Vote 7. Aircraft and Stores

HC Deb 18 March 1963 vol 674 cc57-114

Motion made, and Question proposed, That a sum, not exceeding £244,000,000. be granted to Her Majesty to defray the expense of aircraft and stores which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1964.

4.37 p.m.

Mr. Wigg

I note that 65 minutes have gone by since we started our proceedings and that in that time we have approved expenditure on Votes 1 to 6 of roughly £244 million. Now we come to Vote 7 and another £240 million is involved, and the Chamber is empty. We are now discussing matters which are vital to the security of this country at present and in the future. I protest against the form which these discussions take. I protested in the defence debate, and I shall go on protesting every time this matter comes up.

In other countries, even in the Soviet Union, I suspect that there must be deliberations between groups of men who have the advantage of having the facts in front of them before they are asked to make a decision. Only here, in the Mother of Parliaments, are we given two pages of print, with not a single reference to a specific aircraft either being built or planned. I cannot help contrasting the document which I have here, presented by the American Secretary of State for Defence, Mr. McNamara, to the House of Representatives on 30th January this year, in which he deploys the facts and arguments covering the American Government's expenditure for the next four years.

There is not a weapon, there is not a missile which is not intelligently discussed in terms which can be understood by the ordinary man. Later, as I understand it, under the American system, these estimates will be again examined with the advantages of having papers and persons to give evidence. Only here do we go along in this sloppy, slipshod, anachronistic way, blinding ourselves to facts, or knowing nothing of the facts, caring nothing of the facts and asking no questions which could in any way be regarded as awkward. I do not propose to play this game any longer. I propose to examine this proposed expenditure of £244 million with some care even if it takes a little time.

First, let me take the remarks used by the hon. Gentleman the Under-Secretary as a rebuke to me. He said that I suggested that the Government did not tell the truth. That is exactly what I did say—it does not tell the truth about aircraft. Take, for example, one simple fact. The Secretary of State's Memorandum for last year said, in paragraph 21: The development of the Skybolt air-launched ballistic missile in the United States is making good progress. That was a barefaced lie.

Mr. McNamara the American Secretary for Defence, reveals in this statement which I have here, an official American publication, that in actual fact there had been only six successful launchings in 1962. He says: In fact, there are compelling reasons for believing that even these latest estimates "— the latest estimates on which took the decision about Skybolt— are still very unrealistic, and that the actual costs would be much higher. He goes to say that the estimated figure of costs was 3 billion dollars.

Then he goes on: For example, the Skybolt development program was far behind schedule on the program that was supposed to be completed for 492.6 million dollars. According to that program, there were supposed to be 28 test flights by the end of 1962, when, in fact there were only six. He then goes on to make it quite clear that of all the missiles which were available to the United States Skybolt would have the lower payload and poorer accuracy of the missile—indeed, as designed it would have had the lowest accuracy, reliability and yield of any of our strategic missiles… Yet we were told by the Secretary of State a year ago, and have been told by Government spokesmen on many occasions since that date, that everything in the garden was lovely.

Mr. Eden

I am not trying to trip the hon. Gentleman up, but am purely seeking information. Can he give the dates of the two documents?

Mr. Wigg

Oh yes, I have already done that. The American document am holding is dated 30th January, 1963. I said so. The Secretary of State's Memorandum was for 1962–63. That was last year, but we do not have a missile, sinking, from success into calamitous failure and forcing the Government to cut their losses in so short a time as that. Indeed, in point of time, although there is a lapse of some months, we were told a year ago, in definite terms that it was making good progress. Now we know that statement was completely untrue.

Mr. Farey-Jones

I know that the hon. Member would not in any circumstances wish to give the wrong impression. Would he not accept, therefore, that among leading air opinion even in the United States there is grave disagreement with Mr. McNamara on whether Skybolt was a success or failure?

Mr. Wigg

I have no doubt whatever that there are considerable financial interests in the United States, associated with the Douglas Aircraft Company, who think that Skybolt should have gone on. What I am saying is that here is a carefully documented piece of evidence presented by Mr. McNamara to the House of Representatives, and which I find convincing. It may be that there are other hon. Members who will come to another conclusion. What I am pointing out is that here we have, on the one hand, from Mr. McNamara a documented, lucid, intelligent, explicit statement while we in this Chamber get a sentence only, in which, clearly, there was not a word of truth.

Having dealt with Skybolt, I propose to carry my exercise a little further. I remember speaking in this Chamber in 1956 on this subject. In 1956, I spoke of the British aircraft industry and its importance in relation to this country's prestige and power in the world. Again, I was making no party points, let me emphasise. I said: I have drawn up a list of no fewer than 157 projects which have been started in the last ten years. Of those 157 projects, no fewer than 36, covering 29 different designs, ended in crashes; that is to say, that of the 157 projects in the last ten years, no fewer than 18.6 per cent. came to untimely ends, in many cases unfortunately involving loss of life. That is by no means all the story. Of the 157 projects, there were only 16 which went to production runs of more than 3,000. My charge against both Governments, Labour and Conservative alike, is that they started to do far too much. This over-expansion applied not only in the air.—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 7th February, 1956; Vol. 548, c. 1631.] That was in 1956.

What now is the position? This Government, in my judgment, are never satisfied with only one white elephant in the stable. They must always have three. As fast as they cancel one project they must move another one in. I refer to the past primarily in the vain hope that perhaps one can get things right for the future.

Let us have a look at some of the projects on which the Royal Air Force is currently engaged. Let us have a look at this in relation to the principle which the present Minister of Defence laid down. He said that we must, of course, have an export market and that we ought to be able to sell some of our defence products. Let us start with No. 1. I well remember the present Secretary of State for the Colonies coming here on 11th February, 1959—and the hon. Gentleman the Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster) will remember it, too—and making an announcement about the freighter version of the Britannic III. It started as the SC5 and a little later it was called the Britannic and eventually the Belfast.

The Minister forecast an export market for this aircraft. I remember raising the matter on the Adjournment, and, again, not on any party point. Indeed, I was in opposition to some of my hon. Friends on my own Front Bench. I forecast that the Minister would sell none, not because I had any specialised knowledge of aircraft but because by a little bit of homework and a little bit of diligence one can weigh these things up. Not one Belfast has been sold.

Let us move on. How many Valiants have been sold abroad? None. How many Javelins, the current Air Force fighter, have been sold abroad? None. How many Lightnings have been sold? None. So we can go on. It is true that we have sold some Hunters particularly offshore sales. It is true that we have sold some Bloodhounds. But how many Sea Vixen, the DH110, have been sold? None. How many Scimitars? None. The Buccaneer? Yes, we sold some of them—but that, quite rightly, annoys some hon. Members on this side of the Committee. Because where did we sell them? We sold three to South Africa. Then there is the Belvedere. We took ten years to develop that helicopter. How many have we sold? We have not sold one.

I could weary the Committee by giving example after example of how the Air Force has developed types of weapons and types of aircraft for which there is no market. Not because their original conceptions may not have been brilliant. Indeed, and this is a tribute to our designers and our research workers and technologisits. The reason is that the policy-making machine is so lagging and so far behind that we are always too late.

Mr. R. J. Maxwell-Hyslop (Tiverton)

Would the hon. Gentleman not, in fairness, attribute some part of the fact that our recent fighter aircraft have not been sold, particularly in Europe, to the domination of the military procurement market in N.A.T.O. by American equipment, not necessarily on its technical merits?

Mr. Wigg

I have heard this one before. I am quite prepared to believe that there is vigorous selling by the Americans, with, perhaps, some arm twisting, but, unless we are to go under, then we have got to be vigorous, too, and we have got to do some arm twisting as well. Provided we have something to sell. I do not deny the accuracy of what the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) says. It may be truer than he supposes. What I am saying is that we must not just sit down. We have to do something or go out of business. It is the constructive side of this matter which interests me.

I was on the point of referring to the successor to the Hastings and the Beverley, the OR351. Goodness knows what pressure it has taken from both sides of the Committee, much of it from this side, to get the Minister of Aviation to face up to this one. His friend Mr. Chapman Pincher managed to give us what information he could, but it was rather difficult to get a statement from the Government. However, finally, the point was reached when the Minister could retreat no further and we finally got a statement that this aircraft was going to Whitworth-Gloster.

We have not been told about the engine. What is to happen about that? Is it to have one? Is there a dispute between Bristol Siddeley and Rolls-Royce? In his wonderful way, the Minister came forward with a proposal that this aircraft should have the Pegasus V engine, but that it would be manufactured under licence by Rolls-Royce, but Rolls-Royce would not wear that.

It is vital to the Royal Air Force and to the Army that a decision on this matter should be taken. When is it proposed to take a decision about the engine for the AW681? When will the prototype fly? When will it be operational? How many do the Government expect to order? What are the prospects of selling it in the export market? Does the Minister of Defence come here to talk about selling British aircraft and then do nothing about it, or allow things to drift because decisions are politically inconvenient?

I agree at once that the decision about the 0R351 was politically difficult. It did not please the people of Northern Ireland and a number of other people. But the security of this country should be the paramount consideration and the decision should be taken in that light.

Mr. Shinwell

I agree that the Air Ministry has some responsibility and that it has to purchase aircraft requirements, but is it not true that the primary responsibility rests not on the Air Ministry, which does not produce the aircraft and which to a large extent does not design aircraft—that is in other hands—but on the Ministry of Aviation, and, before that Ministry came into existence, the Ministry of Supply?

Mr. Wigg

Again, I would not dissent from that point of view, but it is here that I get into a complete puzzle.

This brings me back to the point I was making earlier about senior Air Force officers who are engaged in taking vital decisions about future aircraft orders and designs who may go into business and become directors or even chairmen of companies. This worries me a great deal. I repeat that I am making no allegations specifically against their honesty, or their personal honour, or their desire to serve the public good, but I cannot believe that points are not reached when the temptations and pressures are very great. The prime consideration should be the country's defence needs.

I also agree that business must be conducted on a viable basis and must be able to make a profit. One of the things I want is a strong aircraft industry, and if private enterprise can do the job, let it do it. I am not doctrinaire in these matters, but the evidence from the history of this industry since the war is that not only have the country's defence needs been overlooked, but so have its economic needs, because the aircraft industry now finds itself on the verge of bankruptcy. The official figures—not mine, but official figures—show that no less than £4,800 million has been spent in the aircraft industry in the last 15 years, of which no less than £3,400 million has come from public sources.

When the hon. Member for Tiverton interrupted me, I was dealing with the history of current aircraft. My first candidate for cancellation is one white elephant which has just been poked into the stable—the OR351, now the AW681. This will certainly be cancelled and I make that forecast with the same certainty as I did about the Belfast.

Let us move on to another aircraft nearer the heart of the Secretary of State for Air, the TSR2, about which he was kind enough to distort the facts against me. He commented on one of my odd absences from the House and thought that I had gone to the races. That was not true, because there were no races on that day, so I had no temptation, and even if there had been, I should still have been present in the Chamber. He said that I had said in the defence debate that the TSR2 would not fly. What I said was that it would fall flat on its face. Of course it will and in due course it will be cancelled and, again, I will proceed to tell the Committee why. This aircraft has a very interesting history.

This takes me back to the point made by the Under-Secretary, who has not been in the House of Commons all that long, or he would not have been so keen about the use of the word "truth" in this connection. Let us start with the 1957 White Paper, of which paragraph 61 said: Having regard to the high performance and potentialities of the Vulcan and Victor medium bombers and the likely progress of ballistic rockets and missile defence, the Government have decided not to go on with the development of a supersonic manned bomber, which could not be brought into service in much under ten years. We then had the famous conference, "Prospect", of which I have a complete and verbatim account which I have kept because I thought that it would come in useful. My right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) and I were very anxious to go to that conference. We often hear talk about keeping the Services out of politics, but never was there a more perfect example of a Service getting caught up in politics than the calling of that conference. It was a major, organised effort to force the Government to change their minds about the manned bomber. My right hon. Friend is an ex-Minister of Defence and it was not very courteous to him—it does not matter about me—that he should not have been invited to attend. However, we have the verbatim account of what transpired at that conference which was organised by the Secretary of State for Air with the assistance of the Air Staff. I am here demonstrating the tie-up between the upper reaches of the Royal Air Force and the manufacturing side of the aircraft industry, a tie-up which is not in the country's long-term interest.

The conference took place and the TSR2 project was launched. The Government could not say that they had changed their minds about manned bombers, and so the then Secretary of State for Air on 17th December, 1958, shortly after the conference, in a Written Answer, said that the Royal Air Force was going in for a Canberra replacement. He called it a strike reconnaissance aircraft and said nothing about what it was really meant to be.

The Americans were coming along on the same lines. Mr. McNamara has related all this in the document which I have already quoted. The Americans have the A3J, the F4H and the F111 will be coming along at the same time as the TSR2. The other day the Under-Secretary said that its performance was secret and that he could not say what the range was. My guess is that the combat range is 1,300 miles, that it will fly in about a year's time—it is somewhat behind schedule—that it is possible that the Government will order about 50, some et which will begin to fly in about 1967, and that the 50 might be complete about 1970.

The interesting thing about the TSR2 is that it ties up with another white elephant, the supersonic transport. I am sure that this one will come unstuck. The advice which I get in my constituency, where my constituents deal with alloys and aluminium, is that aluminium becomes very unstable at about 140 degrees. It is perfectly clear that the same temperature, even with an alloy of the metal proposed to be used in the supersonic aircraft, is round about 140 degrees.

That is the first reason why one becomes doubtful about it. But there is another reason. Note the reactions of the Americans. Do they dash in and want to build a supersonic aircraft? No, they stay in the background. They are learning all the time. They are making an examination and going into the problem of a project authorised by the President of the United States just after he came to office. It was then laid down that the future of supersonic civil flight was a major consideration and that the Americans must get into the field. But my guess is that they are laying back letting us get on with our researches and that, at the appropriate moment, they will announce that they will compete. It should be noted that the TSR2 and the supersonic transport have the same engine. They have the Olympus 22, although the one on the TSR2 is a reheat.

Does the Minister think that we have any chance in this field? May I remind hon. Members of one simple fact, something which is vividly in my mind? Let us see what our record is in this field. According to my reckoning, we have no civil aircraft—I do not think that anyone else has either—that can fly at Mach 1 or one that can fly in a straight line as fast as United States or Soviet aircraft can fly in a closed circuit. The F4H can fly at Mach 2 in a closed circuit and at Mach 2.7 in a straight line.

We not only "kid" ourselves but we also "kid" the British public, who are not given the facts, into the belief that if we put up vast sums of money we can produce an aircraft that will sell in the markets of the world when we have no experience of any kind in this field. It would be taking a gigantic step forward even in the field in which we have knowledge at the speeds indicated. For anyone to pose a problem in that form is to convince me that it is just not on.

When it comes to terms of cost, it is true that as far as the Government are concerned the sky is the limit. The cost of the TSR2 before it is cancelled will be about £400 million and when it comes to the Mach 2 aircraft the cost of the two together will be more than £1,000 million. This is not a new experience. Any hon. Member who makes a list of the projects which have been started since this Administration came to power and of those which have been cancelled before work on them has gone very far will be startled to find how many are involved. Again, I pay tribute to Mr. Chapman Pincher who published a list a year or so ago, but this is only the fringe of the problem. Such things as Flashlight are not even talked about. They cost only £50 million. That is mere chicken feed in this field.

I do not point the finger of scorn at the Government because they have tried and failed. It is implicit in what Mr. McNamara and the Americans are doing. In fact, if one does not try one will not succeed, and if one does try one has lots of failures. But when the Americans start on 10 projects it is pretty certain that only five will be in existence a year later, and that eventually that five will be three, and, that ultimately three will be one.

The Government have played ducks and drakes not only with the nation's defences but also with its economy. I should have thought that Britain—not one of the two great Powers, but certainly the largest of the smaller Powers—must, in terms of prestige and in terms of the absolute basic requirement of keeping right in the forefront of technological advance, have a first-class aircraft industry capable of meeting much of air civil and defence needs. I think that that is a basic national requirement.

If I had had any shares in Rolls-Royce I should have sold them long ago because they are going "bust" as a result of the policy of this Government, not because the company has broken down but because it cannot get any decisions out of the Government, and, even when it does, those decisions are not based on the technical facts and on our defence requirements but on the political expendiency of the moment. Therefore, when the Minister comes to the OR351 he dillies and dallies, and when he cannot do that any more he comes to the House, tells a quarter of the truth and has a meeting with hon. Members representing Northern Ireland constituencies. But he does not deceive them. They have been let down as well. Therefore, everyone is let down by this weak-kneed, shilly-shallying, cowardly, ignorant collection which has loitered on the Front Bench opposite for far too long.

How can we put this right? There must be a partnership. The amounts of public money involved are very great. We cannot go on for ever pouring out public money without having some say in how it is spent. Here, again, I should have thought that the Americans had indicated the line to take. President Kennedy took office in 1961 and within a matter of weeks he had appointed an administrator. He said to him, "In 60 days' time I want to be given the projects which the American aircraft industry should pursue during the next ten years." In my view, there should be a partnership between the Government, industry and defence needs. Clearly, in this field the defence needs are basic. What has happened so far has not satisfied the defence needs, the needs of the economy or the Government's own supporters. Indeed, I do not think that it has even satisfied the Government themselves.

If one does research into the current situation one finds that there are 300 projects, not 157, as in 1956, and we cannot find a real winner among the lot. If we have sold any abroad it has been by accident. The Viscount was a successful accident. We had a bit of luck and it came off. I do not want to weary the Committee by going over our record in aircraft and missiles, but the record in missiles is as bad as the record in aircraft. In 1956 and 1957 we were in similar shape and we then got the Government to produce a White Paper concerning military aircraft.

Why cannot we be given another White Paper now? Why cannot we have an exhaustive inquiry by the Government, not a weekend at Chequers, a public relations exercise, in the hope that the Government can get away with it? Why do not the Government come forward with constructive proposals which would at least give hope for the future, a hope which could be buttressed by private endeavour and public money so that the workers, the researchers, the designers, the fundamental researches and the entre-preneurs can feel that we are making a contribution to the country's well-being not only in the field of defence but in building up an aircraft industry which will stand us in good stead.

5.10 p.m.

Mr. Stanley R. McMaster (Belfast, East)

The hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) gets more and more pessimistic as the years go by. I have listened to him speaking in several of these debates. First, he asks why we do not sell more, and then he spends the next half hour running down our products and the aircraft industry. I should like to know what good that does to the aircraft industry, and what good it does to say that Rolls-Royce will be bankrupt in a few years.

The hon. Member for Dudley mentioned an aircraft made in my constituency, the Belfast air freighter, and said that, like many others, none had been sold. For the sake of the record I should like to make it clear that this aircraft has not yet flown. Some interest has been shown in it, not only by B.O.A.C. but by other civil airlines, and there are still high hopes that this aircraft will sell well when it flies, and not only to the Royal Air Force.

I do not want to go into the decision about the OR351, because this was exhaustively debated a week ago. I agree that mistakes often appear to be made by the experts who advise my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench. I need mention only the Mosquito, the Beverley, the Viscount and the Vickers 1,000, all of which were turned down by experts in the first instance. The decision on them all except the Vickers 1,000 was later reversed and they turned out to be magnificent aircraft, and I am certain that the Belfast will prove to be an excellent one, too.

The hon. Member for Dudley said that this country's prime consideration should be defence. When placing an order for an aircraft like the OR351, I think that two other considerations should be borne in mind. First, the cost of the aircraft—and no one knows what the cost of the WG681 will be—and, secondly, the speed of delivery. I suggest that the Belfast would meet these two requirements much better than the Whitworth Gloster project. Therefore, as I think has been made clear to the Committee, there has been great disappointment that further Belfasts have not been ordered to meet the delay in the time factor.

My friends in Messrs. Short Bros. and Harland Ltd. advise me that the Minister of Aviation is incorrect when he says that there will not be a rundown of employment but that it will be maintained in building and sub-contract work until 1970. There is fear that in about two or three years the sub-contract work which Northern Ireland has today will fall off and that the work force will not be maintained at 6,000.

This subject was last debated about ten days ago, and I should like to know what has come out of the conference at Chequers over the weekend about which we have read in the papers. It was said in the official communiqué that decisions would be taken through the normal channels. As this is the first opportunity of raising the matter in the House, I should like to know what decisions have been taken as a result of this high-level meeting at Chequers between the Minister of Aviation, leaders of the aircraft industry, and the chairman of B.O.A.C., concerning the aircraft industry.

It may be said—and here I refer particularly to Appendix VII of the Air Estimates—that this is a matter for the Ministry of Aviation, but I hope that my hon. Friend will give me some information on this point, because, if I have correctly understood it—and this was the theme of the defence debate—the Ministry of Aviation is to be transferred to the Ministry of Defence. It is on this Estimate that the subject comes up for discussion, because £244 million of the taxpayers' money is involved. I should therefore like to know what part of the Ministry of Aviation is to be swallowed by the Ministry of Defence.

Mr. Shinwell

Surely the hon. Gentleman is wrong? It was expressly stated by the Minister of Defence when he developed his case for the reorganisation of our Defence Departments that this matter of the Ministry of Aviation being swallowed by the Ministry of Defence was left very much in the open.

The Temporary Chairman (Sir Norman Hulbert)

The right hon. Member and the hon. Member cannot, on this Estimate, discuss whether or not the Ministry of Aviation is to be swallowed up.

Mr. McMaster

The right hon. Gentleman says that this question has been left open and I do not know what is to happen to the Ministry of Aviation. I was therefore asking for information, because I thought it was material to this debate. Further, one sees a reference to this in Appendix VII of the Estimates. However, I leave the matter there.

I notice a big change in this year's debate compared with last year's debate on the Air Estimates. Last year there seemed to be great emphasis on developing a few versatile types of aircraft which would serve many functions. For instance, it was suggested in relation to transport aircraft that if one versatile strategic freighter was developed this could be adapted at low cost to the taxpayer for other functions, and the same would apply to the TSR2 and other aircraft.

There now seems to be a change of attitude, and I should like to know how this is related to the decisions made at Nassau. Is it a fact that more money is being made available because we are switching from Skybolt to Polaris? Is this why it has been decided to give the OR351 to Whitworth Gloster? Is this why the Secretary of State for Air does not object to a greater expenditure of money on a jet aircraft designed to meet a specific and particular purpose as a tactical freighter than would have been acceptable last year? If there has been this change of policy, why is there no mention of it in the memorandum accompanying the Air Estimates and other White Papers which have been published recently?

Finally, I make the point which has already been made by the hon. Member for Dudley, that it must be the function of the Secretary of State for Air, together with the Minister of Aviation and the Minister of Defence, to consider the specific requirements of our aircraft manufacturing industry and to spread out the work. When I say spread the work, I mean spread, in particular, the design work. I do not want to discuss this point again, because it has already been discussed as great length—

Mr. John Rankin (Glasgow, Govan)

want to check two words which I thought I heard the hon. Gentleman use. Did I understand him to say that he wants the work spread out?

Mr. McMaster

Yes, I said that. About ten days ago I said that perhaps a second loan for the WG681 should be provided by Messrs. Short Bros. and Harland Ltd., and this was dealt with by my hon. Friend. The design staff in the aircraft manufacturing industry are the cream of the industry. They are highly skilled, and we do not want them to go abroad. We do not want them to be attracted to America. It is essential that these intelligent people are given sufficient work to do so that they can not only be employed, but given hope for the future. I hope that tonight my hon. Friend will be able to give these men more encouragement than he was able to do last week.

5.19 p.m.

Mr. Shinwell

If I were in the position of the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster), I would make a speech in precisely the terms he did. The hon. Gentleman represents an area of high unemployment. He is concerned primarily with the production of aircraft. We all applaud his sincerity, but we are not discussing unemployment in Belfast, or Northern Ireland, or anywhere else. We are discussing the expenditure of £244 million. As they say in the United States, this is a whale of a sum, it is an awful lot of potatoes. That is how they talk in the Bronx; not in exclusive circles.

It is a very substantial sum of money, and the question we have to consider, having regard to that substantial amount, is: are we getting value for the money? And, more important, what is it about? For there is no information in the document except vague information about airframes being produced and engines being produced and maintenance and the like. Nothing specific is mentioned.

Mr. McMaster

Is the right hon. Gentleman suggesting that when determining value for money we should leave out social considerations entirely?

Mr. Shinwell

That is not a suggestion which ought to be made to me. I have been far too long engaged in political affairs to ignore social considerations.

But we are not considering social considerations at the present time; we are considering whether we should spend this substantial sum of money. Over and above that we are considering what it is all about. I repeat: there is no information of a specific character in the document. Not a single aircraft is mentioned.

My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) was right in his submissions to the Committee. We had a short discussion earlier about hon. Members gaining information on matters of this kind. The speech of my hon. Friend fortifies the need for hon. Members to be furnished with more information on matters of this sort before we agree to such an expenditure as this. I shall not pretend that I am as expert on the subject as my hon. Friend. I merely wish to say—as I ventured to indicate in the intervention I made during his speech—that it seems to me that the Secretary of State for Air and the Under-Secretary of State are not the villains of the piece. It is the Ministry of Aviation, both civil and military.

Previous to the creation of the Ministry of Aviation, when there was a Ministry of Supply, for a long period of years before its abolition, I made submissions to various Prime Ministers and Ministers of Defence that the Ministry of Supply should be abolished. It was responsible for a vast expenditure and, in the end, very little was gained. That is the reason for this document and this vast expenditure. That is the reason why it is impossible for the Under-Secretary of State to furnish the Committee with the required information. At the end of his speech my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley referred to the need for some means of dealing effectively with this subject. How can hon. Members and the country be better informed? How can we justify this expenditure? It seems to me that the only way it can be done is for the Government—it is their responsibility—to find ways and means of furnishing specific, accurate information to hon. Members.

I would go so far as to say that in a matter of this kind—as was the case in respect of many incidents during the last war—it might sometimes be desirable to have a secret session in order that hon. Members might be informed. I am unable to say whether the result would be of any value. But what is the position during the proceedings of this Committee? The Under-Secretary cannot give us any more information than is contained in the document. I doubt whether the hon. Gentleman is in a position to reply to my hon. Friend. So I propose to deal with one item alone.

Mr. Wigg

My right hon. Friend has mentioned a secret session. The suggestion is somewhat of a "red herring". Would my right hon. Friend be kind enough at some time to read the statement by Mr. McNamara to the House of Representatives? In it, he will see that weapon by weapon, service by service, bombers, fighters, missiles, Mr. McNamara goes over them all. Incidentally, he must be giving the information to countries behind the Iron Curtain. But he gives the fullest possible information. Before we consider having secret sessions, could not we start a similar procedure?

Mr. Shinwell

I am aware that in the United States members of Congress, and senators, are furnished with much more information on defence matters than is provided to hon. Members in this House. Indeed, the information Department of the United States furnishes hon. Members of this House with a great deal of information about the United States defence organisation and provides a great deal of specific information about aircraft and various aspects of military organisation. But we are not likely to get that from this Government. That is the point. We may press as hard as we like, but we shall not get it.

May I digress and refer to something which occurred when I was Minister of Defence? I was disturbed about the position regarding aircraft. This happened some years ago. But I think the illustration will give hon. Members some idea of the difficulty facing a Minister of Defence, or anybody in a Service Department. I was disturbed, because, despite our demands and the need for aircraft and—because of the tension in Europe and the Korean War—for particular kinds of aircraft, they were not forthcoming. Eventually, and after consulting the then Prime Minister, I succeeded in obtaining the services of a high-ranking official in another Service Department solely to secure information for myself and the staff at the Ministry of Defence about the reason why deliveries of aircraft were belated and why difficulties were being experienced all along the line in connection with the production of the necessary aircraft, As it happened, some months afterwards the Labour Government fell and I am unable to say what happened. But I would not be surprised if a similar situation has arisen during the period of office of the present Secretary of State for Air, or a previous Minister.

I will leave that point, because I wish to refer to the question of Skybolt. I find from the Supplementary Estimate that £1,400,000 has been expended because of the cancellation, but no information is furnished. I do not expect the Minister to tell us the reason why Skybolt was cancelled—

The Temporary Chairman

Order. The right hon. Gentleman may refer to the Supplementary Estimate where the figure of £1,400,000 is mentioned. But if he proposes to pursue the argument about the cancellation of Skybolt, it would be more pertinent to the discussion on the Supplementary Estimate.

Mr. Shinwell

I thought that your predecessor in the Chair, Sir Norman, said that the matter could be raised on Vote 7. It appears to me that it is relevant to Vote 7 because here we are considering the expenditure of a vast sum of money on aircraft production and the like, and surely it is appropriate and relevant that the question of the cancellation of one project should be considered in connection with that Vote. But if you say it cannot be raised at this stage, Sir Norman, I defer.

The Temporary Chairman

The right hon. Gentleman is in order in referring to the expenditure on Skybolt. But there is a special item for the cancellation of it. It would be better if he deferred his argument on that aspect until we reach the Supplementary Estimate. The Chair is in some difficulty in not being aware whether all the expenditure on Skybolt is included in the Estimate which we are discussing.

Mr. Shinwell

I am much obliged, Sir Norman. I will try to deal with the matter in a more general fashion. My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley referred to the cancellation of orders, to orders not being completed, and so on. Can the Under-Secretary explain why the Air Ministry supported the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Aviation in the search for a weapon which was to be obtained from the United States of America and which eventually was to involve the Government and the country in considerable expenditure? Can the hon. Gentleman explain why they did not proceed with this project? Why, for example—I think that this is in order, Sir Norman—in the expenditure of £244 million and the references to aircraft production and maintenance—no doubt this sum also covers research and development—is nothing said about the attempt to obtain Skybolt? Obviously it was just an afterthought which necessitated the submission of a Supplementary Estimate.

My specific question is this. When a Minister or a group of Ministers are responsible for a project, are convinced that the project is certain to be successful, promise the House of Commons or the Committee or the country, or all three combined, that the project will bear fruit in the course of a few years, and spend money on the project, why should they be allowed to escape? Surely they should be called upon to justify that expenditure? The previous Minister of Defence, the right hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Watkinson), who boasted that this project would be successful and would be in operation in the course of a few years, has now had to eat his words. At the same time he has undertaken the task of running one of our large industrial firms. I understand that he is receiving a very high salary. Surely the right hon. Gentleman ought to be brought to book for making these lavish promises and being responsible for this expenditure.

The present Minister of Defence and the Secretary of State for Air are equally responsible. It has been suggested by my party that we ought not to vote against the Service Estimates. I agree, because I believe in a measure of defence, and I have always said so. If we are to justify our existence as Members of Parliament concerned with the interests of the country and concerned about expenditure, if ever there was any justification for voting against one of the Estimates it is the expenditure on a project which has proved to be completely unsuccessful. However, I am unable to do so, because I have not got my party's consent.

I therefore ask the Under-Secretary —I hope that he will reply to this question—whether it is the intention to surcharge the Ministers responsible for having failed to carry out their promises. Will there be any deduction from their salaries? The hon. Member for Watford (Mr. Farey-Jones), who is associated with the aircraft industry and occupies a very high position in it and is generally respected for his integrity, will agree with me in this. I appeal to him in this. What would happen in industry if a managing director made lavish promises about particular projects, asked his co-directors to agree to the expenditure of a vast sum of money, and then a few months later or a year or so later said, "I am sorry, gentleman. This project is not likely to come to fruition", without giving any reason? This is the position here. Except that we have been told that something has gone wrong at the United States end, we are left very much in the dark. If this were the position industry, what would the hon. Member for Watford say? He would ask for the resignation of the managing director.

Mr. Farey-Jones

indicated assent.

Mr. Shinwell

I ask the hon. Gentleman to agree with me now. I ask him to call for the resignation of the Ministers.

Mr. Farey-Jones

I understood the right hon. Gentleman to suggest a surcharge. I cannot see how that could be done.

Mr. Shinwell

I am not quite sure about it myself. It is an astonishing state of affairs. I do not blame the Air Ministry entirely. What has happened is due to a concatenation of unfortunate events, but somebody must be held responsible.

I come now to my conclusion. I am very much disturbed and bewildered by all this. My conclusion is that hon. Members must make up their minds that the Government must be pressed to give us more information on these matters. We are completely in the dark.

Mr. Paul Williams (Sunderland, South)

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the problem is not only the question of the Ministers, but whether under any original agreement we had the right to get technical knowledge out of the development of the Skybolt project? Even if one were to concede that this is money down the drain, there may be some technical knowledge we can get out of the United States. What I hope that both he and I want to know is whether the Government have any of that knowledge.

Mr. Shinwell

The hon. Gentleman is on my point. Of course we ought to know whether we have gained anything as a result of the cancellation. Have we derived any technical knowledge, the hon. Gentleman asks. I, too, should like to know hat. How are we going to get to know? Who is going to tell us? Have we to go to the United States and ask Mr. McNamara? Who is going to pay our fares? Would that be part of the hospitality provided by the Air Ministry, to which references were made earlier? Would those who were delegated be selected by the Whips, because I would object to that at once?

I do not pretend to be an expert in these matters. I have no technical knowledge. My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley may be all wrong, except that he is absolutely right to raise this question. We want to know whether we have got any value out of this. One million four hundred thousand pounds is a fair sum of money. I could tell the Government what to do with it. I have all sorts of ideas about that. I could provide more National Assistance for some of the poor people in my constituency. I might even be ready to give the hon. Member for Belfast., East some support in the direction, because if he cannot get aircraft he will have to get National Assistance. But I do not want to be out of order.

I appeal to hon. Members on both sides of the Committee. This is not a party matter. I am not raising a party point. I appeal to hon. Members. I appeal to their integrity. I appeal to them to justify their existence as Members of Parliament and ensure that the Government are pressed to give us the information before we give them any money. That is our function in this Committee, and it is about time that we exercised our rights.

I am sorry I have been a little out of order, Sir Norman. However, even if I have been out of order, I have been absolutely right in what I have said, and that is worth something.

5.39 p.m.

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop

I listened with great interest to the speech of the right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell), but with particular interest to the speech made earlier by the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg). Very often I find myself in sympathy with the hon. Gentleman's objectives, even if I do not agree with the arguments with which he recommends them. I thought that he cast a somewhat unnecessarily gloomy historical perspective on the successes of British military aviation equipment in the export market. I have not had time to check the list of military aircraft sold abroad because I was not sure when I would catch your eye, Sir Norman. However, I have jotted down that the Canberra bomber was sold in Rhodesia, New Zealand, Venezuela, Peru, Pakistan and India and was made under licence in large quantities in America. The Hunter was sold in Equador, Iraq, Jordan, Denmark and elsewhere, the Folland Gnat was sold in Yugoslavia and Finland, and the Shackleton in South Africa. The NA39 Blackburn Buccaneer was sold in South Africa and the Avro 748 in India.

Mr. Wigg

I did not mention the Canberra because the Labour Party has been attacked from time to time for having placed very large orders for the Canberra and I thought that if I mentioned this aircraft I should have been making a point in favour of the Labour Government. I mentioned the Hunter and the offshore sales which the hon. Member mentioned. I also mentioned the Buccaneer as having been sold in South Africa, but I regret that I did not mention the Shackleton, although I was aware of the facts about this aircraft.

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop

I was endeavouring to introduce a perspective into this matter by naming the scope and the countries in which they were sold. I agree in general with a point made by the hon. Member for Dudley that what one hopes to get out of the production of the majority of aircraft is a ready export market for them.

It does not surprise me to learn that none of our V-bombers was ordered abroad. The conception of the V-bomber was really as a nuclear bomb carrying aircraft. I appreciate that it had a secondary role with conventional high explosive bombs, but I would not have thought that it would have been purchased by any country without nuclear bombs; so I suppose its market was rather limited—to Russia and America.

Mr. Wigg

Would the hon. Member say the same thing about the Valiant? I did not mention the Vulcan and the Victor for the reasons given by the hon. Member.

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop

Some customers might have considered the Valiant, but instead they tended to buy Canberras because they thought they would get more for their money.

When we look at the success of the British aircraft industry in the export market—and here I take issue with the hon. Member for Dudley regarding the supersonic project—we must consider that what was produced was of a kind then unique and before it was produced in any other country. I would not have said that the success of the Viscount was due to an accident: it was as a result of it being the only turbo-prop aircraft that money could buy at that time. That is certainly why 320 of them were sold in the export market; although I agree that, after a while, there were competitors. In evidence of this point, the Handley Page Herald was not offered as a turbo-prop until after Fokker got into the export market, and that is why the Friendship has been sold in large quantities.

The Comet I caused considerable interest abroad until it got into trouble, and the Comet IV received a lot of interest in its early stages and sold well, although I agree that interest dropped off later on. So this brings me on to the question of the supersonic aircraft and I suggest that, on the basis of this trend of thought, if one is to produce an aircraft of this type there is considerable evidence at hand to suppose that, if it is to be sold, the aircraft had better be produced first of all.

If one wants to produce a supersonic aircraft, then for heaven's sake give it the greatest sales appeal possible. This has not been done, for political reasons, I suspect, rather than for engineering reasons. This is indeed unfortunate, and I hope that it is not too late to correct what has happened. I think it extremely unlikely that a project of this technical complexity and innovation will attract a market if the engines are produced by one French company which has never produced any civil engines and a British company which is conspicuous for the lack of civil jet engines it has succeeded in selling abroad. Whatever happens, I do not disagree with the decision that, if we are to produce this aircraft, it should be an Anglo-French supersonic one.

The last example I would offer in this connection is the B.A.C. 111 of which a considerable number of orders were secured before it had flown. It is the first in the field of its type, although I appreciate that a competitor has arisen. There may be another competitor from Douglas, although we do not know. If that second competitor does come along it may reduce a considerable number of the orders the B.A.C. 111 would have gained. I have made these remarks lest the observations of the hon. Member for Dudley are taken at large to mean that our military procurement policy over the last decade has not resulted in export sales. I have endeavoured to offer a suggestion why the V-bombers were not ordered abroad and I have shown that the primary reason why the Lightning was not sold abroad was political rather than technical.

It does not surprise me to know that the Javelin did not sell abroad. At that time there was tremendous pressure from the Americans to sell their Lockheed F.104, lock, stock and barrel, to the N.A.T.0, air forces instead of, for example, Denmark taking the Lightning after its Hunter 6s. I expect the Lockheed F.104s will take its place. There was strong political pressure going on at the time with a large cash assistance, or assistance in kind, being given which we could not offer to put behind our aircraft.

There is little doubt that we could have sold the Lightning in India if a price policy had been invented from our point of view so that the competition offered by the Russian fighter could have been met, although that would have involved us in selling some Lightnings at a price which would not have been a profitable one; and I share the view that when selling aircraft it should be on a profitable basis.

Thus I am not altogether surprised that our military aircraft have not met with too much success in the export market in the last three or four years. I do not want to make predictions about whether or not the TSR2 will succeed or even whether it will sell abroad. One cannot possibly know that now because the time scale is too far ahead. Nevertheless, I wish to re-emphasise the plea I have made on many occasions that our military aircraft procurement policy should be coherent. Unfortunately, it demonstratively is not.

In emphasising the necessity for an adequate procurement policy, it must be remembered, first, that the operational requirements of the R.A.F. and the Royal Navy should be met. Secondly, if possible those requirements should be compatible with the operational requirement of potential purchasers abroad because the unit costs will he reduced in that way, apart from the beneficial foreign currency aspects of the matter. Thirdly, to a large extent public expenditure should be channelled into success rather than into failure. It should not be used so much as a form of national assistance as a reward for success and for technical merit.

If an aircraft firm produces a very good aircraft and is given an order for it, that should not be a reason for the firm not getting another order afterwards. The pack of cards should not be dealt round, for the good reason that there are not enough cards in the pack to deal them round and to keep everybody alive. The aircraft industry is too large for our domestic, military and civil market and for our export market. The choice of how public expenditure should be canalised is a choice in which we must pick out certain elements within the British aircraft industry and say, "By your technical merits and by your commercial achievements you have demonstrated that you are more likely to remain alive in a highly competitive world, with quite a lot of the American aircraft industry tottering on the verge of collapse, than are other firms." These firms of outstanding technical merit who have proved their merit by other people spending their money on their products should be the firms to which the money is directed.

The fourth plank in this policy is that expenditure of this kind has a social impact. It can surely be said without fear of contradiction that at Short Brothers and Harland when men are laid off there is no alternative employment for them in the immediately foreseeable future. I do not think that this can as accurately he said of aircraft firms in the area surrounding Coventry; just do not believe it.

These are the four planks out of which we should extract a coherent procurement policy, and an appreciation of them is not obvious when one looks at the procurement policy over the past six years, and in particular of the OR351 where, as I am afraid I have had to say before and as I shall doubtless have to say again, a firm has been selected which is probably of the least technical merit of any firm left in the industry. It is a firm which has no experience whatever of VTO. The system which it is to adopt is the one which was developed by Shorts, not that developed by the Hawker-Siddeley group.

On these grounds, to give the contract to Gloster-Whitworth seems to be a decision totally void either of technical merit or of economic merit in terms of general policy. In saying this, I do not wish in any way to criticise the design of the aircraft. I have not studied it. It may be an excellent design. But that does not mean that it must be made by Gloster-Whitworth.

If I leave my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State with these ideas, I hope that he and my right hon. Friend will apply their minds to working out without delay a coherent procurement policy, which is so sadly lacking at the moment.

5.53 p.m.

Mr. John Rankin (Glasgow, Govan)

I am sure that the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) will forgive me if I do not follow his most interesting argument. I agree with him in his wish to try to bring coherence out of what is near chaos at the moment. He is animated by the same desire as is my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg), who wants to see a strong aircraft industry in this country. Later he asked for a "first-class industry". Those views are echoed throughout the Chamber, and part of our job is to see how they can be achieved. I do not want to develop that aspect but to speak mainly on one aspect of the industry which appeals to me as a Scottish Member.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) very gently chided the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster) on making a speech which to some extent might have been more appropriate in a debate on unemployment. Nevertheless, that is an aspect of the problem which appeals to many of us. My right hon. Friend referred to the total expenditure—£244 million. It is a vast sum, and he pointed out that we seemed not to get a great deal of information about how that sum was being spent and on what it was being spent. But in the paragraph which deals with the Air Estimates we are told that where aircraft are purchased complete their costs are charged in full to this item, In other words, we are told that aircraft are being purchased complete and that they appear in an item which totals £51,100,000. It would be pertinent to ask the Minister how many aircraft were purchased complete. Will he also tell us something about the types of aircraft which have been purchased complete?

Mr. Mulley

Or will be purchased.

Mr. Rankin

Or will be purchased, because we are dealing with the year ahead. The Minister has made a definite statement that aircraft are purchased, and before we agree to the expenditure of the money we are entitled to know more about those aircraft. My right hon. Friend said very properly that the important thing for us in discussing the Estimate is to know what we are getting for the money, but I am sure that the House will forgive me if I look at another aspect which is equally important. Not only should we ask what we are getting for the money but we should ask where we are spending the money.

I agree with the hon. Member for Belfast, East who followed the same line, because he was interested in where this vast sum of money, or parts of it, were being spent. We know that some of it is being spent on Beverley aircraft and other types of aircraft made in Belfast. We wish them well and we wish them a greater share of the expenditure—in which Scotland participates to a very minimum extent. We are estimating for £244 million. Those of us who are taxpayers pay our contribution towards that sum, and a large part of it is gathered in Scotland.

Mr. Farey-Jones

Not all of it.

Mr. Rankin

I am not suggesting that we pay all of it, but we pay our fair share. If the money is partly gathered in Scotland, then we are entitled to stake a claim for the spending of an equitable part of that money in Scotland.

I therefore look at three of the items in Vote 7. The first is £84 million for airframes. This is a large sum of money and it is not unfair to point out that we have only 2,000 people employed in Scotland on the construction of airframes. Out of an aircraft industry which employs a total of between 280,000 and 290,000 people only 12,000 are employed in Scotland, 10,000 of them on aero-engines and 2,000 on airframes, and even that part of the industry is beginning to disappear almost completely. I do not think that that is the way to build a sound economy.

My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley said he wanted to see not only a first-class industry but a national aircraft industry. If it is to be a national industry not only should the money be collected from all parts of the nation, as it is, but, following up the arguments of the hon. Member for Belfast, East, it should be spread over the nation as a whole. This is not happening now. I claim that the Government ought to be doing something towards bringing that about. It is the function of a Government to see not only that the money for the Service is raised but equally that that money is so spent that it benefits fairly the whole of the nation which provides it.

This was the aim of the Labour Government in 1945. When I came to the House in that year, this industry was largely based on the home counties and London was its centre. The Board of Trade under a Labour Minister decided to encourage the industry to spread out from London. It did so and it moved as far as the north of England. But with the ending of that Government that policy ceased. A wise Government today would try and resurrect that policy and spread the industry still farther than its present location.

I have said that we are voting £244 million. There is a little fraction which has played a very important part in the economic life of Scotland. It is called "the eleven-eightieths". It has governed income and to some extent expenditure. If we were to allocate the present expenditure on the basis of that eleven-eightieths fraction about £33 million would be spent in Scotland on airframes, aero-engines, electronic and electrical equipment, instruments and flight simulators.

We are equipped in Scotland to provide airframes and also furniture and clothing. Employment in the latter two industries is now running down, but £11¼million are to be spent under these Estimates on items of that nature. We in Scotland are not receiving our fair share of that expenditure for which we help to create the income. The same applies to the electronics and other specialist industries for which £49 million are being provided.

In Scotland we produce 11 per cent. of the scientists who come from the universities of the United Kingdom. But we retain only 2 per cent. of them because of the lack of this type of work. We are voting for the sustenance of that work tonight and I hope that the Under-Secretary of State for Air will keep in mind what I have said when he replies to the debate. Furthermore, I hope that after he has replied and has retired to his private office to think about how he will allocate this money he will do his best to wipe out the present inequality in its use and will see that Scotland receives a fair share of the money which it helped to provide.

6.7 p.m.

Mr. R. Gresham Cooke (Twickenham)

I hope that the Committee will excuse me if in a speech of five minutes I leave these large matters of aircraft and airframe manufacture and the location of industry in order to raise a small matter but one of almost as much importance to the British public. I was interested to see that under Subhead F the Air Ministry is proposing to increase expenditure on meteorological equipment this year from £600,000 to over £1 million. I hope that that increased expenditure may portend for us some advance in long-range forecasting with which my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will well know I have been burdening the Ministry for some time in Question and Answer.

I think we would all agree that the 30-day forecasts of the United States in recent months have been highly successful and that a longer-range forecast than the 48-hour forecast we now have would be of considerable help to farmers, to householders who have to stock coal for the winter, to the railway authorities so that they might, know how much extra coal they should allocate to the depots, to road transport interests and to private motorists. If it were possible by the use of this additional machinery to have a 30-day forecast in this country which would have some chance of being successful I am sure that it would be very much appreciated.

The American meteorological office has spent a great deal of money on this work. Recently it bought a computer costing £5 million into which it has fed weather patterns for the last 60 years. The existing weather pattern is fed into the computer which selects the most likely of the weather patterns of the previous 60 years to correspond, to that pattern, thereby giving forecasts for 30 days which, as I have said, have been remarkably successful.

I know how difficult these things are in this country. At one time we regard ourselves as a storm-tossed island off the coast of Europe, and at another time as part of the land mass of Europe which is washed by the Atlantic; so it is not easy to make long-term weather forecasts for this island. But it would be of considerable practical help to many people in this country if we could have these long-term forecasts and if we could borrow from the Americans some of their knowledge. The Americans recently—I think it was on Saturday—forecast that the next thirty days will be warmer and moister than usual for our spring, and it will be interesting to see if this forecast is borne out.

I raise this matter now because I hope the Under-Secretary will have an opportunity of saying to what extent we can imitate the Americans and borrow their knowledge in making these 30-day forecasts.

6.11 p.m.

Mr. Ridsdale

We have covered very widely many aspects of the aircraft industry under Vote 7. The Estimates, in Vote 7, provide for airframes, for example the Lightning Mark III, and for aero-engines such as, for example, the Tyne to be supplied to the Royal Air Force during 1963–64. However, for security reasons the Estimates cannot be broken down to give the provisions for individual items.

Mr. Mulley

May I follow that point? In the Memorandum we have the lists of aircraft which are intended to be coming along; we have all sorts of lists of aircraft which are coming along in the next 10 years. Surely, it is not a security matter to say that in the present year this figure represents seven Lightnings or three Belfasts, or whatever the aircraft may be? The Committee is being treated like children.

Mr. Ridsdale

In reply to the hon. Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley) I can say that deliveries of certain types of aircraft, including the Comet IVs and Victor Ifs, will have been completed in 1962–63, and deliveries of the Argosy and jet Provost will have been completed before the end of 1963–64. We are expecting deliveries of the Lightning F.3 and the Wessex HC2 as well, and we are also dealing with the Tyne engine.

In this debate on Vote 7 we have strayed very widely. I could have suggested that some of the points that have been made have been out of order—

Mr. Wigg

On a point of order. This is a departure from precedent for the Committee to be told by a Government spokesman that the debate has been out of order. Is it not the gravest reflection upon the Chair?

Mr. Ridsdale

rose—

Mr. Wigg

On a point of order, Sir Norman. Can we not have your Ruling on whether it is competent for an hon. Member to say that the debate has been out of order?

The Temporary Chairman

I did not interpret what the Minister said as being a severe reflection upon the Chair. I think it was intended to be taken lightheartedly.

Mr. Ridsdale

I was endeavouring to reply to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Rankin) who referred to Scotland. We bear in mind as far as we can the interests of Scotland in the difficulties that she is going through at present.

Mr. Rankin

I did not mention Scotland's difficulties. I dealt with the unfair treatment which she is not only getting this year and next year but which she suffered last year. I should like the hon. Gentleman to deal with this matter at length and to help us.

Mr. Ridsdale

I have noted what the hon. Gentleman said. Further than this I cannot go at the moment.

The hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) dealt with the question of a supersonic aircraft. It is not for me to deal with the hon. Gentleman's reflections on supersonic transport aircraft. There is no provision for any such aircraft in the Vote which we are discussing. The Anglo-French development project is, indeed, a matter for my right hon. Friend the Minister of Aviation. The hon. Member for Dudley also raised a question—

Mr. Wigg

On a point of order. This brings our procedure almost to the verge of a farce. The two aircraft concerned are the head and tail of the same penny. They use the same engine. The TSR engine has reheat, but they are the same engine. The Government have chosen both. Yet the hon. Gentleman says that he will not reply to the question and deal with the supersonic aircraft. Although it is not strictly borne on this Vote, it is implicit in Government policy that the two things go forward together. The hon. Gentleman is turning the proceedings almost into a joke. We may as well provide a blank cheque.

The Temporary Chairman

I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman is raising this question of aircraft with me. The Estimates are in a new form; they are not very informative, and I am not sure what type of aircraft are referred to in these Estimates.

Mr. Wigg

I was addressing the Chair and, through the Chair, the Under-Secretary of State.

Mr. Ridsdale

I had noted what the hon. Gentleman said. The hon. Member mentioned the need for an early decision on the engine for the OR351. I fully agree with him, and a decision will be made on the basis of the project study of the aircraft which my right hon. Friend the Minister of Aviation announced on 5th March this year.

My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) voiced some criticism of the aircraft firm which has been awarded the project study of the OR351. He said in particular that that firm had had no experience of producing vertical take-off and landing aircraft. The firm concerned, Armstrong Whitworth, is a member of the Hawker Siddeley group. The Hawker company is a pioneer in the whole concept of V.T.O.L. with its successful P1127 aircraft.

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop

What I said was that the firm of Gloster Whitworth had no experience of V.T.O.L. aircraft, which is true. I also said that the firm associated with Gloster-Whitworth had experience of exactly the oposite system to the one which has been adopted in this aircraft, which is also true.

Mr. Ridsdale

I am sure that the expertise which is available throughout the group will be fully at the disposal of Armstrong Whitworth.

We have also had a debate, on Vote 7, on Skybolt. The hon. Member for Dudley talked about truth. He chided me with the word "truth" which appears to have many sides. The hon. Member has accused the former Secretary of State of a misleading statement in paragraph 21 of last year's Air Estimates Memorandum, which said that the development of Skybolt in the United States was making good progress. I believe that statement to have been perfectly true at the time that it was made in February, 1962. It was certainly based on the fullest reports from the United States, including information from the Defence Department. The statement by Mr. McNamara which the hon. Member quoted was made practically a year later, when further evidence of live launchings of the missile and revised cost estimates had persuaded Mr. McNamara to change his mind. It is really rather naïve of the hon. Member to speak as if the two statements were made at exactly the same time.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton for the way in which he answered some of the remarks made by the hon. Member for Dudley about the planes that we have not been able to export. The hon. Gentleman spoke, too, about aircraft policy in general, but let me deal with the point he made very forcibly under Vote 7 about the TSR2 and, in general, about the British aircraft industry. He suggested that the TSR2 would never reach the production stage. Like my right hon. Friend last Thursday, I am prepared to take issue with him on that. Good progress is being made in the development of the TSR2, and I confidently expect that it will make its first flight early next year—

Mr. Shinwell

But suppose it does not happen—where will we be then?

Mr. Ridsdale

I am not nearly as pessimistic as the right hon. Gentleman and hon. Members opposite are. After listening to the debate on the Air Estimates, and to this debate today, my impression is that hon. Members opposite are a very pessimistic lot indeed.

The hon. Member for Dudley has praised Mr. McNamara, and has run down our own aircraft industry. I am sure that he does not wish to disparage everything that is British and praise everything that is American, but this is what he has done this afternoon. He was concerned about cancellations in our aircraft industry, but what about the American cancellations—Skybolt, the B70s and the bombers? These cancellations are bound to be part of any modern aircraft industry today. By all means let us fight our Parliamentary battles, but do not let us run down England continually, and British industry. I have no doubt that we have on order the finest conventional planes of any country. Their quality is second to none. Hon. Gentlemen opposite do not do the aircraft industry and the Royal Air Force any service by running down planes that we know to be of first-class quality, and which will come into service shortly.

My hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster) asked me about the Belfast. The strategic Belfast modified to give some tactical capability could have been in service a year or two earlier, but it could not have taken the full range of tactical tasks required for the Royal Air Force. His remarks about scientists, and so on rather strayed outside Vote 7 but he also suggested that the Nassau decisions might have influenced the decision in favour of the AW681 as against the tactical version of the Belfast which, he suggested, would be cheaper.

I can assure him that Nassau had nothing to do with it at all, and that there is no reason to suppose that the Short aircraft would offer any significant cost advantage. The first step in the programme, a project study contract, has only just been taken, as my right hon. Friend the Minister of Aviation informed the House on 5th March—

Mr. McMaster

I believe that, aircraft for aircraft, the AW681 and the Belfast would cost the same, but one has to take into account the fact that the Belfast is a very much bigger aircraft, and would carry a very much larger load than would the AW681.

Mr. Ridsdale

That has been considered but, on the whole, the advantages of the 681 were considered greater for the tasks for which it would be needed.

My hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Mr. Gresham Cooke) asked about meteorological equipment. The main reason for the increase in Subhead F. 4 is that we have made provision for payment for a new computer for the Meteorological Office. The Meteorological Office requires a faster computer than the existing one for regular calculation of forecasts two or three days ahead by numerical methods. Provision is also made for additional weather radar to help local forecasting at weather centres.

My hon. Friend referred to a subject about which he has spoken before in the House—long-range weather forecasting. The Meteorological Office has for some years been making experimental forecasts for a month ahead, but the results so far achieved have been little better than would have been expected by chance. The forecasts have not been published, because they are not considered to be sufficiently reliable. Far-reaching deductions, for example, about holiday weather might be made from them. The forecasts have been issued to a limited number of persons at universities, agricultural institutes and similar bodies for evaluation. A comprehensive assessment of the views of these people is being made and should be completed in the near future.

The United States Weather Bureau also makes long-range forecasts which are called 30-day outlooks. These are published, and state what the temperature and rainfall are expected to be for the following month. The figures show some modest success, but the Bureau warns users that too much reliance must not be put upon these forecasts. Experience over a number of years has not yet shown that these outlooks for the Northern hemisphere can be relied on as a guide for the weather in this country, which lies in an area of very variable weather. I do not think that the Bureau would claim that its long-range forecasts are consistently better than those of the Meteorological Office. The methods of long-range forecasting now being studied by the Meteorological Office do not require elaborate computing machinery, but the Office uses an electronic computer for the examination of all relevant data. I understand that the Weather Bureau uses an electronic computer in the preparation of the 30-day forecast to calculate the trend of the weather over the first few days, but this does not appear to have any significant effect on the success of the forecast for the period as a whole.

I can assure my hon. Friend that the Meteorological Office is not complacent about this problem, that research effort in this field has been increased, and research conducted in several ways, including statistical studies, studies of past weather developments and fundamental studies of the general circulation of the atmosphere. But the problem is complicated, and progress will be slow.

It is suggested that a more advanced computer would enable the M.O. to make more accurate long-range forecasts. A more advanced computer would not mean earlier or more accurate long-range forecasts, because the need is for a better understanding of the dynamics of large-scale weather processes rather than for advanced computing equipment. However, we are considering buying a faster machine, and we are also considering a regular calculation of forecasts two or three days ahead by numerical methods. No doubt, this computer, if provided, would be used to help in handling data used in long-range forecasting, but the existing machine is adequate for the long-range forecasting requirements as at present foreseen.

Mr. Gresham Cooke

May we have an assurance that we are co-operating with the Americans and are trying to learn from them on these 30-day forecasts?

Mr. Ridsdale

I gladly give that assurance. We are co-operating with the Americans and are doing all we can to learn more about these forecasts.

Mr. Eric Lubbock (Orpington)

The Under-Secretary of State will, I hope. amplify one point. He said that security prevented him from giving answers to the questions raised by the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) on the numbers of aircraft involved. I do not consider that a valid answer, because, as the hon. Member for Dudley showed, the Americans have very much more detailed information presented to them on procurement over the coming year and also on the weapons and aircraft in service.

For instance, when the B52 ceased production, it was stated that the last aircraft of the line was the 744th. Therefore, anyone who wanted to could judge how many of these aircraft were in service with the Strategic Air Command. We do not know how many V-bombers are in service, nor how many are coming into service in the forthcoming year. The hon. Gentleman should give us a more detailed explanation of the reasons why we cannot have the figures than merely rely on the one word "security".

Mr. McMaster

Is my hon. Friend able to say anything about the important talks held at Chequers this weekend in so far as they affect these Estimates, particularly the Vote covering equipment?

Mr. Ridsdale

That is really a matter for the Minister of Aviation.

6.32 p.m.

Mr. Wigg

The Under-Secretary of State suggested that I was naive for failing to point out that the statements about Skybolt made by the Government and those made by Mr. McNamara were made at an interval of some months. Either there is something wrong with me or there is something wrong with him. I carefully pointed out, both in my speech in the first instance and in response to an intervention, that the statement in the Secretary of State's Memorandum in February last year was quite specific. It said that the development of Skybolt in the United States was making good progress.

That statement was made on the authority of the Government on the basis, they claimed, of specific information. It was accepted by the House and hon. Members opposite argued on the basis of that statement both in this Chamber and in the country. But from Mr. McNamara's statement on 30th January last, it is clear that already all was not well with Skybolt in February last year, when the Government's Memorandum was issued. Therefore, if the Government did not know then, their ignorance is almost as grave a charge against them as is the charge that the news about Skybolt came rather late.

They should have known these facts on a matter which was so vital to the country. Skybolt was not an isolated, chancy weapon. This was the weapon to which the Government had tied the prestige and the defence policy of this country following the failure of Blue Streak. I turn the charge of naïveté gently back on the hon. Member who lauched it. He spoke like the senior foreman at a prep. school. The hon. Gentleman was all right when he was reading his brief. He read it well. But when he moved away from his brief, his speech was just horrible.

Then the hon. Gentleman went on to this sorry business of "running down England". England does not belong to the Tory Party. Those who show the greatest patriotism are those who tell the truth about their own country and want to see it better. I want to see a strong R.A.F. and a strong aircraft industry in this country. But I am not prepared to tell lies about them for political purposes. That is the difference between the hon. Gentleman and me.

If the hon. Gentleman is competent to do his job, he must know that the statements I have made about these aircraft are objective. They will stand up to examination. But if I am wrong, then let him deploy the facts to the House of Commons in the same way as Mr. McNamara told the House of Representatives. Let the hon. Gentleman give us and the country the facts, so that if greater demands have to be made on the people both sides of this Committee will be able to join in deploying those demands so that the people will face them. But, just as I would not be a party to saying that Blue Streak was the most powerful weapon in the world, I will not now be a party to saying that we are to have streamlined atomic forces.

The Conservative Central Office recently issued a pamphlet on the nuclear deterrent and again the claim was made that Blue Streak is British. It is nothing of the kind. The engine is the same engine as that which powers the Atlas, and it is produced by Rolls-Royce under licence. It is British only because it suits the Secretary of State to claim that it is.

But that is not the worst. There is another untruth we are told when it suits the Government. First, Blue Streak went west as a missile, and then we had Skybolt. We were told that we were being unpatriotic and were running down the R.A.F. and, indeed, deriding British strength when we said that Sky-bolt would not work. Yet when it did fail, we were told by the Government that they have never said it would succeed. We get fairy tales from the Government.

Now the hon. Gentleman tries to accuse me of being unpatriotic because I say that the TSR2 does not work. I do not know when the Government will find it convenient to cancel this aircraft. But it will not fall with this Government to cancel the TSR2 because in a few short months—I wish that it were only a few short weeks or a few short days—they will not be on those benches any more.

Mr. Shinwell

Will we cancel it?

Mr. Wigg

One of the first things that the Labour Government will do is to undertake the same sort of reappraisal of defence policy that was undertaken by President Kennedy when he took office. We will not simply tell the world that we are going to produce the TSR2 to fly at Mach 2 when we have never yet built an aircraft that could fly at Mach 1. According to the Government, we are to produce an aircraft of 90,000 lb.—twice the weight of a similar American aircraft, the F111.

When one looks at the list of the things that the Government are doing, or have done, then it is a subject not for condemnation but more for laughter. Yet in this juvenile way we are told, "You are running down England". That is the sort of prep. school attitude we get from the Government. Let them come to the House of Commons and tell us the truth. Let them face both Tory back benchers and my right hon. and hon. Friends with the realities of the situation, because that is the only possible way in which we shall be able to begin to tackle this problem and ultimately find a solution.

Mr. Ridsdale

We have on order the finest aircraft in the world, and it does not do any service to the R.A.F. for the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) to disparage those planes and speak about the TSR2 in the way that he has done. I have every confidence that it is as good as any plane that the Americans have—and better.

6.39 p.m.

Mr. Eden

I found listening to the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) a very depressing experience indeed, because if one took all he said as a true statement of the facts one would have every justification for feeling extremely gloomy not only about the state of the R.A.F. but about the state of the British aircraft industry as a whole.

Quite frankly, the Secretary of State's Memorandum, which accompanied the Air Estimates, in so far as it refers to these facts, tells exactly the opposite picture. If we consider the aircraft which have been produced already and those that are being manufactured, the picture is totally different from that which the hon. Gentleman would have us believe to be the case.

I agree with my hon. Friend when he takes the hon. Gentleman to task for painting such a gloomy picture. I accept that it is the responsibility not only of hon. Members opposite, but also, in an instance of this kind, of hon. Members on this side to be critical and to ensure that we have value for the money which we are being called upon to vote; but I do not think that we carry out those responsibilities properly—if the hon. Gentleman will forgive my saying so; I am not trying to be as pompous as he was earlier with some of my hon. Friends —by running down the prestige of the R.A.F, and the products of the aircraft industry. If he does not see the distinction between those two things, it is time he started to learn.

The hon. Gentleman is a reasonably good critic, but a very bad guide as to the state of the efficiency of the Royal Air Force and I am glad that my hon. Friend interrupted him in an attempt to try to put the record straight. It is inevitable that errors will be made with regard to individual weapons systems and aircraft. This has always been the case throughout our history, but I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will not deny that it is proper to take a decision now and again and that there must be an element of risk, including the risk of cancellation of individual projects, in this great, developing story. Technological development is unfolding at such a rapid pace that progress overtakes the original decisions in many instances.

It is important that this point should be stressed, for, to my mind, there is a much greater risk in standing still and always being certain that we are absolutely right before moving than there is in deciding to go ahead with a project. In taking a decision and going ahead with a project there is less risk of being wrong than there is in sonic of the admonitions of the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Cyril Bence (Dunbartonshire, East)

Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that, in such a highly complicated and technical matter as this, by the time we make a technological advance, whether in missiles or craft, it is out of date? Therefore, my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) is quite right. It is not fair to bring into the context of the R.A.F. or into the defence of the. country something which is expected to be all right, but which may not be all right or which may be out of date when it is achieved.

Mr. Eden

That is so, but there is nothing wrong in assessing the value of a product or project as fairly and accurately as we can knowing it to be the best available or foreseen and to go ahead and order it and say, "This is what the R.A.F. should have". Of course, the R.A.F. should have the best. My hon. Friends and I believe that the equipment now being chosen for the R.A.F., particularly the aircraft which it is getting, is the finest available and projected.

Mr. Wigg

This is where we do not agree. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to face up to the issue, let him look at OR351 and tell us how many times it has been altered since it was first written, and the pressures which he and his hon. Friends have exerted on the Minister to get any sort of decision and when we shall have a decision about the engine. Obviously, the longer that this is left the less chance there is of a viable aircraft being produced which can be sold abroad.

Mr. Eden

Before I answer the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg), I should point out that I owe the Committee an apology because I was taken away from the Committee in the middle of a debate, and I must try to curtail my remarks because I recognise that we are coming to the conclusion of the debate on this Vote.

There are two reasons in particular why it is difficult to provide the Committee with an accurate estimate under this Vote. The first concerns the system under which the bills are paid, the bulk settlement arrangements. To some extent, the sums of money paid out in any one financial year are really dependent on the degree of industrial activity in the industry as a whole. I think that the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Bence) will agree that, if there is an opportunity for stepping up these processes due to industrial inactivity in other spheres, a greater sum will come forward into the current year's Vote than would have been estimated for at the beginning of the year.

The second difficulty, namely, the question of changing requirements, has been touched on by the hon. Member for Dudley. It is well known that the original specification or the original operational requirement stated by the Service may be amended and changed as the construction work or design work proceeds.

I have one major question which I should like to ask my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary. I do not ask him necessarily to comment on it at this stage. To what extent are allowances made in estimating for both these considerations? To what extent is there a special Air Ministry contingencies fund set aside for these eventualities? If there is such a fund, does it feature in this Vote? Can my hon. Friend say to what extent improvements are being made in estimating for this sort of project.? This brings in the whole question of the relationship between the Air Ministry and the Ministry of Aviation, which is the main supply Ministry for the Royal Air Force.

This brings me to another point. In view of the great technological changes which we are currently experiencing, may we be assured that the decision-making procedure is being streamlined and speeded up? In so far as I have been in touch with these matters over the past few years, it seems to me that we fall down by failing to follow up any new technological development with a clear specification or clear order. This is of extreme significance today in competition in the world's markets for the sort of products which the British aviation industry can produce.

One point which probably has been commented on—if so, I apologise for mentioning it again—is the significant juxtaposition of the two figures for airframes and for electronic and electrical equipment. The figure for airframes has fallen in its total over last year by about the same amount that the figure for electrical equipment has increased. I welcome this trend. It is a step in the right direction, but surely it draws attention to the fact that the real cost of producing an aircraft lies in the electronic and electrical equipment in air instruments and flight simulators. This is where great technological advances are being made.

I am interested to note the increase in the sum for electrical equipment, and I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary and the Secretary of State for Air and the Minister of Aviation will pay very special regard to the urgent need of giving the maximum possible support to developments in electronics and technology. I will not go further into that matter, but this is a most important aspect in ensuring that the R.A.F. is equipped with the most up-to-date equipment that we can supply. If my hon. Friend can comment on that aspect, I shall be interested to hear what he says.

Mr. Mulley

I am sorry that the Under-Secretary did not pay the Committee the usual courtesy of allowing hon. Members to make their points before seeking to reply, thus shortening down the debate. That is no substitute for having an explanation of the Vote. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not play that kind of Parliamentary trick again, because it never pays.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Gresham Cooke) upon at least extracting from the Government an explanation of how £1 million of the £244 million is to be spent. I cannot congratulate the hon. Member on his Parliamentary interest in the weather, because since his interest began, we have had the worst summer in my recollection and, I believe, the worst winter since records have been kept. I do not know whether the coincidence of the weather and the hon. Member's recent interest in it in the House of Commons are in any way connected.

Mr. Gresham Cooke

It is not as bad as the "Shinwell freeze".

Mr. Mulley

Apart from that, we have had an extremely unsatisfactory reply from the Government. It may well be that it is difficult in the course of debate to give detailed information about why and how the money is being spent, but, certainly, there has been no attempt to supplement the understandably meagre figures which are printed in the Estimates.

One hon. Member after another has complained, and rightly, of the lack of information, not only on this Vote, but over the whole range of Government defence policy. It is nonsense to suggest that security reasons prevent much of the information being made available. It is always a matter of security when it does not suit the Government to give information and yet, when it suits them to make a statement, it is perfectly all right to do so. For example, a couple of weeks before the Estimates were published, the Minister of Aviation told an hon. Member that it was against the public interest to say what would be the weapons for the TSR2; but because it would make the headlines and help to fill in the Defence White Paper, information was published about the wonder bomb and all the rest, which could equally have been given as an Answer to a Parliamentary Question two or three weeks before. The Government are simply not giving the House or, through the House, the people an explanation of why this money is required.

It will not do for anyone on the Government Front Bench to thump the Table and say, "We are British. Anyone who criticises the provision of equipment for the Services is anti-British" and to suggest that we on this side, in doing what we deem to be our Parliamentary duty, are somehow getting at the Royal Air Force. That is the last refuge of an incompetent Minister. The Minister of Aviation, who was Secretary of State last year, should be the last person to try that technique. I was accused of getting at the Royal Air Force and of being anti-British because I ventured to cast doubts about whether Skybolt would come along. Now, the Government themselves have cancelled it. Did they do it simply to get at the Royal Air Force, or because they wanted to be anti-British? All this is nonsense and I hope that it will never be put forward again.

One of the reasons why we are criticising the Government is that we do not think that the Royal Air Force has been given enough of the weapons and aircraft that it needs for the country's defence. We have made the point over and over again that we do not have sufficient transport aircraft. There is not one strategic freighter in the Air Force. Any airman would say that the important thing is not the number of planes written on pieces of paper in Government archives or in Memoranda accompanying the Estimates. The important thing from an operational viewpoint is the number of planes in squadron service. That is why it is not a substitute to talk about aircraft which will come in the future and then, when questions are asked about them, to say that they are not included in the Vote because none of the expenditure will be made on any of these aircraft next year.

On the other hand, I sympathise with the Under-Secretary and the Air Ministry generally. I do not think that they have anything to do with the ordering of aircraft these days. It does not seem that they are really brought into the picture. To a large extent, they have aircraft foisted upon them. I do not think that they have much say in how much or what kind of expenditure is incurred.

The complicated machinery with the Air Ministry, the Ministry of Aviation, the Ministry of Defence and, of course, the Treasury taking a hand at every point must not only lead to an increase in cost, but it is prodigal of delay. If one point has to be made about the procurement of military aircraft, it is the delay. It is not that we lack technical and design knowledge in the industry. Ours could have become the foremost aircraft industry in the world. The only drawback is that because of procrastination by Governments on both the civil and military sides, a number of machines that would have been first in their field have been held up and when they actually fly, they are already overtaken by technological progress and events.

A real criticism of the Government—it has nothing to do with the industry or the Air Force—is the way that they have played around with V.T.O.L., in which we could easily have led the world. They made a grave mistake in backing only the Hawker Siddeley V.T.O.L., which will be useful only for the smaller aircraft. Already, in their OR351, they have to go outside the Hawker system to provide V.T.O.L. They now have to back the Short and the Rolls-Royce scheme, which they refused to back before. The result is that the Mirage is getting it and, through France, America will have it, and because they do things much more speedily than us, they will probably get these planes flying before we get a British V.T.O.L. version. It will be a tremendous tragedy if, Britain having invented the system, our aircraft industry and the country will be denied the benefit of it.

On another occasion, we shall have to press much further the whole question of the procurement of military aircraft and how it fits into the general aircraft policy of the Government. Perhaps we can find out then, as my hon. Friends have not succeeded in finding out from the Government today, what happened at the celebrated Chequers weekend. I could not believe my eyes when I read in one of the reports that somebody had said that the aircraft industry was happy, that it had all the work it wanted until the 1970s, and that there were no problems. I thought that somehow my hon. Friends speaking in the House of Commons on the Air Estimates had given a rather different picture of the problem from the viewpoint of their constituencies. I am sure that there are enormous problems.

I welcome the fact that the Ministry and the industry are getting together to try to develop long-term planning, but, certainly, this is a subject to which we shall have to return.

6.58 p.m.

Mr. Cyril Bence (Dunbartonshire, East)

I enter this debate because I strongly resent the inference drawn by the Under-Secretary of State from the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) and from other remarks which have been made from time to time by hon. Members on this side. Any engineer knows that the development of an aircraft is a costly business. Let us tell the public at large that what we are paying for in the main throughout the aircraft industry is the development of a project. the creation of a prototype and the putting of a single aircraft into the air in the hope that we can achieve a certain speed—Mach. 2, or whatever it is called—and that it will suit our needs.

We are spending a great deal of money in trying to do that, but do not let us, at the same time, create the impression in the country that the £244 million which we are voting tonight for 1963–64 will give us the defensive or strike weapon that we hope it will give, because we cannot be certain. This is problematical all the time.

I spent two years as an aircraft engineer, from 1938 to 1940. We produced a prototype. It did what the Royal Air Force wanted. It flew and it was a good plane. Then it was mounted with weapons and it was a failure. It went into production and was a complete flop.

I am shocked at the way in which the Under-Secretary has attacked hon Members on this side. I agree entirely with my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley that the impression which is given in the country is that we spend this money and we have the things in being, whereas anyone knows that we do not have them. It would be almost like telling one's insurance company that one's house was protected with a foolproof burglar device when, in fact, one had sent a request to an engineering firm to devise a burglarproof device. Of course, one would not have that burglar-proof device; it would be in the course of development.

That is the position we are in with armaments, whether it concerns the Navy, the Army or the Air Force. All the time we are spending a lot more money chasing after perfection, faster speeds and greater manœuvrability of aircraft. These are the purposes for which the largest amount of this money is being spent. It has nothing to do with the efficiency of the Royal Air Force.

In 1938, 1939 and 1940, had it not been for the quality of British pilots and navigators, I do not think that the Battle of Britain would have been won. It was won by the quality of the men. The quality of the men was far superior to some of the aircraft which they were flying at that time. I admit that we had a winner with the Spitfire. When we criticise the industry, its organisation and the whole set-up, I hope that hon. Members opposite will not indulge in that very cheap, political form of attacking us on this side of the Committee as if we were always denigrating England or the Royal Air Force. We are not doing any such thing.

We are doing what is the duty of Parliament and of every hon. Member, and that is to examine these problems and go through these accounts. It is our duty to criticise, question, analyse and to try to find out. The taxpayers who are paying these enormous sums of money are entitled to know how the money is being spent. They expect us to probe. They are entitled to a service by us in probing how this money is spent and where it is spent. It is shocking to me that an adult Member of this House would indulge in such cheap political clap-trap.

Mr. Eden

The hon. Member is rather overstressing this point, but the fact remains that if people had set a lot of store by what the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) said in his speech it would have done a great deal of damage to the fortunes of one important section of the aircraft industry.

Mr. Bence

I am not quarrelling with the hon. Member. If I were criticising my hon. Friend, I would perhaps criticise him on the point that he did not make it technologically more explicit from an engineer's point of view. He is an ex-Regular soldier and I happen to be an engineer. I see this from the technological and engineer's point of view, and because I do I cannot stand for that sort of cheap, political claptrap which is not an answer to the problems that we are trying to elucidate in this debate.

Mr. Eden

Rubbish.

Mr. Bence

It is not rubbish. The hon. Member has no right to sit there and say that it is rubbish.

Mr. Eden

The hon. Gentleman is talking absolute rubbish in saying that what my hon. Friend said was cheap, political claptrap. He was absolutely right to defend the Royal Air Force. The hon. Gentleman would have been the first to attack him for irresponsibility if the Under-Secretary had not defended the Service for which he is the Minister.

Mr. Bence

No one has attacked the Royal Air Force. I have not and neither did my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley. No one has made a disparaging remark about the Royal Air Force. The hon. Member is indulging in the same kind of thing as his hon. Friend. What we are criticising is the Government. We are criticising the Government for trying to create the impression that for this money we have certain things in being when they are not. They are in the stage of development. I am surprised at the hon. Member indulging in these sort of tactics; it really is a disgrace.

Mr. Lubbock

I am not surprised.

Mr. Bence

I sit on the Estimates Committee with the hon. Member and I have found him very objective in many respects, but I am surprised to find him indulging in that sort of thing. I want to follow him on another point which he made, and which I think is quite legitimate.

This is a very difficult problem. It is the problem of these contracts progressing more favourably, under given conditions, with regard to the supply of airframes and the different components for aircraft listed in this £84,350,000 Vote. I am interested in this. It is not the aircraft companies that make these products. They assemble them. Many of these products are made by light engineering firms of all kinds. When we talk about the aircraft industry we are talking of factories that make bicycle parts as well as aircraft parts. All kinds of small light engineering plants, employing 500 to 2,000 men are spread about the Midlands and the South-East, and many of these are firms which manufacture for the aircraft assemblers and aircraft designers. I am not referring to the big engineering shops at Gloucester, Weybridge, or Filton and Bristol.

Most of the products that go into aircraft are made by hundreds of small engineering companies. Many of these small manufacturers manufacture a lot of other products besides aircraft products. It would help many of these companies if there were a Government policy of proper long-term planning of the placing of orders, components, air frames, engines and engine components and a reasonable distribution of minimum and maximum rate of delivery of all the various elements that go into aircraft for use and servicing. It would help a great deal if these light engineering firms perhaps on the North-East Coast, in Belfast, or on Merseyside could have a smooth running throughout the year of orders and contracts through the aircraft industry.

I know that this is a very difficult problem. It is a very difficult industry. Anyone who thinks that the designing and bringing in of a new aircraft, the developing and tooling up for production is an easy job has another think coming. It is very complicated and difficult. I ask the Under-Secretary of State not to indulge in the sort of thing he did, but to appreciate that what most of us here on this side of the Committee are concerned about is to see that the taxpayer gets the best value for money, and to see that the distribution in the process of manufacturing hardware that goes into aircraft is so spread around the country as to give the maximum benefit to all small manufacturers which could benefit by this work and, perhaps, in so doing give us a more even flow, perhaps at a cheaper cost, than we are getting at the moment.

The cost is very heavy. And I am sure that if the British taxpayer saw some of the organisation at present in being he would be bitterly disappointed. Let us hope that out of the meeting at Chequers some of the taxpayers' fears about the chaos that there is in the industry will be removed.

7.9 p.m.

Mr. Emrys Hughes (South Ayrshire)

When the Air Estimates were under discussion last week I made a suggestion that we should get in Dr. Beeching to investigate the whole question of the Royal Air Force, and after reading these two pages I am the more convinced that that was a proposal which should receive the support of nearly every Member of the Committee who has listened to the debate, because this a big bill for aircraft and stores, £244 million, and instead of two pages of information we are given two pages of mystery. When we try to probe the matter along comes the precious word "security". The result is, as one hon. Member has said, that we are really passing a blank cheque.

I was very glad to hear the criticism which was made of the Minister from the Opposition Front Bench. I hope that the roles will be reversed, and that when we discuss the Estimates next year all the information which the hon. Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley), who spoke from the Opposition Front Bench, has demanded today will be given next year. At least I hope that when the rôles are reversed and the hon. Member for Sheffield, Park speaks from the Dispatch Box we shall get much more ample information than we have received today. Of course, if the hon. Member does not give more information when the rôles are reversed, having very carefully treasured the first part of his speech I shall insist that we do have more information.

The justification of these Estimates is that we have to spend an enormous amount of money on what is called the 'strike weapon". There are a good many basic fallacies underlying those two words. We had recently demonstrated what is regarded as the latest powerful aircraft, and a great deal of publicity was given to it. I was amazed to see it was described as Operation "Leningrad". I wonder what expert in international psychology struck upon that word and this idea that an operation can be carried out by this aircraft which will proceed to destroy Leningrad without anything happening on this side. Surely nothing could be more helpful, if we were trying to justify the gigantic and too expensive aircraft bill on the other side of the Iron Curtain, in Russia, than the fact that in Britain we are carrying out an operation for the destruction of Leningrad.

Although we get periodically from the Minister enthusiastic descriptions of how soon it will take for the airmen to get into the aircraft and to get off to Leningrad, we never have the story carried to its logical conclusion—that if these aircraft go to Leningrad something will come over here. We have not had an answer supplied to the question asked by the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Bence), what is likely to happen when the reprisals come? There is a strike, and there is a counter-strike, and the full picture is that of a country which is destroyed. So I say, when this bill for £244 million is brought to us here as a defence measure for this country, that that £244 million is a gigantic bill which is being asked for under false pretences. Then when we try to probe the matter we do not get very much information at all.

We have a gigantic aircraft industry. I noticed during the weekend that references were made to aircraft and air lobbying. We are beginning to talk more and more in terms of the defence policy of the United States of America. We have these powerful lobbies now, we are told, concentrated in the Air Ministry, which is trying its best from behind the scenes to sabotage the proposals to bring it under the central direction of the Ministry of Defence.

I see behind this enormous sum of money, from the point of view of defence, a complete futility; and from the point of view of economic expenditure of men and material and organisation and scientific brains, I see an enormous amount of deadweight in the British economy contained in this sum of £244 million.

I hold that this Committee is quite incapable of examining this large sum of money and all these various items. For example, lumped together are aircraft armament, ancillary equipment for guided missiles, ground defence weapons, etc., at £13,400,000, and then lumped together are ammunition, rockets, bombs, guided missiles, torpedoes, etc., at £30,100,000. These things lumped together cost enormous sums. I remember when we discussed the Army Estimates we had a Report from a Committee which had been inquiring into Army expenditure, and an hon. Member who is a chartered accountant drew attention to that vast sum of money for B.A.O.R. which was passed under one receipt; but here we have these sums and very little information about exactly how we are to spend them, and when we press for information we get no really useful information at all.

I can quite understand the security argument, but this is an occasion for stressing the fact that these Estimates should be carefully examined by hon. Members of experience and knowledge before ever they come to the Chamber, and till we do that, we shall be left with the uncomfortable feeling that behind all this gigantic amount of money is a great deal of wasteful expenditure which could not satisfy a normal chartered accountant.

I know that we shall be told that in clue time the Public Accounts Committee and the Estimates Committee will be entitled to go over certain aspects of this expenditure. When they do that and they turn over these stones they sometimes find a great many undesirable things underneath them, but very little is done. Once hon. Members of those Committees have laboured assiduously, what becomes of their Reports? Are they taken seriously by the House? The House discusses some of what I would call the major scandals which are described in very moderate language, in the Reports of the Estimates Committee and the Public Accounts Committee, but I notice that very little is done about them, and that debates on those Reports are usually taken when 90 per cent. of hon. Members have departed for home.

I want this expenditure examined before we come to this heterogeneous mass of vagueness which is contained in this Vote 7. We are told there that £49,350,000 is to be spent on electronic and electrical equipment, instruments and flight simulators. This is a very profitable sphere for private capitalism.

One of the biggest firms connected with the supply of this kind of aircraft is so wealthy that it can attract former members of the Government. A Lord Chancellor and an ex-Minister of Defence have gone into industry and many officers of the Royal Air Force have left the Air Ministry to join firms manufacturing electronic equipment. If the facts were examined as they should be, we would find in this country a scandal similar to the log-rolling, pressure and canvassing which have occurred in the United States of America.

I welcome the opportunity of saying that these accounts deserve much more serious examination by the House of Commons than they get. The time has come for the aircraft industry and the electronics industry to be nationalised, just as the Royal Air Force is a nationalised institution. If these industries could be made directly responsible to Parliament as public organisations, we should get rid of the suspicion that there is a gigantic amount of graft and a gigantic waste of money.

7.21 p.m.

Mr. Lubbock

I hesitate to speak again on this Vote, but I had hoped that the Under-Secretary would have replied to the one question which I posed to him in a very short intervention. I have become used to asking questions and being ignored, although Ministers sometimes remedy that by giving me promises afterwards. I ought to emphasise the point I made earlier so that the Under-Secretary will understand what it is I am asking.

I said that we should have an expansion of his statement that he could not tell us, for security reasons, how the expenditure on airframes and aero engines was divided. I mention that because Mr. McNamara and the American Administration generally give much more information than do our Government. The party opposite has recently published a booklet called, Entitled to Know. I have not read it because it deals with a subject which does not greatly interest me, but the title is a good idea. We are entitled to know at least as much as the Americans are told about this subject.

In the defence debate, the hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey) said: For most of this decade the United States will have 700 B52 bombers and supersonic B58 bombers, many A.3 Js, which are supersonic carrier-based bombers, several hundred Atlas and Titan missiles, 950 Minutemen and 656 Polaris missiles.—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th March, 1963; Vol. 673, c. 57.] He could have been more precise about the numbers of Atlas and Titan missiles. I have seen figures given. All we are asking is that we should be given at least as much information as the Americans already have.

Let me give one example a little nearer home. In the Statement on Defence, nearly all the vessels in service with the Royal Navy are given by name. including H.M.S. "Blake" which may or may not be in service—one is not sure—and the divisions into categories are given in full. If that can be done for the Royal Navy, why cannot precisely the same thing be done for the Royal Air Force?

The security argument cannot hold water, because the number of the aircraft for our so-called independent nuclear deterrent is very small. It must be. It must be a small fraction of the number in the American Air Force. It will not be a very important factor, therefore, in the calculations of a potential enemy if this information is divulged to us. In any case, I should have thought that such a potential enemy would already have a very good idea of the figure through the activities of spies in the last few years.

Furthermore, as he would have a fairly good idea of the cost of an individual V-bomber, he would have to do only a simple division of the expenditure on airframes and aero engines to calculate the number of aircraft. When we are discussing an enormous sum of money like £244 million, it is ludicrous that the House of Commons should be asked to vote such a sum without having this information.

7.26 p.m.

Mr. Ridsdale

I assure the hon. Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley) that I had no intention of curtailing the debate earlier. I knew that if he wished, he could follow me, but I think that he will agree that the Committee should have an opportunity, if it wishes, to give time to the Army and Navy Votes. I hope that he will understand that that was my reason for rising to reply when I did.

The reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Eden) is that there is no contingency fund in the Vote. One would not be allowed. However, in framing the Estimates we take account of the rate of deliveries which, as happened last year, can be affected by the general level of industrial activity. The Estimates now under discussion have taken account of our experience last year and are as accurate as we can make them.

The hon. Member asked why expenditure on electrical and electronic and similar equipment under Subhead D had increased by about £9 million compared with last year. The increase is mainly due to increased expenditure on ground radars associated with new air traffic control and air defence systems, including those needed for Bloodhound 2, and also airborne radio and radar. Equipment of this sort is steadily becoming more complicated and expensive. We also expect greater deliveries of flight simulators, which are invaluable training aids. Further expenditure arises because of the high cost of instruments in modern aircraft.

The hon. Member for Sheffield, Park spoke about transport aircraft and said that we had no strategic freighter. Our strategic fleet is now composed of Comets and Britannias, the latter with a freight capability.

Mr. Mulley

Surely the hon. Gentleman is not seriously suggesting that the Comet, or even the Britannia, is a strategic freighter. Let us face the fact that we have no strategic freight capacity in terms of heavy equipment.

Mr. Wigg

Will the hon. Gentleman also take into account that if he admitted that we had no freighters, that would be terribly unpatriotic?

Mr. Ridsdale

I know that the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) does not like to be attacked because he has attacked me, but I am quite prepared to attack when I am attacked.

Mr. Bence

We were attacking the Government, not the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Ridsdale

The Britannia has a freight capability. It is because we recognise the need to increase strategic transport capacity that we have ordered 10 Belfasts and 11 VC10s. I should not like to give the impression that we are standing still, until we acquire these large and expensive new aircraft. Last year, for example, Transport Command flew nearly 100,000 hours, over half of which were performed by the strategic and medium-range aircraft such as the Comet, the Britannia, the Hastings, the Beverley, and the Argosy, and during the year there was a heavy operational commitment as well in such areas as Aden, Bahrein, Lagos, Barbados, British Guiana, and, this year, Brunei. Total passengers carried into and out of this country by Transport Command on scheduled services rose from 16,000 in 1961 to 25,000 in 1962, and comparable figures for freight were about 5 million lb. in 1961 and about 6½ million lb. in 1962.

The hon. Member for Sheffield, Park also mentioned the V.T.O.L. system. The P1154 which we have an order will be one of the finest aircraft in service in any force in the world.

Mr. Mulley

I did not say anything about the PI154 not being a good aircraft. This business of pushing it back just will not do. I said that the Government had either backed the wrong one, or not given support to the V.T.O.L. system they need for their own OR351. The hoi. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) "rubbed the Minister's nose in it" in an earlier intervention, The Government did not back the V.T.O.L. system which will give Transport Command a V.T.O.L. plane. I should like to see a transport plane as well as a fighter with the V.T.O.L. system.

Mr. Ridsdale

I hope that we shall move towards having that in the future, This is a thing for the future, because other air forces have not reached that stage at the moment.

I hope the hon. Member for Dudley will not think that I have been discourteous in attacking him, but to my mind he strongly attacked the TSR2 and other planes that we were bringing into the Royal Air Force. Because I stand up for these planes and think that they are the finest in the world, it does not mean that I am being naïve.

Mr. Wigg

We have reached the point when we can illustrate the differences between us. The hon. Gentleman keeps saying that they are the finest planes in the world. I beg leave to doubt it, and therefore I am in the category of being a traitor to my country. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the P1154, which he said is the finest aircraft in the world. The kindest thing to do is to assume that the hon. Gentleman does not know what he is saying, because this plane is still in the design stage. How in the name of goodness can he call this aircraft the finest in the world when it is still a number of black marks on a piece of white paper?

Mr. Ridsdale

We have discussed this very fully this afternoon, and I am sure that when, in the fullness of time, this aircraft comes to be judged the hon. Member for Dudley will be proved to have been wrong, and I shall be proved to have been right.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved, That a sum, not exceeding £244,000,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of aircraft and stores, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1964.