HC Deb 14 March 1961 vol 636 cc1276-89

Motion made, and Question proposed, That a sum, not exceeding £20,316,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of works, buildings, machinery and repairs at home arid abroad, including the cost of superintendence, purchase of sites, grants and other charges connected therewith, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1962.

7.33 p.m.

Mr. Emrys Hughes

There are two sinister lines in the Explanatory Note for Vote 10, which state: Large new works, so far as is economical, are carried out by contract, the tenders being either for a lump sum or on a schedule of prices In Vote 10, I should like to know to what extent the principle of contracting as against the principle of direct labour is applied. I have my suspicions that this substantial sum of £20 million on contracts and new works could be considerably reduced if the Admiralty had its own direct labour department.

As a member of a local authority, I am always suspicious when I see vague remarks of that kind about Large new works, so far as is economical", being carried out by contract. Who decides this? I should like to know something more about the big contractors who contract for the work in Vote 10. We all know that contracting has become a huge vested interest. There are firms like Wimpeys, big, organised, private vested interests, which make profits out of cement and from every kind of material used in the building trade. I should like to see this broken down. No local authority would present a bill for £20 million for works without the greatest possible scrutiny. The county council of which I used to be a member would probe closely even a fraction of that sum. What profit is being made by contractors out of this big Estimate of £21,760,000?

I should like to know what are the relations between the people who give out the contracts and those who get them. It is not that I am suspicious minded, but I have had a great deal of experience of watching contracts. Is there not a possibility that this huge sum could be reduced if the Admiralty applied the principle of direct labour on a large scale? We know that local authorities use it and that it is possible to reduce the figures by using direct labour as against private contracting.

How much material is being used? Again I suspect, as I said earlier, that a big sum is being made by the cement and building material combines out of all the Service Estimates. I am not satisfied that we are probing these matters. We are letting these sums go through in a way which results in very large expenditures and contributes to the astronomical increase, as well as being inflationary. In a few weeks' time we shall be discussing the Budget and we shall have to pay these large sums that we are now passing through so quickly.

I suggest that the whole of these Estimates should be examined early in the year by a Committee which has the opportunity of examining meticulously all the contracts and of seeing whether sums could not be saved in innumerable ways in the building trade activity which is being carried out by the Admiralty. I for one shall again vote against this expenditure because there is no adequate explanation that the principle of direct labour is being applied in the Admiralty on this Vote.

7.40 p.m.

Sir J. Maitland

There are two questions I want to ask on this Vote. I am never very happy about the lands branch because I have always felt that it ought to be worked between the three Services. We investigated the whole question of the lands branches of the Services in Committee last year and the general impression then was—and I retain it completely unshaken—that there would be considerable savings if the same work for all the Services were done by one organisation. I would ask the Civil Lord in how many cases in the Navy is lands branch work, land agents work, being done by one of the Services for the others. I know it is done in certain cases and I should be grateful if he could give me some more information about that. I cannot see why, if it is done in some places, it cannot be done in others as well.

The second point is this. There is an item for purchases of lands and buildings of £300,000. It seems a sort of standard figure, and I do not like standard figures in Estimates. I always feel very suspicious when I see the same figure given year in and year out. It does not make a great deal of sense to me. When I tried to follow this up I found that there is no indication whatever on what that money is to be spent. In a Navy which is getting smaller it is not easy to understand why, when we need all the money we can find for the teeth, we should be spending such a large proportion of it on the tail. Upon this Vote particularly I hope that the Civil Lord will be able to underspend this year.

7.42 p.m.

Mr. Sydney Silverman (Nelson and Colne)

I should like to offer a word or two in support of the case made by my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) and, indeed, the case made also by the hon. Member for Horncastle (Sir J. Maitland) opposite. It seems to me a quite appalling thing that detailed Estimates such as we are considering should go through with so very little examination or check or criticism or information. I do not profess to be any kind of an expert on defence expenditure. I certainly am not, but I do look to these Estimates to provide me with the minimum of information in order to form some kind of a view about whether we are getting value for money or not or whether money could be saved or not.

Hon. Members opposite, and, indeed, on this side, too, are most anxious about wasteful expenditure when our expenses are going up so very much, and one can contrast the interest 'of the Government —in the Health Service for instance—in controlling and reducing expenditure and securing higher contributions with the extreme, lackadaisical complacency with which these Estimates are rushed through with little examination, little criticism and virtually no information which is really informative. If they were to apply to these Estimates the principle which the Minister of Health is applying to the National Health Service and say that these things should not be paid for out of general taxation levied according to means to pay but should be paid for by those who consume them, there would be much more meticulous examination of them than there is. I am not sure, if we have that kind of principle at all, that this kind of expenditure——

The Temporary Chairman (Mr. W. R. Williams)

These are all paid for by taxation, so we are considering them under those conditions, are we not?

Mr. Silverman

I am much obliged, Mr. Williams. I hope I am not offending against the rules of order in any way. I am going in a moment, when I have completed the sentence I was in the middle of, to look at one or two items in this Vote 10 from that point of view for the sake of getting information of this kind.

I was going to say that if there were any such principle—which I do not believe in and do not approve of—it would be much better to apply it in the case of these Estimates and if those who believe in them should pay for them and those who do not should not, than to apply it to the Health Service.

However, coming closely to Vote 10 I look at Part I. It makes a sort of show of analysing the expenditure into different parts. Part I B is New works, additions and alterations amounting to £10,000 each and upwards. The amount covered by that this year is £7,313,000, which is a trifle less than it was last year but not so much less as to make any significant difference. From the point of view of my hon. Friend's suggestion of examining whether any potential saving could be made if we did not do it by a contract system but by applying some other system, there is little information here which would help.

I suggest that it would help the Committee a great deal if, instead of being told that this amount was being spent on projects of this nature each of which cost £10,000 or more, we were told, exactly how many projects were covered by the £7,313,000, or if we were told what was the average expenditure per project. Of course, if this was only £10,000 each it would mean 713,000 different projects, but £10,000 is the minimum. There is no maximum indicated in the Vote, and nothing to show what we are to get in the way of new works, additions and alterations, and therefore no way in which the attention of Members of the Committee can be directed to particular projects so that they might be analysed to see whether there was any waste of expenditure involved.

What is the good of telling us that £7,313,000 has been spent on projects in respect of which there is a minimum expenditure of £10,000 if we are not told what is the maximum expenditure in any particular case and when we are not told what is the average expenditure per project? Why should we not be told this? It is not suggested, surely, that it would not be useful to know? Obviously it would be useful to know, and given in this way, although there is a show on the printed page of giving the information, there is really no information at all which is of value to us of any kind in judging whether this Estimate is excessive or not or whether it could be pruned without any less for the money.

Let us come on to Part II. Here we get the rest of the subdivision. These also are new works, additions and alterations, but they are described as "minor" ones. Why are they minor ones? Because they cost under £10,000 each. But what the average is in this case we do not know either, so that we do not know what is the basis on which a project is a new work, on the one hand, or a minor new work on the other. It could be £9,950 in the one case, and that is a minor one, or £10,500 on the other hand, in which case it is not a minor work but another. What is the good of a subdivision of that kind, giving no information at all as to the relevant size of the projects? If we knew, we could pick out one here or there or somewhere else and then see what the price of the project was and how it was arrived at.

It is not always a lump sum: sometimes the tenders are on a schedule of prices. But what schedule of prices? What was the schedule of prices? One must know that before knowing whether a saving could be made, as we might if we had a public works department looking after it. On principle, surely, it is better to have a public works department. I do not know why we should do this work by private enterprise when one remembers the absolute scandal of the cost-plus system during the war. Those who were in the House of Commons at the time made a concerted attack on the Government because of their complete lack of control of that system.

This encourages one to think that if a little more information were given we might make some useful contribution to the control of expenditure in the House of Commons, but not while the Committee examines the Estimates in the spirit in which we are now examining them. There are, I think, exactly six back benchers on the Government side of the Committee and not very many more on this side, though after all the Government have a bigger number than we have and therefore our proportion at least is better.

While this happens, the Government are not to be blamed for thinking that it is unnecessary to give us the information to enable us to have a useful discussion, but I hope that they will not think it unnecessary in the future. I hope that they will not think that the kind of comment that my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire and I have been making is not a useful, profitable comment to make. I hope that next year we shall have information that tells us something instead of this empty verbiage.

7.52 p.m.

Mr. Stanley R. McMaster (Belfast, East)

It is very late and we were late starting the debate and therefore I do not want to detain the Committee, but I should like to direct the Committee's attention to Vote 10, Part III, E. I do that particularly in order to ask my hon. Friend to pay attention to one fact when he is placing new repair and maintenance contracts. This plea covers not only repair and maintenance but other matters in the Estimates which I believe it would be out of order to mention tonight. I would ask the Civil Lord to pay attention to the shipyards in this country.

We in Northern Ireland are most grateful to the Civil Lord who recently visited our yards. We are grateful for the work that has been done there in the past. Many fine ships have been built and repaired in the yards of Belfast and only recently the flagship of the Indian Navy was completely refitted there. But we are facing serious redundancy and over 7,000 men will be thrown out of work in the next few months. It is against that background that I wish to intervene. In placing work under this Vote, I would ask the Civil Lord to note how much would be lost to the shipping industry if——

Mr. Willis

Does not Vote 10, Part III, E refer to repairs and maintenance attaching to naval dockyards and buildings?

The Temporary Chairman

Yes, that refers to naval dockyards, but I think that the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster) is dealing with other dockyards.

Mr. McMaster

The Explanatory Note on page 145 of the Estimates states under "E—Repairs and Maintenance": Provision is included for the upkeep of buildings, docks, fuelling depots, airfields, etc., in all establishments at home and abroad and, with the exception of H.M. Dockyards"——

The Temporary Chairman

I think that the hon. Member has now raised doubts in his own mind. He has certainly raised doubts in mine. He should come off that very quickly now and get on to Vote 10.

Mr. McMaster

If I may finish the quotation: and also other special services, of the electrical and mechanical installations therein; repairs of the machinery and equipment purchased under Subhead F are also borne by this Subhead. This covers repairs and work carried out in the shipyards of Belfast, the Clyde and the Tyne, and I would ask my hon. Friend, therefore, to consider the fearful waste to the country in allowing men employed on this valuable work to become redundant and paying them un- employment pay when they might be employed more usefully on repair and maintenance work for the good of the country as a whole and unemployment payment might be saved.

I would, therefore, ask my hon. Friend to consider the Admiralty's re- sponsibility to yards such as our own which have a tremendous tradition in the shipbuilding industry. I do not expect an answer tonight, but I ask him to take social factors into consideration in placing some part of the maintenance and repair work which falls under this and other Subheads in the Estimates.

7.54 p.m.

Mr. Willis

I congratulate the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster) on his ingenuity in always managing to bring the Belfast shipyards into whatever Vote is under discussion. I certainly agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) about the importance and desirability of endeavouring to do such work as the Government require through a direct labour department.

There are two or three questions which I should like to ask the Civil Lord. First, to what extent is this Vote accounted for by work services for N.A.T.O., which I notice are mentioned, and are these work services carried out under the infrastructure arrangements? I should be glad if the hon. Gentleman would say something about that. Secondly, there is a point which I am sure he would expect me to raise concerning the "Caledonia". When might we expect some beginning to be made on it?

My third point concerns the establishment at Lossiemouth. I understand that the Royal Navy Air Station has 148 houses in Lossiemouth and 222 in Elgin and it has now obtained permission to build a further 142 houses at Lossiemouth. After it had obtained that permission, I understand that the station took over 51 houses from the Pinefield Army Camp near Elgin. Is it proposed to reduce the number of houses now to be built at Lossiemouth in view of the number taken over at the Pinefield camp? I know about the development that is going on at Lossiemouth and the importance that it has assumed recently. Is it proposed to carry out a bigger programme than I have already mentioned in the district of Lossiemouth?

7.59 p.m.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke

I want to follow in my remarks what was said by the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman), particularly in connection with Subhead B—"New Works, Additions and Alterations amounting to £10,000 each and Upwards"—which affects work overseas to which reference is made in the Explanatory Notes on pages 142 and 143 of the Estimates.

I notice that harbour works and dredging this year will cost £47,000 overseas, as compared with £18,000 last year. Has this anything to do with Cyprus?

Mr. C. Ian Orr-Ewing

I can answer that straight away. It is because of the carrier berths at Gibraltar.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke

I am interested in that reply. Why is it costing rather more this year? Could my hon. Friend also say where we are proposing to build these airfields which are to cost £45,000? New works on airfields to be started in the coming year will cost £45,000, and the amount to be voted this year in respect of works started in previous years is to be £13,000. Where are these airfields to be? Is there to be one in Cyprus? I am very anxious to know that.

8.0 p.m.

Mr. C. Ian Orr-Ewing

I can assure the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Ernrys Hughes) that we do a great deal of work, particularly repair work, with direct labour. Altogether, 13,600 people are employed in the Navy Works Department, and that is a direct labour force.

My hon. Friend the Member for Horn-castle (Sir J. Maitland) asked me about the correlation of the lands branches of the Services. My right hon Friend the Minister of Defence announced early this week that he was thinking of appointing a committee to advise on this matter. Until that committee has been set up and has reported, I do not think that it would be in order for me to comment.

I was asked if we undertake new works services for the other two Services and if they do the same for us. The answer is, "Yes". The ideal example is at Malta, where we have been constructing an enormous underground fuel depot which is to serve not only the Malta Government but also N.A.T.O. and the Royal Air Force. The Royal Air Force is undertaking work for us at Aden and at Hal Far airfield at Malta, as it has a great deal of experience in airfield construction.

My hon. Friend was suspicious of the sum of £300,000 for purchases of lands and buildings. He said that it was the same as the figure for last year. Three items, excluding dockyard extensions, are already in hand. There must come a time to expand certain establishments, and we have set aside £100,000 for this. The dockyard extension at Devonport is likely to cost another £100,000, and in various land projects there is another £110,000.

Sir J. Maitland

I do not understand why at this moment we should be expanding.

Mr. Orr-Ewing

As we cut down there are other places where we are working up. We have done away with a number of depots, but we are modernising dockyards and this entails a lot of money and, sometimes, extensions.

The hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) asked for more detail. I am not sure that, if we published a list of all the Service works undertakings we wanted to start in the coming year, we should get as competitive tenders as we are hoping for. There is no question of fixed price contracts or cost plus. We are introducing competitive tenders for some of our ships, and apply that policy to the works services for which we invite tenders.

The hon. Member asked for more information about minor new works, additions and alterations under £10,000 each. There is provision for £300.000 for minor extensions and works services. That is because we are decentralising and are allowing commanders-in-chief to undertake more of their works services. Each of them knows what is right for the fleet and for the people under his command. They are probably the right people to decide priorities, and that is probably a better way of doing it than at the centre. This is a tendency which we are expanding in the block grant this year.

My hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster) was more skilful than I can be in keeping within order. I have noted his remarks. I must add that I enjoyed my visit to his constituency.

The hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis) asked me how much of this money was for N.A.T.O. Under N.A.T.O.'s own infrastructure programme we have six items of a total value of £15,400,000. Three items, worth £3,500,000 are starting in the coming year. We are planning to spend £3 million, although we are starting projects worth a good deal more in the coming year.

The hon. Member also asked me about "Caledonia" and Lossiemouth. It is true that, because of our acquisition of 40 quarters at Pinefield Camp. we have been able to cut back on the number we shall be building for our own purposes We have built 56 officers' and 324 ratings' quarters in Lossiemouth. There is a considerable backlog and we are planning to build 265 more ratings' quarters. We have substracted the 40 available from Pinefield Camp, but that still leaves us a considerable Programme. The Government's policy is to transfer Government property to other Government Departments when it becomes redundant.

The hon. Member always presses me hard about "Caledonia". We hope to start building in 1962. It will consist of two two-storey blocks, containing dormitories each for six or seven apprentices, with ablutions, to the latest standards. The first part of the project will house some 300, and we shall make a start on the second half of the project as soon as funds are available.

8.7 p.m.

Mr. S. Silverman

The Civil Lord replies to the points raised with such charming courtesy as to be almost disarming. I am not sure whether it is a compliment to a Service Minister to call him disarming. He has not quite appreciated the point I was making, no doubt very clumsily. I was trying to point out that there is not nearly sufficient information given about projects themselves.

I realise that there is a good deal more information than is actually given in the summarised figures under the heading of minor new works. More information is given later in the Vote, when one can find figures to illustrate my point.

Under Part I (B) there are 10 items, amounting to £6,336,000, needed for new projects and new buildings. Over the last two or three years we have been incurring a capital expenditure on new buildings of £7 million greater each year. This sum is not for maintenance, but for new buildings and projects. They are all grouped under the heading: New works, additions and alterations amounting to £10,000 each and upwards: There is one item for £18,000, another for £21,000, another for £36,500—all of which are reasonably comparable with each other—but then come three items. each totalling more than £1 million. One is for £1,729,000, yet all we are told about that is that it is for accommodation for personnel. There is another item of £1,388,000 for airfields, and the third large item is for £1,306,000 for new works to be started on dockyards.

I do not know whether that expenditure is necessary or not. I apprehend that in the Government's view these Votes are necessary, but there is not a scrap of information to enable me to form any kind of opinion, expert or inexpert, as to whether they are necessary or not necessary. They are merely lumped together in sums of this kind and are not even subdivided so that they can be analysed in groups of comparable expenditure.

It is absurd when trying to convey information to put into the same category new works which cost £18,000 and those costing £1,729,000. They obviously belong to different categories and ought to be separately classified with a great deal more information, unless we are to regard these yearly examinations of the Estimates as being purely perfunctory.

Whatever view we take of defence expenditure, whether we think it is necessary at all, too much or too little, wisely or unwisely spent, it is obvious that the Committee regards this as an occasion not merely for going through the form, but for exercising critical judgment. On the basis of this kind of information, critical intelligence cannot be brought to bear about whether the Estimates are too large or too small, or whether we are acting rightly or wrongly in saying yes or no to them.

8.12 p.m.

Mr. C. Ian Off-Ewing

I recognise that the Committee requires a lot of information, but in the five years in which I have opened debates on the Estimates —first at the Air Ministry and then at the Admiralty—this is the first time that I have had the criticism which the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) levelled. Each year we have tried to provide a little more information, but I will consider what the hon. Member has said.

I announced in the House that the airfield extension under Subhead B (s) was at Brawdy and that £1.3 million would be spent on lengthening the runway. The expenditure on dockyards under Subhead G is part of the programme of modernisation of the dockyards—which I have mentioned several times but which, perhaps, I should have highlighted—and is for modernising storehouses, which in many cases are more than a hundred years old and which, for the installation of modern machinery, have to be high enough and strong enough to stand the added strain.

I apologise to my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke) for having forgotten to answer his question when I first replied. The expenditure of £47,000 is for carrier berths at Gibraltar and £13,000 is to complete payment for the overshoot at Hal Far airfield in Malta where the expenditure was £68,000 last year with a sharp drop to £13,000 this year.

One starts combing through these Estimates in the autumn and one becomes so conversant with them and knows them so well that one may over-simplify them and I apologise to the Committee if I have done that. I hope that the Committee will now accept the details I have given.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved, That a sum, not exceeding £20,316,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of works, buildings, machinery and repairs at home and abroad, including the cost of superintendence, purchase of sites, grants and other charges connected therewith, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1962.