ARMY AND AIR FORCE BILL

HC Deb 02 May 1961 vol 639 cc1253-355

(RECOMMITTED)

Again considered in Committee.

Mr. Marsh

The point I was making was that the Government and the Army have recently introduced an innovation precisely to enable the young Service man to sample what "Brand X" is really like, in other words to see what Army service is really like. I am sorry if the Secretary of State disagrees, but again I do not even believe that a weekend in an Army barracks gives a picture of what it is like to be in the Army for twenty years though it helps to give some indication.

I suggest that the average young man who joins the Army for long engagement does so without real knowledge of what the Army is like. He does so on the basis of glossy posters and of small advertisements in newspapers. If he joins the Navy he does so believing that he will spend his time wandering round the world visiting exotic places. He may well do so, but he may also spend quite a lot of his time sitting on his bed blancoeing his equipment and doing all sorts of other duties. [Interruption.] Hon. Members opposite seem to think that anybody who speaks about the Army in terms other than the sort of thing that comes from a recruiting sergeant is doing a disservice. I believe that people should join the Army because of what it is. If they get a genuine picture of what it is like to be in the armed forces from the advertisements nothing that I say will change it.

Sir O. Prior-Palmer

The hon. Member is giving the impression that they spend the whole time sitting on their beds blancoeing their equipment. Is that a true picture?

Mr. Marsh

I am not saying that. I am sorry that the hon. and gallant Member has misunderstood what I have been saying. [Interruption.] If the hon. and gallant Member keeps mumbling away to himself I cannot answer his points. If he wants to make an intervention I shall be pleased to hear it. This is a serious point.

Sir O. Prior-Palmer

No.

Mr. Marsh

The hon. and gallant Member may not think it is serious when a person under 21 signs on for twenty years. The hon. and gallant Member may well disagree with my views. He is entitled to do so, but this is a matter of some importance whether one agrees or disagrees. The point which I have made several times and which apparently has been completely missed by the hon. and gallant Member is not that the Army is a place of perpetual unpleasantness and of perpetually sitting on a bed blancoeing equipment any more than it is a place of perpetual attraction.

Mr. Raymond Gower (Barry)

Would the hon. Member consider that a person under 21 would be deceived by what he described as a false or exaggerated picture of the Army while a person over 21 would be able to assess the position completely and would not be led astray in that way?

Mr. Marsh

The point I am trying to make is that a person joins the Army today in response to the maximum pressure which can be applied by the very best forms of publicity services. That is common ground between us. I say that that person, when he signs on, has not a complete picture of what life in the Armed Forces is like.

Mr. Gower

But that is true whether the person is under 21 or over 21.

Mr. Marsh

Of course, but generally we in this Committee draw a distinction between a person under 21 and a person over 21. My point is not that people would not want to stay in the Army for twenty-two years, nor that many would not find the Army a satisfactory career, because many of them do. I do not suggest that membership of the Armed Forces is not, to many people, completely satisfying, and I would not try to prevent a person serving in them for twenty-two years. But I do say that a person who is not old enough to vote or to exercise many of the rights which a person over 21 enjoys, and who is not regarded by this Committee or the law as an adult, should not be permitted to sign on at that stage for twenty-two years.

That is particularly important today, when we have a new feature introduced into the matter. It is not only left to a person's knowledge of threats facing his country, or of a particular foreign situation. There is a distinct and highly psychological pressure applied to him. Just as I would object—and I do not know the legal position on this—to a person under 21 being allowed, as a result of modern advertising, to take on unlimited financial commitments, so I object to his being committed, or being able to commit himself, to something which, at some later stage—we are thinking of a period of twenty years in this case—will be difficult to opt out of.

When I went into the Army for a very limited period, as a conscript for two-and-a-half years, my approach was very different from what it is now. I hope that the attitude of many people changes between the ages of 18 and 30 or 40. Their values become different. When I was about 18 I would have supported my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire completely, because I would have thought that pacifism was something to which I could subscribe. But people change, particularly in that part of their lives.

Mr. Profumo

Is the hon. Member saying that the Army changed him? I hope so.

Mr. Marsh

I do not think so. I went into the Army shortly after the war, when there was a great deal of confusion and time wasting. It was neither a war-time nor a peace-time Army. Most of us were only waiting to hear when we would get out. There was a different sort of situation then.

Mr. Emrys Hughes

Why did not my hon. Friend enlist for a further period?

Mr. Marsh

I did not enlist for a further period of twenty-two years because I decided that I did not want to be in the Army for twenty-two years.

Mr. Hughes

My hon. Friend came back to pacifism again.

Mr. Marsh

I have no criticisms to make. There were other people who signed on because of their service in the Army. I am surprised at the amount of opposition to the Amendment, and that there is such strong feeling on this point. My hon. Friend is not saying anything which would cause the Army irreparable damage. He is not saying that people should be prevented from serving for long periods in the Armed Forces, but that people should not, while they are still at school, be in a position to sign away their lives for twenty-two years.

Dr. Alan Glyn (Clapham)

If the hon. Gentleman is suggesting that if one joins the Army one cannot get out for twenty-two years, may I remind him that during the first two or three months one can get out of the Army on the payment of £20, and after that one can buy oneself out.

Mr. Marsh

That is another issue which will be debated on another Amendment. If it is as simple as that, what is all the furore about? Why do hon. Gentlemen feel so strongly about this?

I do not know why hon. Gentleman should be put out by this suggestion. It is merely that some of us believe that a person who is not an adult should not be able to sign away his life until he is well into middle age. It is true that he can buy himself out, but all we are saying is that he should not make the contract in the first instance.

Commander Kerans

Surely the hon. Gentleman will agree that a vast number of youngsters join the Army out of loyalty to their country and to their Queen, knowing what they will face?

Mr. Marsh

A large number of people are motivated by those emotions in war time. There is not the same degree of pressure in peace time. A person under 18 who has never been in the Army is not in a position to know what it is like to be in the Army for twenty-two years. The suggestion made by the hon. and gallant Member for The Hartlepools (Commander Kerans) does him no credit. A person may well get into the Army and decide that he likes it. He may continue to sign on, but it is absurd to suggest that a few weekend camps with the Officer Training Corps or the Army Cadets can give a person an idea of what it is like to undertake a lifetime of service in the Army. Many people who find life as a civilian satisfying did not know that it would be satisfying when they were in their 'teens.

Mr. Paget

I want to try to clear away a little of the heat and nonsense which we have heard. The hon. and gallant Member for The Hartlepools (Commander Kerans)—the former gallant captain of the "Amethyst"—asked: are there not a lot of young men who join the Army knowing what it will be like? There is none. Nobody knows what anything will be like. That is what the future holds. It was the Great Khan who sent out with his commands, "Do so-and-so, and if you do it not the Great Khan knoweth not what will happen. God alone knows what will happen."

Let us get away from this nonsense that when one is advertising for recruits one does not do one's best to advertise the most attractive aspects of the Army. Of course one does. Is it seriously suggested that the lady in the poster for the Women's Royal Army Corps has the appearance of the average woman in that Corps? Will the young man who joins really find them all that beautiful? Of course, not. Obviously, when one is advertising, one is keen to display the most attractive. There is nothing objectionable in that, and, indeed, the right hon. Gentleman has been spending a great deal of public money on T.V., and if T.V. is not doing its best to make the Army look attractive, he is wasting a great deal of public money, because I understand that that was the object of the operation. Therefore, let us get away from this nonsense and these shouts that this is unpatriotic and that it is crying down the Army.

I am a member of the Army League, and I am on the executive and on the sub-committee studying recruitment. I have done all that I can and given a good deal of my time to assisting the right hon. Gentleman in getting recruits and to encourage recruiting, but that does not make it necessary to go in for hypocrisy about what one is doing, and to pretend that the things we display are the average. If the man he gets has enough intelligence to be worth having in the Army he will not think it average, either. So much for this sort of nonsense aspect which I think is far from the point.

I now come to the effect of the Amendment, which seems to me to be serious. I ask my hon. Friend to listen to this Clause as it will read if amended: Where the person enlisting has attained the minimum age for man's service"— that is to say, 17½— the term shall be"— until he has attained the age of 21 years, and when he shall attain that age, the term shall be as provided in subsection (3) in paragraphs (a, b and c). So that whether he be 18 years or not, when he attains the age for man's service he may only in the first instance enlist until he is 21, and when he is 21 he then takes the decision whether to come out, to make it twenty-two years or to make it twelve years. Since that subsection provides for everything, subsections (3) and (4) go out. Subsection (3) provides: Where the person…has not attained the age of 18 years, but has attained the minimum age for man's service the said term shall be"— and so on. There is no need for that, because it is already dealt with. His term shall be until he is 21. In the same way, the provision in subsection (4) is covered. Whether this is right or not, and I am not saying that the proposal is the right one, it is one which makes sense and which achieves what my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) set out to do.

Having said that, I would say that this is a matter on which I feel open-minded, save that I think it is a highly important question, because it is our law that we protect minors, and minors are people under 21. No man under 21 can have a contract of personal service enforced against him unless he goes into the Army. No man under the age of 21 can have enforced against him a contract which is to his disadvantage, or is for other than necessities. No man under the age of 21 may enter into a contract of marriage, without the consent of his parents. No man under the age of 21 may vote, and in that sense act as a citizen, and no man under the age of 21 may be a candidate for any office.

We must not make this exception in our own favour and say that men who are too young to enter into a contract, or to make any vital decisions about their lives, shall, none the less, be old enough to enter into a binding contract of service, which would engage the best part of their lives—twenty-two years is a considerable period, although it is possible for a man to come out before then—unless we are faced with a very grave necessity.

There is one other point about which I am not clear. The situation under the Bill will be very different from what it was when the hon. and gallant Member for Worthing (Sir O. Prior-Palmer) and I were dealing with this matter on the Select Committee in 1953. We then provided that if a National Service man was under the age of 21 he should not sign on without his parents' consent. He is not a National Service man any longer. The Act provides that if he is under the age for man's service—that is, if he is under the age of 17½—he requires the consent of his parents or guardian.

If a man is not a National Service man and is over 17½ is he able to commit himself without parental consent? If that is the case we are facing a very different set of circumstances from those which we were facing in 1953, because the argument then ran something like this: it is one thing if a young man decides at home, and makes his own decision, but if he is taken out of parental control and pressure is put upon him, as may happen, or as his parents may think has happened, great resentment will arise among parents at the thought that their boys have been forcibly taken away from them by National Service and have been induced to commit their lives to the Army.

As far as I remember that was the argument, and the condition regarding parental consent applied only to National Service men. I may be wrong about this, but it seems to me that, with the disappearance of National Service, if 18-year olds who have not been allowed to marry the girls they want to marry, or who have been involved in any sort of upset at home, can go off to the Army and commit themselves for very long periods without parental consent, we are dealing with a fairly serious situation. I believe that the size of the Army is enormously important. I believe that a volunteer Army is what we need and what we must try to obtain. If a real case can be made out for the provisions in the Bill in this respect I may accept it, but it is obviously a case in which the right hon. Gentleman is called upon to argue very seriously and cogently for something which runs counter to our general idea of justice to the immature, the youth and the minor—the general idea which we have developed over the centuries and have found necessary in our community. That is why I shall listen with great interest to what the right hon. Gentleman has to say.

Mr. M. Foot

From the reaction from hon. Members opposite to the speeches of my hon. Friends it appears that there is some objection to this proposal. Although the Minister has shown a great readiness to accept Amendments from this side of the Committee, it appears that he also will oppose this Amendment.

I think that the Government and hon. Members opposite should think more carefully about this Amendment in their own interests and in the interests of recruiting a large-size Army. It may be that were this accepted, it would prove the most revolutionary proposal ever made for increasing the numbers of recruits to the Army. If it were the case that the Army had to prove during the period between the age of 17½ and 21 to a young person that it was worth while for him to stay in the Army for a large part of his life, conditions in the Service during those years would be dramatically improved.

Were this proposal accepted, it might achieve more in changing conditions in Army service than all the other measures which the Minister has presented over recent years. There would have to be a situation in the first two or three years of the young man's service in which the Army would have to prove, by deeds and by the conditions provided, that it wished to keep him in the Service, and that there was a real encouragement for young people to remain. If the Minister wishes to force more money out of the Treasury—I dare say that the right hon. Gentleman is engaged in that occupation very often—for providing proper married quarters, or more playing fields for Army sport, or any of the other reasons, by the acceptance of this Amendment he would be arming himself with a great weapon. He ought, therefore, to think seriously about it.

Although, in one sense, I may make the point light-heartedly, in another there is a serious aspect to it. It would be much better from every point of view, and for the reasons which have been advanced from this side of the Committee already, that the Army should have to prove itself to the young recruit, instead of using this extraordinary weapon of enforcing that a young man may have to make his decision before reaching the age of 21. For those reasons, in addition to the powerful reasons already advanced about the legal and constitutional position of people under 21 in other respects, this Amendment is one which the Government ought to be prepared to consider seriously.

The biggest point is the constitutional fact that we say that in all other respects a line is drawn at 21, except when someone is to be hanged. We had a long debate about that recently. The Government are prepared to hang people at 18 or get them committed to a life in the Army at 18. They are the only two items which are put on the same basis. Much the most serious matter is the question of denying people the right to vote under the age of 18, but still say that they can make a choice of what life they are to lead for a large number of years. That situation is absolutely indefensible.

If the Government wish to proceed with the rejection of this Amendment, in common decency they should examine earnestly and seriously the proposal to give the vote at the age of 18. I cannot see any possible defence for the Government to insist on the present position and reject the Amendment, and to say, "We insist on a man's capability to decide at the age of 18 what he is going to do with a large part of the remainder of his life but we deny him the right to vote in the conduct of his country at that age." It is a ludricrous proposal.

If the Minister is determined to maintain the present position, I hope that he will go back to the Cabinet and say that he wants the logical step to be taken of serious consideration being given to the proposal for extending the right to vote at the age of 18. In his own interests he should consider seriously this Amendment and not reject it because it may be immediately inconvenient. He may well find that the future interests that he and the War Office have in mind would be better served by neglecting the immediate interest of trying to recruit people at this age and by studying seriously the fact that if only the Army had to prove itself to young people between the ages of 17½ and 21 conditions in the Army would be much better than they are at present.

10.30 p.m.

Mr. Wigg

I am obliged to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) for spelling out for me what would be the effect of the alteration of the Amendment to Clause 2. He spoke in terms of inserting the words "seventeen years and six months". He did this not only for my benefit but as a slight flanking movement to divert attention from a difficulty which has to be faced. The effect of his Amendment, although he does not set out to do it, would, if it is to make sense, amend Section 2 (5) of the 1955 Act which lays down that the minimum age for a man's service means the age of 17 years and 6 months, except that in such classes of cases as may be prescribed it means the age of 17 years.

The Regulations governing recruiting are not given in detail in the 1955 Act or in the Bill which we are now considering. They are contained in the prescribed Regulations. The effect of the Amendment if carried would put paid to the Regular Army. The proposal means that the Government in future would have to aim their recruiting drive at above the minimum age. The application of the existing Regulations would raise the point of entry into the Armed Forces to the age of 21.

I have never disguised my views upon the worthwhile nature of the Regular Army, nor on the necessity of National Service. I have always tried to make my position quite plain and to face the facts, but if we interfere with the manpower target at which the Government are aiming just at the moment when the situation is most difficult—I am referring to the age group between 18 and 21—the Army which we shall recruit will not be 165,000 or 120,000.

Mr. Paget

I do not quite follow this argument. The provision is that we can recruit only when they reach the age of 21 and they have the option to go out or to sign on for a long term. Is my hon. Friend saying that no one who is in the Army until he is 21 would stay if he knew what it was like and that therefore he is not worth recruiting?

Mr. Wigg

No, I am not saying that and my hon. and learned Friend knows I am not saying that. What I am saying is that by a back-door method the target has changed a little. He is seeking to amend, not Clause 2, but Section 2 (5) of the 1955 Act. That would be the effect, because the Amendment would alter the minimum age. My hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) did not undergo the discipline of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton of two-and-a-half years on the Select Committee.

Mr. S. Silverman

But I reached the same conclusion.

Mr. Wigg

It may be that that casts very great doubt on it, because he is doing this by a short-cut. My horn, and learned Friend is quite right in saying that we had to consider the situation of the National Service man liable to very considerable psychological effects. We were anxious to preserve the young man's rights and the good will of his family. We laid down that notice had to be given—and that is in prescribel form in the Regulations—whereby the parent is asked whether he wants to raise any objection or not.

My hon. and learned Friend was uncertain about the situation in the case of a young man who enlists under the prescribed age. The provision is that the recruiting officer shall not enlist a person under the minimum age for man's service unless the consent to the enlistment has been given in writing. In that case, if my hon. and learned Friend does what he wants to do, it would mean that every young man under 21 seeking to join the Army would do so after notice had been given to his parents that that is the effect.

Mr. Paget

Under the age of man's service—whether it be 17½ or, in some exceptional cases, 17—parental consent is required. Over the age of man's service, and under the age of 21, parental consent is required if he be a National Service man. Parental consent between the ages of man's service, either 17 or 17½, and 21, is not required if the recruit is not a National Service man. The effect of this Amendment does not alter any of that. It merely provides that the man who is engaged at the age of man's service or over—that is, 17½ or, in exceptional cases, 17—may engage only for a term which will end on his 21st birthday, Having seen the Army until he is 21, he will then have the option to sign on for a long period or not. I am not saying whether it is right or wrong, but that is the proposal. To say that it is simply not worth recruiting anybody under 21 if he has the option to leave at 21, I find a rather alarmist attitude.

Mr. Wigg

My hon. and learned Friend has not altogether followed the argument. So far so good; the effect will be to raise the minimum age to 21 and the young man who joins now at 17½ will in effect be entering a three-year engagement. We have had experience of this. We have all the hopes on the record and enough damage has been done. We introduced a three-year engagement and my hon. and learned Friend will remember the statements we had from the Government Front Bench. On what percentage did the Government base their plans for ever getting a Regular Army? We were told 33⅓ per cent. That was what the Government hoped to get under the three-year engagement. What did they get? Less than 5 per cent. If the hon. Gentleman has his way and introduces by minimum age for man's service what amounts to a three-year engagement by the backdoor method, he is letting his kind heart run away with his head.

Mr. Paget

The position of the three-year engagement when we had National Service was entirely different matter from the three-year engagement when we do not have National Service. We all know that the choice was three years with quite good pay or two years with extremely bad pay. People joined because they had to and had no intention of going on for more than three years. Here we are dealing with volunteers who join because they choose to serve and who serve not in the demoralising company of people who want to get out of the Army but in the good company of men who are in because they choose to be in. What was the unfortunate experience of the three-year engagement under National Service would not necessarily be the case now.

Mr. Wigg

Keeping up with my hon. and learned Friend on this matter is like running up an escalator. What he fails to notice is that the one step which the Government took successfully was the introduction of the differential. Young men faced with the desire to join the Army got a higher rate of pay for the longer engagement. The Government, by sharpening the differential, made the first successful move towards solving this particular recruiting problem. The hon. Gentleman wants to return to the three-year engagement and thus wants to shoot the propellers off the one thing the Government have done to give some hope of being successful. Clearly, that is not his intention.

Mr. S. Silverman

I had not, as my hon. Friend said, the advantage of sitting a long time on the Select Committee, but I have put my name to this Amendment and I do not want to be wrong about it. Would he tell me this? Suppose the Clause is not amended, is it the case that a man may join at the age of man's service, that is, under 18, may then serve in that capacity till the age of 18, and then, at the age of 18, have the option so that there is a period during which he has short service and then, at the age of 18, one of these different periods?

Mr. Paget

He does not get an option at 18.

Mr. Silverman

If there is a period, and then he reaches the age of 18 and certain consequences follow, why is it wrong to say that it shall occur not at 18 but at 21?

Mr. Wigg

It is a complicated business but I will do my best to answer. The first thing is this. If a boy—I am using the term in the Army sense—joins with his parent's consent on Regular engagement—

Mr. Silverman

Under 17?

Mr. Wigg

Under 17—the option is at 18. On the other hand, if my hon. Friend will look at Section 2 (5) of the 1955 Act he will see that the expression 'minimum age for man's service' means the age of seventeen years and six months". It means that he can enter into a Regular engagement at that age or, in a few limited cases prescribed by Regulations, at 17, and can enter into a Regular engagement without adopting an option. I hope I have made that clear. One who joins as a boy and wants to join as a man can by virtue of subsection (5).

10.45 p.m.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. M. Foot) seems to think that if enough money was spent and if the hard-hearted Treasury was persuaded to supply all the cash necessary, Britain's recruiting problems would be solved overnight. My hon. Friend's argument appears to be that if sufficient money were available, conditions could be created to solve the problem. In answering that suggestion, I must enunciate "Wigg's Law," because I hold the view that the number of men at any given time who will enter the Armed Forces is constant. That number has very little to do with comfort or conditions.

This point can best be illustrated by looking at the proposals put forward by the Government before the last war, at the time of another recruiting problem. The Government took all the measures then that this Government are taking at the moment. There were increases in rations and pay, more walking-out passes were issued and uniforms were made more attractive—yet the recruiting problem stayed with us. That example can be paralleled in post-war circumstances. Since the last war, the Government have granted two pay increases since the general change of policy in 1957. Up went the recruiting figures—and down they came again a short while later; and now the Government are taking steps to increase recruiting again. I hope that they are successful. But, even if they are, can anyone say with any certainty that the figures will continue to increase? Of course not. The sequence of events I have described will be repeated.

While the advantages of increased pay, better conditions and all the other additives are important, I consider that we must approach this problem in a different way. We must recall to the young men of Britain a pride in their duties. "Duty" is perhaps an old-fashioned word, but we have forgotten its meaning. We must remind the young men of their obligation to their country. We must paint a picture for them; a picture of the worth-while job they are doing for Britain. I believe that in the word "duty" lies the challenge which faces the Western world.

The hon. and gallant Member for Worthing (Sir O. Prior-Palmer) and I went to Moscow some time ago. We went to see a regular Red Army unit and an officer, an extremely competent man who spoke perfect English, chatted with us about conditions in the Red Army and in the British Army. We explained to him our system of call-up. We told him how conscientious objectors were exempted, and he could not understand that. He said: "You mean to tell me that there are young men who do not do their national service?" We said "Yes." He then said: "But surely it is their duty."

Recently I saw some correspondence between a Russian officer and his wife. The officer had told his wife that he would not be home for New Year's Eve. The wife replied in a letter, "I understand. It is your duty."

The Temporary Chairman

I think that the hon. Member is going far beyond the Amendment.

Mr. Wigg

I am obliged for your indulgence, Mr. Arbuthnot. I have gone as far as I wanted to go on that point in order to illustrate my argument. The Committee would be well advised to look at these Amendments with great care. I have endeavoured to explain what I think the results would be. Certainly, there could be no short-term advantage. Indeed, in the short run, the result might be wholly disastrous and it might put paid to any prospect of returning in the foreseeable future to an Army of such a size as to make it viable.

Mr. S. Silverman

I apologise for detaining the Committee after what has been, for me, a long and complicated debate, but I took the responsibility of putting my name to certain Amendments and, although I defend them with diffidence, I must defend them. Although I am obliged to my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) for his explanation, which has enabled me to understand some parts of the Bill as drafted which I had not understood before, I am still not convinced that the Amendments ought not to be passed.

As I understand the Bill, we are dealing not with a conscript, but with a volunteer, not with a boy in Army terminology, but with a man. By "a man" we mean, according to the definition to which my hon. Friend directed my attention, someone aged, in most cases, 17 years and 6 months and, in a limited class of cases, 17 years. In those two classes of case, what the Bill provides is that in the first case where the volunteer is 18 years of age, he shall by his enlistment be deciding his whole future for a substantial number of years, and that where he is not 18 but is 17 years and 6 months, or perhaps 17, he is still committing himself to a substantial period of service, not quite so onerous as at 18, but still onerous enough.

We are saying that that is wrong and that this is too young an age at which to make so far-reaching a decision.

Mr. Paget

If the man is under 18, he undertakes a more onerous term, because he engages himself for the twenty-two years plus the difference between his age and 18.

Mr. Silverman

Yes; I am obliged. I had better confine myself, however, to the main point that in either case the period to which he is committed is a much longer period, and it is a much graver decision than we should allow him to make at that age. We are not saying that we want to reduce the minimum age; and in spite of the explanations, I do not think that that is the effect. A man may still join at the age of 17, 17½, 18 or any age under 21. What we are saying is that there shall be this, as it were, probationary period before he is finally committed to such a long period as is contemplated, either in the one case or in the other case in the Bill as drafted.

I do not want to repeat all the arguments. They are overwhelming. It is an almost comic anomaly that we should allow people of this age to pay the full penalty of the law if they commit murder or to make a decision governing the better part of their mature lives at this age, whereas we do not permit them either to vote or to marry or to be held to their contracts or do anything else of any serious import before the age of 21.

I cannot see that all the disastrous consequences that my hon. Friends foresee would follow if the Amendment were accepted. I can see no good reason why this group of Amendments should not be accepted. If the period between the age of enlistment and the age of 21 is adequately used by the Army, there can be no reasonable fear that the boy's ambitions and aptitudes which led him to join at 17½ or 18 will have been so radically changed that he will change his mind when he reaches the age of 21. If the period has been misused, it may be different—I do not know.

I think that there is a lot in what my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. M. Foot) said about the encouragement this would give to the Army to make conditions of service so attractive that at the age of 21 the enlisted man would confirm the choice he had made. It is manifestly wrong to allow him to make so portentous a decision before that age.

Mr. Profumo

I am very grateful to the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) for the speech he has made, because he has already enabled us to understand clearly an extremely abstruse and difficult problem. If one takes any of the Amendments or any of the Clauses without time for careful study one can make out a case which looks as if we are being unfair to those in the Army.

The effect of this group of Amendments would be to abolish the recruitment of apprentices and boys and provide for enlisitment from the minimum age of man's service up to 21. Only men over 21 could enlist on 22-year engagements. The 22-year engagement was introduced as a recruiting measure, and I want to make it plain at the outset that I do not regard twenty-two years as sacrosanct. What we are discussing is long-term engagement, which has always given the man who has signed on after 18 a pensionable engagement. The purpose of Clauses 2 and 7 is to enable men under 18 and over 17½ to sign on for an engagement which would enable them to complete twenty-two years for pension from their 18th birthday.

A great deal of play was made of the fact that we are advertising and in one way and another luring men into the Army when they are too young to vote or marry, and so forth. We are doing nothing of the sort. All our advertisements and our recruiting campaign is directed towards showing the advantages of serving Queen and country. I very much agree with the hon. Member for Dudley about showing the advantages of service and duty.

I have already had some criticism about the films we are showing on television, to the effect that we make them too realistic and too frightening for some parents and girl friends. This is done on purpose to show the Army as the place it is. In fact, it is not our television or newspaper advertisements, or our pamphlets, that have the effect on young boys or adult recruits. What has the greatest effect is the information passed on from mouth to mouth about what life in the Army is like. The best recruiting sergeant is the recruit himself. We try to see that the people in the Army have conditions that make them say to their young friends that the Army is a worthwhile life.

11.0 p.m.

The hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget), in a typical speech, gave the impression that these young men were taking on a formidable contract. Hon. Members opposite generally gave one to feel that these young chaps are lured into the spider's web, that they sign on for a very long time and that we have them in our clutches. It is true that they do this without parental consent and it is equally true that if a conscript, on National Service, wants to take on, he cannot do so without the permission of his parents. The parents have twenty-eight days in which they can object to what the boy has done. The theory is that we have them in the Army because of their national duty and that we brain-wash them, so to speak, and to some extent press-gang them into staying in the Army. The theory is that the parent must have twenty-eight days in which to refuse permission for the boy to be suborned by those of us already in the Army and that this state of affairs does not arise for the chap who decides, from civilian life, to join the Army, of his own free will.

It is wholly wrong to suggest that once a young man has decided to join he is there for life. He can buy himself out. I should be out of order in discussing in detail a later Amendment, but the point is that the chap has the same right as any voluntary recruit. If he feels that he has made a mistake he can buy himself out for £20, up to three months. He is not bound to complete the full length of his long-term engagement. He can opt out at each three-yearly point, except for the first. He is not bound for twenty years. He has plenty of opportunity to decide again.

This is very important, and I put it in particular to hon. Members who have not previously agreed with the Clause: the man can join with the right to complete twenty-two years' service for pension and also with the right to leave earlier if he wishes. The Amendment would offer no advantage to the man; on the contrary, it would be to his disadvantage. He could not join on a pensionable engagement. In the Army, like outside industry, we are fishing in a limited manpower pool. The lure of industry is far greater than anything I can offer. Except for the opportunity of service to his country, I cannot offer such inducements in salaries, pensions and so on. The Army, like outside industry, must obtain its share of the youth of the country. It likes the boys and apprentices to provide the warrant officers and non-commissioned officers of the future.

The hon. Member for Dudley was right; it would be immensely difficult for us to run the Army if recruits under 21 had the right to leave at 21. This Amendment would wreck the most carefully established arrangements, which have worked well for a long time, which have been brought under the scrutiny of the Select Committee, and which I believe to be vital to the future of the Army. I ask the Committee to reject the Amendment.

Mr. Marsh

I will speak only briefly, but the Amendment is on an important subject. Whether one agrees with it or not, one must recognise that this is an important issue, but we have been in difficulty in debating it because this has not been treated as a debate. Hon. Members opposite, when the Amendment was being moved, rumbled like traction engines in their places, obviously feeling very strongly on this issue, judging from their interruptions, made under their breath, yet they have made no attempt to put forward a point of view. The only two points of opposition which we have had to the Amendment have come from my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) and the Minister. As far as the Minister is concerned, I think we all accept that he is in a special position. It is his Bill. It is a major point, and he will have to think about changing it. But if we are to go on dealing with these points, it is not unreasonable to expect hon. Members opposite, if they have a point of view, to state it. It is very difficult to carry on a debate on a series of Amendments when quite clearly—

The Chairman (Sir Gordon Touche)

What the hon. Member is saying is not relevant to the Amendment.

Mr. Marsh

I accept your Ruling, Sir Gordon, that what I am saying is not relevant to the Amendment, but really if one cannot discuss the arguments for and against an Amendment it is really very difficult to deal with it. If we cannot discuss the lack of arguments against it, that also places us in a difficulty.

On the arguments that we have so far heard I still remain unconvinced. Indeed, I find it difficult to follow some of the arguments. As I understand it, it has been suggested several times by hon. Members, including the Minister, that this was not a lure to get a young man into the Forces and then to commit him for a long period of time—that it was easy for him to get out at the end of three years or in the first three months.

If that is the case, one finds it difficult to see why there should be such strong objection to a young man not signing on for a long period until he reaches the age of 21. All that we are proposing, in effect, is what is the present position, because he can get out in the first three years anyhow and after three months quite easily. All we are saying is that he shall not sign a contract until he is 21 years of age. That seems a fairly simple proposition, and I fail to see the argument against it.

On the other point, that what we propose would destroy the Army, that it would make it difficult to maintain the Army if it were easier for people to get out if they were committed for a period of less than twenty-two years, I find it difficult to follow the arguments. If there is no objection to these people committing themselves below the age of 21 for a period of twenty-two years, one would not have thought that conditions existed which would make them want to get out of the Army in less than twenty-two years.

I must say that I find the argument put forward by the Minister most unconvincing, and the lack of argument from some of his colleagues appalling. I agree with the suggestion put forward by some hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. M. Foot), that the method of keeping people in the Army must at some stage be a method of making the Army attractive to people to join it. We cannot put forward the argument that there is nothing exceptional about the present procedure and at the same time argue that without it people will not stay in the Army.

Patriotism and the call of duty are good reasons for joining the Army, but I should have thought that if the Army cannot imbue a degree of patriotism in a man who signs on for less than twenty-two years, in, say, twelve years, it will never do it. I should have thought that the Army would find it far easier to imbue a recruit with a sense of duty when he is in the Army than before he signs on.

I must confess that I listened carefully to the arguments. I can appreciate some of the technical points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley, but one is left with the feeling that what is being said is that if it were easier for people to get out of the Army in something less than twenty-two years they would do so. If that is the position they should not be committed to such service before reaching the age of 21. This is a simple issue, but one about which I feel very strongly.

Mr. Mayhew

I do not wish to detain the Committee, as both sides of the argument have been stated, but I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich (Mr. Marsh), whose persistence in support of the Amendment we all admire, will not press the Amendment. The point he makes is, of course, a very important one—my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. M. Foot) also made it—that the Amendment would give the Army an inducement to encourage the young soldier to stay in the Service. That is a subject which I expect we shall be mentioning again in connection with other Clauses, especially when we come to deal with the purchase of discharge.

I hope, therefore, that we shall have the opportunity of impressing on the Minister the enormous importance of learning how to acclimatise our young recruit during his first three months of service in the Army. There is some evidence that after our having been used to National Service men for a long time—men who could not leave even if they wanted to—there is a case for careful study of the techniques of acclimatisation now that the Army has to deal with volunteers and not National Service men. When my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich was making this point in favour of the Amendment, he was on strong ground, but I am sure that he will agree that we all want a strong, conventional volunteer force. If we are to have that, it seems to me that we cannot accept the Amendment.

I see no case for rejecting the boy recruit. If we take the Amendments as a group, by leaving out subsection (4) we shall remove the recruitment of boys from the Regular Army. I do not think that it is any part of our case on this side of the Committee that we want a smaller Army or that we want to stop boy recruiting. On the contrary, we are desperately worried by the fact that the whole emphasis of our defence at present is based on the assumption of the use of nuclear weapons and, over and over again, we have pointed out the danger of the fact that the organisation, training and deployment of our troops in Germany makes their possible use in a conventional war almost impossible. It is for these reasons that we want a strong conventional Army.

One of the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) was that this is a three-year engament, but is that so? I beg him to consider it further. It is a three-year engagement only for those who enlist at 18. It is a two-year engagement for those who enlist at 19 and a one-year engagement for those who enlist at 20. It does not make a great deal of sense. What is the point of a young man of 20 going in if the engagement is based on the fact that he has three months during which he can purchase his discharge and at the end of nine months he can leave, or, if it is a boy of 19, he again can leave at the end of a year and nine months? This is totally arbritrary and corresponds to no kind of conception or plan. It seems to me to be a non-starter.

11.15 p.m.

Above all there is a point which, to my surprise, the Secretary of State did not make. The Clause is necessary because it removes a ridiculous anomaly in the pensionability of certain engagements. It is such a complicated business that I am not sure that I can understand it, and if I did I am not sure that the Committee would be delighted if I offered an explanation. If a boy enlists at 17¼ years of age the engagement is pensioned as though he had been enlisted at 18, but if he enlists at 17¾ years his service is pensioned as though he was enlisted at that age of 17¾. That is the position and I am glad that the Under-Secretary appears to agree with me. He and I are all right now on this complicated question.

What does it mean? It means that if two young men of the same age stay in the Army for the same term, the one who joins six months later than the other will get a higher pension. It is ridiculous. It means that the longer service earns the lower pension, and the shorter service earns the higher pension.

That is a new principle in pension schemes. We have had some pretty poor ideas from the Government on pensions during this Parliament, and some of my constituents are asking questions about the graduated pension scheme which I doubt if the Minister could answer. I do not know whether we have ever had a Minister responsible for a pension scheme in which it was a case of the longer one's service the smaller one's pension, and the shorter one's service the bigger the pension.

The Amendment would rule out one good point of the Bill and perpetuate an anomaly which it is the purpose of the Clause to stop. At the moment a man who enlists under the age of 17½ is not pensionable. That means that if he is invalided out of the Army nothing can be done for him except to give him an ex gratia payment. This is ridiculous. How many people have been disqualified from receiving a pension because of this technicality? I agree that the Clause would remedy this, and that is why I support it, but how many cases have gone by on this? Have there been any cases of this kind where the Minister has not intervened and made an appropriate ex gratia payment or a payment under some warrant of Queen Victoria's day? I should like to be assured that justice has always been done in these absurd cases arising from an anomaly in the law. Again, the Amendment would rule out this constructive part of the law.

We still have the ridiculous situation that when two men reach the end of their service having served the same time, one of them may have to serve for another six months, or, in certain cases, a year, to qualify for the same pension as the other man. That is ridiculous, and it will continue for many years. We are legislating to rectify the anomalies in respect of whose enlisted under the Army Act. Do not let us forget that people have been recruited under the Army Act, 1955, and under the Army (Conditions of Enlistment) Act, 1957, and these absurdities about which I have been talking will apply to them for the twenty-two years of their engagement.

Mr. Wigg

My hon. Friend will find that the anomalies to which he referred apply mainly to the Royal Air Force and only in a minor way to the Army. On the main issue the Army put its house in order a long time ago. In this Bill the Royal Air Force is seeking to put some of these things right. The Army is seeking to enable a man to get his engagement right at the beginning rather than at the end of his service. My hon. Friend is not right in his reference to a man who is medically unfit in the Army. If the man's disability is attributable to Army service, he gets his pension. If his disability is not attributable to Army service, he can qualify only provided he has re-engaged. Thus, a man qualifies for pension if he is serving on a pensionable engagement.

Mr. Mayhew

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention, in particular because this is one of the rare occasions when I am right and he is wrong. Perhaps I might quote from the Select Committee's Report. It says that as a result of the anomalies of which I have been speaking a soldier who is invalided out of the Army can, if he has completed a minimum of 12 years' reckonable service, qualify for a pension provided he is serving on a pensionable engagement; a soldier enlisting between the ages of 17½ and 18 for 22 years does not therefore qualify on invaliding for a pension under the Army Pensions Warrant, and in such a case a pension can only be awarded exceptionally with the concurrence of the Treasury, under the Warrant of Her late Majesty Queen Victoria, dated 27th October, 1884. I believe that on this occasion I am right and my hon. Friend is wrong.

Mr. Wigg

My hon. Friend has quoted the phrase "on a pensionable engagement". That is when a man is re-engaged.

Mr. Mayhew

I shall have to sort that one out on some other occasion. It might take me a little far afield from what I had it in mind to talk about. But I must insist on the point I wanted to make originally—that as things are a man who enlists between the ages of 17½ and 18 for a period of twenty-two years is embarking on a non-pensionable engagement, and that means that in certain circumstances when he is invalided out he gets nothing, and special arrangements have to be made. I hope that they are made. The Under-Secretary has made a special study of this point, and understands it well, and I hope that he can assure me that in those circumstances, in practice, every such person in the past has received a pension under the warrant which I have described.

The second point which my hon. Friend put to me—and again I am glad to feel that it is one of the rare occasions when I am in the right—was that what I have been saying applies only to the Royal Air Force. I believe that it does apply to the Royal Air Force, but it certainly applies to the Army. That is the whole purpose of the Clause. It has no other. The only reason for the Clause is to enable us to spell out again the terms of enlistment in order to make this tiny point to cover the small anomaly which I have discovered. It is the Army and not the Air Force which is dealt with. Perhaps the Minister will agree with me and not with my hon. Friend on this occasion. For this reason, and others, I do not feel that we should support the Amendment.

The Minister went on to the question of recruitment, and I hope that when we debate the Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill" we can ask him a few questions on it. This is a vital Clause, and we shall no doubt have an opportunity to consider some of these urgent and important questions then. In the meantime, I hope that my hon. Friends will not press the Amendment.

Mr. Emrys Hughes

The speeches made by my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew) and the Minister show the dilemma in which they are placed. My hon. Friend wants a strong voluntary Army, and the Minister has said that the Army has only a certain pool of young people upon whom to draw. I want to know why the Army should have priority over the teaching profession. There are not many young men in my constituency, and there is a great demand for teachers. Is it suggested by the Opposition Front Bench that we should cripple education?

The Chairman

I do not follow how this argument is linked with the Amendment.

Mr. Hughes

Perhaps I have not made myself clear, Sir Gordon. We are here dealing with young men between 18 and 21. When I look at the young men in my constituency I feel that those are the ages between which we should recruit teachers, of whom we are desperately short. I should not advise a young man of 18 to enlist for a long-term engagement of twenty-two years. It would be more in keeping with the national interest that he should employ himself in education. Here is the dilemma which faces my hon. Friend. If we are to have a well-educated new generation, we must have more teachers. If the young men go into the Army, we shall not have the teachers. Take industry. We need a large number of young, skilled mechanics in industry. We need them in shipping—

The Chairman

Order. The hon. Member is going far beyond the Amendment.

Mr. Hughes

The Minister argues that, if he allowed the age to rise to 21, when they reached that age young men might decide not to join the Army after all. I believe that they have a perfect right to make that choice. If the future of the Army rests on deluding young men under the age of 21, the calibre of our Army of the future will be very poor indeed. We shall have people in the Army whom we cannot trust to remain in the Service because at 21 they will be "browned off" and "fed up." I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich (Mr. Marsh). Let us consider the experience of the National Service man. The Minister said that the best advertisement for the Army was a man with experience of serving in the Army; one who could say that it was a splendid institution, with plenty of sport and a varied life. But in practically every family in the country there is a member who has done his National Service and who found that the Army was nothing like that. And when a young man of 18 asks his elder brother whether he should join the Army, the reply he receives is, "Don't be a damned fool." That is the reality, and all the advertisement and propaganda cannot obviate the facts.

What percentage of National Service men are still in the Army? If there was a large percentage of them still in the Army and if the Army was so good, there would be no problem. But they know what the Army is like and how futile it would be to defend this country in the event of an atomic war. So we have this enlistment problem. The thinking of the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) is as obsolete as that of King Harold in this modern era. Understandably and justifiably the hon. Gentleman is thinking from the point of view of his generation. But now we have a generation which does not want to go into the Army, because the whole situation has changed. They realise the futility of a conventional Army. What nonsense to talk about a conventional Army using conventional weapons when the enemy is equipped with nuclear weapons.

11.30 p.m.

Mr. Hale

My hon. Friend is not accurate in likening my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) to King Harold. King Harold always kept British forces on British soil to defend British territory.

Mr. Hughes

I apologise to King Harold and, if necessary, Queen Boadicea too.

Mr. Wigg

I am prepared to be out of date in such good company. Last evening I looked at the television and I saw the parade in Red Square. What struck me was the absolutely superb quality of the troops engaged in the parade. The argument which commends itself to me, and which might even commend itself to my hon. Friend, is that if the Soviet Union think it worth their while to have regular troops of that quality I should have thought it was an argument which at least we should bear in mind. If I am likened to King Harold or to Queen Boadicea I consider that I am in very good company.

Mr. Hughes

I am not one who thinks that because there is a parade in Red Square of hundreds of thousands of troops it is necessary to have a big Army in this country. It raises the whole question of what the Army is for. In Russia they have got conscription, and I object to conscription. I do not like the Russian military organisation—

The Temporary Chairman (Mr. George Thomas)

Order. The Russian military service is not covered by this Amendment.

Mr. Hughes

I am sure that the problems of the Minister would be far greater if any part of the budget of the Russian Army in Red Square had to be borne on his Estimate. All I say is that because the Russians have a certain military organisation there is no justification for us trying to imitate them. We cannot compete with the Russians in their scientific education, and we cannot have scientific education in this country if we put 200,000 young men into the Army—

The Temporary Chairman

The hon. Gentleman must understand that he is out of order.

Mr. Hughes

My peroration is now over, Mr. Thomas.

The Temporary Chairman

That saves a point of order then.

Mr. Paget

I have found the discussion on what seemed to me to be a very serious subject eminently disappointing. I should have thought it was clear beyond any question that to sign up into the Army young men whom we do not allow to be signed up for any other purpose—even marriage—at the age of minority was something which was less than justice to them. That practice can only be justified by our necessity. It was that dilemma which I had hoped to see taken seriously by hon. Members opposite, in fact, one hon. Member gallantly tried on two occasions to rise to speak. Once the Minister got up and defeated him, and on the other occasion he was "shooed" down. Therefore, we have not had the debate which I feel a question of this seriousness deserves.

I equally felt that the Minister's answer was very unsatisfactory because, in all conscience, he cannot have it both ways. He cannot tell us, on the one hand, that this privilege of being able to change one's mind at 21 is worthless to the recruit and, on the other hand, that it is one which, if it were available, would be exercised so largely that we should not have an Army at all. Between those two, he has got to decide which leg he is standing on.

My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) decided on which leg he was standing. He made it clear that from his experience he did not think we should get an Army if, as he described it, we went back to the three-year engagement without conscription. I think that was also the point of view of my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew). It is one which convinces me because I feel that at this critical point in our recruiting—even though it is admittedly unjust and it is hypocritical to pretend that it is not—none the less, unjust though it be, we cannot for larger reasons take the risk with our numbers at this point. Therefore, reluctantly, I should be unable to support the Amendment.

Amendment negatived.

Mr. Mayhew

I beg to move, That the Chairman do report Progress and ask leave to sit again.

Could the Minister let us know what his plans are for the rest of the night? I notice a certain amount of evidence of fatigue on the benches opposite. On this side of the Committee we are as fresh as ever although most of the important discussion has been concentrated on these benches. If the Minister feels that he would like to attack further parts of the Bill afresh on another day, I do not think we on this side would have any objection. He could take the opportunity of letting us know what is in his mind about the programme for the rest of the evening.

Mr. Profumo

I am surprised at the hon. Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew). It had not occurred to me. We are making good progress as a Committee and those who want to talk are talking. That is what the Committee stage is meant for. I have not yet had my dinner and I regard it as early in the evening. I hope that we shall make progress. It looks as if now we shall not have quite such controversial matters to discuss. I hope that we shall press on with a will and carry on straight through the night.

Mr. Mayhew

The Minister speaks for himself. Other hon. Members have had their dinner. If he feels that he can encourage hon. Members who give the impression of fatigue to carry on longer, I am sure that we are willing.

Mr. Paget

I applaud what the right hon. Gentleman says and his willingness to keep on with this business, but the trouble is that we are not getting on with the business. We are not getting a debate. We cannot say that we are making extremely good progress when any hon. Member opposite who tries to take part is promptly sat on. The noise of indignation which runs along the Government Front Bench from the Patronage Secretary at the sign of any hon. Member opposite wishing to take part in the debate seems to be reducing the process to something of a farce.

The right hon. Gentleman ought to make up his mind where he stands. If the Government are indifferent about the time and he wishes to debate this Bill through the night, good luck to him. We are delighted to oblige, but let us at least be clear. Do not let us go on with this process of what he describes as allowing people who want to talk to talk but paying no attention and not giving them the credit of a reply which in any way seeks to meet the argument, or preventing anyone else from providing that reply either. After all, we have had quite a long debate on a very important matter in the last Clause, the rights of minors, but with not a speech from that side, and the reply from the Secretary of State really did not attempt to grapple with the arguments. On this side there was a division, and we had speeches from my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich (Mr. Marsh) and my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg), who really tried to argue, but nobody on that side, not even the Secretary of State, went through the motions of trying to argue. If we are to get on, please let us go on seriously and not upon that basis, of just sitting down with closed ears on an important question.

Mr. Marsh

I should have thought my hon. Friend's Motion wise at this stage. Of course, if hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite think that they must have this Bill tonight, obviously it is worth while going on discussing it. We have discussed fourteen Amendments—not frivolous Amendments; indeed, so important are they that the Government accepted three Opposition Amendments to their own legislation. That was wise and commendable of the Government. If they accepted more Opposition Amendments the Government would be better for it. Yet throughout this discussion on fourteen Amendments only one hon. Member opposite, I think it is true to say, the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop), has made a speech. Other hon. Gentlemen opposite sat with grim faces and then went to sleep. It may be a coincidence, but since then there has not been a peep from the hon. Member for Tiverton. He has vanished from the scene. What has happened to him I should not like to say.

Mr. Mayhew

Gone into space.

Mr. Marsh

There was another hon. Member opposite, the hon. and gallant Member for The Hartlepools (Commander Kerans), who made a couple of interjections, and he also was greeted with particularly unpleasant and un-comradely looks from his own Front Bench and since then he also has vanished.

There is a lot of this Bill and it is not unimportant to discuss it properly with contributions from both sides of the Committee in a debating manner. [An HON. MEMBER: "Why?"] I have not been a Member long, but I came here supposing that it was the purpose in this Chamber to discuss legislation.

Mr. R. Gresham Cooke (Twickenham)

To pass the Bill.

Mr. Marsh

I think that is very serious. If hon. Members opposite are not interested in the debate on the Bill there is little purpose in our sitting here much longer. We on this side are prepared to debate the Bill and any facet of it, but we are informed by hon. Members opposite that they are not prepared to debate it. They are not interested in the arguments for or against any Amendment. They are like obedient sheep waiting to go into the right Lobby when they are told to do so. That is not debate. There is not much point in trying to continue the debate in such a manner. It may be that hon. Members opposite are tired and do not feel up to going on with the Bill and the debate with the full range of their critical faculties. If that is so they may as well go home to sleep.

11.45 p.m.

The position is that we have almost reached midnight and have been informed that the rest of the night will be spent by hon. Members on this side of the Committee putting forward Amendments, which will be replied to, I admit, very properly and courteously by the Minister, but with no comment from hon. Members on the Government side of the Committee. This would, therefore, seem a good stage at which to adjourn our debate, enabling hon. Gentlemen opposite to go home to sleep, which is the right place for them to sleep. We could then resume when hon. Gentlemen opposite have been refreshed.

It is a tragedy that we should debate a Bill of this size and importance, affecting many people in many ways, without giving it the benefit of the sort of debate we should expect to have on a much less important issue. It seems pointless to continue this debate if the Patronage Secretary and his colleagues have decided that it shall be confined, as far as they are concerned, to speeches from this side of the Committee, and that their flock—and that is a good description of hon. Gentlemen opposite—are not to be permitted to take part. Obviously, there is no point in our continuing, for this is a Measure that should not be dealt with as a formality. Surely hon. Gentlemen opposite have some views about something.

Mr. George Brown (Belper)

That is going a bit far.

Mr. Marsh

Perhaps, but one must have charity. Either we have a proper debate now—and that means hon. Members on both sides of the Committee taking part—or we should go home and continue on another occasion.

Mr. Hale

At the time when my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew) rose to make a reasonable inquiry as to the progress of business, and to put forward by way of a Motion the suggestion that we should report Progress, and at the time the Minister frivolously replied to that inquiry, we were discussing a Bill affecting the defence of the country and the lives and future of 200,000 young men, most of whom have no right to vote or to express their own opinions.

We had been discussing the Bill in a Committee which did not even contain a quorum, and it would have been open to any hon. Member to call a count. Despite all those facts, the Minister is proposing to pursue the discussion of this important matter at such an hour, in such conditions, without any regard to the necessities of democracy, to the rights of the Committee, or to its duty to the nation to inquire into these matters of grave importance affecting the lives of our constituents.

The Minister proposes, callously and regardless of circumstances, to pursue this matter for some hours into the morning, merely in order to secure a Clause in this Measure, without a word of support from his supporters. That is the way Her Majesty's present officers propose to proceed with legislation that will affect so many of Her Majesty's subjects.

Mr. Cronin

The Secretary of State has maintained a very idiosyncratic position by rejecting this Motion. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned that he had not yet dined, but no doubt he leads a social life as a result of which he dines in the small hours, and his activities continue after that.

Mr. G. Brown

What kind of activities?

Mr. Cronin

Perhaps we had better not go into that.

I urge the Secretary of State to realise that the majority of hon. Members lead simple lives and usually wish to be in their beds before midnight.

That brings me to the important question that this is an extremely complex Bill. The hon. and gallant Member for Worthing (Sir O. Prior-Palmer) shows great familiarity with the Bill, but those of us who have not had the massive legal training of, say, my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) or my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget), find this an intense mental gymnastic. It is not a gymnastic which should be performed at this hour of the evening.

Certain things have arisen in the course of the Bill that show that there is much more in it than was originally considered by the Select Committee and by my hon. Friends and hon. Members opposite. It is most unsuitable, therefore, that we should attempt to force our tired minds to cope with this complex Bill at this late hour. We should also bear in mind the extreme importance of the Bill to the half-million officers, N.C.O.s, airmen and soldiers who are affected by it. What would they think if they realised that these matters, which affect their careers, their future, their discipline and their terms of service, were being debated in this extremely jaded atmosphere at this late hour?

I suggest that the Secretary of State should reconsider the matter and let us return to consider the Bill at some time when we are much fresher. I ask him to look around at his hon. Friends on his side of the Committee. He may be misled by the fresh and enthusiastic appearance of hon. Members on this side, but if he looks around at his own side he will see that there are considerable elements of fatigue and lassitude. For that reason alone, he would be doing his hon. Friends more justice if he arranged to carry over the Committee stage to a further evening.

Mr. John Morris (Aberavon)

In supporting the Motion at this very late hour, I will make only a brief speech. I am sure that you will pardon me on this occasion, Mr. Thomas, if my speech is not a long one. Before I go on to make the short point, however, I should declare my interest. As will be seen from the Order Paper, on the Motion for the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 1 (6), I propose, possibly tomorrow morning, at some convenient hour, to raise the subject of the grant for Welsh books. While at this juncture I do not propose to go into the merits of the speech I intend to make at a later stage—because, I am sure, that would be out of order—in fairness to the Committee I should declare my interest at this stage.

With whatever weight I can command, I support the Motion, which has been so ably moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew). In addition to my not unimportant debate at the end of business, there are other Motions in between. I am not going into them in detail, but I am sure that our colleagues from Scotland will want to discuss at some length the Scottish business which will come before the House at a later stage. In addition, there are agricultural matters—

Mr. Geoffrey de Freitas (Lincoln)

Hear, hear.

Mr. Morris

I am very interested in these matters, as is my hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln (Mr. de Freitas). Two Orders of great importance are to come before the House. In addition to these matters there is a long list of Amendments, and as one who took part in the Second Reading debate on this Bill I feel that this is not the hour at which to discuss these highly complex matters in a tired House that is now slowly but surely filling up.

Mr. Marsh

My hon. Friend has made the point that he has the Motion for the Adjournment, upon which he wishes to discuss Welsh books. It would be helpful to some of us, in weighing up the facts for and against continuing this debate, if he would say a word or two about the subject so that we could assess its seriousness.

The Temporary Chairman

I hope that the hon. Member will not be led up that particular path.

Mr. Emrys Hughes

On a point of order, Mr. Thomas. Surely it is in order on this Question for my hon. Friend to give reasons why the debate on the question of Welsh books should not be delayed until the early hours?

The Temporary Chairman

The hon. Gentleman must leave me to decide what reasons are in order. As long as I am in the Chair I must decide what is in order.

Mr. Paget

Further to that point of order. Surely when we are debating whether to continue, the question of what we are to do with the Motion for the Adjournment is something we clearly have to consider?

The Temporary Charman

Order. The hon. and learned Member is now trying to discuss the Ruling I gave. I must ask him to allow his hon. Friend to pursue his argument and we will see how we get along.

Mr. Paget

With great respect, Mr. Thomas, surely it is in order to discuss a Ruling, particularly as to relevance, when the point is raised by the Chair?

The Temporary Chairman

It is not in order to discuss a Ruling. If the hon. and learned Gentleman disagrees with it he knows the Parliamentary ways of dealing with it. It is not in order to debate it.

Mr. Paget

Surely the question of taking further action if one disagrees with a Ruling would be highly improper unless one had first given the reasons to the Chair, and given the Chair the opportunity to deal with those reasons.

The Temporary Chairman

No. The hon. and learned Gentleman is wrong. I do not propose that we shall have a debate on the Ruling I have given. I must ask the hon. and learned Gentleman to resume his seat.

Mr. Emrys Hughes

I should like to know how far it is possible to deal with the question of Welsh books on the Question before the Committee now.

The Temporary Chairman

If the hon. Gentleman will allow the hon. Member for Port Talbot [Interruption] or rather Aberavon (Mr. Morris)—it is the same place—to speak, he will find how far he can go. As long as the hon. Member for Aberavon is in order he will be allowed to continue.

Mr. Morris

I am very grateful for your protection, Mr. Thomas. If I may say so without questioning your Ruling, you have given my constituency an alias, and have suggested that the constituency of Aberavon is the same as Port Talbot. But if hon. Members were to come down to Aberavon they would discover that they are two different places.

The Temporary Chairman

I am very sorry that I led the hon. Gentleman into this path. Perhaps he would now return to the Motion.

Mr. Morris

I am grateful to you for bringing me back on to the path from which you led me astray.

12 m.

My hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich attempted to lead me astray into a discussion of Welsh books, but I will not follow his invitation. Not only have I the Adjournment debate, but I wish to take part in the debates on the Fatstock (Guarantee Payments) (Amendment) Order, 1961 (S.I., 1961, No. 508) and the Livestock Rearing Land Improvement Grants (Increase of Aggregate Maximum) Order, 1961, which are on the Order Paper. The clock has just struck midnight; you heard it, Mr. Thomas, as I heard it. The House is getting slightly thinner and hon. Members are beginning to move away. I suggest that this is not the time to embark on a long discussion, which may well go on all through the night, on a whole series of Amendments to a very important Bill. As an ex-National Service man, who did his National Service only a few years ago, I regard this as a very important Bill and I feel that a more appropriate time should be found to discuss it.

Mr. Emrys Hughes

I was intrigued by the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Mr. Morris). In addition to being interested in about thirty-four Amendments to this Bill, I am also interested that the House should give adequate time and attention to the subject of Welsh books, because I realise that in the Principality there is a deep interest in Welsh books and my hon. Friend's Adjournment.

The Chairman

Order. The hon. Member knows that whatever time the Adjournment is reached, the Adjournment debate is of the same length.

Mr. Morris

It may be the same length, but the crucial question is, when will it start?

Mr. Hughes

This is Tuesday.

Mr. Hale

Wednesday.

Mr. Hughes

Many Welsh weekly papers are published in the Welsh language at the week-end. This is a question affecting Welsh literature and culture which could be dealt with in the vernacular in the local papers in Wales. These papers go to press at a certain time, and if the debate does not take place at a suitable hour this question of Welsh books and literature will not be published in Aberavon this week. By the time it has been translated into Welsh it will not be possible to publish it at all in North Wales. In any event, the publication will be delayed for a further week. By that time such questions may cease to be topical. This question of Welsh books will then not receive the attention which it deserves.

I do not now represent a Welsh constituency, but had I been representing Aberavon, Merthyr Tydvil, Aberdare, Caerphilly or Cardiff, East or Cardiff, West I should have been most annoyed at the action of the Patronage Secretary and the Government Front Bench in trying to relegate an important part of the Parliamentary agenda, this whole question of Welsh books which naturally affects the people of Wales so intimately, to a much later hour.

Then there is the fact that I should like to be fresh to discuss the question of Welsh books. I want to know what Welsh books the hon. Gentleman has in mind.

The Temporary Chairman

That cannot possibly have anything to do with the Question before us.

Mr. Hughes

I am very grieved, Mr. Thomas, to hear you say that, and I am quite sure that my grief will be shared by people who live in Caernarvonshire, in Cardiganshire, in Pembrokeshire and in Montgomeryshire.

I also want to ask the Secretary of State for War why he is doing such scant justice to Scotland. He must have noticed the presence of my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) and of my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser), who are also anxious about items on the Notice Paper dealing with matters that vitally affect the people of Scotland. Both Welsh and Scottish Members have a right to protest very strongly when matters in which they are vitally interested are pushed aside in this manner and have to be debated in the early hours of the morning when they will not receive the attention in the public Press that they deserve.

Welsh matters will not be adequately reported in the Western Mail and Scottish matters will not be reported in tomorrow's Scotsman, so I think that we are entitled to protest to the Secretary of State for War. I am quite sure that the right hon. Gentleman does not mean to do this intentionally. His mind is so full at the moment with the importance of the Army and Air Force Bill that he has forgotten. He thinks that these are relatively minor matters. But they interest certain sections of the people of this country. I am certain that, on reflection, the right hon. Gentleman will realise that these are matters which deserve to be treated with greater consideration by the Government Front Bench.

I now turn to some of the Amendments on the Notice Paper. I suggest that in the course of the debate we on these benches have been doing our duty by making constructive suggestions to the Minister and that it has been a very good debate indeed. It is one which has been comparatively well attended for a Service debate. Those of us who are used to seeing half a dozen Members on both sides of the Committee in these debates were agreeably surprised to see such a large number of hon. and gallant Members opposite, who, even if they are unable to make their speeches, have shown by their presence that they are vitally interested in the Army and Air Force Bill.

I know, for example, that the hon. and gallant Member for Worthing (Sir O. Prior-Palmer), to whose speeches I have listened with great interest over a large number of years, has considered it his patriotic duty to be present and ready on occasion to give us the benefit of his advice, but, unfortunately, he has been suppressed. [HON. MEMBERS: "Shame."] I submit that there has been no time wasting in the debate. The very fact that for the first two hours of it we were stressing points which ultimately were considered as very reasonable by the Minister proves this. I just want to point this out to the Leader of the House who. I am glad to see, has joined us. As an old Parliamentarian he will realise that when a Minister accepts two Government Amendments after strenuously opposing them for two or three hours it is obvious that those who have been wasting the time of the Committee have not been members of the Opposition, whose constructive proposals were accepted, but the Minister himself. It is unfair that the Opposition and the Committee should be treated unceremoniously in this way and with scant consideration because the Minister failed to realise that by accepting the Amendments he would have enabled us to go forward with the Bill.

I press upon the Leader of the House that this is an important Bill which affects the country's defence and the whole organisation of the Army and Air Force. It involves not only terms of service but, inevitably, expenditure as well. We have already had examples earlier in the Session of matters involving huge expenditure being hurried through with scant consideration. I want the Bill to receive far greater attention from the Committee than we gave to the Army and Air Force Estimates. We have only a limited opportunity to deal with the organisation of the Army and the Air Force in the procedural arrangement of the House of Commons. We know that many hon. Members wanted to raise questions which could have been disposed of effectively at the time and would not have needed to be raised on this Bill if we had had the opportunity of discussing them on the Estimates. It is because we have not been able to discuss them on the Estimates and because we are thinking of future Estimates that we wish to have these matters discussed in a way which would be worthy of the House of Commons.

The Bill also vitally affects a very large number of young people. If the recruiting figures do not turn out as the Government prophesy it will mean that we shall be faced inevitably with some demands for a revival of National Service. That affects a large number of young people who are anxious to know what the Government intend to do. These debates on recruitment and enlistment are being watched by large numbers of people who have read ominous announcements that this organisation will not succeed in attracting enough recruits. The careers of these people will depend upon the future organisation of the Army and Air Force as affected by this Bill.

I submit, therefore, that this is an important matter to a large section of the population who axe entitled to demand that the House of Commons pays the greatest possible attention to these grave problems when the House or the Committee is not tired and is not anxious to adjourn. The Bill deserves the greatest attention that we can possibly give it when the Committee is not in its present mood. I believe that there are about fifty Amendments on the Order Paper. Hon. Members may ask why there are so many. It is because we think that the Bill is important and because some of the matters with which it is concerned will not be discussed again for five years.

12.15 a.m.

The Government have got Clause 1, and we have disposed of about eight Amendments. It is impossible for us to deal with the remaining forty-two Amendments without rushing them through in a way which will not give the Committee the opportunity to give them serious and detailed consideration.

I should have thought that hon. Gentlemen opposite were vitally interested in the Army. The question of solving the almost insuperable problem of how we can get the Army which the Government require by these methods is one which deserves serious consideration.

The Government's dilemma is that they have abandoned National Service and they now realise that—

The Temporary Chairman

Order. I do not want to interrupt the hon. Member more than I am bound to, but he is arguing the merits of the Bill rather than arguing whether we should continue the debate.

Mr. Hughes

I am only mentioning the horizon which we can see. I am pointing out the country which has to be surveyed because I do not think that the Government have realised that this is a complex, important Bill which vitally affects our future defence strategy. These considerations have been brushed aside. The Government should accept the Motion so that we can return to the Bill in a constructive spirit and in the mood which is essential when a Measure of this kind is being considered.

Mr. Wigg

The Committee has been sitting for many hours, and we have not made as much progress as we would have liked. The importance of the Bill may not be realised until a flaw of some magnitude is discovered. We are legislating for five years, and I am sure that if the Government go on for too long and the Committee gets tired and loses interest the possibility of making mistakes will be greatly increased.

Some of the matters we have to discuss are of some complexity and importance. I know that the Government must be anxious to get the Measure through and are disappointed that we have not done it in one Sitting, but I ask them not to drive us too hard. If they accept the Motion and agree to discuss the Bill further at some later date, that will not only facilitate the business of the House but it will maintain the quality of our work. It is in the interests of the Army that we should make sure that we are able to examine the Bill in detail.

Mr. William Ross (Kilmarnock)

I have not so far participated in the debate, so I do not suppose that anyone could blame me for holding up the business of the Committee today.

Anyone who has any knowledge of the history of the Army Acts over the past ten years should not be surprised by the number of Amendments or by the critical attention which my hon. Friends have paid to the Bill.

What surprises me—and I hope that the Leader of the House will consider this—is the way in which, in relation to the progress of the Bill, the matter has been handled by the Secretary of State. He is the last person who should complain about the lack of progress. I sat in the Committee for a long time today and heard a discussion relating to one Amendment, and after a long silence, with no effort to speak on the part of the Secretary of State, he eventually rose and accepted the Amendment.

Mr. Marsh

After two hours.

Mr. Ross

It was over two hours, during which we had a filibustering silence from the Secretary of State. I do not know whether hon. Members opposite appreciate it, but, generally speaking, when the Government are anxious to get business through they do not waste very much time in rising to say that they are willing to accept an Amendment. From that point of view, the Secretary of State has every reason to explain to the Leader of the House why he allowed so much time to pass before saying that he would accept the Amendment.

Mr. Cronin

We should be just to the Secretary of State. In the debate to which my hon. Friend has referred he did say that he was muddled by the whole business. It may be that it required two-and-a-half hours for him to understand what was going on.

Mr. Ross

My hon. Friend will appreciate that before the Minister arrives here he has discussions with his advisers as to what attitude he should adopt in relation to the Amendments to be moved.

Mr. Paget

I do not know whether my hon. Friend is aware of what happened in relation to the second Amendment. The Minister rose very punctually during that debate to say that he could not accept it, but after another hour he rose again to say that he had changed his mind in view of the arguments adduced, and would accept it.

Mr. Ross

I would not complain about that, but he had obviously made up his mind to accept the first Amendment, and he was responsible for our wasting a lot of time in fruitless debate when we would have been satisfied with his ready and speedy acceptance. There is no doubt about the importance of this debate, in view of the fact that it will be five years before we shall have another opportunity to discuss the Bill. I hope that the Leader of the House will appreciate that it would be unwise to expect to get this Measure through quickly.

I am concerned with the Scottish business that follows this. There is a fairly small and not very controversial Bill which was handled with care and without any sort of muddle or controversy in the Scottish Standing Committee, and which is awaiting attention after we have finished this debate. As a Scottish Member I want to complain that this sort of thing happens too often. We are left in the position of having to wait until the middle of the night before we can start considering Scottish business. The Scottish Standing Committee met this morning at half-past ten—over fourteen hours ago—and it is asking a bit much to put Scottish business down in this way. We should receive a little more consideration from the Leader of the House.

Following the Scottish business there are two affirmative Orders. That is Government business, which the Government must pass in this way through the House. One relates to a little matter of about £27 million, or at least increasing the grants in relation to guarantees from £25 million to £27 million. This applies equally to Scotland, and presumably will be handled by the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland whose concern is agriculture. It was he who spent two-and-a-half hours this morning dealing with the problems of the Crofters Commission under the new Crofters (Scotland) Bill in the Scottish Standing Committee. I think that from this point of view the Leader of the House ought to consider the state of business and the fact that this is not the right way to deal with an important matter. I suggest that the right hon. Gentleman accepts the Motion.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. R. A. Butler)

The hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) has made an appeal on the subject of the later business, and I think that it would be reasonable for me to say that our chief objective is to make further progress and obtain the further stages of this Bill as set down on the Order Paper, together with the Amendments. But I think that it would be reasonable to say to those hon. Members who are waiting for the Scottish business, that we shall not insist on obtaining that tonight. I hope that that will be accepted by the hon. Member for Kilmarnock in the spirit in which I have said it. I think that the Order should be included. If hon. Members are waiting I think that it would be unreasonable to ask them to wait further.

I have been in and out of the Chamber from time to time. I have not been present for the whole of the debate because there are other duties to perform, but I have tried to follow the sense of the debate and certainly there has been no bad spirit in the debate. I do not want to introduce any deterioration in the spirit in which we have been considering this Bill. It is an important Bill which has been considered by a Select Committee, and there is a comparatively small but energetic, faithful and experienced band of hon. Members opposite who are pursuing the various Amendments with assiduity and with some knowledge.

I was moved by the intervention of the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg), who has had a life-long experience of this subject. At the same time, I must tell the hon. Member and the Committee that it is our intention to make further progress. The hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) said that he wants the Bill considered with full attention, and that it must be considered with full attention because it may well last for another five years. The obvious course for the hon. Member is not to proceed with this Motion which is a dilatory Motion, and prevents further progress being made. I think the reasonable thing would be to withdraw it and then to make further progress with the Bill on the understanding that I shall not insist that the other Orders shall be taken at this late hour. I hope that that will be regarded as reasonable in view of the spirit in which the Bill has been approached, and I should like to appeal to hon. Members to address themselves to this matter.

Mr. G. Brown

I am afraid that that is not regarded as reasonable at all. I do not quite understand the Leader of the House. This is a Bill of tremendous importance and the right hon. Gentleman did not seem to address himself to the issue at all. The other business is clearly out of the way. That he cannot get, and he is making no concession by saying that he will not insist on it. The issue is this Bill. At half-past twelve in the morning the right hon. Gentleman asks the Committee to go on when he says that there has been nothing wrong with the spirit of the debate and nothing wrong with the issues that my hon. Friends have raised. He says that he must insist that we make further progress. I gather that by "further progress" the right hon. Gentleman means that the Government want to get the Bill. That seems absolutely unreasonable and impossible.

A lot of people will be affected by this Bill and we ought to discuss it during the day-time when hon. Members are fully au fait with the issue. It has already been pointed out by my hon. Friends that this is a new situation, that the Secretary of State is now holding up his own Bill by sitting there and not saying a word. Then he adopts an Amendment which he could have adopted before. We are now at the end of Clause 2. We have a number of Clauses to come—

Mr. Emrys Hughes

May I interrupt my hon. Friend? We are not near the end of Clause 2.

Mr. Brown

I understood that we were on the Question "That the Clause stand part of the Bill," but I now gather that we are not even there yet. This makes my position very much stronger. How can the Leader of the House come here with a Bill which has a large number of Clauses—I have at the moment counted up to Clause 28 and several of my hon. Friends have got ahead of me—and when at half-past twelve we have not, I gather, yet reached the Motion "That Clause 2 stand part of the Bill"—

Mr. Marsh

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. I have done a rough calculation to see what the position is. There are something like fifty Amendments on the Order Paper. We have so far dealt with fourteen of them, and they have occupied us till now. If we continue, and the Leader of the House is determined to get this Bill in this sitting, it will take us till 7 o'clock on Thursday morning, if we do nothing else, which I suggest is unreasonable.

Mr. Brown

I think it is unreasonable, but my hon. Friends and I are quite prepared to do it if the Government insist. However, it is unreasonable, and it will strain the Government supporters. The Secretary of State makes no complaint. This is something that we do only once every now and again. We do not do it every year. When we changed the procedure it must have been in everybody's mind that when the Measure came up for renewal it would be given rather special thought. We used to do this every year. Now we do it every several years. The Committee ought not to have inflicted upon it the necessity to do this in the early hours of the morning. I assure the Leader of the House that there are enough of us here to keep this debate going, if he wants to keep it going and if he wants to make us resist and make him understand that we cannot deal with the Bill in this way. It does not seem to me that this is a good atmosphere in which to deal with the renewal of this very important Bill.

I make an appeal to the right hon. Gentleman. The Patronage Secretary is not here, so the right hon. Gentleman is in full command of the Committee at the moment. I ask him, in the atmosphere of complete freedom for the moment, to look at this matter sensibly. We have done as much as seems reasonable to everybody who has played a part in this debate. It is now getting on to one o'clock in the morning. We are getting towards the end of Clause 2. Will he not be sensible at this stage and say that this is enough for the day?

If we get to the next Clause, Clause 3, we get to a very important Clause. Things that are important are often complicated, and things that are complicated are often not unimportant. Clause 3 changes the conditions of service after long-term enlistment in the Regular Forces. One of the things that I, as an amateur in all these matters, understand is that one of the problems, if the right hon. Gentleman is to reach his target, is the change that affects men who, having enlisted for a long time, do not in fact want to carry out their engagement.

On Clause 3 alone we are certain to have a very long discussion. On this side of the Committee there are many hon. Members, some still sitting here and others having a little refreshment, who know a great deal about this matter. They wish that, as this is the only opportunity of our doing it, the opportunity should be taken to try to bring home to the Government, as we have already done, the changes which ought to be made. I ask the Leader of the House, who is a very much older hand at this kind of thing than I am, to agree that when we have this opportunity only once every five years we should be able to do it at a time which accords with our dignity and with the requirements of the Services. The Leader of the House, coming here after midnight and insisting that we go on with this business, is not doing the job as he would like to do it.

I ask him to think again. If we finished with this Clause, I should have thought that we would have done very well in the light of what has happened this afternoon. We could come back to do this work on some other day in a different mood and could see how we got along. If we try to do it now, while we must do our duty and examine the Bill closely and carefully—and that we shall do—I doubt whether we shall do it as well as it ought to be done. It may be that we shall take rather longer than normally would be required, but it will have to be done if the Leader of the House insists, because he commands rather more noses than we do. If he wants to rely on that, let him do so, but I should not have thought that a very good thing.

He will not be there next time this Measure comes before us. He will then be speaking from this side of the Committee. Anything we say this time he will be able to say next time. I should have thought that I was making him—not him, but his successor—a very considerable hostage which he should take in the name of his successors. If he drives us on we shall go on, but that does not seem a good thing to do. He caw address us again, as we are in Committee. Knowing him, knowing the Bill and how seldom we have a chance to discuss this matter, I suggest that there is a great deal to be said at twenty minutes to one in the morning for the proposal that we might go on until one o'clock and finish this Clause, and that perhaps would be enough.

Question put:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 11, Noes 123.

Division No. 154.]	AYES	[12.38 a.m.
Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)	Marsh, Richard	Ross, William
Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)	Mayhew, Christopher	Wigg, George
Herbison, Miss Margaret	Millan, Bruce
Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)	Morris, John	TELLERS FOR THE AYES:
Mackie, John		Mr. Paget and Mr. John Cronin.
NOES
Aitken, W. T.	Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)	More, Jasper (Ludlow)
Allason, James	Gardner, Edward	Osborn, John (Hallam)
Atkins, Humphrey	Glyn, Dr. Alan (Clapham)	Page, Graham (Crosby)
Barlow, Sir John	Goodhart, Philip	Pannell, Norman (Kirkdale)
Barter, John	Goodhew, Victor	Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe)
Bidgood, John C.	Gower, Raymond	Peel, John
Bingham, R. M.	Grant, Rt. Hon. William	Pitman, I. J.
Bossom, Clive	Green, Alan	Pott, Percivall
Bourne-Arton, A.	Gresham Cooke, R.	Prior, J. M. L.
Bowen, Roderic (Cardigan)	Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G.	Prior-Palmer, Brig. Sir Otho
Box, Donald	Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)	Profumo, Rt. Hon. John
Brewis, John	Harrison, Col. J. H. (Eye)	Pym, Francis
Bryan, Paul	Hendry, Forbes	Quennell, Miss J. M.
Buck, Antony	Hiley, Joseph	Ramsden, James
Bullard, Denys	Hill, J. E. B. (S. Norfolk)	Rawlinson, Peter
Butler, Rt. Hn. R. A. (Saffron Walden)	Holland, Philip	Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin
Carr, Compton (Barons Court)	Hopkins, Alan	Rees, Hugh
Channon, H. P. G.	Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hon. Patricia	Roots, William
Chataway, Christopher	Hughes-Young, Michael	Scott-Hopkins, James
Chichester-Clark, R.	Hutchison, Michael Clark	Sharples, Richard
Clark, Henry (Antrim, N.)	Iremonger, T. L.	Shaw, M.
Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)	Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)	Skeet, T. H. H.
Cleaver, Leonard	Johnson Smith, Geoffrey	Smith, Dudley(Br'ntf'rd & Chiswick)
Cole, Norman	Kershaw, Anthony	Smithers, Peter
Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.	Kirk, Peter	Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir Malcolm
Cordle, John	Langford-Holt, J.	Studholme, Sir Henry
Corfield, F. V.	Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry	Summers, Sir Spencer (Aylesbury)
Courtney, Cdr. Anthony	Loveys, Walter H.	Sumner, Donald (Orpington)
Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.	Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh	Talbot, John E.
Curran, Charles	MacArthur, Ian	Taylor, W. J. (Bradford, N.)
Currie, G. B. H.	McLaren, Martin	Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)
Dalkeith, Earl of	Maclay, Rt. Hon. John	Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin
Deedes, W. F.	Maddan, Martin	Turner, Colin
Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. M.	Maginnis, John E.	van Straubenzee, W. R.
du Cann, Edward	Matthews, Gordon (Meriden)	Vane, W. M. F.
Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)	Mawby, Ray	Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)
Errington, Sir Eric	Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.	Walder, David
Finlay, Graeme	Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C.	Walker, Peter
Fisher, Nigel	Mills, Stratton	Ward, Dame Irene
Wells, John (Maidstone)	Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)	TELLERS FOR THE NOES:
Whitelaw, William	Woodnutt, Mark	Mr. David Gibson-Watt and
Williams, Dudley (Exeter)	Yates, William (The Wrekin)	Mr. Gordon Campbell.

The Deputy-Chairman (Major Sir William Anstruther-Gray)

In calling the next Amendment in page 2, line 12, to leave out paragraph (a), I suggest that it might be for the convenience of the Committee to discuss at the same time, the Amendments in line 12, after "a" to insert "long"; in line 22, after "a" to insert "long", and in page 3, line 1, to leave out from the beginning to second "the" in line 6.

Mr. Marsh

On a point of order, Sir William. In seeking your guidance, I must point out that the Amendment to leave out paragraph (a) bears no relationship to any of the other Amendments to which you have referred. It will, therefore, be rather difficult for hon. Members to debate, at the same time, an issue of some considerable point of principle, and, in the other case, a series of drafting or exploratory Amendments. Perhaps, Sir William, we could take the Amendment to leave out paragraph (a) separately, and then proceed with the other Amendments, since that one is in no way related to the others.

Mr. Paget

Further to that point of order, Sir William. I support what my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich (Mr. Marsh) has said. The first Amendment is designed to remove the 22-year engagement and to place everyone on the 12-year engagement. The other three Amendments go together and have an entirely different purpose.

Subsection (2) of Section 5 states in the first six lines: References (however expressed) in the four next following sections to a person's enlisting or having enlisted on a long-term enlistment shall be construed as referring to his enlisting or, as the case may be, having enlisted for such a term as is mentioned in paragraph (a) of subsection (2) of this section or paragraph (a) of subsection (3) thereof; and… The object of the Amendment is to avoid taking six lines to say what has already been called a long engagement and to call it a long engagement in the first place, thus taking two lines to do the work of six. That is a drafting Amendment to improve the construction of the Bill, but it has nothing to do with my hon. Friend's other Amendments which go to the substance.

The Deputy-Chairman

If the Committee do not agree to take the Amendments together, they will not be taken together. The first Amendment will be called, but I am not prepared to say that I will select the next three Amendments. I do not think that they justify being selected on their own. Mr. Emrys Hughes.

Mr. G. Brown

If you are prepared, Sir William, to call certain Amendments together, you must, I should have thought, have decided that each of those Amendments justifies being called.

The Deputy-Chairman

No. In fact, only one Amendment can be called. What I had put to the Committee, and what, I thought, would be to the convenience of the Committee, was that the other three Amendments could be discussed with the first Amendment. It is only the first Amendment that has been selected for debate.

Mr. G. Brown

I understood all that, Sir William, but I gathered that you thought that these Amendments warranted discussion. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Who is speaking for Sir William? I should not have thought that it was the hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Gresham Cooke), even at this hour of the morning.

Mr. Gresham Cooke

The right hon. Gentleman asked a rhetorical question.

Mr. Brown

I understood, Sir William, that you thought that these Amendments all warranted discussion, but you ventured to say that it would be for the convenience of the Committee to take a number of them together. If they are worthy of discussion, and if the Committee, in its mood of the moment, does not want to take them together, is it not still open to the Committee to take them separately?

It seemed to me—I say this with every respect which I hold for you personally, as well as in the Chair—that you were trying to give the Committee something like an ultimatum. You seemed to be saying that if we would take the Amendments together, you would allow us to discuss them, but that if we would not take them all together you would allow

us to take only the first one. That seems to me to be going a bit far.

We on this side, who have put down the Amendments, feel that there is a great difference between the effect of the first one and the effect of the others. If in your wisdom, Sir William, without any consultation with us, you thought that all of them should be discussed and, equally without consultation with us, you thought that they all went together and then we explained to you that they do not all go together because there is a great difference between the first one and the others, I should have thought that we were entitled to ask you not to force us either to take them together or to lose them.

The issue is that there are a number of Amendments which we thought we ought to move, and clearly you, Sir William, of your own volition, came to the view that they should be discussed, but it is difficult for us to discuss them together because they do not hang together. [Interruption.] Was someone interrupting me? Was it the Attorney-General for Scotland, sitting in an unwonted place on the back benches?

Mr. Emrys Hughes

There is no such officer as the Attorney-General for Scotland. There is the Lord Advocate.

Mr. Brown

I understand. The Lord Advocate is sitting on the back bench. Do I gather that he has resigned from the Government in protest against this—

The Deputy-Chairman

Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will devote his remarks to the point of order.

Mr. Brown

Yes, I will do so, but if I am interrupted by the Lord Advocate it is inevitable that I should reply to him. Perhaps he should not have interrupted me, or have been allowed to interrupt. I do not know.

Since we feel that the subsequent Amendments do not go with this Amendment, we feel we should not be subject to a Ruling from you, Sir William, which rather sounded—although I doubt whether you meant it so—as though you were saying, "You may discuss these on my terms, otherwise you may not discuss them at all." I am submitting, with the greatest respect and understanding for your position, that you should allow us to discuss this Amendment, and that if my hon. Friends then wish to move the subsequent Amendments they should be able to do so.

To ask us at this stage to assume that one can telescope a whole host of Amendments in this way looks to us rather more like getting the Bill through than giving the Committee the opportunity it ought to have. With the greatest respect, it seems to be rather limiting the Committee's rights to discuss all the aspects of the Bill that it thinks should be discussed. I hope, therefore, that you will let us deal with this Amendment without giving us any hint—I do not use the word "threat" because that would not be right—that if we insist on taking this alone we cannot move the others.

The Deputy-Chairman

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for not pressing the words "threat" or "ultimatum". The position is that the duty is imposed on the Chair of selecting Amendments. If I were to take the course the hon. Gentleman is advocating, it would mean that he was selecting the Amendments for debate rather than the Chair, and that would not be the correct practice. These Amendments have not been selected hastily in the light of the fact that we are working through the night. They were selected before the debate began. It has been open to hon. Members on both sides to consult the Chair and inform themselves which Amendments are to be selected throughout the debate. No hon. Member has previously said that this was not an equitable way of going about it. I feel bound to continue on the course that was decided.

I will now call the Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes). If it is not convenient to discuss the other Amendments that were not considered suitable for selection on their own merit, those will not be selected for debate. None of this has been done hurriedly and there has been no objection to it until now. I believe that full opportunity can be given to both sides of the Committee to discuss every point if we proceed along the lines which I suggested of considering the Amendment which the hon. Member for South Ayrshire intends to move and allowing the discussion to range more widely over other points.

Mr. Mayhew

May I draw your attention, Sir William, to the fact that we have had a precedent this afternoon. Part of the good tone of the debate to which the Leader of the House paid tribute was due to the co-operation on both sides of the Committee and the occupant of the Chair in handling two Amendments to Clause 1—the Amendment in page 1, line 18 and that in page 1, line 21. They were called simultaneously, to be debated together, and in the discussion it became evident that two separate debates were proceeding. In particular, my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich (Mr. Marsh) made two totally different speeches in dealing with the two Amendments. Finally, the Minister suggested that we should discuss the Amendments separately. This was welcomed by both sides of the Committee and the Chair and was wholly successful. We thus overcame precisely the same difficulty as that which we now face. May we not repeat that practice in order to preserve the very good spirit which has dominated the debate so far?

I cannot commit my hon. Friends, but may I suggest a compromise? I draw attention to the fact that there is considerable similarity between two of these Amendments. I will read them: "in page 2, line 12, after 'a' to insert 'long'"; and "in page 2, line 22, after 'a' to insert 'long'". You will see the similarity, Sir William. If my hon. Friends agree—I cannot commit them—we could take those two Amendments together. We might take first the first Amendment in line 12; then the two which I have read; and finally the fourth Amendment to which you drew attention. I hope that that is clear, but if there are any obscurities about it I am prepared to rise again and to explain it further. I hope that I have made a constructive contribution towards solving the problem.

1.0 a.m.

Mr. Hale

May I seek your guidance, Sir William? You said that it is open to any hon. Member to find out which Amendments have been selected. I have been here for sixteen years and I have never had access to the usual channels, which, like most usual channels, get a little muddy and are sometimes not very communicative. I do not know of any method by which I have the right to ascertain which Amendments have been selected. I am paired and could not even vote a few moments ago. I have an Amendment down to Clause 4 and a consequential Amendment down, and I do not know whether they will be selected. I have always received the utmost possible courtesy from the Chair.

On some occasions I have ventured in moments of difficulty, when I was likely to be seriously inconvenienced, to approach the Chair and to ask for some guidance and information. That has always been kindly, generously and frankly given. But I have always understood that I was rather going outside the normal rules and that the information was not normally, regularly or obligatorily available. How do I find out, Sir William, what Amendments are to be moved? How am I to know whether, if I stand with this gallant band till Clause 4 comes up, perhaps not till 8 o'clock in the morning, my Amendment may be selected and I may be able to put my constituency point which I am here to urge?

The Deputy-Chairman

Speaking from my own experience, which I think is shared by other occupants of the Chair. I have never known an occupant of the Chair to decline to inform an hon. Member who comes to him privately at the Table and asks if he can see which Amendments are selected. That system has served us well in the past and will, I am sure, continue to do so in the future.

Mr. Hale

I accept that of course, Sir William, and I acknowledge the gracious kindness which we always receive from the Chair, but I was under the impression that that was a courtesy which we always received and not a right which we are entitled to demand.

Mr. Marsh

On a point of order. Further to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew) when he suggested that we might well resolve this difficulty by debating together the Amendment in page 2, line 12 and that in page 2, line 22, it occurs to me that it might perhaps have been overlooked that these Amendments, together with another Amendment, are all part of the same exercise. It would be possible to take not only the two Amendments to which I have just referred, but another Amendment which goes with them, in page 3, line 1, to leave out from the beginning to the second "the" in line 6. I am trying to make the point that there is no reason why all these Amendments, which are concerned with the same point, should not be discussed together. If that would be of any help to the Committee, I for my part should be only too happy to adopt that course.

The Deputy-Chairman

I have listened carefully to what hon. Members have said. I am sure that it is not being unfair to the Committee to proceed as I suggest. Besides the debate on the first Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes), with which I suggest the debate can take place on the other three Amendments, there is the right to debate the Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill." I am quite satisfied that that would allow every point to be put and I should like the Committee to proceed as has been decided.

Mr. Thomas Fraser (Hamilton)

Further to that point of order. You, Sir William, have suggested that we should discuss four Amendments together. That suggests to me that the Chair has decided that each of those Amendments is in order and that in the course of speeches hon. Members can speak to any one of them. Bearing in mind that we are the legislature, that we not only determine policy but the form in which that policy will be given effect to in legislation, hon. Members having discussed these Amendments can, presumably, decide whether or not to accept them, that is, each of them in turn. The Legislature must be free to decide what its attitude is on each of those four Amendments.

Therefore, after discussion on these four Amendments we could vote on any one or all of them and reach whatever decision the Committee thought fit. But you have said, Sir William, that if hon. Members are unwilling that Amendments which in their own view are not closely related should be discussed together, the Chair will take the view that the first will be taken and discussed and the other three will not be debated at all because they have not been selected.

I do not follow the suggestion you have made. I am sure that you are not trying to deny to hon. Members of the Committee their right as hon. Members to alter legislation as they think fit. I am not boasting here but merely stating what I believe to be the fact that I have had more experience of Committee work in the Chamber and in Standing Committee than any hon. Member now present. I have been a Member of the House of Commons for a little over eighteen years and, as you know, Sir William, Members representing Scottish constituencies attend far more Standing Committees than any other hon. Members.

In the past sixteen years there have been few Parliamentary weeks when I have not been present in Committee and few occasions over the whole period when I have not been participating actively in the work of the Committee of which I have been a member. I have not in all those years ever had the experience of being told by the Chair that if a series of Amendments were grouped we could discuss them but if they were not grouped for discussion some of the Amendments would not be selected by the Chair.

This might not be altogether a precedent. I do not know about that, but it is something which I have not run against over a great many years in Standing Committee, and I understand that the same rules apply there as apply in a Committee of the whole House. I am a little fearful lest your Ruling on this occasion might very severely restrict the right of hon. Members to move their Amendments in their own way in future.

If my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich (Mr. Marsh) thinks that one or two of his Amendments are in no way related to the Amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes), it seems a great pity if he is to be told that he may discuss his Amendments only if he discusses them together with that moved by my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire. If my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich could so discuss one of his Amendments in those circumstances, then presumably he would be entitled to divide the Committee on it, but if he is not able to discuss it together with that of my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire he will not be allowed to discuss it at all.

This seems to me to be treating hon. Members with less than fairness. I should have thought it would be better to allow the Committee to proceed by calling Amendments together where hon. Members agree that they should be called together, but as long as the Chair has rules that they can be discussed together presumably they have been notionally selected and it seems to me that if hon. Members do not agree to their being discussed together they should be discussed separately.

Mr. Paget

I asked at the beginning and I was told that these four Amendments were selected. It was doubtless my neglect that I did not see that they were to be discussed together. As my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew) has pointed out, a similar difficulty occurred earlier in the debate, and that put me in some difficulty. I was then in favour of the first Amendment and opposed to the second. I asked the Chair whether in those circumstances, if they were debated together, I could vote for one and against the other.

1.15 a.m.

I am in the same position here. I am opposed to the first Amendment and in favour of the other three. I presume that the same Ruling as we had before applies, and that we shall be able to express ourselves in the Lobby on these four Amendments. If that be so, and I assume that it is so because that Ruling was given in this Committee in like circumstances, it becomes simply a matter of convenience.

I should have thought that two different arguments were more conveniently taken separately, but it is not in the least conclusive. We can take the two arguments together. We can get the replies to the different points, and we can draw the distinction when the Chair thinks it is proper to do so.

The Deputy-Chairman

It is a common practice in Committees of this House for the Chair to perform its duty of selecting Amendments. Sometimes it is decided that one Amendment shall be selected for debate and for a Division. Points covered by other Amendments may be conveniently discussed at the same time, but those other Amendments are not necessarily selected for a Division.

As the Committee knows, that is not a hard and fast rule. There are cases, noticeably in the Finance Bill, where an important separate point requires a vote for the record, and when the Chairman announces that more than one Amendment will be discussed at the same time, it is announced that it will be open to the Committee to have a Division on a further Amendment afterwards although the debate takes place on only one Amendment.

In this case it was decided long before this turned into an all-night sitting—in fact during the morning of today—that these four Amendments could conveniently be discussed together. Only one was of sufficient importance to justify it being selected by the Chair, but it was thought that it would be convenient to allow the other three to be discussed at the same time but not to be selected for separate discussion and Division.

That is a normal course for this Committee to carry out its affairs, and I understand that I am doing what is normal in proceeding along those lines. I should like to be allowed now to get the debate going in the way I have suggested, by calling the Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) and allowing the other three Amendments to be discussed at the same time but taking the vote on the Amendment which will be moved for debate, that is, the Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for South Ayrshire.

Mr. Paget

Further to that point of order, Sir William. That decision is contrary to the Ruling given by Sir Gordon earlier today. It puts us in a difficult position. I am strongly opposed to the Amendment in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes). I think that we ought to have the 22-year engagement. It is a very good thing. On the other hand, I am in favour of the other Amendments. I think that it is unreasonable to put hon. Members in a position in which not only do they discuss together Amendments to which they are opposed and Amendments which they support, but they will have to divide on Amendments which are different and on which they take opposite views.

When I put that difficulty to Sir Gordon earlier today, he said that there was no difficulty; that although the Amendments were selected for discussion together, we should be able to divide on them as we chose. I submit that on the same Committee stage a Ruling of that sort ought not to be reversed by a different Chairman.

The Deputy-Chairman

The Chair endeavours to observe conformity in Rulings, but circumstances differ from hour to hour.

Mr. G. Brown

No.

The Deputy-Chairman

Yes—from hour to hour.

Mr. Brown

What circumstances?

The Deputy-Chairman

I will tell the Committee the position in which the Chair finds itself. Forty-seven Amendments were put down to the Bill. About twenty-one have been selected for debate and for Divisions. Let us suppose that I acquiesce in what the hon. Member is asking and allow Divisions to take place on the other four Amendments, and let us further suppose that I carry out that procedure throughout the debate on the Bill. We would then have forty-seven Divisions. I do not think that a Chairman would be rightly performing his duty of selection if, on a Bill of this sort, he so arranged affairs that there were forty-seven Divisions in respect of all the forty-seven Amendments tabled to the Bill. I referred to circumstances changing from hour to hour. Already, when I have been in the Chair, the Committee has been contented to debate five Amendments together, and there was no question of demanding a Division on each of those five. I am only proceeding in the normal way.

Mr. T. Fraser

You put us in some difficulty, Sir William, when you say that it would be unreasonable for the Committee of the whole House to have forty-seven Divisions if there is a clash of opinion on forty-seven occasions in respect of a Bill with thirty-nine Clauses and three Schedules. I have known occasions—as you have, Sir William—when we have had forty-seven Divisions on very much shorter Bills than this. Surely it is the question whether or not there is a clash of opinion in the Committee which determines how many times the Committee divides.

Before you made that point, which I would ask you to reconsider, I had in mind to put this to you: you said that the Chair has decided to take these four Amendments together for discussion and to have a Division only on the first. Do you realise that it is possible that the whole Committee, including the Secretary of State for War, might be anxious to accept the three following Amendments, which you have said will not be put before the Committee, although the Committee will be invited to discuss them—so that if the whole Committee decides to reject the Amendment moved by my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Huges) and agree to the other three, it will not be allowed to make those Amendments? I submit that that would be a most unreal position for the Committee to get into.

If the Committee did not want to divide on the other Amendments it would be quite normal for it not to request the Chair to allow a separate Division on each of them. That is a very common practice. A group of Amendments may be taken together, and both sides of the Committee may recognise that one Division on the group is quite sufficient to enable the two sides to register their attitude to the whole group. On this occasion it has been said, and repeated, and I am sure that it is true, that the first Amendment is quite unrelated to the other three. So if we are to have a debate on the four, at the very least those who want the next three Amendments and do not want the first Amendment ought to be able to register their view. I should have thought that it would be in accordance with our past practice that that should be so. I do not think that there will be four Divisions. I think that there may be two Divisions and that, as the three following Amendments stand apart from the first, those who want the three Amendments ought to be given some opportunity not only of discussing them to show that they are good Amendments but also of registering their views in the Division Lobby, if necessary.

Mr. Paget

Further to the point of order, Sir William. You said that earlier we had accepted and discussed five Amendments together, and that is true. It was not unreasonable that those five Amendments should hang together. No one wanted to vote for one of them and not for the others. The position here is that no one would seriously want to insert the word "long" in line 12 and not to insert it in line 22, or to insert either of those words without leaving out the words referred to in the Amendment in page 3, line 1, since the object of inserting the word "long" is as a substitute for those words.

The first Amendment is a matter of principle which appeals to my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes), but I feel that most hon. Members ate likely to be strongly opposed to it—I am merely anticipating. I put down two drafting Amendments and when I had explained them, the Government accepted them. Clearly, the other three Amendments here are an improvement to the Bill, making it shorter and simpler, and I have every expectation that the Government will accept them. I only ask, Sir William, that the Government should have an opportunity to accept them, without also having to accept the Amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire. I think that I can detect some sympathy from the Under-Secretary of State for the idea that the Government should have the opportunity to consider whether they would like to accept the Amendments.

Mr. Hale

I do not desire to prolong this debate. I want to get to my own Amendment. The Amendment of the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) is to leave out paragraph (a). The second Amendment proposes to amend paragraph (a). How can we seriously and usefully discuss adding a definition to paragraph (a) while we are discussing an Amendment to leave it out? How can we by a single Division, register our desire to excise paragraph (a)? I shall be in the difficult position of having to support an hon. Member who is not a member of the party. I am anxious to support the party in an Amendment to paragraph (a). There is no way in which on a matter of that kind one can vote for the excision of the provision and for this improvement. I do not see how one could usefully attend to both those propositions simultaneously.

1.30 a.m.

The Deputy-Chairman

We are in a considerable difficulty here. Hon. Members feel so keenly on the points that they are making. The question that we are going to decide is on the Amendment in page 2, line 12, to leave out paragraph (a), and once that is decided, as it seems to me, the subsequent Amendments will fall.

Hon. Members

No.

Mr. Marsh

With respect, Sir William, if in fact a decision were taken to accept—which I think is most unlikely—the Amendment in page 2, line 12, to leave out paragraph (a), this would destroy the immediately following Amendment in page 2, line 12, after "a", to insert "long", but it would leave untouched the next but one Amendment, in page 2, line 22, after "a", to insert "long", and it would also leave untouched the Amendment to page 3, line 1, to leave out from beginning to the second "the" in line 6.

If the Amendment in page 2, line 12, to leave out paragraph (a), were accepted, which I suggest is not highly probable, to say the least, the most that would happen would be that this would render invalid the following Amendment in line 12, after "a", to insert "long", but it would have no effect on the other two Amendments.

The Deputy-Chairman

If the Committee decides that the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause, it will have decided that those words stand, and any subsequent Amendment to alter that decision would fall to the ground.

Mr. Paget

No, with great respect, Sir William. The subsequent Amendment is to add to the words. One can always add to words which one has decided shall stand part.

The Deputy-Chairman

As I understand it, we should be inserting words when we had already agreed to the words. But I do not want the Committee to be delayed indefinitely on this very small point. I had thought that what was selected before the debate began, and what was certainly common knowledge to hon. Members on both sides of the Committee as to what was to be selected, met with the approval of the Committee. I was surprised to hear protests when I made my suggestion in accordance with what had been arranged.

However, if hon. Members feel that they are being unfairly dealt with—and it is in the interests of the Committee as a whole to get on with the business—I propose to call the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) to move his Amendment alone. Then I will call the other three Amendments together, if that is agreed, for debate.

Mr. Mayhew

In thanking you very much for the suggestion that you have made, which I am sure will appeal to my hon. Friends and, indeed, to both sides of the Committee, I wonder whether, before the Amendment is moved, I could clear up the point that you mentioned about the knowledge available to hon. Members as to what Amendments are to be called.

This is, after all, not what one would call a party Bill. We do not divide very clearly on party lines on a Bill like this. Equally it is a complicated Bill. It is difficult to decide whether one Amendment falls if another is or is not carried. The consequence is that there is no easy, clear way of informing all hon. Members about exactly which Amendment falls if one or the other is called and accepted or not accepted. The result is, as you see yourself, if I may suggest it with respect, Sir William, that even the most expert people can be confused on this point. If it is possible for those who have the duty of calling the Amendments sometimes to be a little uncertain as to how the Amendments hang together, it is even easier for a person in my position not to know this.

For this reason I hope you will understand, Sir William, that any failure on our part to draw the attention of the Chair in advance to the question whether one Amendment hangs with another or not, is not due to any lack of good will or a desire not to co-operate with the Chair, but to the sheer intellectual difficulty of coping with a Notice Paper such as this.

The Deputy-Chairman

I think we all understand the position. It is within the knowledge of the Committee that a new practice has been adopted with relation to the Finance Bill of exhibiting a list of Amendments selected and the whole House then has the opportunity of seeing which Amendments are to be selected in Committee. That is quite a novel practice, but so far it appears to have proved satisfactory. I do not think that a decision has been taken yet whether that practice should be pursued in the case of other Bills, and arguments might be used on either side. It is not for me to lay down any ruling now as to which is the better plan, but for the present Bill it was decided to adhere to the old practice of it merely being up to hon. Members to consult the occupant of the Chair as to which Amendments had been selected, and it was thought that that would work as well as it has worked for very many years. My reply to the hon. Member would be to say that what he has said has been noted and the matter is very much under consideration.

Now I call the hon. Member fox South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) without further ado please to move his Amendment.

Notice taken that 40 Members were not present;

Committee counted, and, 40 Members being present—

Mr. Emrys Hughes

I am very glad indeed that at last we have come to my Amendment. I am grateful that it has been selected, but I gather that it is not to meet with the unanimous approval of hon. Members on this side of the Committee. I look hopefully to the other side of the Committee and see the Lord Advocate there. I hope that in the debate I shall have the support of his clear, lucid and legal mind. I can see no other reason why he should be here. I am hopeful that even if the legal advice of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) is not at my disposal on this Amendment, the Lord Advocate will keep me in mind when I may be in a difficult situation.

I believe that my Amendment is a reasonable, logical, constructive and helpful one. I hope that when I have completed my argument it may receive some modicum of support in addition to the support which appears to be at my disposal from my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale). In the discussion of points of order and procedure it has been referred to as the Amendment of the hon. Member for South Ayrshire, but it seems to have attracted the support not only of my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman), but also of my hon. Friends the Member for Greenwich (Mr. Marsh) and the Member for Greenock (Dr. Dickson Mabon). I understand that later, when he knows that this Amendment has been called, my hon. Friend the Member for Greenock is to come in to join the debate and, possibly, wind it up. Then my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Skeffington) also added his name to the Amendment. I understand that he is actually a member of the executive of the Labour Party. How I have succeeded in attracting his support I do not know, but I presume that as he is a lawyer it is given purely on the legal merits and not through his wishing to give me general approval. I did not understand, when I put down the Amendment, that I should attract such a number of influential signatories to support it.

Mr. Marsh

Since I added these names to the Amendment I should in fairness to the other two hon. Members to whom my hon. Friend has referred make some explanation how they came to be in my hon. Friend's company and with him on this.

The Deputy-Chairman

Order. We have not yet had the Amendment moved. Perhaps the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) would continue by moving it.

Mr. Hughes

I beg to move, in page 2, line 12, to leave out paragraph (a).

I consulted only the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne. I am glad to have the support of other hon. Members.

The purpose of my Amendment is to delete the words (a) a term of twenty-two years of army service; or which have to be read with the immediately preceding words: Where the person enlisting has attained the age of eighteen years the said term shall be… twenty-two years. I consider this too long a time. We are asking young men of 18 to agree to make a contract with the Government for twenty-two years' service, and that is a very long time. When they have completed it they will be 40. If they enlist this year they will continue to serve in the Army till 1983. It is a long-term contract from the point of view of the prospective soldier and also from the point of view of the Government.

I fail to understand how the number twenty-two came to be in the Clause. I understand that the idea of a very lengthy term of service resulted from persistent agitation by my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg). I think that in his enthusiasm for the Army he has gone too far. I wonder how much thought the prospective recruit is likely to give to it before signing this contract. It certainly is not the kind of contract young people in other spheres of equally important national activities would be called upon to sign.

1.45 a.m.

I represent a constituency that is essentially a mining area in which a large number of men on attaining the age of 18 decide to take up a mining career—a career which, I consider, is as useful, as nationally important and as patriotic as even the Army or the Air Force. Would anyone suggest that the Coal Board should ask the young miner to sign a contract to remain in the mines for twenty-two years? Accordingly, I fail to see why we should ask the young soldier to agree to serve for this extremely long period.

My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley often puts forward the argument that the young soldier must be given a long-term engagement, so that when he leaves the Service at a reasonably young age he will receive a substantial, a satisfactory and an enticing pension. That pension is held out to the young men of Britain in the recruiting drives. It can be said, however, that that is likely to entice young men into the Forces in a rather superficial way, without them really considering what the 22-year contract really implies.

I am the first to admit that the pension is indeed attractive. It is at a level of the pension attributable to the teaching profession. But in being so attractive, hon. Members must realise that the War Office is attracting young men into the Armed Forces—but away from the mines. Potential recruits from my constituency for the Armed Forces represent potential miners.

No miner at the age of 40 will be able to retire with anything like the pension being offered to the Service man under this Bill. That will not help Britain's industries, whose future success represents the economic strength of the country.

When a Service man retires at the age of 40 he receives a pension of £6 or £7 a week—while the miner, at 65, retires on a pension from the Coal Board of about £1 a week. There is a danger that the Services will attract young, able-bodied men, who otherwise would go into the mining and other industries, by offering what I consider to be rather generous pension rates.

Mr. Morris

Can my hon. Friend assist us? He suggests that there is an unfair advantage between the miner and the soldier who has a pension at the age of 40. How do the rates of wages of the two compare? Does not the rate of wage of the miner—

The Deputy-Chairman

Order. The hon. Member is likely to lead the debate out of order if he gets on to rates of wages.

Mr. Hughes

I should be glad at some other time, when I would be in order, to give my hon. Friend the information he desires. Without wishing to transgress the rules of order, I only wish to say that there is a variety of wages in the mining industry. If we compare the mining industry with the Army or the Air Force, we have to compare not one set of wages, but a whole series of wages ranging from what might be called the unskilled private soldier up to the sergeant major. There is a variety of wages when comparing, say, the worker at the coal face and the worker who is the day wage man. I do not wish to enter into that argument except to show that this is far too complicated a matter to explain on the Amendment. I am only advancing the general idea that in our attempt to attract people into the Army, there is a tendency to overdo it.

I realise that the Army needs a high rate of pay and good conditions of service to attract people nowadays. Even with the advantage in pension, other conditions in the Army are such that people would rather work down a good, healthy coal mine than be attracted into the Army or the Air Force. In our attempt to make the recruiting figures boom, there is a tendency to overdo it. I certainly am in favour of paying the soldier a living wage as long as we have soldiers—

The Deputy-Chairman

There is nothing about pay in the Amendment.

Mr. Hughes

It is true, Sir William, that I transgressed concerning pay, but I was referring to what the position will be in 1983 for the soldier with a pension. The whole idea of the long-term engagement has been to increase the number of recruits for the Army and the Air Force which will be necessary, apparently, now that there is no longer any intake from National Service.

I think of other industries, of engineering, shipbuilding and all the various industries which are essential to the economic recovery of the country. If we offer the long-term engagement with good conditions, we will be attracting young people from industries that are essential to our economy, even from the viewpoint of organising any kind of military activity.

It is difficult to understand the point of view of any thoughtful young person who is prepared to sign on in the Army for twenty-two years. The only idea behind it is that it is a career, but what kind of a career? I can understand that anyone joining the Army fifty years ago would have had a fairly good idea what life would be like after twenty-two years in the Army. But what is the position likely to be now? It is difficult for any thoughtful young man to think what life will be like in the Army twenty-two years from now. I shall have more to say when we discuss the period of twelve years.

We see the tremendous difference between the mechanised Army of today and the old infantry, and I wonder, if this evolution proceeds, what it will be like after another twenty-two years, especially with the development of nuclear weapons. What kind of soldier will be required in the 1970s and 1980s? Are we building up an Army that will be of much use in the conditions prevailing, if we are not destroyed by a nuclear war, by 1983? The modern soldier has to have a different kind of skill from the old. We are in an age when tanks are becoming obsolete, and the whole conception of strategy—

The Deputy-Chairman

Order. The hon. Member is going very wide of the Amendment, which refers to twenty-two years' Army service.

Mr. Hughes

My argument is that twenty-two years is a very long term. There is a danger not only in not looking far enough ahead, but in looking too far ahead. My argument is that twenty-two years is a term that should not be agreed to by the Committee and that the shorter term might be more sensible and more economic. If we take on men for twenty-two years and then discover half way thorough that we do not require them, it will mean that they will have to be compensated. If we reach a stage where we have to reduce the size of the Army because of disarmament, I should be in favour of giving the maximum compensation to those soldiers whom we sent back into civilian life. Sometimes hon. Members get the impression that because I am a pacifist I am against the soldier. I am not.

The Temporary Chairman (Mr. John Arbuthnot)

Order. This is not relevant to the Amendment.

Mr. Hughes

What I am driving at may be rather obscure, but I am pointing out that this 22-year contract may have to be broken, because I trust that the Government hope to have come to some measure of disarmament agreement before twenty-two years are up.

A short-term engagement would be preferable, because if we have to discharge a number of men who are on 22-year engagements the amount of compensation —and I favour the payment of compensation—will be much more than if we had enlisted men on 10-year or 12-year engagements. The deletion of this paragraph would therefore be sensible from the point of view of both the potential soldier and the country. I urge the deletion of the 22-year engagement, which is not relevant to a modern Army organisation or to conditions in the modern world.

2.0 a.m.

Mr. Wigg

My hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) condemns the proposal in Clause 2 (2, a) on the ground that it is good for neither the soldier nor the country. I argue the exact contrary on both grounds. I will take, first, the needs of the Army and the country.

My hon. Friend has long argued for the abolition of conscription, and he has been very vociferous in his demand that we should get away as far as possible from weapons of mass destruction. I will leave aside the issue whether we should use force in any circumstances. My hon. Friend does not believe that we should use force, and I regretfully accept its necessity. But clearly, if we are to get away from weapons of mass destruction and from conscription, and if we recognise, as we must, that the world is a dangerous place, then we must have a Regular Army of such competence that it can handle most situations without weapons of mass destruction. Surely my hon. Friend agrees that on those grounds he has an interest in the maintenance of a competent Army.

If we are to have an efficient Army which is compatible with the maintenance of democracy, the way in which we raise that Army is important. I have often argued that one reason why democracy never took root in Germany was the very special place to which the long-service German N.C.O. and warrant officer were raised over the years.

In this country we have done it much better. It has often been done in a way not very kind to the individuals concerned, but we have done it by persuasion and without giving excessive privileges in such a way as to endanger our way of life. I hold with conviction the view that the British Army must have a corps of long-service N.C.O.s. and that the competence of the Army will in large measure depend on the quality of its long-service content. That is the argument from the country's point of view.

I turn to the point of view of the individual. If we want to encourage people to join the Army on long-term engagements we must safeguard their future. The hon. Member does me too much credit when he claims that I am responsible for what has happened. I have often raised my voice in the House in support of measures which safeguard the future of the class from which I sprang. I am very conscious of the fact that I sprang from that class. If I have done anything to bring that about I am honoured. The hon. Gentleman must not give me too much credit. As regards long-service engagements, the Royal Air Force has not always kept in line with the Army.

I noticed that in the course of his speech the hon. Member several times mentioned the Army and the Royal Air Force as if the proposals for one were the proposals for the other. It is one of the little mysteries of the Amendments on this point that my hon. Friend seems to have read as far as Clause 2 but not as far as Clause 8, which deals with the Royal Air Force.

I would only enter into a slight controversy with my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew) when he—

Mr. Emrys Hughes

I can understand the point that the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) is making, but I intended to deal with the position of the Royal Air Force—

The Temporary Chairman

I cannot hear what the hon. Member says if he does not address the Chair.

Mr. Hughes

I was saying that I intended to deal with the Royal Air Force in a further series of Amendments, because I assumed that the discussion on the Army warranted at least one session of debate and I hoped to come to the Royal Air Force at a later stage. I had certain relevant comments to make about the Royal Air Force which I did not make because I thought that this debate was centred more on the Army than on the R.A.F.

Mr. Wigg

That is something of which the hon. Member may convince himself, but it does not convince me. I begin to understand why he was convicted in five courts martial if he could not spin a better yarn than that. In the course of his speech, the hon. Member spoke as if he thought the two Services were the same, but my case against him does not depend on that. If the hon. Member will be good enough to look at paragraph 3 of the Special Report he will see that it states: The provisions concerning Army enlistment introduce relatively minor improvements but the Clauses dealing with Air Force enlistment are the outcome of changes in policy. As far as the Army is concerned, the hon. Gentleman wants to do away with the 22-year engagement. But if he wants to do that he should have gone much farther than omitting the subsection from Clause 2. All that that Clause deals with is a comparatively minor point as far as the Army is concerned and an important point as far as the individual is concerned. It has a different effect concerning the 22-year engagement in the case of a man who enlists just before the age of 17 years and 6 months, which is the minimum age, from what it has in the case of a man who enlists just after that age. He gets treated differently.

That brings me to the point on which I am at variance with the hon. Member for Woolwich, East. The penny did not drop when he was speaking during the early stages of the debate, because I thought that we were dealing with the earlier set of Amendments. Going back to the policy adopted before the introduction of the 22-year engagement some nine years ago, unless the soldier re-engaged—it did not matter what service he had; he could have had eighteen years' service—or if at one point he did not re-engage, he did not qualify for pension. The same re-engagement was required in the case of the man discharged because of a non-attributable disability.

What the Army and Air Force here were both concerned to do was to make sure that a man who entered into a 22-year engagement should get a fair crack of the whip by having an engagement which was pensionable, and that is what all these Amendments set out to do. My hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire brought tears to his own eyes but not to mine when he dealt with the spectacle of the young man who was entering in 1961 into an engagement until 1983. [Interruption.] I do not want to address words of reproof to my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale). The man is given the opportunity of entering into a pensionable engagement, but he does not enter into an engagement which he necessarily has to serve. He can break it at twelve years in any case, but he can also break it at lesser intervals.

Mr. Hale

On payment.

Mr. Wigg

He does not have to pay anything. If my hon. Friend will look with care and employ that first-class mind of his he will arrive at the simple fact that the engagement of twenty-two years was introduced for the Army in order to safeguard the soldier's pension rights. My hon. Friend will find from Clause 8 that this is what is happening in the Air Force now. The Air Force is to make it possible in his interest for a man entering a long-term engagement—

Mr. Hale

My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) rebuked my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) by saying that if he would only look at Clause 8 he would find what is the position in the Air Force, and he rebukes me by saying that if I would only look at Clause 8 I would find out how a man gets out of the Army.

Mr. Wigg

I would not say anything as silly as that even if I were talking in my sleep.

Mr. Hale

My hon. Friend should look at what he will have been reported as saying.

Mr. Wigg

I would refer my hon. Friend to paragraph 3 of the Special Report which puts the proposal in focus—that the Army enlistment arrangement is of a minor character and that of the Air Force is a major change in policy.

Mr. Marsh

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg), but I cannot understand two points which he has made. One is that the purpose of the 22-year engagement is to enable the soldier to obtain a pension upon retirement. I cannot understand why this can be achieved only by a 22-year engagement and why it is impossible to have a 12-year engagement or any other period, as happens in industry. The other point which my hon. Friend makes is that a man can break his service at several specified points in his 22-year engagement. If that is so, and it does not cost the man anything and it is apparently a fairly simple exercise, why is it so important that he should sign on for twenty-two years?

Mr. Hale

Hear, hear.

Mr. Wigg

On the aggregation of service, all I can say is that these regulations were in force in the Army long before I was born. It was a condition and a qualification for pension that a man had to re-engage. It caused a lot of heart-burning. I am sure that my hon. Friend has met constituents who had aggregated a considerable period but were not entitled to pension because they had failed at the proper time to re-engage and therefore were not eligible. When my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, East said that a certain man had to be given an ex gratia payment, it was because he was not serving on a pensionable engagement.

2.15 a.m.

The qualification used to be re-engagement. Now it is entering into a pensionable engagement of twenty-two years, and the Army and the Royal Air Force require that a man can enlist initially on a pensionable engagement.

The other thing which needs to be borne in mind is that up to the outbreak of war the right to extend service or to re-engage was a valued right. It was not in any sense automatic. Only a small percentage of people were allowed to re-engage. We must not forget that at one time there was a period of great unemployment when 2 million people were unemployed.

The Temporary Chairman

Order. I think that the hon. Member is going a little far from the specific Amendment.

Mr. Wigg

With respect, Mr. Arbuthnot, this is an involved and complicated argument and if one is questioned on the history of this, one cannot develop the argument without stating the structure of this engagement. The 22-year engagement is a pensionable engagement which was introduced to enable men, at the commencement of their service, to go in for an engagement which, if they chose, they could follow through and qualify for pension.

I am trying courteously to explain to my hon. Friend why there is a difference. The answer is that before the war there were various stages. First, there was enlistment for twelve years, partly with the Colours and partly with the Reserve, depending on the arm of the Service. Then there was extension where the man extended his service to twelve years. Again, some ranks had the right to re-engage. I think that a sergeant after nine years' service had the right to re-engage for twenty-one years. Those were valued rights. In these days they are not appreciated as much as they were, but that is the history of it.

The man having undertaken a pensionable engagement and having chosen to safeguard his rights, neither the Army nor the Air Force hold him to that engagement. There is no question of him paying anything. He merely gives notice to his commanding officer after twelve years, or at the point of time specified in the Regulations.

There is yet another factor. By undertaking a long-service engagement, a man not only qualifies for a pension but for a higher rate of pay, because the Armed Forces in their wisdom—and it is a policy which I applaud—in an endeavour to step up recruiting have linked rates of pay with length of service. This is called a differential rate of pay, and I think that it is the right policy.

If the hon. Member for South Ayrshire had his way and deleted this subsection, it would not do what he wants. It would not do away with this terrible long-service engagement. It would leave the Royal Air Force unaffected. He would harm the man because of the anomalies which have crept in following the introduction of the 22-year engagement. The Army has been fairly good in clearing up the anomalies which were part of the change in policies and with which individuals get landed. The only effect of the Amendment would be to maximise this and to increase the hardship on a number of individuals. It would harm only a small number of individuals, but it would be important to them, and it would strike a blow at the efficiency of the Army. The hon. Gentleman may want to do the second, but he is a kindly man and I am sure that he would not want to do the first. For those reasons I suggest that he should not press the Amendment.

Mr. Mayhew

Would my hon. Friend complete his extremely useful and clear account of the 22-year engagement by adding that the man can break after the 12-year period as well as before?

Mr. Wigg

Yes. The terms are to be found under the prescribed Regulations, but I thought that I should be wearying the Committee and trying the patience of the Chair if I went through them.

Mr. Hale

I believe that my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) has proved a great deal too much. This canard—and it is a canard—was started by my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew). He said that the whole object was to put right a little pension anomaly; that particulars are to be found on page 3 of the Select Committee's Report, and that it was one of the little hares that the Committee put up. It is right that the passing of the Clause will put right a small anomaly, but no one can read the opening paragraph of the Committee's explanation of the Clauses without realising what we are providing in a Bill intended to govern the Army for five years and what, in my view, is a contravention of the Bill of Rights—but I will not go into that now—in that a lad of 18 may sign on for a 22-year engagement. There it is—and I object to a lad of 18 being allowed to sign on for such an engagement.

I appreciate the note which one of my hon. Friends has handed me, but I want to make some points on behalf of my constituents, and I ask my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley to listen to them. I have a constituent awaiting a court martial because he deserted from the Army while his parents were collecting £20 to buy him out. I have served in the Forces. Although I am a pacifist I am not anti-militarist, and I believe that conditions in the Services are good for the people who have the talent for such a career and are prepared to submit to reasonable discipline; but I also believe that Service life can be hell for the man who hates it. But he does not find out that it is hell for some time, and then he is told that he is tied up for twenty-two years.

It is all very well for Members to say that it was very nice of the brigadier-generals on the Committee to make this arrangement, but I want to know what happens to my constituents. There is not one Member who does not have hopeless and helpless, miserable and unhappy lads who joined the Army at 18, who have married since, whose wives are having babies in slums in Oldham or other industrial cities, who are worried to death about their girls, and who are getting miserable, unhappy letters from those lonely wenches saying that they are having to go through this unhappy experience in back streets.

I believe that the War Office has behaved extremely humanely in these cases. I appreciate its difficulty. I know that the man who wants to get out can play up the trouble. I know that a medical certificate is not always to be relied on. I have always found in the War Office a promptitude and courtesy that I do not find in any other Ministry. I am making neither criticism nor attack. My point is that a 22-year engagement is too long for a lad of 18.

I listened to the right hon. Gentleman and also to my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley, who said that he would make a speech in which he would show that this was for the good of the country and for the good of the lad. I followed his argument as carefully as I could. I gathered that he said that this was good for the lad because if he signed on for twenty-two years he would get extra pay.

The Temporary Chairman

I cannot hear the hon. Member if he turns his face away from me.

Mr. Hale

I apologise, Mr. Arbuthnot. I am most anxious that everyone shall hear me. My hon. Friend made the point that the man will be better paid. We are the guardians of the public purse, and if my hon. Friend is right in saying that such a man can get out earlier it is a shocking waste of money. He has no right to extra pay if, when he signs on for twenty-two years, he can get out when he wants to With respect to my hon. Friend, I do not believe that he could. All my experience is that he has to buy himself out.

Mr. Wigg

I did not say that he got out when he wanted. I said that he was not tied for twenty-two years. He has a statutory right to get out in the first three months on payment of £20. After that he has the right of purchase and the Regulations prescribe each point at which he can leave at varying intervals by giving notice. Taking into account the needs of the country as well as those of the individual, I think that these arrangements are not bad.

Mr. Hale

We are now considering whether we should repeat them, and whether they are really good—not whether they are not bad. I should have thought that phrase an unhappy one in this connection. My hon. Friend says that a boy can get out after three months if he has £20. One of my constituents tried it and got conscripted the day after he paid the £20. He was told, "You are 18, my lad, and you cannot get out like that." That was after the Act had ceased, and after I raised the matter I had letters from hundreds of men who said that they served in the war, and the Labour Government conscripted them afterwards because they had not fulfilled the conditions of conscription. In those circumstances, it is not much use a man paying £20 even if he has got it.

I strongly object on political and conscientious grounds to a system which permits a man with money to get out and a man without money not to be able to. I quote from my own recollection and I have known of cases where parents have mortgaged their house and borrowed money to get their son out of a job which he had come to hate. What is the good of it? I happen to be a member of the Royal Commission on the Police. It would be improper for me to make any comment—and I will not do so—about conditions in the police except to say what is perfectly well understood. We try to recruit a police force and hope that the men will serve for twenty-five years. We do that by offering decent terms and conditions. I do not think that anyone would suggest that we could say to a prospective member of the police force, "If you sign on at 18, you will have to stay until you are 45, whether you like it or not." No one would suggest that that would be the right thing to do.

My hon. Friend referred to Clause 8, and said, "Wait till we get to the Air Force and we shall hear something." We need not wait until then. The Air Force says, "Our conditions are so good that we do not have wastage of recruits. In the first period our wastage is 3 per cent. and the Army is 13 per cent. My hon. Friend is as good a Socialist as I know and I am nearly always on his side. I respect what he says, but I say that the Socialist remedy is to make conditions so good that the boys will not want to go out. If there are one or two who do want to go, we should be better off without them. Why try to hang on to a lad for twenty-two years. In the whole history of our professions lads take courses of training and embark on a career and many of them are happy. But a few are singularly unhappy and get out and perhaps they are wise to do so. Those of us in the profession of the law know that it is a happy life for those who like it, but it is no career for those who do not, and that is true of almost every profession.

I submit that the Amendment is right. It is no use saying that it is a technical Amendment, whatever the purpose for which it was introduced, and whether it makes little or no alteration in the existing position. The plain fact is that the Clause we are now considering gives a lad of 18 the opportunity to sign a contract which he can break only with expense, difficulty and frustration.

Dr. Alan Glyn

That is not so, because he can break his service at certain periods without any payment at all. The only payment is in the first period when he is a recruit and he can buy his way out for £20. Afterwards there are specific intervals when he can get out without any payment at all. He is not bound for twenty-two years.

Mr. Hale

He is certainly bound for twelve years. I am still awaiting an answer as to how he can get out after twelve years. This matter has been under discussion for some time. Five hours ago the right hon. Gentleman was discussing this. Until I have an assurance about how this can be done, and that it is an absolute right and not subjected to a payment, I remain in full support of the Amendment. I believe that this sort of contract is a fundamental breach of the common law. It can be introduced by Statute only. One is not entitled to demand that a lad under 21 years of age should enter into an engagement which one cannot prove to be wholly for his benefit, whereby he signs on for twenty-two years. One cannot enforce it under any law unless we pass this specific Statute to force that obligation upon him.

2.30 a.m.

Mr. Wigg

Further to what my hon. Friend has been saying, I would point out that in Clause 3 the right to terminate Army service is clearly laid down.

Mr. Ramsden

The hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) drew attention to the support which his Amendment commanded. I noticed that he had a little support from his hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale), but I did not think that it compensated for the considerable measure of opposition which his remarks provoked from the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg).

There was nothing in the speech of the hon. Member for Dudley with which I could wish to disagree, and, indeed, I think that the Committee would feel disposed to agree with me that many of us—myself certainly included—are a great deal wiser on the general background of the 22-year engagement and its history and purpose than we were before the hon. Gentleman spoke. As the hon. Gentleman told the Committee, the 22-year engagement was introduced originally as a recruiting measure.

The hon. Member for South Ayrshire asked why a period of twenty-two years was selected. I cannot give the answer more specifically than the hon. Member for Dudley did, but I suspect that, in the words of the hon. Member for South Ayrshire, the fact that it enables a man who enlists at the age of 18 to leave at the age of 40 with a quite considerable pension has something to do with it. Another factor would probably be that mentioned by the hon. Member for Dudley, that a period of twenty-two years is long enough for a man not to have to re-engage in order to serve a term of that length which establishes him in a long and secure career.

The main misunderstanding which seemed to lie at the root of the argument of the hon. Member for South Ayrshire was that he appeared to think that a man who signs on for twenty-two years is bound to complete the full length of the long-term engagement. His principal point was that the engagement was too long. But it is, of course, true, as has been pointed out previously, that there is provision for a break in the engagement after six years—or there may be such provision. In some cases there is a provision for a break after three years. If a man has elected to go on to the appropriately higher rate of pay he foregoes his right until he comes to nine years.

Mr. Hale

rose—

Mr. Ramsden

I know what the hon. Member is going to say. I should say that the man goes into this contract with his eyes open, knowing what he is to take on, knowing what his position will be and when he will be able to get out if he wants to, and various other conditions attaching to such a term of service.

Mr. Hale

As I understand the matter, and I have given some time to it, the Act gives power to make Regulations which can provide that certain breaks may be permitted with the approval of the commanding officer. However honourable the intentions of the Under-Secretary—and I do not want to make any suggestion against them—this is a permissive power to be exercised by instrument and subject to qualifications.

Mr. Ramsden

I think that the hon. Member has got it slightly wrong. There is a permissive power under the 1955 Act which allows the Army Council to make Regulations prescribing when the breaks in the engagement should occur, but whether or not the man has the right to come out has nothing to do with the discretion of his commanding officer. The breaks having once been prescribed, it is the right of the man to opt to take his discharge at that particular time. That is slightly different.

Mr. Paget

It is not a question of Regulations. Section 5 of the Army Act, 1955, says: A person in army service who enlisted for a term of twenty-two years of such service shall have the right, exercisable as mentioned in subsection (5) of this section,—

1. (a) to be transferred to the reserve at the end of the period of three or at the end of the period of six years beginning with the date of attestation; or
2. (b) to determine his service at the end of the period of nine years…."

He can come out completely at the end of nine years.

Mr. Ramsden

I had it wrong and have been put right by the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget). That is a considerably better answer than I gave to the hon. Member for Oldham, West. I am obliged to the hon. and learned Member.

Mr. Mayhew

Perhaps it is a little more complicated than that. Surely the terms and conditions of service laid down in Sections 4 and 5 of the Army Act, although they prescribe certain periods for a break, also prescribe that certain terms may be prescribed by Order in Council. Surely the point on which we are all assured is that conditions as to breaks which prevail when the man enlists hold throughout his whole Army career whether those conditions were laid down by Statute or by Order in Council. I believe that the Minister will find that is so.

Mr. Ramsden

I believe that is correct. I am obliged to the hon. Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew).

Mr. Morris

After the initial year of enlistment, in how many cases as of right can a man opt within his twenty-two years service? At what stages can he opt out of the Service?

Mr. Ramsden

He can opt out of his engagement, first—to go through the whole gamut—if he is a recruit, as we shall hear when we discuss a later Clause; then he may buy himself out in the first three months. Secondly, he may opt out at the end of six years if he has not previously taken a decision to go on to a higher rate of pay in return for which he surrenders the right to go out at the end of six years and agrees to serve for nine years before his first option to come out. Thereafter, he has an option to come out every three years until—if my arithmetic is correct—twenty-one years, which is the final effective option.

Mr. Hale

If he is on a higher rate of pay?

Mr. Ramsden

I am speaking off the cuff, but I believe that the answer is "Yes." This operates only to cancel the option at six years and, if hon. Members think about it, it is not unreasonable. It is worth the Army's while to have the certainty of a man's service in return for the higher rate of pay.

Dr. Alan Glyn

At the end of six years, if he has elected to go on the higher rate of pay, all he has to do is stay three years, and then, after that period, he is in the same position as any other soldier. Is that not so?

Mr. Ramsden

I think that is right, if I understand my hon. Friend rightly.

Mr. Hale

It is not hard. We have passed an Act about it.

Mr. Morris

When does the man opt for the higher pay and therefore lose the right to go out in six years and so is not able to go out till nine years? When does he opt? At what stage?

Mr. Ramsden

I cannot tell the hon. Gentleman that without notice.

I think I have been sidetracked into a rather unnecessarily diffuse discussion on a very complicated subject. What I was really seeking to establish was that when the hon. Member for South Ayrshire argued that this term of years was too long he, I thought, neglected the fact of the opportunity for the various breaks in the term, and when the hon. Member for Oldham, West argued that it was too restrictive he, too, I thought, slightly underestimated the facilities for the man to go out himself as of right.

Mr. Hale

I know that the hon. Gentleman is trying to be helpful, and I do not want to criticise at all. It is very late for understanding. We suggested some time ago that it was too late an hour to understand these difficult matters. However, the hon. Gentleman began by saying that it is perfectly clear and the recruits will well understand the position. He now says, "It is so complicated that I cannot explain." I remind him that we are asking lads of 18 to understand what the hon. Gentleman says is so complicated, when they can come in and when they can go out and all about the higher pay, and so on. If it is difficult for the hon. Gentleman, it is dashed difficult for lads of 18, even when they come from Oldham.

Mr. Ramsden

Pieces of information are coming to my hand, and if it will assist the Committee I can say that the nine-year rate is the highest which a man can opt for when he comes in. He can opt for the 12-year rate only after serving for nine years.

I suspect that had I given further opportunity to the hon. Member for Dudley to address the Committee he could have cleared up these details, with which, I am afraid, I am not familiar, but I hope that I have done something to allay the apprehensions of the hon. Member for Oldham, West. I was grateful to him for his tribute to the care which the War Office takes in dealing with constituents' cases and in answering letters, and I hope that will be repeated in the case of the person whom he mentioned tonight when he gets in touch with us.

I regret that I cannot advise the Committee to accept this Amendment, and I must ask my hon. Friends to reject it.

Amendment negatived.

Mr. Marsh

I beg to move, in page 2, line 12, after "a" to insert "long".

I shall not detain the Committee long on this and my other related Amendments to the Clause, because they are very simple Amendments for the benefit of the Bill. I am sure that the Under-Secretary of State will exercise the degree of reciprocity which was exercised by the Secretary of State previously in accepting two other drafting Amendments, because it is undesirable that our legislation should contain unnecessary words or be unnecessarily complicated. My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) was making the point that it was asking a lot to expect lads of 18, sometimes of limited education, to understand Acts of Parliament which even an Under-Secretary of State cannot understand, or can understand only with great difficulty.

2.45 a.m.

Bills sometimes contain unnecessary words, and anything we can do to simplify matters must surely be welcomed. On page 3 there are a number of references to "long-term enlistments". In subsection (5) of Clause 2 a long-term enlistment is defined as follows: References (however expressed) in the four next following sections to a person's enlisting or having enlisted on a long-term enlistment shall be construed as referring to his enlisting or, as the case may be, having enlisted for such a term as is mentioned in paragraph (a) of subsection (2) of this section or paragraph (a) of subsection (3) thereof; and in the said sections…. This, of course, has to be read in conjunction with the paragraph (a) that is referred to in that subsection. This Amendment merely says that further references to long-term enlistment are references to a period of enlistment of twenty-two years. The Amendment seeks to add the word "long" in page 2, line 12, and again in line 22. That will enable a lot of junk, or verbiage, to be removed. The Amendment seeks to clarify the Bill, because it seems pointless to have a phrase which merely shows that a long-term enlistment is one for a term of twenty-two years.

Mr. Paget

This seems to be a simple Amendment. There are two references to the term of twenty-two years, but the Bill takes up six lines to say that those two terms will be referred to as "long terms." This Amendment thus saves six lines.

It is a little late, perhaps, for the Under-Secretary to make up his mind about this matter now, but I ask him to consider this point before the Report stage. At the same time, perhaps the hon. Gentleman will also consider a suggestion that was contained in an Amendment which was not called. The suggested words were: the date of the attestation or the eighteenth birthday, whichever shall be the latter. That sentence would replace paragraphs (a) and (b) in Clause 2 on page 3 of the Bill, and seems to say the same thing in half the number of words.

Mr. Morris

The object of the Amendment is to make it easier for the soldier fully to understand his terms of enlistment. It has not been an easy matter for us tonight with the Under-Secretary's answers. He failed to get over to this side, at least, some of the occasions when one could opt out of a 22-year term of service. By knocking out four or five lines on page 3, the Amendment would make the Bill simpler, easier and far more comprehensible for the soldier. Therefore, I support it.

Mr. Ramsden

I am obliged to hon. Members opposite for moving and supporting the Amendment with moderation. In replying on this Amendment, I clearly cannot comment upon the case raised by the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget), but he has it on the record. I cannot give him the undertaking, for which he asked, that I will look at the matter before Report and think again, because my advice is that these Amendments would not be a workable addition to the Bill.

I am not a lawyer of sufficient ability to be able to give an objective judgment as between the argument of the hon. and learned Member and the advice that I have seen, but I understand that what is proposed in the Amendments is legally defective in relation to the purposes of the Bill. Taken together, the Amendments form a gallant effort to simplify the drafting of a complicated Clause. They seek to do it by taking out the definition of "long-term enlistment" at the top of page 3 and substituting "long term" for "term" in subsections (2) and (3).

In practice, I am advised, the absence of the somewhat cumbersome definition at the top of page 3 would make the Army enlistment provisions in the succeeding Clauses inaccurate and ambiguous, principally because, according to the Amendments, the phrase "long-term enlistment," which occurs a number of times in Clauses 3 to 6, would be undefined and it would be left to the reader to guess what the words meant, the only guide given to him being the use of the word "long" in subsections (2, a) and (3, a).

That is the position as I am advised. I am aware that there is room for disagreement, particularly in matters of expertise in drafting, but I cannot conscientiously undertake to decide before Report that the hon. and learned Member's advice is right and mine is wrong.

Mr. Paget

Will the hon. Gentleman have one quick look at it? He has referred to Buggins twice on page 2. He then uses a number of lines to say that the Buggins to which we are referring on page 2 is Charles Buggins. Why not, on page 2, refer to him as Charles Buggins? Why, if one calls it long term originally and then refers to it as long term, does one require a definition? The Under-Secretary of State says that he is not a lawyer, and he has no Law Officer here to advise him. A lawyer who takes a first view of these words without an explanation may take a different view when they see the explanation. It is surely not much to ask in these circumstances that the lawyers should have another look at this before Report. I am not going to press the Under-Secretary to put anything down, but just to take it up with his lawyers.

Mr. Ramsden indicated assent.

Mr. Ross

The Under-Secretary will appreciate that what we are after is simplification. On page 3 we get these six turgid lines to define twenty-two years as a long-term engagement. If we apply our minds to this we will get a solution. I agree that the Amendments do not in any words define long-term enlistment, and that to that extent they are defective. But we are asking the Under-Secretary, if he cannot accept the Amendment, to have a look at this.

Might I suggest that all he has to do, for example, in (a) on page 2 is just to put in the word "hereafter a long-term engagement," and, if necessary repeat that, and get this matter solved. If the Under-Secretary wants any further advice he should remit the Clause to the Scottish Grand Committee. We would deal with it expeditiously.

Mr. Cronin

We all feel some sympathy with the Under-Secretary. He is completely unsupported by the Law Officers, who, apparently, go to bed early. At the same time, it is clear that many hon. Members feel considerable dissatisfaction with the drafting of this, and it seems that there is at least the possibility that the legal advice which he has received so far might be changed or modified.

Can we take it from the fact that the Under-Secretary nodded assent to the proposition put to him by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget), that he will look at this again before Report, that he will investigate again the possibility of simplifying this in the terms of the Amendment or in some other way?

Mr. Ramsden

I certainly undertake to look at it again. I did not want to promise that we would necessarily do anything before Report.

Amendment negatived.

Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

cc1342-6
1. Clause 3.—(CHANGE OF CONDITIONS OF SERVICE AFTER LONG-TERM ENLISTMENT IN REGULAR FORCES.) 1,657 words
cc1346-55
2. Clause 4.—(CONVERSION OF SHORT-TERM ENLISTMENT IN REGULAR FORCES INTO LONG-TERM ENLISTMENT.) 3,371 words