HC Deb 07 February 1955 vol 536 cc1661-72

The Secretary of State shall appoint a committee of persons having special knowledge of colonial administration or of agriculture, social services and other appropriate specialities to advise him upon the expenditure of moneys provided under this Act.—[Mr. Dugdale]

Brought up and read the First time.

Mr. Dugdale

I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.

The debate to which we listened recently, and which was initiated by the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for New Forest (Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre), whom I am sorry to see is no longer in his place, having paid us a very short visit, was of some considerable interest, and showed the need for a new Clause such as that which I am now moving. It ranged very widely and we discussed a number of uses to which funds could or could not be put.

The object of this Clause is to see that there shall be some continuing body interested in the use to which these funds can be put. After all, we have useful and interesting discussions here on a Bill such as this but they do not last very long. They occur only when a Bill is actually before us, and the only other time when these matters can be discussed is possibly on the Estimates each year. There are many things that can be done with the sums which are being voted for colonial development and welfare. There is the question of whether they should be spent on what are called economic projects or on social services and welfare projects.

Also at issue is whether these funds should be spent on the richer Colonies or reserved more exclusively for the poorer. There is an infinite variety in the use to which these moneys can be put. For instance, in the White Paper, which has just been issued, the schemes mentioned include drainage in Bathurst, dealing with juvenile delinquency in Malaya, and the training of nurses in the West Indies. Not only that but there is the question of whether too much money may not be given to one particular group of Colonies at the expense of the rest.

There are two very important territories that I should like to mention, and which may deserve to be given large sums of money. One was referred to by one of my hon. Friends who spoke so eloquently about the West Indies, the other is the Basutoland Protectorate, which is not a Colony but a territory to which, under the Bill, money is to be given. It may be necessary before long to develop the Protectorate very considerably. If, for instance, there should be an influx of people who want to come from South Africa to that territory, the social services there may be in need of development. I do not say that they should have priority over other things but that is an example of the kind of work which may be necessary.

All these things are discussed day by day by officials. They are very admirable officials. I have had experience of them, I have worked with them, I know how able they are, but are we to leave it entirely to them? Neither the Secretary of State, the Minister of State, nor the Under-Secretary can go into all this immense amount of detail; it would be impossible for them to do so.

To get over this difficulty my right hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Creech Jones) set up an advisory council. On that council were representatives of business and the trade union movement. Among its members were ex-Governors—and even ex-Under-Secretaries of State. It included economists, and—perhaps this is of particular importance—it had on it a man chosen not only for his ability as an economist but because he came from Jamaica and was not simply one more United Kingdom member.

This body performed very useful work, and was able to advise the Secretary of State on many problems connected with colonial development. In this new Clause we are asking that the Secretary of State shall re-establish such a body because, for some reason which we do not understand, when this Government came into power, his predecessor decided to abolish that advisory council. We hope that the present Secretary of State will reverse Lord Chandos's decision and set up some such body to do that work.

Mr. Beresford Craddock

When the right hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) advocated, both on Second Reading and in an Amendment, that more money should be voted under this Bill, I had a good deal of sympathy with him because, having lived in most of the Colonies, I have a very warm affection for their peoples. I cannot, however, agree with the proposal contained in the new Clause, and there are to me many specific reasons why the Government should not accept it.

My own experience has taught me to be a very great believer in allowing the people on the spot in the various territories to run their own shows with as little interference as possible from Whitehall. They are the best judges of what is necessary for their own territories. I should have thought that there were ample safeguards. For example, in a particular territory, the Governor and his advisers, after a good deal of consideration and consultation not only with his officials, but with the unofficial members of the community, put their schemes to the Colonial Office, where there are men and women of very wide experience in these affairs. They can discuss all these schemes with the Minister and his official advisers, and do much more efficiently all that it is intended the proposed committee might do. That is my first objection to the new Clause.

The longer I live the more sceptical I become of experts. When it comes to colonial matters I think that the word has lost a good deal of its meaning. Men and women go out to these territories for a short time and then come back and pose as experts. I do not think one can get a body of men and women as efficient and expert in these matters as are those on the spot, or, indeed, in the Colonial Office.

Mr. Dugdale

Does not the hon. Gentleman think that the officials concerned are experts?

Mr. Craddock

Yes, that is what I am saying. We have them in the Colonial Office. Therefore, why add another committee in addition to those excellent men and women who have had very wide experience of these problems and, indeed, whose job is to advise the Minister on these schemes?

There is another danger in having an outside body, in that there might be vested interests represented on it, persons who might push particular schemes for their own advantage rather than the advantage of a territory. That is a small danger, I admit, but it is one which should not be ignored.

Finally, I doubt whether on a committee of this description any great measure of agreement would be reached. Let me give an example of what I mean. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that I were on such a committee—a presumption, I admit—for the East African Territories. I believe that for generations to come the whole future of those territories rests on agriculture. One of the greatest dangers to first-class agriculture is soil erosion. It is one of the greatest menaces to the whole of the African territories.

In 1932 I was in the Usuku part of the Eastern Province of Uganda. I stayed for a few days with a friend in his bungalow, which was surrounded by a very attractive garden. I continued to visit him from time to time, and my last visit was in 1937. In those five years his garden had disappeared. The desert had crept down over a mile in that period. That is only a small illustration of the magnitude of this problem. That is happening all over Uganda, Kenya, and Tanganyika. If I were on this suggested committee, I should advocate that greater sums of money should be devoted to that problem than to other problems.

Mr. J. Griffiths

A good reason for putting the hon. Gentleman on the committee.

Mr. Craddock

What is the use of having first-class social services, education, health housing, and all the rest if in a short time, perhaps, the people may not be able to produce enough food for their very existence?

I should like more money to be spent on training men—Africans, for example—for the local Civil Service. We talk of new constitutions and of appointing African Ministers, but surely we know well enough in this country that good government rests largely on a first-class Civil Service. I should like more money to be spent on enabling Africans to go to Makerere, in Uganda, and then to come to this country for, say, two years to take a special course in administration so that they could go back and take their part in the British Civil Service along with Europeans in East Africa.

Those are two illustrations of where, if I were on the committee, I would press for more and more money, and, therefore, it might be that we should never get any agreement at all. Therefore, I think it is better to leave this matter to the Governors and the officials in the territories, in conjunction with Her Majesty's Ministers and their advisers at the Colonial Office.

Let me give this further illustration of how much I am inclined to dislike such committees as that proposed. It would have to issue reports, and I suggest that some of those reports might do more harm than good. We have an example of this in the Report that has been issued by the delegation from the Trusteeship Council who have recently visited Tanganyika. I believe that that delegation, in suggesting a time limit for handing over the administration, has done a very bad service to that Colony. I want to take this opportunity of paying tribute to the excellent work which the present Governor, Sir Edward Twining, is doing there.

With all our experience of administration in so many parts of the world, I do not think we need the advice of any outside body. For those reasons, I hope that the Government will not accept the new Clause.

9.30 p.m.

Mr. Creech Jones

The intention behind the new Clause, I think, was to discover what kind of machinery is now in operation for colonial development and welfare plans.

There has been considerable discussion today on the shape of plans and the kind of plans. These issues cannot be limited to official discussion, for many of them raise points of very deep political significance. It is true that a considerable amount of discussion takes place in the territory before a programme is submitted. When we were in office we laid down that there should be the closest consultation with the representatives of the people concerned so that schemes forwarded should represent lay opinion as well as official opinion. I do not know how far that has been done, but now and again we hear complaints that there has been inadequate discussion with people on the spot about some of the plans included in the 10-year programmes prepared by the Colonial Governments.

It is not enough for us to rely on advisers. Indeed, when the original Act was brought before the House a White Paper accompanied it, and it was recommended that an advisory council should be set up in London which the Secretary of State could consult. The function of the advisory council was to be to keep the broad problems of colonial development very much in mind and to advise the Secretary of State about certain tendencies, the kind of balance which ought to be preserved in programmes which were submitted and a whole host of considerations which, it was felt, are important to bear in mind before plans are finally vetted and adopted in London and sums of money allocated for the respective schemes.

That Council was duly set up and at the same time there were formulated a large number of conditions and considerations for the testing of various schemes by the council in London. It will be found in the circular issued by the Secretary of State at the end of 1945 that certain proposals were laid down for the guidance of Colonial Governors and Colonial Governments and that these proposals served as a guide to them in drafting their plans, which ultimately were submitted to London. I do not know how far those conditions are operative today in schemes submitted by the Governors but I should like to know what happens when schemes are submitted by them. Presumably those schemes are vetted by officials of the Colonial Office. They recommend to the Minister whether the programme is sound or otherwise. It is they who decide whether this, that or the other is acceptable to the Secretary of State.

I submit that there is a whole variety of issues which have to be weighed. Does a scheme offered to the Secretary of State take into consideration the possible growth of the population in a particular territory? What are the population trends? Which schemes should receive priority and why? Has a balance been established between social development plans and economic projects? What should be the allocation to all funds as between one type of scheme and another? What should be the claim of one territory against the claims of another? On what principles should these things be determined?

There are other problems such as strategic development, whether there are certain minerals, certain crops, certain agricultural produce and whether it is desirable that these things should be emphasised in one territory as against another. Many of these are political considerations and seem outside the purview of the officials of the Colonial Office. As in the past conditions were laid down, I submit that again conditions might be laid down and an appropriate body created in order that these five-year programmes may be properly vetted and certain tests applied as to whether they are adequate, whether the programmes we plan and whether the purposes of the Act of Parliament are being fulfilled.

I support the suggestion made by my right hon. Friend that the machinery should receive some attention from the House and I hope the right hon. Gentleman will inform us as to what procedures are now adopted, what arrangements now exist and whether there is an advisory body from whom the Secretary of State can draw information and guidance in regard to programmes and plans submitted to him.

Sir Arthur Colegate (Burton)

I do hope my right hon. Friend will resist this new Clause. The speech we have just heard from the right hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Creech Jones) appeared to be conclusive against appointing the suggested committee. He said that many of these questions raised deep political considerations. I contend that deep political considerations should be discussed by the House of Commons and not by a committee. If deep political considerations arise in connection with the administration of our Colonies, those deep political considerations should be discussed by the House of Commons.

On the other hand, the right hon. Member said—this is where such a committee would be extremely weak—that it would in fact do some of the work which ought to be done by officials of the Colonial Office. He mentioned the growth of population. If officials cannot take growth of population in a Colony into consideration, the remedy is not to appoint a committee but to get rid of the officials concerned. This committee, which would be a fifth wheel to the coach, could only take responsibility away from the House of Commons or from the Secretary of State and his office.

Mr. Hopkinson

The proposal that the Colonial and Economic Development Council, as it was called, should be revived has been very carefully considered by my right hon. Friend. In the first place, one has to consider why that council was originally set up. It was not solely to deal with the colonial development and welfare plans. It had also the duty of giving general advice on economic matters to the Secretary of State. Its other function was to consider the basis of colonial development and welfare, and that it did. By the time that the former Secretary of State, my colleague Lord Chandos, took office, he found that the council had very little to do, and for that reason it was dissolved.

Even when the Council was set up, it was not thought necessary to make statutory provision for it. But that is the object of the new Clause. If under the Acts of 1940, 1945 and 1950 it was not thought necessary to introduce statutory provision for the council, I suggest that it is hardly necessary to do so today. The implementation of the Bill must be left, as heretofore, to the Secretary of State of the day to decide what he needs in the way of advice and help.

In the Colonial Office we have a great many advisory committees, some 20 or 25 in number, including committees on agriculture, education, a colonial economic research committee and committees concerned with fisheries, colonial geology and mineral resources, insecticides and a great many other committees, any of which is capable of dealing with matters that arise from plans and schemes of colonial development and welfare.

I share very much the apprehension of my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Sir A. Colegate) to the suggestion of the right hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Creech Jones), that because of the political significance of these matters we ought not to have a body consisting of unofficial persons in this country to advise the Secretary of State. That seems to me to be an entirely new theory and dangerous from the constitutional point of view.

Mr. Dugdale

The hon. Member for Burton (Sir A. Colegate) perhaps did not know, as the Minister will know, that the committee in question was inside the Colonial Office and was presided over, I believe, by the Minister of State himself. It does not publish outside reports to all and sundry.

Mr. Hopkinson

It was presided over by the Secretary of State. The right hon. Gentleman suggested that the Committee should deal with such matters as population trends, which schemes should receive priority, priorities between territories, strategic implications, the claims of one territory as against another, investment of funds, and so on. This covers a field which certainly ought not to be entrusted to a committee consisting of outside people, however eminent and well qualified they may be. For this reason, I ask the Committee not to accept the new Clause but to leave it to the Secretary of State, should he at a later stage decide that an economic advisory committee of some sort would be helpful to him, to set it up himself.

Mr. J. Griffiths

We put down the new Clause to ascertain from the Minister what machinery was available in the Colonial Office to afford the Minister and the Department such advice as the Secretary of State thought desirable. It is for the Secretary of State to decide to set up the committee without coming to the House. Indeed, my right hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Creech Jones) did that when in office.

I am inclined to agree that at this stage the functional committees dealing with particular problems and with research into certain aspects may be more helpful than a general advisory committee, but I urge one thing upon the Minister. In the early days when the project began, the scheme was a new venture. A good deal of experience has been gained, partly by the Colonial Office and also by the people on the spot. It may be physically impracticable to have committees drawn from the territories themselves to sit at frequent intervals and tender advice on how the schemes are progressing.

9.45 p.m.

I feel that, more and more, in all these schemes we must draw upon the experience of the people in the territories. Let us consider the changes which have taken place since 1945. In a good many of the territories which have not yet reached full Dominion status or self-government there are Ministers who deal specifically with economic affairs. For example, a Minister in the Gold Coast is responsible in his country for economic development, and there are Ministers responsible for social development. There are similar cases in Nigeria and in Malaya—or there will be very shortly—and in the Caribbean, and we have just seen new Ministers appointed in Jamaica.

In the matter of machinery we need more regular, continuous consultation between the Secretary of State and the Colonial Office at home and the Ministers and the Governments which are developing in the Colonial Territories. I suggested last year, before we had a Bill, that there should be a colonial conference to discuss the experience of working these schemes, so that the benefit of that experience should be available to us before the Bill was framed. I am sorry that such a conference was not called. We are entering a stage in which we must get together more frequently and have more discussions. We on this side of the Committee put forward our Amendment in order that we might discuss this problem of machinery and consultation. I hope that the Minister will give serious consideration to ways and means by which the valuable experience of men on the spot in the territories, officials and Ministers, may be made available to us.

In the next five years we shall see big constitutional changes in the Colonial Territories. More and more Ministers will be appointed and will have more and more power, and the more we can get together and consult the better. I hope that the Minister will give some consideration to that point in this new setting. The experience which we have gained may have shown that the appointment of the kind of committee which is suggested in the Amendment is not now the best means of achieving our aim, but increasingly in the future we shall need ways and means by which people in the territories may be consulted.

The "Manchester Guardian" said very truly that more and more initiative in Colonial matters is passing from this country out to the Colonies. We should indeed welcome that, because the more initiative passes out there the more we are succeeding in our major policy of their achieving independence. I hope that the Minister will consider very carefully the suggestions which we have made. I hope that he will be sympathetic towards what is one of the greatest needs today—the need for machinery by which the experience gained by people on the spot in the territories, official and unofficial, and the experience gained in this country can be pooled for the benefit of the colonial peoples and ourselves.

Mr. Hopkinson

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for offering to withdraw the new Clause. I could not commit my right hon. Friend at this stage to anything like a formal conference, but I will certainly undertake to recommend to him that we should adopt the right hon. Gentleman's suggestion—the lines of which indeed we follow as much as we can at the moment—that we should increase the means of consultation by personal visits to this country of Ministers from elsewhere, and so on.

As the right hon. Gentleman says, it is perfectly true that the initiative in a certain sense is passing from London to other new capitals. One has to remember in connection with colonial development and welfare that as that initiative passes in some cases we can hope that the new territory will be able to stand on its own feet to a great extent. The need for consultation, therefore, concerns the poorer territories far more than those which have new constitutions. I shall bear in mind what the right hon. Gentleman has said and we shall make the best use we can of existing means of consultation.

Mr. Dugdale

In view of the conciliatory nature of the right hon. Gentleman's speech, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion and Clause.

Motion and Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

Schedule agreed to.

Bill reported, without Amendment; read the Third time and passed.