Vote 2. Reserve and Auxiliary Services (Hansard, 10 March 1959)

§ Mr. Ross
I put a quick question on Subhead F of this Vote. We are spending here £247,000 on the Royal Observer Corps, and that is an increase of £28,000. My concern is that the functions of this body are described as including the measuring and reporting of radioactive 'fall-out' I should like to know how many people are so engaged, because, after all, this is a spare-time civilian body of people who are in R.A.F. uniform. How many are engaged in this quite important task, and to whom do they report?
I should have thought that the information which they received would be of 1198 more value to the Home Office than to the Air Ministry, and since this is, I should have thought, a more or less continuing civil job which they are doing, it could have been organised in some other way than under the Air Estimates. It seems to be an increasing liability. I wonder whether the increase of £28,000 is related to this particular task. I should be very glad if we could have an answer on that point.

§ Mr. Roy Mason (Barnsley)
I want to discuss exactly the same point as that which has just been mentioned by my hon. Friend. The Under-Secretary of State for Air will recognise that this is repetition of a point which I raised in the debate on the Air Estimates, to which we never received any reply.
As my hon. Friend has just said, £28,000 extra has been allocated this year to members of the Royal Observer Corps, and £26,000 of that sum is given for grants, allowances and the National Insurance of spare-time officers and observers. I should, therefore, be much obliged if the hon. Gentleman could tell us a little more about the rôle of the Royal Observer Corps in manning these 1,500 radioactivity detector stations.
First, to what extent have these stations been built? Is the country now literally covered with these detectors, and what form will the stations take? I wonder about the form, because I have not seen one yet, but I should imagine that 1,500 stations are very difficult to hide, unless they are very small stations which perhaps need weekend maintenance only by part-time members of the Royal Observer Corps. We ought to have a little more information about them.
Precisely what is to be the rôle of the Royal Observer Corps when the stations are being manned, and what are the possibilities—I asked the Under-Secretary about this in the debate on the Air Estimates—of peace-time exercises in manning the 1,500 stations, and in assessing the fall-out that has taken place already over the country because of H-bomb and atom bomb tests, and which regions of the country have been more affected than others? I think that such exercises could be useful, and I do not see any reason, in view of the fact that the Royal Observer Corps is coming into civil defence, why we should not have them.
1199 I have already spoken in the debate on the Army Estimates, and have been very pleased to see that the Territorial Army is now coming into civil defence. I am therefore also pleased to see that the Royal Observer Corps is now taking part, because I have always said that civil defence in a nuclear war will be a military operation. I am glad that we are now to see members of the Armed Forces responsible to Service Ministers gradually taking over that rôle, but so far very little information has been given to us. This is a good opportunity for the Minister, bearing in mind the fact that if we do not receive satisfactory replies, we shall have the opportunity of raising the matter once again before the Vote goes through.

§ Mr. Neave
This matter was raised in last week's debate on the Estimates and I answered several questions put to me by the hon. Member for Barnsley (Mr. Mason) at that time, though I agree that this was not one of them. As well as its traditional rôle of tracking low-flying aircraft, the Royal Observer Corps has the task of tracking and measuring radioactive fall-out in the event of air attack. On the point made by the hon. Member about exercises, the officers and others are part-time. I doubt whether it would be possible to organise a full-scale exercise so that all the personnel were present at the same time. I see difficulties in that, but I note the point. The Corps, being composed of part-time officers, also has no responsibility for the regular measurement, as a check, of radioactivity at levels with which the research bodies are concerned. The Corns reports in peace and war to Fighter Command.
The hon. Member asked whether the Corps could undertake measurements of radioactivity in peace. He asked this on a previous occasion. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister explained in his statement on 31st October, arrangements have been made for checking peace-time radioactivity in the air, water, soil, herbage, milk and food stuffs. The Royal Observer Corps has no part in these arrangements. Its rôle is essentially a war-time one, as my right hon. Friend explained in answer to questions which the hon. Member for Barnsley put to him. Its training is not directed to detecting radioactivity at the level with which research bodies are concerned. I 1200 will take note of what the hon. Member has suggested, but this must be the present rôle of the Corps.

§ Mr. Mason
But are the stations completed? Have we now the 1,500 stations which the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for Air told me in the past year it was intended to build? I see no reason why we should enlarge the difficulty of having a peace-time exercise. According to the Explanatory Notes, we already have 15,000 observers. I understand that the stations are bound to be small with possibly one person detecting at ground level. Therefore, we should need to use only one-tenth of those who are enrolled in the Corps. This suggestion is worthy of consideration. Will the hon. Gentleman give us some idea of the progress made in the building of the detector stations?

§ Mr. Neave
It would be necessary to man these stations twenty-four hours a day and it is not easy to achieve exactly what the hon. Member wants. We have most of these stations, but I should like notice of the question about the total number erected.