MINISTRY OF DEFENCE SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATE, 1963–64

HC Deb 17 March 1964 vol 691 cc1204-51

9. That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £616,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1964, for the salaries and expenses of the Ministry of Defence; expenses in connection with International Defence Organisations, including international subscriptions; and certain grants in aid.

deprive them of their office. They are entitled, if the Prime Minister so wishes, to serve without remuneration, but I am certainly entitled to ask that they should receive no remuneration; and that is what I do in this case.

The office of Minister without Portfolio is very ancient. For example, I am told that the Duke of Wellington insisted on serving as a Minister without Portfolio. However, it is true that until the First World War there were very few illustrations of Ministers serving without a portfolio. During the First World War the Prime Minister of the day, Mr. David Lloyd George, said that Ministers who were concerned with the conduct of great Departments could not have the oversight of the general war situation, too, and he therefore created a number of Ministers without Portfolio.

On the other hand, the right hon. Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill) did not create such specific Ministries during the last war except, in the case of the late Lord Jowitt, for dealing with the Beveridge Report, which he followed later by the appointment of the late Mr. Arthur Greenwood. Then the practice dropped out during the period of the Labour Government. It was revived in 1954 when the Earl of Munster became Minister without Portfolio in order to lead Government business in another place. He was followed by Lord Man-croft, who was followed by the Earl of Dundee.

The present Government seem to have found it necessary to have a number of Ministers without Portfolio, and we should like to ask the Prime Minister the basis for the creation of these appointments. I do not know whether we are to be favoured by the presence of the Prime Minister this afternoon, but I hope that the Treasury Bench will convey to him our request that he should be present. This, after all, is not a subject on which the Minister without Portfolio himself should reply. It is a matter on which it is the duty of the Prime Minister to account to the House. It is not the Minister without Portfolio who appoints himself, but the Prime Minister who appoints him.

If I may call attention to an earlier occasion, the last time that this subject was debated in the House, in 1921, Mr. David Lloyd George, who was the Prime Minister, defended his proposal to appoint Mr. Alfred Barnes as Minister without Portfolio because that was the fair and proper thing for him to do. He said that he did not intend to expose Mr. Alfred Barnes to criticism, but intended, as Prime Minister, to make it clear why he had appointed him.

I do not know whether the Prime Minister intends to come here today, but we wish to register the view that it is the Prime Minister's duty to be here to account to us for these appointments. I hope that the Treasury Bench will convey that to the Prime Minister. The debate can continue for some time and I repeat our request that he should be present to give us his reasons and the principles on which he acts in these appointments.

The House has always been very concerned about the appointment of Ministers without Portfolio, because they are persons who are responsible only to the Prime Minister and who have no assailable front. It is very difficult to question a Minister without Portfolio; it is very difficult to get him to account for himself to the House of Commons, which is the fundamental principle of all Ministers. In these days there is a great deal of loose talk about the growth of the presidential system, but there is no presidential system in this country. Ministers are responsible to the House of Commons. That is why we should discourage the idea that there are Ministers who are particularly responsible to the Prime Minister through holding no portfolio and, therefore, not having to account for themselves to the House of Commons.

The Minister without Portfolio cannot tell us what is in the Prime Minister's mind in these appointments and it is, therefore, reasonable that the Prime Minister himself should tell us what lies behind these appointments. There are ancient and honourable offices which are open to the Prime Minister if he wishes to make appointments of Ministers who have no especial responsibility. There are the offices of Lord Privy Seal, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and Lord President of the Council. Those are all ancient and honourable posts to which in the past have been appointed Ministers for whom the Prime Minister had special reasons for not weighing down with departmental responsibilities. We have the recent example of Lord Mills, who, for a time, was Minister without Portfolio, but who, before that, always held a departmental office. I take exception to the fact that we now have two Ministers without Portfolio, with all the difficulties which are incumbent in the House of Commons upon their answerability. It is for this reason, among others, that I move a reduction in their salaries.

I understand that the latest Minister to be appointed as Minister without Portfolio—one of the two with whom we are dealing—is to have special responsibilities for foreign affairs. I certainly would not say that the Foreign Office should lack assistance. The burden upon it is heavy and is, no doubt, growing. Is it necessary, however, to have a Minister without Portfolio for this purpose? This is the question to which I should like an answer. Why do not these other offices in the Cabinet provide the Prime Minister with the elbow room which he needs for appointments of this sort?

We have, for example, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. I do not know how much work he does in his Department, but if it is anything like normal it will be about an hour and a half a week. He is also the Chairman of the Conservative Party and I suspect that the greater part of his time is taken up not by his work as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, but by his preoccupation as Chairman of the Conservative Party.

I regard it as scandalous that the taxpayer should be required to pay the salary of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster to carry out his responsibilities as Chairman of the Conservative Party. I doubt whether, since he was appointed in October, his speeches in the House of Lords, which I have had checked, total three hours of speaking time. His remuneration is not bad if one works it out per hour. I am sure that a lot of engineers would like to do as well.

I have also worked out not only his work in the House of Lords which is Ministerial, but his work in the country, to see how the taxpayers' money is being spent. The Chancellor of the Duchy, who, in my view, could well do the job of Minister without Portfolio, has spoken a number of times in the country. I have a list of them. On 24th October, he made a speech at the Luton by-election because the right hon. Member for Enfield, West (Mr. Iain Macleod) found that he could not be present in support of the Conservative candidate. On 2nd November, the Chancellor of the Duchy addressed the West Midlands Area Council of the Conservative Association in Birmingham. On 14th November, he addressed the Disabled Men of the Year Lunch, which I thought was a non-party occasion until I read his speech, which, from beginning to end, was a eulogy of the right hon. Member for Bromley (Mr. H. Macmillan)—no doubt perfectly proper, but not at the expense of the taxpayer.

On 15th November, he found time to spare from his onerous duty as Chancellor of the Duchy to visit the Sudbury adoption meeting of the Conserva- tive candidate. On 29th November, he addressed the Foreign Press Association. This might have been an opportunity and an occasion for him to put over a speech that would have "sold" Britain to the foreign Press in a way that he might have done, especially as he was there, no doubt, during his time as Chancellor of the Duchy. But not at all. He started his speech by telling the foreign Press that the party was united. He went on to talk about the resurgence of confidence in the country which was overtaking the Conservative Party. It was a purely party speech.

On 14th November, he went to address the Churchill Tea Club. [Laughter.] I agree that that is an odd juxtaposition of terms. I am sure that the right hon. Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill) would not approve if he knew of the existence of this club. In fairness to the right hon. Gentleman, however, I am bound to say that on this occasion the Churchill Tea Club had dinner. The Chancellor of the Duchy was in great form, beginning his speech by saying: Let us be honest with each other. The most important task is to concentrate on perfecting our constituency organisation.

On 22nd February, he went to the Wessex Area Executive Committee of the Conservative Party and made another party speech. On 7th March, he addressed the Conservative Trade Unionists' conference as follows: I wish to address you in my new post as party Chairman. There is not one speech from the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in the country which is other than a party speech in his capacity as Chairman of the Conservative Party.

Why should we be asked to vote the salary of another Minister when there is a Minister like the Chancellor of the Duchy, who carries out practically no official duties, who spends very little time in the House of Lords and who spends the taxpayers' money upon his job as Chairman of the Conservative Party? Before we vote on a matter like this, and give the Government this money, we are entitled to ask the reason for it.

It is no use the Minister without Portfolio coming here to tell us the reason. He does not know what is in the Prime Minister's mind. He cannot tell us why the Prime Minister does not think that Viscount Blakenham, the Chancellor of the Duchy, is not fit to do the job at the Foreign Office for which we are now being asked to vote other money. We are, however, entitled to ask the Prime Minister the principles on which he is acting in this matter.

What does the Minister without Portfolio do? I suppose that he will be able to tell us something of what he does——

Mr. Arthur Lewis (West Ham, North)

He made a speech last week.

Mr. Callaghan

I quite agree. It is not for me to comment upon it. The right hon. Gentleman's purpose is nakedly and avowedly to put to the Press the best possible complexion upon governmental policies. He will not deny that that is his rôle and that his job is to explain as best he can what the Government are doing.

I regard it as something that this House should question when, in a Cabinet of 23, we have two Ministers one of whom is responsible for party organisation and the other of whom is responsible for party propaganda, costing us salaries and costing the taxpayer his money. This is unprecedented. It is only the Conservative Party—[Interruption.] I quite agree, if the hon. Member for Louth (Sir C. Osborne) is saying that Mr. Khrushchev would recognise this sort of thing, that he would feel it proper to have a Minister for Party Propaganda and a Minister for Party Organisation in his Government. We, on the other hand, have always tried to keep a distinction.

If hon. Members recall the days of the Labour Government, they will find that the distinction was kept. Although Herbert Morrison, as he was then, was in charge of party publicity, he used to say that he tried to keep this very clear from his official job. As every hon. Member who was here at the time knows, he did a heavy job as Leader of the House. His official job was extremely onerous. What I complain of in these present appointments is that their holders have no official jobs that are onerous. Both of them are purely party lobs. I see no reason why the House of Commons should be expected to assent to the creation of yet another Minister when, quite clearly, his task could be performed by at least one of the two Ministers now engaged purely upon party work.

In my view the decent thing would be for Viscount Blakenham to resign as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. I quite understand that in the pre-election period the Conservative Party Chairman's time is fully taken up and that there is a great deal to do. I put it to hon. Members opposite, however is it decent that the Conservative Party should ask the taxpayer to pay his salary? I challenge any hon. Member opposite to answer this.

Mr. William Ross (Kilmarnock)

The Prime Minister should be here.

Mr. Callaghan

I agree, because the Minister without Portfolio is the one who is being attacked. The Prime Minister, however, has a habit, apparently, of being absent on occasions that are awkward. He was absent last week from the Resale Prices Bill debate.

Mr. David Renton (Huntingdon)

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Member, but I have no option. As I understand, he is moving that the salary of the Minister without Portfolio be not approved. There is nothing before us relating to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and yet a great part of the case which the hon. Member is making refers to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Are we in order in discussing that matter as well, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. Speaker

The Estimate is not in my hand, bet my recollection is that it covers all these Ministers without Portfolio. That is right, is it not?

Mr. Callaghan

I well understand the sensitivity of the right hon. and learned Member for Huntingdonshire (Mr. Renton), but I should have thought that the obvious way to argue that one should not vote additional money would be to say that other Ministers are capable of doing the job. If I can say, as I am doing, that 90 per cent. of the time of the Chancellor of the Duchy is spent on party work, I have a right to argue that if he dropped his party work we would not need to have an additional Minister without Portfolio.

That is my case. I can put it in one of two ways. If Viscount Blakenham is essential to the Conservative Party as its Chairman, let him resign from the office of Chancellor of the Duchy. It is not essential that the Chairman of the Conservative Party should be a member of the Government. Lord Poole was not. He was the former joint-chairman with the right hon. Member for Enfield, West. He was not a member of the Government.

I see no reason at all now why it should be argued that it is essential that the Chairman of the Conservative Party should be a member of the Government. I therefore say that if he were to resign, in which case we would not have to approve this Minister without Portfolio, or, alternatively, if he were to undertake the duties for which he is paid instead of the party chairmanship, we would not need this money——

Mrs. Barbara Castle (Blackburn)

To enable us to get this matter into perspective, would my hon. Friend remind us of the size of the salaries involved in these two cases?

Mr. Callaghan

There is £5,000 for the Minister, and I believe an additional £750 which would be paid to the right hon. Gentleman—he will, no doubt, be able to tell us himself—in his capacity as a Member of Parliament. We are asked to approve an additional £3,000, which is made up as to £2,300 in respect of his salary for part of the year, and another £700 for his staff. How far the staff are employed upon Conservative Party work and how far they are employed upon the duties of the Chancellor of the Duchy or the Minister without Portfolio, I do not know, but no doubt the Prime Minister could have told us if he had taken the trouble to come today.

Another reason that I would advance is this. The Government are always claiming to hold a lot of records. One record they certainly hold is that they have appointed more Ministers than any other Government in recorded history. We have reached a total of 97 Ministers —that includes the Whips—of whom 76 are in the House of Commons. I do not ask everybody to agree with everything that I have said, but I think that everybody would agree that at least the growth of Ministers as against private Members is something that should be scrutinised very carefully indeed, for very obvious reasons. If we approve this further appointment we shall have reached a position in which out of 630 Members, 76—well over 10 per cent. of the House of Commons—are beholden to the Government. If those Ministers had not voted for the Government last week they would have been in dire straits.

Every time we agree to the creation of another Ministry and vote the salary for it, we are making it more and more difficult for the House of Commons to exercise its true function in controlling the Executive. We are creating the Executive in this House. Therefore, it is on those grounds, too, that I say there is every reason why the Chancellor of the Duchy should resign his office, in which case we would not need this extra Minister. We could keep at least one in this House.

Sir Cyril Osborne (Louth)

While I agree that there is a danger of making far too many Ministers in this House——

Mr. Ross

And knights.

Sir C. Osborne

—is it not true that hon. Members opposite have from time to time, in recent months, made suggestions for the creation of many more Ministries?

Mr. Callaghan

I anticipated this question and the hon. Gentleman has not surprised me. It is true that we believe there is a substantial case for the creation of a number of Ministries——

Mr. Speaker

We are inevitably getting rather wide of the subject matter of the debate. We should remember the content of the Estimate under discussion.

Mr. Callaghan

That is the reason I did not raise the question myself, Mr. Speaker. I fully realised that it would be going rather wide. However, I am quite willing to debate it with the hon. Member at any time.

I was dealing with the point, which is strictly in order and I return to it, that the creation of additional Ministers strengthens the power of the Executive in the House and weakens the power of private Members. Therefore, it seems to me that the House of Commons as a whole has an interest in watching the creation of these additional Ministers. This Cabinet is 23 in number—I suppose the largest in my 19 years in the House of Commons. There are two functionaries of the Conservative Party represented in it. They could both drop out, and if they did we would have a Cabinet of more reasonable size and, moreover, one which would be fulfilling its functions of doing the country's work in so far as they are capable of doing it; but at least we would not be put into a position in which we are asked to vote money to enable the Conservative Party to continue its propaganda in the country,

I take the greatest exception to Subhead N. and unless we get a satisfactory answer from the Prime Minister we shall ask the House to vote against it.

4.17 p.m.

Mr. Leslie Hale (Oldham, West)

I have little to add to what my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) has said. I am grateful to him for raising this matter, because I was never very clear what was a Minister without Portfolio. Indeed, I was not even clear what a portfolio was. Whether we now have two Ministers without two portfolios or whether we have two Ministers without one portfolio I am still utterly unaware.

I regret that I have to take an unpopular line today, because I want to refer to some of the difficulties which have confronted the Prime Minister and to which my hon. Friend has not done justice, and some of the advantages that flow from this appointment. I have sought information. I consulted Samuel Johnson, but he had never heard of the term in his day. Even if it was known in Wellington's day, it appears to have been something that was imported from Italy at the time that the Italians say that we were exporting venereal disease. Roget classifies it as a list of containers, in close proximity to such things as "nosebag" and "swag" as giving some indication of its meaning.

I am sorry to have to confess that there is an authoritative document on this matter to which I shall have to refer again, even if I am being tactless in recalling it. I have with me the autobiography of Lord Inman who, luckily, is still with us, although not at the moment in active politics. His experiences are noteworthy and throw some light on the duties and activities of these very important Ministers.

First, let me say a word about the Prime Minister. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Louth (Sir C. Osborne) has left the Chamber, because I never believed the story that he discovered the Prime Minister on Blackpool sands, that, walking in the sea breezes, he smelt the characteristic smell of herrings, that the wind came from the North; he heard the sound of the flowers of the forest, that he looked up at the residential apartments which are so prominent there and, recalling pleasures and palaces, thought of "Home Sweet Home". In fact, the Prime Minister had been tolerably well known for quite a time before this. I had met him myself. But when he made these appointments it was 22nd October. He was then Prime Minister, of course. He was also a belted earl.

Therefore the appointment could not be announced to the House. It was not sitting then, but we sat two days later. One of the problems was the one which confronted Lord Attlee when he appointed Lord Inman, and that was the Act of 1937. There was also the problem that he had to have in the Cabinet someone who knew him and someone whom he knew, and at that time the situation between Cyprus and the mainland was nothing like as serious as the situation between the Isle of Mull and the mainland at Kinross.

I remember that at the time it was suggested that Robert Kennedy was flying to Glencoe to make an appeal for non-violence. It was a difficult situation. Some appointment had to be made, and he had to have a majority in the Cabinet. A majority in the Cabinet is almost essential to any Prime Minister. The Prime Minister could always do what he had done before, and consult Jeeves about it, but he and Jeeves were not on specking terms at that time, and there was the clear advantage in the appointment of Lord Carrington, that whatever the advantage of his going into his new office there were greater advantages in his leaving his old.

I remember that when Lord Inman was appointed, Mr. Stanley Evans—whose going I always regret because he is a man of great charm, though I do not agree with him about politics—made a request to Lord Attlee that he should circulate the photographs on postcard reproductions of the members of the Cabinet so that the Labour back benchers could familiarise themselves with their features. That was, I think, unjust to Lord Inman, who was known as one who had worked in the Socialist sphere for many years, and had been a Labour candidate at Middlesbrough, though a long time ago. The story that the Prime Minister's private secretary rang up to find out whether he was a card-carrying member of the party, and he asked, "What party?" is, I think, apocryphal.

I was referring to my unhappy correspondence with Lord Carrington at the Admiralty. A lad who had been trained as a musician joined the Navy and was subsequently employed in the mess. His mother said that she had not trained him as a musician so that he could carry gravy about the mess, and the lad wrote and asked whether I could secure his release for something much more important. I was also dealing with the case of the unfortunate husband who was serving in the Navy, whose wife was ill and pregnant, and who wanted a discharge on compassionate grounds.

That correspondence went on for some months, and at one stage I rang the Admiralty and was told that the Department had been kept waiting for a reply from Haslemere. When I asked what was at Haslemere, I was told that it was an Admiralty establishment and that it had not answered the Admiralty's letters. I offered to go to Haslemere to see the authorities there, but the Admiralty said that that would not do, either.

I then received a standard Admiralty reply, and I hope that this sort of thing does not happen now. The husband, who, by the way, had bought himself out of the Navy, could not get out because, after he paid the money, for weeks no transport was available for him. He had informed his officers that I had misunderstood him when he said that he had been told that he could not write to his Member of Parliament about such matters, and I received the official reply to say that he now denied that he had ever been told that.

Of course he had not. What he had been told was that the Navy did not ask him to join, that it did not ask him to get married, that it did not ask him to have a family, and that if he "mucked about" with politicians, it was too bad. The lad signed a statement saying that under no pressure, under no compulsion, and that of his own volition he had decided that he wanted to pursue his studies in the Navy.

I recall the story of the perfect witness, the lad of 12 who was injured by a burst hot water bottle. He gave evidence, and the vital piece of evidence concerned what was said to him when the hot water bottle was sold to him. The judge intervened and asked, "What did the tradesmen tell you, my child?" He replied that the tradesman had said that it was in good and marketable condition and reasonably fit for the purpose for which it was to be used. The judge said, "How strange—the very words of the Sale of Goods Act, 1895", and the boy said, "Yes, my Lord, Section 42."

I used to have a timber merchant friend in the Navy. He told me the story of his being court-martialled for failing to salute the admiral. I think that his thoughts turned to timber only when he lost his leg in the Navy, but he became prosperous after that. His defence was that the admiral had been appointed to Portsmouth only the day before, and that as he was walking down the street in mufti he had not recognised him. The court said that it was a serious offence. It said that as he was a petty officer he ought to know the rules, and that as a new admiral had been appointed it was his duty to buy a picture postcard to familiarise himself with the admiral's features. The man was quite severely dealt with.

I felt that I could not face that possibility in the House of Commons, so I went to the Library a few minutes ago and asked whether it had a portrait of the noble Lord the Minister without Portfolio. I was told that there were a series of portraits of Members of the House of Commons, but that there are a lot of Lords and, unfortunately, their portraits were not readily available. However, the Library authorities found the portrait of him when he was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty on ceasing to be the High Commissioner in Australia.

Belloc called attention to the career of Lord Lundy which ended, as so often, in his being made Governor of New South Wales, but they never came back until nowadays. No one can complain that since the General Election of 1951 the Government have not done their best to get Ministers. They have appointed any number as colonial, ex-colonial and Commonwealth High Commissioners who, sitting on the Front Bench, have failed to make the grade——

Mr. Speaker

Order. I am enjoying the voyage of the hon. Member very much, but I have been reading this Estimate with great care and have not found sufficient ingenuity with which I can relate his present observations to anything in it.

Mr. Hale

Mr. Speaker, I apologise for not having heard every word of what you said, but I gather that you are not expressing agreement with me, and I come, if I may, to the Minister without Portfolio, who is representing the Prime Minister here today.

We congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on performing a Parliamentary duty. I have been looking to see what he deals with. I find that he answered a number of Questions put by one of his colleagues, and put there by mistake. It also seems that he answered a couple of Questions in the early hours of Monday afternoon in January, and two or three more on 9th March. That represents pretty well the sum total of his Parliamentary activities for a considerable time. If anyone wants to find what he answers about, it is very difficult to do so.

I was delighted to meet, in Nairobi, my friend Achung Oneke, who is Minister of Broadcasting Information and Tourism. That is specific. So far as I know, not only is the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Chairman of the Conservative Party, but the right hon. Gentleman is to be something like a Press officer and liaison officer for the Prime Minister. This is rather an expensive luxury.

I come back to Lord Inman, who was made Minister without Portfolio, and has been quite frank about it, I think. He was made Chairman of the B.B.C. in January, 1947. He recalls how he called at the B.B.C. to commence duties and found that the previous Chairman had never had the assistance of a secretary, and did not even have an office. He said that he asked for a secretary and was told that it would be difficult to provide one, but that efforts would be made to do so. He was also told that efforts would be made to find him a desk. He was provided with a secretary and one day she burst into tears and said she did not like the work because when he dictated letters she had to show them to the Director-General before they were despatched.

After three or four months he must have very much welcomed a message from the Prime Minister inviting him to be Lord Privy Seal. Nobody knew what a Lord Privy Seal was, and nobody has ever found out. On the Sunday night in Harrogate, while he was hestitating out of modesty, he received a message from the Prime Minister's secretary to say that his appointment would be announced. He explains himself that he did not then realise that he was being appointed because they had to have regard to the provisions of the Act of 1937 and to maintain a balance between Ministers in the two Houses, and they were one short in the peers so they chose to nominate him.

This was a temporary situation, and a very sensible arrangement, and I hope that no words of mine will be taken as expressing doubts about the validity of the decision. He then went to a house in Whitehall—I forget the name—and they showed him three empty rooms, and said, "We hope to get them going, some time." Once again, he said, "What about a secretary?" They said, "That might be a little difficult." Later, however, they said that they had got him a girl, but that at the moment she had German measles. They told him that she would be coming along as soon as she had made a recovery. He records with great gratitude that dear Arthur Greenwood arranged for his secretary to answer the telephone for him. Lord Inman also used the services of a secretary—who had nothing to do with politics—to write the letters that it was necessary to write. He was put on eight Cabinet committees, all without a secretary.

Then, a few months later, the telephone started to work again and he was summoned to the Prime Minister's office, apparently to be told that the balance necessary under the 1937 Act had changed, and that he could be made Minister without Portfolio. He declined and became Chairman of the Hotels Executive. At the time there was a discussion in the House about this.

It is probably for such reasons that The Times has said that the appointment of a Minister without responsibilities is politically undesirable. The right hon. Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill) is on record as saying that they brood over the duties of other Ministers and, generally speaking, are of very little value. I do not have the right hon. Gentleman's precise words before me. In those circumstances, we are entitled to ask—and as a Lancashire Member I am particularly entitled to ask—what the right hon. Gentleman's duties are. The duties of the Duchy in relation to Lancashire have not been performed for a considerable time; indeed, I believe that there have been Chancellors who have rarely, if ever, seen Lancashire.

Last week I had the privilege of conducting two distinguished young guests around the Crypt of the House of Commons. We had the services of an attendant—and these services are always rendered very efficiently. The attendant spoke to us about the sufferings of the saints, as illustrated on the roof. Apparently my lady guest had a considerable knowledge of the lives of the saints. I forget which saint was being referred to; it may have been St. Terence, being flagellated by the whips, but my lady guest said, "What is the authority for the proposition that St. Terence ever submitted to that particular punishment?"

This stopped the attendant in full flight. He seemed to lose confidence, and he said, "Well, it is the Ministry of Works." I said, "Surely it should be the Ministry of Faith and Works." Considering the duties of the Minister of Education today, I would say that we really want a Minister of deeds and not words.

I did say that I had managed to obtain a portrait of the noble lord. My first Parliamentary recollection was of seeing a notice which said, "Vote for Smith Carrington", in 1910. There were two Carrington families, one of which was a Smith and one a Smythe, and it was always understood that the Smythes were a little snooty about it. But I got the portrait, and was later agreeably surprised to find that though I had expected to see a soft-boiled egghead he was nothing of the kind. The samples of his correspondence that I found did not do full justice to the range of his activities.

I hope that now that Lord Jellicoe has fired a shot at Haslemere, co-operation has been restored, and that the most dangerous situation that has faced the British Navy since the Medway has now been put right.

But we are entitled to ask the right hon. Gentleman just what his job is—just what he is doing and why, and just what his staff is. We are entitled to ask why we want a Minister of Information when there is little information available about anything. He is responsible for information, but I have never heard statements from the Front Bench so regularly inaccurate as they have been during the last few weeks. In fact, the conduct of the Prime Minister, since he ceased to be belted, is one of the few arguments that I have ever heard in favour of corporal punishment.

Let the right hon. Gentleman "come clean." Let him face the future. Let him tell us the nature of his activities. Let him tell us what staff he is to occupy himself with—and heaven knows, I would not like to complain of a Minister's not having too small a staff; although when the staff is almost nonexistent it is another matter. How far does he share this portfolio with the noble Lord the Minister of State, and what does it contain? Is it really full of political propaganda?

4.37 p.m.

The Minister without Portfolio (Mr. W. F. Deedes)

I feel that I should not begin without acknowledging the remarks which have just been made by the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale), who has been in his best vein. Only one joke in the whole course of his speech had a familiar ring to me.

I very much hope that the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) will accept me as the Minister to reply. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] There is a respectable precedent for this, in that on a similar occasion last year, when this sort of Amendment had been moved in respect of the First Secretary, it was the First Secretary who briefly responded, on behalf of his office. I am sure that that will be within the recollection of the hon. Member.

The first question he asked was whether I knew anything about the history of the office of Minister without Portfolio. My researches have not gone far back. The first Minister without Portfolio that I recall was Anthony Eden, as he then was, in 1935. The hon. Member will be aware that the Minister without Portfolio has a Commonwealth and international relationship, and that he has counterparts in other countries. In some countries, notably France, these counterparts have different functions.

At one stage the hon. Gentleman thought that I should not reply. At the same time, he said that it was difficult to bring me to account. In reality, I welcome being brought to account, because I think that it is better to tell hon. Members what I am trying to do than that they should be led to the sort of surmises of which the hon. Member has been speaking. My activities are a great deal more innocent, than the hon. Member may have given the House reason to think.

Perhaps I may begin by noting a remark made by the First Secretary last year, speaking of his own office, when he said that in a Government of whatever complexion it is rather useful to have Ministers without Portfolio who can perform duties within that Government of correlation, co-ordination and chairmanship of committees."—[OFFICIAL REPORT,19th March, 1963; Vol. 674, c. 323.] That has been accepted by Administrations of both parties.

Mr. Callaghan

But he was not Minister without Portfolio.

Mr. Deedes

This covers the functions of Ministers without Portfolio.

Mr. Callaghan

There is a difference between being a Minister without Portfolio and holding an honourable and ancient office, which is what the deputy Prime Minister of the day did as First Secretary and also being Minister without Portfolio.

Mr. Deedes

I thought that the hon. Member was seeking to prove that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and the Minister without Portfolio were covering the same duties. He cannot have it both ways. In 1948, Lord Attlee went so far as to say that in the appointment of Minister without Portfolio or with small departmental duties it was not the custom, except in certain circumstances, to have particular duties assigned to him.

Nevertheless, I think that I owe to the House some account of the cost of my office, which is exceedingly small and contains a staff of three. Since the hon. Member thinks that part of my work is to report to the House what we are doing, I should state the facts. The nub of the argument is not whether Ministers should be responsible for coordinating information policy, because it has been common ground that that is acceptable practice by Governments formed by hon. Members from either side of the House who know that this should be a full-time occupation.

During the six years that Labour held office, the hon. Member is quite right in saying, this function was treated both at home and overseas as a part-time one. It was first held by Lord Morrison, when he was Lord President of the Council, and it was taken over by the right hon. Member for Smethwick (Mr. Gordon Walker), when he was Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations. Subsequently to 1951 there have been a variety of arrangements in relation to the information services. It is true that in July, 1962, when this Minister without Portfolio was appointed, that was the first occasion when a Minister with Cabinet rank and no departmental responsibilities was appointed with the home side of information responsibilities as a whole-time job.

The gist of the argument of the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan), I understood, was that a Minister with only these responsibilities is not entitled to a salary of Cabinet rank, which is £5,000 a year with the addition of £750 for Parliamentary duties. This is contained in the books of reference. The second part of the argument was that this arrangement was designed to extend to an unfair extent the propaganda activities of the Government, which ought not to be a charge to the taxpayer.

There are two separate points: first, that the arrangements are wrong and that the Opposition would not include them in any Administration they might form; and, secondly, that they are put to improper use and used for the forwarding of party propaganda. The first proposition is at least arguable and I shall offer some arguments on it, but the second I most strenously contest. It is quite inevitable that at certain times—if I may say without offence, at times when we are near a General Election—attempts will be made to prove that Government information services are being used and those in charge of them are using their office as instruments of propaganda.

Mr. Callaghan

Of course they are.

Mr. Deedes

Any suggestion that the Government information services are being improperly used is not, in reality, a reflection on the Minister or on the information services, but on the good sense of the Press, the broadcasting interests, and so on, which have to be supplied with this information. What they want, as the hon. Member knows quite well, is information which is fair, factual and fast. It is absolute waste of time to try to offer anything very different. The hon. Member knows quite well that the Press—and this goes for other interests—carries its own safeguards against misplaced and misused propaganda from any quarter. The Minister without Portfolio does not need to stress the good sense of the people that he has to deal with.

No one could be in this job for five minutes without being aware that he will be accused of stealing an unfair advantage and acting in his party's interests as he ought not to do if he receives his salary from the taxpayer. I can only say that anyone who occupies this office is well advised to lay down fairly strict rules, such as I think I can claim to have done. If the hon. Member knows of any breach, I hope that he will offer chapter and verse, because I have certain rules and I do distinguish between information services and party propaganda. On occasion, I make speeches, as we all do, on behalf of my party. But when I am acting on behalf of my office and the Government information services I keep on that side of the line.

This office has been occupied now for 20 months by the present Minister. If any word had reached any hon. Member of the Opposition that anything improper had occurred, we would have heard about it before now. I cite an example and I shall be grateful if the hon. Member will confirm what I am about to say. One item of information I have introduced has been regular Government broadsheets on British economic affairs. These are now issued about once a fortnight. In the course of time we have raised the circulation to about 200,000 and they are circulated among teachers, universities, schools, trade unionists, and so on. A copy of every one is laid in the Library of the House. Some hon. Members may have read them and some may not. If by one syllable or one sentence one of those broadsheets had been guilty of what the hon. Member suggested I had been guilty of, the hon. Member for Oldham, West would have had the satisfaction of hearing me answer a Parliamentary Question.

I return to the first, and main, argument, that a Cabinet Minister in charge of home information services only is not earning his salary.

Mr. Callaghan

The main argument, I thought, very simple. If Viscount Blakenham were to do his job as Chairman of the Conservative Party and draw a salary for it we would not need this Vote. That was the main argument.

Mr. Deedes

Perhaps the hon. Member will allow me to refer to the Answer which the Prime Minister gave on the subject of the office of the Duchy of Lancaster on 23rd November. I understood that it was my salary which the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East seeks to reduce and that it is for me to answer the charges made.

Mr. Callaghan

I am sorry to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, but he has got it wrong. It is not his salary; what we are debating is the additional provision for Lord Carrington. That is not his salary, but the £2,300 for Lord Carrington. There would be no need to pay a salary to Lord Carrington if the Chancellor of the Duchy were to do his job.

Mr. Deedes

Perhaps it may be of help if I seek to explain how this Minister earns a full-time salary. The scale and scope of information services depend not simply on the Government's desire to make the best of their case, but on the demands created day by day by the needs of the Press, television, broadcasting and other news channels. I have no desire to exaggerate this, but it is fair to point out that since the days of the Labour Government, in 1951, these demands have increased very considerably. They have increased not least in response to public demand—this is something which every hon. Member will welcome—for information about public affairs on every scale and through every means.

A major factor is television. The demand of television for participation in public affairs has increased and is increasing—and it is no part of my argument to say whether it ought to go on increasing. Not the least of the problems of the Government information services for which I am responsible is that of holding a fair balance between the media of the written word and of television.

Whatever view the Opposition may hold about this office, it is my view that the Government have a plain duty to meet these demands, which increase in speed as well as in scope. One consequence of television—and hon. Members on both sides of the House know this to be true—is that the whole apparatus seeking to cover public affairs in this country moves closer all the time to the Government, to the Opposition and to the whole machinery of government. In the Departments the Ministers are responsible for making their own case, but they can be saved time and distraction if someone such as a Minister without Portfolio has a co-ordinating rôle and is responsible for seeing that the information services in about 30 Departments are aware of what each is doing. Where, as often happens, there is an announcement, a problem, an item of policy involving more than one Department, such a Minister can make sure that the information service is co-ordinated.

The Opposition may feel that all this is a great waste of time and public money. Presumably, from their previous experience, if the Labour Party was ever returned to office it would revert to the practice of making such a Minister part time. I respect its view, of course, but I must tell the hon. Member that I think that he will find it less easy in practice than it was 13 or 14 years ago.

I will not take up much more time, because the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East is complaining quietly to himself that I am not answering the charges which he wanted to bring.

Mr. Eric Lubbock (Orpington)

If we accept the whole of the argument which the Minister has advanced, that it is useful to have somebody doing this job of co-ordinating the information services and giving the Press and television information which it requires, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman to answer a specific question: what part does he play in that process? Does he write the handouts which are given to the Press and television?

Mr. Deedes

Each Department has a chief information officer and an information division which is responsible not only for its own policy, but for the presentation of its own policy to the country. A function of the Minister without Portfolio is to co-ordinate the 30 Departments, and certain outside and smaller bodies which have similar arrangements, and to see that as far as possible each knows what the other is doing. This is important in the information services. Where there is a joint operation he sees that the Departments work together and establishes the procedure and certain rules for particular circumstances. The bulk of the work, of course, is done by the staffs of the information division.

The hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East raised the subject of speeches. I gather from a remark which he has just made that he will not broach the point. There is a rule for all Ministers that it is thoroughly accepted that Ministers have a right to make party political speeches on party political occasions. When I am speaking on behalf of my Department—and when they are speak- ing on behalf of their Departments—I make another kind of speech. I should have thought that this rule was invariably observed.

Mr. A. Lewis

Will the right hon. Gentleman give a few occasions on which he has spoken on a non-party basis? Will he tell us when he has spoken on behalf of his Department on other than party political occasions? My hon. Friends and I find that every time we pick up a newspaper it is a party political speech which he has made. I should like to know when he has made a non-party speech.

Mr. Deedes

That may be the hon. Member's impression, but I have rules about this. I am invited to appear on a number of platforms which are absolutely unpolitical. On those occasions I make speeches on the information services, on communications and on other subjects about which I am expected to know something, and they are of a non-party political character. If they were not, I should very quickly be brought to book by the hon. Member for West Ham, North (Mr. A. Lewis), or somebody else.

I believe that any Government ought to welcome as well as to take cognisance of the enormous increase in public interest in public affairs. Whatever may be the view of the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East about Ministers without Portfolio, or the information services, this increase in public interest ought to be welcomed. In my view it has been partly, but only partly, stimulated by television. Nevertheless, it has aroused needs which must be competently met.

There is no question of party advantage. I have already mentioned one way which I have taken to assist public participation in public affairs—the broadsheets—and I will mention one other. I am responsible for, and I regularly take the chair at, what has become a women's consultative council, which has been formed in conjunction with the National Council of Women and which includes all the principal women's organisations in this country and has the co-operation of representatives of the Labour Party.

The object is that the principal women's organisations shall have an opportunity of sharing information on current matters of importance with Government Departments and shall be in a position to ask questions and to receive answers and to obtain information which they seek.

Miss Margaret Herbison (Lanarkshire, North)

When Ministers speak to this body of women do they always speak in a completely non-party-political way? I have information of one occasion on which it was the very opposite.

Mr. Deedes

I hope that if the hon. Lady has any evidence of that kind she will let me know, because in the year's proceedings which have been conducted under my chairmanship, as far as I know they have been conducted in a strictly non-party-political way. Perhaps she will give me chapter and verse. I should be very sorry to hear this, because there are three representatives of three parties present—

Mr. A. V. Hilton (Norfolk, South-West)

I should be grateful if the right hon. Gentleman would clear up a point about the activities of Lord Blakenham. Can he explain how Lord Blakenham, when the other House is sitting—and in view of his post in the Cabinet—has time to tour East Anglia and other places, including my own constituency, and to speak on the preparedness of the Tory Party in my constituency, giving the Tories a "pep talk" on how to defeat me on the forthcoming General Election—all at the expense of the taxpayer to the extent of £5,750 a year? If the right hon. Gentleman could give an explanation of this, I should be grateful.

Mr. Deedes

The explanation is most likely one of which all hon. Members are well aware. Most of us work not a five- or six-day week, but a seven-day week, and this will become increasingly the case between now and the General Election. Most of us probably make too many speeches during the course of a weekend.

Mr. Hilton

It was not a weekend.

Mr. Deedes

I do not know what day it was.

Mr. Hilton

We understand that weekend speeches are made, but I am referring to an occasion on which the other place was in session, during the week. How can the right hon. Gentleman reconcile the fact that taxpayers have to pay a servant of the Tory Party to do Tory Party propaganda—because that is all that this amounts to?

Mr. Deedes

I appreciate, as I said at the beginning of my remarks, that we are getting very sensitive about people who make speeches in our divisions. I am not prepared at this stage, and cannot be expected, to answer for the diary of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Many speeches are made at weekends.

Miss Herbison rose——

Mr. A. Lewis

On a point of order. Before you took the Chair, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) said at the end of his speech that the matter under discussion on this Vote would be such that he thought that it was imperative that the Prime Minister should be here, because questions would be put which the Minister without Portfolio would not be able to answer. The Minister has just risen and said that he is not in a position to answer the questions. Surely the Prime Minister should be here to deal with the questions?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir William Anstruther-Gray)

The hon. Member will know that the occupant of the Chair is not responsible for who replies from the Government Front Bench.

Mr. Lewis

Further to that point of order—[HON. MEMBERS: "It was not a point of order."] On another point of order.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

If the hon. Gentleman has a different point of order, pray make it.

Mr. Lewis

On a different point of order. As the Minister said that he is not able to answer the questions, would you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, accept a Motion to report Progress and ask leave to sit again, so as to enable the Government Front Bench to get someone, here, preferably the Prime Minister, who is in a position to answer our questions?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

That is not, in fact, a point of order, and I would not accept such a Motion.

Miss Herbison

If the Minister were to ask one of his colleagues, now sitting on the Front Bench, about the matter of which I spoke, he would learn that it was the present Prime Minister, when he was Foreign Secretary, who made a speech to those women and astonished both the Minister who was in the chair and every woman present, no matter what her political opinion was.

Mr. Deedes

I am glad that the hon. Lady has reminded me. The fault on that occasion lay not with the Foreign Secretary of the day, but with myself, I imagine. The Foreign Secretary was inadequately prepared before he arrived about the nature of the occasion. It was sheer inadvertence, but he made certain remarks that he would not have made had he been fully aware of the nature of the company. The moment he discovered his mistake, an apology was tendered.

I had hoped that the apology which was then made had concluded the incident. I can assure the hon. Lady that there is nothing to conceal about this incident. It occurred some months ago and our meetings have resumed, I am happy to say, and I hope that the hon. Lady is happy about this too, without any difficulty at all since.

Miss Herbison indicated assent.

Mr. Deedes

In conclusion, may I say that I have endeavoured—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East has been getting very impatient with my remarks. I have endeavoured to give the House, as the hon. Gentleman asked, some account of the activities of the Minister without Portfolio. I have sought to prove that there is the need, and it will be an increasing need, for a Minister to look after the co-ordination of information services, certainly on the home front, and also on the overseas front. I have also mentioned certain other activities for which I am responsible, which I assure the House can by no stretch of the imagination be interpreted as party propaganda or political instruments. They are designed in a modest way to increase and encourage this public interest in public affairs which I think the Government have a right and an obligation to foster.

Mr. Callaghan

Before the Minister concludes, does he intend to tell us why we need this additional Vote? It is not his salary on which we are voting. He comes into it, of course. Does he intend to tell us why we need this extra £2,300 for a new Minister, when there is another Minister in the Government who is almost wholly engaged on party activities? This is the question we want to be answered before we vote.

Mr. Deedes

I told the hon. Gentleman that what I would try to do was to prove that the Minister holding my office and drawing my salary justified his existence in terms of the way Governments have worked now since 1945. That is the case I have sought to make. [HON MEMBERS: "Oh."] That is the case the hon. Gentleman sought from me and that is the case I have sought to make.

Mr. Sydney Silverman (Nelson and Colne)

On a point of order A few moments ago my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham, North (Mr. A. Lewis) asked, in my submission mistakenly, whether you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, would accept a Motion to report Progress and ask leave to sit again. No doubt that was an inappropriate Motion, since we are not in Committee. There is nobody to report Progress and we do not need anybody's leave to sit again. Would not the appropriate Motion, in view of what the Minister has just said, be a Motion to adjourn the debate, because what I am submitting to you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, is that the right hon. Gentleman has quite plainly said that he is unable——

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

Order. The hon. Gentleman is not correct in using a point of order to say what he is now saying.

Mr. Silverman

I am asking whether you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, would accept a Motion to adjourn the debate on the ground——

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

Order. The hon. Gentleman is wrong to interrupt a speech on a point of order in an attempt to move that the House do now adjourn, or that the debate be adjourned. It is not a point of order.

Mr. Deedes

May I very quickly conclude this speech by saying that the point which the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East required me to establish was that the holder of my office justified his time and salary. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] That was at least the beginning of the challenge which the hon. Gentleman made. During the course of my remarks I have sought to do so. I hope that, on reflection, he will reconsider his Amendment for the reduction of my salary.

5.6 p.m.

Mr. Eric Lubbock (Orpington)

I hope that the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) will not yield to the appeal in the final sentence of the Minister's speech. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not withdraw the Amendment to reduce the Minister's salary. The Minister said that he had endeavoured to give an account of the activities of the Minister without Portfolio. He did no such thing. He told us two things about the activities for which he is paid this very large sum of money. He said, first, that he had once taken the chair at a meeting of the National Council of Women, an organisation which I entirely accept is non-political; I agree with what the right hon. Gentleman said on that subject.

The Minister said, secondly, that he attempted to co-ordinate the information activities of the different Ministries. In response to my intervention asking him exactly what he did in this respect, the right hon. Gentleman admitted to the House that each of the separate Ministries had its own information officers who were responsible for the dissemination of each Ministry's own information and that all he did was to act as a kind of postbox between Ministries, to transmit information between them and make sure that there was no conflict between the statements which they were giving to the Press or the television.

I suppose that one could argue that, Ministers' salaries being what they are, it is very much cheaper to have a Minister of the Crown to do this job than to have a civil servant to do it. This was not the argument advanced by the Minister. I do not believe that, in spite of the increase in the amount of information which the Press and the television services demand from the different Ministries, there is any need to have a separate Minister in charge of this activity.

In his speech, the Minister constantly dodged the question put to him by the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East, as to why, if it was necessary to have somebody doing this job, these activities could not be combined with those of a noble Lord in another place. It appears to me that we have three separate Ministers with no specific responsibilities, all doing nothing but going up and down the country making political speeches on behalf of their hon. Friends. I do not support the complaint which was made by the hon. Member for Norfolk, South-West (Mr. Hilton) about a Minister without Portfolio making speeches in a Member's constituency during the time that another place is sitting.

The Minister of Health, who is just leaving the Chamber, came to my constituency during the time that this House was sitting. He has nothing better to do than make political speeches in other people's constituencies while he should be attending to his duties in the House. So, if the Minister without Portfolio does this, he cannot be blamed for it, because he is only following the example of his right hon. Friends.

I do not think that it is true that the broadsheets of which the Minister spoke could not be produced without his intervention. The Board of Trade successfully produces admirable information sheets, and I do not suppose that the President of the Board of Trade vets each one individually. What does the Minister do every day in his office from 9 a.m. till 5 p.m.? The right hon. Gentleman rarely answers Questions in Parliament and it has been pointed out that only three such Questions have been answered by him since his appointment, and I am advised that those answers were unsatisfactory.

What sort of correspondence does the right hon. Gentleman deal with? Every other Minister who is responsible for a proper Department must answer letters sent to him by perhaps 630 hon. Members. Answering such mail is an important job, I believe worth far more than £5,000 a year. With what correspondence, other than from the chairmen of constituency conservative associations up and down the country, does this Minister deal? Are we paying him £5,000 a year for doing that? If so, it is a shocking state of affairs, which should not be tolerated. Perhaps a firm of consultants could evaluate his work by following him round all day, for he has certainly not told us what he does.

I have also been wondering why the Lord President of the Council is in his place and has been sitting there through-ought the debate. Is he thinking of increasing his empire, because if he is he will be making only a small addition to the duties he already does? I would be happy to let him take over this work because it appears that there is nothing done by the Minister without Portfolio for the enormous salary of £5,000 a year that could not be done as well by another Minister along with his own work.

5.12 p.m.

Mr. Arthur Lewis (West Ham, North)

The Minister did not attempt to reply to the points raised by my hon. Friends and, as has been pointed out, this is such a serious matter that the Prime Minister should have been present, for the Prime Minister made the appointment in the first place.

When my hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, South-West (Mr. Hilton) raised the point about Lord Blakenham, the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) missed the point. My hon. Friend has no objection—in fact, he welcomes—to Tory Ministers going to his constituency and telling political lies. He know that such visits will help him. What he objects to is the fact that Lord Blakenham should spend the whole week touring around not just my hon. Friend's constituency but the whole of East Anglia at the State's expense, using State cars, making political speeches and using his position for party political purposes. My hon. Friend raised this matter because he felt that this was near to corruption and that the Prime Minister should be here to deal with the matter.

Mr. Deedes

I cannot allow to go unchallenged the suggestion that my right hon. Friend or I or any other Minister uses an official car for party political occasions. That is incorrect.

Mr. Lewis

Perhaps the Minister will say how it comes about that these cars have been seen within the vicinity of these meetings? Have they been used to take to or fetch from these meetings members of the Government? I do not know. It has been reported that these cars have been seen there. I do not know, when the Prime Minister went to Bristol yesterday, whether he went in such a car or was brought home in one. Was an official car used to take him from Whitehall? I do not know. Is the Minister prepared to tell me?

I do not know that this particular Minister has been doing nothing else but making party political speeches. When he replied he said that he is very busy because every day he must coordinate what is being done by the 13 Ministers; what they are sending out in their Government—not party—propaganda. He said that he spends the whole of his time co-ordinating that work, telling the Press what is happening and explaining what is happening on television. I know that he has been active recently because we have seen a number of Ministers on television. Does it need a Minister without Portfolio to arrange these things? Must he be paid £5,000 a year, plus £750, to carry out party propaganda, particularly when it is remembered that the Government were elected on the promise that they were to reduce the size of the Civil Service and its cost?

Despite that promise they are asking for more money to be spent, for more civil servants to be appointed, and it is reported in the Press—no doubt the news having been handed out by the Government's propaganda Ministry—that in the current year another 14,764 civil servants have been appointed, so that we now have more than 418,000 civil servants who are costing the country about £412 million a year. Those figures cover only the current year and we have been informed that another 4,758 will be appointed, at a cost of £11,000 a year, in the coming year. These figures do not take into account the additional expenses the country must find for additional appointments made by the Government, such as the one we are now discussing.

It is not good enough to have Ministers doing nothing else but so-called co-ordination work—and, of course, taking the chair at meetings like the National Council of Women. Why will he not give us an idea of what he does with his week? What sort of meetings does he attend? Will he give us a more or less itemised account of his activities in the last month?

I recall being told by the Chancellor last week that he reads every letter he gets. I thought that that was "a bit thick" so the other day I put a Question down and was told that he receives thousands of letters. If he reads all of them he must have a full-time job. I do not know how he finds time to do anything else. Perhaps the Minister without Portfolio will tell us what he did last month, other than taking the chair at the National Council of Women. Will he tell us which nonparty organisations he and his noble Friend Lord Blakenham are interested in——

Mr. S. Silverman

Aims of Industry?

Mr. Lewis

How many times did the Minister address that non-party, nonpolitical organisation? Did he advise the steel barons on the best sort of nonpolitical posters that they could put out? If that is the sort of work he is doing he should not be afraid to tell us. We are merely trying to find out what he and his noble Friend are doing with the taxpayers' money. It has been suggested that he is doing party political propaganda and drawing State money for doing it. If that is the case he should not only resign, but the whole of the Government should resign and give my right hon. and hon. Friends a chance to go to the country now.

5.20 p.m.

Mr. William Hamilton (Fife, West)

I will not detain the House very long, but what we are discussing this afternoon is jobs for the boys, and particularly the Eton boys. [HON. MEMBERS "No."] Lord Blakenham qualifies. He is another Eton boy, and that is why he gets the job. Most of the men who qualify for these jobs are Eton boys. We have seen a lot of this over the years on the part of this Government. There was the appointment to the I.T.A. and all the rest. They are political appointments for political purposes, financed by public money.

We do not object to the political appointments which the Government make, but we do object to their being financed by public money for party political purposes. Take the example of Lord Blakenham, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. We know that his job as Chancellor of the Duchy is a sinecure. There is no administrative function there at all. If we look at the Votes we see that a staff of four is available to him. No staff is available to the right hon. Gentleman the Minister without Portfolio.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

I think I should point out that although the salary of the Chancellor of the Duchy does come under Class I, Vote 3, the additional money is not sought for this post in the Supplementary Estimate which we are debating at present. I hope that the hon. Member will not go too far in discussing the Chancellor of the Duchy.

Mr. Hamilton

I am referring to the salaries of the Ministers without Portfolio. Is that correct, Mr Deputy-Speaker?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

That is correct.

Mr. Hamilton

Therefore, one wants to know what we are getting for the money. I looked up the number of speeches which Lord Blakenham has made in the other place since he took office. I think that he has made five speeches That works out at about £1,000 a speech. One of them was on the Trustee Savings Bank Bill on which the noble Lord spoke for five minutes. That works out at about £200 a minute for the taxpayer to find. Having sought to justify his existence by making this kind of silly speech, Lord Blakenham spends the rest of his time on party political purposes.

Mr. R. J. Mellish (Bermondsey)

Is there not another argument—that we ought not to complain; that he is doing so well for us that we ought to get him to make more such speeches?

Mr. Hamilton

I am not complaining about the quality of his speeches; it lives up to the general tradition. I am complaining, however, at the principle of paying him out of taxpayer's money to propagate Conservative policies. That is all.

The right hon. Gentleman sought to justify his position, but carefully avoided the position of the Chancellor of the Duchy. I do not blame him for that. I would have done the same myself in his position. I want to ask him what exactly is his justification for his salary? The right hon. Gentleman has been asked several questions to which he has replied. I remember that on one occasion he was called to a meeting in the middle of the night to draft a statement for another Minister, Mr. Profumo. He was called to that meeting to work for his money on that occasion, but one would hardly call that a justification for putting him on the public payroll.

The right hon. Gentleman has also made speeches about the Scottish economy and has chastised hon. Members on this side if the House for being Jeremiahs about it.[HON.MEMBERS: "No."] Indeed, he did, and if I may I will quote what the Scotsman said about it. It is not an organ of the Labour Party. On 10th March the Scotsman talked about the friendly reproach of Mr. Deedes to Labour hon. Members in the course of Questions in the House last Monday week. The Scotsman said: Those with no political axe to grind are in a dilemma. They are accused of being Jeremiahs, of frightening away industrialists if they dwell on such facts as emigration, the almost static state of employment in Scotland during the past decade of growth nearly everywhere else, the level of unemployment twice that of the United Kingdom and redundancy in the older industries. The right hon. Gentleman went out of his way to make a speech in Scotland pretending that everything was all right there. We do not think that to come to Scotland and talk about that sort of nonsense to the Scottish people is a justification for mulcting the Scottish taxpayers. Moreover, if the right hon. Gentleman is responsible for co-ordinating the information services, how can he explain the various statements that have been made by Ministers, for instance, by the Minister of Transport, the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister himself, on the subject of railway closures? One Minister says one thing, and the other says another. The right hon. Gentleman is failing in his duties if he does not get these right hon. Gentlemen together, bang their heads together and say to them, "Say everything the same or say nothing at all, but do not say three different things to three different sets of people".

I think that this is a justification of our criticism of the right hon. Gentleman. As far as Lord Blakenham is concerned, I have said what I want to say about him and what the country will say about him. Why is he put on the public payroll for services to the Tory Party almost exclusively? That is his function and that is what he is being paid for out of the public purse, and we object to it very strongly.

5.27 p.m.

Mr. F. H. Hayman (Falmouth and Camborne)

My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) referred to the very large number of Ministers in the pay of this House and said that they formed a very useful reserve to tide the Government over emergencies in the Division Lobby. Such an emergency occurred yesterday. The House can verify the fact that the Minister without Portfolio voted in the Government Lobby yesterday with three Liberals, of whom the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) was one, and the total majority of the Government fell to 17. If the three Liberals had voted with the Opposition yesterday the Government majority would have been 11. The total number of Ministers voting with the Government yesterday was 21, so that——

Mr. A. Lewis

Is not my hon. Friend aware that the majority of the Government would have been one more had the Prime Minister been here to vote instead of in Bristol making party political speeches?

Mr. Hayman

I have no objection to the Prime Minister making party political speeches in Bristol. The right hon. Gentleman made one in my constituency last Friday, but I do not think that it did his party much good.

5.29 p.m.

Mr. Marcus Lipton (Brixton)

The course of this debate has shown without any shadow of doubt that the Minister without Portfolio is continuing the policy upon which he embarked a long time ago, and that is flouting the wishes of the House and treating it with complete contempt. He has demonstrated this by his speech today. He is a Minister of Information who will not give any information about what he himself is doing.

I could have advised my hon. Friends that in selecting this Vote today for debate they would, in fact, be wasting their time, and I am sorry to say that so far the House has indeed been wasting its time in selecting this item for discussion, because we have received no satisfaction whatsoever from the right hon. Gentleman. As I said a moment ago, I knew that this was going to be the result, for on 20th January this year we find in HANSARD this very illuminating Question and Answer: Mr. Lipton asked the Minister without Portfolio if he will make a statement on his political activities during the past year. Mr. Deedes: No, Sir."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th January, 1964; Vol. 687, c. 685.] That is the kind of service the right hon. Gentleman renders the House.

I know that it is a joke when we read out such a Question and Answer, but this is also an insult to the House, and one that hon. Members should not tolerate for a moment longer than is absolutely necessary. Whatever procedures may be at our disposal for removing this Minister at the earliest possible moment should commend themselves——

Mr. Deedes

It may be within the hon. Gentleman's recollection, but not within the recollection of the House, that when, a year or more ago, he raised the question of my duties, although I was then not disposed to take up the time of the House to explain these duties I offered to talk to him about them and to give him an explanation of them. That invitation will be within his memory. It was not taken up by him, and I am now entitled to remind him of an offer that was made and rejected.

Mr. Lipton

It is quite true that the right hon. Gentleman made me that offer afterwards, but that is not the answer. I could have gone along, and had a nice hole-and-corner chat, and a sniff round the office to see what was going on—I might even have been allowed to look at one or two files—but that would not have helped the House because, our rules being as they are, I would not have had the opportunity to give the House an extended report of what I had seen and what the right hon. Gentleman had told me.

These things ought to be public. The Minister of Health produces an annual report, the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance produces an annual report; of the few Ministers I know, the only one who does not produce an annual report is the Minister without Portfolio. If the right hon. Gentleman issued an open invitation to all Opposition members to descend on him en masse tomorrow or the next day with a view to cross-examining him and finding out exactly what he was doing—in the presence of the Press—that offer might be worth considering, but a personal invitation to me to have a chat with him does not meet the purpose.

The House is asked to approve an Estimate, but we have had no reply to our request for information. The right hon. Gentleman, the producer of policy, continues with the policy of the blank wall—he must not be surprised if on that blank wall people are tempted to write some rude remarks. The House must take a serious view of the Minister's attitude, and I hope that we shall express our displeasure in the most positive way available to us.

Sir Arthur Vere Harvey (Macclesfield)

Before the hon. Gentleman sits down, appreciating his difficulties and problems in seeking an interview with my right hon. Friend, could I be of help to him by trying to persuade my right hon. Friend to try to see him and his party on Friday afternoon of this week?

5.35 p.m.

Mr. Sydney Silverman (Nelson and Colne)

I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman will accept the offer my hon. Friend the Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton) has just made to him. It would not be the same thing as himself explaining to the House of Commons, but it would keep him sufficiently busy as, at any rate, to begin partially to earn the salary he is defending this afternoon.

The House seems to have got itself into an impossible position. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) made it abundantly clear that the purpose of his Amendment was to question the House granting the Government this money at all. The reason he advanced for not granting the money at all was that the Government did not need it; that they did not need the extra Minister without Portfolio because they had one Minister already who, from a public point of view, was doing nothing for the salary that public funds paid to him.

I agree with every word my hon. Friend said but, without going into the merits of whether he was right or wrong, what is the situation in which we now find ourselves? We have heard only one speech from the one side of the House—one only—and that was the speech of the Minister himself, defending his own salary and the work he alleges he does for it. I do not think that he did it very well; but, even conceding that he did it admirably, it had nothing at all to do with the case being made against the Government.

The right hon. Gentleman is here defending the Government's case, not his own right to his own salary, but when he was challenged about that he was very frank with the House. He said, "That has nothing to do with me at all. I cannot answer for the policy of the Government. I am here merely to make sure that the House does not reduce my salary by £100." He told the House quite frankly that he did not care about anything else——

Mr. Deedes indicated dissent

Mr. Silverman

He even said that he was not qualified to talk about anything else. If the right hon. Gentleman did not say that—I do not want to make a false point—perhaps he will tell us what he did say. We all understood him to say what I have just described. If he is ready to defend the case that my hon. Friend made I am prepared to sit down, and I am sure that the House will give him leave to speak a second time in order to do that. So far, however, he has said, This is not my business. I cannot answer it. I do not know about it." What a Minister of Information—he does not know about it.

Well, we must take him at his word. We know that if he says he does not know about it, then, indeed, he does not know about it——

Mr. Lipton

I wonder.

Mr. Silverman

Oh—surely not! If the right hon. Gentleman knew anything about it he would be the first to claim so. He would not say that he did not know. In any case, he did say that he did not know, and we must assume that he is telling us the truth about that. He certainly did not say anything in answer to my hon. Friend's case. But someone may know. We may be called upon—perhaps quite soon—to divide the House on whether or not my hon. Friend's proposal is to be accepted on the basis that we have had no answer from the other side to the case made, and the Government spokesman says that he does not know the circumstances.

In those circumstances, I revert to the point I have already made—and which I apologise for having made at the wrong time. The House of Commons should not be called upon to decide this question when no information at all has been given in answer to my hon. Friend's case that the money should not be voted. We are dealing with public money, and this is the central function of the House of Commons. We are controlling the expenditure of money, and my hon. Friend has said that the Government are not spending it as they should. He says that the Minister is appointed to do a job that is not a public service, for which the House of Commons is not responsible and for which he is not answerable to Parliament, and that he gets the salary for doing it out of public funds, and that, because he gets that salary for doing work that is not our work, we have to appoint another Minister without Portfolio to do the work that is our work which the right hon. Gentleman could be doing if he were not doing something else.

We ought not to treat this lightly. It may be that there is nothing in this case, but there is nobody who has said a word against it so far—not the Minister, and nobody else has spoken. So we have not had a single word in answer to a charge that the Government are abusing their authority by raising public money and spending it on private purposes for which the House of Commons is not responsible, and for which most of the public, if we are to judge the poll results, would rather was not done, and which in any case is not being done very well.

I am going to ask leave to move that the debate be now adjourned, until the Prime Minister, or if not the Prime Minister then somebody else, can come here and tell us what is the answer to the case which my hon. Friend has made. We ought not to be asked to decide this matter until we have had an explanation.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

Order. I am not prepared to accept a Motion from the hon. Member that the debate be now adjourned.

Mr. Silverman

Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I note the qualification in that Ruling, that you are not prepared to accept such a Motion from me. That might be reasonable enough. Do I gather, therefore, that if it were moved by someone who is accepted as officially speaking for the bulk of the Opposition in the House you might reconsider the matter? If that is so, I am very ready indeed to give way and to allow my Motion to be moved with more authority, more persuasiveness and more clarity than I can hope to command. I leave the thought with you Mr. Deputy-Speaker. Since my hon. Friend has moved the Amendment and since he has had no reply perhaps he would like to make the same suggestion to you.

5.43 p.m.

Mr. A. V. Hilton (Norfolk, South-West)

In order to get the record correct, I should remind the House that in a brief intervention I questioned the right hon. Gentleman about the activities of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster during his visit to East Anglia and to my constituency in particular. I want to get the record perfectly straight on this because subsequently it was suggested that Lord Blakenham in his visit was using Government official cars and telling Tory lies. I want to dissociate myself from those remarks because it is my experience that Lord Blakenham personally is quite a nice chap.

What his mode of transport was I have no idea. Whether he told any Tory lies I would not know, but I have not said that. Personally I welcomed Lord Blakenham's visit to my constituency, because five years ago this very week he paid another visit there in a by-election campaign and two weeks later he sent me a letter of congratulation on winning the by-election and suggesting that it was because of his visit that I was returned. Personally I like Lord Blakenham as a man.

It is all right for him to come to my constituency to give my opponents a pep talk and to make sure that the Tory Party machine is geared up for the General Election whenever it comes so long as he is paid from Tory Party resources. I have no objection to that at all. My real complaint is that he came in his capacity as Chairman of the Tory Party while he is also Chancellor of the Duchy at a reasonable salary of £5,750 a year. My complaint is that he should be paid his high salary to give the Tories in my constituency a pep talk on how to win the General Election. I do not intend to say any more, but I wanted to get the record correct.

5.45 p.m.

Mr. J. J. Mendelson (Penistone)

I intervene very briefly to put on record the true position concerning one of the arguments advanced by the right hon. Gentleman the Minister without Portfolio. He will recall that at the beginning of his intervention, when demands had been made that the Prime Minister should be here to take part in this debate, he said that there was an honourable precedent for his own position in replying to this debate and justifying by implication the absence of the Prime Minister.

As one hon. Member who took part in the short debate concerning the constitutional position of the First Secretary, I should like to remind the right hon. Gentleman and the House that that position was not at all analogous to the debate this afternoon. What was at issue at the time and what was raised from the Opposition Front Bench in the first place by my hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) was the position of the First Secretary himself. No other Minister was involved, and the staff of no other Government Department.

The right hon. Gentleman, I know, would not like to mislead the House. The right hon. Gentleman must have looked up that debate before coming to reply to the debate this afternoon and he must have seen, as he will see if he looks it up again, that the First Secretary referred only to his own position, and he went back a long way into history to talk about other First Secretaries. I see that the right hon. Gentleman is nodding and that there is agreement between us. If in fact this is no analogy then the case advanced by the right hon. Gentleman for the absence of the Prime Minister collapses completely and there is no justification for his absence at all.

What we have dealt with this afternoon is a matter of great constitutional importance and it involves the most important power that the House of Commons has, as every hon. Member knows. If money is to be advanced for carrying on the purposes of Government, involving a number of Ministers of the Crown, then obviously the right hon. Gentleman is in no position to justify the appointment of these various Ministers. It is not surprising, if my submission is correct, that he did not try. He could not try; he would be usurping the position of the Prime Minister. He is in no position to reply, and I did not expect him to.

What I want to put on record—and this is the second point that I should like to submit—is that it is constitutionally completely wrong and unjustifiable that the Prime Minister, knowing that this matter might be debated, should not have been in his place in the House of Commons this afternoon. The Patronage Secretary happens to be in his place and another senior member of the Cabinet has been with us for some time. If the Prime Minister for some reason had to leave the Chamber briefly, or leave the House of Commons altogether this afternoon, it should have been possible in the last three hours, through the Patronage Secretary or a senior member of the Cabinet, to send a message to him.

It is conceivable that, occasionally, the Prime Minister, having answered Questions, has to attend a meeting, but this debate has been going on for a considerable time. The constitutional position has been made clear from the start by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan), but no steps have been taken by the Patronage Secretary or by any other senior Member or any other member of the Government to send a message to the Prime Minister to ask him to be present to reply to this debate.

I repeat that in a matter of this serious nature the House of Commons has been very badly treated. If the Patronage Secretary and the right hon. Gentleman claim that they have enough people to pass the Vote anyway, it will not be lost on hon. Members on both sides of the House, because where the supply of money to the Government is concerned it is a matter for the House of Commons as a body. Nor will it be lost on people outside the House. It has been a deliberate evasion of the duty of the Prime Minister, and the House has been frustrated in getting at the facts on which it is asked to vote money to the Government.

5.51 p.m.

Mr. Callaghan

I speak again only with the leave of the House. The Minister without Portfolio appealed to me to consider withdrawing opposition to the Vote, and by leave I should like to respond in the sense that we had moved to reduce this Vote by the sum of £2,300. That sum was deliberately chosen as being the proportion of the salary of Lord Carrington between now and the end of the year. I moved that because I believed that no case had been made out for the appointment of an additional Minister without Portfolio.

The case I made, which must be within the recollection of the Minister without Portfolio who has spoken in this debate, was quite simply that we have already the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in another place capable of leading the Lords, which is one of the major functions for which he is appointed, but because the Chancellor of the Duchy is spending practically the whole time on the work of the Conservative Party he is not available in the House of Lords to do the work of Lord Carrington. This seems to me to be a case that needs answering.

The answer I got from the Minister without Portfolio was a long apologia for his own position. I am not concerned with his position. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to be under the impression that we were debating his salary. With respect, if he reads the Estimates he will see that we were not. We are debating Lord Carrington's salary. What the House is asked to decide is whether, in order to help the Conservative Party pursue its propaganda in the country by a Minister of the Crown spending his whole time and drawing a public salary in the interests of the Conservative Party, we should allow the Government to appoint another Minister without Portfolio who is not answerable to this House. I see no way and no precedent whatever by which the House could respond to the right hon. Gentleman's appeal.

I wanted the Prime Minister to answer this debate because it is his responsibility and not that of the right hon. Gentleman. This is why I asked at the very beginning that the Prime Minister should be here. The Prime Minister should tell us what the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster does in terms of public duties. As far as I know, the noble Lord has taken the Industrial Training Bill in another place and nothing else, apart from one or two minor questions. The Prime Minister should say to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, "Please resign if you want to remain as Chairman of the Conservative Party and conduct party organisation duties out of the funds of the Conservative Party", or alternatively he should say, "Give up the chairmanship of the Conservative Party and do your job in the House of Lords as Leader."

Mr. Deedes

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will not wish to be unfair. He will recollect that on 23rd November the Prime Minister answered Questions and gave replies to the House on this subject. This ought to be within the hon. Gentleman's recollection.

Mr. Callaghan

It is within my recollection and this is why I do not understand why the Prime Minister does not attend this debate to defend himself. David Lloyd George when attacked on similar grounds on 13th June, 1921, was in the House. He opened the debate and he said that he had no intention of allowing George Barnes to expose himself to criticism in reply. Lloyd George as Prime Minister took the job on himself. The present Prime Minister is absent today, as he was from our debate on the Resale Prices Bill. He should be here and he should be the man to reply.

Independent opinion in the country will condemn the Prime Minister for adding to the number of the Cabinet by two people who are doing practically nothing but party duties at public expense. It is a scandal of the first order, and I have no hesitation in saying to my hon. and right hon. Friends that we should vote against this Vote now.

Question put, "That"£216,000" stand part of the Resolution:—

The House divided: Ayes 222, Noes 158.

Division No. 49.]	AYES	[5.55 p.m.
Agnew, Sir Peter	Gresham Cooke, R.	Page, Graham (Crosby)
Allan, Robert (Paddington, S.)	Grosvenor, Lord Robert	Pannell, Norman (Kirkdale)
Arbuthnot, Sir John	Hall, John (Wycombe)	Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe)
Ashton, Sir Hubert	Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)	Peel, John
Barber, Rt. Hon. Anthony	Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.W.)	Percival, Ian
Barlow, Sir John	Harrison, Brian (Maidon)	Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth
Batsford, Brian	Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)	Pitman, Sir James
Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton	Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere (Macclesf'd)	Pitt, Dame Edith
Bennett, F. M. (Torquay)	Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)	Pounder, Rafton
Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos & Fhm)	Harvie Anderson, Miss	Prior, J. M. L.
Bevins, Rt. Hon. Reginald	Hastings, Stephen	Prior-Palmer, Brig. Sir Otho
Biffen, John	Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel	Proudfoot, Wilfred
Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel	Hendry, Forbes	Ramsden, Rt. Hon. James
Bishop, Sir Patrick	Hiley, Joseph	Rawlinson, Rt. Hon. Sir Peter
Bossom, Hon. Clive	Hill, Mrs. Eveline (Wythenshawe)	Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin
Bourne-Arton, A.	Hirst, Geoffrey	Rees, Hugh (Swansea, W.)
Box, Donald	Hocking, Philip N.	Renton, Rt. Hon. David
Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. John	Hogg, Rt. Hon. Quintin	Ridsdale, Julian
Boyle, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward	Holland, Philip	Rippon, Rt. Hon. Geoffrey
Braine, Bernard	Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hon. Dame P.	Robinson, Rt. Hn. Sir R.(B'pool, S.)
Brewis, John	Howard, Hon. G. R. (St. Ives)	Roots, William
Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. Sir Walter	Howard, John (Southampton, Test)	Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard
Brown, Alan (Tottenham)	Hughes-Young, Michael	Royle, Anthony (Richmond, Surrey)
Brown, Percy (Torrington)	Hulbert, Sir Norman	Russell, Sir Ronald
Bryan, Paul	Hurd, Sir Anthony	Scott-Hopkins, James
Buck, Antony	Hutchison, Michael Clark	Shaw, M.
Bullard, Denys	Jackson, John	Skeet, T. H. H.
Bullus, Wing-Commander Eric	James, David	Smith, Dudley (Br'ntf'd & Chiswick)
Butcher, Sir Herbert	Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)	Speir, Rupert
Campbell, Gordon	Jennings, J. C.	Stainton, Keith
Cary, Sir Robert	Johnson, Eric (Blackley)	Stodart, J. A.
Chataway. Christopher	Johnson Smith, Geoffrey	Storey, Sir Samuel
Chichester Clark, R.	Jones, Rt. Hn. Aubrey (Hall Green)	Studholme, Sir Henry
Clark, Henry (Antrim, N.)	Kaberry, Sir Donald	Summers, Sir Spencer
Cleaver, Leonard	Kerby, Capt. Henry	Talbot, John E.
Cole, Norman	Kerr, Sir Hamilton	Tapsell, Peter
Cooke, Robert	Kershaw, Anthony	Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)
Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.	Kirk, Peter	Taylor, Edwin (Bolton, E.)
Cordle, John	Kitson, Timothy	Taylor, Frank (M'ch'st'r, Moss Side)
Corfield, F. V.	Lambton, Viscount	Temple, John M.
Costain, A. P.	Lancaster, Col. C. G.	Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret
Courtney, Cdr. Anthony	Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry	Thomas, Sir Leslie (Canterbury)
Craddock, Sir Beresford (Spelthorne)	Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)	Thomas, Peter (Conway)
Critchley, Julian	Lilley, F. J. P.	Thompson, Sir Kenneth (Walton)
Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. Sir Oliver	Linstead, Sir Hugh	Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.)
Crowder, F. P.	Litchfield, Capt. John	Thorneycroft, Rt. Hon. Peter
Cunningham, Sir Knox	Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey (Sut'nC'dfield)	Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin
Curran, Charles	Lloyd, Rt. Hon. Selwyn (Wirral)	Tiley, Arthur (Bradford, W.)
Currie, G. B. H.	Longbottom, Charles	Touche, Rt. Hon. Sir Gordon
Dalkeith, Earl of	Longden, Gilbert	Turner, Colin
Dance, James	Loveys, Walter H.	Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.
d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry	Lucas, Sir Jocelyn	Tweedsmuir, Lady
Deedes, Rt. Hon. W. F.	Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh	van Straubenzee, W. R.
Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. M.	McAdden, Sir Stephen	Vane, W. M. F.
Duncan, Sir James	Maclay, Rt. Hon. John	Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hon. Sir John
Duthie, Sir William (Banff)	McMaster, Stanley R.	Vickers, Miss Joan
Eden, Sir John	Maginnis, John E.	Walker, Peter
Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)	Maitland, Sir John	Walker-Smith, Rt. Hon. Sir Derek
Elliott, R.W. (Newc'tte-unon-Tyne, N.)	Markham, Major Sir Frank	Wall, Patrick
Emery, Peter	Marples, Rt. Hon. Ernest	Ward, Dame Irene
Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn	Mathew, Robert (Honiton)	Webster, David
Errington, Sir Eric	Matthews, Gordon (Meriden)	Williams, Dudley (Exeter)
Farey-Jones, F. W.	Maude, Angus (Stratford-on-Avon)	Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)
Fell, Anthony	Mawby, Ray	Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)
Finlay, Graerne	Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.	Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)
Fletcher-Cooke, Charles	Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C.	Wise, A. R.
Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)	Mills, Stratton	Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick
Gammans, Lady	More, Jasper (Ludlow)	Woodhouse, C. M.
Gardner, Edward	Morgan, William	Woodnutt, Mark
Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, Central)	Morrison, John	Wootlam, John
Glover, Sir Douglas	Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles	Worsley, Marcus
Goodhart, Philip	Nicholson, Sir Godfrey	Yates, William (The Wrekin)
Gower, Raymond	Nugent, Rt. Hon. Sir Richard
Grant-Ferris, R.	Oakshott, Sir Hendrie	TELLERS FOR THE AYES:
Green, Alan	Osborne, Sir Cyril (Louth)	Mr. McLaren and Mr. MacArthur.
NOES
Ainsley, William	Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)	Paget, R. T.
Albu, Austen	Grimond, Rt. Hon. J.	Pannell, Charles (Leeds, W.)
Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)	Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)	Parkin, B. T.
Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)	Hamilton, William (West Fife)	Pavitt, Laurence
Awbery, Stan (Bristol, Central)	Hannan, William	Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)
Bacon, Miss Alice	Harper, Joseph	Peart, Frederick
Barnett, Guy	Hayman, F. H.	Pentland, Norman
Baxter, William (Stirlingshire, W.)	Herbison, Miss Margaret	Poppiewell, Ernest
Beaney, Alan	Hill, J. (Midlothian)	Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)
Bellenger, Rt. Hon. F. J.	Hilton, A. V.	Randall, Harry
Bence, Cyril	Holman, Percy	Rankin, John
Benn, Anthony Wedgwood	Holt, Arthur	Redhead, E. C.
Bennett, J. (Glasgow, Bridgeton)	Houghton, Douglas	Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)
Benson, Sir George	Howell, Charles A. (Perry Barr)	Rhodes, H.
Blackburn, F.	Hoy, James H.	Roberts, Albert (Normanton)
Blyton, William	Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)	Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)
Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.	Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)	Robertson, John (Paisley)
Bowden, Rt. Hn. H. W. (Leics, S.W.)	Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)	Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)
Bowen, Roderic (Cardigan)	Hunter, A. E.	Rodgers, W. T. (Stookton)
Boyden, James	Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)	Rogers, G. H. R. (Kensington, N.)
Braddock, Mrs. E. M.	Irving, Sydney (Dartford)	Ross, William
Bradley, Tom	Jeger, George	Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.
Bray, Dr. Jeremy	Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)	Silverman, Julius (Aston)
Brockway, A. Fenner	Jones, Rt. Hn. A. Creech (Wakefield)	Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)
Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)	Jones, Dan (Burnley)	Skeffington, Arthur
Butter, Herbert (Hackney, C.)	Jones, Elwyn (West Ham, S.)	Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)
Callaghan, James	Kelley, Richard	Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield)
Carmichael, Neil	Kenyon, Clifford	Small, William
Castle, Mrs. Barbara	Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.	Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)
Cliffe, Michael	King, Dr. Horace	Sorensen, R. W.
Collick, Percy	Lewis, Arthur (West Ham, N.)	Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank
Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)	Lipton, Marcus	Steele, Thomas
Cullen, Mrs. Alice	Lubbock, Eric	Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R. (Vauxhall)
Darling, George	McBride, N.	Stross, Sir Barnett (Stoke-on-Trent, C.)
Davies, Harold (Leek)	McCann, John	Swain, Thomas
Davies, Ifor (Gower)	McKay, John (Wallsend)	Symonds, J. B.
Deer, George	MacPherson, Malcolm	Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)
Doig, Peter	Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)	Thornton, Ernest
Driberg, Tom	Manuel, Archie	Wade, Donald
Duffy, A. E. P. (Colne Valley)	Mapp, Charles	Wainwright, Edwin
Ede, Rt. Hon. C.	Marsh, Richard	Warbey, William
Edelman, Maurice	Mellish, R. J.	Watkins, Tudor
Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)	Mendelson, J. J.	Weitzman, David
Edwards, Robert (Bilston)	Millan, Bruce	Wells, William (Walsall, N.)
Fitch, Alan	Milne, Edward	White, Mrs. Eirene
Foley, Maurice	Mitichison, G. R.	Whitlock, William
Foot, Dingle (Ipswich)	Monslow, Walter	Williams, W. T. (Warrington)
Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)	Morris, Charles (Openshaw)	Willis, E. G. (Edinburgh, E.)
George, Lady Megan Lloyd (Crmrthn)	Morris, John (Aberavon)	Winterbottom, R. E.
Ginsburg, David	Moyle, Arthur	Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.
Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.	Neal, Harold
Gourlay, Harry	O'Madley, B. K.
Greenwood, Anthony	Oram, A. E.	TELLERS FOR THE NOES:
Grey, Charles	Oswald, Thomas	Mr. Lawson and Dr. Broughton.

Third Resolution read a Second time.

Resolution agreed to.