VOTE A. NUMBER FOR AIR FORCE SERVICE (Hansard, 4 March 1954)

§ Mr. Shackleton
I am very sorry to harass the Under-Secretary. He has had a trying day, I know, but there is one question to which I want an answer, if possible. It is a matter on which I have corresponded with him. I speak of the percentage of recruits for commissions—certainly for commissions in the general service branch—who fail in the course of their training.
The reason I ask is because quite a number of these young men are persuaded to throw up the training or apprenticeship which they would have been able to complete under ordinary deferment arrangements, and when they fail in the course of their training they are no longer able to complete that training. As I said in my speech, although the Under-Secretary was not in the Chamber at the time, it would seem fair that prospective employers should indicate to prospective employees what are the chances of their being employed at the end of their training, and it appears that no such indication is given to a number of these people who are failed, or who fail to make the grade.
I realise that there may be some reason for not publishing this information. The hon. Gentleman was good enough to indicate that he would speak to me privately about it, but it seems to me of such public importance that I wanted to raise it in the Committee, and I should be grateful if an answer could be given.

§ Mr. Mikardo
I wish to ask a question and raise a point on this Vote. On page 9 of the Estimates there is an explanatory note on Vote A which, among other things, lists all the categories included in Royal Air Force personnel. The second of these categories is described as: personnel of the Royal Air Force lent for service with other governments; I should like the Under-Secretary to tell us a little more about that. How many people are being lent by the Royal Air Force to other Governments? To which Governments are they being lent? How many are being lent to each Government? And for what purpose?
This is an extremely important part of the whole matter, because it is part of the use of the Royal Air Force as an instrument of the general policy of Her 1576 Majesty's Government. I hope I have not caught the Under-Secretary without the information at his disposal, and I am sure that if he has it he will be glad to give it.
My other point concerns a matter which I raised some time ago at Question time. Although I do not wish to be rude to the hon. Gentleman, because we are all fond of him, I am bound to say that I think on that occasion he was, to put it at its lowest, evasive, and to put it at its highest, he exhibited less than the fairness which is his normal wont.

Mr. Ward
On what occasion was that?

§ Mr. Mikardo
On the occasion when I put a Question about the matter to which I am now about to refer, which concerns the nursing personnel—in regard to isolation pay for cholera plague—

§ The Temporary Chairman (Mr. H. Hynd)
We are debating Vote A, and the discussion must be confined to the maximum number of men to be maintained for the Service.

§ Mr. Wigg
With respect, Princess Mary's Royal Air Force Nursing Service is borne on Vote A, and, therefore—

§ The Temporary Chairman
The hon. Member was referring to pay, and the discussion must be confined to numbers.

§ Mr. Mikardo
With respect, Vote A includes a number of other things.

§ The Temporary Chairman
The Question before the Committee relates only to numbers. That is all we are now dealing with.

§ Mr. Mikardo
I am grateful for your guidance, Mr. Hynd. Do I understand that we shall then proceed to certain of the other Votes, when it will be in order to refer to this matter?

§ The Temporary Chairman
They will come later.

§ Mr. Swingler
The question arises on this Vote whether we ought to vote for the total of 288,000 personnel for the Royal Air Force. One of the interesting aspects of this Vote is that it includes 1577 some of the members of other Commonwealth Air Forces. The explanatory note says: The personnel of other Commonwealth air forces covered by this Vote are personnel of air forces of fully self-governing countries of the Commonwealth other than the United Kingdom, who are (a) serving within the United Kingdom or (b.)serving outside the United Kingdom and paid from Air Votes. A question that has constantly arisen, in discussing the manpower of the Services as a whole, and in particular of the Royal Air Force, is the question of the very heavy burden of armed manpower which this country carries. In connection with this Vote. I should like to refer to paragraph 73 of the Defence White Paper, which relates to the manpower of the Air Force, under the heading of: Co-operation within the Commonwealth and with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. The paragraph says: An important part of Commonwealth defence co-operation is the continued exchange of personnel and information between the various Commonwealth countries. Much of this is carried out through day-to-day consultations by military liaison staffs in London and the other Commonwealth capitals. A successful meeting of the Commonwealth Advisory Committee on Defence Science was held in New Delhi in March, 1953. Canada continues her valuable help in training Royal Air Force pilots and navigators and Royal Navy observers. Australia collaborates closely with the United Kingdom in the testing of weapons on the range which she has established for this purpose at Woomera and is thus making on outstanding contribution to Commonwealth security. I am sorry to bother the Under-Secretary with this question at this time, because we all admire his patient endurance, but constantly in our debates on this subject of manpower for the Air Force the question of Commonwealth co-operation has been raised.
The party opposite have always prided themselves on standing for the Empire and Commonwealth. Constantly in our debates on Air Force manpower in past years the question of getting effective distribution of the burden of manpower between the Commonwealth and N.A.T.O. countries has been raised because attention has been called to the fact that this country has been bearing a disproportionate burden of armed manpower.
This country has, in the past generation, fulfilled its military obligation in 10 years 1578 of world war, and has suffered physically to a far greater extent than the majority of the other countries within the Commonwealth or within the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. But when we come to consider the number of men whom we are asked to provide in relation to other countries, we find still, in 1954, in spite of protestations which are made by various hon. Members, that this country is carrying a disproportionate burden of manpower.
A few days ago an hon. Friend of mine mentioned this question and was challenged from the other side of the House; it was alleged that he was making an attack upon the Commonwealth. It was stated that my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman) had made an attack on the other Commonwealth countries because he had drawn attention to this fact. The hon. and gallant Member for Worthing (Brigadier Prior-Palmer) said: The strengths represent very good percentages of the populations. A little later, he said: If they are able to get the number of men they want by voluntary effort, that is all to the good."—[official report, 2nd March. 1954; Vol. 524. c. 1099.] I want to draw attention to the fact that we carry a far greater burden of manpower in the Royal Air Force in relation to the total population than any other country in the Commonwealth. The figure which we are now asked to vote represents 0.54 per cent, of the total population, whereas the personnel of the Australian Air Force represents 0.18 per cent.: that of Canada. 0.25 per cent.; that of New Zealand, 0.20 per cent., and that of South Africa, 0.026 per cent. Our proportion is at least twice that of any other Commonwealth country.
I would remind those Members who are constantly talking about Commonwealth co-operation in defence, equal sacrifice and the proper distribution of the burden, that not only do those countries have a very much smaller percentage of their populations in their Air Forces, but most of them have no system of conscription. Even in Australia the men are called up only for 30 days a year, whereas the men in respect of whom we are asked to vote at this hour of 3.37 a.m. suffer the disadvantage of having to serve for two years.
1579 I realise that this question is beyond the control of the Air Ministry, but many of the men who are called up for service in the Royal Air Force are the sons of widows who have inherited one-man businesses, such as boot repairers, and their businesses are often ruined; their educations are interfered with, and they lose financial advantages which they would otherwise get, because of the system of conscription. They have other liabilities besides that of two years' service.
In other Commonwealth countries— upon whom I make no attack—not only do the men not suffer the disadvantages which are inherent in any system of compulsory military service, but they contribute much less to the total manpower of the Commonwealth Air Forces. We want to know from the Service Departments—and especially from the Air Ministry—what efforts have been made in the negotiations with the Commonwealth, the leaders of the Commonwealth forces, and the N.A.T.O. countries, to obtain proper distribution of this manpower burden.
We often get the idea that the military chiefs of this country have come to accept the system of two years' compulsory military service in this country as a permanent feature of the system of providing manpower for the Armed Forces. I do not accept that assumption. I would call attention to the fact that the leaders of our major political parties pledged themselves to the view that the period of conscription was a temporary expedient for the emergency which it was alleged existed in 1950, and that it would be abolished as quickly as possible. But this is the only important country which now maintains the two-year period.
Most of the Commonwealth countries have no system of conscription and have much smaller Armed Forces. When we raise that matter we are fobbed off by the heads of the Service Ministries with references to urgent negotiations or discussions with the N.A.T.O. Council, but the time has come for some definite assurance about it We demand that the period of National Service should be reduced and that there should be an inquiry into the distribution of manpower in the Armed Services. We assert that 1580 there is no system of co-operation whatever between the Commonwealth and N.A.T.O. countries about the distribution of manpower called up for the air forces, and that so far as the United Kingdom is concerned it is unique in maintaining a two-year call up for men.
I am still not clear about the Reserve obligations of young men called up for National Service with the R.A.F. We have a figure of 124,000 National Service men in Class H Reserve at the end of this financial year, and they are part of the R.A.F. manpower. We are also told that 10,000 have been called up for Reserve training. We are now informed by the Under-Secretary that future policy will be to try to organise 30,000 of these reservists for Civil Defence training, plus 17,000 for these Reserve flights. That is 47,000. Those will not be the same from year to year. There will be changes.
But each year the R.A.F. is taking in 60,000 men for two years' training, after which they are supposed to have a Reserve liability for a number of years, to be called up for training and to be maintained as a trained Reserve. The figure of 124,000. therefore, is not a static one; it will grow bigger year by year. But it is suggested that the figure of 47,000—

Mr. Ward
As well as people coming in, there are those who go out at the other end.

§ Mr. Swingler
It is true that over a period of three years a number of men have their Reserve liability exhausted. Nevertheless, 65,000 National Service men came into the Royal Air Force last year, and 60,000 are expected to come in this year; that is, another 125,000. Therefore, we have this increasing number.
It should be possible for the Undersecretary to say now how many men will escape Reserve liability altogether, and how many of the 124,000 will not be called upon for any Reserve training. Obviously, a large number of the 124.000 will escape it. The question then arises. for 1955 and succeeding years, of how many of each year's call-up the Air Ministry calculates will not be required for any Reserve training.
I could not agree more with the Undersecretary when he says that we should not call up men whom we do not need. 1581 But who asked for this Reserve liability? We here did not ask for it. Who were the people who came forward and insisted that National Service men must be called up for two years' training and afterwards have a Reserve liability, because the National Service scheme was aimed at providing trained Reserves?
If now the Under-Secretary is saying that that policy is wrong and all these trained Reserves are not needed, that the Air Force cannot provide for their training and that it is too expensive, uneconomic and not worth while, we would agree with him; but surely he would admit that this provides the basis for an inquiry into the working of the National Service scheme. It is grossly unfair that those who go into the Army are faced with the prospect of a liability to the country of two years' full-time training, plus a full period of Reserve training, whereas, say, half of those who go into the Air Force will serve merely the two years' full-time training and then the Air Ministry will say, "We do not require them in the future."
All that we ask the Under-Secretary to agree to is that this position provides the basis for an inquiry into the working of the Reserve scheme. We cannot provide the solution at once, but if such great inundations are to be made into the working of the scheme, some inquiry should be held. It is as if there was an immense extension of exemptions. All hon. Members have objected to a great extension of exemptions from National Service and have said that the exceptions must be kept down to a small number in order to keep the National Service scheme equitable as between all the men who are liable to be called up. The same applies to the Reserve scheme. It must be kept equitable to preserve a sense of fairness among the young men concerned.
If the Under-Secretary shrugs his shoulders and says he does not require 50 per cent, of the men for the Air Force training, I say that it is time an inquiry was held into the working of the National Service scheme in the Air Force to ascertain how National Service is working out. If there is a surplus of manpower for the Reserve forces, let us see how that surplus can best be used for the benefit of the nation. These are serious points concerning the great demands on manpower for which the Air 1582 Force is making, and I hope that the Under-Secretary will investigate them carefully.

§ Mr. Wigg
I have the greatest sympathy with the Under-Secretary. He has struggled with this matter manfully for 12 hours. He has made three speeches. I do not want to add to his burden. He has been left in splendid isolation by his colleague, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Defence. He is "carrying the can" for the incompetence of the Minister of Defence, because the questions asked today ought to have been answered in the White Paper, or details ought to have been given during the defence debate.
It is clear from the hon. Gentleman's inability to reply that the Government have no idea where the manpower problem is leading them. We had the admission this evening from the hon. Gentleman that there are 150,000 National Service men, and that the ceiling will rise until the 1st July when there will begin a trickle of men coming out of the Service which will more or less balance those going in. He has also admitted that at least 70,000 of that number are to escape their liability as a result of the Government's policy.
This is disappointing. I think he was a little less than fair, though I forgive him, when he said he was surprised that we should raise the matter. He must remember that it was a complete departure from the tradition of the Labour Party when it accepted the principle of National Service. It only accepted on the condition that the burden was equally shared.
Of the National Service men borne on Vote A, about 72,000 are now being given a bonus, a cash bonus: and it is not only being given to them but to their employers. Any National Service man wearing Royal Air Force uniform is in an advantageous position compared with those who wear khaki.

Mr. Ward
Is the hon. Member saying that it is the policy of the Labour Party to call up men, to take them from one-man businesses, from farms, shops, or other civilian employment, although there is no need to do so, and one does not need to employ them?

§ Mr. Wigg
Certainly not. What we say is that the Government's manpower policy has got so out of joint that a bonus is being given to 70,000 men. My view is that the Prime Minister spoke the truth when he said that the manpower problem ought to be looked at again. The figures show clearly that these men are needed for two years. There would be great difficulty in running the Air Force without these men.
The Royal Air Force is paying the price for soft options. It introduced a period of three years' service and got an enormous boost in 1951. A big boost of recruits was required at the time, and the Air Force got them. Then, unfortunately, the Government were persuaded that this was the answer to the manpower problem. Now the Government are digging a pit for themselves, and the longer this situation continues the bigger that pit will become.
The Under Secretary has done his job magnificently today. He has given one of the best shows on a Service debate which I have seen during the time I have been in the House. Should he become Secretary of State for War, there might be some hope for the Army. He is faced with the problem of a breakdown which does not start, or end, in the Air Ministry. It is a problem which belongs to the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Defence and it needs to be looked at. We shall keep hammering at this problem until the Government take action. It is no good the hon. Gentleman coming here to give us, as answers to questions which we put to him, advice passed to him. The fact is this is a Government problem.

Mr. Ward
What is the policy of the party opposite?

§ Mr. Wigg
Our policy is to have an inquiry on a non-parry basis, because this is an issue which confronts the whole nation. We have to get this manpower problem right simply because we cannot afford to pay the bill, and sooner or later if it is not done—and this is my last word—when the people of this country become aware, as they will become aware, in every town and hamlet, of the advantage enjoyed by the Royal Air Force National Service man. then there will be a revulsion against National Service itself. I do not want that to happen, because I am quite sure that for a long time to come this country has to accept National 'Service. There is no way out of it.
1584 The long-term solution is to try to recruit a regular Air Force which will enable the Government to tackle their problems with fewer numbers than are needed at the present time. But that is something for the future. The manpower difficulties are worse this year than last year, and if the present Government are in office next year—which God forbid— then they will be worse next year, and it will be the same each successive year until this problem is tackled. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will have a talk with his noble Friend and get him to have a talk with his right hon. Friend the Minister of Defence about the whole matter.

Mr. Ward
Perhaps I may be allowed to answer the hon. Member for Preston, South (Mr. Shackleton), who made a special point. I would still prefer to discuss the matter with him outside the Committee. I do not want to give the wastage figures publicly hi the Committee. This is not being silly, but as he knows quite well the wastage is high and I do not want to frighten away the better quality candidates who would be above the average, and. therefore, would not be affected by wastage.
Secondly, it is misleading to judge this year on the figures which we have, because figures available for training wastage always refers to a time about a year before, so that the figures we have got do not reflect the present position. I hope the hon. Gentleman will excuse me from announcing it in the Committee, but I would be very pleased to discuss this matter with him outside any time he likes.
The hon. Member for Reading, South (Mr. Mikardo) asked me what the other Governments were. They are mainly Commonwealth Governments. Pakistan is one example. Other hon. Gentlemen spoke about reservists, but I do not think they will expect me to go on with that subject. I have tried to make the position clear.

§ Mr. Mikardo
A few moments ago, Sir Charles, I sought to raise on Vote A a matter which I was advised by your predecessor in the Chair was not appropriate on that Vote, but could be dealt with later. I can deal with this matter shortly because I do not wish to detain the Committee.
During the day and morning, and especially in the latter part of it, the Under-Secretary has been heaped with well-deserved praise, but at the risk of introducing a note of discord I am afraid that on this one point I must be a little rough with him. As I suggested earlier when I was interrupted, quite rightly, by the occupant of the Chair, this is a matter about which, when it was raised at Question time a few weeks ago, the hon. Gentleman was evasive and, indeed—

§ The Chairman
Order. The Question is to report Progress and ask leave to sit again. Unless the hon. Gentleman aims at not reporting Progress, it is not in order now to raise it. The Question is quite narrow.

§ Mr. Mikardo
May I seek your guidance, Sir Charles? The Order Paper lists Votes A and 1, 2, and a number of others. I sought a little while ago to raise a matter which is concerned with Vote 1, but I was advised by the occupant of the Chair that I was wrong to do so then but that I would have an opportunity later of doing so under Vote 1, which is one of the matters set down for consideration on the Order Paper. This is the point I am trying to raise. May I do so? If I may not, then what is the opportunity which is provided for discussing an important matter of pay and conditions of members of the Royal Air Force?

§ The Chairman
The opportunity may come, but it is not now because, although it is on the Paper, the Motion to report Progress has been moved. That is all that is before us and Vote 1 cannot be discussed on this occasion.

§ Mr. Shackleton
My hon. Friend has undoubtedly been misled quite unwittingly by the occupant of the Chair into believing that Vote 1 was bound to come up for discussion. We are familiar with the fact that it is common that the Government will move to report Progress if a lengthy discussion takes place on 1586 Vote A, but my hon. Friend was not aware of that.
I suggest that it would be fair and reasonable for the Government to withdraw their Motion now so that the action, quite unwittingly, which has prevented my hon. Friend from making his point—he might have found a more ingenious way of presenting it so that it would still have been in order under Vote A—can be put right and my right hon. Friend be allowed to make his point without embarrassing the former occupant of the Chair. Otherwise, the Government must have been aware of the position that they were likely to move to report Progress and that my hon. Friend would, therefore, be denied this opportunity.

§ Mr. Foot
It seems to me that there is some misunderstanding about this situation because, although it appears that my hon. Friends were opposing the Motion moved by the Government, it seems to me that there is a great deal to be said for this Motion moved by the Government; indeed, it is one of the best things they have done all day, because under the procedure as I understand it, we shall have a fuller opportunity for discussing Votes 1, 2, 7, 8, 9 and 11 which are on the Order Paper.

§ Mr. Shackleton
indicated dissent.

§ Mr. Foot
My hon. Friend shakes his head, but if the Government report Progress we come back to the same point of procedure where we were when we left off. As I understand, we shall be able to discuss all those items on a future date. If I am wrong, I hope you will put me right, Sir Charles, but I gather that the debate is to be suspended, the Government will have again to put these undiscussed Votes on the Order Paper for another day, and we shall then have the opportunity to debate them. My hon. Friend will have the chance of raising the points he wished to raise on Vote 1, and I shall have a chance of raising the points that I wanted to raise on Vote 7.
Indeed, I gathered that the purpose of the Government in moving this Motion was because they realised that there were many substantial matters which still have to be raised on all these other Votes, and that was why they were suggesting that it would be much better for the Committee if we postponed this discussion 1587 to another day, thus giving us an opportunity to discuss them at a more convenient time.
But if we are to be prevented from raising our points, and the Undersecretary prevented from replying, then I am sure we shall have his support in opposing the Motion. I do not think there can be any misunderstanding, and if there is the Chair will correct us, but all that we are saying is that these things should be discussed on another day. If the Motion means anything different then I am afraid my hon. Friends would wish to consider voting against it. However, I think I have put the position exactly, and I hope that the Government spokesman will make it clear that we will have a full opportunity to raise these matters on all the other Votes that are on the Order Paper.

§ The Chairman
The Chair is not responsible for what Votes are put down. I only carry out the rules of the House, and none of these matters can be discussed now because a Motion has been moved to report Progress.

§ Mr. Emrys Hughes
I believe that in previous years the procedure has not been quite so simple as the hon. Member for Devonport (Mr. Foot) has suggested. I wish to raise certain matters on Vote 7, which refers to a very substantial sum of money to be spent on aircraft. I want, for example, to ask what is the cost of an atom bomb, the cost of a bomber, of a fighter, and of various other items, about which we are entitled to know some detail. When we come to Vote 7 shall I be able to put these questions with some prospect of getting an answer?

§ The Chairman
There again, I am being asked for an undertaking which I am not qualified to give. All I can say at the moment is that we have a Motion to report Progress.

§ Mr. Swingler
In an atmosphere of universal admiration for the Undersecretary, and with the amicable spirit prevailing, it would be a very good time for this Motion to be withdrawn. At any rate, I oppose it because I think the hon. Member for Devonport (Mr. Foot) ought to be enlightened. Our previous experience is that when this Motion has 1588 been passed the rest of the Votes are subject automatically to the Guillotine procedure. Of course, we have had a very full debate on many points, and although there are many questions, for example, on Vote 1 relating to pay, which could not be adequately discussed during the defence debate, nevertheless hon. Members have imposed upon themselves a self-denying ordinance and do not desire to raise these points at this stage.
The hon. Member for Reading, South (Mr. Mikardo) has a most detailed and important point which certainly deserves an answer from the Under-Secretary who would. I am sure, be quite willing to give it. The Leader of the House should consider withdrawing this Motion temporarily to allow my hon. Friend to put his point and have an adequate reply, on the understanding that we do not wish to have a general debate because we hope the Government will provide in due course time for debate on the new pay codes, which raise many important points.
It could not be adequately debated on a recent occasion because of the rather extraordinary late time at which it was produced. We recognised that was as a result of the resistance of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was in Sydney, and the general friction on this question within the Government. We do not desire to debate that point at this hour of the morning, but I do feel, Sir Charles, that in order to avoid any Division in the Committee—which would be unfortunate in view of the spirit which has been prevailing—it should be agreed that this Motion can be withdrawn so that my hon. Friend can raise his point.

§ Mr. Mikardo
Thanks to the Ruling which you have been kind enough to give, Sir Charles, and to the explanations of my hon. Friends the Members for Devonport (Mr. Foot) and for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Swingler) perhaps I may now vehemently oppose the Motion. I am sorry to cause so much trouble by being slow in the uptake; my excuse must be that it is past four o'clock.
A certain matter—which I must not describe, or I shall be out of order—was the subject of Question and answer a few weeks ago. It was connected with the pay and conditions of an important branch of the Royal Air Force. On that 1589 occasion the Under-Secretary was evasive and, I think, quite unfair. I agree that it was one of those days, which are very common, when it seems impossible to probe a subject by Question and answer. It seemed to be the ideal type of point to be raised during the debate on the Air Estimates. It is just the sort of thing for which Service Estimates are almost tailor-made.
I decided not to bother the Undersecretary then but to defer the matter until these Estimates came along. Now that they have come along we find that, although pay is the heaviest item in these most important Estimates, the Guillotine is being put on that by the Government.
I do not know why the hon. Gentleman who moved this Motion expects to get away with it on the nod. It may well be, as someone has suggested, that when we divide against this Motion there might not be many of us to go into the Lobby. I do not mind the country knowing that the Government were unwilling for pay and allowances of the Nursing Reserve to be discussed; that they were unwilling that such an obvious anomaly should be broached. Let the country know that the Government were not so sure of their case as to enable a simple question to be asked and a simple answer given.
I should have thought that this debate was the obvious occasion to consider pay conditions in the Service. But I am happy that it should go out to the country that the Government—with the Leader of the House sitting there—closured a debate to make sure that this pay question should not be discussed.

§ Mr. Driberg
I fully appreciate your position as you have explained it, Sir Charles. But could we have an answer from the Government, from the hon. Gentleman who represents the Patronage Secretary, to the question whether we shall have another opportunity of debating these Votes if we agree to the Motion? Can the hon. Gentleman say that they will be debated, or are they just going to be skipped?

§ The Lord Privy Seal (Mr. Harry Crookshank)
We are in Committee and all those Votes go through Report stage.

§ Mr. Driberg
I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman. Does that mean that there will be an opportunity to debate these other Votes?

§ Mr. Crookshank
That largely depends on the Opposition. As the hon. Gentleman knows, matters of Supply are very much a joint affair on their request.

§ Mr. Foot
It seems a very strange answer from the Leader of the House.

§ Mr. Mikardo
Not satisfactory at all.

§ Mr. Foot
Surely we are entitled to have from the Leader of the House a clear explanation of the procedure under which we are working. It appears from what the Leader of the House has said that the understanding under which we believed this procedure took place was wrong. It appears that this Motion amounts to a closure on these Votes which are on the Order Paper.
If that be the case we have the absolute right to have from the Leader of the House a clear statement without any kind of equivocation, because part of 'his duty is to assist the House in the conduct of its business. You, Sir Charles, have said that it is not possible for you to tell us what position would arise if this Motion were carried. If it is not possible for you to tell us in what position the House is placed I say that it is the duty of a member of the Government to give us an opinion on the matter. Instead of explaining the position to us clearly the Leader of the House has given an equivocal answer.
I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman was in the Chamber when my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, South (Mr. Mikardo) was speaking, but an understanding was given to my hon. Friend that he would have an opportunity of raising the matter he wished to refer to at a later stage. He sat down and was ready to wait until that occasion arrived. But now we understand that the position is altered.
It is not sufficient to say that the Opposition should provide time on some other occasion. We have rights in this debate to discuss all the Votes on the Order Paper and we are being deprived of those rights under procedure which the Leader of the House is not only not ready to define, but does not appear to understand. Some people appear to believe that the Motion means a closure on these Votes and others that it merely means that all these Votes would have 1591 to be put down again on another Order Paper in precisely the same terms in which they appear today and that we should have an opportunity of discussing them.
If there is any dispute about the correct interpretation we are entitled to an explanation. If, as appears from the shifty attitude of the Leader of the House, the closure is being moved, and if that is the way in which the Government propose to treat the House, then we had better have a vote and probably the Government will; not be able to get a majority.

§ Mr. Crookshank
May I make it clear to the hon. Gentleman? I thought he knew what the situation was on Supply Days when we move Mr. Speaker out of the Chair on the various Service Estimates. What happens is that the opening speech is made by the Minister. Then, eventually, an Amendment is moved to the Question "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair." We then go into Committee, and for the Committee stage a number of Votes are put down. But no statement is made, and no guarantee is given, that all those Votes will be taken. They are merely put down. Vote A having lasted for so long, I naturally thought that the Committee was prepared to conclude its deliberations on this subject.
On the point as to whether something should or should not be in order, it has nothing to do with me, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman realises. Nor could anyone who was in the Chair give any guarantee that a particular Vote was to be discussed, because the Chair would not be aware of the fact one way or the other beyond having seen the list which is on the Paper. Then, Progress being reported, that ends the Committee stage. However, all these Estimates have to come again before the House on the Report stage, and all I was saying earlier—

§ The Chairman
There has to be a further Committee stage.

§ Captain Crookshank
The Report stage is the one where there is likely to be a debate, and what I was referring to as the common practice was that on those 1592 days arrangements are made through the usual channels as to what Votes should be discussed and so on. I thought that the hon. Gentleman was seized of that point. If I spoke rather too telescopically or telegraphically, whichever is the right word, I hope he will forgive me, because it is a quarter past four.

§ Mr. Foot
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. The main point on which I was seeking elucidation arose from the intervention of the Chair a minute or so ago. You said, Sir Charles, that there will also have to be a further Committee stage.

§ The Chairman
Yes. I thought that the Leader of the House had made a slip. There will have to be a Committee stage and a Report stage.

§ Mr. Foot
In that case, do I understand that we resume the Committee stage at exactly the point where we have left off—that is, following the Vote on Vote A—and that in that Committee stage we start again with Vote 1 with the same possibility of discussing all those Votes that we would have discussed if the Motion to report Progress had not been moved? The real issue on which I am trying to discover the facts, because I do not know the procedure, is whether you are correct in saying that we shall have a full Committee stage and a Report stage later, or whether the Leader of the House was,' correct in saying that the Committee stage will go by the board because of this Motion and we shall be left merely with the Report stage.

§ The Chairman
The hon. Gentleman is putting words into my mouth. I did not say that there would be a full Committee stage. I said there would be a Committee stage and a Report stage.

§ Mr. Swingler
Can we not be perfectly frank? Owing to reforms which have been introduced into the procedure, these later stages are subject to the Guillotine. May I, through you, Sir Charles, appeal to the Leader of the House? We know that one of the reasons' these discussions are prolonged is because the later stages are subject to the Guillotine procedure, and discussion can be very much curtailed. This is because of a reform that was introduced some years ago. There would appear to be no guarantee that these other Votes can be raised, because at a later stage these Votes are taken 1593 en bloc according to a Guillotine procedure, and there will be no opportunity of discussing them at all.

§ Mr. Driberg
I am sure the Leader of the House realises that it would have saved him and the Committee a good deal of time if he had not moved to report Progress, and if my hon. Friend had been allowed to raise his single point on Vote 1. I should like to know whether the right hon. Gentleman will consider withdrawing the Motion for that purpose. I should also like to ask you, Sir Charles, if you would be good enough to explain how you distinguish between a "Committee stage" and a "full Committee stage." You made a distinction between them, and I could not make out what you meant.

§ The Chairman
I do not know what is meant by a "full Committee stage." The only stages known to me in this connection are the Committee stage and the Report stage.

§ Mr. Driberg
It seemed at one point that you were correcting the Leader of the House.

§ The Chairman
I corrected the Leader of the House because he had forgotten to mention the Committee stage.

§ Mr. Driberg
When my hon. Friend said something about a "full Committee stage"—which is not a Parliamentary term—you corrected him and said, "I did not say a ' full Committee stage'; I said a ' Committee stage.' "Does that mean that the Committee will not have a debate, or that there will be an opportunity for one?

§ The Chairman
I cannot answer that.

§ Mr. Swingler
The whole point is whether it is subject to the Guillotine, and I assert that it is. We need not be disingenuous about it. The point is that after tonight the Votes will be subject to the Guillotine, and our discussions will be severely curtailed.

§ Mr. Crookshank
There has to be a Report stage, whatever happens. Whether or not this Vote comes under the Guillotine with the rest of the Committee stage, there still has to be a Report stage on Service Estimates. What Votes are taken and in what order is a matter to be arranged through the usual channels.

§ Mr. Driberg
The Leader of the House has shown, on occasion, that he realises that as Leader of the House his job is not only to protect the Government and expedite their business, but that he is a servant of the whole House and has to consider minorities and the position of the Opposition, especially on debates on Estimates, with all the traditions associated with such debates. I do not think that the Leader of the House was present when my hon. Friend was quite unwittingly misled by the previous occupant of the Chair. If he had been I do not think he would have been quite so unfair as to spring this Motion to report Progress on us until my hon. Friend had been able to raise his single, limited point on Vote 1.
He was just a little unfair, and although, as is well known, the occupant of the Chair could not give an absolute undertaking that a certain Vote would be taken merely because it was on the Order Paper, my hon. Friend was given to understand that it would be taken, and it would be more in accordance with the traditions of these Estimates debates if the Leader of the House were to remember his duties to the House as a whole and not merely to the Government, and withdraw this Motion, briefly and temporarily, to allow my hon. Friend to make his point.

§ Mr. Emrys Hughes
This is an important precedent, which covers not only the Air Estimates but the Navy and Army Estimates. Hon. Members opposite will find, if they rush this through, that they will not only have curtailed the debate, contrary to precedent, but that when they wish to raise points on the Army Estimates next week a Motion to report Progress may be moved again and there will only be a limited discussion. If this is to be a precedent for the discussions on the Army Estimates, hon. Members opposite—40 of whom, I understand, wish to cause trouble for the Government on those Estimates—will be disappointed, because their discussion will be curtailed.

§ The Chairman
The question of what happens on the Army Estimates next week does not arise now.

§ Mr. Hughes
If this precedent were followed on this occasion hon. Gentlemen might find themselves in the same position next week.

§ Mr. Mikardo
If the object of the Government Whip in moving the Motion was to ensure that his tired and rested cohorts could go home he could have achieved it much earlier than the present hour and without the; Motion, and earlier than is likely to have been the case when we come to dispose of the Motion. Notwithstanding what he has said, one has no guarantee that the future stages of these Estimates will not be treated in the way that this stage has been, and that there will be no facility for the maximum possible discussion, but rather that there will be an attempt to repress such discussion.
After all, we have not, during the course of this debate, been in any way obstructive: but had we been, and if the situation now was that we were seeking to prolong the debate unnecessarily by raising a whole host of matters, one could understand, even if one did not agree with it, the Government moving the Closure to protect themselves. But here was a situation in which the Motion "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair" and on Vote A we had debates which every member of the Committee will agree were absolutely constructive, and which the Under Secretary would agree were helpful to him.
It was then when my point was raised on Vote 1, a point which could have been got rid of in less than five minutes and my hon. Friend the -Member for Accrington (Mr. H. Hynd) would have been in the process of getting his Adjournment Motion, for which he has waited so long and with so much patience, that this Motion was moved. The Government have not got very far in taking that unreasonable action. They could have still disposed of the debate in the same atmosphere of calmness and good will in which it has progressed in the last 12 hours. Apparently the Leader of the House believes in digging in rather than in getting business done in the quickest and simplest possible way.
As I have, however unwittingly, been the cause of the trouble you may perhaps allow me to put the: point, Sir Charles. It may well be that the Chair cannot possibly know what debates are to be initiated, or what Votes will be taken, and, therefore, the Chair cannot give any guarantee that it will be possible to raise 1596 a particular matter. But the fact is that although it would have been legitimate to raise this point on Vote A I did not raise it then to prevent the debate being unduly delayed because I was given the impression that it would be open to me to make the point on Vote 1.

§ The Chairman
Since the matter was first raised I have had the opportunity of seeing my predecessor in the Chair. The words he used were that Vote 1 will come later, which was quite correct.

§ Mr. Mikardo
I think everyone on the Committee took it to mean that it would come up on the conclusion of Vote A. I am not saying that the Chair can be bound, because it cannot, but I am saying that it is a good reason for refusing the Motion to report Progress.
That is why we did not want to do it, but are indicating even though we have not done it, although we feel reluctantly compelled to, our opposition to the Motion. That same Motion could have been taken four minutes afterwards without any discussion at all and without a Division. But if the Leader of the House wants it this way, if he wants it known in the country that an important matter affecting the pay of the Nursing Reserve on difficult and delicate operations is considered by the Government to be unworthy of discussion in the House of Commons, all right, let him have his way.

§ Mr. Foot
One point which my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, South (Mr. Mikardo) has made is not yet absolutely clear to me. Even if Vote 1 were taken instead of having the Motion to report Progress, would the other Votes still be taken? Therefore, the question arises as to whether those Votes would be subject to the Guillotine procedure.
If the Leader of the House were completely candid, he would admit that in his last statement he was somewhat fogged about this procedure and was not sure whether the Motion to report Progress involved applying the Guillotine procedure to these Votes on the Committee stage. The reason I say that is because the right hon. Gentleman said, "Whatever happens under the Committee stage, there will still be the possibility of raising these points on the Report stage." Had the Leader of the House been quite certain of the consequence 1597 of the Motion which had been moved from his own Front Bench—either that it would or would not have meant applying the Guillotine—he would not have used the phrase "Whatever happens under the Committee stage"; he would have said quite definitely one thing or the other.
We come again to the point, which is a curious state of affairs, that there is a plain contradiction between the advice which is given to us by the Leader of the House and the advice which has been given to us by the Chair. There was some argument by my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr. Driberg) as to whether I used the phrase "a full Committee stage" or "a Committee stage"; but the question with which I am concerned is whether there is to be any Committee stage on Votes 1, 2, 7, 8, 9 and 11 such as we have already had on Vote A.

§ Mr. Emrys Hughes
They are all guillotined.

§ Mr. Foot
My hon. Friend says that they are all guillotined. If that is the definite procedure, it contradicts what has been said from the Chair, because we have been told from the Chair that we will still have a Committee stage on these Votes. We know there are other Votes still to be put down. Votes 3, 4, 5, 6 and 10 have to be put down at some time or other to be discussed, and presumably they are not subject to the Guillotine. But we had the statement from the Chair that these Votes will still be subject to a Committee procedure as well as a Report stage. If that means anything at all, it means that these Votes are not subject to the Guillotine procedure.
It may be that my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Swingler) is right, but three different kinds of counsel have been given to the Committee: first, the advice that my hon. Friend has given us; second, the advice which takes an intermediate position, that given by the Leader of the House; and third, the advice which you, Sir Charles, have given us from the Chair. I certainly clearly understood you to say that if this Motion were passed, we would still have a further Committee stage on Votes 1, 2. 7, 8, 9 and 11.
1598 If, after the Chair had said that, we were to discover that we did not have a further Committee stage, the House, and, indeed, the Chair, would be in some difficulty. Therefore, it would be much more sensible for the Government either to withdraw the Motion to report Progress and discover what is the true situation and let us proceed with the debate on these Votes, or to give us the guarantee that we shall have what the Chair says we are entitled to have: that is, a full Committee stage on all these Votes that are still to be debated.

§ The Chairman
I must protest against words which I have never used being put into my mouth. What I said was that there would be a Committee stage and a Report stage. I do not know what a "full Committee stage" is, and I have not used the expression.

§ Mr. Foot
I apologise, Sir Charles, for using the words "full committee stage." It was wrong of me to have attributed them to you.
However, if I may respectfully say so, it does not make any difference to the argument I am presenting, because I think that when I used the words, "full Committee stage," they were foolish words. If, on the Committee stage, these matters are subject to the Guillotine we will have no decision on these Votes. [Laughter.] Hon. Members may laugh, but it is a matter of some interest. We have had directly contrary advice from the Chair and from the Leader of the House. The House will be in difficulty about it.
The Leader of the House, while he has not said definitely, probably because he was in doubt about it, says in effect that whether or not there is a Guillotine, or whatever it is on the Committee stage, there will be the Report stage. That is different from what was said by the Chair. I would ask the Leader of the House whether he has reconsidered the matter; whether he has had the opportunity to discuss what is the precise situation, and whether he will bring his undertaking into line with the statement made by the Chair; or will he withdraw the Motion so that we can proceed with the discussion?

§ Mr. Driberg
We have appealed repeatedly to the Leader of the House in reasonable, almost genial, terms, but if he is going to be tiresome it will be necessary to examine in much greater detail the reasons against agreeing to the Motion. There are solid reasons for not agreeing to it in these Votes which we are not to 'be allowed to debate. Vote 1 … provides for the pay cash allowances (other than those noted below), and contribution payable from Air Votes under the National Insurance Scheme for: —

(a) officers and airmen of the Royal Air Force;

(b) officers of …"

§ The Chairman
The hon. Member cannot discuss them now. He can only discuss reasons for reporting Progress, or otherwise.

§ Mr. Driberg
I am not trying to discuss them. Sir Charles.

§ The Chairman
It; sounded as though the hon. Member was going in that direction.

§ Mr. Driberg
I was only indicating the importance of these subjects as a reason for not agreeing to the Motion. I shall be grateful if you will call me to order if I stray beyond the proper limits, Sir Charles.

§ The Chairman
I will certainly do that.

§ Mr. Driberg
Apart from those I have mentioned there are officers and airwomen of the Women's Royal Air Force, and personnel of the reserve and auxiliary forces serving with Royal Air Force as officers, airman and airwomen, other than those carrying out training under the regulations of the reserve or anxiliary force, and so on. There is also a matter on which I would have liked to speak on Vote 1, only in view of the undertakings we have been given I would prefer not to do so if the Leader of the House will withdraw the Motion for a brief interval to give the hon. Member for Reading, South (Mr. Mikardo) to make his single, brief point.
A point I should liked to have spoken on was Korea gratuities. I notice that in accordance with the bad custom of reduced rates for women, the women's Service is to receive approximately three-quarters the rate for men.

§ The Chairman
The hon. Member cannot discuss that.

§ Mr. Driberg
I was only quoting it by way of illustration of the importance of the subjects we are prevented from discussing by the obstinacy of the Leader of the House.
We turn from Vote 1 to Vote 2, which we had hoped to be able to discuss this morning. This concerns the Reserve and Auxiliary Services. Then there is Vote 7, which covers aircraft and stores. This Vote provides for the supply of aircraft, warlike stores, technical equipment, materials and miscellaneous equipment, meteorological equipment, general stores, clothing and medical stores, a vast number of extremely important subjects. I am not going to presume to argue about them or discuss them in any way, but I merely cite them to show the Leader of the House of what it is he is depriving the Committee.
It is all rather regrettable, and I think he is beginning to feel sorry for himself, though he has the remedy in his own hands. I will give way to him any time in the next half hour to allow him to withdraw this Motion to report Progress and allow my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, South to make his single limited but important point, the nature of which he has already indicated to the Committee.
There was something else on Vote 7 to which I wished to draw attention, namely, radio, radar and electrical equipment, and my hon. Friends will no doubt notice other subjects while I have been speaking to which they will wish to draw the attention of the Committee in due course if I myself fail to put them forward by way of argument against this Motion.
Vote 8 deals with works and lands. Here indeed is something which we cannot just pass by without any consideration at all. I do not think we ought to agree to report Progress until there has been some brief discussion on this extremely important subject. Part I of this Vote provides for. New works, additions and alterations amounting to £10,000 each and upwards. These are all extremely important matters.
Vote 9 deals with "Miscellaneous Effective Services," which covers all sorts 1601 of extremely interesting things such as training by civil flying companies and clubs, and fees, etc., for personal services, whatever they may 'be. We should like to ask what they are. Then there is compensation for losses, damage, etc., and maps and charts. I do not think there has been any discussion of maps and charts in the whole course of our debates since 3.30 yesterday afternoon and I think there ought to be.
Next we come to Vote 11 which refers to additional married quarters. I suppose there is no one single subject which has a stronger bearing on the possibility of retaining in the Royal Air Force senior N.C. Os., married men and so on. I am sure the Under-Secretary, if he were still with us—and I for one do not blame him for going out for a little rest and refreshment at this time of the morning—would have been anxious to discuss this Vote because he would realise what immense importance it is to the welfare of the Royal Air Force and the men serving in it and their dependants.
This is a very brief indication of the wide nature of the subjects which we are now being debarred from discussing and I hope very much that my hon. Friends, while I have been speaking, will have noticed other aspects of this important matter. I see here a grant to the Royal Society in aid of meteorological research. One could keep this up to the crack of dawn.
These are all matters that we should be discussing if only the Leader of the House would allow us. This time wasting Motion of his to report Progress has taken up nearly an hour of valuable Parliamentary time when we could have been discussing these important subjects, and in particular the single, limited point which my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, South has already mentioned, which he wished to raise. This is all the fault of the Leader of the House for being so stubborn, and I wish that even at this late hour he would repent and withdraw this Motion for five minutes to allow my hon. Friend to make his point.

§ Mr. Swingler
I think it would have paid the Leader of the House to have been really frank with the Committee. You will recall, Sir Charles, that this situation could not have arisen years ago 1602 because in those days the opportunity arose for going through the whole of the book. I can well recall some years ago on the Estimates for the Service Departments the opportunity of going through Vote by Vote the detailed points in an Estimate such as this. But since that time the procedure has been altered and, let us be frank, it has been the custom of Governments in recent times to have the general Estimates debate and to expect hon. Members to raise all their questions on the Estimates in that general debate, then to take Vote A and, after that, to report Progress.
I think the Leader of the House will agree with me that this has been the general custom in recent times, and one of the reasons for it has been that under the new procedure, introduced a few years ago, the Government are able to get the rest of the Votes in Committee and on Report under a time-limited discussion. It is no good the Leader of the House being disingenuous about this. He knows that the effect of this Motion is that the discussion on these Votes in the future, whether they come up in Committee or on Report, is time-limited, and the Opposition are put in the position where they have to operate a stringent order of priority on questions they want to raise on these Estimates, within a matter of two or three hours of discussion. Therefore, it does not give an opportunity for every Member who might have a point of importance to raise it.
We know that the majority of hon. Members are not interested in these Estimates, they are only kept here by the Whips, but there are hon. Members like my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, South (Mr. Mikardo) who have important interests of a constituency nature or awkward questions to raise on certain Votes that might well be excluded as a result of the procedure under which we now operate and which the Leader of the House well knows.
It would have paid the Leader of the House to say all this, instead of saying what he did say when this Motion was proposed and trying to pretend that there was a full opportunity for my hon. Friend to raise the point in future, because that is not so. We have all had experience of being excluded in the past once the normal annual Estimates debates have 1603 passed. As a result of what I call the Guillotine procedure which now operates, we are excluded from raising specific points on certain Votes.
It would have been simple for the Leader of the House to have taken Vote 1. That Vote deals with a particularly important question, the pay of the Air Force. Why should we resist this Motion now for the purpose of discussing pay? Surely there is some point in the fact that just a few days ago we had a defence debate and, in the middle of it, the Government produced a new White Paper with a new pay code for the Forces, and now we are having the first of the Services coming up for discussion. It is very natural that all through this debate questions about pay for the R.A.F. have been raised, and now my hon. Friend, unaware of the procedure, did not raise this question in his general speech and wishes to raise it now.
I make no complaint whatever, for I know how this procedure has operated in the past, and the Leader of the House knows that his instructions are that as soon as Vote A is obtained the Motion is put to report Progress. It will be done with the other Service Estimates, and the Government will get the rest of the Votes under the Guillotine. If any hon. Gentleman is interested in a detailed point in any of the Votes after Vote A he had better raise it in his general speech on the Estimates, for when we get to the Report stage perhaps; only a couple of hours will be allowed for the remainder of the Votes. There are 230 pages in the Air Estimates.
Next week we shall have the Navy and Army Estimates, each, no doubt, of a similar number of pages. That is 500 pages in all, and I reckon that we shall get a day for the Report stage of the Service Estimates, with three hours for each Estimate. The argument has been in modern times that because we have a Select Committee on Estimates it is not necessary for hon. Gentlemen to go through the Estimates in detail, and, apparently, because so few Members participate in these debates the Guillotine procedure has been introduced. I should have thought, that in these circumstances it was reasonable for the Leader of the House to pay attention to hon. Members 1604 who are interested in raising particular points on the Estimates and enable them to raise them. It does not take a great deal of time.
The Under-Secretary need not worry. The rest of his Votes are all secure under the Guillotine procedure. It is just a question of allowing one hon. Member and possibly another to put a point, by taking Vote I and reporting Progress then. On the other hand, if the Government insist that in all the Service Estimates they are going automatically to report Progress after they have taken Vote A a number of hon. Members, and possibly some on the Government side, who have detailed points to raise, will be frustrated, and, as a result, there will be discontent about the way this debate operates. There is no reason why it should always be on Vote I. We could take the Votes of most interest to hon. Members and then report Progress, and by that means the Leader of the House would save the time of the House at the later stages because hon. Members would have already had the answers to their detailed points. There is not a very large pressure of Members requiring to take up the time of the Committee at a later stage. That is a very simple position.
If the Leader of the House is not prepared to make clear just what was his policy in reporting Progress in this instance, what would be the effect of passing this Motion now, and what future opportunities might my hon. Friends and others have of raising questions on the later stages of the Air Estimates? We have now had a long debate on the question of reporting Progress. We are still desirous of asking the Leader of the House whether he will enable my hon. Friend's question to be raised, so that the Under-Secretary—who has been sitting patiently all the time—may have an opportunity, which otherwise he is denied, to make a statement. We are all denied an opportunity of hearing a question and an answer on this point—which may take only five or 10 minutes.

Mr. Ward
If it will help at all, I might say that I know perfectly well the point which the hon. Member wished to raise. I should certainly have wished to refresh my memory on the answer which I gave him at Question time not long ago, and to consult the parties. I could have given him an answer then, or given a Written answer later. So far as I can 1605 see I can still do either of those things. Therefore, so far as the hon. Member for Reading, South (Mr. Mikardo) is concerned, he is no worse off now than had he been able to ask his question.

§ Mr. Mikardo
The Under-Secretary cannot possibly know what I would say, because I was not allowed to say it.

Mr. Ward
The hon. Member was able to say enough to convey to me that he is still worried about the tuberculosis boards—a matter which he raised at Question time not long ago.

§ Mr. Mikardo
Although the Undersecretary may know the nature of the subject I wished to raise, he cannot—unless he is divinely inspired which I doubt—know the nature of my observations and representations. To suppose that I wished to do no more than reiterate my previous questions is, he will realise, surely dong me an injustice. I am quite sure that this could have been simply put, quickly understood and answered. There would have been no difficulty in the hon. Gentleman deferring it to some future occasion, or taking the trouble to write to me later.
We could have done all that, and hon. Gentlemen opposite, who are clearly getting more and more peevish and petty as they get more and more tired—and who have not honoured us with their presence in these proceedings until about an hour ago—previous to which they were, no doubt in some more pleasant, if less seriously minded place—could long since have been tucked up in their beds without a thought for the Air Estimates or the duties of the members of the Nursing Service in the tuberculosis wards. Everyone would have been happy. All that has been frustrated solely because the Leader of the House simply hates to lose face once he has stuck up his face on a pole.

§ Mr. Foot
I think I should add a word or two to my previous remarks. My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Swingler) has given a very clear explanation to the Committee as to how this procedure has been built up in the past and the reason for our present position. After hearing that explanation I feel differently about this from when the original Motion was moved.
1606 When I first heard the Motion moved by the Government my natural instinct was to rally to their support. Those who were here at the time will recollect that I did, indeed, support that Motion. But I now discover that the facts are different. I now understand the position to be that the Government were trying to rush these Votes through and deprive us of our rights. All the Government have done is to add a great deal of time to the amount of time we should have spent discussing these matters.
They have deprived the House not only of the opportunity of discussing Vote 1 but also the other matters on the other Votes, and have given an indication of how they mean to seek to protect themselves in the future. I cannot believe that that was the intention of the Leader of the House and it is still not too late for him to withdraw from an error into which he was rushed because of the poor advice he received from one of the assistants of the Patronage Secretary—I do not know who was responsible.
No one would hold it against the right hon. Gentleman if he decided to change his mind. One of the most attractive things about this House is that when an hon. Member is ready to admit a mistake, however grave, or however serious may be the difficulty into which he has landed other hon. Members by keeping them here until five o'clock in the morning, they are always ready to acknowledge the action and show a spirit of amity. That is always the case if an hon. Member is prepared to come forward and acknowledge his mistake and repair his folly, and I appeal to the Leader of the House to take that course now.

§ Mr. Emrys Hughes
I wonder what the Prime Minister will think of the conduct of the Leader of the House. We all know the Prime Minister takes a great interest in the Service Estimates. In fact, during the debate on defence he pointed out that when the Service Estimates were discussed hon. Members would have an ample opportunity of discussing their grievances. When the Prime Minister is told of the conduct of the Leader of the House, and that he has slipped, he will think that the Leader of the House regards the House of Commons as a banana skin.
1607 If we are to pay that proper attention to these matters, which we know that the Prune Minister would desire, then he should be consulted. But not only the Prime Minister will be disappointed. There is also the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and in these debates I regard the expenditure purely from his point of view. The right hon. Gentleman will be disappointed if he hears that the House of Commons has not had an opportunity to scrutinise carefully every item on the accounts, in view of the need for economy at the present time. On Vote 7 I had proposed to make various suggestions which would have assisted the Chancellor in planning his Budget.
There are other Ministers involved. The hon. Member for Droylsden (Mr. W. R. Williams) pointed out that the Postmaster-General had to clear up the intricate and difficult point regarding telephone charges about which even the Under-Secretary himself was perplexed. That point could have been raised under Vote 7. The Minister of Housing and Local Government has always taken a great interest in previous debates of this nature and for some time he led the then Opposition in criticism of the conduct of the Labour Government on these matters.
I remember a very eloquent, interesting and convincing speech made by the Minister of Housing and Local Government in which he denounced the Labour Party of the day for their policy of too much secrecy. I think the Minister of Housing and Local Government will be greatly disappointed when he learns that the House of Commons has had to agree to a Motion to report Progress when we have been trying to dispel this veil of secrecy to which he objected so much. There are other Ministers. We should certainly have had the benefit of the advice of the Law Officers of the Crown —the Attorney-General, the Solicitor-General, and the Lord Advocate—and the Ministers for Scotland.
I do not wish to go further into the list of Ministers who will feel that the Leader of the House has fallen down on his job, and that the House of Commons has been denied its rights of free and full discussion of very important Estimates. I would point out that there is this important question of precedent. We on 1608 this side of the Committee are not only fighting for the rights of discussion for our own constituents. We are fighting for the rights of discussion for hon. Members opposite. One never knows what may be the turn of events at the next Election.
In the next Air Estimates debate the present Under-Secretary may want to press for information from my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rowley Regis and Tipton (Mr. A. Henderson), who has been seeking information tonight. I submit that we should have the full support of hon. Members opposite, and that the Leader of the House should take all these facts and arguments into consideration and withdraw this Motion.

§ Mr. Driberg
It was fair and helpful, and, if I may say so, typically decent of the Under-Secretary to intervene as he did a few minutes ago and try to help us and go as near as he could, within the rules of order, to indicate that he thought he knew what my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, South (Mr. Mikardo) was trying to talk about. But of course, the very fact that his intervention—fair and helpful as it was—did not lead to anything very conclusive shows how unfortunate it is that this Motion to report Progress was moved. My hon. Friend corrected him, quite naturally, and said that the hon. Gentleman could not possibly have known what he was going to say about the subject that he wanted to discuss. If only my hon. Friend could have made his speech an hour ago we should all have been away long ago.
There is still time for the Leader of the House to think better of it and let us go home. All he need do is to ask leave to withdraw his Motion. We give an undertaking not to carry on the discussion for long, but merely to allow my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, South to raise his single, brief, limited point, the nature of which he has already made clear, although it has not been possible for him to make the observations that he would have liked to make.
I myself would have liked, under Vote 8, which we are not allowed to discuss, to raise a matter of profound interest to my own constituents—the question of the replacement of roads permanently 1609 closed owing to the retention of war-time airfields and the extension of airfields to meet present day requirements. That is a matter of very great and urgent interest to agriculturists, farmers and others living in various parts of Essex, East Anglia and wherever these airfield extensions are going on. As the Under-Secretary knows, he and I have had some correspondence about one airfield in Essex and the future plans for it.
In order to curtail my remarks in general debate, I did not raise that question, although I had given the hon. Gentleman notice that I might do so. But I thought, in fairness, to him and to save time, I would cut my remarks short. It is most unfortunate that our considerate-ness has been repaid in this rather scurvy way by the Leader of the House and the Patronage Secretary. It would have been of very great interest to my constituents if I could have found out a little more about the question of the replacement of roads permanently closed owing to the retention of war-time airfields.
That is another example of how the Leader of the House is depriving our constituents and Members on both sides of the Committee of their rights. It may be that among the supporters of the Government there are some who are interested in certain of the matters covered by these Votes, and who would have liked to air some of their views and given us the benefit of their observations. They have been rather silent on the whole, except for barracking, but some of them might have found their voices in a discussion on Vote 9, "Miscellaneous Effective Services," or "Maps and Charts." I make yet another appeal to the Leader of the House to see if he cannot let us have just five minutes in order that my hon. Friend can raise his point, and then we could all go home. We do not want to stay here. It is the Leader of the House who has kept us for a whole hour.

§ Mr. Swingler
May I make a final appeal to the Leader of the House? I do not know whether there is some feeling on his part that the discussion of these Estimates has been unduly protracted. Nothing has been mentioned in the debate. I do not think that the Under-Secretary complained that there 1610 was any waste of time, or ineffectual discussion in the general debate.

§ Mr. Driberg
The Leader of the House did say—and I meant to pick him up on this—that there had been a long debate on Vote A, when there had not been.

§ Mr. Swingler
My hon. Friend has anticipated me. I was just coming to the point that there were many other questions that we could have raised on Vote A, but which my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) and I deliberately did not raise, in order not to prolong the discussion. I would point out to the Leader of the House—if he is feeling some grudge against hon. Members because of the length of certain discussions—that quite a large amount of time was taken up by hon. Members opposite who spoke on the Amendment moved by the hon. Member for Ton-bridge (Mr. G. Williams).
Quite a large proportion of the speakers in that debate were on the Government side, and some of them made quite long speeches. Nobody on this side of the House wished to make any complaint about that. The discussion was a useful one, on the subject of airfields. If anybody cares to assess the time taken in this debate he will find that a due proportion has been occupied by hon. Members opposite, who have made a very considerable contribution.
We should certainly like to know whether one of the reasons for the refusal of the Leader of the House to withdraw this Motion was his feeling that there had been some waste of time, or some deliberate protraction in the discussion of these Estimates. If that is not the reason, it is difficult to understand why he has this very obstinate objection to what is such a very small point. We have had a general Estimates debate, which has not been abnormally long, and we have had a very short debate on Vote A. The points have been raised effectively and without undue protraction of argument, and the Under-Secretary has dealt very effectively and straightforwardly with the questions, or has promised to deal with them in correspondence.
I see no reason why he should not be able to deal just as effectively with the point which my hon. Friend wants to raise, without needing any great amount 1611 of time. The point is a very narrow one. All the Leader of the House has to do is to withdraw the Motion to report Progress, and move Vote 1 to allow my hon. Friend to raise his point, after which the Under-Secretary can give a considered reply, or consider what action should be taken, and the Government can then move to report Progress or take any further action they may wish to take.
That would not be anything unprecedented or unique. In former days Leaders of the House were accustomed to having the whole of these Votes thoroughly discussed, and Service Ministers thought nothing of sitting up hour after hour dealing with the most detailed questions and asking their advisers for explanations about every little point. Now, after a few hours' debate we are asked to pass this Vote, amounting to more than £500 million, and yet there is a stubborn objection against allowing a small point about a certain part of the Royal Air Force to be put.
It gives one a sneaking suspicion that the Leader of the House is seeking to set a precedent that nothing except Vote A shall be discussed by the Committee, and that the rest shall be subject to the Guillotine procedure. I make my protest, and thoroughly deplore such action. If there is to be a new procedure for dealing with Estimates, by which hon. Members are required to deal with every point they wish to raise in general debate and if there is then to be a short debate on manpower but no detailed point will be permitted to be put afterwards because it is argued that all that can be dealt with by the Select Committee on Estimates, it will be a deplorable shelving of the, responsibilities of the Committee and a. deplorable attempt to remove the right to raise grievances.
I am sure that the Service Ministers will not favour that procedure because it will involve them in an increase of correspondence and in the complaints they will receive at Question time. That will reflect the increased discontent of hon. Members, because these Estimates form a useful chance of developing matters previously raised on the Floor of the House by supplementary question, and I hope that the Leader of the House is prepared to make it clear that he will not set a precedent for the way in which Service Estimates will be discussed.
1612 There has been no objection to the manner in which the debate has been conducted, and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman, having had an opportunity to have second thoughts, will agree to the withdrawal of the Motion for a short period to enable my hon. Friend to ventilate his grievance in the traditional Parliamentary manner.

§ Mr. Mikardo
May I put one additional argument in an attempt to persuade the Leader of the House to take the action which has been urged upon him in the last half an hour or so? A number of my hon. Friends have represented to him that if his object in moving to report Progress was to bring our proceedings to an end, he has already effectively defeated his object by his own action.
The right hon. Gentleman has made it clear that whatever matters we want to discuss on any of the Service Estimates other than on Vote A, we had better raise in the general debate on the Estimates. This means that future debates on Service Estimates will be much more protracted than they have been today, for we shall not have the ghost of a chance of raising any matter on a Vote other than Vote A except by raising it in the general debate. That is a great pity, because it might lead to a situation in which we could not possibly have as good and as constructive a debate on any Service Estimate as we have had during this Sitting.
A great many matters connected with such things as pay and conditions in the Forces, works, buildings, and so on, which are covered by the Estimates, are common to more than one of the Service Departments, and quite a number of matters are common to all three Service Departments. The Leader of the House must not think that by his wasting of an hour and a half of the Committee's time he has gained immunity from these matters being raised. Next week we are to have the Navy and the Army Estimates, and for my part, since the Leader of the House has obstinately refused an opportunity for raising one particular matter, I propose to devote the time between the rising of the House and breakfast to doing research on the extent to which the point I have in mind is common to one or both of the other Services in addition to the Air 1613 Force, so that I can raise it in the general debate on either the Navy Estimates or the Army Estimates, or both. If I raise the matter then, it will clearly take a good deal more explaining than had it been done while I had the thing fresh in mind an hour and a half ago.
I cannot think what the Lord Privy Seal imagines he has gained by the pantomime into which he has forced the Committee in the last hour and a half, and what he thinks he has gained by the narrowest and silliest piece of obstinacy which I have seen during the whole of the proceedings of the Committee. In order to deny an opportunity for one point to be raised, which would have taken less than five minutes in all, the right hon. Gentleman has kept the Committee another hour and a half—and we are not through yet by any means. It really is shameful, and it is not merely we on this side of the Committee who have taken note of, and objection to, the Lord Privy Seal's saving of his own face at the expense of other people.

§ Mr. Driberg
You will be just as anxious as the rest of us, Mr. Hynd, to hear the Government spokesman move the Adjournment of the House, and I shall try, therefore, not to detain the Committee longer than I need; but all the delay, of course, has been entirely caused by the obstinacy of the Leader of the House. I say to him, in the friendliest possible way, that I hope he does not go on allowing any foolish conceited notions of his own prestige to prevent him from doing the right thing and coming to the Box and asking leave to withdraw the Motion just for a few minutes, for the reasons that have been advanced.
This is, after all, the first Friday in Lent—a very good time for an act of penance and humiliation of that sort. There are so many other things which we could, and should, have been discussing in the past hour and a half which are much more directly relevant to the needs and welfare of the Royal Air Force than this procedural debate that we have been having owing to the obstinacy of the Leader of the House. I can conceive it is arguable that if an item comes up year after year in the same form—some recurrent expenditure on the same scale—it might be passed over in 1614 alternate years, or in two years out of three. But all these items are not of that nature. There is the item concerning meal vouchers for juvenile staff. If we had been able to discuss that the Undersecretary would have had to tell us that it was a substantially larger item this year owing to the Government's policy of putting up the price of food and cost of living. I have no doubt these new vouchers bulk considerably larger in the Estimates than they did under the Labour Government, which controlled food prices. I quote that as an example of the sort of item which is not recurrent in an identical form. We ought, in the interests of the R.A.F., to be able to discuss these things. I hope that even at this hour the Leader of the House will relent and enable my hon. Friend to make his brief point.

§ Mr. Foot
Both my hon. Friends have used strong language condemning the action of the Leader of the House, and in one sense I would say language of excessive strength. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Reading, South (Mr. Mikardo) talked about one of the most outrageous acts of obstinacy he has seen in the House, and my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr. Driberg) used language not very different. My reading of the situation is different. I do not believe that the Leader of the House originally got into this situation through obstinacy. I think he stumbled into it, that he did not know exactly what course he was taking.
The estrangement which we had at the beginning of the discussion, between the Chair and the Leader of the House, proved that the Leader of the House was not aware of the full significance of the action he was taking. Therefore, I do not think it is right to condemn him. I think he made a genuine mistake because he was told by someone that after Vote A it was normal practice to move to report Progress and that to do so would not deprive the House of its rights.- But since he has heard the real situation— [Interruption ]. I wish that the hon. Gentleman the Member for Southgate (Mr. Baxter) would get up and say what he has to say. The hon. Gentleman is just the kind of person to rally to the Government when it is in such a difficulty. As for the hon. and learned 1615 Member for Hove (Mr. Marlowe), so far from wishing for his support, I am sure the Whips would be ready to ask him to stay away from the House, They might even sacrifice his vote. It may be that the two hon. Members are "paired," one a supporter of the Government, the other a rebel.
It is an astonishing situation. Following the original error, which I put down to pure innocence on the part of the Leader of the House, one would have expected, after the discussion which we have had on this matter, and the whole series of points that: have been raised, that the right hon. Gentleman would have been prepared to state the reasons why he thinks this discussion should come to an end. But the fact is that the Leader of the House has not stated to the Committee any of the arguments which persuaded him to move his original Motion.
My hon. Friend the Member for New-castle-under-Lyme (Mr. Swingler) has argued the case that no reason whatsoever has been put to the Committee for the acceptance of this Motion. If the Leader of the House will not take the trouble to explain to us why this Motion has been moved, I do not see why we should rush to his aid and give Mm what he wants. He might have taken the trouble, particularly after he discovered that he had got into these difficulties for perfectly innocent reasons at the beginning, to say five or six sentences on these lines, "These are the reasons why I think the Committee should now go about its business. These are the reasons why I think it is right that we should not discuss Votes 1, 2, 7 and all the rest. These are the reasons why I think it is wrong to discuss important issues about civil aircraft which arise on Vote 7." These things could have been argued by the Leader of the House, but he has not taken that course.
I think it is a bit thick for the Leader of the House to expect us to agree to a motion of this kind which, as he must have known later was a mistake, even if he did not know, at the time when it was moved, by one of the Whips. It is asking those of us who sit on this side of the Committee to forego our rights to discuss all these matters without having been presented by the Leader of the House with one reason why we should do so.
1616 It is really an extraordinary situation and it would be most humiliating if hon. Members taking part in this discussion were prepared to accede to the request of the Government without one reason being given by the Government why we should accept the course which they are recommending to us. It is an old doctrine that it is the business of the Opposition to oppose, and some people even object to that. I do not object, because I think it is a very good doctrine. Certainly no one has ever laid it down that it is the business of the Opposition to accept a request of the Government without hearing the reasons for it. Yet that is the position in which the Leader of the House has put us.
Although the right hon. Gentleman embarked upon this course perfectly innocently, I think he is now treating the Committee with contempt, because he should be prepared to put the case for the Motion which has been moved. This Committee and this House cannot be conducted by peremptory Motions read out by the Patronage Secretary or one of the Assistant Whips, who are not in the habit of speaking in this House. Most of them can hardly stutter out more than a few words. Most of them are incapable of moving the adjournment of the House without stumbling over their words.
It really is intolerable that a debate of this nature should end without us hearing any argument from the Leader of the House. Indeed, he has not attempted to intervene to put any arguments. He only rose to his feet on a technical point which he happened to get wrong anyway.

§ Mr. Beverley Baxter (Southgate)
On a point of order, Sir Charles. I have listened attentively to this speech—[An HON. MEMBER: "The hon. Gentleman has only just come in."] I was only absent for 10 minutes, otherwise I have been present all the time. I have now heard for at least 185 times the statement that the Leader of the House said nothing. I do not suggest that it has yet reached the stage of repetition, but it is certainly tedious. May I ask, Sir Charles, at what number—perhaps 500—the same statement would appear to you to be tedious repetition?

§ The Chairman
I would not like to say how many times a thing may be repeated, but I personally quite understand the position now, and it is becoming a bit tedious.

§ Mr. Foot
I am sorry if I became tedious, Sir Charles, and I apologise—

§ Mr. Emrys Hughes
Try to brighten it up.

§ Mr. Foot
I think I am entitled to protest when a Motion of this character is moved in this House without anybody opposite making any case for it whatsoever. The hon. Member for Southgate protests that I have said this 185 times, although I am sure that if he consults HANSARD he will find that his arithmetic is incorrect. But if the Leader of the House is not prepared to defend this Motion, is the hon. Gentleman prepared to get up and defend it? Is any hon. Member opposite prepared to defend it? If there is no hon. Member on that side of the House prepared to defend this Motion, why should we agree to a proposal put forward by the Government, a proposal which no one is prepared to support?
I have said that twice and I have not been able to provoke the hon. Gentleman into speaking in support of the Motion which he is apparently going to back. I say that it is a shameful way to treat the House of Commons, to put forward Motions which are not discussed in any reasonable fashion, and which no attempt is made to explain.
Therefore, if this kind of procedure is to be followed, those of us on this side of the House will have to take action about it. We shall have to devise how we shall deal with such matters in the future, and we shall have to decide what is the best course for ensuring that we get adequate discussion of all these matters which appear in the Service Estimates. But it is a pity that the situation should have reached that stage, because I do not believe this was due to any wicked, deeply-laid design on the part of the Government.
I do not think it was some Machiavellian plot thought up by the Chief Whip. We saw him pottering in and out an hour or so ago. We were not quite sure what he was up to, but I do not think it was some brilliant scheme thought out by him- 1618 self and the Leader of the House. I do not believe their mastery of strategy to be sufficient for the purpose. I think it was a perfectly genuine error in the first place. What they have done since shows that they are incapable of recognising when they have put themselves in a difficult situation.
It is the old story. Like all weak Governments, they resort to strong measures, and this is what they think is a strong measure—to stand up in defence of their original error. Indeed, it is very much like the situation we have been discussing on the Estimates themselves, that many people approved the armaments programme originally and then sought to fight to the death to defend their folly, even though it involved the country in the expenditure and loss of millions and millions of pounds. If the Leader of the House had listened to the powerful arguments on that subject during this same debate, he might have learned that it is much better to admit a mistake than to continue in such obstinate courses as he has pursued now for about two hours.

§ Mr. Driberg
I think I must correct the hon. Member for Devonport (Mr. Foot) on one point. He said that no reasons at all were advanced in justification of this Motion. I think one reason was advanced by the Leader of the House originally. The right hon. Gentleman will correct me if I am wrong, but my impression is that he did say that one reason for moving to report Progress was that the debate on Vote A had been a long one. That is the only reason and it is, of course, quite misconceived and inaccurate. Everyone would agree that the general debate was a reasonably long one, but no one would seriously say that the debate on Vote A was a long one.
I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman was here for some or most of the debate. Perhaps he came in at the end and assumed that it had been going on for some hours. Of course, the length or shortness of a debate is a matter of opinion. Some speeches and debates that may seem very short to the people enjoying them may seem incredibly tedious and long to others, and very often when an hon. Gentleman says "I intend to speak only for a moment or two" or "I only wish to say a few words," he goes on to 1619 speak for 40 minutes and utters about 10,000 words. But I do not think that any reasonable person could, by any reasonable standard of judgment, argue that the debate on Vote A was unduly prolonged, or even a long one at all.
On Vote 7 there is another point, rather similar to the one I made before, about the food vouchers for juveniles, a matter which it would have been desirable to discuss for the simple reason that it is not the same as last year. Obviously some of these items recur year after year in more or less identical form, but here we are told that the increase in the gross total of this Vote is mainly due to increased provision for aircraft, ammunition, explosives and clothing, and then the explanatory note says that this increase is largely offset by decreased provision for radio, radar and electric equipment.

§ The Chairman
That is the sort of point on which hon. Members cannot go into detail. It arises on a Vote which we are not discussing.

§ Mr. Driberg
I am grateful for your guidance, Sir Charles. It will help me in future speeches in the course of this debate to avoid transgressing. I was merely giving an illustration of the kind of thing which we ought to be discussing.
There is also another point upon which I should have liked an explanation, and that is receipts from sales of clothing. I am glad the R.A.F. are selling it off and not just tearing it up rather as British Railways smash crockery; but the idea of the R.A.F. going into the rag trade is rather curious. That is the kind of thing which we should have had the opportunity of discussing tonight, and I cannot agree to this Motion unless the Leader of the House gives us one small concession for the benefit of my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, North (Mr. Mikardo).

§ Mr. Emrys Hughes
I wish to make a suggestion which might help towards a more conciliatory spirit. I am firmly convinced that if the Leader of the House displayed the same conciliatory spirit as the Minister of Labour in industrial disputes this matter could be amicably settled. I am quite sure that if the Minister of Labour 1620 —who sets such an example in conciliatory behaviour, who gets his way in the House and whom we all so much admire—knew what was at stake he would be pleased, even at this hour, to leave his bed to solve this point. If industrial leaders in a movement for higher wages took such an unconciliatory attitude towards the employers, and if the employers took a similar attitude, there would be an industrial deadlock on a large number of fronts.
I suggest that the Minister of Labour is the person whom we are prepared in this matter to accept as arbiter. What could be more reasonable than to say to the Leader of the House that we, on this side of the Committee are prepared to be conciliatory, to put the matter to arbitration, and abide by the good faith and the decision of the Minister of Labour in this controversy?
The stake is not a small point relating only to the hon. Member for Reading, South (Mr. Mikardo). At the back of this lies a big constitutional issue. I can see it emerging again in the debates on the Navy and the Army Estimates—and particularly in the debate on the Scottish Estimates. We must look far ahead in these matters. If we are forbidden to discuss something involving £500 million of public money, and Ministers are to come to this House to get these huge sums by this kind of procedure it is indeed serious.
In much the same way Hitler and Mussolini ruined the constitutions of free Germany and free Italy. I acquit the Leader of the House of any desire to depart from the formalities and conventions of the House, but though he does not mean it, he is, by preventing the important discussions which this House must give to public expenditure, taking up precisely the same attitude as did Hitler, Mussolini and Franco.
In this House we have pictures of hon. Members who fought for the liberty of the subject and the right to grant money. We recall the action over Ship Money and other great historical precedents. Were it not for these precedents I certainly would not support my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, South. I have always been a great believer in the constitutional proprieties, and respectful—even slavish—towards precedent.
1621 If we give way on this matter we shall be sacrificing the constitutional liberties which have made this the Mother of Parliaments and which have gained for this House the respect of countless other legislative assemblies throughout the world. What would the people of British Guiana think if they heard that we had abandoned this struggle now? What would Dr. Malan say if he knew that in the House of Commons we were prepared to abandon the principle of fighting to be allowed to discuss £500 million expenditure? What will the Foreign Secretary say when he hears what is being done, with the eyes of both East and West Germany upon us here tonight?
It was not I who dared suggest that the Leader of the House had slipped. I would never have dreamt that he could have slipped on such a matter of procedure.

§ Mr. Mikardo
He was pushed.

§ Mr. Hughes
I do not wish to push him any further. I wish him to recover his balance and his sense of proportion.
I suggest that these facts have been eloquently and forcibly presented to him. He should realise the constitutional proprieties which are at stake, and that the democracies of the world base their procedure on the proceedings of this House. In the countries of the Commonwealth and in the Parliaments of Africa and the Colonies they are studying meticulously every point of procedure so that they may be guided in their future deliberations. We should not betray the rights of democracies on this occasion.
Frequently I see members of the Commonwealth and coloured people who come to this House. I have seen them in the Table Office studying every part of our Procedure so that they may do the same in their own Parliament. I think, therefore, that the Leader of the House should not think of trying to score a point, or of using his power over a small minority, because minorities have frequently been right. I have been right on some occasions and the House has discovered it only after five years or so.
I would ask the Leader of the House not to be stubborn. We remember when he was in Opposition what splendid, tenacious, persistent and continuous struggles he put up for the rights of the Opposition. He opposed the Government 1622 on every possible occasion. I am sure that had he been below the Gangway tonight and in Opposition he would have endorsed every word which has come from hon. Members who have done nothing more than their duty in demanding the fullest possible discussion of public finance.
The Leader of the House should remember that there may come a time when he is not on the Government Front Bench, but in Opposition and below the Gangway. Then he will realise the handicaps suffered by people in a minority when they are trying to put a point of view. I seem to be condemned to be in a perpetual minority and because of that I think that the rights of minorities should be protected on every possible occasion. This is not just a matter of being difficult. We want to see this great Constitution of ours flower until it is the light of the civilised world.
We note that the Leader of the House has had the benefit of a consultation with the Patronage Secretary. I have always found the Patronage Secretary to be amiable, courteous and civil and a very colourful personality in this House. I have no ill will at all towards the Patronage Secretary. If he had been the Whip on our side it might have been rather difficult. But I ask him to give a little sober, restrained, intelligent and statesmanlike advice to the Leader of the House. If he does that he will rise in our estimation and we will assist him on every possible occasion in disciplining his own mutinous rebels on the Government back benches.
I am prepared to strike a bargain with the Patronage Secretary. I am prepared to assist him against his own rebels. But he must realise that there must be a quid pro quo. I am prepared to ask the so-called rebels on the Conservative side to withdraw their Motion which is causing embarrassment to the Government now, and which may cause similar trouble when we discuss the Estimates next year—

§ Mr. Mikardo
Is the hon. Member asking for a "quid" from each or a "quid" from the lot?

§ Mr. Hughes
I do not want to degrade this discussion to the level of the market place. I stand by the proprieties. I wonder what Sir Erskine May would 1623 have thought of this procedure. It is enough to make Sir Erskine May rise from his grave and throw stones at the Leader of the House. Out of respect for Sir Erskine May, if not for the minorities, out of respect for the past as well as the future, I feel that the time has now come when the Leader of the House, assisted by the Patronage Secretary, should think first of all of liberty and democracy and dc the decent thing by this Committee.

§ Mr. Swingler
I ask my hon. Friends to consider the difficult position in which the Leader of the House finds himself. It is extravagant of my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) to accuse the Leader of the House of being unconstitutional on this occasion. The Leader of the House is merely following the precedent of recent years.
What we should realise is that we on these benches are questioning whether this precedent, which has been set up in recent years, and which has been followed during the night, is right, or whether the Leader of the House ought to grant a concession on this occasion. I quite agree with the procedure which has been laid down and which curtails discussion on these Service Estimates. It is quite clear that in recent years these Estimates have become far too complicated and long for them to be discussed in detail. After all, what is the purpose of having a Select Committee on Estimates if it is not to go through the details in these Votes?
Therefore, I thought it was a good idea when, in recent years, a Select Committee returned in favour of a general discussion on these Estimates, so that we could have a general discussion on Vote A relating to manpower, which is the Vote that the Government must get, and then have a curtailed guillotined discussion on those items which the Opposition might think important. That is the position now, which the Leader of the House is inevitably following.
The position is that my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, South (Mr. Mikardo) challenges that precedent and requests the right to raise the subject of Vote 1, whereas the Government have moved to report Progress in the automatic routine way. The Leader of the 1624 House says, "It is only one Member; why bother? He can make an attempt to raise it some time later or through some other channels, and, therefore, we should carry on doing the automatic thing that has been done in recent years."
Hon. Members ought by now to appreciate that this is an issue which might affect any Member on either side of the Committee. A large number of issues are involved in these Estimates. For example, not long ago we had the hon. and learned Member for Hove (Mr. Marlowe) sitting opposite. One of these Votes deals with the retired pay of officers. The hon. and learned Gentleman and some of his hon. Friends might well have been eager to use this opportunity to raise the question of the retired pay of air officers on Vote 10, had it not been for the fact that the Government at the eleventh hour foresaw that possibility and granted a very minor concession to that group of Members in order that they should not kick up a row as they threatened to do when the Service Estimates came along. Not that they would have been able to do that; if that position had arisen and the Leader of the House had moved to report Progress, the hon. and learned Member would have had no opportunity of raising the matter.
Other hon. Members might wish to raise questions relating to hospitals, or married quarters, or other detailed questions concerning their constituencies. One only needs to cast one's mind back a few years to recall examples of these very questions being raised by hon. Members opposite, who used the opportunity of the Estimates debates to deal with extremely detailed questions under these Votes. I do not accuse the Leader of the House of doing anything unconstitutional. He is doing what has been done automatically in recent years, since this new procedure was introduced, but the question I would ask hon. Members opposite is whether this procedure is a good thing. Should hon. Members be denied the right to raise individual questions on the Estimates debates?
These are not questions which can be raised in the ordinary way on the Adjournment. This is the only opportunity for raising them. 'It is an opportunity which has been highly valued in the past, and any pretence that hon. Members may make that there is an opportunity later 1625 on simply arises from their ignorance of the procedure which has 'been introduced, which imposes a stringent Guillotine on further discussion.

§ Mr. Roland Robinson (Blackpool, South)
If there are so many questions to be discussed, can the hon. Member say why the whole Front Bench opposite has gone home? Every Labour Privy Councillor has gone home, and only five back-bench Members opposite are left.

§ Mr. Swingler
It seems to me that one has a peculiar sense of values if one says that the only people who count are Privy Councillors and ex-Privy Councillors. I must protest at the idea that just because a small number of Privy Councillors or ex-Privy Councillors are not here the Members remaining are unimportant. This is a typical example of an attitude which is becoming widespread, that the ordinary Member is of no importance whatsoever, and has no rights. Because none of my right hon. Friends is here I have, apparently, no right to speak. The rights of the ordinary Members of the House and Committee are being eroded to an increasing extent.

§ Mr. Baxter
Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that the failure of Members of his Front Bench to turn up shows that they have an utter lack of grasp of the important issues which are now being discussed? None of them has had the brains to realise the collossal importance of this subject.

§ The Chairman
Order. This discussion is going far away from the Motion to report Progress.

§ Mr. Swingler
I fail to understand why the hon. Member for Southgate (Mr. Baxter) stays here. Let him go. What prevents him? He is not tied to the place. I presume he can act as a free agent. I do not see why he should object to other Members using their Parliamentary rights.
If there were trouble at some crossroads in Southgate and the hon. Member wished to raise the point many Members would say. "What a waste of the time of the House to talk about South-gate when there are so many other important issues to be discussed." That is the last thing I would say, although I do not guarantee to stay if the hon. Member for Southgate wishes to raise such a point. If he wishes to do so, it is his 1626 right, and we are proud of the fact that he is entitled to do so. He may not regard my hon. Friend's point as important, but he can always leave if he so wishes.
The hon. Gentleman can go home to bed. There is no reason why he should stay here and prevent my hon. Friend from raising his point, or to support the Leader of the House in frustrating my hon. Friend. If we agree to the Motion we permanently prevent him from raising it and setting a precedent for not being allowed to discuss these matters in future. Perhaps when next the hon. Gentleman sits on this side, and he or his hon. Friends wish to raise a point on the Votes, the precedent will be quoted against him. If hon. Gentlemen opposite are satisfied that the Leader of the House should lay down that this shall be the procedure for the future I shall be most interested to hear what hon. Gentlemen opposite have to say when, later, they may wish to raise matters affecting their constituents and are told that in 1954 the Leader of the House laid down that after Vote A has been agreed Progress must be moved and the remainder of the proceedings guillotined. The Government's procedure means that 270 pages of the Votes will be consigned to the Select Committee on Estimates, which reports every nine months. Who reads its Reports? Does the hon. Member for Southgate?

§ Mr. Baxter
indicated assent.

§ Mr. Swingler
Very good. He only has the chance of reading them every nine months. What we are asking is that an opportunity should be given to discuss this one particular Vote, and in asking that we are not wanting the door to be opened so that we can discuss all the other Votes. We are asking that my hon. Friend be allowed to raise a point on Vote 1. If the Leader of the House thinks we are going to debate Vote 1 he is under a misapprehension.

§ Mr. Driberg
I am glad that at last some Government supporters have started to intervene, because at this time of the morning, when their masks are off, they are shown clearly in their true political outlook and nature, and the most marked characteristic, as my hon. Friend has said, is, of course, their profoundly authoritarian and almost totalitarian attitude to the Parliamentary rights of Members. We have been standing up for the rights 1627 of back benchers and the rights of Oppositions on Estimate days.
The hon. Gentleman the Member for Southgate (Mr. Baxter) got the point slightly wrong when he made a tremendous ridiculing attack on this side, saying, satirically, that these big issues were being discussed but asking why no Front Bench Member was present. But our complaint is that important issues are not being discussed, because we are not allowed to discuss them. That is why we oppose the Motion, and should have been allowed to discuss the Votes. I hope the hon. Gentleman now understands.

§ Mr. Baxter
My point is a simple one that will not cause any trouble. Does the hon. Gentleman not feel some shame because his immediate leader, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan), and those who fail—

§ The Chairman
I said that we were not going to discuss who was here and who was not. That has nothing to do with the Motion.

§ Mr. Driberg
I am sorry that you ruled that remark out of order, Sir Charles, because I would very much have liked to have replied to it. The hon. Member is not at all well informed on the affairs of the party on this side. However, perhaps I can discuss that with him on some other occasion.

§ Mr. Mikardo
Even then, he would not understand it.

§ Mr. Driberg
Probably not.
There has been amply reasonable discussion of the Motion. I only wish we could equally have had an ample discussion on Votes A and 1. I have been wondering why the Patronage Secretary has not attempted to move the Closure. Presumably he dare not do so because he has such a poor attendance of Members on his side that he would not get the necessary 100 votes. However, that is his misfortune.
One rather important constitutional point which we should have had explained to us before agreeing to the Motion to report Progress is that under Vote 8 there is a reference to 1628 greater contributions from another government towards the cost of works services.… Although I cannot argue the merits of that, it is strange to find in the Estimates that the R.A.F. is to some extent subsidised or has a subvention from an alien Government. If it were the United States Government we would understand it perfectly well and would know what was meant, but I presume it cannot be the United States Government or it would have said so. Is there any need for it to be veiled in this obscurity in what is miscalled an explanatory note?

§ Mr. H. Hynd (Accrington)
Russian gold.

§ Mr. Driberg
Yes, possibly. This is a peculiar thing and it would seem to have some sort of constitutional significance. I feel strongly that we cannot agree to the Motion to report Progress unless we could have some kind of allusive explanation of this point or, at any rate, until the Leader of the House will accede to our repeated requests to allow my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, South (Mr. Mikardo) to make his single brief, limited point.

§ Mr. Mikardo
I had not intended to intervene further, if only because it will be generally agreed that I have probably had a fair innings. But I am projected into doing so by the welcome if unexpected intervention of the hon. Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. R. Robinson), who represents half of the salubrious borough of Blackpool, and the hon. Member for Southgate (Mr. Baxter), who represents an underground station in the north of London and whose interventions were extremely welcome, even though, each time the underground station started functioning, it got out of order very quickly.
It is apparently being suggested by these two hon. Members that a debate is of no importance if it is not graced by the presence of a large number of people, and particularly by the presence of people on the Front Bench and Privy Councillors. That is a doctrine which, surely, the whole Committee ought to join in resisting. It is particularly the case with regard to debates on the Service Estimates—

§ Mr. Baxter
On a point of order, Sir Charles. When I mentioned that very subject which is now being discussed, you were good enough to point out that I was out of order, and I sat down. The hon. Member is now discussing it and he is not being rebuked from the Chair.

§ The Chairman
I beg pardon. My attention was distracted for a moment.

§ Mr. Mikardo
Even had your attention not been distracted, Sir Charles, you would not have found anything in my observations to which you could take objection, because there was nothing in them which conflicted with the guidance you had been so kind as to give the Committee a little while before.
I was about to say that in the debates on the Service Estimates, above all we are provided with an occasion when the back bench Member has the right and the duty to raise particularly points which are brought to him by his constituents. I suppose that one of the outstanding changes which has taken place in recent years in the relationships between the House and the community at large is that, for the first time, Members have been freely getting correspondence from personnel in the Armed Forces.
It is true that some in the armed forces are still under the impression that there is a regulation against their writing to their Member of Parliament. Even so, I get letters, and I imagine that hon. Members on both sides of the Committee do, from men serving in the Navy, and occasionally in the Air Force, who request that their names shall not be disclosed saying that it is against regulations to write to a Member of Parliament.
Notwithstanding this impression, it is true that people in the Services who have problems do not hesitate to write to their Members of Parliament. For that reason we ought to be better informed than were hon. Members formerly on Service matters, and debates on the Service Estimates are pre-eminently occasions for bringing forward these matters. They are occasions for the 16-inch guns of the Front Bench, and for the "pom-poms" of the back benches, which are trained on different targets with the object of getting assistance for their constituents.
The issue which has caused all this trouble, and given the Lord Privy Seal an excuse for keeping the Committee here 1630 for two and a half hours without giving us a chance to discuss the Estimates, is —[An HON. MEMBER: "Idiotic"]. If the hon. Member for Southgate wishes to use the term "idiotic," and be objectionable, there is only one way for him to turn when using that term.
The point which has given the Lord Privy Seal the excuse for keeping us here all this time is one raised by a constituent who said that his grievance was widely felt among the personnel of the Service he is in. It is within the proper province of an hon. Member to exercise his privilege and bring up such a matter on this occasion. It ill becomes hon. Gentlemen to sneer at the fact that there is only a handful of us here. At least we are participating in the proceedings, not sitting giggling, like hon. Members opposite.
We have sought to exercise the right of back bench Members to ventilate points on the Air Estimates, and hon. Members opposite ought not to sneer because we have continued to do this whether or not we are surrounded by an imposing battery of Privy Councillors. That is not the real issue. The Front Benches on both sides can look after themselves. It is up to back bench Members to protect the interests of private Members, and I would have thought that the hon. Member for Southgate (Mr. Baxter) would have been amongst the first to lend us a hand in that task instead of sneering at our efforts.

§ Mr. Driberg
I do wish the Leader of the House would let us go home. We are getting very tired. I have a luncheon engagement with an American editor, tonight I have to speak to the boys of Eton College, and I have all sorts of things to do as well as keep this rather wearisome debate going. Will the Leader of the House make one small concession and show a little generosity and allow my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, South (Mr. Mikardo) to make his point?
There is another thing. Next week we shall be discussing the Navy Estimates. One point which we shall raise is the question of discharge by purchase, because the practice in the Navy differs in some respects from the practice in the other Services. To enable us to raise that effectively and in an informed way, 1631 it would have been extremely useful if we could have had a short discussion and a little information tonight from the Under-Secretary of State for Air about the practice in the Royal Air Force.
That occurs under Vote 1, which the Leader of the House has now unfortunately prevented us from discussing. It would have been extremely useful for our debates next week if we had had that information tonight. I hope I have made that point clear, but it makes no alteration to the damage that is being done to our discussion and to Parliament by the obstinate attitude of the Leader of the House.

§ Mr. Swingler
I hope that by now the Leader of the House has had sufficient time to reconsider the position of this Motion, because I think before we move into the next Parliamentary day there is just time to withdraw this Motion so as to enable the Committee to consider the one small point which my hon. Friend wants to raise. It did occur to me that perhaps hon. Members do not realise what is the effect of this Motion in excluding or preventing discussion in this Committee. There is a very important point to be considered here. The Air Estimates do not have a very wide circulation among Members of this Committee, and very few anyway take the trouble to read all that appertains to them.
Let us look at the index, which covers many pages. We start off, for example, with the question of accommodation and charges for occupation of married quarters, personnel, services stores and technical staff. Then we find bakeries, balloons, grants to band funds, barrack accommodation, recoveries in respect of batmen, bedding, benches, board and lodging, bombs and bomb gear, boy entrants, which deals with apprentices, and weather forecasting for joint communications, which we find under the heading of the British Electricity Authority. All these are very interesting subjects and well worth study on the part of hon. Members.
I could multiply these many times, but here are just a few more samples. There is the payment for services of hairdressers, sales from handicraft classes, harbour charges, harness and saddlery, 1632 horses, and so on. This shows the wide variety of subjects which are the concern of the Secretary of State for Air. I do not expect many hon. Members knew, for example, that horses came under the Air Ministry, or that the question of organists looms very large. There is a very large table on the question of pay for drivers' attendants, parachute duties, sanitary duties—

§ The Chairman
Order, order. I have been very patient, but the hon. Member must not continue further on that line.

§ Mr. Swingler
I was only trying to show some of the things referred to the House of Commons by the Select Committee, and that we have only a general opportunity of discussing them. That satisfies the hon. Member for Southgate (Mr. Baxter), who is concerned with the broad and important issues. I appreciate that he does not want to go into the detailed questions. That is the general provision which is made and it leads to this kind of Parliamentary situation. We have considered the broad issues in a debate about which no complaint was made, but there has been no opportunity for detailed questions to be raised.
Now we come to the question, has an hon. Member now no longer the right, under the new procedure introduced in the last three or four years, to raise detailed questions after the hon. Member for Southgate has gone home? Having concerned himself with the general issues, I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would not object to other Members interested in the detailed issues discussing them, even if he did not agree with the opinions expressed. The hon. Gentleman may feel uncertainty because not sufficient Privy Councillors are present, but, nevertheless, I am sure he would not register violent objection to the fact that other hon. Members would have a right to raise detailed questions on the pay of trumpeters, tuberculosis—

§ The Chairman
I have already objected to the hon. Member reading out from the list. I hope it will not be proceeded with.

§ Mr. Swingler
I beg pardon, Sir Charles, but those are the kind of detailed details which my hon. Friend for Reading, South (Mr. Mikardo) wished to raise. That is the only point now at issue and we are trying to give the Leader 1633 of the House some time to consider this situation, which is admittedly difficult, because this is a new procedure which has only arisen in the last few years and the precedent has been set for the Leader of the House for moving this Motion to report Progress after Vote A. Therefore it was only right that, since we have challenged this point, we should give some time to the right hon. Gentleman to consider whether he ought not to withdraw the Motion to report Progress to enable other Votes in addition to Vote A to be considered.
I hope, therefore, that our arguments have been considered to be sufficiently powerful by the right hon. Gentleman for him to feel that without necessarily creating a precedent or in any way feeling that it will raise a problem, he might now gracefully come forward and withdraw this Motion to enable this small point to be considered now, to enable those hon. Members who wish to do to go home, and so that hon. Members will know in future that they can assert the right to discuss details included in these Estimates.

§ Mr. Foot
I think I can compress everything further I have to say on this matter into a few sentences, and I will certainly do my best to do so despite all the provocations which have come from the hon. Member for Southgate (Mr. Baxter), who has certainly lengthened this part of the proceedings by one of his rare interventions. We are sorry we do not hear him more often, but I am sure his constituents will know that he has made a notable contribution to this debate.
It seems that despite all the efforts of the hon. Member for Southgate to assist us in getting the Leader of the House to make a statement, he is unwilling to do so. I deeply regret it in the interests of the reputation of the Leader of the House, as much as in the interests of the constitutional liberties which others have discussed at greater length than I certainly intend to do.
The Leader of the House has learned one thing tonight which he will not forget for a long time. Put in colloquial terms, at any rate he has learned that he must make up his mind never to bite off more than he can chew. He cannot implement that decision to report Progress. Many months will pass before he moves a 1634 similar Motion when he has not got 100 Members in the House of Commons. I do not think he will be doing that again very soon. It is a pity that having got into that situation he should not have acted more graciously, and for all we know the hon. Member for Southgate (Mr. Baxter) might have been back in his underground station by now.
This has been a sorry evening, especially in view of the courtesy shown by the Under-Secretary during the previous debates. Although he did not answer the points I raised it was not because he would not, it was because he could not. He would have answered them if he could. I certainly do not hold that against him, and everyone believes that he has done his very best to deal with the whole debate. He answered a number of complicated points. He was going along beautifully. Everyone agreed that the procedure was being used properly, and suddenly out of the blue comes this action of the Leader of the House.
It was a great disappointment to us, but I hope that, having learned his lesson, even although he cannot struggle to his feet to admit it, he will be very careful about the numbers he keeps here in future. I am not speaking of those unfortunates scheduled to stay tonight, but of the 49 who are not here. Or are they being rallied to the cause now? What time will they arrive? Perhaps we ought to give them a reprieve. Let the Patronage Secretary tell them to carry on with their sleep.
We hope that the Leader of the House will never behave again in quite the spirit he has shown this morning. Even although he cannot bring himself to utter any words, even now as he is rendered speechless by the shame swelling up in his bosom, I believe he is fully conscious of the feelings expressed by hon. Members on this side, and he will be conscious of the feelings of the larger numbers in his own party who will have to be kept in future to be sure of carrying the Motion to report Progress.
In view of the circumstances, I wish the Leader of the House a quiet and instructive weekend with opportunity to recall that whatever other follies or mistakes in procedure he may commit it is very unlikely he will again make the same silly blunder that he has made tonight.

§ Mr. Emrys Hughes
It is far too early in the year to wish the Leader of the House a merry Christmas, and I think that, until this question of constitutional propriety is cleared up, the magnanimity of the hon. Member for Devonport (Mr. Foot) is slightly misplaced. I do not know how the Leader of the House will be able to face the Colonial Secretary, who has such a respect for constitutions, when he returns from Kenya.
Certain points should still be brought to the attention of the Leader of the House. Someone should say a word for the Patronage Secretary. Some of the remarks made about him were unworthy. I do not see how, after the way the business has been so grossly mishandled this week, the Patronage Secretary could hope to keep more than a hundred Members of the Government here.
It should not go out from this House that its Members are not diligent in attending to their duties. I have never known a time when there has been such a strain on Members, and they need the relaxation of a long week-end away from the drudgery and cares of the House. I speak for my absent colleagues from Scotland. I know that not many of them are here—otherwise these proceedings might have been prolonged still further—but I am sure that they will support our stand for constitutional liberties. The country should not think that absent Members have just gone away to the neglect of their duties. We have had a hard and severe three weeks—I speak with knowledge. In the Scottish Grand Committee, for example—

§ The Chairman
We are getting far from the present business when we talk of the Scottish Grand Committee.

§ Mr. Emrys Hughes
I was not going to deal with it in detail, Sir Charles. That would be far too complicated for some hon. Members to understand.
I was only pointing out the strain upon hon. Members. They have to attend early in the morning on several days of the week. There is very important legislation going through at present. The Housing (Repairs and Rents) (Scotland) Bill demands all the concentration that the Scottish Members can give to it. This week I was on two Committees at one and the same time.

§ The Chairman
I dare say, but I do not think that has anything to do with this Motion.

§ Mr. Emrys Hughes
I was only trying to justify the conduct of the Patronage Secretary, realising his difficulties, with hon. Members subjected to great strain.
Hon. Members have also to face the future. During the week-end they have to meet their constituents. They have to prepare themselves for the forthcoming important Army and Navy Estimates debates. It would be a great mistake to think that even Privy Councillors are negligent of their duty. I do not wish to mention any particular hon. Members, but there are hon. Members who will lead debates in Committee. That is a very onerous task, and they are entitled to a little relaxation. How are they to know that the Leader of the House will slip up in the early hours of Friday morning? I think I should say that out of courtesy to the Conservative Members who come from Scotland.
What troubles me also is the bad impression this will have upon the Soviet Union. I am sure the Leader of the House does not realise it, but he is helping the very Communism which he detests. Let me explain. After all, we must defend our democratic institutions and this is the very time of the year when the people who convey information to the Soviet Union are most keenly interested in the debates in this House. They read HANSARD meticulously—every word, every sentence, every page—not to find out what I am saying, but because they desire to seek the latest possible information about the Air Estimates.
Imagine the editor of "Pravda" reading his HANSARD next Monday. He will read the proceedings of this House and he will say, "We thought that was a democracy,. but this is dictatorship. Although Stalin was a dictator and Lenin was a dictator they were so more or less openly. But the Gentleman they call the Leader of the House of Commons knows a trick more than that. He does it insidiously." In the Soviet Union they do not discuss things so openly as we do. The Soviet Union does not examine the Air Estimates with the meticulous exactness that we do in this House. I should not like to think what would happen were I to address the Presidium of the 1637 Soviets in the same way as I am addressing you, Sir Charles. I do not think I should be allowed full liberty to criticise the leadership there.

§ Mr. Mikardo
The hon. Member would not last five minutes.

§ Mr. Emrys Hughes
That shows the superiority of the democratic institutions which we are trying to preserve.
When the Leader of the Soviet Union reads of the conduct of the Leader of this House he will suspect that the right hon. Gentleman is a Communist in disguise and that in an insidious, roundabout, totalitarian way, he is suppressing freedom of discussion. I will have nothing to do with totalitarian rule, whether carried out by the Leader of the House or by Mr. Malenkov. I am quite sure that they will be impressed in the Soviet Union. They will say, "Oh, yes. All this immense preparation for rearmament and the spending of this £500 million does not matter. We have captured the House of Commons from the inside. We have captured the Leader of the House." I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to think of the impression which his conduct, and this undermining of democratic institutions, is causing in the countries behind the Iron Curtain.
Let him also think of the impression which will be created in Ireland. I do not know how hon. Members from Northern Ireland will be able to explain the procedure of this House to their constituents. Those proceedings are being read very carefully by the people of Southern Ireland because they are anxious to know why the people of Northern Ireland wish to spend £500 million on the Air Force. They will be reading HANSARD in Dublin next week and saying, "What curious people they are in this House of Commons. Why do they need to spend £500 million on an Air Force. We do not need one. We do not need conscription. We do not need bombers or all this parade of militarism in our country, because we are a decent, God-fearing, sensible country, which does not need a large army and so this procedure would be impossible in Ireland."
I do not know how the hon. Members representing Northern Ireland constituencies are going to face the criticism which they will inevitably receive as a result of the proceedings in this Committee. In 1638 deed, I am sure that when the two hon. Members from Northern Ireland who sometimes sit on this side of the Committee read the official report and tell their constituents what has been going on, there will be an immediate demand in Northern Ireland for the withdrawal of the Northern Ireland Conservative Members. The result may be that they will be prepared to drop the iron curtain and unite with the Irish Republic.
The impression which will be created in the outside world will be calamitous, because we have a stupid and reactionary Leader of the House. I suggest that the Leader of the House, out of respect not to us but to countries which are watching us, and which will come to the conclusion that he has been stubborn and obstinate, should give the necessary apology that is due to hon. Members on both sides of the House.

§ Mr. Driberg
Would the Leader of the House care to say a word or two, just to wind up the debate?