Elizabeth I. The proposal by the Government is not a great contribution towards that Elizabethan spirit. It is no use arguing that this is just a matter of reorganisation and is of little account. It is a blow to the prestige of aviation. It will further depress, bewilder and unsettle many who are engaged in this great new industry. Hon. Members opposite who have an interest in aviation know that what I am saying is true.

Civil aviation requires the full attention of a Minister and, what is more, of a Minister of Cabinet rank. Our hope of survival economically in face of competition from other nations depends largely upon our ability to utilise the air in future as we did the seas in the past. We became a great Power not solely because we were a great manufacturing nation, but because we were also a great maritime nation and were able to carry our goods throughout the world. It is in the carriage of freight that we must expect the greatest development in the air in the future.

It will be our ability to transport our products speedily from the factory and the works to the consumer that will turn the scales in the overseas markets. That is becoming more feasible with the development of the helicopter. That is the kind of problem which should be claiming the attention of the Ministry of Civil Aviation as a specialist subject of immense importance to our economic life in the future.

The carriage of freight by air will equal if not exceed the progress that has been made in the last 10 years in the carriage of passengers. When I first flew the Atlantic as a passenger 10 years ago it was a matter for those on the ground to wish good luck on the take-off. Incidentally, I wonder that the Minister of Civil Aviation does not find some other word in place of that clumsy word "takeoff." Now things are very different indeed. Transatlantic travel today is less difficult than getting into New Palace Yard. Last year, 430,585 people crossed the Atlantic by air. That number was much bigger than the number of those who crossed by sea. Yet it is at this time, when that kind of progress is being made, that the Ministry of Civil Aviation is demoted.

I should like to consider this question of economy, because there can be no other argument for this change except on grounds of economy.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd

The hon. and gallant Gentleman must have written his speech before I made mine. I made no such case.

Group Captain Wilcock

If the Minister did not make the case for economy, the White Paper does, and, presumably, he is responsible for the White Paper. Of course, we know that there will be no economy at all in this merger, and if there is an economy by using Ministry of Transport officials, surely there is redundancy at the moment in the Ministry of Transport. If I am wrong, perhaps the Minister will say so.

Can this work at the Ministry of Civil Aviation be imposed on Ministry of Transport officials? The Minister will see if he looks at the Estimates that 697 people at the Ministry of Civil Aviation are employed on headquarters staffs. I should like to know whether the work of those 697 persons is to be undertaken by the Ministry of Transport. If not, it is perfectly clear that there will be no economy.

In general this is an entirely retrograde step and the whole approach is wrong. Now is the psychological moment to encourage civil aviation. There are so many problems in civil aviation at the moment which deserve and require encouragement. There is the development of the helicopter. There is the problem of the better use of municipal airfields. There is club flying; and I observe, in passing, that out of its £14 million the Ministry made a grant of £40,000 to clubs and glider flying last year—£40,000 to foster flying among the youth of this nation in this Elizabethan era. What encouragement!

There is co-operation within the Dominions. There is the training of aircrew and groundstaff. These and other problems, in my view, justify the existence of a separate and individual Ministry staff with imagination and enthusiasm. That would represent progress in aviation.

It certainly cannot be said that the following statement in the White Paper is an encouragement to aviation: … the subject no longer needs the undivided attention of a separate Minister. If that is the view of the Government today, and these are the words used, then I feel that no one in aviation in this country will ever again have confidence in the present Government.

10.3 p.m.

Air Commodore A. V. Harvey (Macclesfield)

I agree with most things that the hon. and gallant Member for Derby, North (Group Captain Wilcock) says about aviation, but I must say that I completely disagree with him tonight. I have felt for a long time that the Ministry of Civil Aviation, which, I think, we all agree, has done a very good job of work, has been the Cinderella of Ministries. From my limited experience in this House, I believe that a Cinderella of Ministries is always on a very poor wicket from the point of view of getting staff and money.

Over the last 20 years civil aviation has had a very chequered career. Before the war it was in the hands of the Air Ministry. I quite agree that that was wrong, and my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud and Thornbury (Mr. Perkins), who made a commendable speech at that time, undoubtedly did great service to civil aviation. I feel that it would be wrong to disturb the basic machinery of adminstering civil aviation, and I do not think that that will be done under the proposals which we are discussing tonight.

I should like to make one suggestion to my right hon. Friend, and that is that he should delegate more of the administration of civil aviation to the Air Registration Board. This is an excellent body, consisting of men who give great service, all told, for £22 a year, who carry out a magnificent job and are respected by all the nations of the world for their standards of safety and airworthiness. If my right hon. Friend could see his way to delegate more administration and authority to that body, or similar bodies, the industry might be better off.

When a merger like this takes place, much depends upon who is in charge of the Ministry. Had this merger taken place four or five years ago, before the days of Lord Pakenham, I should have been extremely unhappy about it, but my right hon. Friend has made aviation, particularly civil aviation, his personal study for a great many years. He was chairman of the Conservative Party Civil Aviation Committee, just as the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Beswick) was chairman of his party's committee, and I am satisfied that with him in charge the industry will not suffer but will gain, and that with him and his colleague, the Parliamentary Secretary, who will give his undivided attention to civil aviation, the administration of the industry will be better than before.

I quite agree that civil aviation requires some nursing, but not as much as it has had in the past. We have to educate not only the operators of the aircraft but people as a whole, and make them realise that flying is a normal means of transport. The sooner we do that and get the costs of flying on to a really businesslike basis, the better it will be for everybody. I do not know that I subscribe to my right hon. Friend's view that the Corporations are on sound foundations. For airworthiness and safety they could not be better, but we must remember that the two Corporations are still losing £8 million or £9 million a year between them.

Mr. I. Mikardo (Reading, South)

No.

Air Commodore Harvey

It is several million pounds a year.

Mr. Mikardo

Perhaps the Minister will put his hon. and gallant Friend right.

Air Commodore Harvey

Perhaps the hon. Member will correct me if I am wrong. The loss is certainly up this year, compared to last year. We had all hoped that there would have been a smaller loss this year. Nevertheless, I do not want to decry the Corporations. We should all do what we can to improve them, because we know they are here to stay. My right hon. Friend, however, is ultimately responsible for the Corporations, and I believe that this merger will help, because we shall be inclined to get more businesslike methods into their administration, through the knowledge of shipping and road transport which will be available.

I should like to know if there is to be a saving when the merger takes place. I think there will be, but we have to remember that civil aviation is still expanding, and whatever saving may be made may be offset by increases in the staff necessary to administer the ever growing industry. Aviation can render a great service to the economy of Britain in the years to come. I am satisfied that my right hon. Friend and his colleagues will not neglect this great industry.

I shall watch the matter as keenly, from my own small position, as I have hitherto under the Labour Government, but I should like to wish the merger, the Corporations, and all those connected with the industry, every success. I wish them well under the new administration, and I believe that they will go from strength to strength.

10.14 p.m.

Mr. I. Mikardo (Reading, South)

I shall make only two comments on the speech of the hon. and gallant Member for Macclesfield (Air Commodore Harvey). The first is with regard to his reference to the Air Registration Board. The Minister will be the first to recognise that the question whether, under the new dispensation, more or less work is given to the Board, has nothing to do with the question whether the Ministries should be merged, which is the matter before us this evening.

The hon. and gallant Gentleman, in commending the idea that further work should be given to the Board, said that this was a body which was held in universal esteem all over the world. I agree that it is a body which deserves to be held in universal esteem, and I only wish that it were. The hon. and gallant Member will himself recall that it is not so long ago that the American civil aeronautics authorities declined to recognise a certificate of the Air Registration Board for the Comet as carrying any weight for the possible use of the Comet in American services.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd

I do not think that that is a perfectly fair way of describing the various discussions which have taken place. The attitude has been that America has not had adequate experience yet to give a blanket authority, but the Americans are prepared to judge each case on an ad hoc basis.

Mr. Mikardo

I do not want to go too far into this matter because it is not the subject we are discussing, but I assure the right hon. Gentleman, as I think he knows is the case, that I have followed every word and every line on this matter very closely indeed. What he has said has been said several times before and, if he will forgive me for saying this—I mean no offence—it is rather a whitewashing formula. The plain fact of the matter is, as he knows and I am sure regrets, that there is considerable obstruction to the use of the Comet in the United States.

Air Commodore Harvey

While I agree with the hon. Member, because I have questioned my own Government about granting certificates of air worthiness to the Comet, in my judgment that is not a reflection on the Air Registration Board. To take the extreme case, the only reflection it could be on our American friends is that they are inexperienced, that they may be several years behind and that they may be somewhat jealous.

Mr. Mikardo

We are going off at a tangent here. I was not saying anything to endeavour to controvert what the hon. and gallant Gentleman said but was supporting the tribute he paid to the Board, adding that I wished they were held more universally in esteem, especially on the other side of the Atlantic, than they appear to be.

The only other observation I wish to make on his speech was that the figure which he gave for the annual rate of loss of the Airways Corporations was inaccurate to the extent of nearly 200 per cent., which is not bad even for him. It is not quite a record of factual inaccuracy for him but it is approaching it, and I congratulate him on it.

Turning to the Motion, unlike right hon. and hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House who have spoken—I do not pretend to speak for anybody but myself—I cannot work myself up into a passion about it one way or the other. I think it is unnecessary to pretend that any enormous advantages can accrue from the merger and it is equally unnecessary to pretend that any great disasters can arise from it. No one could possibly quarrel with the way in which the Minister put the Motion to the House. He appeared to do his best—and I think he did very well indeed, if I may be allowed to say so—to hold the balance fairly between the pros and the cons at each stage of the argument but—and I suppose he had no alternative in the circumstances—I think he was overstating the advantages which might be expected to accrue from this merger.

On the other hand, if we take the opposite view, we are not dealing with the argument for or against two separate Ministers but with the argument for or against two separate Ministries, as the right hon. Gentleman himself pointed out. When we have put the two Ministries under one Minister, it is clear that we have already gone a very long way towards a merger, and what is now being done is the second stage; and if one feels passionately about providing a separate place in the sun for civil aviation, the time to feel passionately about it is not so much at the second stage as at the first stage, when the two Ministries are put in the charge of a single Minister.

In my experience, all these questions of departmental and inter-departmental mergers—the same thing applies whether they be mergers between Departments of Government or mergers between departments of a commercial or industrial organisation—remain marginal questions. What is important is not the formal question whether one has two departments or whether one has one department with two sub-departments but the working relationship in day-to-day practice between the various people who carry out the work.

The titles of people matter much less than whether the definition of the allocation of responsibilities between them is set out clearly so that everybody understands it. One may have all sorts of grandiloquent departments with all sorts of people having grandiloquent titles. I am always rather staggered at how much store some people, in both public and private enterprises, set by their titles. One can sometimes get a man for £200 a year less if one calls him a general supervisory manager or something like that. I would sooner have the £200 a year than the title. What matters is not the formal structure of departments but the clear-cut definition of relationships and responsibilities between the actual executives who carry out the work. That is why, to use an Americanism, I cannot get "burned up" about the Motion one way or the other.

From a mere examination of the issue, I suggest that what my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Beswick) has said about the timing of the operation has been far too easily glossed over on the other side of the House. I thought that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Renfrew, West (Mr. Maclay), in particular, rather swished some very real problems away as though they did not exist and did not matter. I am not quoting his own words, but the effect of what he said was, "There still remain one or two little problems in rail transport. There still remain one or two little problems in road transport."

Mr. Maclay

The hon. Member said that he did not intend to quote my words, but he has said "little" twice although I did not use the word once.

Mr. Mikardo

The right hon. Gentleman was a little carried away by his indignation against my hon. Friend, but if in the cold hard light of the morning he will examine in the OFFICIAL REPORT what he said he will find that he appeared to suggest that the problems remaining in surface transport at the moment are somewhat residual.

Mr. Maclay

One can always argue about timing within relatively wide limits, but the point I was making was that where one has policy development which is overlapping and will ultimately require co-ordinating, that is, roughly speaking, the time at which to act, and I believe that we have about got to that time now.

Mr. Mikardo

I took that point when the right hon. Gentleman made it, and it is a weighty point, but I was referring to something else that he said or implied, and that was that there are not any greater problems at this moment than one would normally encounter at any moment in the history of a dynamic industry. I differ from him about that.

It is true that both surface transport and air transport are dynamic industries—air transport perhaps more than any other at the moment—and, therefore, we have problems all the time, and we want problems all the time, because they are the mark of progress, but with them there are special difficulties at the present time when grave changes of policy have been introduced in both surface transport and air transport.

It would be out of order to discuss those changes of policy and to say whether one agrees with them or disagrees with them on this Motion, and I am not making any point about whether they are good or bad. Whatever we may think about them, however, no one will dispute that there are very considerable changes of policy and that they have very considerable repercussions indeed. Until these repercussions have been worked out there will be very considerable dislocation. Hon. Gentlemen opposite may think that that dislocation is worth while, and we may think it is not. However, nobody will deny that there is considerable dislocation which is likely to be very severe indeed in the next year or two.

The Minister, in justifying the original formation of a separate Ministry for Civil Aviation said that there was much preliminary work to be done and foundations to be laid. I want to put it to him that there are still foundations to be laid. The edifice of civil aviation is not by any means bedded down on its foundations, and we have got some changes coming along, some of which have been referred to by my hon. Friends, which are as revolutionary in their own way as in its way was the very first heavier-than-air flight.

The change-over to jet propulsion is not a change of degree; it is a change of type. It is a revolution in itself. The jet aircraft is not a slightly different aircraft; it is a different instrument altogether in its operation and certainly in its maintenance. I think it is not difficult to visualise that within 10 years from now the ordinary aircraft may have completely gone out for flights of up to 400 or 500 miles in favour of the helicopter, which will mean an entirely different range, service and maintenance of aircraft.

Then there is the question of the development of freight in the air, to which my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Derby, North (Group Captain Wilcock) referred. There are also one or two unsolved problems that the right hon. Gentleman's Ministry will have to tackle more vigorously than has been done in this country or anywhere else up to the present. For instance, what are we going to do about the noise problem? With the development of bigger jet engines the right hon. Gentleman knows that this is going to be both literally and metaphorically one of his worst headaches.

I think the right hon. Gentleman cannot be altogether happy with what he describes as the working of the new policy through the independent operators. He said it was doing pretty well, but he must know that that is not by any means a closed chapter, and that there still is much thought to be given to this matter and many problems that will arise from it.

It seems to me that, whilst one cannot really get into a passion about this matter—I cannot see any great grounds for working up a passion about it—the Minister would be well advised to consider whether in all the circumstances 1954 might not have been a better year than 1953 for this operation. I hope when the transition takes place it will take place smoothly, and that the forebodings which have been expressed this evening will not, in fact, come to pass. I have some fears that they will, because this precipitate action may bring some of them into effect, and it may have some adverse effect upon the transport industries and upon civil aviation in particular. I hope I may be wrong, but I fear I may be right.

10.30 p.m.

Mr. Charles Ian Orr-Ewing (Hendon, North)

The burden of the attack from the other side of the House has been that this is the wrong moment to make a change, but I think hon. Members on all sides will agree that it is always the wrong moment to make a reform. I believe that in this case it is a substantial reform and the right hon. Member for Renfrew, West (Mr. Maclay) was right when he said there are a number of overlapping problems growing up which need the integration and co-ordination which one may get in a single Ministry.

How many hours have we sat in this House in recent years and heard that magical term, "integration of transport"? Here is a minor measure of integration. I agree that it is unnecessary to get hot under the collar about this matter, as the hon. Member for Reading, South (Mr. Mikardo) said, but it is something worth while. It has also been said by the hon. and gallant Member for Derby, North (Group Captain Wilcock) that we were down-grading civil aviation. Nothing could be more untrue.

Group Captain Wilcock

If the hon. Member would like to be correct, I said that it was down-grading the Ministry of Civil Aviation.

Mr. Orr-Ewing

I speak subject to correction, but it was certainly suggested to my mind that the hon. and gallant Member said that we were down-grading not only the Ministry but the whole organisation and industry of civil aviation. When we consult HANSARD later perhaps we can learn what the hon. and gallant Member said. But it is absolutely untrue to say that we are down-grading this Ministry. A reorganisation does not mean that we are down-grading a Ministry. I think the hon. and gallant Member would concede that in the Minister we have today a man who is extremely active and a great enthusiast for civil aviation. I feel that even half his time will be much more worth while than some previous Ministers have been able to provide with all their time.

Group Captain Wilcock

If a Ministry becomes a Department and not a Ministry it is downgrading of that particular formation.

Mr. Orr-Ewing

I am sorry, but I cannot absolutely agree. At different times there are different needs for different Ministries. I suppose there may be a time when the Ministry of Materials goes into liquidation, but that will not mean that we have downgraded raw materials; they will be just as essential as they always were.

I was glad that in moving this Motion my right hon. Friend did not make too much of the economies of amalgamation. I may be wrong, but I have a feeling that we shall hear the argument brought out by the Corporations that economies would be made if they amalgamated B.E.A.C. and B.O.A.C. I believe that theoretical economies can often be made by making an organisation very much bigger, but in practice the inertia of the whole business is much greater and the sum total of efficiency is much lower. But there will be economies and although they may be minor, they are worth while.

Perhaps when the Parliamentary Secretary winds up the debate he can tell us what is to happen to that magnificent modern building Ariel House. Is it to be sold—at a considerable profit I hope? Is it to be rented—at a considerable advantage to the ratepayer and taxpayer? What is to happen when the present members of the Ministry in Ariel House move into Berkeley Square?

10.34 p.m.

Mr. Edward Shackleton (Preston, South)

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, South (Mr. Mikardo), I do not feel greatly exercised about the evil or the good consequences that might flow from this measure. I must say it is extremely entertaining to hear the various reasons put forward from the Government side of the House for this series of Departmental mergers. We had a debate a little more than a week ago on the merger of the Ministry of Pensions and the Ministry of National Insurance. There, too, the Minister, in a rather gentle and disarming way, said they did not expect much in the way of savings but at least he could guarantee a career for the officials of the Ministry of Pensions.

That argument does not appear to exist in the Ministry of Civil Aviation and, whereas I would agree that there is not possible justification for continuing the present situation with one Minister and two Departments. I must confess that I believe that this whole tendency towards merging Departments represents almost a pre-election doctrinaire approach. I am not saying this offensively but that in the belief that economies and efficiency could be got if they feel obliged to go through with it; and that when the time comes they find that no really substantial economies are gained.

It seems to me that there is some contradiction between the White Paper and the remarks of the Minister because, whereas the White Paper refers to savings in costs, the Minister, in an intervention, said he made no claims for a saving. I think I am quoting him rightly, and if so, I should like to know why this change is being made. Despite what my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, South said about the managerial argument, and the principles which apply throughout industry and Government Departments, I am convinced they do not necessarily apply to Government Departments.

Here we are operating in the political field; or, at least, to some extent, and the voice of the individual Minister, responsible for his own little section, does count for more than the voice of the Minister who is covering a number of different sections; or, in other words, a section does better with an individual Minister.

On the whole, it is unfortunate at this time that sea transport, land transport and the provision of adequate roads as, for example, in Lancashire, or the encouragement of civil aviation—the Merchant Navy of the air—should all form matters to which the Minister must turn his mind. On balance, with the developments which are coming forward in civil aviation, there was some case for retaining an independent Ministry, and little advantage in abolishing it. But this is not a matter of very major importance.

I would, however, ask the Minister not to be misled, and express the hope that no future Minister will be beguiled, by the arguments of planners and integrators into simulating a beautiful pattern for transport. I believe that his own policy with regard to land transport shows that he does not believe in integration at all and his speech tonight was illuminating when one recalls speeches which he has made on other occasions.

It must, however, lead to a holding back of civil aviation if there is always to be the need to weigh considerations of different sections of our complex transport systems, and as the right hon. Gentleman takes on his new duties I hope he will realise that civil aviation moves in such a different field, and has different problems from the old types of transport, that special consideration and priority will be given to it.

10.40 p.m.

Lord Malcolm Douglas-Hamilton (Inverness)

I welcome this amalgamation, and I think it is very important to bear in mind that another Ministry does not necessarily mean that civil aviation will benefit. In fact, civil aviation may flourish more in the inverse proportion to the amount of administration it receives. I think that we have had too much administration in civil aviation in recent years.

For example—and I am sure my right hon. Friend will bear this in mind—the operation of flying boats has been made utterly unprofitable in this country today. Private flying has not flourished. It has been priced and regulated almost out of existence. I hope that my right hon. Friend will pay very close attention to this matter in the future.

I well remember that in about 1926, when a Directorate of Civil Aviation was established, Sir Sefton Brancker had an aeroplane of his own. I am not suggesting that my right hon. Friend should follow his example, but it gave a tremendous boost to private flying at that time, and private flying is a very essential part of civil aviation, though it has suffered very severely in recent years.

Private flying is important as a sport, and why should we not enjoy sports? But it is also important from a strategic point of view. In the United States of America, one in every 320 of the adult population is a pilot. In this country the ratio is something like one to 6,000 or 7,000. Private flying needs a much greater boost than it has had hitherto. As I say, I welcome this amalgamation, and I wish the Ministry of Civil Aviation well in its new environment.

10.43 p.m.

Mr. Geoffrey de Freitas (Lincoln)

I am sure that the noble Lord the Member for Inverness (Lord Malcolm Douglas Hamilton) will receive answers on the points he has made about flying boats, and so on. I welcome his intervention in so far as it is a plea for support for private flying, because I know that the flying club movement has suffered in recent years, but I find it hard to understand how that matter is relevant to the Order before the House tonight.

The Order has been discussed, and two lines have emerged from the speeches which have been made. First, what does it do? Does it integrate, stimulate or reduce the status of civil aviation? I can only say that in the view of the people concerned with civil aviation, with whom I have discussed the matter, this move reduces the status of civil aviation to the level of a branch line of British Railways. I am very sorry that that should be so.

Second, is the timing right? The hon. Member for Hendon, North (Mr. C. I. Orr-Ewing) said that this was exactly the right time. I believe it is the wrong time. I believe that we have not reached the stage described in the White Paper. "when the subject of civil aviation no longer requires the undivided attention of a separate Minister." On the contrary, I believe that we have reached the stage in the development of aero engines, when, if our civil aviation is to prosper, we must have a Minister with the time to see that the Service Departments do not dominate their development.

The military require an aero engine which will permit of the highest possible speed, and which will stand up to battle conditions. Civil aviation is content with something not necessarily as fast, and because it can choose its flight plan, its height of operation and avoid bad weather, and so on, it can have a more sensitive and vulnerable engine. A fighting aircraft cannot choose its working conditions and must have a very tough engine.

Suppose the experts in the civil Corporations decide that for long, intercontinental operations, civil aircraft require the axial flow engine, while the military advisers of the flying Departments decide that fighting aircraft require the centrifugal engine. What is to happen? The military, with their enormously greater requirements and need of large-scale production, will win. I am worried that there will not be a Minister exclusively devoted to civil aviation and able to impose his will to see that civil aviation is well enough cared for in the research and development that takes place. Otherwise, the military requirements will always dictate lines of research and development. With a Minister not exclusively devoted to civil aviation we should be in danger of subordinating our civil requirements in research and development to those of the military. We cannot afford that, if civil aviation is to play a very great part in the future.

10.47 p.m.

Mr. Ernest Davies (Enfield, East)

The debate has turned not so much on the ultimate principle whether the Ministries should be merged, as on the timing of the merger. Some, like my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Derby, North (Group Captain Wilcock), are opposed completely to the merger. It is understandable, in view of the fact that he has devoted his life to civil aviation and has great experience and knowledge of the industry, that he should feel unhappy at the danger of civil aviation being absorbed by the Ministry of Transport. There was the other point of view put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, South (Mr. Mikardo) that as there is, in any case, only one Minister, we are discussing largely a matter of administration.

The view generally held on this side of the House is that it is not the right time for this merger to take place. The Minister, with his usual fluency of speech, which, to one of my hon. Friends sounded rather like a speech at a prize-giving and to me rather like an obituary speech, failed to satisfy us that this is the right time for this merger. The main reason he gave was that because there is now one Minister only for the two Ministries that created the presumption for the merger. In fact, at one moment, it seemed that the main reason for the merger was the too great physical strain on the right hon. Gentleman in rushing from one office to another. Fortunately, the Minister appears to be of very strong physique, and possibly the extra exercise is keeping him in his normal robust health.

The right hon. Gentleman certainly did not hold out any hope of great economies and did not advance economy as the reason for this merger taking place. All he stated was that they may increase the economies as time went on. If that is so, we are entitled to ask why there is this urgency for the merger of these two Ministries. In trying to justify why the merger should take place at this time, the Minister suggested that when this was an infant industry, the Ministry of Civil Aviation was formed but that now the industry had passed the nursing stage. I do not know precisely what are the "seven stages of civil aviation," but we do not want this infant, at adolescence, to become a Cinderella, which some of my hon. Friends think it well might if the two Ministries are brought together.

One sound argument against the timing of the merger is that the Corporations still need guidance and assistance from a minister. The Minister himself referred to the excellent and able assistance which was given by Lord Pakenham, when he was the Minister. He certainly acted as the guide, philosopher, and friend of the two public Corporations. But, I think it might have been better if we had waited until these Corporations were no longer in need of subsidies before the merger took place, because as long as nationalised industries are receiving subsidies, as in the case of the civil aviation Corporations, then there is every justification for greater interference and a larger measure of control being exercised by the minister responsible.

As long as that situation exists in the case of the public Corporations, it would be better if there were a Minister in control. Incidentally, in passing, one should point out, for the benefit of the record, that the losses incurred by B.O.A.C. and B.E.A.C. in 1952 and 1953 were no way near the £9 million, to which the hon. and gallant Member for Macclesfield (Air Commodore Harvey) referred. I was a little shocked that one so closely associated with the civil aviation industry in the private sector should throw such false figures around and create the wrong impression.

The actual losses made by these two Corporations up to 31st March, 1952, were no greater than £1,250,000. Although the accounts for the current year have not been published yet, it has been indicated by the Chairman, I believe, that the total losses of the two Corporations will come to nearly the same figure. Last year, B.O.A.C. incurred a loss, whereas the previous year it did not. It is true that over the period of years since the civil aviation Corporations were set up, there has been a substantial loss, but that was intentional and foreseen as being necessary if there was to be adequate development of publicly-owned civil aviation in this country.

We consider that the timing of this merger is inopportune, first, because of the number of problems which still confronts the civil aviation industry and the likely developments, many most favourable to this country, which are taking place and are likely to continue to do so, and, secondly, because of the policy changes which have been initiated by this Government in the field of both civil aviation and inland transport, which have increased the responsibilities of the Ministers concerned.

Our experience of having one Minister for the two Ministries, with two Parliamentary Secretaries, has not been altogether satisfactory, and it justifies the doubts whether this merger should be effected during this period, when there must be not only reorganisation of the inland transport industry and the carrying out of this new policy in civil aviation but, at the same time, the reorganisation of the two Departments, which must occupy a certain amount of attention of the Minister and his subordinates and must detract them, to some extent, from carrying out their normal, routine functions, their current business, and the carrying through of their new policy.

We do not want the Minister to become a bottleneck so that matters accumulate on his desk and decisions are held up. I do not want to suggest—because he is a Minister of the two Ministries at present—that the failure to make a large number of decisions is necessarily due to this factor, but there are many decisions which—as was pointed out by quotations from HANSARD—we have been pressing the Minister to make and which he has failed to make. We are, therefore, entitled to believe that his failure to make them is due to his inability to find the time.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd

One of them involves the expenditure of £400 million. I think I may be forgiven for not having settled that overnight.

Mr. Davies

I was not referring to the matter of the electrification of the surburban line to Enfield. I shall deal with that question in the Adjournment debate on Tuesday, by which time I hope the Minister will have had time to make up his mind. The two Ministries will still not have been merged then, so he will have had some time to consider the matter.

It would be possible to go through the new Transport Act and point out many duties which fall upon the Minister and which he will have to carry out within the near future. They relate not merely to the disposal of road haulage, for which he has a very considerable responsibility under the Act. In addition, he has to manage and control the transport fund which is to be set up, to submit its accounts to Parliament, to receive the plan for the reorganisation of the railways and, after it has been submitted to him, consult with the representative bodies affected—such as the unions, the National Coal Board and the Commission itself—then produce a White Paper and have it debated in Parliament, and then produce his Statutory Instrument for further debate.

On road passenger transport he has to make up his mind whether to exercise the power he has to control and, if need be, reduce, the Commission's holdings in road passenger transport; he will have to receive the Thesiger Committee's Report and make up his mind what the Government's policy will be after he has received it, and he will have to submit regulations on the pension rates and compensation for employees—and we are still waiting for those regulations to be laid before us.

I refer to those matters to show how, at the very time when these two Ministries are being merged, the Minister has a far greater number of functions to perform because of the legislation which the Government have introduced than would normally be the case, and for that reason the timing, in our view, is wrong.

There is a final reason why I entertain doubt about the wisdom of acting now. This change of policy will endanger the proper function of transport in this country. Civil aviation was succeeding remarkably and is setting the lead in civil aviation throughout the world, and if it is now absorbed into the Ministry of Transport, where the policy which is being pursued is in our view a backward looking policy which is destroying the co-ordinated and integration conception which we hold of transport, then civil aviation, in the process, is likely to suffer.

Transport needs to be given every encouragement for the development of new ideas and the exercise of initiative and enterprise because of the great importance of transport to the modern economy, and I fear that the absorption of civil aviation into the Ministry and the extra reorganisation involved might prevent that policy from being pursued.

We on this side of the House have advocated the co-ordination of transport but, in effect, this Government have decided to end it. It was strange to hear arguments from the other side that this step would make the co-ordination of transport easier and more satisfactory.

Mr. Maclay

Let us get this right. Coordination of policy is very different from the physical co-ordination of transport in the sense which hon. Members opposite mean.

Mr. Davies

The hon. Member for Hendon, North (Mr. C. I. Orr-Ewing) did not interpret co-ordination in that way. He was referring to co-ordination of transport, and that comes strangely from those benches. That is what I heard the hon. Member say, and I made a note at the time. If they are arguing on those lines, it would be logical to co-ordinate transport itself and to make the job of the Ministry easier.

In principle, we are not opposed to the merger of the two Ministries and we trust that, in the long run, such a merger will prove of benefit to British transport and industry, but it will certainly be handicapped in the task by the policies which are being pursued by the Govern- ment. Because we do not oppose it in principle, we do not propose to divide the House on the Motion.

11.3 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Civil Aviation (Mr. John Profumo)

I do not think there is any reason for me unduly to delay the House any further. All hon. Members who have read the White Paper or who have listened to my right hon. Friend's speech tonight will by now be fully acquainted with the reasons why the Government propose to merge the Ministries of Civil Aviation and Transport. I will try to deal with some points which have been raised in the course of some extremely interesting speeches.

May I say, on behalf of this side of the House, how glad I was to see the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Beswick) on the Front Bench opposite tonight, although I must confess that it appeared to me, having listened carefully to his speech, that he was occupying a rearward facing seat. First of all, he spoke of representation in the Government being reduced. That was possibly a slip of the tongue, for I am sure all hon. Members realise that there is no reduction in the representation in the Government.

I did not understand the significance of his reference to the Corporations still being in the "red." I would be more inclined to agree with my noble Friend the Member for Inverness (Lord Malcolm Douglas-Hamilton), that in some circumstances there can be too much Government administration. I believe that the chairmen of the two Corporations would fully agree with me that they are quite capable of doing their own jobs. If anybody is to get the Corporations out of the "red," as we all wish to see, as speedily as possible, we can confidently leave that side of the organisation of civil aviation to the chairmen and the enterprising staffs engaged in the Corporation's work.

I must take the hon. Member to task on one or two points which he made. First, I understood him to say that there had been dissatisfaction within the unions at the policy, or at the way in which the Government were administering the policy, in civil aviation. I find absolutely no record of that whatever.

Mr. Mikardo

As a member of the trade union side of the National Joint Council, I think I can say without fear of contradiction that the trade union side has made it abundantly clear that they are grossly dissatisfied with the way in which they have been treated by the Minister. They were called into consultation, so-called, by the Minister before his policy was formulated. All that happened was that they were told flatly what was to be done in three days' time and that it was too late to make any changes. Since then they have had one firm promise from the Minister, which has been shamelessly dishonoured. That is no cause for satisfaction by the trade unions.

Mr. Profumo

Will the hon. Member go on to say what promise was broken?

Mr. Mikardo

The Minister undertook that in the new dispensation whereby licences were granted to independent operators, he would satisfy himself, before a licence was granted, that the pay and conditions of workers in the independent operator's employ were no less favourable than was laid down by the National Joint Council. Subsequently, the Minister has made arrangements under which he does not so satisfy himself; a licence is granted, and then he leaves it ex post facto for the unions to complain. That is, without doubt, an unequivocal dishonouring of a clear-cut promise.

Mr. Profumo

I thought that the hon. Member would probably go rather wide of what I was discussing. I cannot in any way accept his implication.

Mr. Mikardo

It is on the record.

Mr. Profumo

The hon. Member is, perhaps, too anxious to throw out those challenges across the Floor of the House. As he well knows, there is no dispute, and my right hon. Friend has honoured the undertaking which he gave when the policy was outlined by the Government.

Mr. Mikardo

Absolutely untrue.

Mr. Profumo

That must be a matter for argument and discussion on another occasion if the hon. Member is able to bring it to the Floor of the House. He knows perfectly well that there is no dispute at the moment between the independent operators and the unions concerned.

The hon. Member also said that the unions were dissatisfied with the way in which my right hon. Friend has been negotiating this merger.

Mr. Mikardo

I never said a word about it.

Mr. Profumo

If I misunderstood the hon. Member, I apologise. It appeared to me, however, that he was sure that the unions were dissatisfied because they had not been consulted about this merger.

Mr. Mikardo

No.

Mr. Profumo

If the hon. Member wishes to make the position clear, it is important to get it straight now.

Mr. Mikardo

I hesitate to accede to the hon. Gentleman's invitation to explain what I meant, because the last time I did it he rebuked me for doing so. I told the hon. Gentleman, at his own direction, a piece of information. He then accused me of hurling charges across the Floor. If he wants information, he had better be a bit less ungrateful in future. What I was referring to on the grounds of consultation was not with respect to the policy of merging the two Ministries, but with respect to the policy, initiated some time ago, of increasing the field for independent operators.

Mr. Profumo

When the hon. Member first stood up, I was referring to the hon. Member for Uxbridge, who is, I see, just about to stand up. The hon. Member quite clearly intimated that all the unions were opposed to this merger. That was the note I made at the time he said it.

Mr. Mikardo

I did not say it.

Mr. Profumo

I am now talking about the hon. Member for Uxbridge, who clearly indicated that it had been opposed by all the unions. I was merely saying that that is not the case.

Mr. Beswick

The hon. Gentleman is quite right. I did say that all the unions were opposed to the merger. I was not saying that they were opposed to the way it was being carried out or complaining about the lack of consultation.

Mr. Profumo

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, but I must add that we have no official intimation that all the unions are against the merger.

The hon. Gentleman went on to say there was disappointment because it was difficult for the Minister to find time to see deputations, and there were inferences throughout many of the speeches of hon. Members that my right hon. Friend was not able to give enough time to civil aviation matters, and that was causing some anxiety. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Enfield called him a bottleneck.

Mr. Ernest Davies

I said he might become one.

Mr. Profumo

I can only say: some bottle, some neck.

No one seriously concerned with civil aviation could seriously charge my right hon. Friend with having neglected his duties in any sphere of his responsibility, even during the strenuous period of the passage of the Transport Act. The very reverse is the fact. He has had regular meetings with the Chairmen of the airways Corporations, and there has been no delay whatever in dealing with administrative problems.

During the last four weeks in the field of civil aviation, he opened the Commonwealth Air Transport Council; was host at a reception for the delegates; has presided at a meeting of the National Civil Aviation Consultative Council; has opened and paid three visits to the International Civil Aviation Organisation Assembly at Brighton; has met a delegation from the Aerodrome Owners' Association; has held discussions with the British Independent Air Transport Association; has flown to the Isle of Man for the opening of the terminal building at Ronaldsway; and has opened the Municipal Airport at Ramsgate.

Mr. Mikardo

He must have drunk a great deal of sherry.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd

No bottleneck there.

Mr. Profumo

Tomorrow my right hon. Friend will be visiting the Channel Islands, to attend the Jersey Air Day, to meet members of the Channel Island Air Advisory Council, and make a tour of inspection.

Group Captain Wilcock

Surely these facts prove that we require a separate Minister for Civil Aviation.

Mr. Profumo

I think hon. Gentlemen will appreciate that those engagements require a great deal of preparation and forethought, and that by bringing the two Departments under one roof it will be easier for my right hon. Friend to devote even more of his time to civil aviation matters. I cannot accept the implication that the facts I have given are factors which could be taken into consideration for having another Minister. Even at the height of his preoccupations with the Transport Act my right hon. Friend has been able to devote a great deal of his time to civil aviation administration.

Mr. Ernest Davies

The hon. Gentleman rather missed our point. It was that there were very important decisions which have not been taken. The hon. Gentleman has not explained why decisions such as the appointments to the Transport Commission and the Executive to replace those members whose terms of office expire in August have not been taken. A number of other decisions have also been referred to in this debate.

Mr. Profumo

That is an objection which is hardly worthy of any answer at all. I hope the hon. Member will allow me to develop my argument. I listened most carefully to what he had to say.

I will now move to one other argument which the hon. Member for Uxbridge made and which I think was the point the hon. Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies) was trying to make. The hon. Member for Uxbridge said that no decision had been made about things like fog dispersal and Gatwick. I entirely agree that these are serious problems. I did not notice any greater inclination by the Opposition, when they were in power, to arrive at decisions on these problems. They are problems, decisions on which cannot be reached in a hurry. Even though we may have to come to the House and say that we have nothing to report, it does not mean that we are not giving these matters considerable thought. I remember when hon. Members opposite sat on this side of the House how my hon. Friends used to chuckle on many occasions when the hon. Member for Uxbridge said that these matters were under active consideration. If he had said that they were being considered passively it would strengthen my argument still more.

We all listened with great interest to the speech of the hon. and gallant Member for Derby, North (Group Captain Wilcock), for whom we have the greatest respect. In reply to him and to other hon. Members, I should like to say that there is no intention whatsoever of lowering the status of civil aviation, which, I think, was an expression which was used. In fact, it has been found over the period in which one Minister has been responsible for the two Ministries that it has been possible for those two Ministries to act with greater efficiency and with some gain in general convenience.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, North (Mr. C. I. Orr-Ewing) that we are not going to cut down large numbers of people. That is not the fundamental intention at all. What we are trying to do is to carry out an operation which will in the end mean a more efficient administration. In fact, this is a merging operation, not a submerging one. There is no ground whatsoever for thinking that the development of civil aviation will suffer from the amalgamation. The experts in the various fields which are covered at present by those working in the Ministry of Civil Aviation will be covered by the same people when we start working in the amalgamated Ministry. The Departmental organisation for civil aviation will remain largely as at present. Let there be no doubt that when the Ministries combine under one roof civil aviation will proceed as usual.

Group Captain Wilcock

I should like to thank the Minister for that explanation and also for his assurance that there is no question of economy. The Minister also said that there was no question of economy, and it can only be that this merger expects to get from the Ministry of Transport something which it has not got from the present set-up.

Mr. Profumo

I think my right hon. Friend said there would be a limited economy. On the other hand, I must make this point. I have always found from experience that if economy is started it has a cumulative effect. More economies can be made later, but the point I am trying to make is that this is not being carried out primarily to effect a penny-wise economy. We are going to make a limited economy, but, as I have said, there are other reasons why we are doing this.

I was interested in the speech of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Air Commodore Harvey), and I join with him in his tribute to the Air Registration Board. The problem which he raised will be examined, though I do not think at this stage that perhaps very much can be done in that direction. My hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, North asked about the future of Ariel House. This is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Minister of Works, but I can tell my hon. Friend that no decision has yet been reached. I think it is probable it will be handed over to the Air Ministry.

The hon. Member for Lincoln (Mr. de Freitas), who has been courteous enough to inform me that he had to leave, talked of the stranglehold of the air marshals—as he put it—in regard to development of aero engines. I do not think he need have any fear that my right hon. Friend, in charge of both the Departments, will be in any worse position to stand up for the requirements of civil aviation as time goes on. I assure the hon. Member that in the present Government there is the closest co-ordination in planning between the Service Departments, the Ministry of Supply and the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation.

I wish to say a word about the most thoughtful and balanced observations of the hon. Member for Reading, South (Mr. Mikardo) who, in an interesting speech, did not in any way get "burned up". I shall read his speech with great care tomorrow. I want to mention one matter in which inadvertently, I am sure, he got out of balance. He talked of the international respect for the Air Registration Board and wished that it might be more internationally regarded, particularly on the other side of the Atlantic. He inferred that the American C.A.A. had failed to recognise a Certificate of Airworthiness which was passed by the Air Registration Board.

It is only a technical point, but I should put it right. Certificates of airworthiness are issued by the Minister on the recommendation of the A.R.B. but it is not true that the C.A.A. have refused to recognise a Certificate of Airworthiness for the Comet. No Certificate of Airworthiness has so far been issued for the Comet III, because this aircraft does not exist. We are in process of negotiations with our friends on the other side of the Atlantic, but the problem is of great significance for this country and it would do the greatest harm if we in this House were to get out of balance and criticise our friends for something which they have not done.

There has never been any question of a Certificate of Airworthiness for the Comet I being recognised by C.A.A.; no American operator has tried to buy one. But technicians here and in the United States are trying to unravel the very real difficulties in the recognition of an entirely new type of engine. I hope the hon. Member will forgive me making that point, because I know that he did not want in any way to make remarks which at this moment in delicate negotiations may be out of balance.

Mr. Mikardorose—

Mr. Profumo

Perhaps the hon. Member will allow me to continue, as I do not want to detain the House very much longer.

A great deal was said about the type of merger that we are proposing. Largely, the Opposition did not object to the action of the Government, but their objection to it is that we should seek to do it now. The hon. Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies) and the hon. Member for Lincoln, as well as the hon. Member for Reading, South, made the point about timing. We never find the right time to take a step, whether we are designing an aeroplane or deciding on the redevelopment of a Government Department. Particularly in the field of civil aviation it will be difficult to know what is the right time because there are many intractable problems. My right hon. Friend and I know very well indeed that it is not a question of saying "Here is a calm period and the teething troubles are over," because there are always new problems arising.

The hon. Member for Reading, South, mentioned the problems of noise and fatigue and there are all the other problems which the jet age has brought. What we do feel is that the nursery pains of civil aviation are past and that it is blossoming into manhood. This is the time when, for the very sake of civil aviation, we should bring together the Departments where all forms of transport can be co-ordinated under one Minister.

In passing, the hon. Member for Reading, South, spoke about independent operators and said he did not think that this was a closed chapter. I hasten to assure him that we do not so regard it. We regard it as a newly opened book. The fundamental reason for the action which we propose tonight is really found in paragraph 3 of the White Paper. That is, the simplification of the machinery of government; the acceleration of the machinery of government, because in civil aviation—and I know that we are all agreed on this—speed of action so often counts. If one has one Minister in charge of transport problems, one ensures that the co-ordination of transport, which, after all, is the function of the Minister of Transport, and the advancement of all forms of transport, which will be his re-ponsibility, will be better carried out in the public interest.

Several hon. Members have spoken of the difficulties which arise in the field of transport such as when shipping may come up against civil aviation, and when rail transport may be at variance with it; we think that if we are to see civil aviation get a fair deal, and not be constrained in a strait-jacket, that will be brought about in a far better way with one Minister able to co-ordinate transport as a whole and who will be able to speak with one voice in the Cabinet.

I realise that it is seldom possible to get complete unanimity of opinion in the House, and difficult to find it among hon. Members opposite. But on this question of timing, on which stress has been laid tonight, hon. Members on the other side might like to be reminded of something said in this House on 30th July last year by a right hon. Member who is revered and much respected by a large number of hon. Gentlemen opposite—the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan). He then said: I will make some further suggestions. The difficulty is that we are looking at the Governmental machine only from the point of view of dismissing a few civil servants. That is too short-sighted. We ought to see whether the Governmental machine today has been adjusted to the changes that have taken place in Governmental functions. To continue with what he said about timing, I go on to the next few sentences of his speech: Obviously, very many important changes have taken place. Industries have been nationalised and transferred, as to their detailed day-to-day administration, to boards. I therefore suggest it is no use merely having the same Minister for Civil Aviation and Transport. There has been no amalgamation of the Departments. The Departments are still there. They still have separate addresses. They still have the same permanent secretaries. There is no amalgamation. It is merely a change of nomenclature. Then he said: It is not an organic change in the structure of the Departments. I suggest, therefore, that these two Departments be immediately organically amalgamated."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 30th July, 1952; Vol. 504, c. 1531.] It may be that the right hon. Gentleman would criticise Her Majesty's Government for the delay in carrying out his suggestion; it may be that he would think we did not do it speedily enough, but I do commend his view with the greatest confidence, and ask the House to approve this Motion.

Resolved, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Transfer of Functions (Ministry of Civil Aviation) Order, 1953, be made in the form of the Draft laid before this House on 23rd June.

To be presented by Privy Councillors or Members of Her Majesty's Household.