§ 14. Mr. Emrys Hughesasked the Minister of Defence how much defence costs per person per week.
§ Mr. ThorneycroftIn the 1963–64 Estimates defence will cost 13s. 5d. per person per week.
§ Mr. HughesAs an ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer, has the right hon. Gentleman no sympathy with the present Chancellor? Since he has presented a bill for £300 million more than was presented to him when he was Chancellor, does he not think that he should appear today not in a tile hat but in a white sheet?
§ Mr. ThorneycroftI think that a country which spends on average 18s. 1d. per person per week on drink and tobacco might spend 13s. 5d. for its defences.
§ Mr. HealeyCan the right hon. Gentleman say whether he still holds to the view expressed when he resigned from his Treasury post some years ago that we would never get an effective return for our tremendous defence expenditure so long as we tried to maintain both a full-scale nuclear capacity and adequate conventional forces?
§ Mr. ThorneycroftI hesitate to ask the hon. Gentleman to read my resignation speech as a whole, but he will see, if he does, that in it I referred to what we spend upon ourselves in softer living as well as on our defences.