Army Estimates, 1956–57

HC Deb 01 March 1956 vol 549 cc1374-442

Order for Committee read.

MR. ANTONY HEAD'S STATEMENT

3.42 p.m.

The Secretary of State for War (Mr. Antony Head)

I beg to move, That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair.

For this next financial year the total net sum for the Army Estimates is £472 million and the total strength put down for the Army is 485,000 men and women, which includes 80,000 from the Commonwealth.

I think that in considering the financial aspect of the Estimates the best way for the House to compare the expenditure this year is to give to the House the sums spent on the Army during the last four years excluding American Aid. In 1953–54 we spent £581 million: in 1954–55, £561 million; and in the following year, £484 million. In this coming year we shall spend £479 million. That—I know from previous debates that the House is interested particularly in reduction of expenditure—shows a very marked reduction in the expenditure on the Army. It is a drop of about £100 million since 1953 out of a total of £500 million. It is also £5 million less than last year, despite the fact that it includes £26 million for the pay rises recently announced and £15 million towards local costs in Germany. This reduction has been made during the past four years despite a steady increase in prices and wages.

Mr. William Warbey (Ashfield)

Can the right hon. Gentleman say what the total local cost in Germany will be on the assumption that there is no payment from the West German Government?

Mr. Head

It would be about £60 million to £65 million.

As I was saying when the hon. Gentleman interrupted me, I think that any hon. Gentleman, however prejudiced, will appreciate that this is a very marked reduction in expenditure over a period of three years, and it has not been achieved without a very drastic pruning, retaining only those items essential for an up-to-date Army. I hope to develop that later on in my speech.

It is my job to try to explain to the House as clearly and frankly as I can the main problems which confront the Army. I am indeed sorry that I did not have an opportunity of listening to the defence debate, which unfortunately I was unable to do because of indisposition, but I was able to read something of the debate this morning. There seems to be a widespread feeling, especially by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown), who opened for the Opposition, and other hon. Gentlemen, that where the Minister of Defence and the Service Departments are concerned the Minister of Defence is up against two clubs.

Mr. R. R. Stokes (Ipswich)

Three clubs.

Mr. Head

I thought it was two. I will develop what I am going to say and, if the right hon. Gentleman wants me to comment on the third, I will. It is suggested that the Chiefs of Staff as one club gang up against the Minister of Defence and, that the Service Ministers as another do the same. I had over three years during the war at the Ministry of Defence, and I have had over four years in this job, and I have seen quite a lot of its working. What the right hon. Gentleman says is really not true. I cannot answer what it was like when right hon. Gentlemen opposite were running the business. It is just not true. There is the most intimate co-operation between the Chiefs of Staff and myself. We discuss these matters frequently, and we have frequent meetings together over them. It is quite wrong to suggest, as I am sure the Minister of Defence and any previous Minister of Defence will agree, that the picture is of the Service Departments hanging on for dear life to everything that they have got and only having it taken away over their dead bodies.

Most of these reductions—the abolition of Anti-aircraft Command and the coastal artillery and the reorganisation of the Territorial Army—have initially been volunteered by the Chiefs of Staffs or the Service Departments themselves. It is an absolute injustice to suggest that they gang up to increase expenditure in manpower and money.

Mr. Stokes

I will explain the point I was making. It was nothing whatever to do with what the right hon. Gentleman is saying. It is that the Minister of Defence is not so equipped in the technical and expert staff of his Department as to enable him to take overall decisions against the opinions of the Departmental Ministers and Chiefs of Staff. It has nothing whatever to do with ganging up.

Mr. Head

I did not mean to enter into this too deeply. There is only one answer to what the right hon. Gentleman suggests, and that is an organisation like the German O.K.W.

One cannot have an intimate knowledge of submarine warfare or other technicalities without a large staff like O.K.W. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman recommends that, but the Germans will never do it again. That would be a duplication of vast size of the Service Departments within the Ministry of Defence.

Mr. Stokes

indicated dissent.

Mr. Head

The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head. It may be that he is a hard-headed businessman, but he has had very little experience of defence and I have had a great deal. I will tell him this—that the whole point of the Minister of Defence has been and always will be to look at things in large size and back his opinions even if the Service Departments advice may be conflicting.

Mr. Stokes

Hear, hear.

Mr. Head

The right hon. Gentleman says "Hear, hear," but if he were ever Minister of Defence and had to decide whether to reduce submarines or corvettes he would be taking a big responsibility. He has the right to decide, but he cannot get in his Department experts who will take part of the responsibility off his shoulders.

Mr. Stokes

I do not want to.

Mr. Head

The right hon. Gentleman said to me quite clearly that what we want is more experts to give expert advice in the Ministry of Defence. Expert advice can come only by the Minister of Defence cross-questioning, reaching opinions and using his judgment. If the right hon. Gentleman thinks that it rests on experts, he is under a sore illusion, and it only shows that a hard-headed businessman may be an ignoramous about defence. I am sorry that I have departed from my theme a little, but the right hon. Gentleman is good-natured about these things. I hope he will not keep up too much of a running fire, because he made a speech yesterday and I do not see why he should not make another on the Army Estimates if he wishes.

Mr. E. Shinwell (Easington)

On a point of order. May we have your guidance, Mr. Speaker? Since these matters of the organisation of the Ministry of Defence and the functions of the Minister of Defence have been raised by the Secretary of State, do I understand that we are entitled to discuss them on the Army Memorandum and Estimates?

Mr. Speaker

I think not. The Estimate confines us to the Army. I understood the right hon. Gentleman to be replying to an interjection on the question of the Ministry of Defence, but we are dealing today with the Army Estimates and not he Ministry of Defence Estimates. I can conceive that it would be quite reasonable for occasional references to be made to the general background of defence, but the Ministry of Defence Estimates are not before us.

Mr. Head

The right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) never misses a trick, but I was leading up to this point about the Army and, I believe, the other Service Departments: there has been the most intimate discussion on these questions of the relative amounts to be given to the Services and the relative forces which they should have. I have seen something of these matters for a great many years and I have never before experienced this thorough way in which the whole organisation was taken to pieces. I say that in justice to the Ministry of Defence, the Minister of Defence and his predecessors; I have never known an organisation taken to pieces with such care. I apologise for having somewhat strayed from my theme, but I owed it to the Department which, as the right hon. Gentleman said, has absolute power over the Service Departments. He is quite right there.

I think that the two main subjects concerning the Army today—and I am reinforced in this from my opportunity of skimming through the defence debate —are those of manpower and the reorganisation of the Army. I think those are the points in which hon. Members are most interested, and those are the two points with which I propose to deal most fully.

In the coming financial year, it has been decided we should run down the Army by 31,000 men; and that will be completed to the 60.000 by 1958. Plans are now in hand for this. The saving in the Army for this year will be achieved by a reduction in the number of noneffectives—men under training, men in the pipeline and so on—reductions in headquarters, including the War Office, although the work arising out of the reorganisation at the War Office is considerable and this will be when work there has largely been completed, the abolition of coast artillery, savings from Korea and certain reductions within units themselves. The extent to which the reduction of 60,000 by the run-down until 1958 will decrease our dependence on National Service will obviously be influenced by our success in Regular recruiting in the next two years.

Mr. Shinwell

Next year.

Mr. Head

Next two years.

Mr. Shinwell

One year is enough.

Mr. Head

I am going for two years; I think the right hon. Gentleman is a little short-sighted about this.

Mr. Stokes

The right hon. Gentleman will not be doing the job.

Mr. Head

I think so, if the right hon. Member for Ipswich goes on like this.

Our object is and always will be to recruit as many men as possible for as long as possible. In connection with the new pay code and the prospects of its success and failure, which is relevant to the whole debate and to the question of National Service, it might be helpful if I gave some background.

Since the war, all three Services to varying degrees have found increasing difficulty in recruiting men and persuading men to commit themselves for long periods. The Royal Air Force found it first and switched to a three-year engagement. We found it next, after the pay rise by right hon. Gentlemen opposite, which stimulated recruiting, only for recruiting to tail off again; and we then went for three-year engagements. I do not think any hon. Member will disagree when I say that if there had not been a pay rise and improvement in the conditions of service in the Royal Navy they might well have been forced to short engagements, too.

All three Services have therefore encountered a reluctance among men to commit themselves in adequate numbers for a sufficiently long period of service. When the right hon. Member for Easing-ton put the pay up in 1950 it stimulated recruitment for two to three months, and then down it came. The Army was then confronted with a rate of recruitment which would have made the size of the Regular Army unacceptably low. This is a matter on which the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) has chastised me. Incidentally, may I congratulate him on his present position on the Front Bench opposite?

Mr. Shinwell

I shall now become his Parliamentary Private Secretary.

Mr. Head

It would be a most suitable appointment, but I hope the right hon. Gentleman will not be as troublesome to his successor as his former P.P.S. is to me.

This is a matter on which the hon. Member for Dudley has chastised me and the War Office continually. This is not the place for an apologia, but it is relevant to the present recruiting scheme. We went on to the three-year engagement because, in my opinion—and I would do the same again if I went back—we had no alternative. If we had stuck to the five-year engagement the number of Regulars in the Army would have been 50,000 down by now. The three-year engagement got us through the last three years.

On the other hand, if, after the pay rise in 1950–51, we could have had another pay rise the following year—and any right hon. Member who has been Secretary of State for War knows how unlikely a contingency that is—and if we could have introduced all the attractions for long service which we have now introduced, undoubtedly we should not have gone for a short-service engagement; but it is no good trying to stick to a long-service engagement, which is what we really want, if it has been proved by results that the men do not join.

We went to the three-year engagement. Within the last year it has become abundantly clear that the rate of engagement was unacceptably low. There is no argument whatever about that. In parenthesis, I would say that the hon. Member for Dudley, who is adept at putting rather corkscrew words into people's mouths, should bear in mind that I said the optimum was 30 per cent. and not that we expected 30 per cent.

The figures were too low, and for some considerable time we have been working out from our own point of view what was the best engagement and what were the best methods of giving an incentive through pay in order to bring about long-service recruiting. The policy of the last pay increase, as hon. Members on both sides will have realised, is almost solely directed towards stimulating long-service engagements.

Mr. Emrys Hughes (South Ayrshire)

Inflation.

Mr. Head

I could talk for a long time about inflation of all kinds of things, including some parts of the hon. Member.

As I was saying, the policy is designed largely to increase long-service engagements, and I am sure that is the right policy. From the speeches made in the defence debate, I do not think any hon. Member disagrees with that. At the moment the three-year man gets 9s. a day. The nine-year man will get 17s. a day—nearly double. I am talking about the three-star private in each case. There was a cartoon in the Evening Standard the other evening which showed a soldier lying back on his bed reading the Financial Times with a whisky bottle on one side and a cigar on the other. The suggestion was that these increases had been overdone, but I would point out that, although we have to be very jealous of money these days, what we are paying for is for a man to commit himself for nine years. There is nothing equivalent to this in civil life.

Mr. Hughes

It is a good job there is not.

Mr. Head

The hon. Member has committed himself anyhow to listening to me for a little while. It is a fact that there is no precedent and we are paying for a man to commit himself. I do not believe it is excessive.

I should like to say a word or two on each of these engagements, the three-year, six-year and nine-year engagements. I would say to the hon. Member for Dudley, who queried the point, that it requires no legislation—

Mr. George Wigg (Dudley)

rose—

Mr. Head

Before the hon. Member says anything, I will answer what I think he is going to ask; I always see into his mind now. If a man goes on to six years, or nine years and signs his attestation paper, all he does is to renounce his right of opting out after three years, or after six years if he signs for the nine years.

Mr. Shinwell

Does it affect purchase?

Mr. Head

Speaking without notice, I do not think it affects purchase at all, but the longer one has to serve the more expensive purchase becomes. The three-year engagement remains. Whilst I would be the first to agree that the rate of re-engagement was disappointing, we should never underestimate the advantages which the Army has gained by the three-year engagement. It has seen us through the last four years, and steadily—this is a remarkable fact—all the time since we have had the two-year period of National Service one in four National Service men, with hardly any fluctuation, has enlisted on the three-year engagement. If we had not had that three-year engagement, I am certain that we would have had frightful difficulty in meeting the very large commitments we have had to face.

I think the Minister of Defence explained clearly to the House the main features of the new scheme for six and nine-year men. Hon. Members are probably aware that the pay is 14s. a day for the six-year man and 17s. a day for a nine-year man. That is for the three-star private. To those to whom three stars are better known on a bottle or about an hotel, I should explain that as a man qualifies through trade efficiency or length of service, the period on the one hand is after six to nine months, and, on the other, after about eighteen months.

Those are good rates of pay for men who are prepared to commit themselves on these engagements. We hope they will encourage men to stay in. If one takes account of what is provided free by the Army, we see that a married private will be getting about £10 8s. a week, plus what the Army provides, and a married tradesman sergeant will get about £15 per week. Those rates of pay should not only prove attractive, but should encourage the ex-sergeant or ex-warrant officer to say to his boy, "You will have a reasonable deal in the Army; have a go at it." I feel that to be most important. I would remind the House that, in addition, if a man extends from the nine-year to the twenty-year engagement he will get a bounty of £150 and corporals and above get increments in their rates of pay for service beyond nine years.

These new conditions also give a reasonable deal for a man when he leaves. Very often in the House we talk about old soldiers. I see an old soldier in his place opposite. We visualise the "old soldier" as being a man somewhat like him. In fact, what is looked on as an old soldier with twenty-five years' service is a man who is just over forty, and he can get a job. If he goes out after twenty-five years' service he has a pension, if he has been a sergeant, of £3 8s. 3d. a week and a terminal grant of £285. That is not a bad introduction to civil life for a man who, with a good record in the Army, can be virtually certain of getting a job. I believe this new career structure now offers real prospects in the Army, and there is certainly no deterrent through underpayment to a man who has the Army in his blood.

Hon. Members may ask why we have not made an increase in the marriage allowance. We had a limited amount of money and decided, I think rightly, to take the bulk of the money available and put it on the long-service engagement. If one started to tinker about with it and to increase the marriage allowance, the dramatic effect of increased pay for the long-service engagement would have been reduced by that much and, I believe, its effect would have been diminished unduly.

What will be the effect of the new pay code? It is always unwise to guess, especially when one's words are going into the OFFICIAL REPORT. I do not know—I doubt very much if anybody knows—what the effect will be. One has to remember that in the next two years the intake of National Service men will be smaller. That is a quite considerable factor. It is unwise to be optimistic, but I would go so far as to say that I think that with reasonably good fortune at the end of two years we ought to be able to have recruited a Regular Army of about 200,000 with an adequate long-service content. That view, I think, coincides with the view of the right hon. Member for Easington. Perhaps for that reason it will commend itself to him. I should say that that is a reasonable view. If we are proved wrong, we shall both be proved wrong and I shall quote the right hon. Member.

Mr. Shinwell

I am sensible of the fact that the right hon. Gentleman says that it does commend itself to me.

Mr. Wigg

The right hon. Gentleman is merely giving crude numbers. The argument between him and me, which I think I won and which I am now prepared to forget, was on the basis of man years. It is no good saying 200,000 men, because in the context of National Service it means 200,000 years extra. In order not to prepare a snare for himself, will the right hon. Gentleman give an estimate of the total number of man years he hopes will be the result of spending this extra £67 million?

Mr. Head

That is a good supplementary to put in the middle of a speech for an off-the-cuff answer, but I can say that the trend, at any rate in man years in the Army, will be upwards.

By asking me to forecast the amount by which the rate will go up, I suppose the hon. Member was scoring some point. During the next two years, when the Army is running down, the National Service intake will be controlled by age. If Regular recruitment is more successful, intake can be run down by increasing the age of call-up. If it is less successful, the call-up age will not be raised so quickly.

Mr. F. J. Bellenger (Bassetlaw)

How far?

Mr. Head

Hon. Members are so fast with their questions. On the assumption that it goes up, by 1958 the age will be about nineteen.

Listening to the debate on National Service last time and reading my very considerable correspondence with hon. Members and others, I have been struck by the disquiet there is on the subject of National Service men being employed on tasks which are called menial, or humdrum jobs, and over waste of time generally. Those are charges which come from both sides of the House. We have been into this question, and I could reel off a whole string of inquiries that have been made. I am told that these jobs have to be done, and if a station is some distance from civilian labour the jobs have often to be done by soldiers. If a lot of civilians are hired to do the work, that puts up the cost. We cannot have it done by Regulars, because we are a half-and-half Army, and it would get out of balance. This disquiet persists, but I think—although I may be wrong—that we have done almost everything possible to put it right. I know that I have not convinced some hon. Members, and it is important, not only that I should convince them, but that the whole country and the parents should also be convinced that we have done everything possible.

I have come to the conclusion that the best thing I can do to satisfy hon. Members would be to have some independent civilian inquiry to see what we are up to, to inquire into the employment of National Service men in humdrum or menial jobs and any wasting of their time. That is the only way to convince hon. Members, because I think, though perhaps mistakenly, that we have done what we can.

Mr. Shinwell

Is that a firm decision by the right hon. Gentleman's Government?

Mr. Head

My trouble is that I cannot get the words out quickly enough before some hon. Members are after me. I made this proposal to the Minister of Defence and to the Government, and the Government agreed that this particular step is justified. What we are going to do is to set up this Committee, for which I have been lucky enough to secure as chairman Mr. J. F. Wolfenden, the Vice-Chancellor of Reading University, who is a very experienced and active man. I have also obtained the services of Mr. Goss, of the trade unions, and Mr. F. C. Hooper, representing industry. They are going to examine this question, and their report will be published. Their terms of reference will be these: To examine the employment of National Service men in this country, with special reference to static organisations and establishments. I could not agree, because I think it would be unrealistic, to make the inquiry world-wide. The problem mainly arises in this country, and what they find here can be also applied overseas. To ask them to go on a world-wide inquiry would not be realistic. I hope that the inquiry will be finished by the summer, and, as I have said, the report will be published.

There is another matter concerning National Service to which I wish to refer, because it is always being put forward. We have been trying to do what we can about it, but I am not entirely happy about it. It is what soldiers call "bull." [Interruption.] I am glad to see that hon. Members have a good acquaintance with military terms. We have made an inquiry into all this in units and we have come to the conclusion that we are not blameless in this matter.

Mr. Stokes

White sheet.

Mr. Head

Not a white sheet, but a black sheet. The right hon. Gentleman was standing in a white sheet, and he would have better said white-washed than white sheet.

Lieut.-Colonel Marcus Lipton (Brixton)

There is plenty of paint.

Mr. Head

We have come to the conclusion that there are things which are hanging on, which are often traditional but which do not make sense and discourage the National Service man in the Army. The remedy, however, is not quite so simple as just saying "Stop these things." Only by action on the spot can it be put right. We have sent out an Army Council letter, and I should like to give hon. and right hon. Gentlemen the purport of the letter, which I think may reassure them, as they have taken such interest in this subject.

Indeed, one hon. Member told me of one station where men were whitewashing coal, and when I was told this I said, "It cannot be true," but the hon. Member said it was quite true. I discovered that, in fact, the coal was dumped in a small and very dark yard, and soldiers were always falling over it, and so it had been whitewashed in order that it would show up in the dark. That shows that not all of these accusations are justified.

Mr. Stokes

What about red lamps?

Mr. Head

I thought that the right hon. Gentlemen objected to red lamps.

In that letter, we have stated that the results of the inquiry show that, after allowing for an essential basis of discipline, without which an Army cannot remain effective, with which I entirely agree, the Army is vulnerable to criticism in respect of waste of time on routines which are not essential. It explains that shortcomings of this nature can only be removed by action on the spot, and a good many suggestions are made for the improvement of material matters which cause irritation. The letter states that a balance must be struck in every unit between what is necessary to maintain the man, his equipment and his surroundings to a high soldierly standard and what may be demanded by an excess of zeal—or the substitute for it—on the part of inexperienced or hectoring N.C.O.s.

The letter also calls for visits and inspections to be kept to a minimum, and says that kit inspections are often too frequent, though they are necessary periodically to ensure that a man's kit is complete and serviceable. It also forbids such devices as the stiffening of clothes with cardboard, blancoing pull-through cords, blacking the soles of boots and burnishing the tops of tins of boot polish. The letter further states that the laying out of beds can well be done more in accordance with the civilian manner, and goes on to say that we are also issuing modern labour-saving devices, such as electric floor scrubbers and dryers and polishing machines. A new type of barrack table is being provided with a top that does not need scrubbing. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] After saying that, this does not mean—and only over my dead body will it mean—that we are going to have a sloppy Army that looks dirty on parade.

I would be the last to claim that our handling of National Service has been perfect, but I would say to hon. Members, from whom I get a great many letters, that they hear mainly of the cases where we failed. They should remember the difficulties and the troubles arising from the fact that we have to take boys from Borstal, approved school boys, difficult boys and "Teddy boys"—all go into the Army. The R.A.F. has volunteers, and can pick and choose, but all these fellows go into the Army, and there are more than 100,000 of them a year

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton

Not all "Teddy boys," surely.

Mr. Head

Perhaps the hon. and gallant Gentleman has a closer knowledge of "Teddy boys" than I have. As far as I know, they are not exempted because they are "Teddy boys." Some of them make very good soldiers.

All I am saying is that I ask hon. Members not to be over-prejudiced by the inevitable National Service complaints. There is this vast number of 100,000, not all of whom write to Members of Parliament. Most of them are young men who, despite an unwelcome interruption in their own chosen careers, are benefiting both in experience and physically from their National Service. Many of them say so, and I do not think we should forget that.

It might interest the House to hear a figure which I have had worked out, concerning National Service. Since National Service started, about one million young men have passed through the Army, which must have had an immense impact on the country. Of that number, 26,000 have had commissions, and 372,000 have been N.C.O.s. That is about one-third of them have had responsibility while doing their service in the Army.

I should like to say a word on the future of National Service as it is affected by the Army, which is the major consumer. I do not think that anybody, or very few at any rate, would deny that National Service must depend, where the Army is concerned, on two things—the rate of Regular recruitment and the size of our overseas commitments. These are, so to speak, the two struts on which the future depends, and they are and must be the governing factors. Despite that, there is a feeling which persists, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan), who spoke yesterday, who was for a time at the Admiralty. He suggested that Service Departments, and in particular the generals, like National Service, because they want a lot of men to order about, and that the more they get the happier they are.

I should like to say here and now that if anybody thinks that that is a factor in the retention of National Service, it is absolutely untrue. National Service is recognised by the Army and all thinking members of the Regular Army as a wasteful and inefficient method of using manpower to create an Army, and it is so recognised by the Government. Nobody wants to have it, except that the size of our commitments makes it unavoidable.

This method of creating an Army of the size we need places an immense strain on the Regular Army itself. After having thought a good deal about all the various reasons why we cannot get more and longer Regular recruitment, it is my conviction that the biggest single deterrent to Regular recruitment and retention in the Services is National Service itself.

A soldier makes friends in the barrack room. He asks one of the others, "What are you doing when you have finished?" and he gets the reply, "I am thinking of staying on." He then says, "You must be mad. I am going to Birmingham with my best girl; I shall have a house and £15 a week." That does not help. Or there might be two soldiers out in Malaya, one of whom has served his two years and the other has still to finish his three years. At home they may live next door to each other. One of them will be going home, but the other must stay on in Malaya. Especially if it were Christmas time, the second man would want to be going home too. This continual in-and-out movement of National Service men and talk of comparative civilian conditions undoubtedly have a very unsettling effect. I assure hon. Members that so far as the retention of National Service is considered to have anything to do with the generals or the War Office, that idea is absolutely and utterly wrong.

Mr. Cyril Bence (Dunbartonshire, East)

It is the same in industry. A quick turnover of manpower is always a bad thing for human relationships.

Mr. Head

I think we are all in agreement. Any Government that wanted to retain National Service at the two year period longer than essential would be a most curious Government. It would be an almost suicidal Government which did it when it was not necessary.

Mr. Emrys Hughes

Abolish it.

Mr. Head

The hon. Member talks a lot about abolition. No doubt he will have an opportunity to say more later in the debate.

As I have said, our commitments are the governing factor. The right hon. Member for Easington, who is semper vigilans—which, for those who were educated at Winchester, means "always on the job"—appears to have listened to a broadcast of mine. He said that I had remarked that I could manage with a Regular Army of 300,000. What I was asked was, "Suppose we had the commitments that we have today, what would we need in the way of an all-Regular Army to fulfil them?" and I said, "Broadly speaking, about 300,000, but"—and this is the point—"that is with our existing commitments today." It must be patently obvious to all hon. Members that to fulfil our commitments today, with the methods we use today and, therefore, to recruit a Regular Army of 300,000, is outside the sphere of possibility. I do not think any hon. Member would disagree.

Mr. Bellenger

We all appreciate the difficulties under which the right hon. Gentleman is labouring in making this speech, but the point was put to him by me two years ago, when his answer was, "I could do with. 100,000 less if I had the Regular troops." Two years ago, therefore, with a total strength of 400,000, he said that he could manage with 300,000 Regulars. Now the right hon. Gentleman talks about 200,000. To get the picture in proper perspective, will he give us an idea of what he thinks is the number he can manage with, on the basis of the same commitments as we have today, so that he can alter National Service?

Mr. Head

In the wireless broadcast, I gave precisely the same answer: 100,000 less, or 300,000. I have never said or suggested that we could fulfil our present commitments with 200,000. I have never even suggested that; I do not think any hon. Member has suggested it. The size of the Army must, and always will, be based on our commitments; what I have said was perfectly consistent.

I have also stated that if recruiting goes reasonably well we might have a Regular Army of 200,000. Purely Departmentally and domestically, we have had to work out, as any Department must do, what an Army of 200,000 could do. We have not yet completed it. This has nothing to do with the abolition of National Service, but the Government must have some kind of yardstick or measure of knowing what a Regular Army of say, 200,000 could produce in terms of teeth. What the Regular Army could produce in terms of teeth must be worked out with the utmost ingenuity to reduce the manpower requirements on the Regular forces to the minimum. That we are doing, and have been doing, but that is merely a normal precautionary measure so that we have the measuring stick.

Mr. Bellenger

If the Secretary of State gets his 200,000 Regulars, can he either make do with fewer National Service men or reduce the period?

Mr. Head

I have told the right hon. Gentleman that if our commitments were identical with those today—and today we have some 200,000 Regulars—obviously, we could not do without National Service; that is too obvious for words. If the situation remains the same in two years' time as it is today, I have already told the right hon. Gentleman that we cannot make a dramatic reduction in National Service.

I should say a word about commitments. I am speaking for much longer than I intended, but I have had a number of interruptions. There was an article in The Times, which the right hon. Gentleman and others have quoted this week, giving a world wide order of battle, with units, of the British Army. The right hon. Gentleman asked why the House could not have these details and suggested that it was disgraceful that Members had to get their information from the newspapers instead of from the Secretary of State for War.

Mr. Wigg

Hear, hear.

Mr. Head

I will explain the reason. When we saw that piece in The Times, we could gauge fairly accurately the accuracy or otherwise, and the knowledge and veracity or otherwise, of The Times correspondent. Anybody who knows anything about intelligence knows that the most invaluable check on any intelligence service is to have the gospel put before him and then look at the results which have come in from his various agents in, for example, Malaya and Africa. He can then say, "A is right; B is wrong; C is good; D is right off the mark, sack him." If I gave a 100 per cent. accurate order of battle with battalions, world wide, those who wish us evil would give' three rousing cheers. I have given, and am always prepared to give, certain strengths in terms of units. I gave them in a map and I would give them now, but not in terms of units world wide, because that would be a great asset to other intelligence services, and always has been.

Mr. Wigg

If the right hon. Gentleman is saying that the information published in The Times is a security leak, will he prosecute that newspaper for a breach of the Official Secrets Act?

Mr. Head

Now that he is sitting on the Front Bench, the hon. Member should be more restrained in making an ass of himself than when he had greater liberty on the back benches. There is no security leak.

Mr. Ede (South Shields)

To no one does that apply better than to the right hon. Gentleman himself.

Mr. Head

That may be so; I am obliged. A long time ago, it might have applied even to the right hon. and venerable Gentleman himself. Of course, one does not prosecute anybody under the Official Secrets Act. Any vigilant reporter who has a world-wide set of correspondents can have a pretty good idea on this. If it was 100 per cent. accurate, one might wonder how it was quite so good, but even then it would not be absolutely phenomenal. All I would say is that, if there were another war, The Times military correspondent would be a rather likely officer to go into the intelligence department.

Mr. Wigg

Is the Secretary of State threatening him?

Mr. Head

The hon. Member has the dirtiest mind in the House. First it is a prosecution, and then a threat. He will have no difficulty in reading lots more dirt into my words before I finish my speech. The hon. Gentleman's is self-evident whenever he opens his mouth.

I should like to speak briefly about our commitments today because on them depends so much the future of our manpower problem. In Austria and the Sudan troops have been withdrawn. There has been the run-down in the Canal Zone. Two battalions have come back from East Africa. leaving three British battalions and five K.A.R. battalions there. We are soon to get one battalion back from the Caribbean, leaving one there, and a further 3,000 men are coming back from Korea. Our future prospects in Kenya look at the moment good. We have eight battalions in Malaya and I would say that prospects there are good. But for Cyprus, the general situation has undoubtedly improved. I obviously will not make any comment about Cyprus.

It is a pity that the right hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes) has left the Chamber. He would have said, "What do we want a strategic reserve for?" The House will recall that the right hon. Gentleman said yesterday that we have got on very well so far without a strategic reserve. If he reads the OFFICIAL REPORT of this debate he will see that a hard-headed businessman can get rather thick-headed where defence is concerned, because this very business of the strategic reserve has made recruiting so difficult. The element of disturbance which has placed the British Army in considerable difficulties exists because of the very absence of a strategic reserve.

I should like to give the House an illustration. We have now two armoured regiments and 16 infantry battalions which have not served in this country since 1939. That is a long time. There are five others now home for the first time since 1939. The First Worcestershire Regiment has had ten moves since 1948, and anybody who has been a soldier knows what that means for men and their families. The H.L.I. has had 11 moves since 1948. In parentheses, I would say that that regiment at the moment is distinguishing itself in Cyprus and I regret very much the remarks made about it by the hon. Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman). I would say to the H.L.I. and the people of Glasgow, who were very much offended, that they should not take very much notice of the hon. Member's remarks, because he makes his remarks to fit the theme which he is developing. If his theme had been different, he would have said that the H.L.I. was the finest regiment in the Britsh Army.

Sir James Hutchison (Glasgow, Scotstoun)

Is my right hon. Friend aware that his remarks vindicating the reputation of this gallant regiment will be tremendously appreciated in Glasgow where people have felt very hurt at the remarks of the hon. Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman)?

Mr. Head

I am very much obliged to my hon. Friend, who, I know, is very interested in the regiment.

Conditions such as those that I have outlined in mentioning the number of battalions which have been abroad since the start of the last war are absolutely unique in the history of the Army in peace. I do not believe that there is any other Army today that has had such a high proportion of its troops overseas. In saying this I am leading up to telling the House that if we are to have successful recruitment and do our best for the abolition of National Service we must create a strategic reserve to give stability to the Army. We cannot go on indefinitely with a situation in which, during my time as Secretary of State for War, the only reserve in the country at one time was the demonstration battalion at Warminster. We cannot run an Army on those lines.

I turn to the reorganisation of the active Army and the reserve Army, but before I mention our plans for the future I should like to speak briefly about what we have done already. As hon. Members will remember, A.A. Command was abolished almost exactly a year ago. That was a major dislocation for those in that Command and many hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Ian Harvey) told me that we had made an awful mess of it. My hon. Friend was rather pessimistic. I am sure that he will be pleased, and I am pleased and I think the House will be pleased, that the response from A.A. Command to that admittedly very dislocating and unwelcome decision has been remarkably fine. I should like to congratulate that Command, as I am sure the House would like to do. Of the volunteers in A.A. Command, 87 per cent, of officers and 82 per cent, of other ranks are continuing to serve. That is a very fine record on the part of the Command.

The reorganisation of the active Army and the reserve Army is a favourite subject in the House. It is a favourite subject for armchair strategists, a favourite subject in the Press and a matter which has been discussed up and down by many people during the last few years. Roughly speaking, the most popular and most progressive line is to say, "We live today in the thermo-nuclear age. The generals and the Army should wake up and recognise that fact. What we need in such an age is atomic, streamlined divisions. At present the Army is hopelessly out-of-date." I think that that is a fair synopsis of the theme. Then follow varying proposals which, I am sure I may say without falsifying the argument, are always pretty vague.

All this argument sounds very impressive and progressive, but I would ask the House to be a little hard-headed about the organisation, first, of the active Army. The House should analyse what that Army is doing. It has four divisions in Germany to help, firstly, in holding ground in Europe against being overrun with great rapidity and, secondly, in holding up attack while, if there were the horror of nuclear war, a thermo-nuclear attack could be developed. The remainder of the active Army is dispersed world-wide on duties varying from aiding the civil power to duty in jungles and operations of the type in Korea. At the same time, we have an Army which must have a tour of duty overseas and have a term at home. That demands immense versatility. I would ask the advocates of an atomic, streamlined division how their scheme fits in with that requirement of versatility.

That argument, which is a very facile one and which does not come from experience or from trials and considerations in Germany and elsewhere, has a fundamental fallacy. The introduction of atomic weapons into the Army's duties is on the long range. "Corporal," which has a range of 75 miles, is really equivalent to a very long-range, very powerful, very heavy artillery. It can break up concentrations. It can make things extremely difficult for any force which is massive, but it is really fatuous to think that "Corporal," or atomic artillery alone, can prevent gradual infiltration and penetration by men. It is as though we were in the House of Commons, without the benches, and ants came in and we threw hand-grenades at them. Men cannot be held up purely by atomic weapons.

If the House has followed me thus far, we come to the holding of ground and the duties of the Army in that respect. The atomic weapon is not in sight so far as its introduction to intimate weapons of the Army is concerned. There is no immediate prospect of atomic field artillery, atomic rifles, atomic mortars, atomic grenades and atomic support weapons of the close infantry kind. I am not saying that they may not come in twenty, thirty, forty or fifty years, but they are not in sight at the moment. Therefore, despite the immense power of the long-range weapons for infantry—I am talking in Army terms of the "Corporal"—ground can be held only by stopping the enemy getting too close. That is done by bullets, tanks, artillery, and mortar and machine gun fire. There is no substitute for that yet. If anyone thinks he can make up our four divisions in Germany without those weapons, he is living in dreamland.

Furthermore, if we exclude conventional weapons and there are minor aggressions—for instance, if somebody did something in Berlin or there was aggression in South-East Asia—we should be leaving ourselves with no other sanction against aggression than the introduction and the use of atomic weapons. If the House will go so far as to agree that ground must be held, and that limited or cold wars must be dealt with by conventional weapons, this rules out the admittedly attractive but impractical idea of the atomic streamlined division.

If we have an organisation of a division which includes conventional arms, those who say the Army is out of date then say, "Well, reorganise that." During the last two years we have had in Germany a series of trials, manoeuvres and experiments which have been watched by the best and most experienced brains in our Army, Field Marshals Montgomery and Harding, Generals Gale and Templer. As a quartet they are respected in all armies throughout the world, and in my opinion we are fortunate in having four such imaginative and experienced generals. They have watched all these things and I have heard a great deal about them. They have come to a conclusion about the reorganisation of the infantry division. It is not perhaps all that the streamliners want. It is not perhaps everything wanted by somebody who came to see me and said, "What we want is a division with no tail, which bites all round so that no one knows whether it is coming or going." I forbore to make the obvious retort.

This has been thought out extremely carefully. I do not say that it is necessarily right and I do not say that it may be here for long. With the speed of science and technical discovery, it may well change within a few years. But after two years' experiment we have decided to go firm on this new infantry division which will be organised into what one might call three brigade groups. First, that will enable the division to operate over a wide front of up to fifteen miles. Secondly, when necessary and vital—but a thing to be avoided in atomic war—it can concentrate to hold vital ground. If it has to do this, then the brigades must include artillery and armour, which amounts to a brigade group.

The infantry brigade's basic organisation will be three infantry battalions; one armoured regiment as part of the brigade, and artillery. It will therefore be self-contained and capable of fighting independently, but equally capable of being controlled by a central organisation as and when the situation demands.

Now I turn to the armoured division. There again we have had two years of trial and experiment. It is obvious to everyone, and especially to hon. Members who have been to the manoeuvres in Germany, that the armoured division as previously constituted was too big.

Mr. Shinwell

Yes, too big.

Mr. Head

We have tried out a number of possibilities, but I think everybody agrees that we are not sufficiently sure at this stage to go firm on a new organisation as we have done with the infantry division. Therefore we shall continue with an experimental organisation which will be as follows.

We are to have in each armoured division four armoured regiments and one infantry battalion and there will be no brigade headquarters. There will also be available an infantry brigade trained and capable of close co-operation with the armoured division which, though not within the division, can be attached to it and will be intimate with its training methods and attached for any rôle of the armoured division which requires an extra amount of infantry. That is the aim, but we are not sure enough to know whether we are right, and so there will be another year of trial.

I say frankly to the House that there is one aspect of this matter which has been disappointing, the extent to which vehicles have been reduced. Any right hon. Gentleman who has undertaken my job knows the problem. We have come to the conclusion that this is a case where the physicians cannot heal themselves. We have decided that the only way out is to make arbitrary cuts in the number of vehicles centrally from the War Office and that is what we shall do.

My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Worthing (Brigadier Prior-Palmer) made some remarks about the 24th Infantry Brigade which attracted some interest in the defence debate. He was quite right—and I almost heard his tones when I read HANSARD—but I see that he is not here and I will not bother with that point.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton

Read it out.

Mr. Head

Any delay is not because people thought it unnecessary, but because until recently we have had no strategic reserve in this country. This brigade is being specially trained to operate at short notice wherever it goes.

The hon. Member for Dudley said it was outrageous that the twin-engined Pioneer, which is to be the light aircraft for this brigade, has not been ordered. Where he got that idea from, I do not know—

Mr. Wigg

From The Times.

Mr. Head

Then the hon. Gentleman must go round to Printing House Square and have a good talk with them. The hon. Gentleman can come to see me if he likes, but he is entirely wrong about this, and it is unfair of the hon. Gentleman to take as War Office gospel whatever appears in The Times. It is quite wrong to say that. The Royal Air Force are producing three squadrons of single-engined Pioneers to support this brigade, they will be completed by April, and they will be a most valuable support.

The twin-engined Pioneer is probably going to be an excellent aircraft. We are interested in the tail-loading aspect. The hon. Member for Dudley cannot hold against the Government the fact that we have not sponsored its development. He cannot at one and the same time say that we have speculated too much on sponsored development and bemoan the fact that everything is unsponsored. However, I am out of my subject here because this is an R.A.F. matter.

The Pioneer should be a help to this brigade and, in addition, both the helicopter and the Valetta supply drop will be invaluable. Support is being given willingly by the R.A.F. and if there is anything important today it is co-operation between the Royal Air Force and the Army in fire brigade emergency work, in getting troops to the spot and in looking after them there.

Mr. Wigg

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on forming the brigade, which is a step forward. I was interested in this proposal because in his White Paper the right hon. Gentleman said that he would improve conveyance to the trouble spot by the Britannias. The Secretary of State for Air kindly told me yesterday that the Britannias would not be available for two or three years. As for the single-engined Pioneer, what we should like to know is how the single-engined Pioneer, with a range of only 300 miles and only a weight and pay load of 900 tons, is going to carry the supplies to the Brigade.

Mr. Head

The hon. Member could have saved himself and me a lot of trouble if he had waited, because I am coming to that.

One Pioneer squadron will be in the Far East, one in the Middle East and one at home and that is a sound division. The second point is that the Air Force airlift has nothing to do with the Pioneer, which will not lift a brigade.

Mr. Wigg

What about Britannias?

Mr. Head

We are not counting on Britannias; I am not talking about them today.

Mr. Wigg

They are mentioned in the White Paper.

Mr. Head

Of course they are mentioned in the White Paper, but they will not be available until 1958.

Mr. Wigg

Why put them in the White Paper?

Mr. Head

Because they are coming in 1958. I wish the hon. Member for Dudley would concentrate his spleen more towards the good of the British Army.

I continue. The brigade will be supported by light aircraft. Hon. Members have asked about the lift. The existing lift for the brigade is with the R.A.F. Transport Command which in one lift can move about two-thirds of the brigade and, frankly, that is useful. During the rest of the year, it is planned that two squadrons of Beverleys shall come into service. The Beverley is a large aircraft and when it comes into service it will be able to lift very considerably more than two-thirds. The gap between the present and when the Beverleys come in, will be filled by charter aircraft, so that it is perfectly possible in an emergency to lift a whole brigade. I think that that deals with the hon. Member who interrupts so much.

I now come to the re-organisation of the Reserve Army. I would first remind hon. Members of the very great changes which have taken place in the relative position of the Reserve and active Army since the right hon. Member for Easing-ton introduced the National Service Act in 1947. We were then arguing in the House about how long a man must remain with the active Army in order to be adequately trained as a reservist. We are now arguing about how long he must remain there in order to increase the size of the active Army itself.

Although the likelihood of the early use of the Reserve in any major war has been infinitely reduced, I believe and the Government are convinced, that to forfeit this reserve of trained manpower against an emergency of war, the true course of which nobody can accurately foretell, would be a gross waste of trained manpower. I would say to all volunteers of the Territorial Army that, when one considers that in ten to twenty years an inter-continental rocket may be pointed across the world, what form a war may take is a matter of conjecture; and to have no trained reserve of manpower in this country would be folly.

Although we agree that a reduction in the number of training periods from three to one is acceptable, it is essential to have that one and the volunteers of the Territorial Army are vitally important in maintaining it. We are unique as a country in running the part-time element of conscription with volunteers. No other country does that and I should like to express my thanks to the volunteer Territorial and hope that, despite the dislocations of the present re-organisation, he will continue and soldier on.

Mr. Ede

Before the right hon. Gentleman leaves that topic—

Mr. Head

I was not leaving it, I intended to give details.

I want to say something about the details of the reorganisation of which I gave some general indication in my statement to the House. Two divisions are to be earmarked for N.A.T.O.; they are the 43rd (Wessex) and 53rd (Welsh) Infantry Divisions. The remainder will be organised on the same lines, but will not have the additional armour and medium artillery which these divisions will have. I should like to make it plain that, even so, it is perfectly possible to transfer these extra units to other divisions should the situation, strength or state of efficiency of other divisions in the future so demand it. This is merely a start and it is in no way an indication that this is a permanent arrangement.

I recognise that the consequences of these changes are extremely unwelcome to many units. It was the same with "Ack Ack" Command. My experience is that the better the unit, the bigger the howl. There is an immense esprit de corps in the Territorial Army. I respect it and they certainly let us know about it. The House may like to know what is to happen. There will be nine armoured regiments and eleven R.A.C. regiments in a divisional reconnaisance rôle and the existing thirty-four regiments will be reduced to these numbers by ten amalgamations and four conversions to infantry. Fifty-seven artillery regiments are reducing to forty-eight by amalgamations. There are eighteen regiments of coast artillery which are converting to artillery, engineers, or infantry.

These changes are unpalatable. I regret having to make them, but if there is one mistake one can make, it is to shirk changes because they are unwelcome, if one is convinced that there is no longer a case for retaining units in the rôle for which they are prepared. The lists of these changes are now with Commands and are being discussed with Territorial Associations. Final decisions will be made in good time before this year's camp.

There is also to be a major reorganisation in the A.E.R., of which a large number of units will have to be disbanded. I regret that and I know the keenness the A.E.R. has shown and all that has been done to build up that force. It has increased with astonishing rapidity to very nearly the size of the Territorial Army. Its importance in the future is great and I hope that a large number of men will continue to volunteer for other units after their own are disbanded.

I do not know how this speech has taken so long and I will now confine my remarks to the minimum, but I cannot sit down without saying something about the air and the Army. It is my belief that when we talk about commitments, strategic reserves and so forth, in the future a great deal of our ability to reduce the size of the Army and therefore our liabilities world wide will be dependent on our capacity to move forces rapidly by air lift. This is a matter in which the Air Ministry is most closely co-operating. I noticed that in the defence debate some hon. Members suggested that the air lift was derisory or inadequate. I would remind them that with very short notice a parachute brigade went to Cyprus. It was the shortest notice I have ever known since I have been in the Army and it was the same for the aircraft.

The R.A.F. Transport and Coastal Commands between them moved two parachute battalions and a brigade headquarters to Cyprus in forty-eight hours. That was an extremely good performance and I should like to go on record as saying how much I appreciated what was done. With the advent of the Beverleys and, in the longer term, the Britannias we shall nave an air lift in which we can place great confidence. I do not know how many hon. Members know the Beverley, but it is a very material increase, and the R.A.F. hope to have twelve in service this year. It carries 26,000 lb. for 1,000 miles. If there are hon. Members to whom 26,000 lb. means as little as it does to me, it represents 94 fully equipped soldiers, or 15 jeeps with trailers. This is a very large aeroplane which takes a very substantial lift. So much for that.

The other point I wish to mention concerns supply and administration especially is nuclear war, but it is also of great importance in Malaya at the moment in the cold war. We have set up a unit called J.E.H.U. which hon. Members will know about. J.E.H.U. has done a great deal of work and has flown 1,300 hours already in studying technique. But I do not wish to deceive the House. I do not believe that it is realistic to think that we can have these to replace the vehicles of the Army. We cannot afford the aeroplanes. We have to rely on the development both of the helicopter and the short-lift aircraft which have a sale and a use in the civil world, thereby giving us an ability to call on these aircraft in time of war. We cannot shoulder the expense of them for the Army in peace-time. That is the line on which I believe we must develop. But the technique is being studied by this unit, the Joint Experimental Helicopter Unit. Trials have taken place in Germany and it has made some interesting reports on questions of technique.

I wish to make a brief mention of our new weapons. The Corporal is to be delivered this year and the officers and other ranks who have been on a course of instruction in America are coming back now. They have had training in maintenance, and firing and in the details of instruction. We had great help from the United States, and the liaison between us was excellent. A Guided Missile Wing has been started at Larkhill—which must make the old members of the Rocket Troop turn in their graves. That is now starting up, and for the benefit of those who live near Larkhill I would say that no firing is required for that technique.

The F.N. rifle has had world-wide trials. There are many opponents of the F.N. rifle, but I can say without prejudice that these trials have been extremely successful. There have been modifications which have all been resolved. We are tooling up and production will start next year. It may interest hon. Members to know that this rifle was used in Kenya and Malaya and, where it was used, the number of kills to contacts in the jungle went up fivefold, which is very significant. We have a new armoured car which is much more like a tank on six wheels than an armoured car and a great improvement over the not very prepossessing Daimler that we had before.

We have carried out experiments on clothing which may interest hon. Members because they are an extension of the principle that if one can keep out heat or wind or cold, it is possible to get an equable temperature next to the skin. I am not an expert on this matter, but it has been a success in Korea. We have a thousand suits in Germany being tried out in a temperate climate and if this works, it may replace the battle-dress. Anyone who has worn the battle-dress knows that the greatest handicap is the gap in the small of the back which results when the "thing' um-a-bob" goes up and the other part goes down. The Patchett sub-machine gun has been issued to troops and has taken the place of what was the Sten.

May I say a brief word about barracks—

Brigadier O. L. Prior-Palmer (Worthing)

May I ask my right hon. Friend, in case I do not get called again today—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Rhys Hopkin Morris)

Order. The hon. and gallant Gentleman must not use an intervention for that purpose.

Brigadier Prior-Palmer

This question is relevant to what the right hon. Gentleman was saying, and I should like to have an answer.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

I do not know what the hon. and gallant Gentleman was about to say, but I was taking up his prefatory remark.

Brigadier Prior-Palmer

I wish seriously to ask my right hon. Friend whether this is not the time to consider putting the Army into "blues". If the old battle-dress is to be done away with and we are to have—I should not like to use the word which is in my mind—new battle equipment, would not this be a good opportunity to start putting the men into walking-out dress?

Mr. Head

I am obliged to my hon. and gallant Friend. I am strongly in favour of putting the Regular Army into "blues." We are gradually progressing with that, and we have got down to corporals. I hope that in due course we may include the nine-year and six-year men and then the ordinary privates.

I wish to say a word about barracks. We have a twenty-year programme now. I am not saying that it is perfect, but I would make this plea to my successors whichever party may win the next General Election. Please do not abandon the barrack building programme. Every single time it has been started in the past in peace-time it has been robbed, because there was not enough money to go round. We have the present deficit and the present barrack "slums"—there is no other word to describe them—because in the past this programme has never been carried out. After his flashing speech yesterday, the right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) may be the next Secretary of State for War. I hope that he will build the barracks and not give the money away for other purposes, which, in my opinion, would be a disaster. This is a long-term matter—the right hon. Gentleman is looking very quizzical—but this is a long-term matter and the problem will never be solved unless the plan for it is regarded as sacrosanct.

Mr. George Brown (Belper)

What was going through my mind was that the General Election is just over, and not just coming.

Mr. Head

If the right hon. Gentleman had listened to the first part of my remarks, he would have known that I mentioned a period of twenty years. So far as I know, there will be an Election within the next twenty years—I do not think that an unduly rash forecast. At the moment there are thirty-nine barracks building and, of the total sums spent, between 10 per cent. and 15 per cent. is going into hospitals.

I promised that I would say something about the boys' units. We have appointed a full-time Director of Boys' Training Units. We have also appointed a standing committee under the D.G.M.T. and its job will be to implement the decisions and requirements of that full-time director. We have a new method of selection of boys and a new system for the discharge of unsatisfactory boys. We have members of the W.V.S. attached to the majority of these units, which is an immense asset, and I wish to thank them for all they have done. We have altered the programme of work for the units. We have sent officers and N.C.O.s from the units to the Outward Bound schools where they have been on a course. We have a new method of selection of officers and N.C.O.s and we have also made arrangements whereby they stay longer at the boys' schools. We have provided more funds for games. We are moving the Signals. R.A.C., and R.E.M.E. units from their present sites, and also the R.E., R.A.S.C. and R.A.O.C. units further away from Aldershot. Our trouble so far as buildings are concerned is that they are in a queue with a great deal of other building, but by these moves and other improvements I hope that accommodation will get better. But it cannot be done all at once. Inevitably, it is a long-term matter.

I apologise to the House for the length of this speech. I have tried to indicate what we have been doing during last year and what our plans are for next year. To the "streamliners" and the "atomic, let's have it tomorrow" people, I would say that the Army does not change over night. The Army cannot be streamlined in a day. We are reducing total strength by 60,000. The Anti-Aircraft Command and Coastal Artillery have gone. The Regular Army and the T.A. are being reorganised. Guided missiles are coming in; we are trying to do something about building and to bring up to date methods of discipline and what I might term "bull." We have impressively reduced the cost of the Army in the face of additional costs in both wages and materials.

In these debates hon. Members always say, "What value have you got for your money?" I would say that we have four divisions in Germany which are respected by all the N.A.T.O. countries for their efficiency and standard of training. We have the rest of the Army which is spread all over the world aiding the civil Powers, fighting in jungles and doing peaceful duties where, thank goodness, there is no war. Without them, in the past few years, N.A.T.O. would have collapsed; we should have lost Malaya to the Communists, and there would have been chaos in Kenya. It is not for me to judge the relative value of expenditure for money, but I am responsible for the Army, and although I in no way claim it to be perfect, I suggest that, on the whole, the House of Commons can feel that it has got good value from the British Army.

5.10 p.m.

Mr. John Strachey (Dundee, West)

In welcoming back the Secretary of State for War after his indisposition, I should like to say how very glad we are that he has been able—no doubt at some sacrifice to himself—to come here and make an interesting and agreeable speech, as he does every year. It would have been particularly sad for us if he had not been here this year. He talked to us about the development of the guided missile "Corporal," but, as he has noticed, we also have a "guided missile" on this side of the House—a "Colonel"—and we have brought "Colonel" up to really close range this year.

Mr. Wigg

A ballistic weapon.

Mr. Strachey

Ballistic, perhaps. It would have been very disappointing to us if the target had not been present.

I want to speak mainly upon the same theme as that taken by the Secretary of State, which is naturally and obviously the main theme this year—the question of manpower, National Service, Regular recruiting and the new pay code and pay increases which he has brought in. Before doing so, however, I think it would be convenient if I made a few comments upon his speech.

I agree that his committee, which is considering the use of the National Service man, is a useful effort, although I was not very convinced by his instance of that committee's conclusion that whitewashing coal was really such a sensible thing. I should have thought that his committee might have found that there are better ways of avoiding the danger of tripping up in the dark. But if he goes into such matters as that with his committee, it certainly shows that an attempt is being made to meet what we all know is an extremely difficult problem.

I would say the same about what I am tempted to call his Papal Bull—or his anti-Bull—that is, his letter of recommendation. There, again, it is a good effort in a continuing struggle to make Army procedure as rational and sensible as it can be made. I was interested in what he told us about the new divisions, which supplements what he said in his Memorandum. I am certainly not one of those who say, or ever has said, that there is some atomic magic by which the divisional formations of the Army can be streamlined into something quite new. I agree with him that if a local and limited war ever occurs again, and fighting takes place without atomic weapons, we must certainly have the capacity to fight such a war. Nor do I think that there is anything to be done except what has been done by way of experimental manoeuvres in Germany to see what is the best divisional formation.

I am not very clear what has really been done so far. I am now referring to paragraphs 118 to 123 of the Memorandum as much as anything else. Would it be right to say that the distinction between the armoured and the infantry division is gradually being whittled away? The Memorandum talks of a good deal of armour being put into infantry divisions, and now we hear that an infantry brigade is being semi-detached to an armoured division. More and more armour seems to be going into the infantry, and more and more infantry into the armour. That process cannot continue indefinitely without the distinction disappearing. It may be the right thing to do. It is certainly a very difficult problem, and one upon which it would be absurd for me to be dogmatic.

The Secretary of State then went on to deal with the Reserve Army. He is in a very great difficulty there. Again, I am not blaming him for it, but what is to be the future rôle of the Territorials? Their old rôles, both in A.A. Command and in providing a series of reserve divisions to go out to Europe, have almost completely disappeared. It is most difficult to find a convincing new rôle for them. I am not sure whether the right hon. Gentleman will go on getting his volunteers unless we can give them something rather more definite than what is contained in the Memorandum or has been said today. Many hon. Members on both sides of the House must be concerned and worried about the future of the Territorial Army, because it is difficult to see a really specific task which it can be given.

In that connection, there is another element of uncertainty about which the right hon. Gentleman did not tell us anything. Perhaps the Under-Secretary of State will do so. What is the pay of the Territorial Army to be now? Hitherto, it has been in parallel with the pay of the Regular Army, but the pay of the Regulars has now been varied in accordance with length of service, and that cannot apply to the Territorials. Therefore, surely some new principle will have to be worked out. I rather wish the Secretary of State had told us something about that.

Mr. Head

I am sorry, but I could not get everything into my speech. If it is of any help to the House, I can give details of the proposed new system. Men of the Territorial Army and the Army Emergency Reserve will normally be paid the now three-year rate, and in addition will get an increment of 2s. a day when they have done four years' voluntary service; past service will count for this. If a T.A. or A.E.R. volunteer has Regular service which qualifies him for the six- or nine-year rate of pay, he will get that rate of pay, and also the further 2s. increment after four years' voluntary service.

Mr. Strachey

We shall want to study that and comment upon it. It is an important point which, I am glad to hear, has been taken into consideration.

The right hon. Gentleman also mentioned the FN rifle. I should like to read a few sentences upon the subject, first from last year's Memorandum and then from this year's. It really does not matter which I read first, but I shall read last year's first. It said: Five thousand FN self-loading rifles are now being tried by the troops in all overseas theatres. Preparations for production are being made and, as soon as final details resulting from troop trials are settled, production will be pressed on as rapidly as possible. This year we are told: The FN rifle has passed its trials and production plans have been made. The rifles which were purchased in Belgium for troop trials will now be deployed for use by troops in operational commands—Malaya and Kenya. I am not sure why the right hon. Gentleman troubled to have the type reset. The position with regard to production is exactly the same this year as it was last year, although, admittedly, we have bought some, and have had some troop trials. But it is not merely a question of the position being the same as it was last year; to my knowledge it is just the same as it was four and a half years ago when the Labour Government left office. We were then told that it would take two years to tool up for production. Apparently the position is still exactly the same.

Mr. Head

I cannot let the right hon. Gentleman say that without making some remark upon it. When he left office we never said that it would take two years to tool up for production. That is quite untrue. The year in which we were going into production has always been next year. I said that it was to be next year three years ago, and I remember that the then hon. Member for Aston and I had a tremendous bully-rag about it. I am quite prepared to start the argument again, although I am a little rusty about the facts of what happened three years ago. But it was never suggested that we would get into production with the FN rifle within two years of 1951, the year when the right hon. Gentleman left office.

Mr. Strachey

The Secretary of State entirely misunderstands me. I am not saying that four and half years ago he said it would take two years. I say, frankly that it was our official advice that within two years from that time we could start production. The right hon. Gentleman then changed the rifle over to a different type, which I think was wrong. I cannot conceive, even with that, why production was not started until four and half years later. This is typical of the things which we were pointing out yesterday and the day before in the defence debate. There are soothing references year after year in these Memorandums—

Mr. Head

There are two points in what the right hon. Gentleman says which are important. The first is that the decision not to continue with the EM rifle was entirely that of the late Government. They could have gone on with it and done it if they had liked. It was entirely in their power. I am not blaming them. It is a pity we have got into a row on this rifle, but this is the fact. I recollect it very well. I have had continuity in this matter. That decision was taken because the right hon. Gentleman went to Canada. My right hon. Friend the Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill) kicked up a fuss and we voluntarily stopped it, but it was stopped by the late Government.

The second point is that this is the year in which we were to have gone into production. It is not a matter of "year after year." We have always said that this was going to be the year.

Mr. Strachey

What the right hon. Gentleman has said is entirely incorrect. The decision was taken, and we were just about to go into production with the rifle. We were informed that we could do it in two years' time. We could not do it immediately, of course, because it had to be tooled-up, and that would take two years. It is entirely untrue that there was any suggestion that it would take four and half years.

I reiterate that I cannot understand why it has taken as long. This F.N. rifle is as good as the EM rifle. I have always said so very strongly. Unquestionably it is incomparably better than the rifle which is in use in the Army today. It is semiautomatic and, as the Secretary of State himself says, it is an immense improvement. I cannot think why it has taken all these years, and even now there is no statement in the White Paper that it has even now gone into production. The Secretary of State seemed to say, "This is the year when we always meant to go into production," but all that the White Paper says is that production plans have been made. There is no statement that we are actually going into production.

I am bound to repeat, and nothing that the Secretary of State has said will alter it, that this delay seems on all fours with the delays in aircraft and other important things which we have pointed out—and they have not been replied to—in the course of this week's debates. Here, in the case of a simpler weapon, apparently the same thing has happened, and the production position is exactly the same as it was four and a half years ago when the present Government came into office.

Mr. Head

It is a little unfair of the right hon. Gentleman to say that. He has not even mentioned the word "standardisation." [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] It is very relevant. The reason for the change in the rifle was that the right hon. Gentleman went to Canada. I have read the notes of that meeting. He discussed the matter with the Canadians. They said, "We are not going with you on this, and it will cause a great deal of trouble if you go off on a different rifle." Standardisation was decided upon by the late Government after my right hon. Friend the Member for Woodford's intervention. The reason for the delay and for the change was standardisation. Canada now has the rifle and the rest of the Dominions will follow; and there is a chance of America. The reason was standardisation, and it is right that that should be mentioned.

Mr. Shinwell

I have some sympathy with the Secretary of State for War. He has been indisposed, and he has made a long speech in which he has shown some progress. He has now indulged in a cock-and-bull story, and—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

The right hon. Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Strachey) is in possession of the House.

Mr. Shinwell

Perhaps you will let me complete my sentence, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, in case I should be misunderstood. The facts are quite otherwise than have been stated by the Secretary of State for War. If I should catch your eye later on I will say more about it.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

That would be more satisfactory.

Mr. Strachey

What my right hon. Friend has just said confirms what I said. Of course we know why the change was made from the E M to the F N rifle. It was for the purposes of standardisation. We did not agree with it, on balance, but even after the change was made I see no excuse for four and half years of delay. Even now the rifle has not gone into production. We are told year after year, I repeat, that plans are going to be made for its production but it does not actually start getting made.

Lieut.-Commander S. L. C. Maydon (Wells)

Would the right hon. Gentleman suggest production of this rifle before full troop trials had been carried out?

Mr. Strachey

Year after year we are told that troop trials are being carried out. The rifle was tried out in Belgium. Elaborate trials have gone on. I see no reason why production has taken all this time.

I come to the main subject of the debate, the manpower of the Army, the use of National Service, and the like. We have often discussed this before, but today there is a new atmosphere because we have complete agreement on both sides of the House on the objective, which is to abolish National Service altogether. That is the Prime Minister's own word. It is his objective to do that. Let me say, in no controversial spirit, that this year I hope we shall have none of the accusations about responsibility, pacifism, demagogy and all the rest of it, against those of us who are in favour of cutting the length of the call up or of ultimately abolishing it altogether, which both the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defence regard as a desirable objective.

The Secretary of State did not mention in his speech some of the reasons. The character of our military requirement has changed from a large build-up of a large reserve Army. It is no longer that. It has become the provision of a certain number of troops for tasks with the Colours. In the changed circumstances, National Service is a most inappropriate and unsuitable instrument, if we can find any other way of doing it. The right hon. Gentleman spoke very vividly of the effect of the change-over of men leaving, the very large training commitment, which it gives to the Amy, etc., and the general unsettlement.

All regimental officers to whom I have talked wonder how the system of having units made up very often 50–50 of Regulars and National Service men has worked so well. It is a great tribute to the regimental officers and their men that they have managed to work the thing as well as they have. It has now become apparent to all of us that this is not a suitable way of doing the job. That is now, I am delighted to see, accepted by the Government themselves.

We on these benches, however, are bound to say that really more important than giving acquiescence to the view that National Service should ultimately be abolished is what is done here and now. There, curiously enough, there is agreement also. There is agreement that here and now the number of men with the forces can be, and ought to be reduced. And there is further agreement that the cut in the total number of forces in the Services in general, and in the Army in particular can best be done by reducing the number of National Service men.

In that sphere, therefore, let us have no accusations of demogogy when we advocate a particular way of reducing the total number of National Service men with the Forces, because that is also the Government's objective. It is described in the White Paper which was issued in the autumn, and the Secretary of State has given the numbers and the figures in his Memorandum and in his speech. The only question between us, therefore, is as to how that agreed reduction in the total number of the Forces—and in the Army in particular—is to be made, but I think that we ought to compare rather carefully the way in which the Government propose to make that reduction and the alternative method proposed from this side of the House.

The Government's way of doing it is, as we know, that the total number of men with the Forces should drop from 800,000—in round figures—to 700,000 between the end of 1955 and 1958. During that same period the Army is to drop from 411,000 to 350,000. In other words, the total Forces are to drop by 100,000 and the Army by 61,000. That is to be done, in effect—and I am putting it shortly—by having three instead of four registrations a year. The consequence of that is that over a period from now until 1958 the age of call-up gradually rises to nineteen. That process has just begun, and by April next there will have been a drop of some 20,000. That is the picture of the way the Government want to do it.

What are the arguments for doing it that way? Of course, the main argument—and it is a perfectly simple one—is that it is substantially more convenient—and I hope hon. Members will not think that I am minimising this—for the Forces, and for the Army in particular, to have fewer men, but to have each man serving the full two-year period.

Mr. Ian Harvey (Harrow, East)

It is not just a matter of convenience, but of effectiveness.

Mr. Strachey

Other things being equal, of course, it is better to have the man for the longer period. He is useful, after training, for two years rather than for eighteen months.

If we think only of that consideration and do not balance it against anything else that is an advantage which must be taken fully into account. But the Government in their White Paper on National Service claim all sorts of other advantages as well. They claim that they are giving relief to industry, but any reduction in the total number of the forces gives some relief to industry. I suggest that simply raising the age of the call-up gives the very minimum relief to industry, because it gives it only in the sort of twilight period before the man is called up and when he cannot really settle down to any job at all. But the White Paper went on to argue still further that it was actually better for the man himself to be called up later. I think that that is contrary to all experience. There is no doubt at all that it is better for the man to be called up at eighteen rather than nineteen, and to get it over.

Finally, we are told—this is not in the White Paper, but it is an argument which is heard quite frequently—that at any rate it must be done this way, and that our alternative of a reduction in the period of National Service must not be applied at present because to do so would be a disincentive to Regular recruiting. We are told that men would not enter on a three-year engagement nearly as readily if National Service was reduced again to eighteen months. I find that a rather repulsive argument. I do not think that we can recruit our Regular Forces by, as it were, the threat of conscription for a comparable period unless people go into the Regular Forces. That is what it really comes to. I am putting it in a way which is perhaps unwelcome to hon. Members opposite, but it really does come to that.

Mr. Ian Harvey

I think that it is a disincentive to the Regular in that if he is training a man who is there for only eighteen months he does not get a fair go of the training period, and just as a man becomes useful the Regular has to start his work all over again. It is the disincentive of having to do a worthless job that is the one that matters.

Mr. Strachey

That is entirely different. The argument to which I am referring, and which is frequently used, is that the National Service man will not, of course, be as ready to sign on for three years if, by not doing so he has to serve only eighteen months instead of two years. Perhaps I am carrying the hon. Member with me in disposing of that and disregarding it—because I do not think it is valid.

If it were valid it would be a conclusive argument against the declared intention of the Prime Minister and of the Minister of Defence to get rid of National Service altogether. If it is a disincentive to Regular recruiting to reduce National Service to eighteen months it is far more of a disincentive to abolish it altogether. And, as the Secretary of State said, there are very strong counter-arguments that getting rid of National Service altogether would be a great aid to Regular recruiting. I think that he is quite right.

Our proposition, as the House knows, is that the Government should withdraw their extremely ill-judged proposal—as I see it on balance—to effect the reduction of the total numbers—which is common ground to us all—by increasing gradually the age of the call-up, and should subsitute for that a reduction of six months in the period of service so bringing it back to the eighteen-month period. That would mean simply keeping the call-up at the present age of eighteen and reducing the period of service—as it was, after all, right up to the Korean war—to eighteen months. On balance of considerations, military, industrial and fiuman—and that must be taken into account—that is a far better way of doing it.

Let me at once say, perfectly frankly, that the great advantage of that method is that it does reduce very considerably the really very heavy burden on young men in this country and on their families of the two-year period of National Service being maintained year after year. If I am to be called demagogic to say that, I put it to the House that because a proposition is undoubtedly popular—as this would be—that does not prove that it is wrong. After all, what do we mean by a proposition being popular? We mean that the majority of the British people are in favour of it, and the British people are not always wrong.

The onus of proof is on those who say that a popular measure is wrong. This would be popular because it would reduce what is an extremely heavy and long-continuing burden on our people. It is a burden falling not entirely—or even so much—one the young men themselves, some of whom—though only some—have an interesting time during their National Service. It is a burden which falls on their families. Those are the cases we all get, the family hardships which a two-year call-up brings.

Therefore, we quite frankly press very strongly that now that, as is admitted by the Government themselves, we can afford to reduce the total numbers in the Armed Forces, that reduction ought to be made by a reduction of six months in the period of National Service and not by the postponement of the call-up, which has nothing to recommend it, but the greater convenience—I think that is a fair word to use—which it undoubtedly gives to the military authorities.

The onus of proof is on those who say that a popular measure is wrong. By being popular it would reduce what is an extremely heavy and long-continuing burden on the people of this country, not only upon the young men themselves, some of whom have an interesting time doing their National Service, but on their families. Nearly all the cases which we get refer to the family hardship which a two-year call-up of National Service causes.

Of course, it is easier and preferable—if that is the right word—from the point of view of the military authorities alone to have fewer men for the longer period, but I say that the advantages have not been balanced against all the disadvantages which that way of doing it brings about. It has to be remembered that, curiously enough, the cost to the Forces of doing this by a six months' reduction in the period would be only 80,000 men as against 100,000 under the Government's way of doing it. It is hardly possible for the Government to accuse those of us who seek a reduction of 80,000 of irresponsibility towards the defences of the country when their own proposal reduces the number by 20,000 more.

The answer to the hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Ian Harvey) is that one cannot put it very much higher than inconvenience to the military authorities for the simple reason, which has often been mentioned before, that we had the eighteen months' period of National Service right up to the Korean war, during the earlier part of my own period of office at the War Office, and the Army Council never made representations to me against it. It never suggested for one moment that it was too short a period to be useful, and it never suggested until the Korean war came on that it was wrong to have the eighteen months' period. The suggestion that there is something intolerably short about the eighteen months' period is something which has come into the minds of the military authorities after the Korean War.

Mr. Head

I am sorry to interrupt, but this is rather an important point. When the right hon. Gentleman was being advised by the Army Council that eighteen months was all right—

Mr. Strachey

I did not say that.

Mr. Head

The right hon. Gentleman said that they did not say that it was wrong, up to the time of Korea. What he has not said to the House, which is very relevant to this, is that at that time the basis of eighteen months was designed as the minimum period in which to train men for the Reserves. It was the Korean crisis which created the absolute necessity to work up the size of the active Army. He is comparing like with unlike. The eighteen months was the Reserve training period. It was with the Korean war that the whole emphasis came off Reserve training and on to increasing the size of the Army.

Mr. Strachey

It is curious that the right hon. Gentleman raises that because I was about to deal with it myself. That is not the case. Of course, Korea was the last straw in the way of commitments which made it impossible to do the job with an eighteen months' period. That is why we put it up to two years. We were most careful to give binding pledges—my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) and myself—that the period was put up only for the period of the Korean war and to meet that emergency. It is not true that before the outbreak of the Korean war National Service men were being used only to be trained for the Reserve.

As a matter of fact, the commitments before the Korean war were much heavier than they are now. There was the Suez commitment—an enormous commitment—much bigger than it is today. There was Trieste and Austria. It is a matter of arithmetic. If the Secretary of State will look at the commitments of this country and the number of troops overseas before Korea, he will certainly find that they were heavier than they are today. The Suez commitment alone was enormous. National Service men were being used at that time not only for building up the Reserve, but in the way in which they are being used now, to fill up the ranks of the active Army with the Colours. No one suggested then that that could not be done with an eighteen months' period of service. I do not think that it is possible to get away from that conclusion.

I am, therefore, bound to controvert the statement made by the Secretary of State that the military authorities are not an obstacle to a reduction in the period. It is quite true, as he said, that, of course, every general and every officer wants an all-Regular Army, but, nevertheless, I think that the extreme difficulty of getting the period of National Service down from two years to eighteen months, long after the occasion for which it was put up, Korea, is over, is an example of how difficult it is to get these things down once they have been put up and of the tremendous vested military interest which takes hold when the period is put up like this. I cannot draw any other conclusion from it than that.

Of course, conditions are different in various ways, comparing the present with the pre-Korean period. The biggest difficulty is one which the Secretary of State has not mentioned. It is that Regular recruiting in real terms, in terms of man-years, is much less good than it was at that time. That is the real difficulty. On the other hand, I cannot see how the Secretary of State can deny, when he reads his own Memorandum, that the commitments of the Army are very much less than they were in the pre-Korean period and are fairly rapidly diminishing, as he says in paragraph after paragraph of his Memorandum.

We therefore find it very odd that the Government, who say that they are out to abolish National Service altogether at some time in the future, are unwilling to take the practical and modest first step now of reducing the period by, say, six months. Surely they cannot suggest that National Service should be abolished all in one jump. That, I should have thought, would be an extremely reckless thing to do. That would mean a diminution over two years of just over 200,000 men in the size of the Army. I should have thought that there must be some tapering off process. Quite frankly, it makes us a little sceptical about the Government's intentions to abolish National Service altogether when we cannot today get them even to look at the very modest proposition of going back to the pre-Korean period of National Service of eighteen months.

I should like to say a word or two about the long-term future of the Army. There, again, there is common ground that we desire it to be an all-Regular Army. Neither the Memorandum nor the Secretary of State's speech has altered my view that the Government have not very seriously thought out the size, the shape and the kind of Army which, over the longer term and looking several years ahead, is likely to meet the real military requirements, speaking in the narrow Army sense, which this country will have. As the right hon. Gentleman truly said, it is a question of a balance-sheet—how many men can we get by Regular recruiting and what are our commitments; what are the inescapable needs for troops.

None of us can foresee either of those things accurately. Some of us are apt to put all our emphasis on one factor, recruiting, and some of us are apt to put most of our emphasis on the other factor, commitments, but, obviously, one is just as important as the other, and we have to consider the balance between the two.

How many recruits shall we need? The Secretary of State has estimated, I admit with carefully guarded words, that about 300,000 would be needed for his present commitments. Unless those commitments can be reduced, I would say to him, that would mean that we should have National Service in perpetuity. I do not believe that these pay increases, which are substantial and very welcome, will give us 300,000 Regulars, and nor does he. He said quite clearly that he thought that they would bring us about 200,000; in other words, they would stop the rot in Regular recruiting but not do much more than that.

The question is: can we envisage a Regular long-service Army of about 200,000 men doing the jobs which we are likely to find indispensable for our land military forces over the next few years? I put it to the House that I think that is a possible proposition, and I am much encouraged by the statement yesterday by my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington that he took that view. Granted that the composition of a Regular army of that size was right and granted that there were enough men on sufficiently long engagements—perhaps an average of about five years—that would mean the recruitment of a force of about 200,000 men or one million man-years. Granted that the structure was right, I cannot see that it is impossible to imagine what are likely to be our commitments over the next few years being met by a Regular force of that size.

We cannot possibly foresee what those commitments will be, but let me say at once that we come here partly to a question of policy. One kind of foreign policy and one kind of Commonwealth policy might, of course, involve us in commitments which could not possibly be met by an Army of 200,000. I was interested to hear the speech yesterday of the hon. Member for Preston, North (Mr. J. Amery). He wanted us, in certain circumstances, to go back into the Canal Zone and in no circumstances to grant self-determination to Cyprus. I am quite willing to admit that with a policy of that sort we could not possibly get through with a Regular force of 200,000. I should have thought that we should want a force of nearly two million.

On the other hand, with a rational foreign and Commonwealth policy such as I am bound to say the present Government are themselves pursuing, not in the case of Cyprus but in the case of other parts of the Commonwealth, there seems nothing inconceivable about the job being done by a Regular army of the size I have suggested.

After all, we now know, although we did not know so long ago—at any rate it was not public—what is the disposition of the present army throughout the world. This has been published in The Times, as hon. Members have said. It is certainly rather strange that that is our source of information, but there it is. From other sources and from the reticences of the Secretary of State, necessary as they are, I think it will be agreed that in rough figures—and we cannot go further than rough figures in looking into the future—The Times is not far out.

For what it is worth, The Times tells us that we have 80,000 men in Germany today and 15,000 in Cyprus. I will not argue the case of Cyprus on the Army Estimates, but I put it to the House as a simple military matter that if we need 15,000 men for internal security in Cyprus, then from a military point of view it is hopelessly uneconomic and un-worthwhile to be in Cyprus, because the men will not be useful for any other purpose. As the right hon. Gentleman himself has told us, all but two of the units there, for 90 per cent. of their time, are engaged in internal security work, which means that they are quite useless for all other purposes. I suggest that about 5,000 men in a base in Cyprus, after an agreed settlement there, is the very most that can be of any economic use to us.

We find that there are 5,000 men today in Malta and Gibraltar. Surely that is an anachronism of the worst kind. Can we conceive that that is a useful disposition of troops today? Let us say we had 2,000 there. For the rest, let us take The Times figures of 2,000 in North Africa. I will not say whether I agree with them or not, but simply take them for the sake of argument. There are 1,000 in Jordan, 1,000 in Kenya and 1,000 in Korea. I am taking each of these as a battalion plus the odds and ends behind it.

We have 11,000 in Hong Kong, and there again it is a strange proposition to station 11,000 men in Hong Kong today on any hypothesis. I will not go into the obvious demerits of this disposition, but merely say that it is very strange. It is estimated that there are 13,500 in Malaya. One could hope very confidently that that figure would drop rapidly, but let us take it for the moment at the present level. There are 1,000 in the Caribbean and 1,000 in Aden. That adds up to 110,000 and, after all, that is not an out-of-this-world proposition for an Army of the general size and shape of which I have spoken.

I agree with much of what the Secretary of State said about the strategic reserve, which I think has a new function today. The old function which we had in mind of reinforcing a line in Europe has disappeared, but I agree that what we call for the sake of brevity a fire-brigade function has a great deal to be said for it, and I am very glad that the right hon. Gentleman has begun to make an air-transportable brigade for that purpose. What is needed, I am sure, is a whole air transportable strategic reserve for fire-brigade purposes, to go out in a matter of hours to any part of the world, as is now technically possible. Such a strategic reserve, of course, could not be the whole of the balance between 110,000 and 200,000, since there are all sorts of other miscellaneous purposes which I have not mentioned, but it would perhaps be between 25,000 and 50,000 men.

I suggest that a professional Army of that size and shape is the sort of thing at which we ought to aim today. It would be comparatively small but highly-trained, highly-professional, highly-paid, highly-skilled and highly-mobile. It would have no pretence at being a force for fighting a global war. I believe that no longer will any Army take any decisive part in the fighting of such a war. Its vital rôle would be to act as an instrument which the Government could use in local and limited conflicts precisely in order to prevent us from being involved in a global war.

It would not be cheap because it would have to be very highly paid and very highly equipped, but it would make a draught on the manpower of this country only about half as great as the present Army's draught on manpower. Therefore it would fit in to the general concept of our defence forces which we this week have tried to put before the House. We need defence forces which will meet our real and indispensable requirements and yet be of such a size and shape so that they constitute a limited burden on our economy. For this alone shall we leave this country sufficiently buoyant to put its own economy in order and to help to put into order the economy of all friendly countries.

6.1 p.m.

Mr. James Dance (Bromsgrove)

I am very pleased to have the opportunity of raising a problem which is very seriously facing the Territorial Army, and that is the problem of recruitment. We realise that great changes are going on in the organisation of the Territorial Army and that there is a certain amount of doubt as to what its future rôle will be, but I am quite certain that all of us who have seen the Territorial Army in the past and know its record will agree that that rôle will be fulfilled in a first-class fashion.

A change which has taken place recently affects service in the Territorial Army. Until comparatively recently ex-National Service men were required to serve for three years in the Territorial Army. That has now been reduced to one camp, with the result that the emphasis on the necessity for volunteers has been greatly increased. I believe that some form of incentive should be given to those volunteers. That incentive would be there in the form of the bounty, if the bounty were used in a slightly different way. I know from experience as a yeoman that one of the main difficulties in getting recruits to the Territorial Army, is that wives are apt to say, "It is all very well for you to go on your fortnight's camp, but that means that we shall have no holiday together as a family." Usually the reasons are financial.

Recently, the bounty for other ranks has been increased to £20, and I understand that the question of officers' bounties is under review. That £20 is not paid until the man has served for three camps, which is too late. If that bounty were paid at the end of each camp, provided a man had proved his efficiency, an incentive would be given to a man to join the Territorial Army. He could then say to his wife, "All right, I will do my fortnight's camp and then we shall have £20 for a holiday afterwards."

Whilst on this subject, I think it would be a very good thing if strong representations were made to employers to see that time is made available for men to go for a week's holiday after they have finished their Territorial camp. The amount of £20 is not very great. I understand that three years ago Western Command strongly supported a recommendation that it should be raised to £24. That was three years ago, but now I am sure there is much support for raising the sum to £30. That, of course, is a matter for the Treasury to decide, but I hope my right hon. Friend will give consideration to that point of view. I am quite certain it would help voluntary recruitment to the Territorial Army. If action could be taken on those lines, it would give great encouragement to all interested in this first-class movement.

6.5 p.m.

Mr. A. E. Hunter (Feltham)

I am very pleased to have the opportunity to take part in this debate. Tonight, I am raising a human question. I am not dealing with the defence matters, as I am certain that there are plenty of experts on both sides of the House who can do that.

I am raising a question which I promised some mothers and fathers in my constituency of Feltham and some constituents of my hon. Friends the Member for Leicester, South-West (Mr. Bowden) and Bosworth (Mr. A. Allen) that I would raise at the first opportunity. It is the question of 16-year-old soldiers being sent to Cyprus. This matter has caused a large amount of public interest and public sympathy. I have had letters from mothers and fathers, not only from my constituency, but from other constituencies. Until last December I was unaware that 16-year-old boys were sent to active service stations. When one of my constituents, a Mr. Groves of West Hounslow, came to this House protesting to me about his boy being sent to Cyprus, which caused his wife worry and distress, I at once wrote to the Secretary of State and addressed Questions to him in this House.

I received replies from the Secretary of State which I considered unsatisfactory. Then came the Christmas Recess and, during the Recess, one of these boy soldiers, Boy Wright of Leicester, was wounded. That at once increased the anxiety of mothers of these boy soldiers serving in Cyprus. There are 21 boys under 18 out there, either as band boys or drummer boys. So far as I can judge, originally the boy is a cadet and is persuaded by the sergeant instructor to sign on for Regular service and is told he will be trained for a musical career. It seems to me that if a boy is to be trained for a musical career the best place in which to teach him is in this country, not on active service stations.

The question came before this House again when I had a most unsatisfactory reply from the Secretary of State. He made the remark, which he afterwards withdrew in this House, that these boys were as safe as if they were on the Great West Road, which, as hon. Members know, runs through Hounslow. I do not wish to remind the right hon. Gentleman of that statement tonight. He afterwards agreed to receive a deputation of parents of the boys, and did so, with my hon. Friends the Members for Leicester, South-West and Bosworth and myself. Although the Secretary of State did his best to assure the boys' parents that there was no danger, the mothers and fathers went back to Leicester, Feltham and Hounslow by no means assured.

Take the case of Mrs. Fairbrass, one of my constituents, whose boy, David, is just over 16 and is serving in Cyprus. He was taken to a military hospital for four weeks and the mother never received a word about his whereabouts or what had happened to him. It is true that when I wrote to the Secretary of State the Under-Secretary at once commenced inquiries. I think that for the military authorities in charge of that hospital to have a boy soldier there for four weeks and not to write to his parents shows a lack of human feeling. I hope that that matter will be put right.

I want to turn to the broad question. Do these boy soldiers serve any useful purpose in going to Cyprus? I should imagine the very fact that the commanders of the unit feel a responsibility for them is a constant worry, because the boys are now writing home to their parents that, since this question has been raised in the House of Commons, the boys have been seldom allowed out of the camp. There was very little musical instruction given to them until recently, and it was only when my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth addressed a Question to the Secretary of State for War that the boys again began to receive instruction in music.

Do we want bands in Cyprus? I should imagine that a band is a target for a gunman or for a bomb, and it is no good the Secretary of State for War saying that these boys are as safe as children, because any figure in khaki in Cyprus at the present time is bound to be a target for a gunman or terrorist. Therefore, I ask the War Office to get rid of the old tradition that we must have bandboys with units serving abroad. A little while ago I was reading a book about the South African War in which it was stated that the War Office sent soldiers to South Africa in scarlet uniforms, with the result that the Boers could easily pick them out in the mountains. Afterwards, the uniform was changed to khaki.

It seems to me that the War Office is still thinking of old ideas and old traditions, although I do not believe that either the Secretary of State himself or the Under-Secretary is a hard or inhuman man. I think that they are to some extent bound by the traditions of the War Office and by some of its red tape, and, even at this late hour, I appeal to the Secretary of State not to stand on tradition; if he changes his mind, he will show courage not weakness. I myself believe in good traditions, but I say that we should not let tradition stand in the way of commonsense and humanity.

I therefore appeal to the Secretary of State to open the windows of the War Office and let the breath of humanity come in in order to relieve the anxieties and distress of the parents of these boy soldiers, who should be removed from active service stations.

6.13 p.m.

Mr. Alan McKibbin (Belfast, East)

I wish to call attention to the benefit to the Army of a high standard of permanent accommodation and to urge the Government to provide more and better barracks, married quarters and military hospitals in Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

I am starting with Northern Ireland, first, because I know more about the accommodation there, and, secondly, because I know of the importance of Northern Ireland to the United Kingdom in the defence of Western Europe.

Mr. Bellenger

On a point of order. Is the House to understand that the hon. Member is attempting to move the Amendment on the Order Paper in his name?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Charles MacAndrew)

No; I did not call the hon. Gentleman with that in view. I gather that he is speaking to the main Motion. The Amendment in the hon. Gentleman's name will not be called and it cannot be moved now.

Mr. McKibbin

I am not attempting to move it.

Mr. Emrys Hughes

Do I understand that the first Amendment on the Order Paper is due to be called?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

I do not know what the hon. Gentleman means by "due to be called." It will be called, but not at the moment.

Mr. McKibbin

General Eisenhower, in a speech in Belfast, said: Without Northern Ireland, I do not see how the American Forces could have concentrated to begin the invasion of Europe. If Ulster had not been a definite co-operative part of the British Empire and had not been available for our use, I do not see how the build-up could have been carried out in England. My third reason is because I read in Daily Mail on 22nd February a statement attributed to the Secretary of State for War which said that work would be started on seven barracks this year. It gave the names of these barracks, six of them in England and one in Scotland. There was no mention whatever of Northern Ireland. The barracks accommodation for Regular troops in Northern Ireland is really not too bad on the whole; nevertheless, there are a great many improvements that could be made. There are three barracks which could be described as excellent—St. Patrick's Barracks, at Ballymena, built of brick in 1939; the Thiepval Barracks, at Lisburn, built of brick in 1940, and the Abercorn Barracks at Ballykincar, also built of brick in 1940. These are the only three that could be described as excellent.

The Palace Barracks, at Holywood, built in 1900, may be described as good, and I believe that modernisation plans are in hand. The Depot Barracks at Omagh, built of stone in 1881, are fairly good, but not up to the 1948 standard, and plans are in hand for redesigning them. There are plenty of plans for barracks in Northern Ireland in hand, but I would much sooner see bricks in somebody's hands. There are also the barracks at Gough, in Armagh, built in 1773, and again not up to the 1948 standard. Plans for the modernisation of these barracks are very near completion, and work may possibly begin this year or next. There are a good many other camps in Northern Ireland, about which I need not go into detail. Whether they will ever be reconditioned and whether money will be spent on them will probably depend on the future size of the Army.

In regard to Territorial Army accommodation in Northern Ireland, when the T.A. was formed in Northern Ireland in 1947, the units were accommodated in war-time Nissen huts or other temporary buildings. Unlike Great Britain, Northern Ireland had not had 45 years of permanent building of quarters to fall back on, and this situation was represented to the War Office in 1954. We were then directed to begin planning at the rate of a certain sum of money per annum, but the rate of construction has not been maintained.

The Territorial Army units in Northern Ireland consist of the Northern Irish Horse, now equipped with armoured cars, the Royal Artillery, the Royal Corps of Signals, R.E.M.E., R.A.S.C., R.A.M.C., R.A.O.C., the Royal Corps of Military Police, the Intelligence Corps, the Queen's University Training Corps and the W.R.A.C. Recruitment for all these is very satisfactory, and I would urge the War Office to implement without delay the full programme which was considered necessary in 1954 and which was then presented to the War Office. We also have some units of the Army Cadet Force dispersed throughout Northern Ireland. This Force provides youth welfare centres. There are also a considerable number of recruits for the Regular and Territorial armies.

May I now say a word or two about the accommodation of the Army Cadet Force, not only in Northern Ireland, but also in Great Britain? With the notable exception of a few T.A. drill halls, where excellent accommodation has been provided for the A.C.F., the huts and headquarters of cadet units are not, generally speaking, in very good shape. An annual grant is provided by the War Office for the purchase of new accommodation, and there is also a maintenance grant, but neither is big enough for providing new accommodation or, indeed, preventing the present accommodation from deteriorating. Many of them have now reached an age when no useful purpose is served by spending money on them.

With the closing down of the Home Guard and the reorganisation of the Territorial Army, an opportunity occurs, or will soon present itself, for rehousing these A.C.F. units. It is hoped that the Secretary of State for War will be as generous as possible in allowing the Army Cadet Force to take advantage of this situation. On the whole, the standard of married quarters in Northern Ireland is good, with the major exception of Victoria Barracks, in my constituency, but half of this barracks is due to be sold to the Belfast Corporation and the remainder is being handed over to the Territorial Army, which does not require married quarters.

At Armagh, all the married quarters are old and unsuitable for modernisation. New quarters, I understand, are being built as part of the reorganisation of the barracks. There is a camp for married families at Kilroot, which recently came in for a lot of adverse comment by one of the Sunday papers. This was perfectly justified as it is a dismal and out of the way spot, 15 miles from Belfast and 14 miles from Larne. I drove through it two Sundays ago when it was snowing very hard. A more dismal spot I have never seen, and I was very glad that I did not have to stay there. My opinion of this camp is that it should be abolished altogether.

Mr. Emrys Hughes

Hear, hear.

Mr. McKibbin

I thank the hon. Member. If such a camp is necessary, it should be built in a more accessible spot.

Good accommodation for the families of soldiers is a necessity. An unhappy wife makes an unhappy soldier and an unhappy soldier is less likely to be useful to his country than a happy one. Improvement in married quarters should be a first priority, and this applies not only to Northern Ireland but to the rest of the United Kingdom.

The only military hospital to which I shall refer is that at Waringfield. On 29th March, 1955, I quoted a statement by General Cantlie, an ex-Director of the R.A.M.C., that there had not been a hospital built at home for 50 years, and that there was a scandalously bad one in Northern Ireland."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th March, 1955; Vol. 539, c. 187.] I agree with him and I have been there, but, fortunately, not as a patient. On the same occasion my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Down, South (Captain Orr) referred to the place as "a collection of obsolete shacks."

Mr. Emrys Hughes

That is the War Office.

Mr. McKibbin

The Secretary of State for War agreed with my hon. and gallant Friend and replied that a new military hospital was being built at Lisburn. I do not know how far the plans for this hospital have advanced, but I hope that in the interests of the health of the troops it will not be long delayed.

I have little experience of barracks in this country since the 1914–18 war, except at Altcar, to which the Northern Ireland Cadet Force goes to camp every year. The cadets are so pleased with it that they do not want to go anywhere else. The accommodation and the ranges are first class and very accessible and the spirit of the camp is excellent. This, I think, is largely attributable to the camp commandant, Colonel Chaplin, who, like his famous namesake, is a man of many parts. My only suggestion about Altcar is that it could usefully have a good football and sports ground.

A few days ago, not knowing much about barracks over here, I met a young soldier who had just joined the Regular Army and I asked what he thought about it. He said he had been at Berwick, where the barracks were built by General Monk in 1659, and the only improvements to be made since then were basins with no hot water and electric light. He also said that he had been at Woolwick, which was built in 1780, that there had been practically no changes since that time, and that the troops still slept in iron beds one above the other. He said that many of the barracks were old and required modernisation and that there was a lack of good married quarters. He said that one of the things that caused a great deal of trouble was the uncertainty of quarters for the families of soldiers who went abroad to places where their families could not accompany them. He also said that this was very disturbing to the families and that if these things were put right, they would provide an even greater incentive to long engagements than higher pay.

Those are the opinions of a young soldier, and, in their way, they are just as important as those of a general. He also told me about a transit camp where he had been which had 188 steps below Goodge Street Underground Station, and he said that the temperature down there reminded him of the black hole of Kosti.

6.25 p.m.

Mr. Ede (South Shields)

I oppose the Motion, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair." I cannot imagine a worse speech from a Secretary of State for War than the one we have had this afternoon. This is the successor of Cardwell, Campbell Bannerman and Haldane. If they have the opportunity of looking down on our discussions, I cannot help imagining them thinking that the Army and its civilian head could hardly fall lower than in a speech such as the one we heard this afternoon.

The right hon. Gentleman left the Territorial Army until the end of his speech. He did not deal with what is to me the outstanding difficulty of the Territorial Army. I refer to the amazing way in which officers and men, respectively, are paid at annual camp. Recently, I received a letter from an officer in the Territorial Army, who drew my attention to the comparative rates of pay for the various ranks up to captain during the 15 days' camp.

A sergeant receives a daily rate of 19s. 6d., which gives him £14 12s. 6d. for his pay. A bounty of £12 gives him a total of £26 12s. 6d. A warrant officer class II, paid at the rate of 24s. 6d., gets £18 7s. 6d. plus a bounty of £12, giving him in all £30 7s. 6d. A warrant officer class I gets a daily rate of pay of 26s. 6d. which gives him £19 17s. 6d.; and with the £12 bounty he gets £31 17s. 6d. A captain gets 29s. daily pay, which gives him £21 15s. He gets no bounty and, therefore, he receives £21 15s., or almost £5 less than a sergeant.

This occurred to me as being so strange that I could hardly believe it was true, so I communicated with my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg). The Secretary of State for War said that my hon. Friend had the dirtiest mind in the House—a strange utterance from the Front Bench. But my hon. Friend also has the acutest mind in the House on this matter. He telephoned to the War Office. This only shows the courage of my hon. Friend. Certainly, I would never have dared to telephone to the War Office. I think myself lucky if I write to the right hon. Gentleman and get an answer within 21 days, but my hon. Friend telephoned to the War Office, who confirmed these figures.

Mr. Head

Before the right hon. Gentleman goes on, I should like to inform him that officers receive a £10 allowance for camp in addition to that pay.

Mr. Ede

I thought that that would be the answer, so I took the trouble to write to my correspondent. I was going to come to that point in a few minutes. The right hon. Gentleman continually complained during his speech that people were interrupting him too soon. He should not fall into the same mistake himself. What the officer gets is £10 paid into the messing account, and he pays exactly the same as he otherwise would do. He does not have his meals free when he is in camp. The £10 goes into a general fund. Let me show how acute is my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley. He wrote to me: There is one hole in this argument. Your correspondent fails to mention that an officer gets a messing allowance of, I think, £10 a year. If I want accurate information I go to my hon. Friend, and that point was well within my knowledge before the right hon. Gentleman interrupted me.

Let us take that fact into account and see how things work out. The marriage allowance at camp is 7s. a day for a sergeant, 7s. 6d. for a warrant officer Class II, 8s. for a warrant officer Class I, 8s. for a second lieutenant if he is under 25—and I am informed that nearly all second lieutenants in the Territorial Army are under 25–18s. 6d. for a first lieutenant and 18s. 6d. for a captain. If we add this marriage allowance, the sergeant receives £31 17s. 6d. altogether, the warrant officer Class II £36, the warrant officer Class I £37 17s. 6d., the second lieutenant £19 2s. 6d., the first lieutenant £28 10s. and the captain £25 12s. 6d., which is less than is received by a warrant officer Class I. There were days when I might have thought that that was about just.

In the main, these Territorial officers are young middle-class men—accountants, people employed in local government and in similar capacities—who have no very large sum of money at their disposal. They give up a very great deal of time. They have practically to lose their chances in a good many other things that men like. I never reached any of these exalted ranks. I applied for a commission and the lord lieutenant asked me how much money I had, because one was expected to keep up a position when one had a commission.

These men, as I have said, have not very much money. In my case, I had to give up practically every other Saturday to attend battalion drills or to fire my appropriate number of rounds at Bisley. One cannot keep one's place in the cricket team in summer when one has to do that. [Laughter.] I assure my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) that some Englishmen rather like keeping their place in the cricket team. I know that my hon. Friend would say, "Any excuse to get out of the Army," but when a man joins the Territorial Army he finds that it incurs social disabilities which represent some sacrifice in the performance of what he regards as his duty.

These young men who are officers in the modern Territorial Army deserve better treatment than they are having. The recent alterations in pay and allowances, while they considerably improve the position of all ranks in the Regular Army, make no alteration at all in the payments that are made to these young men who perform this patriotic duty. It is no good the Secretary of State for War paying the usual eulogy this afternoon to the sacrifice and patriotism of these men unless that finds some practical expression.

Those of us whose memories of the old volunteers and the Territorial Army go back into the last century know that throughout all that time we have heard that kind of statement made by a Secretary of State for War and other people speaking on behalf of the War Office. This is a grievance which is keenly felt by these officers. It is quite plain that an officer going to camp has to incur expenses, owing to his rank, from which he cannot very well escape. It must be very galling to find non-commissioned officers, worthy men as they are and not overpaid as they are, receiving a larger sum of money in respect of their attendance at camp than does a man who is as high in the officer ranks as a captain.

The Secretary of State for War went through some amazing arithmetical exercises this afternoon. I thought that at one stage he had said that if he could get a Regular Army of 200,000 men he would be able to do away with National Service, but later on I gathered that the number that he wants is really 300,000 and that he does not expect to get more than 200,000. Very well, if he can only get his 200,000 the right hon. Gentleman will still need the services of these young men, some of them getting to- wards lower middle age, in the Territorial Army. I sincerely hope that this anomaly and injustice to which I have drawn attention will receive early, ameliorative attention from the right hon. Gentleman and those who advise him.

Several Hon. Members

rose—

Mr. Ede

It is seventeen years since I have been able to take part in a debate on the Army Estimates. I know the objection to Privy Councillors opening their mouths at all, but Privy Councillors have constituents, and their constituents sometimes value them the more because they are Privy Councillors. And they are not to be silenced by the ambitious people who, when they become Privy Councillors, will see the whole situation from a different point of view.

This Motion, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair," goes very far back in our constitutional history. It means, in that significance, that until grievances are remedied the Crown will not get the money for which it asks. I believe that this small concession for which I ask today is one to which the patriotic services of the men concerned entitle them. I hope that in the reply which will be made later from the Government Front Bench I shall have some assurance that the matter will receive attention. If it does not, if there is anyone else bold enough to do it, I shall resist the Motion that you do leave the Chair, Sir.

6.40 p.m.

Mr. Richard Sharpies (Sutton and Cheam)

I hope that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) will excuse me if I say, as a very junior Member of this House, that I thought his opening remarks were a little ungenerous in view of the detailed speech made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War. The speech may have been for some of us a little long, but it gave a great deal of detail, and I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman knows that my right hon. Friend has not been well and was speaking under conditions of some difficulty. With that, if the right hon. Gentleman will excuse me, I will leave the remainder of his argument and return to the main body of the Army Estimates.

My right hon. Friend is to be congratulated on continuing the general reduction in the level of expenditure on the Army which has been apparent during the last two years. That has been done mainly by the cutting out of certain arms and elements of our Army which have become redundant with the passing of time, for instance, the abandonment of Anti-Aircraft Command and of Coastal Artillery. I hope that this process will continue, because as weapons and arms become redundant with the development of new techniques, it is important that there should be a continuous review of those things which have served their time.

One reduction has been the placing in reserve of the Home Guard. That was the right decision to take although I know that there has been among its members a feeling that they were taken by surprise and that they might have received some form of recognition. I know the difficulty there, but I ask my right hon. Friend to consider whether it might not be possible for a certificate to be given to those men to show that they have served in the Home Guard since the end of the war, because they gave up a great deal of time to that duty.

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the general lines of the Estimates and the statement issued on them. If I had any criticism to make, it would be on points of detail, not on the general policy outlined in the White Paper, which I believe to be right. I want to refer, first, to the new pay code as it affects the Army. My right hon. Friend was right to go for the differential for the man who takes on a long-service Regular engagement and not to go for the allowances. I know that there were people who thought we should have used the money available for increasing the marriage allowances, but I think the Government were right to go for the flat basic rate of pay and the differential.

It is a pity, however, that it has not been found possible to give the soldier more cash and less kind. I am told that there are considerable accounting difficulties if one tries to give the soldier more in cash and make him pay for some of the benefits which he now receives in kind. I do not accept the fact that those accounting difficulties could not be overcome. I believe that by doing this we should achieve a considerable degree of simplification in Army accounts. My right hon. Friend at one time accused Field Marshal Montgomery of oversimplification. I believe that this can sometimes be a good thing, and Field Marshal Montgomery has said of the Army accounting system that it is based on the fact that everybody is a crook, and if he is not a crook then the system makes him one very quickly.

Mr. Ede

Hear, hear.

Mr. Emrys Hughes

I have already asked that question of the Secretary of State for War, but he has supported this system of crooks.

Mr. Sharpies

The hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) was certainly on the right lines on that occasion.

It is a fact that the accounting system in the Army is utterly antiquated, and if anything leads to fraud and to temptation it is the existing system of pay, where the quartermaster-sergeant knows exactly the amount of credit that a man has in his balance. If he should be dishonest, or should be tempted to be dishonest, he knows where he can go for money and where he can falsify the account, and the soldier who has the large balance is probably the last one to realise that his account is being tampered with. Certainly, there is a possibility of fraud in the present system.

I do not want to discuss in detail the organisation of the new infantry division and of the armoured division, both of which are referred to in the White Paper, and to which my right hon. Friend added details this afternoon. I would only say of the new infantry division that I am glad we have not gone for the light division. It has been suggested that we should go for a light, streamlined division. As I understood my right hon. Friend, a heavier division than the one we have at present has been produced, and I believe I am right in saying that it is slightly heavier in manpower. I am sure that was the right decision and that we must look elsewhere in attempting to reduce manpower. I am not so sure that the reorganisation of the armoured division will be received with the same degree of enthusiasm as that given to the organisation for the new infantry division.

I regret to say that there was no mention in the White Paper of a reorganisation of the method of supplying the Army. In modern war, the system of large dumps, maintenance centres and a long administrative tail is completely out of date. My right hon. Friend did very briefly refer to this problem. In the end we shall have to have a system of air supply, although I realise that in peacetime it may be difficult and expensive completely to reorganise on those lines. Nevertheless, we should be thinking of getting the staff organisation, so that in war-time we could quickly switch over to a system of air supply without disruption.

I want also to refer to staff. It is always fashionable to criticise the size of the staff. If one wishes to talk about reducing the Army, one always first refers to reducing the staff. The staff comes in for a lot of undeserved criticism. I notice from the Estimates that although there has been a net reduction at the War Office, there has been an increase in the number of officers and civilians of officer equivalent rank. There has been an increase of sixty-five officers, or the civilian equivalent of officers, in the branch of the Permanent Under-Secretary; and in that of the Chief of the Imperial General Staff there has been an increase of two major-generals, six lieut.-colonels and seventeen majors. I very much hope that my hon. Friend will be able to justify the increase, for when there is an increase in staff at the top of an organisation, the increase spreads itself right down, because there has to be someone lower down to answer letters.

I hope that my hon. Friend will carefully study the Army elements of staffs at international headquarters. I served in one of those headquarters for a long time. There is room for a reduction of staff where the staff is not actually concerned with the day-to-day administration of the Forces. There is a surplus of officers of certain grades in the Army and there is a tendency to create staff appointments to absorb officers who would otherwise be surplus to requirements. I ask my right hon. Friend to consider whether it would not be possible, instead of keeping these officers on when there is no possibility of further advancement for them, to make some arrangement whereby they could voluntarily retire at an earlier age.

That would be a great advantage, because the officer who is able to retire in his late thirties, for instance, is still able to get another job in civilian life and earn his living. If he stays on very much longer, the position becomes much more difficult; and once he is in his middle forties it is almost inevitable that he will stay on to the very last day in order to get as large a pension as possible—and no one could blame him for doing that.

In conclusion, I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the progress which has been made in recent years with the very big reorganisation of the Army and its modernisation and equipment for modern conditions.

6.56 p.m.

Mr. Frank Allaun (Salford, East)

The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Sharples) has made criticisms of details, and I hope that he will forgive me for not following his remarks because I wish very briefly to deal with the major problem of National Service. Last week the House of Commons discussed at great length the problem of inflation and this week, at equally great length, we have been debating the huge demands of the Services. Although few people appear to see any connection between the two, that connection could not be more direct. I understand that one is not allowed to sing in the House. If one were allowed to sing, I would like to sing a very popular dance tune called "Love and Marriage."

As I cannot sing it, I will recite it. The lyric goes: Love and marriage, love and marriage, The two go together like a horse and carriage, Ask the local gentry and they will say It's elementary. Listen brother, you can't have one, you can't have one, you can't have one Without the other. No sane person can believe that we can have a £1,500 million armaments programme, without inflation and a rising cost of living. No Government, whether Labour or Conservative, could keep down inflation and a rising cost of living while spending one-third of all Government expenditure in this way. The best way to cut that fantastic figure is to cut the period of National Service by twelve months with a view to its total abolition in three years. I must admit that I feel very strongly about this, but I know that my feelings are shared by millions of men and women throughout the country.

Until I became a Member, I worked for many years on a great newspaper and I watched messenger boys come into that newspaper office. In Lancashire, we call them "brew boys." It is a dead-end job. They come at fifteen and they take round the "subs" tea, and so on. At sixteen or seventeen, the more intelligent go to night-school or day-school to study shorthand and typing with a view to starting as junior reporters on a local newspaper.

At seventeen, and qualified in this way, they go round to the editors of local newspapers and ask for a job. With the best will in the world the editors tell them, "We should like to take you on, but we are sorry that it is quite out of the question. What is the good of our employing you when, in a few months or a year, you will be called away for two years?" What happens? I have watched these boys, they become frustrated to the n'th degree. They say, "We have wasted our time. What is the good?" The other boys watch them, and they do not bother. I say that the call-up of the youth of our country is having a terribly unsettling effect upon them. I talked to a school teacher who teaches boys and girls of fifteen to eighteen at night school. She said that she cannot secure the attention of the boys because they know that they are to be taken away from their normal life, their homes, jobs and parents, at the age of eighteen.

Recently, my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ellis Smith) and I have been going round engineering factories to examine their automation developments. We visited a world-famous engineering factory in the Midlands. When we had been round the works, the manager told us, "We are going on fine, but the difficulty is that we cannot get the technicians we need." When we asked why, he said, "It is because of National Service. It is not only the matter of the two years' absence, but of the six or twelve months after they come back before they settle down, if they come back at all.

What happens is that many of our boys take B.Sc. degrees or do their apprenticeship before their national Service and, with some qualifications when called up they usually get commissions. They get sent to Berlin, and as officers they become involved in the night life of that city up to three o'clock in the morning. Coming back to an engineering factory after that kind of life is a very humdrum sort of existence, and, consequently, we lose a large number altogether. They never come back.

There is another factor. I do not know what regard hon. Members pay to it, but I certainly pay regard to it. It is the unnatural separation of the sexes at the age of eighteen to twenty. I raised this matter recently at Question Time, and I noticed that were were jeers from some hon. Members opposite. I do not think it is anything to jeer about. The sending of young men away from young women at that time of life leads to all kinds of abuses abroad which I do not wish to go into at the moment. But I will say that this two year call-up period is an unnatural and intolerable interference in the lives of our young people.

There is another aspect of this matter, the question of the difficulties at home, particularly with the families of widows. I wish to quote a sentence from a letter I have received from a widow. She says: The call-up causes broken homes and broken hearts. I know I am only one of a million mothers, but my son is a good boy and my house will be empty without him, to say nothing of taking the lad's wages out of the house. I know that the Minister knows of one or two of the cases with which I am dealing at the moment. There are no fewer than eight cases of families, usually the families of widows, who are in terrible circumstances because the main breadwinner is being taken out of the house. If I have only eight cases in half of one city—and I do not know of every case in my constituency—how many thousands of cases like this must there be throughout the country?

I am dealing with the case of a widowed mother with eight children whose ages range from twenty down to three years. The eldest boy is in B.A.O.R. The second boy got his call-up notice for 15th March yesterday. It is not right to take away the breadwinners and to leave the mother, ill to start with, having to look after the other children in this way and having to go out to work and leave little kiddies at home. Another case with which I am dealing is that of a mother of four children. There is a son aged eighteen. He is being called up leaving behind three younger children aged twelve, ten and eight. One can imagine the difficulty in a working-class home where the mother goes out to work.

Another very tragic case was that of the father of a family who was a bricklayer and where the son was in the Forces. There was also a daughter, aged ten. Because the son who was eighteen and who would have been earning a proper wage was in the Forces, the father, who was very ill, went out to work and died on the job. Now there is the widow, the son and the daughter, and there is still no release for the son. The last case I wish to mention is that of a boy who had two invalid parents, and he has not received his exemption from the Forces. These personal cases are causing tragedies, some of which never come to light, but all are of a very serious kind.

I believe that if our country had the courage to say, "Right, we are cutting conscription by twelve months now and abolishing it within three years," it would have a dramatic psychological effect in lessening world tension. I am not concerned about trying to win the next world war. Our job should be to try to avoid it, a much more important matter. There will be no winners in the next world war, except the worms.

Recently, there have been cuts in the Russian armed forces of 640,000 men. Suppose we made this gesture of cutting the call-up and then said, "If you will reduce your forces further, we will make further cuts." I believe that we are far more likely to reach disarmament in that way than by meeting at some international conference with the object of seeking a formula which suits every country, because we never find that formula. That has been the history of disarmament conferences since 1927. I seriously suggest that an example by this nation is far more likely to secure results, if we really want disarmament.

Like Bernard Shaw, I am a bit critical of experts, on both sides of the House. The experts tell us that it is impossible to reduce the period of conscription. It is not long since the right hon. Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill) was telling us that it was impossible to do without the Home Guard. Yet we are managing to struggle along without it today. I suggest that some of the experts who not long ago were telling us that it was quite impossible to do anything about National Service will be found to be equally wrong in the near future.

Finally—because I do not believe in making long speeches when one can make them short—I regard it as utterly immoral to send young boys of eighteen, who have not even the vote, to fight and die in Kenya, Malaya and Cyprus. In Britain, we serve a longer period than in any other country in Western Europe. Therefore, I say that instead of wasting our time as we have been doing in the last three days discussing the best methods of obtaining efficiency in wiping out each other, we should take the step which the whole country wants. I believe that a two-years call-up period is of very little use to us militarily, and the country cannot afford it.

The Government, as well as hon. Members on this side of the House, know that we can no longer afford it. I therefore appeal to them to reconsider the matter and to give us what every sane person wants, an immediate cut of twelve months in the period of National Service and its total abolition within a period of three years.