Commons Sitting of 7 December 1965

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRIVATE BUSINESS
  HERIOT-WATT COLLEGE ORDER CONFIRMATION
  Bill to confirm a Provisional Order under the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act 1936, relating to HeriotWatt College presented by Mr. Secretary Ross (under Section 7 of the Act); and ordered to be considered upon Monday next and to be printed. [Bill 24.]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  MINISTRY OF TECHNOLOGY

    Machine Tools
    Mr. Benceasked the Minister of Technology what proposals he has for encouraging the development and manufacture of highly specialised machine tools.
    The Minister of Technology (Mr. Frank Cousins): I have already announced proposals for supporting the development and manufacture of machine tools; these are applicable to suitable specialised machines no less than those of general application.
    Mr. Bence: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many small manufacturing concerns, particularly in development areas, find it very difficult and financially embarrassing to undertake new production processes with high-cost precision machine tools? Will my right hon. Friend do something, perhaps through N.R.D.C., to set in motion production projects in order to get over the teething troubles and thus help more manufacturers to adopt new processes?
    Mr. Cousins: Certainly the N.R.D.C. will be ready to examine these projects for small firms. Indeed, one of the main functions of N.R.D.C. is to consider problems which are not to be found outside of industry. If any worth-while project is brought forward, N.R.D.C. will look at it.
    Sir J. Langford-Holt: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the manufacture of these articles is only the first step? The most important consideration is the fact that they should be used, and used properly. Can the right hon. Gentleman assure the House that those people who are due to use them are giving the Government the fullest co-operation?
    Mr. Cousins: Yes. There are later Questions on the Order Paper which will bring this out.
    Dr. Brayasked the Minister of Technology what progress he is making in implementing the recommendations of the machine tool industry on manufacturing for stock during recessions.
    Mr. Dan Jonesasked the Minister of Technology whether, in view of the current phase of the machine tool ordering cycle, he will take action on the anti-cyclical policies proposed by the machine tool industry.
    Mr. Cousins: The working party I have appointed to examine the problems of the cyclical pattern of orders for machine tools is considering a number of proposals, including manufacturing for stock during recessions and I expect to receive its report very shortly.
    Dr. Bray: Would my right hon. Friend agree that it is more important to get a solution to this problem than to get the perfect one, in order to catch the machine tool cycle at the place where this kind of idea is important?
    Mr. Cousins: I think it is very important that we should get a solution and equally important that we should get the correct solution. Fortunately, despite the appearance that there was a turnback in orders in the early part of the year, they then climbed. We now have a little more time at our disposal, therefore, to find the correct solution.
    Mr. Buchanan-Smithasked the Minister of Technology what action he is

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    taking to ensure that the presentation of information on imports of machine tool components is in a form which can be used by the machine tool industry.
    The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Technology (Mr. Richard Marsh): Apart from a particular case, on which the hon. Member has been in correspondence with the Ministry of Technology and on which we are already trying to help, I am not aware of any dissatisfaction with the present arrangements for the presentation of this information.
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: Would the Parliamentary Secretary not agree that many of the Board of Trade's classifications do not give sufficient detail? For example, what use is being made of computers for trying to break down classifications into a more useful and intelligible state?
    Mr. Marsh: It is not one of my responsibilities to answer for the Board of Trade.

    Regional Office (Scotland)
    Mr. G. Campbellasked the Minister of Technology if he has now established a regional office in Scotland.
    Mr. Marsh: Yes, Sir.
    Mr. Campbell: Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that the computer industries have found Scotland especially suitable for them? What is he doing to guide and assist them there?
    Mr. Marsh: This will be the main purpose of my right hon. Friend's regional office in Scotland, to co-ordinate these activities. For this reason the senior regional officer will sit upon the Regional Planning Board.

    Nuclear Power Industry
    Mr. Gregoryasked the Minister of Technology what plans have been made to publicise and promote the achievements of the British nuclear power industry, with particular reference to the advanced gas-cooled reactor; what steps he proposes to take to advance and utilise the technological resources available; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Cousins: The British nuclear power programme is by far the world's
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    largest, both by its generating capacity and by the vast experience it has accumulated, and our overseas missions are doing their best to make these facts widely known.
    Visits by overseas visitors to A.E.A. and C.E.G.B. installations are also encouraged; and the A.E.A. in collaboration with industry has participated in such important exhibitions as the recent one at Tokyo.
    Mr. Gregory: While thanking my right hon. Friend for that reply, may I ask him whether he will take into account the fact that there is a very strong demand for his Ministry to combine its resources with those of the Atomic Energy Authority and the industry in order to make clear to the rest of the world what our achievements are in British nuclear power?
    Mr. Cousins: That is quite so. The Atomic Energy Authority is working to improve further the advanced gas-cooled reactor and is actually assisting the British nuclear power industry with its commercial offers to other countries overseas.
    Mr. Hogg: Would not the cost of large capital plant like the advanced gas-cooled reactor be greatly reduced if the Central Electricity Generating Board could be induced to issue repeat orders instead of asking for each station to be one-off?
    Mr. Cousins: There is no doubt that if there were long runs at each station there would be a possibility of a reduction in cost. This subject is under review by the C.E.G.B. and the Atomic Energy Authority. In the experimental growth period it is necessary to seek the best form of energy creation.

    Technological Advance (Public Purchasing)
    Mr. Hamlingasked the Minister of Technology if he will set up an inquiry into the uses of public purchasing in technological advance; and how far this would be in the public interest.
    Mr. Cousins: I have already arranged for an inter-departmental inquiry into this matter to be put in hand.
    Mr. Hamling: I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. Is he aware that the Government spend very large sums of money each year, some of which could

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    surely be used for purchasing, which would help technological advance?
    Mr. Cousins: This is, of course, the whole subject of the exercise and the inquiry. Large sums of money are involved, but there is a good deal of complication about the variety of purchasing, which therefore needs detailed study.
    Mr. Biffen: Could the right hon. Gentleman answer the second part of his hon. Friend's Question, which was how far he thought this would be in the public interest?
    Mr. Cousins: I would not have set up an inquiry into the subject had I not thought that it was in the public interest.

    Government-sponsored Research (Information)
    Mr. Harold Walkerasked the Minister of Technology what steps he is taking to ensure the widest possible dissemination of information from Government-sponsored or Government-supported research establishments and associations.
    Mr. Cousins: I have established a strong regional organisation one of whose main tasks is to promote the more vigorous application by industry of new scientific and technical knowledge resulting from research financed or sponsored by the Government. Information on the very wide variety of means used to inform industry of their work is contained in the Annual Reports of my Department's Research Stations and of the Research Associations, which are available in the Library of the House.
    Mr. Walker: Would my right hon Friend ensure that the research associations, such as the Production Engineering Research Association, do not limit the supply of their information to those firms which can afford to make a financial contribution to their organisation, as in this way those firms which are most in need of the information would be prevented from getting it?
    Mr. Cousins: This is a valid point, and we are particularly examining it and the method by which we shall disseminate information through our establishments.

    Regional Advisory Offices
    Mr. William Hamiltonasked the Minister of Technology what progress has been made in the establishment of regional advisory offices.
    Mr. Marsh: The establishment of Ministry of Technology regional offices is almost complete. New offices were opened during October at Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Manchester and Nottingham. These join the former D.S.I.R. Branch Offices at Edinburgh, Cardiff and Newcastle-upon-Tyne, which have been strengthened and given wider responsibilities. One further office for South East England and East Anglia will be opened early next year.
    Mr. Hamilton: Does my hon. Friend recognise that this Answer will, in some measure, give the lie to the charge that his Ministry has been doing nothing? Perhaps he would spell out in greater detail than he has done hitherto the functions of his regional offices——
    Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member must ask a Question.
    Mr. Hamilton: Can my hon. Friend say what functions the offices have in respect of co-ordination with the universities and technical colleges? Would he consider the laying of a White Paper to spell out in greater detail what he has announced today?
    Mr. Marsh: I will consider my hon. Friend's last point. The answer to his other question is that by the end of 1967 the Ministry will have set up a network of about 70 liaison centres, with the job of co-ordinating the activities of industry, education and the Government. The regional officers will be represented on the regional planning bodies.

    Screw Threads (Standardisation)
    Mr. Harold Walkerasked the Minister of Technology what recommendations he is making to industry to bring about the standardisation of screw threads.
    Mr. Cousins: I am giving full support to the statement issued on 23rd November by the British Standards Institution urging industry to use the metric screw thread system agreed by the International

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    Standards Organisation, and gradually to replace the purely British systems that are not recognised by many of our overseas customers. I do not consider that any further general recommendations to industry are needed at this stage, but, with permission, I will circulate a more detailed statement of the present position in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Mr. Walker: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, in 1949, the International Organisation for Standardisation, to which Britain was a party, recommended the unified inch system, in which industry invested vast sums of capital? What effect will this decision have on our trading relations with North America, which decided to stick to the British system?
    Mr. Cousins: I am aware of the decision in 1949, and of that taken in 1964 as a result of more than 10 years' study. We took the decision to change over because, on balance, it means that we shall be able to sell more in the countries where we normally do our trading. It is true that America is staying with the unified thread, but there is a strong feeling in British industry that we should convert.
    Following is the information:
    As announced by the President of the Board of Trade in the Answer he gave to the hon. Member for Oldsbury and Halesowen on 24th May, 1965, the Government consider it desirable that British industries on a broadening front should adopt metric units, sector by sector.
    The International Organisation for Standardisation (I.S.O.) has reached agreement on recommendations for general purpose screw threads, comprising a system of I.S.O. metric threads and another system of I.S.O. inch threads, the latter being the same as the existing Unified threads. These two systems have been published as British Standards, namely B.S. 3643—I.S.O. Metric Screw Threads and B.S. 1580 Unified Screw Threads.
    There are three general purpose screw thread systems used in this country today, namely Whitworth, B.S.F., and B.A.; these three systems are little used abroad. To perpetuate their use and maintain unnecessary variety must increase our costs and hamper our export trade.
    The British Standards Institution has recently issued an important policy statement urging British industry to adopt the I.S.O. metric system wherever possible in future designs. The statement has received strong support from industry. The decision to recommend the use of metric screw threads has my full support although, with the B.S.I., I recognise that
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    certain sectors of industry which now use the I.S.O. inch (Unified) system may find it necessary to continue to do so for some time.
    The implication of the B.S.I. statement is that Whitworth, B.S.F. and B.A. threads are now to be regarded as obsolescent, although their replacement will be a gradual process. Supplies of screws and tools to the obsolescent Standards will have to be maintained for many years for servicing existing designs and equipment already installed. I also support the B.S.I. view that these systems should be superseded by I.S.O. metric threads in preference to an intermediate change to I.S.O. inch threads. Over 80 per cent. of the world's population is in countries which have adopted, or are adopting, the metric system. The rate of expansion of our trade with metric countries is greater than with non-metric countries.

    National Research Development Corporation (Projects)
    Mr. Wallaceasked the Minister of Technology to what extent the work of the National Research Development Corporation has expanded in 1965; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Cousins: The main expansion has been in the number and value of development projects financed by the Corporation. At the end of June, 1965 the Corporation had in hand 95 such projects as compared with the 60 at the end of June 1964. Since then 17 new projects have been authorised and a further 120 are under assessment.
    The Corporation's forward commitments on development projects now amount to more than £8 million which is a six-fold increase on the corresponding figure last year.
    Mr. Wallace: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the public relations side of his Ministry needs improving and that those responsible must pull their finger out? Would he state the amount of advances in the previous year as against the current year?
    Mr. Cousins: The question whether the Department needs to improve its public relations is one upon which there may be differences of opinion. I have always thought that the more effective way of doing a job was to do it rather than talk about it, but this is a matter of opinion. As to the comparison between the advances, the total up to April, 1965, was £1,510,000, for the six months, and the total for the 12 months to June, 1964, was £710,000.

    National Computing Centre
    Mr. Maxwellasked the Minister of Technology what is his policy with regard to the establishment of a national computing centre; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Buchanan-Smithasked the Minister of Technology if he will establish a national computer programming centre in Scotland.
    Mr. Freesonasked the Minister of Technology whether he will now make a statement on the powers, functions and composition of the National Computer Centre.
    Mr. Cousins: I would ask hon. Members to await the statement which I hope to make following Questions.

    National Research Development Corporation (Contracts)
    Mr. Hugh Jenkinsasked the Minister of Technology if he will state the terms of the contracts between the National Research Development Corporation, International Computers and Tabulators Limited and Elliot-Automation; and what profit will accrue to the Exchequer under these contracts.
    Mr. Cousins: No, Sir. Details of its contracts are a matter for the Corporation and, in accordance with normal commercial practice, are confidential to the parties concerned. As regards the second part of the Question, any profit will accrue to the Corporation and not to the Exchequer.
    Mr. Jenkins: Would my right hon. Friend look at this again? Does he not agree that, even if profit accrues to the Corporation, that is an improvement on the practice of the previous Administration, who were in the habit of giving large doles to private enterprise with no prospect whatsoever of recovery? Will he take the matter further by considering the possibility of acquiring a share in the equity of these companies?
    Mr. Cousins: I suggest that the latter part of my hon. Friend's question is a different question. It is a separate one which needs a specific answer, and if one is to be given to it, it should be put down
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    separately. On the second point, I am not sure what I am being asked to look at again. Having said that it does not accrue to us but to the Corporation, if it is suggested that it should accrue to the Exchequer, it should be remembered that when the Development of Inventions Bill was going through the House, we agreed a Clause which said it would be possible for me to direct revenue back to the Treasury if this were really important.
    Sir H. Legge-Bourke: In view of the answer which the Parliamentary Secretary gave to Question No. 10, would the Minister not agree that there is some danger of the N.R.D.C. being overloaded financially in respect of computers and perhaps not having sufficient money available for other projects?
    Mr. Cousins: I hope that there is no such possibility. One of the things we have to do is to strengthen the N.R.D.C. At the same time, we must make money available in order that it can cope with the projects. It must be able to deal with these things when they arise.
    Mr. Hogg: Would not the right hon. Gentleman confirm that, so far from the insinuation in the first part of the question by the hon. Member for Putney (Mr. Hugh Jenkins) being correct, the truth is that the National Research Development Corporation, to which the Question refers, has always had to make the best possible profit and keep it to itself?
    Mr. Cousins: The right hon. Gentleman will recall that when we were discussing the N.R.D.C., I paid a compliment not only to the right hon. Gentleman himself for the association he had with N.R.D.C. but to the fact that it was a very efficient organisation, which had done the best it could with the money. We were asking for more money.

    Hovercraft (Development)
    Mr. Roseasked the Minister of Technology whether, in view of the high turnover of staff and pace of work on Hovercraft development, he is satisfied with the management of this work; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Cousins: I assume that my hon. Friend is referring to Hovercraft Development Ltd., the subsidiary company of

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    N.R.D.C. The management of this is the responsibility of the company and the Corporation. I understand that they intend to maintain the level of development work generally and to expand it in some particulars, and for this purpose they are actively seeking to replace recent losses of staff.
    Mr. Rose: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Hovercraft and Hovertrain may form some of the major transport facilities in the future? Will he ensure that there is no slackening of development and that adequate direction of design and construct on work is being provided? Will he also consider setting up a State-owned company to buy and operate this means of travel to ensure that we can cope with foreign competition?
    Mr. Cousins: Again, I must suggest that the last part of that supplementary should represent a Question in its own right, and perhaps my hon. Friend will put one down. It is certainly not a matter which one can answer in reply to a supplementary. On the question of whether we should set up a rival company, I am already on record as saying that where bodies of this kind fail the nation I would have no hesitation in bringing the matter before the. House, but that is an entirely different question. On the other part of my hon. Friend's supplementary, I am also on record as being in support of the hover-type movement itself and saying that we should he ready to give what aid is needed.

    Industrial Machines (Designs)
    Mr. Dempseyasked the Minister of Technology what steps he is taking to increase the number and improve the quality of designs of industrial machines in those industries which are sponsored by his Department, with a view to making the United Kingdom more competitive in world markets.
    Mr. Marsh: The Ministry of Technology is acting upon the recommendations of the Feilden Committee on engineering design, which have the aim of raising the general quality of design throughout British industry.
    Mr. Dempsey: Will my hon. Friend bear in mind that in the printing industry, for example, machine supplies are dominated by Germany, due not to a
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    lack of material or skill on our part but to a lack of design? Will he try to do something about this?
    Mr. Marsh: My right hon. Friend is very well aware of this type of problem. Without being committed on the specific point mentioned by my hon. Friend, a great deal of work is being done, particularly in the sphere of machine tools, with increased research and development, pre-production contracts and numerical control. A great deal of assistance is being offered.

    Hovertrain (Development Programme)
    Mr. Atkinsonasked the Minister of Technology in view of the need to accelerate the research programme designed to give luxury electric rail traction at 200 miles per hour, if he will restrict the Hovertrain development programme.
    Mrs. Shirley Williamsasked the Minister of Technology whether, in view of the decision of Bertin et Cie to produce a working Hovertrain on a five-mile track, he will accelerate the Hovertrain development programme in Great Britain.
    Mr. Cousins: As the Question from my hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr. Atkinson) indicates, Hovertrains are not the only form of high speed tracked transport, and before we can decide what effort to put into this development, the various technical, economic and social factors involved must be evaluated.
    Mr. Atkinson: Would my right hon. Friend not agree that the development of electric traction in this country has been hampered to a great extent by a lack of research funds? Would he not also agree that the possible development of electric traction is far more exciting and revolutionary than anything yet known in terms of pneumatic vehicles? Should he not, therefore, be more decisive in giving the go ahead to electrical engineers to get on with the job of developing electric traction?
    Mr. Cousins: My right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport is considering proposals for conducting studies in this sphere. One is tempted to agree that there is, certainly in the short term, the possibility of there being a great deal

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    more likelihood of success in this sphere than with the Hovertrain within a densely populated area such as this.
    Mr. Deedes: Would the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind when considering these matters that there is still scope for technology in ensuring that trains which travel at 60 m.p.h. arrive on time?

    Extrusion Processes
    Mr. Atkinsonasked the Minister of Technology whether, in view of his decision to sponsor the development of hydrostatic extrusion techniques, he will sponsor the essentially related research and development of cemented carbides and ceramic extrusion dies.
    Mr. Marsh: My right hon. Friend is aware of the need for the development of dies which will withstand the higher temperatures which may arise in improved extrusion processes in the future and hopes shortly to make an announcement about further work in this field.
    Mr. Atkinson: I thank my hon. Friend for that constructive Answer. Is he aware that, in terms of hydrostatic extrusion development, this may prove to be an exciting development for the engineering industry and that we are not far away from the day when many thousands of engineering components will be extruded in this way like toothpaste? Will he, therefore, give an assurance that additional money—in addition to the £300,000 already allocated—will be made available for this work so that the development of the die part of the system can be completed?
    Mr. Marsh: I agree with my hon. Friend that this is an extremely important development indeed. It could be construed as being virtually nothing less than the development of an entirely new type of machine tool of considerable value. In Birmingham, to give one example, a great deal of research is being done. For this and allied research, contracts for research and development worth about £192,000 have already been placed. If we were successful in this sphere—and I think that we will be—Britain could lead the world in this development.

    Government Research Establishments (Staff)
    Sir J. Edenasked the Minister of Technology how many scientists and skilled engineers have at their own request left employment in Government research establishments since October 1964; how many of these have since been replaced by new recruits; and if he will make a statement about the nature of the work to be done in these establishments in the future.
    Mr. Marsh: Since October, 1964, some 200 members of the Scientific Officer, Experimental Officer and Works Professional grades have left employment in the research establishments for which my right hon. Friend is responsible. In the same period, about 240 new appointments have been made in these grades. These establishments will continue to undertake research, development and advisory work to assist industry and public departments.
    Sir J. Eden: If the hon. Gentleman and his Department are really anxious to assist in accelerating the modernisation of British industry, will they do nothing to interrupt the momentum of research in the establishments for which the hon. Gentleman is departmentally responsible? Does he not agree that basic research is basic and that it cannot be parcelled up as between military and civil projects?
    Mr. Marsh: I do not think that one need quarrel with the hon. Gentleman's proposition that basic research is basic. I assure him that it is the intention of the Ministry to assist the work of the research departments.

    Computers (Utilisation)
    Mr. J. H. Osbornasked the Minister of Technology if he will commission an independent study to report on the degree of effective computer utilisation in the United Kingdom and publish the evidence and conclusions such a study will reveal.
    Mr. Marsh: My right hon. Friend recognises the importance of computer installations being effectively utilised and he is already taking steps through the Computer Advisory Service and otherwise to promote this. But he considers

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    that a study on the lines suggested is neither necessary nor practicable.
    Mr. Osborn: While thanking the Parliamentary Secretary for that Answer, may I ask him if he is aware that the Mackenzie and other studies have shown that, due to managerial problems, there has been an ineffective use of computers in America? Since we cannot afford that sort of wastage in this country, would it not be wise to anticipate that problem before it arises?
    Mr. Marsh: We entirely accept the importance of looking at this matter and dealing with it. My only quarrel, if there be one, with the hon. Gentleman is on whether this type of inquiry is possible or necessary for this job. A great deal can be done in this sphere and a great deal is being done now.
    Dr. Bray: Would my hon. Friend assure the House that the training effort which is needed in all aspects of the computer industry is receiving the full support of his Department?
    Mr. Marsh: The training effort in this and in all other spheres is receiving the full support of the Government and the Ministry of Technology in particular.

    Firms (Technological Status)
    Mr. Biffenasked the Minister of Technology what proposals he has for assessing the relative competence and technological status of firms on the basis of readily available standardised information.
    Mr. Marsh: None, Sir.
    Mr. Biffen: Does the hon. Gentleman recall that on 13th November he himself suggested that this was desirable? If he thought that it was desirable on 13th November, why is he not now setting about doing it?
    Mr. Marsh: The hon. Gentleman must read my speeches more carefully. I said on that day:
    "Ideally what is needed is a method of assessing the relative competence and technological status of firms on the basis of readily available standardised information".
    I am sure that, on reflection, the hon. Gentlema a will agree that even the Labour Party takes some time before it can become entirely ideal.

    Computer Industry
    Mr. Biffenasked the Minister of Technology by what criteria he will determine what constitutes an independent British computer industry.
    Mr. Cousins: I regard an independent British computer industry as consisting of firms whose policies in respect of production, research and development are determined in this country.
    Mr. Biffen: If the right hon. Gentleman is satisfied that these criteria will enable him to determine individual companies, could he record these in the OFFICIAL REPORT so that we may trace their commercial fortunes since the arrival of the Labour Government?
    Mr. Cousins: Yes, Sir.
    Mr. Patrick Jenkinasked the Minister of Technology what steps he proposes to take to implement his policy of seeing that the British computer industry is not dependent technologically on foreign industry.
    Mr. Cousins: I would refer the hon. Member to my Answer of 30th November to the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. Kenneth Lewis) in which I set out the steps the Government are taking to assist the development of the computer industry.
    Mr. Jenkin: Does the Minister not realise that the computer industry is one in which there will be a growing degree of specialisation, and that it is sheer pie in the sky to imagine that the British or any other country's computer industry can be independent of foreign technological resources?
    Mr. Cousins: Would the hon. Gentleman like to quote me any place where I have said that we could be completely independent of foreign technology?
    Hon. Members: Answer.
    Mr. Speaker: Order. The right hon. Gentleman has answered the supplementary question.

    Investment Incentives
    Mr. Sheldonasked the Minister of Technology what study he has made of investment incentives in the field of

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    technology; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Cousins: Investment incentives in the field of technology are part of the wider question of incentives to promote industrial investment and modernisation generally which is being examined by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. My Department, as sponsor for a wide range of engineering industries, is closely concerned in this examination.
    Mr. Sheldon: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that his Department has a particularly important rôle to play in this regard; that it is not sufficient just to have investment but that investment should also lead to modernisation, and that the view of the Department headed by him is surely of considerable importance in this respect?
    Mr. Cousins: I thought that I had made it quite clear that mine is one of the Departments most closely involved in this matter, and is engaged in discussions with the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
    Mr. William Clark: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when the review will be completed? Can he assure the House that it will be completed before the next Budget?
    Mr. Cousins: Questions relating to the timing of the review should surely be addressed to my right hon. Friend.

    Programmers and Systems Analysts
    Mr. J. H. Osbornasked the Minister of Technology what is the estimated number of programmers able to design compilers and systems analysts able to design systems for the control of organisations and processes currently employed in the United Kingdom; and what is the expected rise in demand for these skills during the period outlined by the National Plan.
    Mr. Marsh: A precise estimate is not available, but the evidence in my possession suggests that the number is of the order of 100 or so. At least three times as many is likely to be necessary by 1970 to meet the expected demand.
    Mr. Osborn: The Minister said at Eastbourne that there was need to take special action. Is he proposing to take
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    special action to see that the supply is there when necessary?
    Mr. Marsh: Yes, Sir. The Government are taking special action on this matter. Following our initiative, an official working group is being set up by the Department of Education and Science to consider, as a matter of urgency, action to improve the supply of trained computer personnel at all levels in the educational service. It has to be made clear that people at this level cannot be trained quickly, and it is a great pity that the problem was not recognised earlier.
    Mr. Maxwell: Will my hon. Friend consider instructing this working group at the Department of Education and Science to enlarge the scope of its inquiry so as to include the possibility of providing computers at secondary modern schools, comprehensive schools and grammar schools? Unless we train our younger people in the use of computers, we shall never have enough people to use the new technology.
    Mr. Marsh: That is very much another question.

    Nuclear Power Station, Finland (Tenders)
    Mr. Varleyasked the Minister of Technology whether he has approved the decision of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority to enter tenders to build a nuclear power station in Finland; and if he will encourage further efforts to obtain export orders of this type.
    Mr. Cousins: Yes, Sir. Every encouragement will be given to efforts to obtain exports of this type.
    Mr. Varley: Can my right hon. Friend say how many tenders were submitted by other nations, what was the total cost involved, and whether he expects further orders of this particular kind in future?
    Mr. Cousins: There were seven tenders other than the tender put in by the U.K.A.E.A. I am not able to answer the inquiry on total cost because, at the moment, this matter is confidential to the parties concerned.
    Mr. Biffen: Is the Minister satisfied that this is a legitimate activity for the A.E.A., or does he not feel that the consortia, which have traditionally made this

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    kind of tender from the United Kingdom, should themselves be encouraged to go into exports?
    Mr. Cousins: I think it very much a legitimate activity of the Atomic Energy Authority.

    Mechanical and Electrical Engineering Industries (Orders)
    Sir H. Legge-Bourkeasked the Minister of Technology to what extent his new duties in connection with the mechanical and electrical engineering industries will involve prior consultation with other Government Departments seeking to place orders with these industries; and to what extent change will be necessary in the ordering procedure of the Atomic Energy Authority and the nationalised power industries, in particular, and the civil field in general.
    Mr. Cousins: As I stated in reply to the hon. Member's question of 29th November, the Ministry of Technology, as sponsoring Department, is prepared in appropriate cases to consult with other Departments over the placing of their orders. This practice will not be affected by the extension of my Department's duties, though the range involved will be considerably larger.
    Sir H. Legge-Bourke: Will the right hon. Gentleman recall that over the years there has been built up a very considerable confidence between the regional offices of the Board of Trade and the D.S.I.R. people working jointly with them in the regions? Is there not a great danger that all that will happen as a result of his activities will be that we shall have yet another Department coining into the picture, thereby causing further delay?
    Mr. Cousins: There is certainly no justification at all for any assumption that this will widen the range of consideration. We hope to be as close to the industries for which we are the sponsor as any previous Governments have been.

    Scientifically-Based Industries (Merseyside)
    Mr. Hefferasked the Minister of Technology what steps are being taken in the Merseyside development district to develop and expand scientifically-based
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    industries; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Marsh: My right hon. Friend has no proposals of this kind for Merseyside at present, but we have these problems constantly in mind and will inform Parliament of specific proposals as they arise.
    Mr. Heffer: Is my hon. Friend aware that his reply will be received with disappointment on Merseyside? Is he also aware that there is very great concern on Merseyside that the expanding developments in the technological industry are being siphoned away from Merseyside, and that we are being left with the minor, and to some extent the dying, parts of technological development?
    Mr. Marsh: I would not accept my hon. Friend's last point. I think he would agree that the right way of dealing with this is by the system of regional planning introduced by this Government. The Ministry's regional organisation has recently been strengthened and is playing a full part on the regional boards. I think that any proposals made on that basis would certainly have the sympathetic consideration of the Ministry.

    Government Departments (Orders)
    Sir H. Legge-Bourkeasked the Minister of Technology how many times his Department, as sponsor for the industry concerned, has intervened in the placing of orders by other Departments; what were the cost, nature and other Departments concerned in each case; and what are the circumstances in which, after his approval has been given, implementation is still dependent upon Treasury approval of the necessary expenditure.
    Mr. Cousins: The details of the consultations between my Department, the purchasing Departments and the Treasury are confidential to the Government and it would be contrary to well-established practice to give information of the kind requested.
    Sir H. Legge-Bourke: Even if the right hon. Gentleman cannot give me the number of times when the Treasury has interfered, surely he can answer the other half of the Question which is of considerable concern, as to how much he has been

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    brought into consultation, and what the projects were?
    Mr. Cousins: I am sorry, but it is not proper for the hon. Gentleman to say "even if I cannot give an answer on the number of times the Treasury has interfered". This is not the purpose of the Treasury. The purpose of the Treasury is to examine costings, and to discuss them with other Ministries in order to reach satisfactory conclusions.

  NATIONAL FINANCE

    Capital Gains Tax
    Mr. Grantasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will estimate the cost in a full year of excluding the first £500 of any capital gain from capital gains tax.
    The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. James Callaghan): It is not possible to make an estimate. The cost would depend on the extent to which taxpayers took advantage of the exemption by spreading their realisations of capital gains.
    Mr. Grant: Has the Chancellor studied the views of the London Stock Exchange on this issue? Does he realise that a concession of this nature would probably do more than anything else to encourage the flow of investments and savings which he says he so much desires?
    Mr. Callaghan: Everything that comes from the Stock Exchange demands my constant and earnest attention. I can promise the hon. Member that I will consider its memorandum with very great care. As to the flow of savings, the hon. Member will be happy to know that it is running at a very high level again this year.

    Temporary Import Charge
    Mr. Bessellasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer when the temporary surcharge on imports will be finally removed.
    Mr. Callaghan: I would refer the hon. Gentleman to the debate on 29th November.
    Mr. Bessell: Is the Chancellor aware that the continued use of the import charge is providing artificial protection to British industry, is probably discouraging exports, and does not make credible
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    his own statement that the British economy is now on a safe footing?
    Mr. Callaghan: That sounds to me like a frustrated export from last week's debate. I assure the hon. Gentleman that, far from saying that the British economy is safe, I have been in the forefront, with my other colleagues in the Government, in insisting that we need a continual improvement in our balance of payments before we can say that the economy is wholly safe. I think that that end can be attained if we continue on the path which we have set ourselves.
    Mr. G. Campbellasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer how much revenue was produced for the Echequer by the temporary import surcharge in its first year.
    Mr. Callaghan: I would refer the hon. Member to the Answer given to the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Peter Walker) on 25th November.
    Mr. Campbell: Is not this now a half-concealed extra tax upon the consumer?
    Mr. Callaghan: The figure of £169 million is within the margin of error of last April's forecast, and clearly extra revenue must be of the nature of an additional tax, but this does not seem to me to raise any new point over and above those we discussed last April.

    Purchase Tax (Cricket Balls)
    Mr. Danceasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware of the adverse effect that the high rate of Purchase Tax on English cricket balls is having on this craft; and if he will reduce the level of tax.
    The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Niall MacDermot): Representations have recently been made on this subject and my right hon. Friend will bear them in mind when Purchase Tax is next under review.
    Mr. Dance: Is the Financial Secretary aware that the price of a cricket ball now is £3 2s. 9d.—[Laughter.]—and that, as an ordinary cricket club uses two a day in a match—[HON. MEMBERS: "The hon. Gentleman's team would be out before that."]—it is extremely—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. This is a serious English question.
    Mr. Dance: Does not the hon. and learned Gentleman realise that the present price is quite prohibitive for some of the smaller cricket clubs, which are now being forced to import cheaper balls from abroad, and this is very detrimental to British trade?
    Mr. MacDermot: Any reduction in the rate of tax would have to apply to imported no less than to home-produced cricket balls. If I may put it in this way, cricket balls have to be Gattable as well as battable.

    Rating Valuation
    Sir C. Mott-Radclyffeasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is satisfied that, with new burdens being placed on the Inland Revenue valuation staff, it will be possible to undertake the rating valuation of property due in 1968; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. MacDermot: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government on 2nd December to a Question by the hon. Member for Cleveland (Mr. Tinn).
    Sir C. Mott-Radclyffe: Is not the real reason for the postponement of the 1968 revaluation the immense burden placed upon Inland Revenue valuers by the complications of the Finance Act, in respect of which many of them have had no adequate guidance whatever?
    Mr. MacDermot: There is no question of lack of guidance. It is right that there had to be an assessment of which were the most important priorities and, of course, there will be at least as important work for the valuers to do following both the Finance Act and the setting up of the Land Commission.

    Developing Countries (Treasury Guarantee)
    Mr. Patrick Jenkinasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the policy of Her Majesty's Government towards requests from Governments of developing countries in the Commonwealth for a United Kingdom Treasury guarantee in respect of a loan to be floated publicly in London by that Commonwealth Government.
    Mr. Callaghan: No such requests have been received, but I do not think that providing finance for the developing countries by way of Treasury guarantee would, on balance, present any advantage over the present arrangements.
    Mr. Jenkin: Does not the Chancellor realise that an approach has been made to his right hon. Friend the Minister for Overseas Development and that it has, so far, been turned down on the ground that it would create an undesirable precedent? Does not the right hon. Gentleman recognise that it might be a very good way of getting development funds to the developing countries?
    Mr. Callaghan: That seems to be a series of assertions without much argument behind it. So far, I cannot see what the advantage is.

    Estate Duty (Owner-occupied Houses)
    Mr. Stratton Millsasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in view of the substantial increase in the market value of houses, he will seek to exempt the homes of owner-occupiers for Estate Duty purposes; and if he will estimate the annual cost of this relief.
    Mr. MacDermot: No, Sir. The cost might be £25 million.
    Mr. Stratton Mills: Is the hon. and learned Gentleman aware of the considerable increase in the value of owner-occupied houses during the past 10 years and of the hardship which can be caused, for instance, to widows who have to stay on in their houses after the death of their spouses? Will he consider a partial extension on, say, the first £5,000 of the value of owner-occupied houses?
    Mr. MacDermot: There is already an Estate Duty exemption in respect of estates not amounting to more than £5,000, and I understand that, historically, the reason for allowing it was the one to which the hon. Gentleman referred.

    Post-War Credits
    Mr. Pounderasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the repayment of post-war credits.
    Mr. Callaghan: I have no statement to make at present.
    Mr. Pounder: Does not the Chancellor appreciate that, 20 years after the end of the war, there is still £224 million worth of post-war credits, plus interest of over £36 million waiting to be repaid? Is it not time that he had some plans to hand this money back to the taxpayer?
    Mr. Callaghan: If the country's finances had been handed over to us in a better state, I might have been able to make more progress.

  EUROPEAN CONVENTION ON HUMAN RIGHTS
  Mr. Higginsasked the Prime Minister what decision has now been reached by Her Majesty's Government regarding the recognition of the competence of the European Commission on Human Rights to receive petitions within the terms of Article 25 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms; and if he will now declare, pursuant to Article 46 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, that he recognises as compulsory,ipso facto and without special agreement, the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights on all matters concerning the interpretation and application of the Convention.
  The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Wilson): Sir, the Government have now decided to accept, in respect of the United Kingdom and for an initial period of three years, the right of individual petition to the European Commission of Human Rights and the compulsory jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights.
  Mr. Higgins: Will the Prime Minister take it that his Answer will give great satisfaction to all those who have the cause of human rights at heart? I thank him very much indeed.
  The Prime Minister: I thank the hon. Gentleman. The Council of Europe is being informed, and acceptance of these two optional clauses in the Convention will take effect from the date when we notify it to the Council of Europe.

  AUTOMOBILE ASSOCIATION (LETTER)
  Mr. Bessellasked the Prime Minister if he will publish his reply to the Automobile Association's letter to him dated 12th October regarding the high rate of accidents on the road.
  The Prime Minister: I have arranged for the reply sent on my behalf by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport to be circulated in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
  Following is the letter:
  Ministry of Transport,
  Southwark Street,
  London, S.E.1.
  27th October, 1965.
  Before leaving for Rhodesia the Prime Minister passed to me your letter to him of 12th October, in which you argued on behalf of the Automobile Association that road construction schemes should be exempted from the Government's measures to slow down public expenditure on capital projects by postponing certain starts of work by six months. The Prime Minister asked me, in the circumstances, to reply on his behalf.
  Your letter says that the Government "has decided to make a heavy cut back in road expenditure amounting in all to £55 million." This implies that roads have been singled out for some savage cut in expenditure. This is not so. The six months' postponement applies generally to all non-industrial capital projects except houses, schools and hospitals. Projects in development districts were exempted and I have subsequently announced that a large number of road schemes will be going on as planned without deferment.
  The strength of sterling must be our paramount economic objective, underlying as it does the whole of our social and economic programmes. It is misleading, therefore, to dramatise the decision as indicating a callous disregard on the Government's part of the problem of road accidents. As you well know, road conditions are only one of the factors leading to road accidents. You would he doing poor service to the cause of accident prevention if you were to encourage the public at large and motorists in particular to shift the responsibility for the growth in accidents on to what you consider to be inadequacies in the road construction programme.
  The Government is no less concerned—indeed is more pressingly concerned than any-one—about the mounting toll of road accidents and we are playing our part in tackling the problem. Over the period 1965–70, public

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  expenditure planned on the road programme will be some £1,200 million. The deferment for six months of £55 million worth of road schemes must be seen against this background.
  (Signed) TOM FRASER.
  The Rt. Hon. Viscount Brentford.

  NUCLEAR DETERRENT
  Mr. Blakerasked the Prime Minister if he will define an internationalised nuclear deterrent, as the phrase has been used in explaining Government policy.
  The Prime Minister: I would refer the hon. Member to my speeches in this House on 16th and 17th December last.
  Mr. Blaker: Is it not becoming increasingly clear that the Government are unlikely to get either the A.N.F. or the M.L.F.? Will the right hon. Gentleman now give an assurance that he will continue to conduct such nuclear tests as may be necessary in spite of that?
  The Prime Minister: As regards the M.L.F., we always made clear our objection to the proposals which were being considered when we came into office, and we put forward our A.N.F. proposal as an alternative. Discussions will now be starting quite seriously within N.A.T.O. on this. The hon. Gentleman knows why they have not been carried out during the past few months. As regards testing, I have already stated the position.
  Mr. Heath: Will the Prime Minister give a clear undertaking, which he failed to give last Thursday, that he will in future announce the dates of tests in advance and make an announcement after they have taken place without actually being questioned?
  The Prime Minister: That gives me an opportunity to correct what the right hon. Gentleman said last week. In fact, the previous Government did not make an announcement before or after the test of September, 1964. We broke with that precedent by announcing afterwards in the House the test which took place this year and the result.

  NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANISATION
  Mr. Hefferasked the Prime Minisster what is Her Majesty's Government's policy on the draft recommendation con-
  238
  tained in Document 354 concerning the organisation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, presented at the Western European Union assembly in Paris recently; and if he will make a statement.
  The Prime Minister: This recommendation has still to be considered by the Western European Union Council, where the Government will discuss it with their allies.
  Mr. Heffer: Will my right hon. Friend agree that the idea of a supreme executive entrusted with the overall direction of the Alliance, both military and political, as advocated by the right hon. Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys), is a dangerous one and, if accepted, could make it much more difficult to reach an agreement with the Soviet Union in relation to a security pact for Europe?
  The Prime Minister: All we shall be discussing with the Western European Union Council will be Document 354, not the views expressed then or at any other time by the right hon. Member for Streatham.
  Mr. Ridley: But is not the Prime Minister aware that the recommendation also contained a suggestion that there might be a common European armaments board? As his own party representative voted for this report, can the right hon. Gentleman say what the Government's attitude to this will be?
  The Prime Minister: We shall study this, but in all our approaches to these problems of defence we believe that the right control should be on the basis of N.A.T.O., of the Alliance as a whole, and not on the basis of separate European arrangements.

  PAYMASTER-GENERAL (DUTIES)
  Mr. Gibson-Wattasked the Prime Minister what duties he has at present assigned to the Paymaster-General; and what duties he has removed from him since his statement on 12th November, 1964.
  The Prime Minister: I have nothing to add to or subtract from the Answer I gave on 12th November, 1964 to a Question by the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Kershaw).
  Mr. Gibson-Watt: In view of recent speculation, will the Prime Minister now tell us what the Paymaster-General does?
  The Prime Minister: I am not responsible for speculation. The answer which I gave on 12th November pointed out that, traditionally, non-Departmental Ministers carry out such duties as are assigned to them by the Prime Minister, but it is not the practice, and has not been under any Government, to say what non-Departmental Ministers normally do.
  Mr. Heath: Why is the Prime Minister being so coy about his right hon. Friend's duties? Has he not heavy responsibilities which he carries out for the Prime Minister in watching over the Prime Minister's colleagues in the Cabniet, their political activities and the political activities of other Members of the Government? Is it not a fact that, each morning, when the Prime Minister looks at the newspaper and sees "Watch it, Harold", he turns round and says, "Watch it, Wigg"?
  The Prime Minister: That was not even funny, but, apart from that, the duties assigned by the right hon. Gentleman to my right hon. Friend are completely wide of the mark. Those are not his duties. Moreover, it is a fact—perhaps I was wrong in my answer to the hon. Member for Hereford (Mr. Gibson-Watt)—that there have been occasions when the previous Government announced the duties of non-Departmental Ministers. There were the two borne on the previous Government's payroll for looking after Tory Central Office.

  GOVERNOR OF RHODESIA
  Mr. John Pageasked the Prime Minister if, in view of the facts that the Governor of Rhodesia represents the Crown and that the only protection afforded to him is provided by a Government that Her Majesty's Government do not recognise, he will advise Her Majesty to recall the Governor to this country so that his person is not in jeopardy; and if he will only advise Her Majesty to re-appoint a Governor in Rhodesia when Her Majesty's Government is able to afford him protection.
  The Prime Minister: No, Sir. I know that Sir Humphrey Gibbs feels that he
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  should remain in Salisbury at this critical time.
  Mr. Page: Is the Prime Minister aware that many people feel that it is quite irresponsible that the representative of the Crown should be left as a virtual hostage in Rhodesia, guarded by a régime which Her Majesty's Government do not recognise? Would it not be possible for him to recommend to Her Majesty that Sir Humphrey be recalled and that some other individual should be nominated who could act very importantly in the rôle of a go-between at a later stage?
  The Prime Minister: Fortunately, Sir Humphrey Gibbs does not take the view which the hon. Gentleman has expressed, and I think it is very important that he should remain in his post at this critical time.
  Mr. Hugh Jenkins: Would my right hon. Friend agree that the question just asked by the hon. Member for Harrow. West (Mr. John Page) is in itself an etxremely irresponsible one?
  The Prime Minister: No, Sir. I do not think that either the original Question or the supplementary question was irresponsible, because I thought that the hon. Gentleman was trying to express the concern that we feel for Sir Humphrey Gibbs. He was expressing a perfectly fair point that perhaps Sir Humphrey ought to be in this country. But that is not Sir Humphrey's view and it is not our view, and, therefore, I think that it would be wrong to pursue it.
  Mr. Gower: Is it not a fact probably Sir Humphrey Gibbs is in no great danger, as was evidenced by the sight of him playing crocquet?

  EUROPEAN UNITY (FOREIGN SECRETARY'S SPEECH)
  Mr. Blakerasked the Prime Minister whether the public speech by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to a meeting called by Socialist Commentary in London on 27th November about European unity represents the policy of Her Majesty's Government.
  The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir.
  Mr. Blaker: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the ambiguity about the

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  Government's policy has only been increased by that speech and by the Foreign Secretary's explanation in the House yesterday? Has the time not come when the Government should reformulate their five conditions so as to make it clear to the Common Market countries where they stand?
  The Prime Minister: I think that our conditiors are clear, and I have several times referred to the difficulties about agriculture. The position is that entry into the European Economic Community is not open to us in existing circumstances and no question of fresh negotiations arises at present. But we shall work with our E.F.T.A. partners through the Council of Europe and Western European Union for the closest possible relations with the Six consistent with our Commonwealth ties.

  MIDDLE EAST (SALE OF ARMS)
  Mr. Tuckasked the Prime Minister if he will propose to President Johnson and Prime Minister Kosygin that there shall be an international agreement not to sell arms to nations in the Middle East pending the preparation of wider measures for arresting the arms race.
  The Prime Minister: I should welcome the opportunity of discussing these questions with President Johnson, but I am not convinced that the time is right for my hon. Friend's proposal.
  Mr. Tuck: Would my right hon. Friend agree that, however defensive the acquisition of arms by a country like Saudi Arabia appears to be, the arms would constitute a formidable addition to the striking force of that country and, therefore, create grave anxiety in places like Israel and perhaps even Aden, where they might be used against our own forces, and will inevitably start up a new phase of the arms race in the Middle East?
  The Prime Minister: I do not disagree with what my hon. Friend has in mind, and certainly in regard to the supply of arms from certain countries to, for example, the U.A.R. and the anxieties felt as between the U.A.R. and Israel, there is every case, if we could reach agreement, for getting some kind of ban on arms. But there are very great difficulties, not least the problem of the nuclear
  242
  question, missiles and so on. That is why I say that I do not think that the time has yet been reached when we should be trying to formulate this particular proposition.
  Mr. Heath: Can the right hon. Gentleman confirm that the Government are following previous practice in controlling the sale of arms so that the balance is kept in an adjusted form?
  The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. That would be our hope. But as the right hon. Gentleman knows, it is not entirely within our control. The sooner we are able to move towards something on the lines suggested by my hon. Friend the better, particularly in regard to the critical balance between Israel and her neighbours, and the sooner we shall be able to relieve tension in that area. But our main aim in regard to the nuclear question is to get a general non-dissemination agreement.

  RHODESIA (OIL SHIPMENTS)
  Mr. Michael Footasked the Prime Minister when he expects to have completed the preliminary studies necessary for carrying out the United Nations Security Council resolution on the imposition of an embargo on oil shipments to Southern Rhodesia.
  The Prime Minister: This will inevitably take some time since any oil sanction must be comprehensive if it is to be effective.
  Mr. Foot: Does not my right hon. Friend think that this country should do everything in its power to expedite an agreement on this subject in favour of the resolution for which we, quite rightly, voted at the Security Council, and can he give the House any information about how this purpose might be assisted by dealing with the oil tanker which is now on the way to Southern Rhodesia?
  The Prime Minister: I know the concern—I share the concern—about this oil tanker. It would not help in this particular situation because, obviously—I think that this is right—any oil sanction must be multilateral and must be effective. There are other tankers stacked behind that one, and merely to stop that one

  243
  would make no difference to the supplies to Mr. Smith. Indeed, it might have an indirect effect in relation to possible oil supplies to Zambia. If it is to be done—we are hard at work on it—it must be multilateral and totally effective. A suggestion of the kind which my hon. Friend has in mind would not make any difference to the question of oil supplies at the present time.
  Mr. Sydney Silverman: Is my right hon. Friend not aware that at this very moment a British ship owned by a company in which the British Government have a controlling interest is carrying 12,000 tons of oil, sufficient for two weeks' fuel supply, to Southern Rhodesia? Will not he do something, while the investigations are going on about making the oil sanctions multilateral, to prevent this country, in anticipation of such a move, acting in plain defiance of a recommendation of the United Nations which the Government themselves accepted?
  The Prime Minister: The fact that I am aware of the existence of the tanker —I gave details about it—was, I should have thought, shown by my answer to my hon. Friend's supplementary question a moment ago. I am aware of it. Incidentally, I think it is worth noting that very many of the countries which are putting the greatest pressure on us at the present time about our actions in relation to Rhodesia are countries which have not yet begun to carry out the United Nations' resolution, which we have done pretty thoroughly. So far as the tanker is concerned, there are other ships stacked behind it. Our interference with the ship would not make any difference with the two others immediately behind it. I have said that we will study the matter and that when an oil sanction is introduced it will be fully effective. Merely to stop one ship out of three at the present time would be a moral gesture, but it would have no significance in creating an effective oil sanction.
  Mr. Grimond: Would it not, however, be an extremely effective moral demonstration? Would not the Prime Minister agree that if the British Government are going to say that they are primarily responsible for handling the Rhodesian situation they should make it perfectly clear that the action of a company which they control in sending an oil tanker
  244
  from a port in a country whose foreign affairs they also control should be stopped, and that, whatever indefensible action other countries may be taking, it is no excuse for us to do the same?
  The Prime Minister: As I have said, when we work out an oil sanction it must be fully effective. If all those who at the present time are resting on the doctrine of a moral demonstration would take as many effective measures as we have done in the past we might be much nearer an end of the problem.
  Mr. John Hynd: With regard to the United Nations' resolution, is my right hon. Friend aware that Iran is one of the countries which have applied a full embargo on the export of oil to Rhodesia? How does he reconcile his attitude with the initiative that has been taken by countries like Iran, and would not this gesture be of enormous psychological value in encouraging Iran and others to maintain the oil embargo?
  The Prime Minister: The problem is not one of supplying countries. As I explained a week ago, the problem is to make quite certain before we can get an effective oil sanction that we do not get privateers and others, who might divert ships in mid-ocean which have collected their oil from any part of the world, supplying Rhodesia through Beira and in other ways. We are working to ascertain whether it is possible to get a fully effective sanction so that when we apply it it will be effective. It will not be made effective, however much we welcome—and we do welcome it—the initiative taken by Iran, and now Kuwait, unless the holes are plugged, and we want to make sure that they will be plugged. As for a moral demonstration, here I must point out to my hon. Friend that it would be possible to get a moral demonstration which might be extremely harmful to Zambia before we have completed our arrangements for relieving Zambia of the consequences of an oil embargo.
  Mr. Zilliacus: Could not the Government, in addition to stopping the tanker, close the British-owned pipeline from Beira to Umtali and take the initiative in the Security Council by requesting that sanctions be made mandatory under Articles 39 and 41 of the United Nations Charter?
  The Prime Minister: I will bear in mind my hon. Friend's suggestion, but we are more concerned with the effectiveness of sanctions than with demonstrations or resolutions, mandatory or otherwise. This is an extremely difficult thing to do. More than any other nation, we have shown, by a very long chalk, our determination to deal with Rhodesia and I should like to see some of the other countries come into line with us. Meanwhile we are working in relation to the oil sanction but I insist that it must be effective.
  Mr. Biggs-Davison: Can the Prime Minister tell us whether the Foreign Secretary, when he was in Moscow, discussed the oil sanction with the Soviet Government? Did they give an assurance that they would fully apply it?
  The Prime Minister: There was a short discussion about Rhodesia. There is no reason, as far as I am aware, to believe that the Soviet Union intends to provide aid and assistance to the illegal régime in Rhodesia. That is not a possibility that we are afraid of.
  Mr. Thorpe: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I seek your permission to move the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9 to consider a matter of urgent public importance, namely, the refusal of Her Majesty's Government——
  Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman must raise that point of order at the appropriate time. Mr. Cousins—statement.

NATIONAL COMPUTING CENTRE
The Minister of Technology (Mr. Frank Cousins): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I will make a statement about the establishment of a National Computing Centre.
A rapid increase in the use of computers is vital to the drive for greater efficiency on which our national prosperity depends. In order to encourage the greatest practicable use of computers, it is important to simplify and cheapen the preparatory work which the user has to perform before his job can he put on the computer. Furthermore, we must make the best possible use of systems
246
analysts and programmers trained in this work.
It was for these reasons that I told the House on 1st March last that I was exploring the possibility of setting up a National Computer Program Centre. Following consultations with computer manufacturers, users and others I have decided to set up an organisation with a rather wider scope, to be called the National Computing Centre.
The Centre should reduce wasteful duplication of programming effort. It will achieve this in two ways; first, by providing computer users with information about programs already available in its library or elsewhere. Second, by developing and sponsoring the development of programs designed to serve users having closely similar tasks.
The Centre will also provide and encourage training in systems analysis, programming principles and computer applications. It will promote research into methods of programming and operating computers and into the influence of these methods on the design of computers.
All these objectives will be pursued in close co-operation with the computer manufacturers and with users in industry, commerce, administration, science and technology.
The Centre will be set up as an independent non-profit making Company, limited by guarantee. I know that we can count on a wide measure of support for the Centre. I shall be inviting representatives of manufacturers, users and of professional and other interested bodies to become members of the Centre and to be represented on the Council which will run it.
Professor Gordon Black who is at present Technical Manager (Computing) in the Reactor Group of the Atomic Energy Authority and part-time Professor of Automatic Data Processing in the Faculty of Technology of Manchester University, has acepted my invitation to become the first Director of the Centre. The Atomic Energy Authority have agreed to release him from his present appointment for that purpose and the University have agreed that Professor Black shall retain his professorial appointment.
The location of the Centre is a matter of importance. I hope to announce

247
shortly that it will be built in Manchester on a site where it would be easily accessible to industry, close to the University with its traditional interest in computing science and close to the Business School.
I hope that the Centre will be built up during the course of next year and be fully in operation in 1967.
Mr. Biffen: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there will be a widespread desire carefully, critically and dispassionately to study the statement? To assist in that study, perhaps I might put some questions to him.
First, does he envisage that the Centre will require a number of highly qualified staff? If so, with what success will he be able to recruit the staff in view of the current demand for these highly qualified people when, I imagine, he will be obliged to apply the Civil Service salary scale to them?
Secondly, can he confirm that the Centre will itself have computers? If so, will they be the full range of computers generally and popularly being used throughout British industry?
Thirdly, will he tell us whether or not it will be the purpose of the Centre to advise on the choice of computers to those who seek its advice?
Finally, since the work of the Centre will apparently be parallel to that of the existing and growing body of computer consultants, and its customers will include those in commerce, administration and industry, will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that the Centre will not only be non-profit making but non-loss making?
Mr. Cousins: The staff of the Centre will not be civil servants. It is likely that we shall require between 40 and 50 on the staff. They will need to be experts, and, of course, we shall need the closest possible consultation with the manufacturers, producers and users in order to get the right people. They will not all be required at first. The staff will grow as the Centre becomes fully operative.
The hon. Gentleman suggested that this might take staff away from other sources. One of the functions of the Centre, however, will be to assist in training methods, because we are well aware that this is not being done at the top level at the
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moment. I do not want to be offensive, but it is the case that it is easy to find low level programmers but not top level people.
It is intended that the Centre shall have a computer. The hon. Gentleman asked whether it would have the whole range of computers in general use in British industry. As I say, it is intended to have a computer in the first instance, but I do not want to go on telling the Centre what it requires. The staff will be composed of people who know what is needed and who will set out to get the instruments to do it.
The hon. Member asked for an assurance that this would be not only a nonprofit making organisation but also a non-loss making organisation. I want to make something clear. We must recognise that the country needs a computer centre. Both sides of the House and people outside have said that we do. People are not satisfied that the consultancy agencies in computer work have been altogether a proper method for training and getting the people required. If this reading of the situation is correct, then the question is not whether it will make a profit at first but whether the amount of money put in will be satisfactory to enable it to get off the ground and from then on become a self-supporting organisation. That is what we want. Self-support by the Centre will be of value both to itself and to the country.
Mr. Maxwell: Is my right hon. Friend aware that this very important statement will be most welcome not only to industry and computer firms but to all those firms, both nationalised and private, which are now examining the possibility of acquiring computers? Since the statement will, however, cause a certain indecision among firms as to whether they should await the advice they may be able to obtain from the new Centre, on what date does he expect that firms will be able to obtain advice from the centre?
Secondly, what preparatory work did my right hon. Friend inherit on this project from the last Administration? Finally, what has caused the delay in the announcement of this important statement?
Mr. Cousins: We did not inherit any procedures from the last Administration

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We had to create them ourselves from scratch. I suppose that that could be regarded as at least part of the reason for the delay. A second reason is that this is a most complicated subject which had to be carefully examined with all those who produce and use and want to use computers so that a satisfactory instrument could be created. We were not prepared to jump in without the fullest examination. I am sure that both sides of the House will welcome this announcement, even though it has been said that there will be critical analysis of the statement, which is understandable and acceptable. Bat, in principle, I am sure it is accepted that we should get on with it at an early date. We are hoping to have the Centre operative in the early part of 1967, but that is our expectation and I cannot say whether it will be fulfilled. We hone that it will.
Mr. Buchanan-Smith: I welcome the statement about the establishment of the Centre. However, will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that there will be disappointment among many people in Scotland that the Centre is not to be situated in Scotland, especially when it is of a type particularly suitable for fitting into the work of the D.S.I.R. in East Kilbride and the new developments going on there and the establishment of new development industries in Scotland.
Mr. Cousins: I hope that the hon. Gentleman's pleasure at receiving the statement is not tinged with too much disappointment about the Centre not being established in Scotland. Of course we understand that whenever there is an opportunity for establishing a project such as this, Scotland wants to have it, as do other places. However, I had to have regard to where the Centre could do the most good for British industry, and Manchester already has a good deal of computer knowledge.
Mr. Freeson: I join with other hon. Members in thanking my right hon. Friend for his statement. So far, the questions and answers have dealt with the Centre in relation to industry, naturally enough. I want to ask a question about the public services. Is it the intention after the Centre has been set up in due course to allow it to provide services to local and other public authorities, apart from the nationalised indus-
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tries, bearing in mind the growing need for research into planning and other social problems which will come very much to the fore, certainly for planning authorities and local government generally? Is it the intention not only to advise such departments in public services, but also to provide a direct service to local government in future years?
Mr. Cousins: Whether it will be able to provide a service to local authorities in the coming years will depend on the size of the growth of the Centre itself. As was suggested by the hon. Member for Oswestry (Mr. Biffen) when he put his question about a whole range of computers, if the purchase of computers were extended, one would hope to use them over a much wider range, but the Centre is to be used as a medium for training people and encouraging people in the use of computers, making it possible for people to understand how computers can be of value to them, removing some of their difficulties about installation, and avoiding duplication of preparatory work by small bodies.
Mr. Lubbock: Now that the functions of the Centre are to be expanded so as to include the provision of training in computer science, will the right hon. Gentleman make sure that there is the closest co-operation between the Centre and the University of Manchester by establishing a degree course in computer science, for example? He said that he imagined that the Centre would require only one computer, but will he be guided by the Council when it is set up and not take that decision until he has had the fullest advice from the Council? If it says that it needs more than one computer, will he ensure that the use of those computers is free to the university as well as to those consulting the Centre?
Mr. Cousins: The simple answer is that we shall certainly take the closest possible advice from Manchester University. One of the reasons for putting the Centre in Manchester is that the University has this background knowledge. It is no good establishing a Centre to give advice and not putting it in a place where such knowledge is available.
Mr. Dalyell: Does my right hon. Friend intend to recruit staff from industry on a temporary secondment basis?
Mr. Cousins: Yes. We shall be delighted if such an opportunity presents itself. There are two reasons. First, that would bring in the right kind of folk and, secondly, they would have an opportunity to maintain their contacts with industry and remain fully abreast of industry's current desires.
Several Hon. Members Several Hon. Members rose——
Mr. Speaker: Order. I must protect the business of the House. Mr. Thorpe.

RHODESIA (OIL SHIPMENTS)
Mr. Thorpe: On a point of order. I seek your leave, Mr. Speaker, to move the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9 on a matter of definite, urgent, public importance, namely,
The refusal of Her Majesty's Government to countermand the delivery to Beira, Mozambique, of 12,000 tons of crude oil, the property of British Petroleum Ltd., being carried by the British ship "British Security" which is now at sea and whose cargo is destined for delivery to Rhodesia within the next few days.
In my submission, there can be no doubt that the matter is definite—it is a fact that this cargo is being carried in this ship destined to this port, ultimately to be delivered to Rhodesia. Therefore, nothing further needs to be said on that count.
With regard to the urgency; this is a cargo which is likely to be delivered within a matter of three or four days. The case of urgency, therefore, speaks for itself.
With regard to the third limb, namely, the public importance of the matter, I urge upon you, first, that this is a matter which has occupied the attention of hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House by way of Questions and in the course of debate; secondly, that it is a matter with which the Security Council of the United Nations has dealt and in respect of which Her Majesty's Government have already cast their vote; thirdly, and finally, the importance is that this is an indication of the determination of Her Majesty's Government by all means to end the illegal régime in Rhodesia.
In that connection, it is noticeable that an ultimatum has been delivered to Her Majesty's Government by an organisation, the merits of which may have different interpretations but whose result may
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be that nine members of the Commonwealth will seek to leave the Commonwealth if Britain fails to show adequate determination.
Therefore, in my submission, on all three counts the case is made out and, accordingly, I ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House.
Mr. Sydney Silverman Mr. Sydney Silverman rose——
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member must resume his seat when I am standing. I am dealing with a point of order under Standing Order No. 9. I think that the hon. Gentleman can leave it to the Chair.
Mr. Silverman: All I wanted to do, Mr. Speaker, was to offer for your assistance a further point.
Mr. Speaker: Can I assure the hon. Gentleman that I do not need assistance? I have been addressed by the hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe) at some length and with complete clarity on the reasons why he seeks to invoke Standing Order No. 9.
The hon. Gentleman wishes to raise under Standing Order No. 9 a matter which he regards as definite, urgent, and of public importance, namely,
The refusal of Her Majesty's Government to countermand the delivery to Beira, Mozambique, of 12,000 tons of crude oil, the property of British Petroleum Ltd., being carried by the ship "British Security" which is now at sea and whose cargo is destined for delivery to Rhodesia within the next few days.
The precedents which bind the Chair in this show that if the matter was known the previous day and, therefore, not raised at the earliest opportunity, it falls on the count of urgency. A near parallel is to be found in the OFFICIAL REPORT for 22nd November, 1950, col. 343. In the present case, a Question by another hon. Member, the hon. Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Hamling), was tabled yesterday and now stands on the Order Paper for answer on Thursday. The matter was thus known yesterday and should have been raised yesterday if it was to be considered under Standing Order No. 9.
Mr. Warbey: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Might I call your attention to the point made in the submission of the hon. Gentleman, that a new fact was that the Government have refused——
Mr. Speaker: Order. The House has given the Chair a very difficult task to do in the question of the application of Standing Order No. 9. I hope that when the House has come to a decision on Standing Order No. 9 it will not be questioned by hon. Members.
Mr. Michael Foot: On a point of order. Does not this also raise an important question for future occasions as well as for this one? Is not my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Mr. Warbey) perfectly correct in the sense that a new point his arisen, in that only today have the Government refused to take action in this matter, and that that raises an immediate question? It could not possibly have been known yesterday that the Government were to refuse the action. If the House were to accept your Ruling in this case, Mr. Speaker, with great respect, it would appear that it would govern many future decisions, in the sense that a decision by the Government which has only just been announced would not be regarded as a matter of urgent public importance.
Mr. Speaker: As a general principle, I think that what the hon. Gentleman has said is unexceptionable. There may be cases in which the argument that he has
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sought to address to me might be of validity. It is of no validity in this one and we must move on.
Mr. Sydney Silverman: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I draw your attention to the fact that only today has it become clear and admitted that this ship, which is carrying the oil to Southern Rhodesia, is the property of a company in which the Government have a controlling interest, so that the Government are directly responsible. This was not known until today.
Mr. Speaker: I do hope the hon. Gentleman will take note of what I have said. I must not allow him to argue what was in the mind of the hon. Gentleman who tabled the Question yesterday. He knows no more than I do what was in his mind. The Parliamentary facts are as I have stated; the Ruling is as I have stated, and I must ask the House to accept it.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE (SUPPLY)
Ordered,
That this day Business other than the Business of Supply may be taken before Ten o'clock.—[Mr. Bowden.]

ORDERS OF THE DAY

  SUPPLY
  [1ST ALLOTTED DAY]
  Order for Committee read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair.—[Mr. Short.]

  COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC ACCOUNTS (REPORTS)
  3.55 p.m.
  Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I beg to move, to leave out from "That" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
  "this House takes note of the First, Second and Third Reports from the Committee of Public Accounts in the last Session of Parliament, and of the Treasury Minute on the Reports from the Committee of Public Accounts of Session 1964–65 (Command Paper No. 2845)."
  I am sure the House will appreciate that, although I speak from this Box in moving this Amendment, I do not speak on behalf of my right hon. and hon. Friends. The privilege falls to me of moving this Amendment to take note of the Reports from the Committee of Public Accounts because I have been Chairman of the Committee. It has become the precedent during the few years that these debates have taken place for the Chairman to initiate them. It is not my purpose to seek to initiate either a long or heated debate on this Amendment. The strength of the Committee of Public Accounts lies in its objectivity and in its non-partisan character. For myself, I will attempt to emulate those qualities, at any rate for the duration of this speech.
  It is the custom of the House for the Chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts to be chosen from the Opposition Benches. It was partly for that reason that my two immediate predecessors as Chairmen of the Committee, were, working backwards, the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister. I think I speak for the present Committee when I say that, whatever some of us may think of those right hon. Gentlemen in other capacities, they both discharged their duties to the
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  Committee of Public Accounts with very great zeal, diligence and effect.
  I am afraid, however, that the House has been rather badly served—and this is a rarity and I ask the Financial Secretary to take note of it—by the Stationery Office. The volume containing the Reports of the Committee was subjected, on its first publication early in October, to complicated errors of binding, resulting in part of it being out of numerical order and part of it being missing. I understand that there are now, as a result of certain initiatives taken, a supply of accurate and complete copies for the House.
  I would like to extend gratitude to the Financial Secretary for providing the House with the White Paper containing the Treasury Minute in reply to the Committee's Reports. Those familiar with the normal procedure will know that the Treasury Minute gives the comments of the Government Departments concerned with the Reports and normally comes before the House as an Appendix to the Report of the Committee of Public Accounts. This is in accordance with the normal and proper practice of this House, under which replies to Select Committees go, first, to that Select Committee, and are subsequently published by that Committee. In this case the debate takes place before there was time for the Committee of Public Accounts to meet in this Session and order publication of the Treasury Minute.
  I must, therefore, take the responsibility of having asked the Financial Secretary, for the convenience of the House in the course of this debate, to lay the Treasury Minute as a White Paper. This is a departure from precedent, but I hope that the House will feel that the circumstances justify it. I think it would have been unfair to the Government Departments concerned for the criticisms contained in our Reports to have been before the House without, at the same time, there being before the House the replies and comments made by the Department criticised.
  The custom of having a debate on the P.A.C.'s Report is a relatively new one. The first one in recent years took place on 19th December, 1960, in the rather special circumstances of the P.A.C. Report into the question of guided missiles. That debate was opened by the present Prime Minister, then Chairman

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  of the Committee, and it has been the practice in recent years, though not in every year, to have a debate of this kind on its Report.
  It might be helpful to the House, and also to people outside, if I were to begin by spelling out what it is that the Committee of Public Accounts does, or seeks to do. The strict terms of reference of the Committee are contained in Standing Order No. 79 which reads:
  "There shall be a select committee, to be designated the Committee of Public Accounts, for the examination of the accounts showing the appropriation of the sums granted by Parliament to meet the public expenditure, and of such other accounts laid before Parliament as the Committee may think fit, to consist of not more than 15 members, who shall be nominated at the commencement of every session, and of whom five shall be a quorum. The committee shall have power to send for persons, papers and records, and to report from time to time."
  I should have added, when speaking of the composition of the Committee, that according to long custom, it also contains the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, whom I am very glad to see on the Government Front Bench. Equally according to long precedent, his attendances are restricted to a courtesy visit at the beginning of the Session and on any occasion on which he might feel that the Committee was criticising the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury. As the latter is in my experience a somewhat rare occurrence, so have been in my experience the Financial Secretary's attendances. That is the established practice and a convenient one.
  The Committee has passed a long way in the course of its long life—it celebrated its centenary in 1961—from the bare function virtually of audit or of seeing that the money voted by Parliament was spent in accordance with the way in which it was voted, into considerably wider functions. It now makes what I might describe as an efficiency audit and is concerned very much, as I hope the present Report brings out, with securing that the public, where there is public expenditure involved, secures value for money.
  Indeed, the function goes wider than that because, as appears from the Standing Order I read, the Committee can investigate not only appropriation accounts, but:
  "such other accounts laid before Parliament as the committee may think fit."
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  That includes, for example, the nationalised industries, and our present Report shows that in the last Session we examined the accounts of the Atomic Energy Authority and also that we examined the affairs of the Livingston New Town Corporation in Scotland, to which considerable reference is made in the body of the Report. The actual function, therefore, of the Committee goes a great deal wider and has developed considerably wider than might be judged outside from a bare reading of Standing Order No. 79.
  The Committee is unique among the Select Committees of this House in that it has the help of the Comptroller and Auditor-General and of the Exchequer and Audit department under him. This is a large and very ably staffed department with considerable powers of investigation. The Committee, the House, and the country are all extremely well served by the present Comptroller and Auditor-General, Sir Edmund Compton, an official of the very highest ability, as those who have served with him know well. Our reports to the House are very much on the basis of investigations undertaken throughout the year by the officers of the Exchequer and Audit department. This is of considerable advantage to the Committee.
  The Committee also has a special relationship with Her Majesty's Treasury. The Treasury Officer of Accounts attends practically all the sittings of the Committee at which evidence is taken, and the present Treasury Officer of Accounts, Mr. Platt, has given extremely good service to the Committee, which is very much indebted to this able and courteous officer for his help.
  I apologise to those of my colleagues who are present, but this might be of some general interest. The Committee proceeds on the basis of the material laid before it by the Comptroller and Auditor General and, of course, on the experience of its members, which is very wide, to examine the accounting officers of the Departments concerned, who are generally but not always the Permanent Secretaries, and such other officers as may accompany them, and the accounting officers of other bodies whose accounts we are examining.
  Having been Chairman of the Committee for only one year, I do not think

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  there is any immodesty in my saying that the authority with which the Committee's Reports are thought to be invested is in very large measure due to the fact that our conclusions, whether right or wrong, are based on evidence given before us, evidence which we subsequently, as this volume shows, publish. So that it is possible for any who disagree with any conclusion to see the evidence on which we came to that conclusion. All the evidence is published virtually in full, although it is our practice not to publish such items as could have security implications, or in such cases where there would be commercial disadvantage to the Government and the State. Apart from that, the overwhelming bulk of the evidence is published, and it is open to the House and public opinion outside to consider aye or no whether they agree with the conclusions to which my colleagues and I came on the evidence before us.
  The four Reports are embodied in one substantial volume. They are, the Special Report, which is largely formal; the First and Second Reports, with which I do not think I need trouble the House; and the main Report, which is the Third Report and occupies the whole of the volume from page XIX. The result of my attempting to deal with all the matters which we dealt with in the course of the year would be that I should talk out my own Amendment. That, perhaps it would not surprise the House to know, is not my intention. What I should like to do is to pick out quite arbitrarily at my own discretion—I have not consulted my colleagues about this—four or five items in this Report on which I personally should like to comment.
  I hope that the House will not feel if as Chairman I do—that I am indicating in any way any degree of relative importance or unimportance of any other of the items. It is simply that it would be of assistance to the House if I commented on some of the more important and some of the less important. By not mentioning any of the others, I am not indicating a view of myself or of my colleagues as to any lack of importance.
  The first I refer to is one of the references to the General Post Office which appear, in particular, in paragraphs
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  139 to 140 of the published Report. The item itself runs from paragraph 138 to paragraph 147, but the particular issue which I have in mind and invite the attention of the House to arises in its sharpest form in paragraphs 139 to 140. The reference is to what is called colloquially "the ring"—or the agreement, as the Report refers to it—under which the Post Office obtains a proportion of its requirements from contractors who are parties to an agreement, and a rather limited proportion from contractors who are not. The current agreement provides that 25 per cent. of telephone apparatus and 10 per cent. of exchange equipment may be so obtained.
  In 1963–64 supplies ordered under these reservation clauses by means of competitive tender amounted to £l·9 million for telephone apparatus and £270,000 for exchange equipment. It is therefore clear that the large bulk of this equipment within this sphere was produced within what I have described as "the ring". We therefore say in paragraph 140:
  "In view of the large savings obtained by competitive contracts under the provisions of the reservation clauses, Your Committee enquired whether it was possible to extend the field of competitive purchase and whether the prices obtained by competition cast doubt on the validity of the prices negotiated under the bulk supply agreements."
  If hon. Members look at the evidence on which that is based, they will see that in respect of purchases outside the ring prices were considerably lower. Explanations were given by the officers who represent the Post Office, but it seemed to me, as I think it did to the Committee, to be the fact that whatever the justification for this arrangement—this has gone on for a great many years—it has probably involved the Post Office in higher expenditure than is necessary in respect of equipment. We expressed the hope that when the Post Office next negotiates one of these agreements it will obtain a great deal more freedom in respect of freedom of this kind. I note that the Treasury minute is not unsympathetic to this point of view and that it is, as I understand it, the intention to bear this in mind when a new agreement is negotiated some years hence.
  However, this is not only an important issue in itself. It also has a bearing on the general line taken by the Committee in respect of a number of subjects. It was felt in

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  respect, for example, of certain Admiralty contracts that freer competition and a wider choice by the purchasing departments might result in the public obtaining better value for money and better equipment at lower prices. Hon. Members who have been good enough to study our Report will see that this theme runs through a number of the examinations of witnesses which took place before the Committee. I thought, however, that the question of equipment for the General Post Office raised this matter particularly sharply and that, while not attempting in any way to cast any particular criticism on the Post Office, this was perhaps one of the best illustrations to use in indicating a line of thought and development which I hope the present Committee will pursue and which I hope that the Financial Secretary to the Treasury will exercise his powers to secure that the Government follow.
  I come to the universities and to a very important issue indeed which arises on them. The paragraphs I have particularly in mind are paragraphs 83–85 of our Report. This refers to an old issue on which I would like to give one or two general thoughts to the House. It has been the practice for a long time for the Comptroller and Auditor General not to have access to the books of the universities and although the Committee, as will he evident from our Report, had a great deal of material before it in respect of the universities, that material was mainly hased on information supplied by the Department of Education and Science and by the University Grants Committee.
  The argument for the exclusion of the Comptroller and Auditor General from the books of the universities is, to sum it up in a sentence, that it would involve an interference with academic freedom. That is a serious matter and it has been the view for a great many years that that argument has sufficient force in it to justify the making of an exception in the case of the books of the universities to the normal practice in relation to voted moneys. No one would lightly wish to interfere with so long-established a practice. On the other hand, the whole aspect of the universities problem has changed since this practice developed. When this began, public provision for the universities was on a very modest scale and was
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  made directly, through the University Grants Committee, by the Treasury. It is today on a very large scale, running to over £100 million a year, as the Financial Secretary will confirm, and it is administered, not directly by the Treasury, but as part of the wide-ranging responsibilities of the Department of Education and Science.
  That at least constitutes a new circumstance, and that new circumstance caused my Committee to indicate that, while we certainly had not the time to go into this great issue properly last Session, we hoped that a future Committee, because we are only a sessional Committee and had so to express it, would be prepared to take this matter further.
  There is a very pertinent passage in paragraph 35 of our Report:
  "In recent years the Comptroller and Auditor General has had access to the books and records of the Colleges of advanced technology and the Scottish central institutions. This access will cease when these bodies attain university status. There have been no complaints from these bodies on grounds of academic freedom against the scrutiny either of the Comptroller and Auditor General or of the Committee of Public Accounts. Sufficient time has elapsed since the matter was last considered to justify re-opening the question whether the case still holds good for exempting the large and growing area of expenditure on universities from accountability to Parliament."
  Then the suggestion follows that a future Committee should investigate this.
  No one—let me say this bluntly—on the Committee or, I suggest, in the House, would tolerate for a moment interference with the academic freedom of the universities. Let us be absolutely plain about that. The question which arises is whether to allow the C. & A.G. to see the books and the P.A.C. to investigate the accounts would have that effect. It is significant that other institutions of education of very high status have been subject to this control and have not in fact found any diminution in their academic freedom. Curiously enough, the elevation of these institutions to higher status will take them out of the purview of the C. & A.G. and of the Public Accounts Committee and so add to the area which is not investigated.
  I do not want to pre-judge the views of a future Committee and I accept that there were powerful considerations which moved our predecessors for many years

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  against premitting any such investigation. All that my Committee has said so far is that this should be looked at again, and it would be very wrong of me to seek to pre-judge in any way what when we have the evidence before us we will conclude.
  I make only one general observation. It is probable that if a change were to be decided on there would have to be some understanding, some constitutional convention, governing the matter and it would have to be made absolutely clear that it would be considered no business of the Public Accounts Committee or, I would say with respect, of the House to question in what precise direction of academic effort the universities expended their money. Whether the study, for example, of Beowulf at Oxford should or should not continue is a matter that I would have thought should be left to Oxford to decide. It is certainly a matter on which I and, I would imagine, many members of my Committee would hardly feel competent to offer intelligent comment. There would have to be some understanding that there would be no interference of that kind.
  Whether a future Committee will recommend such a change to the House, and whether a future Chairman will stand at this Dispatch Box announcing it, I do not know. The only reason why I mention it today is that it is an important issue on which I think it would be useful that, before the Public Accounts Committee again considers the matter, opinion outside and, above all, opinion in the universities should have an opportunity to express itself and to crystallise. That would be a useful process and I for my part will not seek to pre-judge the issue. May I, with great respect, express the hope that the House will be disposed similarly not to do so. I hope that the House will not think that it is a mark of my inherent conservatism, spelt with a small "c" on this occasion, that I approach the question of changing the practice of many years with a certain measure of caution.
  I come now to a very different issue—that of the provision of service facilities on motorways. This is dealt with in paragraphs 36–42 of the Report. There is a comment on it in the Treasury Minute in reply. The issue seemed to my Com-
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  mittee to be one of ensuring that the public obtained full value for these concessions. As a former Minister of Transport, I am as conscious as any man of the immense cost of motorway construction. On the other hand, concessions for Service stations are very valuable and it was very much the view expressed by my Committee, and the view put to the Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Transport when he gave evidence before us, that the approach to this problem should have a strong commercial tinge on the part of the Ministry. We were a little surprised to be told that the highest tenders for these concessions had not been accepted in one or two cases because the Ministry felt that the tenderer would not be able to carry out his bargain on those terms.
  I do not want—because they were properly excluded from the Report—to give the names of the tenderers concerned, but I assure the House that they were all organisations of great solidity and substance, and it seemed to my Committee that the Ministry had not been as zealous as it might have been in pursuing the desirability of maintaining a high return to the public. There was some discussion on the important issue of the extent to which these payments should take the form of a fixed rent or a royalty basis. The leases are long—in most cases for 50 years—and, judging without pessimism and without reflecting on the economic policy of any Government, it seemed reasonable to assume that over such a long period there would be a certain measure of inflation.
  It seemed to the Committee therefore that greater emphasis might be placed on the royalty basis. It seemed plain that traffic would go on increasing and that such a basis is a better hedge against inflation than a fixed payment with a long lease of this sort. I was disappointed with the Department's reply in the Treasury Minute, but I hope that it gives some indication that there will be exercised in future a greater determination to obtain an adequate return to the public for valuable concessions in respect of a very large measure of public expenditure.
  We had a considerable discussion on the defence side, but I propose to refer only to a number of items affecting the Army. I think that the impression was formed by my colleagues, and I confirm

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  it, that in some respects financial control in the Army Department requires improvement. Admittedly, those who formerly served in subordinate capacities in the Army may be rather surprised at that, since our impression at that time was that financial control in the Army was rigid to the point of ruthlessness, but the cases with which we dealt show that there is here a field for some improvement.
  I should like to take quickly one or two of these items. Work in Hong Kong is dealt with in paragraphs 107 to 114 of the Report. The ordering of accommodation stores for a hospital in Hong Kong before Treasury approval had been given for the construction of the hospital indicates, and I think it was generally admitted, some lapse in the system of control. The question of the soldiers' married quarters at Dills Corner, Hong Kong, is more difficult, since it is the perennial difficulty in all Service matters that forecasts of operational needs continue to change. On the other hand, it is clear that some money might have been saved if a little more foresight had been exercised.
  There is the matter in paragraph 119 of the arrangement made with the German Government in respect of what I can call our contribution to the German industrial injuries scheme for German civilian personnel employed by British Forces in Germany. This had the effect that payment was made in advance on a substantially larger scale than necessary to provide the Germans with an interest-free loan across the exchanges, for some time exceeding £1 million. The arrangement is one for which the Committee felt little enthusiasm since it involves British provision of money for a scheme in which we have no control over claims. It was agreed in discussion that the Treasury should have been brought into this matter at an earlier stage.
  The manufacture of the new machine gun and tripod is dealt with in paragraphs 120 to 125 of our Report. Here again there was a considerable increase in expenditure over what was estimated. It certainly appeared that the cost of manufacturing this weapon at the Enfield factory was a great deal higher than the cost if it were purchased from the manufacturers. I note that in the Treasury Minute there is apparently no question
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  at present, without prior reference to the Treasury, of the resumption of manufacture of this weapon at Enfield.
  On the other hand, having been slightly critical of some aspects of the Army Department, I am glad to see from the Treasury Minute that the Department has accepted our recommendation that it should consider the possibility of using commercial types of 10-ton vehicles instead of manufacturing a special type for the Army. On the evidence before us it appeared that the commercial type would cost about half the cost of the specially manufactured Army model. I am glad to see also that the Army Department has accepted our suggestion that it should consult, in particular, the oil and construction companies which use heavy vehicles of this kind in conditions probably at least as strenuous as those to which many Army vehicles are exposed and in at least as difficult parts of the world. There may be some economy to be obtained in this way. I should like to express my pleasure at the attitude which the Army Department has adopted towards this matter.
  In paragraphs 18 to 27 of the Report we deal with the Concord aircraft contract. The only point on which I should like to comment is that we were told that this agreement is likely to be the prototype of other agreements for the internationally shared manufacture of aircraft. This being so, its terms are more important even than its scale alone demands. My Committee was very much concerned with one point. We were told that in order to maintain roughly a balanced cost between the two countries some contracts for certain items were placed not necessarily with the best subcontractor but with the one who would most easily bring the general cost as between one country and another into balance. This may be a reasonable way of sharing the cost, but it has certain rough edges if it is to be the general practice as between countries in respect of future shared aircraft construction and I am glad to see that the Department has said that it will enter into discussion with the French—in my view very properly—on the question of this method of dealing with the problem.
  Those are the particular matters on which I thought that I might be of assistance to the House and of which,

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  no doubt, the Financial Secretary has taken note. However, I should not like to leave a false impression with the House. The Committee of Public Accounts, in the nature of things, has the duty of investigating matters where it seems, prima facie, that something, great or small, has gone wrong. Properly and naturally, the Comptroller and Auditor General and his staff draw our attention not to what is going right but to what has gone wrong or may have gone wrong. The fact that I have put to the House a number of examples where, in our view, improvement could be effected—and I am glad to say that in some cases it is being effected—we were told in evidence that remedial steps were taken in many cases some time ago—should not blind us or people outside to the fact that these are clearly exceptional.
  No one who has served at the Treasury—and I am sure that the Financial Secretary will agree with me here—or who has been Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee is complacent about the loss or waste of public money. In view of the present level of taxation, all concerned with the spending of public money have a special duty to make sure that it is not wasted. On the other hand, when one considers the scale of Government expenditure, the many thousands of millions of pounds expended under these different heads, the sums about which we have reported, and about which it was our duty to report, are perhaps not very large. I do not say that in any attempt to induce the Financial Secretary other than to conduct the control of the Department with the vigilance which his office demands. I am sure that he does that. I say it lest the fact that I have made a speech dealing with criticisms should induce hon. Members or anybody outside to get a wrong sense of proportion.
  On the whole, we can be very proud of our system of financial control in this country. We can certainly be extremely proud of the integrity of our Civil Service. We can be reassured that if, through errors of judgment or delay, some money has been wasted—and I suppose that for all our efforts some money will always be wasted—there was not a hint throughout our investigation of any irregularity of any other kind. When one considers
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  how detailed are our examinations, that can be a matter of very considerable reassurance to the House.
  I promised that I would not attempt to cover all the ground or to talk out my Amendment. I must, therefore, redeem that promise and resume my seat.
  4.33 p.m.
  Mr. Tam Dalyell: With the exception of yourself, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I find myself, incredibly, as the longest toothed member of the Public Accounts Committee present, having served under my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and my right hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton). Therefore, perhaps I could take it on myself, on behalf of the Committee, to express our thanks for the non-partisan way in which the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) presided over us and to say, without being unduly pompous, that he measures up to the standards which we expect from a Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee. He certainly has gone to great lengths to do his homework—not that I normally say such things to former Cabinet Ministers. Anyway, the right hon. Gentleman will know what I mean.
  I echo the remarks of the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames about Sir Edmund Compton, who is a great public servant, and the work which his Department does for the Committee. I should also like to acknowledge Dr. Taylor's work as Clerk of the Committee and that of Mr. Platt, who represents the Treasury during our deliberations.
  I wish to draw attention to the Treasury Minute on the Scottish new town of Livingston and to echo what it says, namely, that
  "Departments should fully utilise the existing arrangements for the interchange of information about contractors and have again drawn their existence to the attention of all the Departments which are involved in the letting of public contracts."
  The case of the Livingston New Town Development Corporation represents one example of the way in which this Committee is really effective. All the hours which we spend on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, I suspect that we do not grudge because, at the end of the day, here is an instance of Westminster having some effect in Whitehall.

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  There is one item which I wish to raise, particularly as the Minister responsible is present. I refer to the question of the universities and the working of the University Grants Committee. I realise that this afternoon is not the time to go into controversial views on how the University Grants Committee might be reformed. I have not given him notice of this question, but I should like to ask the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames whether he would care to interrupt my speech to say how he thinks that the Public Accounts Committee should proceed in considering whether we should investigate university expenditure. He said in his speech that the universities should have a chance to put their views on this very controversial topic. I concur with this view. Perhaps the right. hon. Gentleman would care to interrupt me to say what his thinking is on this subject.
  Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The hon. Gentleman has been good enough to invite me to intervene. I do not think that I can help him very much, because the new Committee for this Session has not yet met and it would be presumptuous of me, before discussion with my colleagues, to outline even tentatively a line of approach to the practical handling of this difficult matter. I hope that my own observations this afternoon, if reported, will start some discussion on this matter which I am sure would be of help to the Public Accounts Committee when it considers this matter, as no doubt it will. However, as I say, it would be presumptuous of me from this Box to lay down procedure for the Committee. The Committee must consider the matter itself, and I would rather await the advice and guidance of my colleagues on the Committee before committing myself to anything definite.
  Mr. Dalyell: May I then turn, finally, to a subject which may not come within the purview of the Public Accounts Committee as it at present exists but which is certainly of national concern. I refer to the increase in costs of research. Our understanding is that over the last five years the cost of research has increased annually by about 15 per cent. To use the picturesque example of the noble Lord, Lord Bowden, if this went on until the year A.D. 2,000 the entire gross national product of Great Britain would be
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  involved in research. This is clearly an absurdity. Therefore, somehow or other, we must, rationally one hopes, consider the matter of increasing research costs. The question then arises of the machinery by which we should do this.
  Perhaps the greatest difficulty is establishing any criterion by which the usefulness or otherwise of pure research can be judged. Much research is worth while for its own sake, but, clearly, we cannot go on expanding to the absurd point at which anything like a high proportion of the gross national product is involved in research. Therefore, either consideration of the increasing costs of research must come within the scope of a Select Committee of this House—perhaps a subcommittee of the Public Accounts Committee—or there must be a reform of the University Grants Committee.
  I should like to see a change made in the University Grants Committee so that for the expensive sciences at any rate there would be a small executive body of scientists seconded for two or three years dealing with expenditure on physics, chemistry, engineering and biology on a national basis. This would get rid of the absurd situation whereby one of the new sciences, perhaps developing rather on the fringe of one of the established sciences, has to compete for cash inside one university, possibly against the claims of mediæval French or of some other science or of mathematics. Surely, allocation of money between sciences should be done on the basis of a national decision, and this could in turn perhaps be done by a small number of people seconded for two or three years with a live participation in a particular science.
  I offer these thoughts because when, for instance, those responsible for C.E.R.N. came before the Public Accounts Committee, or latterly when the universities have come before the Public Accounts Committee, this has emerged as a considerable problem and one which is worthy of our attention. I hope that when we discuss the rôle of the Public Accounts Committee in looking at the universities, the problem of the expensive sciences will be gone into. It might be much more meaningful in our deliberations if we could follow the suggestion of the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames and have evidence from the universities produced

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  before us before we reach any kind of decision.
  4.42 p.m.
  Mr. John Biffen: I should like to echo the words of the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) about the felicitous chairmanship under which the Committee of Public Accounts operated last Session. The hon. Member has referred to himself as being the doyen of members and I am the most junior. It would, therefore, perhaps be fitting if I were to join him in saying with what pleasure we served under the chairmanship of my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) and how much we appreciated the work that was done to enable us to conduct our operations by the Comptroller and Auditor General and his staff and by Dr. Taylor, and the advice that was tendered by Mr. Platt.
  I should like to make a brief comment on one specific item which is referred to in the comments of the Treasury on the Committee's Report. It is on page 2 of the Treasury Minute in reference to the Concord project. This was touched upon by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames and to some extent follows the remarks made by the hon. Member for West Lothian on the problems of research.
  The Treasury comment is that
  "While it is accepted that further studies in this field might be useful, it would not seem appropriate to undertake them on a purely national basis."
  The Treasury was referring to a suggestion to examine further the advantages and disadvantages of the cost-sharing system which was operating in the Concord project. We learn that
  "It is proposed … to invite the French authorities to participate at an appropriate stage in a review of the considerations relevant to the determination of cost-sharing arrangements and the different systems that might be practicable or desirable in particular circumstances."
  If I had arbitrarily to choose any item from the Treasury Minute and from the work of the Public Accounts Committee last Session, I would choose the examination of the Concord project, very largely for the reasons advanced this afternoon by my right hon. Friend that it could be the forerunner of a series of arrangements
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  which concern multinational work on large, complex technological projects.
  Very often, one is to some extent blackmailed by the argument that this is a great venture and pioneering work and that to criticise it would throw in jeopardy the whole future of Anglo-French relations. That kind of blackmail argument is one which must be guarded against with considerable vigilance. If the result of the Concord project is a complete inability to control costs, that project will not have laid the foundations for Anglo-French co-operation but will have laid the foundation for increasing recrimination between the British and French Governments as costs career out of hand subject to no meaningful control. Therefore, the recommendation made by the Public Accounts Committee could have real relevance for future relations, not merely in the procurement of aircraft, but in a great deal of other fairly advanced technological work.
  My anxiety on this point is sustained when one reads the whole story of the genesis and development of the Concord project. It seemed to me from the evidence which is available for all to read that some fairly primitive market research was conducted in a purely economic sense. I am still not clear whether the project was being developed for commercial reasons or for, as it were, technological investment in the future. I suspect that the argument that there will be fall-out from the project—I gather that if one is wildly contemporary, one now uses the term "spin-off"—becomes the ace of trumps and nothing can be advanced against it. I am highly suspicious of this situation.
  If a project which purports to be a commercial project is advanced on commercial grounds and it is argued that incidentally there are other benefits, particularly if they pertain to advanced technology, which is supposed to be fairly good in the arts of measurement, it is not unreasonable to ask for these advantages to be measured. The difficulty is compounded when more than one Government Department is involved—when, for example, there are two spending and two controlling Departments, namely, the Ministry of Aviation and its French counterpart and the French and the British Treasuries. This seems to me to be an acute dilemma.

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  Clearly, from the kind of developments of which we hear nowadays concerning the aircraft industry, whether we are pro-Common Market or not, there are indications that a great many of these developments will be European in character. This trend is likely to increase rather than to diminish. The Public Accounts Committee may feel that it has a special responsibility in this sphere because, for better or for worse, the whole Concord project came very much at the heart of political controversy about a year ago. One would hope that in the blinding heat of political controversy the crucial questions which are posed by developments of this kind have not been overlooked. Therefore, I shall look forward with interest to see what future revelations may come from an examination by the Public Accounts Committee of the Concord project in the light of the evidence that was gleaned last Session and in the light of the Treasury Minute.
  4.48 p.m.
  The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Niall MacDermot): I rise to reply to the debate slightly earlier than I had anticipated. This is, I believe, the fifth debate on Reports of the Public Accounts Committee. It is the first one during the period of the present Government. The position last year was that as the main concern of the Committee had been with the Ferranti missile contract, which had been the subject of a separate debate, it was not felt that there was an occasion for a special debate on the public Accounts Committee Report.
  In any event, this occasion is also of significance as it is the first debate on a Report of the Public Accounts Committee under the chairmanship of the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter), to whom all hon. Members who have spoken have paid their just tributes. As the right hon. Gentleman pointed out, I am a member of the Committee, but I am a little peculiar in that I am an honorific and titular member, and so it is only through the printed word that I have been able to see how the right hon. Gentleman has maintained the very high standard set by his predecessors, to whom he paid tribute, and also has maintained the non-partisan approach which has existed for some time in the Committee.
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  The right hon. Gentleman is well qualified for his position. If he will allow me to say so, he has the mark of Cain on his brow because he has been a Treasury Minister. He was kind enough to point out to me on the first occasion that I stood at the Dispatch Box as Financial Secretary that I should find that I would never be quite the same again. I do not know whether he has yet recovered sufficiently to the point where he has learned how to say "Yes" again. If he has not, I can assure him that I am reliably informed that Treasury Ministers do, in the fullness of time, recover their full powers of speech.
  The transfer from the Treasury to the Public Accounts Committee certainly is not that of gamekeeper turned poacher but almost that of gamekeeper turned bishop, because my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister when speaking in his former Public Accounts Committee capacity referred to the holy inquisition of the Public Accounts Committee as compared with the secular arm of the Treasury. Be that as it may, there is a very close relationship between the Committee and the Treasury. Apart from my own membership, the Treasury Officer of Accounts, to whom the right hon. Gentleman paid a very generous tribute, is present technically as a witness but is there to render what assistance the Treasury can to the Committee.
  In general, the effect of the work of the Committee is much greater than perhaps appears on the surface. It is rather like the traditional iceberg. The reported minutes of proceedings and the Report itself of the Committee are the visible part. The invisible part which has perhaps by far the greatest effect is what is often called the deterrent effect of the Committee. I must say that I had not been long in the Treasury before I learned the effect in Whitehall of the words, "I hardly think that the Public Accounts Committee would approve of that". There are times when even a Treasury Minister may be tempted to try and break or stretch the rules, but the Public Accounts Committee is always there to keep us on the straight and narrow path.
  What makes the Committee so effective in its work is the long arm and the all-seeing eye of the Comptroller and Auditor General and his staff. To him again the right hon. Gentleman and other

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  hon. Members following him paid a generous tribute, in which I should like to join. He is a unique official in our constitution in being an officer of the House removable only on a Motion of both Houses of Parliament, and he has very considerable powers.
  Next year we are to celebrate the centenary of the Exchequer and Audit Department and, if imitation be the sincerest form of flattery, it seems that we are to pay a great compliment to him and his Department if the House sees fit to introduce legislation on the lines of the White Paper that has already been produced with proposals for a Parliamentary Commissioner, because it will not have escaped the attention of hon. Members that many of the proposals contained in that White Paper are modelled on the experience of the work of the Comptroller and Auditor General. The suggestion is that the House should bring into being a new officer of Parliament to assist us in our work and particularly to assist back benchers in their work as Members of Parliament in relation to the Executive. I say no more about that now. Perhaps we will have cause on another occasion.
  As I say, the right hon. Gentleman and the Committee have preserved their nonparty character. There was perhaps for some hon. Members an added incentive to do that this year because, although it is the first Report during the period of the present Administration, the expenditure which it has been examining was incurred under the previous one. The right hon. Gentleman must at times have found himself in a somewhat curious position in being the holy inquisitor on expenditure which he had already had a measure of responsibility for controlling at an earlier stage. I do not know if he felt himself in the position of the barrister in his dream of the hunting of the Snark. He was confronted with the Snark not only as prosecuting counsel and defending counsel but, when the time came for the summing-up, found that he was also the judge. The right hon. Gentleman will remember that on that occasion the Snark summed-up teh case so well that "it came to far more than the witnesses ever had said." It would not be becoming for me to suggest that at any point the Public
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  Accounts Committee could have achieved that in its Report. However, perhaps I am getting away from the subject of the debate, and I will now turn more to the contents of the Report.
  The field of the Public Accounts Committee's activities is continually widening. With its references to the position of the universities, the Committee has itself drawn attention to the possibility of further widening and this is the result of the great increase in the scope of public expenditure.
  In 1861 when the Committee was first set up on a Motion of Mr. Gladstone, the Appropriation Accounts totalled £69 million. For the year which the Committee has been considering, the sum was £6,003 million, which is not quite a hundredfold increase, but no doubt that centenary will also be achieved before long.
  "The object of the Committee would be to revise the accounts of the public expenditure after they had gone through the regular process of examination in the hands of the executive Government."
  Those are Mr. Gladstone's words when proposing the original Motion. As he said on a later occasion,
  "The Government had sought to ascertain what hon. Members were best qualified to undertake these duties, which were of a dry and repulsive kind."
  The rôle of the Committee is not to seek to control the level of public expenditure or its allocation between Departments but to see, as has been pointed out by the right hon. Gentleman, firstly that the moneys voted have been properly applied in accordance with accounting propriety and secondly that there has been effective and efficient financial control to see that the public gets the best possible value for money.
  In the early days of the Committee, its concern was principally with matters of accounting propriety, but nowadays increasingly the Committee is concerned with problems of efficient financial control. That is exemplified by the fact that, in its Report, out of the 22 items dealt with, 20 of them are dealing with such questions.
  I do not wish to detain the House by seeking to comment at length on these matters because, as the right hon. Gentleman has pointed out, we took the step

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  of laying the Treasury Minute in the form of a White Paper in time for the debate, as the Committee has not yet had time to comment on it in the ordinary way. Reference has been made to the Minute.
  May I first offer an apology on behalf of the Stationery Office for the error in the binding of the Report as it first appeared? I can assure the House that I was sufficiently diligent myself to have discovered that fact without anyone else pointing it out to me. The offending edition was withdrawn as early as possible, and properly bound copies are now available. I apologise that this should have occurred.
  Hon. Members have raised a number of specific matters on which I should like to comment briefly.
  First, the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames dealt with the passage in the Report and the Treasury Minute referring to the Post Office procedure for ordering telephones and various equipment. The House will have noticed that in the Treasury Minute the reply is in the name of the Post Office. This is because the matters with which it deals are solely within the scope and responsibility of the Post Office. The House will have noticed that in the reply my right hon. Friend and his Department say that they will take the views of the Committee fully into account in reviewing the procedure when the present contracts fall in. The only general comment that I would like to make on that in response to what the right hon. Gentleman said is to confirm that it is the Treasury's view that generally we favour competition unless there are good and specific advantages to be gained from non-competitive contracts.
  The question of the universities was raised in a very constructive way by the right hon. Gentleman. The Committee itself said that it would like to look further into this matter, and the House will not expect me to say a great deal about this much-debated, difficult, and thorny question. It is one which has exercised various Public Accounts Committees and also the Treasury and other Ministers in previous Administrations.
  We all have two common objects in view: first, to ensure that here, as elsewhere, there is the greatest possible value
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  for money, and, secondly, to ensure that academic freedom is maintained. The question is how we can achieve those objects and what is the most effective way of doing it; and we must not allow our judgment to be clouded one way or the other by emotive phrases.
  There is no doubt that we want to see that the most up-to-date techniques of control and management are employed. This is not always an easy matter, but real progress has been made in this field, and it does not follow—like the right hon. Gentleman I do not want to pre-judge the question at all—that these things would be better achieved by making the University Grants Committee accountable to Parliament, or that they ought to be gained—if they would be so gained—by any restriction of academic freedom.
  The last independent body to examine this question was the Robbins Committee which went into the matter very fully, and in particular studied the practice abroad and compared our practice with that of other countries. In the result, it attached the greatest importance to the maintenance of the existing freedom from detailed accountability. This advice was accepted by the previous Administration, and remains the basis of the present Government's policy. Clearly any change in the matter would have very far-reaching effects, and the House will not expect me to comment one way or the other. I do not want to give the impression either that I am slamming doors, or opening them. I wish to leave the door where it is, without specifying too precisely what that point is.
  The right hon. Gentleman suggested that as a result of the Committee as it were opening up this question there might be an opportunity for opinions to be expressed outside, for the matter to be discussed, and that this might help people in a dispassionate way, and without pre-judgment, to look again at the question. I am sure that we all welcome this in the spirit in which the right hon. Gentleman proposed it.
  Mr. Dalyell: Would the Financial Secretary accept that ever since the publication of the Robbins Report there has been quite a change in the climate of informed opinion on this issue, particularly in the serious magazines and journals

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  which deal with university affairs? In the light of this, can we take it that the Treasury will lend its good offices to make it possible for the Public Accounts Committee to follow up the suggestion made by the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) that at least we should seek university opinion on this?
  Mr. MacDermot: I do not think that it would be right for me to comment on a matter of that kind unless and until there is some official approach from the Committee, nor do I feel disposed to try to express a personal opinion on the state of public opinion on this matter.
  The right hon. Gentleman then turned his attention to the passage in the Report dealing with motorways and the service areas on them, and again he will have noticed that the views of the Committee have been noted on this topic. He expressed the view, which the Committee clearly shared, that the Ministry's approach should have a very strong commercial tinge. I think that the Ministry accepts that there can, and should, be a commercial approach to the fixing of the rent. It also feels that the rent should include a fixed element and the question is one of balance, of deciding the proportion which that element should be in relation to the whole.
  I would like to draw the attention of the House to a matter which is referred to in the Treasury Minute but which, as the evidence did not go into it, was not brought to the attention of the Committee, and that is that there are occasions when there is a positive advantage in having a fixed element in the contract, not only on grounds of ordinary prudence and caution in ensuring that there will be at least a certain return on the capital expenditure which the Ministry has incurred in fixed standings, and so on—I think this was dealt with in the evidence—but also because there have been occasions when contractors have been somewhat slow and dilatory in their work of getting the service area built up and getting it functioning. The advantage of having a fixed element in the rent is that it provides a real incentive to the contractor to get on with the job and to instal the service area as promptly as he can. I think that this is a matter of
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  judgment, and in exercising its judgment on it the Ministry will have the benefit of the views expressed by the Committee.
  The right hon. Gentleman then drew attention to a number of specific points in respect of which the Committee said that waste or extravagance in one form or another had occured in the Army Department. I do not want to comment on them except to say a few words on the very involved question of the German industrial injuries scheme, which I have sought to understand. I think that the difficulty arose over a decision which was taken by all the sending countries to seek to make a capital payment in respect of certain matters which, under the German practice, would be dealt with in the form of a pension or annuity. Later, the sending countries reversed that decision, and it was essentially this which led to the accumulation. The reversal of the decision did not take place until 1963, so this accumulation across the exchanges of more than £1 million occurred as a result of a decision which was taken jointly by the three sending countries and the opportunity to recover it arose only about three years later. I understand that the balance will have been reduced virtually to zero by the end of this year.
  On the question of the machine gun and tripod, I confirm the Treasury Minute. There will be no automatic resumption of production at Enfield. This matter will be examined when the time comes. As for the question of the 10-ton vehicles, I again confirm that consultations with both the oil and construction companies have already begun, and that certain commercial vehicles have been acquired. Tests are shortly to take place.
  One or two hon. Members referred to the question of the Concord. The right hon. Gentleman drew attention to one passage in the evidence which suggested that sub-contracts for the Concord were not necessarily placed with the best subcontractors but with those that would most easily bring the general costs into balance. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman would not want to give a misleading impression which might undermine confidence in a matter as important as this. I concede that that can be an element in the decision, but it is only fair to point out that when the accounting officer gave evidence on the

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  matter, at Questions 660 and 661, and was asked to say how these two factors related to each other—that is to say, the requirement of efficiency and the requirement of achieving a balance as between the countries—his answer was:
  "One would hope to be able to reconcile the two factors, but ultimately it must be the division of work as between the two countries. I hope that in hardly any cases will there be a sharp distinction between the two factors you have mentioned."
  The next question asked him whether the predominant consideration was to keep the costs as easily divided as possible rather than the efficient discharge of the sub-contract, and he replied, "Yes". All that I wish to stress is that in practice these matters sometimes tend to work themselves out more happily and more favourably than might appear from a purely theoretical and analytical approach.
  The hon. Member of Oswestry (Mr. Biffen) referred to the specific point of the Public Account Committee's recommendation that an independent investigation should be made of the sharing system provided for in the 1962 Agreement. I agree with him that this was one of the most important suggestions contained in the Report. The Government accept that a study of this problem would be useful, but they do not think that it would be appropriate, in a collaborative project of this kind, to undertake it on a purely national basis. They therefore propose to invite the French authorities to participate, at an appropriate stage, in a review of the advantages and disadvantages of the different possible cost-sharing systems.
  In this connection the House will remember that other important co-operative projects have now been entered into with the French Government since the Concord agreement was concluded, and that lessons should be learned from these. It is clearly in our interests as well as in the interests of the French to compare the different projects to see
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  what lessons are to be learned from them. Under the Concord agreement there is an agreement to share the work, each country paying for the costs of the work of its own country. Therefore, it is for each country solely to devise and be responsible for the control of the work in its own country, because each has a common interest in keeping the costs as low as posssible.
  Under some of the other arrangements, while there has been an aim at sharing the work there has been an additional agreement about sharing the costs. Each country pays not only 75 per cent. of its own costs but also 25 per cent. of the costs of the other country. These are the sort of different arrangements which should be studied and compared, and we shall learn what lessons we can from them. That is what we propose to do.
  I leave the detailed comments there and conclude by welcoming and agreeing with the general comments made by the right hon. Gentleman at the end of his speech on the general management of public expenditure. As he says, it is the function of the Public Accounts Committee to find fault, to criticise and to point out what is going wrong. The result of this exercise over the year, while drawing attention to many useful points, has been to leave the right hon. Gentleman and, I hope, the Committee, with the general impression that we have a well-proven system of financial control, which is supported by a Civil Service of the highest integrity.
  Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Main Question again proposed.
  Mrs. Harriet Slater (Lord Commissioner of the Treasury): I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
  Committee tomorrow.

  COUNTY COURTS JURISDICTION
  5.17 p.m.
  The Attorney-General (Sir Elwyn Jones): I beg to move,
  That the County Courts Jurisdiction Order, 1965, a draft of which was laid before this House on 22nd November, be approved.
  This Order increases from £400 to £500 the jurisdiction of the county courts in actions founded on contract or tort and actions for money recoverable by Statute. It makes the necessary consequential amendments in the County Courts Act, 1959, and the Solicitors Act, 1957. The House will not need me to remind it that there has been a substantial fall in the value of money since 1938, when the upper limit of the jurisdiction of county courts in the actions that I have mentioned was fixed at £200. Taking the value of the £ in 1938 to be 20s., in 1955 it was worth 7s. 10½d. and now it is worth only 6s.
  The effect of this fall in the value of money has been to take away from the jurisdiction of the county courts cases which would formerly have been within their jurisdiction and to place a corresponding burden on the High Court. The problem was looked at in 1955, and in that year Section 1(1) of the County Courts Act raised the limit to £400. Section 1(5) of that Act enabled the jurisdiction of the county court to be further increased to £500 and provided for the necessary consequential provisions to be made by Order in Council, provided a draft Order was laid before Parliament and approved by Resolution of each House. This provision was replaced by Section 192 of the consolidating County Courts Act, 1959, and it is under that Section of that Act that the present Order is made.
  As I have said, the £ of 1938 was worth 7s. 10½d. in 1955 and at present it is worth 6s. The House will readily see that a greater increase than 100 per cent. would have been justified in 1955. Indeed, the jurisdiction would have had to be raised to £666 were it intended that it should keep pace with the decline in the value of the £ since 1938. However, the Administration at that time thought that it was desirable to proceed by stages, so as to give county courts time to absorb any additional work.
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  The increase to £500 now will therefore do little more than restore the jurisdiction of the county courts to what it was in 1955. The House may care to know that it is estimated that the result of this increase of jurisdiction will be about 200 cases more each year to be tried in the county courts.
  I now turn to the details of the Order. Paragraph 1 substitutes £500 for £400 in Sections 39 and 40 of the 1959 Act. Those Sections deal respectively with the jurisdiction of the county court in actions of contract or tort and in actions for money recoverable by Statute. In addition, Paragraph 1 makes several consequential amendments in other provisions of the 1959 Act and of the Solicitors Act, 1957. Perhaps the House will want me to deal briefly with those consequential amendments, although I cannot pretend that it is material for excitement.
  First, in Section 41 of the 1959 Act, which enables a plaintiff to abandon the excess of his claim over £400 in order to bring his action in the county court, £500 is substituted for £400. In Section 44 of the same Act, which enables a defendant to require a county court action for more than £40 to be transferred to the High Court on giving security for the amount claimed and costs not exceeding £450, £550 is substituted for £450.
  In Section 45 of the 1959 Act, which deals with the transfer of an action from the High Court to the county court where the claim does not exceed £400, £500 is substituted. In the important Section 47 of the 1959 Act, which provides that, if a plaintiff in the High Court recovers less than £300 he shall not be entitled to more than county court costs unless the High Court otherwise orders, £400 is substituted for £300.
  In Section 80 of the Act, which enables an infant to sue in a county court for wages not exceeding £400 as if he were of full age, £500 is substituted, in Section 136 of the Act of 1959, which enables an application for the attachment of a debt or for leave to issue execution in respect of a debt not exceeding £400 to be transferred to the county court, £500 is substituted for £400.
  In the entry in the First Schedule to the 1959 Act, which gives the county court jurisdiction under Section 136 of the Law of Property Act, 1925, to receive into court a debt not exceeding £400 where

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  there are conflicting claims to it, £500 is substituted. In Section 33(2) of the Solicitors Act, 1957, which gives the county court jurisdiction to allow an action to be brought out of time for the recovery of a solicitor's charges and to make an order for the taxation of a solicitor's bill on the application of the party chargeable, the solicitor or a third party, where the costs relate to contentious work done in the county court and do not exceed £400, £500 is substituted.
  It is intended that the draft Order should come into force on 1st January, 1966. The Schedule to the Order, as the House will see, contains transitional provisions authorised by Section 192(3) of the 1959 Act. These are modelled on the provisions contained in paragraph 3 of the First Schedule to the County Courts Act, 1955.
  In general, the amendments made by the Order will apply to proceedings begun before, as well as after, 1st January, 1966, but I must emphasise that the amendment made in Section 47 of the Act of 1959—dealing with the provision that if a plaintiff in the High Court recovers less than £300, he shall not be entitled to more than county court costs unless the High Court otherwise orders—and raising the figure to £400 will not apply to proceedings begun before 1st January, 1966. The result is that a plaintiff in an action brought in the High Court before that date who recovers judgment even after that date for a sum exceeding £300 but not exceeding £400 will not be restricted to county court costs.
  Paragraph (5) of the Schedule deals with the effect of the Order on the jurisdiction of the Mayors and City of London courts.
  The Order does not deal with the costs recoverable in cases brought in the county court under this extended jurisdiction. This is a matter for the County Court Rule Committee, which, at its meeting on 19th November, 1965, passed an amendment of Order 47, Rule 21(3) which will enable the registrar, when taxing the costs in such a case, to allow such larger sums as he thinks reasonable in respect of the principal items in scale 4 of the scales of costs.
  That seems to be a reasonable way to meet the problem of costs resulting from
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  the increase in jurisdiction. Accordingly, I commend the Order to the House as a useful and necessary measure.
  5.28 p.m.
  Mr. Peter Thomas: I am sure that the whole House will be grateful to the Attorney-General for his careful and lucid explanation of the Order. I have no doubt that the House will also wish to approve the Order. When the jurisdiction of the county court in actions founded on contract and tort was extended in 1955 from £200 to £400 by the County Courts Act, consideration was then given to whether or not the upper limit should be £500. However, it was then felt that to increase the jurisdiction so considerably at that stage might invite the risk of swamping the county courts with too much extra work, and, possibly, altering their traditional character.
  It was, therefore, decided that the upper limit should be £400, but that that figure should not be inflexible. Also, in case it was felt in future that an increase was justified, Parliament was given the right, by affirmative Resolution, to increase the amount to £500. That is what the Order is about. It is now more than 10 years since that Act came into force and I think it will be agreed that the county courts had responded efficiently and effectively to the increase in jurisdiction that then was obtained.
  The Attorney-General will, I am sure, agree that this increase in jurisdiction in 1955 would have been given much earlier to the county courts if the provisions of the Legal Aid and Advice Act could have been extended to the county courts earlier than was the case. Be that as it may, the case for increasing the jurisdiction to £500 is a strong one and the right hon. and learned Gentleman put that case most fairly as the fall in the value of money and the continuing trend in that direction. That means that this increase in jurisdiction does little more than restore the jurisdiction of the county courts to what it was in 1955. Since the Administration of Justice Act, 1964, many additional county court judges have been appointed and further appointments can be made under this Measure should the need arise.
  I am grateful to the Attorney-General for what he said about costs and the

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  decision of the County Court Rule Committee. County court scales have been out of date for some time. This increase in jurisdiction makes them even more so and while I do not want to say anything more at this stage on this matter, I merely point out that there is an extremely strong case for a review of these scales. It would not be helpful to the House if, at this stage, I went further into the Order, which is justified and for which a case has been made out.
  Mr. Daniel Awdry: I intervene briefly to ask whether the Government have any intention of lifting the figure of jurisdiction beyond £500 in the fairly near future. I realise that this would need legislation but, nevertheless, the question needs to be asked.
  The figure of £500 is, I suggest, far too low for some contracts, bearing in mind the change in the value of money to which the right hon. and learned Gentleman referred. I have had some experience of county court procedure. It is a good procedure because it is quick and fairly cheap for litigants. I am certain that greater use could be made of it. In my part of the world the court lists are by no means over-full and I am therefore sure that more use could be made of the county court.
  To give a typical example, I have had some experience of building disputes—arguments about building contracts. Often the amount in dispute in these cases is over £500 but a little less than £1,000. If these sort of cases could go to the county court instead of the High Court a great deal of help would be given to litigants. Let us face it, going to the High Court today in these cases is a rather long-drawn-out procedure, and there are complicated pleadings which do not arise in the county court. If these sort of building disputes—involving sums of between £500 and £1,000—could go to the county court a great deal of time would be saved.
  In their enthusiasm for law reform, the Government have increased the jurisdiction of the county court and I now ask the Attorney-General to let us know whether there are any intentions in the mind of the Government to increase it still further.
  The Attorney-General: I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Member for Conway (Mr. Peter Thomas) for giving a fair wind to the Order and for his remarks. I can reply briefly to the hon. Member for Chippenham (Mr. Awdry) by saying that I do not think that there is any present intention on the part of the Government to raise the jurisdiction beyond £500. However, this is clearly something which will have to be considered as part of the inquiry recommended by the Law Commission into simplifying the procedure relating to actions for personal injuries. Our minds are certainly not closed to this possibility, but the limit of £500 contained in the Order is all that is presently contemplated.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That the County Court Jurisdiction Order, 1965, a draft of which was laid before this House on 22nd November, be approved.

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT
  Huntingdon and Peterborough (Amendment) Order 1965, dated 18th November 1965, [copy laid before the House, 25th November] approved.—[Mr. MacColl.]

  RATING OF INDUSTRY (SCOTLAND)
  5.36 p.m.
  The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. William Ross): I beg to move,
  That the Rating of Industry (Scotland) Order 1965, dated 16th November, 1965, a copy of which was laid before this House on 18th November, be approved.
  The Local Government (Financial Provisions) (Scotland) Act, 1963, provided in Section 10 for full re-rating in Scotland at the time of the next revaluation—that is, next year, 1966. It also made special provision to allow the Secretary of State to postpone re-rating by Order if he thought it necessary. When the 1963 Act was going through Parliament the then Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Argyll (Mr. Noble), made it clear that in his opinion re-rating should not be introduced in 1966 if, after revaluation, the imbalance between industrial valuation and the

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  valuation of other subjects was not substantially redressed—in other words, if the share of the rate burden borne by other classes of property did not increase somewhat and thereby prevent an undue burden falling on industry.
  Before I could make a decision about whether derating of industry should be continued, I had to see the preliminary estimates made by the assessors of the total valuation of the various classes of property in the 1966 valuation, and I am grateful to the assessors for providing this factual information to me at a time when they were hard pressed with the work of revaluation. The provisional estimates for 1966 show that, in fact, the state of imbalance which led to the postponement of rerating in 1966 will not be redressed.
  On the basis of the assessors' estimates, rerating would increase the industrial share of the rate burden from 12·6 per cent. to 20·8 per cent. or, in money terms, from £14 million to £23 million on the 1964–65 figures. The House will agree that this is indeed a staggering increase which would considerably affect the ability of Scottish industry to meet competition. While there is no absolute way of deciding what the fair share of any one class of property is, there are good reasons for saying that this would have given Scottish industry at this particular time an unduly large share of the rate burden.
  But there is more to it than alleviating the absolute burden of rates. There is also the relative position of Scottish industry vis-à-vis industry in England and Wales, which we must always keep in mind. The share of the rate bill in England and Wales paid by industry is at present about 14·8 per cent. while, as I have said, Scottish industry's share if de-rating stopped now would be 20·8 per cent. Derating brings it down to 12 per cent. and, if account is taken of Scottish industry's structure, probably the proportionate burden on manufacturing industry would be about the same in both parts of the country. That is borne out by the investigations of the Scottish Council in relation to particular firms.
  This relation between England and Wales is important because the liability of rates is a marginal but, nevertheless, significant factor in determining the loca-
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  tion of manufacturing industry. The two-thirds increase in the rate bill of Scottish industry would put Scottish industry at a serious disadvantage and greatly discourage the settlement of new industry in Scotland. Therefore, the growth of new enterprise would be slowed down, and we would not wish to do this at a time when we are seeing an expansion and an industrial leaping ahead in Scotland. The position of Scottish industry as compared with industry in England will, therefore, be safeguarded by this Order.
  In considering whether it was right to make the Order, I also had to consider the other classes of property and how they would be affected by revaluation if industrial derating was continued. The most important point is that from the assessors' figures it seems likely that the main increase in valuation will be on commercial subjects as a whole—mainly shops and offices—where there has been considerable and buoyant expansion. As regards domestic ratepayers, the continuance of industrial derating would not lead to a further share of the rate burden, since the assessors' estimates of the 1966 revaluation show that even with derating the share of the rate burden borne by house property—both local authority property and private property—should decrease from 52·3 per cent. to 50·5 per cent.
  The other interest which I had to consider was that of the local authorities. We had full consultation with the local authorities, and they were unanimous that derating would have to be continued for a further period. It is only fair to say that the local authorities impressed on the Government that as a result of this decision they looked to the Government for additional financial help. That is not surprising—it is a fairly natural reaction, but not new—but on this occasion we were able to point out that the Government would later in the Session produce further plans in relation to the rate burden and the relationship between central Government and local government in financial matters. In the long term any Measures which attract industry, so providing additional sources of rating revenue, are, of course, beneficial to local authorities.
  To sum up, this Order is a measure to secure fair treatment for Scottish industry,

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  and to ensure that the efforts of Government and local authorities to assist industry in Scotland—which is so important if we are to be successful in reducing unemployment and in bringing new projects to Scotland—should not be harmed.
  5.43 p.m.
  Mr. Michael Noble: The Secretary of State for Scotland has said that in 1963 it was my view that the position should probably be renewed unless the imbalance which existed had changed. That is still my view, and I am confirmed in it by the figures of the present position that the right hon. Gentleman has given. I think that everyone in Scotland realises that our biggest single problem today is to maintain the impetus that has been started with new industries and expanding industries within Scotland. We are already aware of the high rate burdens that industry has to bear, so that this Order seems to me—and, I am sure, to my hon. Friends—to be just, sensible and right, and this is one of the rather rare occasions when, without any ulterior motives, we can congratulate the Secretary of State on bringing it forward.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That the Rating of Industry (Scotland) Order 1965, dated 16th November, 1965, a copy of which was laid before this House on 18th November, be approved.

  RATING [MONEY]
  Resolution reported,
  That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to make provision for the payment by instalments of rates on dwellings and for the granting of rebates in respect of such rates, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament—
  (1) of any sums required for making grants to any rating authority equal to three-quarters of the aggregate net amount of any rebates afforded by that authority under the said Act in any financial year in respect of the rates levied in each half respectively of that year, subject to the limitation that—

  (a) any such rebate is afforded to any person only in respect of the amount by which that person's reckonable rates for the half year in question determined in accordance with the said Act exceed £3 15s.; and

  (b) any amount which would otherwise be payable to any person by way of such rebate in respect of the rates levied in the half
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  year in question shall be reduced or extinguished in accordance with the said Act if the reckonable income of that person determined as aforesaid in such previous period of six months as may be so determined exceeds the following limit or such other limit as may from time to time be substituted therefor by order made by statutory instrument, that is to say—

  (i) if at the date of that person's application for the rebate he is married and living with his spouse, £260;

  (ii) in any other case, £208;

  apart from any increase of that limit provided for by the said Act in respect of a child;
  (2) of any increase attributable to the provisions of the said Act in the sums payable out of moneys provided by Parliament under any other Act.
  Resolution agreed to.

  HOUSE OF COMMONS (SERVICES)
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  That a Select Committee be appointed to advise Mr. Speaker on the control of the accommodation and services in that part of the Palace of Westminster and its precincts occupied by or on behalf of the House of Commons and to report thereon to this House:
  That the Committee do consist of Seventeen Members:
  That Mr. Herbert W. Bowden, Mrs. Braddock, Mr. Henry Brooke, Mr. Donald Chapman, Mr. Chichester-Clark, Sir Myer Galpern, Mr. William Hamling, Mr. Michael Jopling, Mr. Harold Lever, Sir Frank Pearson, Dame Edith Pitt, Mr. Edward Short, Mr. Sydney Silverman, Mr. David Steel, Dr. Shirley Summerskill, Mr. William Whitelaw and Sir Gerald Wills be Members of the Committee:
  That Five be the Quorum:
  That the Second Special Report from the Select Committee on Publications and Debates Reports in the last Session of Parliament be referred to the Committee:
  That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers and records; to sit notwithstanding any Adjournment of the House; and to report from time to time:
  That the Committee have power to appoint Sub-Committees and to refer to such Sub-Committees any of the matters referred to the Committee:
  That every such Sub-Committee do consist of Two Members of the Committee, together with not more than Five Members nominated by the House, after the Committee shall have made recommendations thereon:
  That Three be the Quorum of every such Sub-Committee:
  That every such Sub-Committee have power to send for persons, papers and records; to sit notwithstanding any Adjournment of the House; and to report to the Committee from time to time:
  That the Committee have power to report from time to time the Minutes of Evidence taken before Sub-Committees and reported by them to the Committee.—[Mr. Lawson.]
  5.48 p.m.
  Mr. Julian Snow: I seek elucidation on one point on the subject of accommodation. I understand that this Select Committee will be restricted to that which is at present occupied. Is there not a case for the examination of accommodation within the Palace that could be occupied but which is inadequately occupied at present?
  The Lord President of the Council (Mr. Herbert Bowden): The House will recall that when agreement was reached when Her Majesty advised Mr. Speaker that she was graciously pleased to divide up the Palace of Westminster, it was considered important that the Select Committee should look at the question of the House of Commons side of the accommodation of the Palace of Westminster, and the Report will deal with that. The Select Committee now to be appointed is purely to control the House of Commons side of the Palace.
  Nevertheless, it is hoped that a joint Committee of both sides—the other place and the House of Commons side—will be set up fairly soon to consider joint matters.
  Question put and agreed to.

  NORTHAMPTON AND COUNTY POLICE (AMALGAMATION)
  5.50 p.m.
  Mr. R. T. Paget: I beg to move,
  That the Northampton and County Police (Amalgamation) Order, 1965, a draft of which was laid before this House on 17th November, be not made.
  The purpose of this Order is to amalgamate the Northampton Borough police force with the county force. Northampton Borough has had a police force for a great many years—I think, ever since there were police forces. It is an extremely good force—no one has disputed that. Indeed, I think that the county's anxiety to get the borough police force amalgamated with it was in a certain measure based on its admiration and high assessment of the force it was getting.
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  I fully understand that there is a case for larger police forces. There is a case for bringing smaller forces into larger forces, particularly where the larger force is having considerable difficulties in policing its areas. I think that there is no doubt here that this amalgamation was in some measure for the benefit of the county at the expense of the borough.
  The matter was fought out. We appealed. We took a delegation to see my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary. My right hon. and learned Friend took a certain view. But then something else happened, a decision by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government that Northampton was to expand. From being a town of just over 100,000, it was to become a town of 220,000.
  A town of 220,000 would have a police force of something over 500, which would be ample for an independent police force. But this decision occurred after the original decision regarding Northampton's police force, after our appeal had been rejected, and after our visit to the Home Secretary. Thus, the position now is that Northampton's police force is to be abolished, but, in five, six or seven years, when the Minister of Housing and Local Government's plans have become a reality and Northampton is a borough, or probably then a city, of 220,000 people, we shall want to re-establish a police force of our own.
  The establishment of a new police force is always much more difficult than the enlargement of an old one. An old police force has its traditions, it has built itself up and won the confidence of the customer, in this case, the citizens of Northampton. Northampton has a most admirable chief constable whom everyone in Northampton will be terribly sorry to see go. Of course, he has a chance to become chief constable of the combined force, but, as far as that side of it goes, the county also has an admirable chief constable and I do not think for a moment that it has any intention of losing him.
  Thus, the Northampton borough force will be broken up for quite a short intermission and we shall then have to start again, without the tradition of our old force and without its continuity of over 100 years. All this is to happen just

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  for the sake of a short intermission. In the circumstances, I hope that my hon. Friend will think again and say that we should give it a year or two years; let us postpone it a little and see how the redevelopment of Northampton goes. Let us see whether it is really necessary to destroy this very good, effective and traditional force before we know for certain whether Northampton will in any event have to have a force of its own in the quite near future.
  That is the short and simple point. I shall not go over any of the matters which were dealt with in the discussions and at the inquiry. I am dealing simply with the new point, the decision to enlarge Northampton, a decision which seems to me to raise the whole question of timing.
  5.55 p.m.
  Mr. Julian Snow: I have hesitated to intervene in this somewhat narrow debate, narrow in the sense that it appears to refer only to Northampton and Northamptonshire, but the House will recall that a few days ago, in the small hours of Friday morning, we discussed the West Midlands Special Review Order, which I felt that I had to oppose. The significance of that Order was that Staffordshire was to be truncated and what is commonly known as the Black Country was to be detached, one consequence being that the police force of Staffordshire would to that extent be carved up.
  I intervene now because, although this debate is restricted to Northampton and Northamptonshire and it would be inappropriate for me to call in aid too much detail regarding Staffordshire, I want my hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of State to explain what are the rules or principles governing decisions to amalgamate or abolish police forces. The proposed abolition of the Northampton force seems to be strictly contrary to the action proposed to be taken in Staffordshire. In Staffordshire, a number of county boroughs are to be established under the Order. They will not have their own police forces, and, as I understood the Order and the speech of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government—though I should not charge him with too much specific comment on this—it was considered
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  desirable that in the carved off part of Staffordshire there should be an amalgamated police force for the so-called Black Country.
  I expect that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State may argue that there is merit in amalgamation, but this would seem contrary to what is proposed regarding the Staffordshire constabulary, in which case——
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Samuel Storey): Order. The hon. Gentleman must not discuss the Staffordshire case. All we are discussing tonight is whether or not this Order in respect of Northampton should be annulled.
  Mr. Snow: I thought that I was avoiding transgressing the bounds of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but, of course, I bow to your Ruling.
  I conclude by emphasising the general point of my remarks. Perhaps the Under-Secretary of State will comment on the rules prescribed in his Department for deciding when there should be amalgamations and when there should be carve-ups. It is as simple as that. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) has been very cogent in his reasoning and, for my part, I hold the view that there may well be a case for taking account of the shape of things to come. The reverse is true in the other case which I have mentioned but which I shall not develop further. There seems to be confusion about the rules guiding the Home Office in these matters.
  6.0 p.m.
  The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. George Thomas): In its long history Northampton has sent to the House many distinguished leaders, but I think that none has been a greater champion for it than my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget). He has established for himself a great reputation in the House. Nothing happens to Northampton without his bringing our attention to the matter. He has rightly brought our attention tonight to the question of the amalgamation of the police force with that of the county.
  I join at once with my hon. and learned Friend in a high tribute to the Northampton Borough police force. There is, of

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  course, no question of its efficiency. However, I hope that the House will feel that it will help if I explain first of all the background to this amalgamation scheme in particular and the schemes that we have in mind in general.
  The Police Act, 1964, conferred on the Home Secretary wider powers to promote the amalgamation of police areas where he is satisfied that it is in the interests of efficiency that there should be a combined police force. The practice, introduced by the then Home Secretary in 1964, is to review the policing of the country in the light of the current review of local government areas. The order in which amalgamations may be proposed depends on the progress made by the Local Government Commission and the decisions taken by the Minister of Housing and Local Government.
  Everybody will agree—as indeed all parties in the House agreed during the debates on the Final Report of the Royal Commission on the Police, and on the Police Bill—that there should be amalgamations and that larger forces are in the interests of efficiency. I know, of course, that a great deal of anxiety is often caused by specific amalgamation proposals like this one, and that on the whole most local authorities think that amalgamations are right in principle, but that they should not occur in their own area. But the Home Secretary is satisfied that it is right, where it seems that more effective policing may come from a combined force, to press on with proposals for the amalgamation of police areas and, if necessary, to use the compulsory powers contained in the Police Act, 1964, which followed on the recommendations of the Royal Commission on the Police which reported in 1962.
  The Royal Commission heard a great deal of evidence and carried out what is unquestionably the most thorough survey of the organisation of the police in this country since it was first established. The House will recall that the Royal Commission was strongly critical of the present number of relatively small police forces and considered that such forces had a number of inherent disadvantages. For instance, first, operationally such forces are not flexible enough to meet all the demands that may be placed upon them and the help of neighbouring forces may
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  have to be called upon. Second, the employment of specialists is difficult and training facilities tend to be inadequate. Third, promotion tends to stagnate, and it is harder than in a larger force to ignore the claims of seniority in filling vacancies. I visited a small police force the other day where it takes 20 years for a man to become a sergeant. In the Metropolitan area there are sergeants with five, six or seven years' service. This is, of course, an important factor. Also, discipline is difficult to enforce impartially in the smaller force. There is a danger of undesirable pressure being brought to bear—I am not saying this about Northampton—on the police by local people where there is a small force.
  Finally, it is not easy to find for a small force a chief constable with the right qualities for that exacting office, but I join with my hon. and learned Friend in paying tribute to the two chief constables involved here.
  Mr. Paget: Is not the trouble here that because there are some small bad police forces—that is certainly true—the Government are on this occasion abolishing one which is outstandingly good?
  Mr. Thomas: I shall deal with that matter.
  The Commission also expressed the view that forces numbering less than 200 suffer considerable handicaps and that the retention of forces numbering less than 350 in strength is justifiable only by special circumstances, such as the distribution of the population and the geography of the area. It regarded a force of 500 upwards, serving a population of about 250,000, as the optimum size.
  The figures quoted by the Royal Commission are a general guide and they must now be viewed against the background that since the Commission reported police forces have been increasing their establishments, partly as a necessary consequence of the introduction of a five-day working week. Also, the tendency now is for the ratio of population to police to come down. The figures of 200, 350 and 500 that the Royal Commission mentioned must; therefore, be regarded as underestimates.
  The Royal Commission recognised that a balance must be struck between the advantages of size and the advantage of

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  retaining a direct local link; but it concluded:
  "the weight of police evidence was to the effect that where there was a conflict between the claims of operational efficiency and of the local connection, it has been resolved on the whole too readily in favour of the local connection".
  The Commission recommended an immediate review of police areas, and also that the law should be amended to strengthen the Home Secretary's powers to promote the amalgamation of police forces. In particular, it thought that there should be no restriction as to the population of the areas affected and that no new force should be formed without the permission of the Home Secretary.
  The Commission had already in an earlier part of its Report—paragraph 128 —made it clear that a number of its members thought that a national police force would prove to be a more effective instrument for fighting crime and handling road traffic than the present large number of local forces, each possessing more autonomy than the Commission regarded as appropriate.
  It is implicit in the Commission's Report that it regarded the elimination of the smaller police forces as an essential condition of retaining a system of local forces. In other words, without a programme of amalgations the case for establishing a national force might well have prevailed in the Royal Commission's mind.
  The Royal Commission's Report was debated in the House of Commons on 9th May, 1963. The right hon. Member for Hampstead (Mr. Brooke), who was then Home Secretary, made it clear that he agreed in general with the Royal Commission's views on the advantages of larger police forces in the interests of the efficient policing of wider areas. The case for amalgamations was strongly endorsed by the then Opposition official spokesman, who stressed the importance of not allowing any Home Secretary to delay the necessary task of carrying out amalgamations.
  Further opportunities were afforded for the expression of views on amalgamation from all parts of the House by the debates on the Police Bill in 1963. The then Home Secretary announced his intention of asking the Inspectors of Constabulary to review each area from a police standpoint after the Local Government Com-
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  mission had announced its proposals for the reorganisation of the structure of local government in that area.
  The right hon. Gentleman also stated that it was not his intention to work by any statutory yardstick or arithmetical formula and that geography entered into the matter as well as the size of the forces. This side of the House welcomed the intention of the Police Act with regard to amalgamations and the debates on the relevant sections showed a wide acceptance of the need for more amalgamations The present trend of crime, with the enormous number of offences against the person and against property, together with the increasing sophistication of criminals and their methods and speed of movement, make measures to increase the efficiency of the police service a primary duty of government.
  Where efficiency will be gained by the amalgamation of police areas, no Home Secretary should hesitate to take the initiative if the police authorities concerned will not willingly amalgamate their forces. I should like to emphasise that the need for amalgamation does not imply that a particular police force is in itself inefficient. Many small forces have a high degree of efficiency within the limitations of their size, and they also have a proud tradition. The crucial point is that amalgamation will lead to greater efficiency of policing for the whole of the areas affected and not just for the local area which is to lose its independent police force.
  The fact, therefore, that this particular amalgamation is proposed between Northamptonshire and Northampton does not cast any reflection on the present county or county borough police forces. Indeed, it was made clear at the local inquiry that both forces are efficient within the limits of size. The essential point is that greater efficiency is likely to come from having one larger force serving the areas of the county borough and of the county. It is not just the area of the county borough with which we are concerned, but the areas as a whole.
  I have outlined the background to the current review of police areas following in the wake of the local government review.
  Already this review has produced important results which the Home Secretary is satisfied are moves in the right

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  direction and in conformity with the views expressed by the Royal Commission on the Police and by Parliament. The county borough of Solihull, newly created on the same date as the county borough of Luton, obtained the agreement of the Warwickshire police authority to make a voluntary amalgamation scheme for police purposes. No fewer than five police authorities in the area covered by Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, the Isle of Ely and Peterborough decided, following discussions with the then Home Secretary, to merge their police forces; and from 1st April, 1965, the whole area has been served by one combined police force known as the Mid-Anglia Constabulary. The effect of these amalgamations was to reduce the number of separate police forces from 126 to 122.
  After a local inquiry the Home Secretary announced in March last his decision that the county borough of Northampton should be amalgamated with Northamptonshire—the subject of the present debate. Again after a local inquiry, the Home Secretary announced in June his decision to amalgamate the county borough of Luton with the county of Bedfordshire. The city of Bath and the county of Somerset are considering proposals by the Home Secretary that they might enter into a voluntary amalgamation scheme. As my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield and Tamworth (Mr. Snow) reminded us, the five large county boroughs of Dudley, Smethwick—to be known as Warley—Walsall, West Bromwich and Wolverhampton are entering into a voluntary amalgamation scheme whereby the conurbation comprised by the areas of the five county boroughs will be policed by a single force.
  The Home Secretary has proposed the compulsory amalgamation of the county borough of Exeter with the county of Devon. The local authorities acting as a co-ordinating committee for the future county borough of Torbay, which will be constituted from 1st April, 1968, have decided in principle to continue to be policed by the county of Devon.
  Mr. Snow: I say this with great respect to my hon. Friend, but he is obviously speaking from a brief prepared before my speech tonight and he is calling in aid a voluntary amalgamation in the West Midlands. But there
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  is nothing voluntary about the truncation of the Staffordshire Constabulary.
  Mr. Thomas: It would have been better if it had been voluntary. Perhaps everyone would have felt better, but it is considered nevertheless that the proposals for Staffordshire are in the best interests of the area.
  As regards the amalgamation scheme now before the House, the then Minister of Housing and Local Government announced in December 1963 that the boundaries of the county borough of Northampton would be extended with effect from 1st April, 1965. As a result, the right hon. Gentleman who was then Home Secretary, after reviewing policing arrangements in consultation with H.M. Inspectors of Constabulary, reached the conclusion that in the interests of police efficiency it would be right to have a combined police force serving the whole of the county.
  This decision was reached in the light of the proposed boundary changes and of the probable future increase in population. The right hon. Gentleman told the county and county borough police authorities his view and had discussions with representatives of both police authorities. After considering Northampton's representations that they should retain their separate police force, he reaffirmed his view that an amalgamation scheme should be made and gave to both police authorities formal notice of a compulsory amalgamation scheme.
  An objection was made to the proposed amalgamation on behalf of the county borough watch committee and as a result a local inquiry was held, at which the watch committee developed their objections to the scheme. The report by Mr. Peter Stanley Price, Q.C., on the local inquiry found clearly that on merits the case for amalgamation was indisputable and that despite the arguments put on behalf of the county borough, the inherent disadvantages of small forces as seen by the Royal Commission on the Police existed in Northampton; and that both the county borough and the county force would gain by amalgamation.
  Mr. Stanley Price's report made certain recommendations as to the composition of a combined police authority, and as to the apportionment of the costs of a combined police force in the light of a

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  "without prejudice" agreement which had been reached between the two police authorities; and also recommended that any scheme should provide for the use of the Northampton police headquarters building by the combined police authority rather than for the transfer of that building to the new authority. The scheme meets all these points and, although the county borough remains opposed in principle to the idea of amalgamation, all the details of the scheme have been agreed with the two police authorities.Since the local inquiry and again tonight my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton has urged on behalf of the county borough that a recent Government decision to expand Northampton by 1981 had invalidated the bases upon which the local inquiry had been held; that in a few years' time the enlarged county borough would justify a police force of the size accepted as tolerable by the Royal Commission on the Police; and that it was unfair that Northampton had been singled out for the first compulsory amalgamation scheme under the Police Act, 1964.
  My right hon. and learned Friend received a deputation from the Northampton watch committee—I was there and so was my hon. and learned Friend—and also invited representatives of the county to be present, but he made clear to them subsequently that his decision to proceed with the amalgamation was unchanged.
  It was quite clear that the future development of Northampton was very much in mind at the local inquiry, as it had been very much in mind when the proposals for amalgamation were first decided upon; the subsequent announcement of a firm decision on the future development of Northampton only confirmed assumptions which everybody concerned had already made.
  The proposal for a combined police force took full account of a likely population expansion and one of the points that had been made at the local inquiry was that one police authority would be in a far better position to plan for future changes than two.
  We have to deal with the situation as it is now and as it is likely to develop; there is no point in waiting some years
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  in order to consider afresh whether Northampton should retain a separate police force because it may by then be a bigger place.
  As to the other point made on behalf of the Northampton watch committee, it has frequently been made clear that it is the general policy to consider the most effective policing arrangements in the wake of local government review.
  This was done in the case of Northampton as soon as the local government review had been completed and there is nothing sinister in the fact that the first local inquiry into a compulsory amalgamation scheme was held at Northampton.
  My right hon. and learned Friend is satisfied that the amalgamation scheme is right and should be proceeded with and that there are no considerations which justify changing that decision.
  Question put and negatived.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Lawson.]

  WAR DISABLEMENT PENSION (MR. GIRDLESTONE)
  6.23 p.m.
  Mr. David Weitzman: I am grateful to have the opportunity of raising the case of a constituent of mine, a Mr. Girdlestone, and the question of his pension. I have endeavoured to obtain what I consider to be justice for this man since the end of 1962. I will state the facts quite shortly.
  Mr. Girdlestone is now a man of 41 years of age, employed as a bank messenger and living with his wife and family. When 16 years of age, he joined the Royal Air Force, but he was discovered to be under age and he was discharged. In 1943, when 18 years of age, he volunteered for service in the Royal Navy. He was then a fit man in all respects and was graded A, Class 1. He saw active service for some time.
  In 1944, when aboard His Majesty's ship "Wyne", he was operating a signal lamp when an Oerlikon gun was fired and only the guard rail saved him from serious injury. This man, who had never suffered from ear trouble before, had the membranes of his eardrums shattered by being in close proximity to the Oerlikon

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  gun, a disability later diagnosed by a medical board as bilateral chronic suppurative otitis media. He received treatment for this and he was assigned to service ashore where a doctor would be available. He had previously been classified Grade A, but after his injury he was reclassified Grade 5. The condition was aggravated by service in a tropical station, as was confirmed by a specialist at the 58th General Hospital, Freetown, Sierra Leone.
  Before the accident, he had been accepted as a C.W. candidate for the Fleet Air Arm, but on arrival in the United Kingdom to commence training he was found to be medically unfit and he was classified Grade 6. He received treatment from time to time, but he continued his service ashore until 1946 when he was discharged. A medical board on his discharge marked him Grade 1.
  When he was discharged as Grade 1, he naturally assumed that he was cured and that there was therefore no question of any claim by him. He was not troubled for some years, apart from some visits to his doctors in the intervening years, but in 1955 his doctor sent him to Guy's Hospital where he has since been treated and is still being treated for his ear complaint. In August, 1962, a medical board found that his disability was aggravated by service, but that finding was clearly not correct and in November, 1962, on appeal, it was held that the disability was attributable to service. The net result was that from 4th June, 1962, he has been in receipt of a 20 per cent. pension.
  I have related the facts as simply as I can, and clearly on those facts this man's disability, attributable to service, existed at the date of his discharge on 16th August, 1946, and prima facie he is entitled to his pension from that date. Why, then, has he not been paid?
  I made representations to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance in the last Government, who, on 6th March, 1963, wrote to me to point out that it was a long-standing rule that a pension should be awarded only from the date of application and that discretion could be exercised in applying that rule only in exceptional cases. He cited a case where a claimant had been prevented from claim-
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  ing earlier by serious and prolonged illness. I made persistent efforts to move him, but without success.
  I thought that I would get more sympathetic treatment from a Labour Government and so I made representations again. But again I was met with the answer that the rule was that payment should not be made in respect of a period preceding the date of application except in so far as the Minister would direct. However, in his letter of 3rd March, 1965, the present Parliamentary Secretary said:
  "The need for a rule of this kind arises from the fact that we are prepared to consider claims without any time limits at all"—
  and he underlined the words "without any time limits at all"—
  "but by so doing we cannot accept an undefined and virtually unlimited liability for arrears".
  Then he went on:
  "The rule is waived only in exceptional circumstances; for example where a man is prevented from claiming by serious physical or mental illness, or by incorrect advice given by us."
  I attach a great deal of importance to those words—
  "by incorrect advice given by us."
  What is meant by the word "us"? Clearly it means the authorities, and that must include the medical board—in the case of this man the board which discharged and marked him Grade 1. He had to assume that that finding was correct and, apart from attending a doctor from time to time, did not suffer real trouble until 1955, when he attended a specialist at Guy's Hospital. He has attended ever since.
  It might clearly be said that this man was lulled into a state of acquiescence by the medical board's finding in 1946 that he was Grade 1. I should have thought that this was a reasonable inference to draw. The Ministry excuse is that he was informed of his rights on discharge. That may be so and I have no doubt about that. My constituent would not be warned on discharge, because he was told by the medical board that he was all right. Why should he bother about advice of that kind? His medical board had graded him Grade 1. It is said that there was considerable publicity thereafter, and again that may have been the case, hut, having been informed that he was all

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  right in 1946, there was no reason why such publicity should be drawn to his attention. On the facts of this case it was not until 1962 when Mr. Girdlestone, quite by chance, read a letter in the News of the World from an ex-Service man in similar circumstance, that he realised he could make a claim and immediately did so and the claim was allowed.
  I have six submissions to make. They are: (1) the Ministry itself recognised on the facts that Mr. Girdlestone was entitled to a pension from the date of his discharge in 1946; (2) if he had then made a claim it must have been allowed; (3) the medical board's action in marking him Grade 1 on discharge was wrong advice, given on behalf of the Ministry, and certainly had the effect of making Mr. Girdlestone assume, as would any reasonable man, that he was cured and had no claim; (4) there was no publicity which would have effectively drawn my constituent's attention to his rights in this matter; (5) it was only by pure chance that he discovered he had such rights; (6) most important of all, it would be iniquitous if, in the circumstances, he was denied something to which he is clearly entitled.
  I have pursued this matter for a long time, and I hope that at long last a Labour Government will do justice in this case.
  6.35 p.m.
  The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance (Mr. Harold Davies): The issue which my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Stoke Newington and Hackney, North (Mr. Weitzman) has raised tonight is a very simple one—the starting date of Mr. Girdlestone's pension. But it also raises an important point of principle. A charge has been brought against my Department that Mr. Girdlestone was penalised because he claimed late. During his speech—and I would like to pay tribute to the courteous and incisive way in which my hon. and learned Friend has made his case—he has sought to criticise both the general rule which governs arrears of war pension and its particular application to Mr. Girdlestone. I hope to satisfy my hon. and learned Friend and the House that not only is the general rule a fair and
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  essential rule, but that there is no foundation for the suggestion that the lateness of Mr. Girdlestone's claim was attributable in any way to a mistake or misdirection on the part of my own Department or that of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence.
  I should like to begin by restating the general rule, which is embodied in Article 65 of the Order in Council under which the starting date of Mr. Girdlestone's pension falls to be considered. There is a similar provision in the other war pensions instruments. The article reads:
  "Except in so far as the Minister may otherwise direct with respect to any particular case or class of case, payment of a pension shall not be made in respect of any period preceding the date of the application or appeal as a result of which the claim to the award of the pension, or as the case may be, to the continuance or resumption of the payment of the pension is accepted."
  This article reflects a rule of long standing which has been developed over the years by successive Ministers of Pensions as part and parcel of an integrated system under which claims can be accepted without any time limit at all and upon conditions which have been deliberately made as favourable as possible to the claimant.
  I would remind the House that claims to a war pension are still being made for the first time in respect of service which ended 10, 20, 30, or even 50 years ago. Mr. Girdlestone's own claim was made in 1962 in respect of service which ended 16 years earlier. Nor is it simply a matter of men who have not claimed at all. There is also the question of claims for review. For example, take a claim that was made in 1952. The evidence at that stage is all against the claimant and the claim has to be rejected. Perhaps 12 years later it is renewed with new evidence, and on that evidence, and giving a generous benefit of the doubt, it is granted. It is surely not suggested by my hon. and learned Friend that we ought to make the pension payable from the original claim 12 years before. Mr. Girdlestone made no claim of any kind before 1962.
  Mr. Weitzman: No one has suggested that in the ordinary way, if a person makes a claim 16 years late, and there is no valid reason for its lateness, that person should be given a pension for the earlier period. It is reasonable that he

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  should not. My case is based upon the fact that when this man was discharged in 1946, he was found by a medical board to be Grade 1. Any reasonable person would assume from that, "True, I suffered an injury two years before, but I am cured". When it comes on after that—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. and learned Gentleman cannot make his speech again.
  Mr. Davies: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I take my hon. and learned Friend's point. Form MPB 281 clearly provides:
  "This form is to be used only if you claim to be suffering from a disability attributable to or aggravated by war within six months of war service…. After six months from the cessation of service pay, any claim to pension must be made on a different form to be obtained from the nearest office of the Ministry…".
  When a man was discharged from the Navy that form was given to him.
  My hon. and learned Friend made the point that Mr. Girdlestone was misled because of the medical category. Nine years went by in which there is no record of ear trouble. However, I must be fair to my hon. and learned Friend. He pointed out that there had been two visits to doctors through ear trouble. At no time, unfortunately, did Mr. Girdlestone make use of his right to appeal either through the local war pensions committee or through the British Legion to get the claim spiked down. Consequently, the only conclusion which one can make is that in that nine years his ear trouble was not serious enough to cause him great concern.
  We have to be realistic about this and to recognise that in the absence of some clear rule we would be faced by what would virtually be an open-ended liability in respect of all late claims or appeals, quite apart from the cost of meeting them currently. If we were, in effect, to be held to ransom in respect of arrears for every late or renewed claim, no matter how long after service they were made and irrespective of there being any good cause for the delay in making them, it is very questionable whether we could continue without invoking some sort of time limit, as was done after the First World War, or imposing less generous terms of entitlement. But we have no time limit whatsoever, and, as my hon. and learned Friend will know, only last
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  year we made the most generous war pension provision ever.
  One cannot have it both ways. We are handling public money which is to be applied to the payment of pensions and we have to be careful not to accept an unlimited liability which might endanger the financial arrangement of the whole scheme. I am in no doubt that the rule we now have operates, on balance, very much to the advantage of claimants generally; and this is, I think, well understood in ex-Service circles.
  There is also a very real practical objection to the automatic payment of arrears. Often it would be difficult, if not impossible, to make accurate assessments retrospectively. We should have to try to think up over past years from scanty and often non-existent evidence what the degree of disablement was. There could be periods when the disability in question was causing no disablement. It would clearly give rise to inequality of treatment with pensioners who can be given proper assessments based on current medical examination if we were to try and make some kind of notional assessment back over the past.
  All this does not mean, however, that we apply the arrears rule with absolute rigidity. The Order in Council, as I have said, gives my right hon. Friend a discretion to waive the rule, and, where there are exceptional circumstances, she does not hesitate to do so. These might be, for example, when a claimant is prevented from claiming earlier by some factor outside his own control, such as a serious illness or mental incapacity, or where there has been manifest official error or misdirection. But the circumstances must be exceptional. It is not enough that the claimant should simply be unaware that he could make a claim, or did not trouble to pursue it; and, with great respect to my hon. and learned Friend, this is really the position in this case. As he will appreciate, it can be said of virtually all late claims that, if the claimant had known he might have got a pension earlier, he would have applied earlier. To regard that as a justification for waiving the rule would really be tantamount to destroying it.
  My hon. Friend argues that in Mr. Girdlestone's case there were particular reasons, not of his own making, which led him to think he could not claim.

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  This was the nub of my hon. and learned Friend's argument, that Mr. Girdlestone was discharged in 1946 as fit for further service—he says in Grade 1—whereas he should have been invalided, and that this misled him. But for this, he says, he would have claimed earlier.
  In his letters Mr. Girdlestone has based the contention that he should have been invalided upon his having been downgraded to medical Category 6. He was not, in fact, put in Category 6 at all. When he was medically downgraded in December, 1945, he was put into Category 5. This meant that he was fit for shore and harbour service at home and abroad except in tropical areas. Even if he had been put in Category 6, however, there would still have been no question of automatic invaliding.
  Mr. Girdlestone has further contended in his letters that in August, 1946, he was discharged as Grade 1 and thought as a result that he must be ineligible for a pension. The service documents show that he was not discharged in Grade 1, but released in Grade 2. This was a medical category introduced in 1946, when the system of classification was simplified, to replace the earlier Categories 4 and 5. He was regarded as still fit for service, subject to the same medical limitations as before. The release medical report which was made in June, 1946, does in fact specifically draw attention to his permanent downgrading only six months earlier. I can only think that Mr. Girdlestone may have confused a Class "A" release with a Grade 1 medical category. The term "Class A" had, of course, nothing at all to do with medical categorisation; it simply meant that he was due for release in the normal way and not in any priority class.
  I must, however, go further and point out to my hon. and learned Friend that it is really irrelevant whether or not Mr. Girdlestone was Grade 1 on release. Even assuming he had been found to be Grade 1, this would still afford no ground for exceptional treatment. Many men incurred disabilities in service which cleared up and gave no trouble at the
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  time, but started to give trouble again later.
  This is precisely what happened with Mr. Girdlestone's ear trouble. On his own admission he thought he was cured. He had no significant disablement from his ears when he was released or for two years afterwards. His National Insurance records show that between July, 1948 and November, 1954 he had no time off for certified sickness. He himself signed a form when he was released to say that he was not suffering from any complaint. It was, nevertheless, made plain to him at the time that he could claim a war pension if he thought that any condition he was suffering from was due to service; the documents handed to all naval ratings on release, in fact, included among them a claim form for pension.
  The fact is that it was open to Mr. Girdlestone at any time to put in a claim. He said that he had a recurrence of ear trouble in 1948, two years after his release, and went to his doctor, though his doctor has not recorded it. He could have claimed then. He attended Guy's Hospital in 1955. He could have claimed then, but he did not make a claim until 1962. There is no evidence of any exceptional circumstances. This is the nub of our argument. I have already quoted from the article. We see no exceptional circumstances whatever in the history of Mr. Girdlestone's case.
  I have sought to explain the reasons for the rule. I hope that the House will be satisfied that there are solid reasons for it and that it is a rule that we could not abandon or relax without great hesitation. Mr. Girdleston's claim has been dealt with in accordance with the rule. His case affords no ground for special treatment under it. There is no question of the Department acting harshly. We have decided the claim, as we seek to decide all war pension claims, in the light of careful and sympathetic consideration of the facts. Having gone in depth into the medical history of Mr. Girdlestone's claim, I regret that I can see no other course than the one which we have taken.

  RHODESIA
  Mr. Speaker: Before I invite the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) to speak, may I ask whether he has let a Minister know that he proposes to raise a subject on the Adjournment?
  6.52 p.m.
  Mr. Eric S. Heffer: I have been in touch with the Prime Minister's Office, Mr. Speaker, and I am assured that that office is attempting to get a Minister to reply to the debate. I regret that the notice has been so short, but, as hon. Members will appreciate, none of us expected the business of the House to collapse as quickly as it has done this evening.
  I want to raise the question of the oil embargo against Rhodesia. I do this because we are in a difficult situation and because a matter of urgency has developed. Most hon. Members will, I think, have read in the Press within the last two days that a British-owned oil tanker carrying 12,000 tons of crude oil for Southern Rhodesia is now on its way. We ought to express our opinion in this House on this important question.
  A few days ago, the United Nations discussed the whole matter of Rhodesia and decided to put forward a resolution, part of which contained the proposition of an oil embargo. It seems ludicrous that we should be party to a United Nations decision concerning an oil embargo on Southern Rhodesia but at the same time cannot find ourselves justified in stopping the tanker which is at present carrying the crude oil to Rhodesia.
  This House should say clearly to the Government tonight that we feel without qualification that without waiting for the total oil embargo to be placed upon Southern Rhodesia the Government could at least take a decision and make a gesture to the rest of the nations involved by stopping this tanker forthwith. This suggestion meets, I think, with the general approval of most hon. Members—not all hon. Members, but those who want to bring this matter to a speedy conclusion. The most effective way of doing this is undoubtedly to impose the oil embargo and to take the step which I have suggested.
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  Everyone should know that the object of our Government concerning Rhodesia is to bring this matter to a speedy conclusion without bloodshed and without long-term suffering for the Rhodesian people. We have taken positive steps. We have stepped up the sanctions within the last few days. We have not, however, taken this final step in sanctions which is the very one of which the Rhodesian rebel régime is most afraid.
  It was reported by John Worrall in The Guardian a week ago that the one thing of which the rebel régime in Rhodesia was terrified was the imposition of oil sanctions by the British Government. Equally, we had a statement from a Rhodesian official who said that the one thing that was feared by them was the introduction of oil sanctions and that this would create the greatest difficulties for the rebel régime. This testimony comes from a journalist in Salisbury and from an official of the rebel régime. It is not somebody in this House of Commons who is arguing this. It is somebody out there who understands the effect of the decision which it is essential for us to take.
  I therefore urge the Government, without waiting for a study to be made, immediately to stop the oil tanker which is carrying crude oil to Rhodesia as a gesture to show the Commonwealth nations as a whole that we are determined to bring this matter to an end in the speediest manner without bloodshed. If we fail to do this, if we refuse to stop the tanker, the Commonwealth nations, particularly the African Commonwealth nations, will say that we are speaking with a forked tongue. On the one hand, they will say, we wish to bring down the rebels but, on the other hand, we are not taking the most effective method to bring down that régime at the earliest possible moment.
  We wish to continue to keep the Commonwealth together and to retain the support of the Commonwealth countries. I reject completely the argument used in the Sunday Express, which asked what it would matter if the Commonwealth were to fall to pieces. As far as I am concerned, the Commonwealth is a wonderful idea and we ought to develop it. We certainly should not take any step which is likely to bring the Commonwealth to an end.

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  I believe that if we as a Government decided to tell the company concerned that the tanker must be stopped forthwith, we should not only be carrying out effective sanctions against the rebel régime but we should be cementing the Commonwealth together and proving to Commonwealth countries that we are determined to bring this matter to a speedy conclusion.
  It has been argued throughout this Rhodesian issue that the basic responsibility is ours. I accept this argument. It is not a question of the responsibility being that of other nations. It is our responsibility. It is the British Government and the British people who are basically responsible and who must take decisive action to bring this matter to a conclusion at the earliest possible moment. If we do not do that, once again it will be argued that the only reason why we are talking about everyone else getting involved in oil sanctions is because we do not really want to do anything effective about it. I do not accept that argument, but I think that the real test for the Commonwealth countries will be whether we are prepared to stop that oil tanker.
  I do not want to detain the House very long, because it is quite obvious that a number of other hon. Members wish to participate. I appreciate the fact that we have got to concern ourselves with the effects on Zambia. That is a real problem, and no one is going to run away from the trouble and say that we ought not to consider those effects. It seems to me that the answer is to speed up the airlift in the same effective way that we were able to carry out an airlift to Berlin when the Soviet Union and the East German authorities closed the Berlin road. We did it then for Berlin, and it seems to me that we can do it now to Zambia. We have a precedent. The precedent is Berlin.
  It is quite probable that I shall be told by the Minister concerned that that is going forward. I am quite certain that it is going forward and that plans are being drawn up for an effective airlift. I am quite certain that plans are going forward for a total oil embargo. What I am asking the House is that whilst the plans are being prepared and whilst these longer-term effective
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  measures are being worked out, in the meantime we should stop that shipload of crude oil going to Rhodesia in order to prove conclusively that we are determined to bring the situation there to a speedy conclusion.
  7.2 p.m.
  Mr. Jeremy Thorpe: We are in the debt of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) for having raised this matter, and in the debt of the Leader of the House for having so arranged the business today that adequate time is left for debating what is an extremely important matter. Mr. Speaker, you in your wisdom, which I accept, did not see fit to rule that it was a matter which could be brought under Standing Order No. 9, but it is a happy fact that the Leader of the House has enabled us to debate it some fifteen minutes earlier than would have been possible had you seen fit to grant the adjournment of the House. Therefore, I can begin in a non-controversial vein by saying that we are in the debt of many people for the fact that at a quarter to seven we were able to debate this important issue.
  It is true to say that the whole House, with one or two unnotable exceptions, regard with abhorrence the régime in Rhodesia, not only for the illegal, unnecessary and stupid action which it took in November, but for all that it stands for in terms of repression and racial domination. For those of us—and I think it is the view of the majority of hon. Members—who are appalled at the prospect of violence and bloodshed, we have the hope that economic measures will be sufficient to bring the vast majority of those who have power and influence in Rhodesia to their senses.
  It is for that reason that Her Majesty's Government have adopted the economic measures which they have. I do not want to indulge in a play on words as to whether or not they are punitive ones. As has been constantly said, the test is whether they are likely to be effective, and by that presumably is meant whether they are rightly to cause opinion in Rhodesia to think that the Smith régime is something which can only lead to economic disaster for all sections of the community.

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  Therefore, the more one abhors the use of force, the more determined one is that the peaceful means of economic sanctions shall succeed, and that is the relevance of all the discussion about an oil embargo.
  I think it right to remind the House that on 20th November last a resolution was adopted by the Security Council to which, Mr. Speaker, with your permission, I will refer. It said in paragraph 8 that it called on all States to refrain from any action which would assist the illegal régime and, in particular, to desist from providing it with arms and to do their utmost in order to break all economic relations with Southern Rhodesia, including an embargo on oil and petroleum products.
  That was a resolution for which Her Majesty's Government voted, and it is reasonable to assume that they were in favour of it. Now we have been told by Her Majesty's Government that it is a very complicated question and that it is going to be very difficult to make an oil sanction completely effective.
  I accent that. I must confess that if have a criticism of Her Majesty's Government it is that they have not done enough contingency planning, that they were so determined to avert a unilateral declaration of independence that they found it almost impossible mentally to adjust themselves to it as a possibility and therefore to plan what they would do in the event of U.D.I. I find it staggering that many of the sanctions now applied were not applied within a matter of hours.
  Be that as it may, there is a vast volume of information upon oil sanctions as a result of the studies which were carried out in regard to the Union of South Africa. I would say to Her Majesty's Government that even if an oil sanction is not likely to be a 100 per cent. effective, if it were only 50 per cent. effective and the immediate results were that oil rationing and petrol rationing had to be introduced in Rhodesia, with Europeans finding themselves restricted in the use of their motor cars and European employers having difficulty in getting sufficient oil to run the buses carrying their employees to their places of work, that again would be by peaceful means a pressure which would cause them to think again.
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  There is no doubt that oil can play a great part in causing the Rhodesian population, particularly the European population, to think again. So the first matter that I would pray in aid is that everyone who is averse to the use of force, with the exception of those few who secretly hope that the Smith régime will succeed—and some of them are perhaps not as secret as others—will be in favour of short, sharp and effective sanctions.
  Another point that I would ask the House to consider is the psychological posture of this country. The Organisation for African Unity has issued an ultimatum that unless we crush the Smith régime by 15th December they will break off diplomatic relations with us. What is far more serious is that anything up to nine African countries will leave the Commonwealth.
  I say at once that that is an extremely unreasonable and rather stupid request to have made. It is totally impracticable and could not possibly be achieved by that deadline. The reason it was made is that they are not yet satisfied with the determination of Her Majesty's Government to bring down the illegal régime.
  I do not want to bring an undue element of controversy into the debate, because I think that the Government should be supported up to the hilt on the matter, though it may be necessary to push them on and give them a little more courage to stand up to the Tory Right wing and some of the Empire Loyalists in the country, and not exclusively Empire Loyalists but supporters of the Labour Party and the Conservative Party who are hoping for a last imperial kick. I hope that the Government will have the courage to stand up to those people and do what is right, and not what the Prime Minister thinks is the maximum that he can do to maintain complete unanimity.
  Therefore, I think it is not surprising that they have taken the view that it is necessary to give an astringent message to the British Government. There has been the dither over the despatch of troops to Zambia, and they were not particularly placated by the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Commonwealth Secretary who, in a speech to Royal Air Force personnel at Ndola, referred to the Zambians as "noble creatures". I do not think that they were unusually flattered by that. I think

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  that the equivocation about the purposes for which British troops were being despatched has caused some heart searching and lack of faith as to the determination of Her Majesty's Government. For example, I should like to see a sealing off operation round Kariba, and I do not believe that there are the military objections which have been raised.
  Again, I think it is true to say that the Bank of England gave assent for Rhodesian pounds to be freely convertible into South African rands at an early stage after U.D.I., and this is why the Rhodesian pound, which had sunk to 5s., gradually climbed back to what I believe is now parity. Therefore, I can understand that in the minds of many African countries, not least our partners in the Commonwealth, there is some doubt as to whether Her Majesty's Government have determination to see this through.
  I want to be fair to the Prime Minister. I think that he is genuinely determined to see that the Smith régime is brought down. I believe that the Leader of the Opposition is genuinely determined to see that that régime is displaced, and in its place there is some political agreement which will lead towards a multi-racial society. At least I hope that is so, and if it is, I hope he will make it plain to his right hon. and hon. Friends on the Right wing who are displaying posters and stickers on their cars saying, "Support Rhodesia", and to the right hon. Member for Preston, North (Mr. J. Amery), that Her Majesty's Government are completely determined to bring down the Smith régime, that they are anxious to prove to our partners in the Commonwealth that although they wish to avert bloodshed, they will take all measures practicable to bring this régime to an end. Let us assume that the Leader of the Opposition, who I am sure the House is pleased to see at this unexpected debate, is equally determined to see that the illegal Smith régime is brought down.
  Against all those assumptions, how do we at this moment judge Her Majesty's Government? I think that we judge them in the terms of one ship, the "British Security". What a strange and coincidental name for a ship which has such a political significance. What has hap-
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  pened? This British ship, which at the moment is on the high seas, is carrying 12,000 tons of crude oil. It is being shipped not by some sheikh, not by some unknown oil company which is selling off its surplus, but by the British Petroleum Company in which Her Majesty's Government have a 49 per cent. shareholding. [HON. MEMBERS: "Fifty-one per cent."] That is even worse. Her Majesty's Government also have on the board of this company two directors who, on policy matters, have a virtual veto.
  There is no lack of Government influence on that company. There is no question of a free enterprise Socialist Government saying that they do not like to interfere with private commerce. There is nothing of that sort. This is a company in which the Government have a 51 per cent. shareholding, and two appointees on the board of directors. This British ship, carrying British oil, in which the British Government have a 51 per cent. interest, is to dock as Beira. The oil, I might say, emanated from Abu-Dhabi, a Trucial Sheikhdom, for whose internal affairs we are responsible. The oil is being sent, not to help our oldest ally, the Portuguese, in furtherance of democracy in either Mozambique or Angola, or any other centre of Portuguese oppression, but to be carried along a British-owned pipeline, owned by Lonrho, a firm of which Her Majesty's cousin is a director, and pumped to Rhodesia to give the Rhodesians another fortnight's oil supply.
  Does the Minister who is to reply to the debate think that this will give the impression that Britain is determined in her economic sanctions against Rhodesia, or the reverse? What is going to be the impression? It is for Her Majesty's Government to judge. Will this indicate a growing enthusiasm to bring pressure to bear on the Rhodesian rebel régime, or will it merely indicate that Her Majesty's Government are in a difficult world and that they really cannot overcome the complexities of the situation?
  The Prime Minister's remarks were well worthy of a Tory Government when he said that there were two or three ships stacking up behind, and went on to imply that if we did not get in the Kuwaitis or any other oil producing country that one might like to name might do so. I remember reading the question

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  which was put to Sir Thomas Inskip before the war when he was Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence. He was asked why we were supplying Mussolini with spruce spars which would be used for his fighter planes, and whether he would cancel the contract. He said it was not possible to do so "because it would impede the course of normal trade".
  Her Majesty's Government have shown great commercial sense. I do not know whether the First Secretary of State, who has just arrived, thought that it was in the interests of our balance of payments that we should get in before the Kuwaitis or any other oil exporting country; that we had to get in first or the National Plan would be in jeopardy. I do not think that this nicely calculated less or more, this cynical argument that unless we deliver the oil somebody else will, allows one to forget the morality of the fact that we are responsible for Rhodesia, and that it is a British Government who now want to supply British owned oil on the basis that if we do not somebody else might.
  Then there is what might be called the humanitarian argument—"Yes, but some of it might go to Zambia". That is quite correct. Has anybody asked President Kaunda what his view is? Has anybody suggested that President Kaunda is not prepared to make every conceivable sacrifice to bring down the Smith régime? Has anybody suggested that Her Majesty's Government would of course like to turn this ship back but they feel that they must have some regard for the susceptibilities of the President of Zambia? Are they trying to hide behind him?
  President Kaunda has shown great courage, and not only in dealing with extremism in his own country. He has faced great difficulties and been under great pressures, and if he had given in he might now be the centre of a cold war in Africa. He has shown great skill and courage in resisting these pressures. On the other hand, he knows that sanctions could ultimately destroy the economic: life of Zambia. Yet he has said that he is prepared to face all the consequences of sanctions. He wants no special treatment for Zambia. Do not let us think that it is because of President Kaunda that we are trampling on our own principles.
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  It may be that we have not given adequate consideration to the question of shipping oil through Lake Tanganyika, or that we have not given adequate consideration to an air oil-lift, and that must do a lot of thinking very fast; that the roads from Tanzania into Zambia must be improved, and that we have to have a crash programme. All these things are proper considerations. It may be that it will be very expensive to underpin the economy of Zambia, but principles are assessed not by their cost but by their value.
  That was why I deplored the efforts of some people in this House to sell their principles for a packet of Woodbines. Fortunately that stage has been passed. We no longer hear any complaints about the intended tobacco sanctions. Of course this operation will be expensive. It will be expensive for our people, and it will be expensive to maintain the economy of Zambia. But are we to go on to say that it is too expensive for us to support? Are we really going to say that we must deliver oil to Rhodesia because if we do not somebody else might'? Are we really going to say that we must go into the mad economic scramble of the capitalist system, which I thought that many hon. Members opposite deplored? Is that what is now suggested?
  In my submission, if this ship is not turned back it will symbolise to the African countries and to almost every country in the world the fact that Britain is not determined to bring down this régime; that it is prepared to compromise and to temporise, and to hide behind facile arguments. There is an issue of principle here, and I say to the Prime Minister that even if this means that the unity that has so far existed in this House is shattered—even if the Tory Right wing mounts a campaign throughout this country—it is far better that the right hon. Gentleman should stick to his guns and do what is right than that he should try to compromise on principles with those who are not prepared to accept those principles as worth defending.
  This is the acid test: deliver this 12,000 tons of crude oil to Beira and the nine African members of the Commonwealth will be satisfied that we are not determined to bring down this régime—and face all the consequences, one of which

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  is that the idea of a multiracial Commonwealth will have to be scrapped and that instead there will be a white club. If that is what we want, that is the price that we are going to have to pay. But if we do as President Johnson did, when he said "Although these 6,000 tons of sugar are on their way to America I will not take them. I will turn round the ship," we will have shown that we are determined to bring down this régime by economic measures.
  If these economic measures fail we may have to contemplate what I believe could be a bloody war. It is because I want to avoid war and bloodshed, and because I believe the people want to avoid war and bloodshed, which could bring only misery to all the races in Rhodesia, that the economic sanctions must be effective. This is a case in which the Government must act.
  7.24 p.m.
  Mr. Michael Foot: This debate has arisen suddenly, but nobody can complain on that account, because one of the virtues of the House of Commons is that it has a certain flexibility. It is right that we should express our gratitude to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) for raising the issue, and included in our thanks should be the Ministers for having come here at such short notice. I do not know what dinners we have interrupted, but I am sure that the Ministers are much more profitably employed listening to us than they would be anywhere else. We are very grateful to them for coming along, although it is their duty to attend the House of Commons when matters arise here, since this is the most important function that they have to discharge.
  Although the debate has arisen suddenly, I agree with the concluding words of the hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe) that we are discussing an extremely serious matter. I believe that in the general discussions about Rhodesia, not so much in this House as in the country at large, people are not yet fully aware how far-ranging are the issues involved. I believe that one service that this debate can perform is to help to awaken people to a recognition of how deep are the issues at stake in the whole Rhodesian controversy, and how
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  necessary it is for us to apply our minds to them.
  I read the headline in the Daily Mirror yesterday quoting an interview with the Prime Minister and saying "No Invasion. No Bloodshed". I dare say that we would all like the situation to arise in which there was no invasion and no bloodshed—but nobody can guarantee that. The Prime Minister cannot, nor can anyone else. The events that are taking place in Africa are, unfortunately, not all within our control. We may wish that they were, but they are not. They can travel very much further, and we must therefore consider the best measures that we can take to avoid bloodshed and the spreading of bloodshed in Africa.
  The issues are extremely important, and the more the country is aware of them the better. The right place for these matters to be debated is the House of Commons. I therefore first of all want to add something to what has been said by the hon. Member for Devon, North, about the background to the oil sanctions. I hope that we may have from the Government a clearer statement of their attitude to an oil embargo. We have not had a clear statement from them on this subject.
  Before 11th November the Government must surely have considered the developments that would occur if Mr. Smith went ahead with his unilateral declaration of independence. We knew that that was always a possibility. Therefore, prior to 11th November, the Government must have made some examination of the kind of sanctions which would be effective. Before 11th November there must have been some estimate in the Government Departments of what status an oil embargo would have among all the other sanctions, and what steps would be necessary to make it effective. Some thought must have been given to the question of which countries would have to be approached. Before 11th November there must have been documents dealing with the subject in various Government Departments.
  On 11th November, when the Prime Minister made his first announcement, he said:
  "As for the economic sanctions, I think that it will be right for us to concentrate on trying to get other nations to follow our lead rather

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  than seeing them get too far ahead of us."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th November, 1965; Vol. 720, c. 361.]
  He did not mention oil sanctions at the time, but oil sanctions must have been a consideration. Even if the Government thought that they would be very difficult they must have known that the question of oil sanctions would be raised at the United Nations at a fairly early date. The Government have had a long time since 11th November to make up their mind about oil sanctions.
  What happened when the issue came before the United Nations? There was strong pressure by various nations to include oil sanctions among the sanctions which should be pressed. The hon. Member for Devon, North has quoted the United Nations resolution. Of course, there was a debate before the resolution. What happened in the debate was that the British Government urged upon the other countries that instead of including the exact reference to the oil embargo in the resolution, a study group should be set up to examine the question of an oil embargo. That was the British Government's attitude then, although they were not able to press that view because they apparently had little support from the other countries. Then the British Government not merely did not vote against the resolution but supported it, even though it was carried with arguments which the British Government did not entirely accept.
  However, that was the decision made on, I think, 21st November by the United Nations, a decision to which this country adheres. Ever since that date, several of us have been trying in the House to discover from the Government exactly what is happening about that United Nations resolution. On each occasion that the Prime Minister has answered Questions, Questions have been put to him about it, including the Question which I had on the Order Paper today. I asked the Government whether we should not be given some indication of the timing involved, of when they thought the discussions in the study group about these sanctions would take place, of what was the date they were aiming at and when they hoped to reach a conclusion on these matters.
  The Government have given us no indication at all. I should have thought
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  that, from every point of view, on every occasion that this question was asked of the Government, their answer should have been, "We wish to reach a conclusion in this matter as speedily as possible. We are taking urgent steps with all the diplomatic facilities open to us to try to get this embargo imposed as swiftly as possible. There are certain obstacles, but we want to overcome them." If the Government had answered in that fashion, it would have been much better and might have put in a different light their attitude towards the sailing of this ship.
  It appears to the House—certainly to me and, I should have thought, to anyone who has listened to the answers on this subject—that the Government have shown at any rate no great enthusiasm for proceeding with the oil embargo as swiftly as possible. That is most regrettable, for many reasons. Some of us wish to see these sanctions made speedily effective, but it is regrettable also because of the Government's desire to sustain support for their policies in Africa and elsewhere. If the Government had shown, ever since 11th November, that they were eager to get an oil embargo as swiftly as possible, they might have had less difficulty in some of their other controversies with African States.
  What I should like first of all from the Government is a much fuller statement than they have given so far of their general attitude to an oil embargo. Many of us who thought that the Government were proceeding much too slowly with the study of the oil embargo could hardly believe it when we read the report in the Sunday Times on Sunday about the sailing of the ship and the apparent attitude of the British Government to the whole proceedings.
  The report in the Sunday Times—some of us did not get our Sunday Times that Sunday but got it when we went out on Monday—not only gave the account of the ship sailing but also indicated, if not in so many words, that those responsible for the ship had taken all precautions before it sailed to try to make sure that they were acting in conformity with the desires of the British Government. I do not think that the Government have attempted to deny this, so it appears that the ship is sailing towards Rhodesia with

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  two weeks' supply of oil and with the full support of the British Government.
  I wonder what the Government really think will be the effect, not merely on their policy over an oil embargo but on their policy on other matters, if the ship gets through and no steps are taken about it. Do the Government really think that this will assist their diplomacy in dealing with the African States and others at the United Nations and in Africa? I read, in the same issue of the Sunday Times, a most interesting and, I believe, quite truthful account of an interview with President Kaunda, given to Nicholas Tomalin, in which President Kaunda expressed his attitude towards the British Government and his view of their dealings with Mr. Smith's régime generally.
  Those of us who have a great respect for President Kaunda, as, I am sure, the Commonwealth Secretary has, believe that one of the keys to the whole situation is how we are to make our policy conform to his desires. I do not mean that we have to agree to everything which he proposes, but the key lies in how we are to have a common policy with him. After all, he is the Commonwealth functionary most nearly concerned in the whole matter, and it must be the firm desire of the British Government to keep our policy and that of the Zambian Government in close alliance. If that is the case, the report of this interview made extremely melancholy reading for those of us who wish to keep the Commonwealth together and wish to see this business properly dealt with.
  President Kaunda expressed his doubts about the British Government's resolve in this matter. I should have thought that the British Government's desire would be to allay those doubts by every possible means. It may be said—it is, of course, an essential part of the debate—that, if the ship were stopped, this might create particular difficulties for Zambia itself. I think that the first answer to that point was given quite properly by the hon. Member for Devon, North—that we should be very interested to hear what President Kaunda himself has to say to that proposition.
  We should like to have a report to the House on what consultations have taken place with President Kaunda on this subject: whether he agrees with the policy
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  of the British Government over this ship, whether he has entered any dissent about it and whether he made any alternative proposals. We are entitled to have an indication, from the Commonwealth Secretary above all, about the view of the Zambian Government on this question——
  Sir Harmar Nicholls: Suppose that it proved to be correct after investigation that, on practical grounds, it would not be a good thing to stop the ship because it may injure the achievement of a unanimous decision of others to stop such ships too, and would injure Zambia. If the practical grounds on which the Government stood at Question Time were correct in their mind, does the hon. Member still think that they should ignore that in order to achieve this diplomatic effect?
  Mr. Foot: I am asking about three distinct matters, though the hon. Member for Peterborough (Sir Harmar Nicholls) may not be conscious of the fact. The first is the question which I am now discussing with the Commonwealth Secretary, the view of President Kaunda about whether this ship should be allowed to proceed. The second is whether, if the ship proceeds, it will or will not assist in a general embargo. The third is what will be the effect on Zambia's economy. I am dealing with the first question now, as to what is the Zambian Government's view of this ship being allowed to proceed——
  Sir Harmar Nicholls: The hon. Gentleman firmly asked whether the Government had considered the diplomatic effect which it would have on the African countries if they did not do something about it. Does he rate the diplomatic effect so high that he would ask the Government to disregard any practical considerations such as I put forward?
  Mr. Foot: The two matters would have to be balanced: one would have to be taken into account with the other. But we are, first of all, trying to sort out the facts. I am asking that the House should be given an account of President Kaunda's view on whether the ship should be allowed to proceed—and not only his view but that of the heads of some of the other Commonwealth countries. Since I believe that the other Commonwealth countries will be influenced in the whole

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  of this Rhodesian affair by what happens to the ship, I want to know what views have been given by those countries on this matter, because our view should be partly influenced—I do not say determined—by the views of other Commonwealth countries about it.
  Proceeding from that to the other question which the hon. Member for Peterborough raised, although it is obviously an aspect of the matter which must be raised anyway, I should have thought that the question which I put about the views of Her Majesty's Government on the effects of allowing the ship to continue raises, first, the important question of the attitude of the Persian Government. I say that because, as I understand it, the Persian Government refused to supply the oil originally. In other words, the Persian Government were abiding by the spirit of the United Nations resolution and it is to their credit, I should have thought, that they took that attitude. I should have equally thought that Her Majesty's Government would have been grateful to the Persian Government for taking that attitude. Indeed, the Prime Minister expressed some thanks at Question Time today.
  Therefore, what would be the effect on the Persian Government in future—and this has considerable importance on this matter, because the Persians can supply quite a lot of oil—towards their ban, they having refused to supply oil in this instance, and B.P. having gone elsewhere to get it, if the oil is delivered? I should have thought that the inevitable effect of the ship proceeding would be for the Persian Government to say, "We will not join in imposing sanctions in future. Why should we? We attempted to do so but Her Majesty's Government did not want us to proceed with them".
  We see, therefore, that another consequence of the ship proceeding might be for the Persian Government henceforth to say that they will continue to supply oil to people who bring their tankers in and who wish to take it to Southern Rhodesia. And will not the same apply to other countries? On that aspect, when one considers the question of getting common agreement to employ an embargo there would not appear to be much doubt that if the ship does go ahead the chances of getting an embargo later will be
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  infinitely reduced. If that is the case, this matter represents a serious policy issue. That is one reason why it is right that we should try to intervene.
  My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said today that he did not think that a gesture was of much importance in such matters. I should have thought that so complicated are the possibilities of getting an embargo that it is only by a series of gestures that one can make the embargo work at all. Only by getting a series of Governments to say, "We regard the United Nations resolution as being a matter of supreme governing importance" are we going to make it work. By allowing this ship to go ahead Her Majesty's Government are defying the United Nations resolution—or, at any rate, defying the spirit of it—and are, therefore, making it infinitely more difficult to get that resolution into effect later on.
  So I believe that this is a matter of such great importance that Her Majesty's Government should reconsider the whole of their attitude expressed on this subject and should, within the days which are left, come to the House of Commons—because I do not expect that we will get a full, fresh decision tonight; that is too much to expect, hopeful though we may be—and make a statement on this issue. It is only right that we should ask the Government to reconsider the whole matter afresh. They could make a statement to the House tomorrow, and I hope that this debate will show how widespread is the concern among hon. Members about the effect which the allowing of this ship to go through will have on the whole of our Rhodesian policy.
  The events which have taken place in the last few days, apart from the sailing of the ship, have, I believe, been greatly disturbing. We had a statement from the Prime Minister last week in which he said that we were taking further actions to enforce the sanctions against Rhodesia to make our attitude more effective. We were also told, in relation to the Kariba Dam, that in certain circumstances Her Majesty's Government could not stand idly by.
  I do not wish to probe into all the military details of these matters. I do not think that that would be proper. However, I must say that I was amazed when the official Opposition raised any objection to this proposition. I would

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  have understood it had the right hon. Member for Preston, North (Mr. J. Amery) raised an objection. He has been against this policy since the beginning, even though he has not always voted against it. However, when the Leader of the Opposition protested, that was a rather different matter.
  We have had something even further than that. At the weekend we had the speech of the Leader of the Opposition carrying his objection to the Government's policies very much further. The right hon. Member for Preston, North has every reason to applaud the fact that his Leader is moving in his direction. I only wish that my Leader was moving in mine. The Leader of the Opposition, nailing his colours to the mast, said at the weekend in Bristol, "We would stand idly by". Is that really the policy of the official Opposition, whatever the Southern Rhodesians do; whatever they do to the dam for which we in the House of Commons are directly responsible now that we have taken powers under the Act, for which the right hon. Gentleman also voted? The Leader of the Opposition expressed the attitude that the official Opposition would stand idly by.
  Mr. Thorpe: I am listening with great interest and complete sympathy to everything the hon. Gentleman is saying. Would he not agree that one of the tragedies, if one is to place any credence on the interview which the Prime Minister gave to the Daily Mirror published on Monday, is that now the Prime Minister would himself stand idly by?
  Mr. Foot: Different interpretations may be placed on the Daily Mirror article. I hope very much that that was not the case and that the Prime Minister is not moving in that direction. It would be a very serious matter indeed if that were so.
  I am saying that nobody can doubt—whatever may be the interpretations placed on a Daily Mirror article—that what the Leader of the Opposition did at the weekend was to deliver a much stronger attack on the policy of the Government and to draw a deeper line of divergence between his policy and that of the Government than had been done previously.
  Mr. R. T. Paget: Which does my hon. Friend consider is the best way to preserve a power station—which is what we are talking about—fighting a battle over it or standing idly by?
  Mr. Foot: I understand that my hon. and learned Friend would have stood idly by from the beginning. He does not care what happens to the Commonwealth, to Southern Rhodesia.
  Mr. Paget: Answer the question.
  Mr. Foot: As the Prime Minister said in the House, there may be other ways of dealing with the dam. As I said, I am not going into the military ways in which it should be dealt with. I have held the view from the beginning that, in the last resort, military force would have to be employed if the Southern Rhodesia Government proceeded with their act of rebellion, but I know that my hon. and learned Friend takes the view that nothing should be done.
  Mr. Paget: I agree with the Prime Minister.
  Mr. Foot: Well, why is my hon. and learned Friend protesting against his policy?
  Mr. Paget: Only in this particular.
  Mr. Foot: I do not think that anyone can deny that the Leader of the Opposition made a strong attack at the weekend on what had been said by the Prime Minister about the dam. The Leader of the Opposition said, in effect, "We would standly idly by". He also said that the only way to solve this problem was by a process of conciliation. He did not exactly define on what there would be conciliation, but we were left to surmise it for ourselves—and I have little doubt that the policy of the Leader of the Opposition is not so different from that of the right hon. Member for Preston, North. They are both in favour of treating with Mr. Smith. They are both in favour of reopening negotiations with Mr. Smith—and so, I understand, is my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget).
  I am opposed to it. I am opposed to it, first of all, because it would tear the Commonwealth to pieces. We cannot have a British Commonwealth being maintained at all and have the Smith

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  régime, which is the fundamental issue. The right hon. Member for Preston, North called it a rebellion wrapped in the Union Jack; it is much more like a putsch under the emblem of the swastika, because it is imposing a police State on a country for which we are responsible.
  I know that many hon. Members and other people will say, "There are other police States—why do you not go and attack them?" The difference is that we in this House are directly responsible for Southern Rhodesia. We have assumed absolute authority, and I believe that when we do that we should exercise it. We should execute what we have done—and the right hon. Gentleman himself is implicated in that situation, because he did not vote against the taking of these powers. We are absolutely responsible for what happens in Southern Rhodesia, because we have assumed absolute powers in this House. Some may say that what was done was the wrong way to do it, but we have done it, and I am in favour of exercising those powers, and living up to our obligations to all the people of Rhodesia.
  If we can do it without bloodshed, so much the better, but if economic chaos is produced by effective economic sanctions we may get a moment when military forces have to go in. It is not right to disguise this from people. We must say it, so that people may understand the choice the country has to deal with. Of course, if the main operation can be done without bloodshed no one would like it better than I. If we are to do it, we must make the economic sanctions as swiftly and drastically effective as possible. How can it possibly be said that we are doing that when we are not even attempting to get an effective oil embargo? And how can it be said that we are trying to get an effective oil embargo if we let this ship go through?
  I therefore believe that the Government are faced with an extremely serious choice. If they stop the ship going through, it does not solve the problem. They have to go further. They have to take steps to get an effective oil embargo; take a whole series of other measures in order to execute the authority in Southern Rhodesia that this House has taken to itself. We have to face it,
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  because if we are not prepared to take these decisions—many of them very awkward decisions—we shall be responsible for establishing a new South Africa in British territory for which we are responsible.
  If this country, and particularly if a Labour Government under our aegis, were responsible for seeing the establishment of a new South Africa in South Rhodesia we would never be forgiven—we would have no right to be forgiven. If that were to occur, our whole reputation throughout Asia and Africa of Britain as a liberal Power would be destroyed. These are the kind of things that must weight in the balance when the Government apply their mind afresh to the question whether they are going to take effective action to deal with Southern Rhodesia, to deal with the embargo, and to deal with this ship.
  7.54 p.m.
  Mr. Edward M. Taylor: The hon. Members for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe) and for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot) have said that they are extremely grateful to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) for raising this subject tonight. I do not honestly think that the hon. Gentleman has done a service to the House in having this matter discussed when the great majority of hon. Members are not here to take part in the discussion—[Interruption.]—or even to hear the arguments. It does not help us to solve the problem, or even to look for a solution, when we have a discussion like this with a good number of hon. Members unaware that the discussion is taking place.
  I am convinced that the main reason why this subject has been raised at all is, first of all, that it gives those on the Government side who disagree fundamentally with their Government's own policy an opportunity to have a full discussion, to express their disagreements, to criticise the Government and then, at the end of the day, not to have to voice their disagreement with the Government by voting against their own party. It has sickened me to see in this Chamber, time and time again, the same people on that side tearing their own Government to ribbons, yet not having the guts and the courage to say, "I disagree with this"—
  Mr. Paul B. Rose: Will the hon. Gentleman tell us how many on his own side followed him into the Division Lobby the other day?
  Mr. Taylor: The only thing I can deduce from that event is that I was the only member of my party who felt in that precise way that it was wrong in principle to have an Enabling Bill on these lines. Many people may share some aspects of my views on Rhodesia, but I am convinced after discussing the matter with many of my hon. Friends, that I was the only one who felt that way. But that in no way answers my challenge, and the hon. Member who has just interrupted me is just as guilty as many others of his hon. Friends in regard to many other issues where there is fundamental disagreement. In particular, the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale says that if a new South Africa were to be established on British territory—and, in particular, by a Labour Government—we would never be forgiven. The hon. Gentleman did not say what he and his hon. Friends would do about it if a new South Africa were established on British territory, and by a Labour Government. That is the first reason why hon. Members opposite are glad to have this present discussion.
  Their second reason is that in dealing with this slow, tedious, tortuous problem which, in the way we are going, will unquestionably take months or years to be concluded, we have in this one little ship a wonderful opportunity to bring the whole thing to a dramatic climax and say, "Here is the point of no return. Here is the point at which the fundamental decision can be made." It has been made quite clear by the Government, and admitted by those who have spoken tonight, that if this ship is turned back and sent elsewhere it will make no practical difference whatsoever to this Southern Rhodesia problem. More ships are to go. If the supplies do not come from this ship, they will come from other countries and from other ships. We are, therefore, discussing something that will make no practical difference to the real physical problem of Southern Rhodesia.
  It is quite clear to me that we are being asked to indulge in a massive act of international public relations to tell the world where we allegedly stand. Here,
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  again, we have the same point of view put forward by hon. Members opposite that we want to show the world something, without thinking of the consequences of what we are doing or whether it will ultimately be helpful to an amicable solution. After tonight, no one on the Government side of the House should ever have the impertinence to talk about disagreement on this side. Once again, it has been completely shown that there is a fundamental split on that side.
  Certain questions were raised by hon. Members opposite, and one was on the effect on Zambia. It was asked whether President Kaunda had been asked if he would agree to this ship being turned back, and what he would say if he were asked. It is quite clear what he would say in the present climate of opinion, particularly after the meeting of the Organisation for African Unity. He would probably say, "Go ahead and stop the ship". Nevertheless, I suggest that if President Kaunda and the other Prime Ministers who might be directly involved were asked, quietly and sincerely, what they really thought and not what they felt the world wanted to hear from them, they might have other views, because African leaders like that are essentially concerned with their own people, and bringing peace, security and harmony to their own countries; and, although such matters as this can influence their public announcements, I am sure that, were they asked the question privately and without all this great clamour, their answer might be different.
  The suggestion is that a great international storm might develop if we turned the ship back. I respectfully suggest that, were it not for the storm created in the House at Question Time today and this evening, this matter would not have had anything like the international significance which it now has.
  We are asked to indulge in a gallant act of international public relations.
  Mr. Norman Buchan: As there has been a unanimous United Nations resolution and a great number of States in Africa have taken an extremely strong line in this situation, what on earth does the hon. Gentleman mean by saying that, if it were not for what we were doing, there would not be an international storm?
  Mr. Taylor: I do not think that the hon. Gentleman can deny that, while the question of oil sanctions is an international matter taking up the time and attention of statesmen throughout the world, tie dramatic significance of this one little ship has been raised in the House today and its significance would not have had that dramatic intensity if hon. Members had not created it themselves.
  We must consider this matter in the light of the whole policy of sanctions which the Government are supporting. Certain Facts which have come to light within the past few days and weeks should make us think seriously about what the Government's policy has actually achieved and what it is likely to achieve. Before we take any further measures of sanctions along the glorious path of cutting off all supplies to Rhodesia, we should consider the effect of what we do.
  First, can our actions be effective when we have no assurance from nations as great as France, Spain, Japan, Portugal and South Africa about what their attitude will be? There is no real point in our pressing ahead with these particular sanctions unless, as the Prime Minister has said, we are convinced that they will work.
  Mr. Archie Manuel: It is time the House knew exactly where the hon. Gentleman stands on the question of Southern Rhodesia. What is his policy? Does he believe in any sanctions at all, or is he trying to ride two horses and to please the Right wing of his own party that he wants to crawl to by appearing to support Mr. Smith whenever he can?
  Mr. Taylor: The House will not be very interested in my personal views. That is to give them a significance and importance which they do not have. But I hope to have the opportunity, before I sit down, to say what I think should be done. It has been a great pleasure to me to see that the Government themselves seem to be moving largely in the direction which I should like them to follow.
  I cannot see the need or justification for going ahead with a policy of sanctions simply to satisfy the souls and consciences of hon. Members opposite if such
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  a policy will not achieve the object which they desire. It is clear, on the question of oil sanctions and this ship in particular, that there will be no successful result, or no kind of result that the Government want, if we do not have the co-operation of States which can make a real and practical contribution to the economy of Southern Rhodesia.
  What is worrying hon. Members opposite is that sanctions do not seem to be working and that they will take too long to bite—far too long from their point of view. Hon. Members opposite want to see things come to a dramatic conclusion, but it is more than clear that, if we follow this policy, there will be no dramatic conclusion. It will be a slow, tedious and miserable business involving a great deal of suffering.
  One question which has not been answered is what will be the effect of a policy of sanctions on Zambia and Malawi. We are told that we could organise an airlift which would take out 20,000 tons of copper and bring in millions of gallons of oil. Is this a feasible proposition? Can the Secretary of State or someone else assure us that this whole matter has been thought out carefully, has been costed, and is regarded as practicable? If there is complete severance of trade and economic ties between Southern Rhodesia and Zambia, can it be done?
  Mr. Paget: The hon. Gentleman has forgotten the flying in of coal.
  Mr. Taylor: Coal has not been mentioned at all, but I understand that the coal used in Zambia comes from the Wankie colliery in Southern Rhodesia. However, no one has explained how this coal is to get from Southern Rhodesia to Zambia.
  Mr. Thorpe: Is the hon. Gentleman in favour of sanctions only if they are likely to be effective, or does he feel that we should not have sanctions unless we have the good will and support of South Africa and Portugal? Is that his argument?
  Mr. Taylor: Certainly not. I was trying to point out that, as at present organised, sanctions will not work and, moreover, if they work only in certain directions, we shall bring misery and distress to many people not for weeks or a few months but for a long time. We

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  should think more about the human suffering which will be involved and we should not get our standards mixed.
  Mr. Stan Newens: Does the hon. Gentleman wish the Smith régime to be brought down or does he wish it to survive? Are his real considerations for the Zambians and others or for the Smith régime and its ability to survive? If the hon. Gentleman supports the Smith régime, why not come out and say so, instead of putting forward hypocritical ideas about the people of Zambia and the misery which might be inflicted on them?
  Mr. Taylor: It is quite delightful to hear allegations of hypocrisy and the rest. [HON. MEMBERS: "Answer."] I am taking up far too much time, largely because of the interruptions, but I shall give an indication on that matter before I sit down.
  We should remember how greatly values are being changed. The extreme Left wing of the Labour Party, which has been calling for cuts in the whole of our defence expenditure, now says that we should think in terms of sending troops to Rhodesia. The same people who call for massive reductions in military and aircraft expenditure now call for a vast airlift to aid Zambia. Where would the aeroplanes come from if their demands had been granted? The same people who call for peace in Vietnam because of distress and suffering there do not seem to think of the distress and suffering which might well result from the policy of sanctions. Moreover, no one seems to remember that in the Sudan now more people are being killed daily than in the Vietnam war.
  We should reconsider our whole policy, particularly on the question of whom we should negotiate with and when. I say this particularly in the light of certain matters which have been brought out in the past few days with reference to the negotiations which actually took place. I am becoming more and more convinced that these negotiations did not take place in good faith. It is becoming clear that either the Prime Minister and his representatives were saying different things in different places at different times or the negotiations did not, in fact, take place in good faith.
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  We say that, first, because, just before the election, in a letter to Dr. Mutasa, the Prime Minister clearly stated,
  "The Labour Party is totally opposed to granting independence to Southern Rhodesia so long as the Government there remains under the control of a white minority."
  What happened when negotiations actually started? That letter was more than clear, and I do not think that anyone has tried to deny it. Why, then, in all the negotiations and the exchanges of letters, did the Prime Minister consistently refuse to face this question or answer it directly?
  Mr. David Ennals: Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that the Prime Minister was wrong to make any concession during the course of negotiations or exchanges with Mr. Smith?
  Mr. Taylor: Certainly not, but there is a great deal of difference between concessions over a long period of time, having said on 2nd October, 1964, that independence would be given only on the basis of majority rule, and saying only one month later, in a letter of 27th November, when the point had been raised by Mr. Smith,
  "We have an open mind on the timing of independence".
  It is one thing to make concessions over a long period, but it is quite another thing to change one's point of view within a period of one month.
  On 21st September, when Mr. Smith again tried to get a firm commitment on this, what was said was:
  "I give a clear undertaking that we have an open mind on the timing of independence."
  Time and time again this has been repudiated.—Only this morning we had a report—not confirmed, I admit—that it was said clearly in public by Mr. Smith in Salisbury that he has heard of discussions which took place between Mr. Garfield Todd and the British Prime Minister in which it was alleged that the Prime Minister was playing for time and simply stringing Mr. Smith along. If that was so, and the Prime Minister had a firm commitment in his own mind that independence would be given only on the basis of majority rule, can we think that our record is an honourable one if months of negotiation went on when this whole point of view was completely changed and the Prime Minister was allegedly discussing the whole question of independence

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  in good faith? We should have regard to this particularly when considering the responsibility for U.D.I.
  This is one point initially on which I disagree violently with certain hon. Members opposite. It is the point of where the responsibility lies for U.D.I. It rests primarily on Mr. Smith for taking it, but it also rests upon the negotiations in which one side appears to have been negotiating from a position of bad faith, and it also rests to some serious degree on the African Nationalist leaders who, after welcoming the 1961 Constitution, refused to co-operate or to operate it.
  What should be our aim? Essentially, it should be to try to get to a situation whereby we can have gradual progress towards majority rule. Are our present policies going to achieve that in any way? They certainly do not seem to, judging by what has happened in the last few weeks. There has been a hardening of opinion in Southern Rhodesia backing up Mr. Smith, and even those alleged moderate elements who were supposed to be against his policies now seem to be backing him in face of what they consider to be a national emergency. The British Government were hoping that the people in Southern Rhodesia would stand up and indicate that they did not agree. Apart from some dubiety about the point of view of judges and apart from two policemen who appear to have come back to this country, there have been no mass resignations from the general, main stream of support for Mr. Smith. It seems if anything——
  Mr. Rose: What about the five Catholic bishops who made a statement on Rhodesia? Does not the hon. Gentleman include these as being with the main stream?
  Mr. Taylor: There have been individual citizens who have done this sort of thing. I have mentioned some, and the hon. Gentleman has mentioned others. However, I think it would be agreed that the British Government expected that on the basis of the opposition against Mr. Smith before U.D.I. a far more substantial body of opinion would have expressed itself as against his policies.
  Mr. Ennals: Would not the hon. Gentleman recognise that not only before
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  U.D.I. but since U.D.I. Mr. Smith's régime has tightened up the pressures upon every conceivable form of opposition and has created what is tantamount to a police state? Can he expect the sort of opposition that one would find in a free country to exist in the circumstances that he knows well now exist in Rhodesia?
  Mr. Taylor: I am afraid that I am taking up too much of the time of the House on these quesions, and I apologise for that. I intend to make the points that I had proposed to make. But, this point having been put to me, I suggest that as before U.D.I., in the future when the emergency disappears, no matter what Government is in charge, there will be more opportunity for freedom of expression in Southern Rhodesia than in many other countries in Africa. On the other hand, can we expect that when a Government have made a unilateral declaration of independence and are surrounded by régimes which are hostile to them, threatened with international violence and constantly thinking in terms of the danger of terrorism—from which they suffered before U.D.I.—it would not be reasonable for them in that situation, if they wanted to continue as the de facto Government, to take emergency powers? It is obvious that such a Government would.
  The hon. Member for Central, Ayrshire (Mr. Manuel) asked what I want and what I stand for. It is completely and absolutely essential that we should stop Southern Rhodesia going into the South African camp. I am convinced that the trend of our present policies is driving Southern Rhodesia in that direction. I believe that they will not surrender at any time. I cannot see them giving up so long as there is a possibility of their carrying on on their own. It is not easy in a country like Southern Rhodesia, when one has a small minority living at a high economic level, to ask it readily to accept the principle of majority rule if there appears to be a choice. On the other hand, there is an inherent decency. I believe, in all the people out there, and I believe that unless they are presented with only one alternative they will opt for majority rule as an ultimate aim. I believe that our present policies will drive them into South Africa's arms. I do not think that South Africa would be happy about having immediate majority rule proposed

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  in Southern Rhodesia just over its borders. Obviously, South Africa would take measures, admittedly as quietly as possible, to prop up the Smith régime.
  What we must do is to find some means whereby the principles of majority rule as the ultimate aim established in the 1961 Constitution can be made a reality. I recognise that the present policies will not operate in that way. Say we do overturn the Smith régime, as some hon. Members appear to think we can do, although I think that it would take at least 18 months. What do we do after that? Are we prepared to say that we will not insist on majority rule now? Of course, we say that, because the Prime Minister has indicated it, saying that we start off from the 1961 Constitution with some amendments to take account of the five principles. What will this mean? It will mean that the same body of opinion represented in the Rhodesian Front will be re-elected to office under the new arrangements. I believe that this will happen. On the other hand, say we insist on majority rule. This would be a straightforward practical answer. But the British Government do not say that. They say that they want gradual progress towards majority rule. I suggest that if we have that we shall have the same set-up after Mr. Smith has been overturned as at the present time.
  I should like to see us trying by negotiations—with anyone in any circumstances—to return to a situation whereby Southern Rhodesia can come back into the Commonwealth, perhaps as though nothing had happened. It is very easy to say that this is a silly point of view and that it might not work. But what I can say in all sincerity is that I am convinced that the obvious result of what the British Government are doing will be to make Southern Rhodesia follow the immediate policies of the South African régime.
  What would my suggestion mean in practical terms? It would, in effect, mean that we should put an end to our sanctions policy for a short period and send out a group of people to reside with the Governor, who is in our eyes and the eyes of the world the legal representative of the British Government in Southern Rhodesia, and put out feelers to see whether the effect of our ending our sanctions policy would be that Southern
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  Rhodesia would be prepared to come back to the path of legal government. If we remain in the present situation where neither Mr. Smith nor the British Prime Minister will budge, we shall not get anywhere. Someone has to make the first move.
  I suggest that in sending out a deputation to reside with the Governor we should not be recognising the Smith régime and not going back on any of our principles. I believe that it would have a real chance of success. I feel that the de facto Government in Southern Rhodesia must be terrified about the consequences of the policies which are at present being applied in Central Africa. Apart from that, I believe that they have a deep-rooted will and wish to remain united or associated with the British Commonwealth. In these circumstances, I am convinced that my suggestion would be well worth trying. At the present time our policies can only lead to two clear alternatives—the continuation of the Smith régime and its association with South Africa, or else it will inevitably lead to a blood bath. I cannot see any other course at the present time.
  For these reasons, we should look again at our policies. We are justified in doing so in the light of the correspondence about the Prime Minister's negotiations en the Rhodesian problem. Enough has been established to say that perhaps we made some mistakes, that perhaps some of our motives were wrong—that perhaps we made a small mistake, just as Rhodesia has made a great mistake.
  Mr. Cyril Bence: Does not the hon. Gentleman appreciate that the right hon. Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Sir Alec Douglas-Home) tried to do that for years and failed? The present Prime Minister was trying to do the same and he failed. If what the hon. Gentleman suggests takes place, and Mr. Smith and those who support him still refuse to give way on the 1961 Constitution, what will he do then?
  Mr. Taylor: It is easy to call these people traitors and rebels and threaten to send in troops. That was precisely what was done by the Government and that was a great mistake. The hon. Gentleman says that this has been tried time and again, but no Prime Minister from

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  this party has ever negotiated or appeared to negotiate from a position of bad faith. In particular, I cannot envisage any circumstances in which my right hon. Friend the Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Sir Alec Douglas-Home) would ever negotiate from a position of bad faith.
  What I am trying to explain is that these relevations about what happened in the negotiations are adequate justification for us to be prepared to admit that perhaps we have made some mistakes and that we are prepared to take this initial step which might result in a settlement which might prevent a South African-type régime in Rhodesia or the prospect of a blood bath that would affect all Africa.
  8.22 p.m.
  Mr. Stanley Orme: We have had an illuminating outline from the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward M. Taylor). First of all, he complained about my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) initiating this debate. Then he took up 30 minutes of it. He attacked certain hon. Members on this side of the House but he failed to stand up to the direct question put to him. Does he or does he not support Smith? He has not given an answer. We have had from him much about appeasement and suggestions for ways in which the British Government might try to crawl out of the present situation, but no direct answers.
  The debate has arisen at an opportune moment, at the very time when a B.P. tanker is traversing the waters of the Indian Ocean on its way to Beira. This is how we can, surely, in a democracy express our opinions to the Government and ask for certain actions and assurances. This tanker is being watched by the world. The British Government hold 51 per cent. of the B.P. shares, and are surely therefore in control of the tanker. We have a right to ask the Government in the name of their present policy towards Rhodesia to turn the tanker back. The Government have control of the company. If they have not, then there is something wrong with what we have been told about B.P.
  The momentum of the Rhodesian crisis is mounting. We are not 12 or 18 months from a solution. We are much nearer.
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  We are perhaps days from a solution if we step up the sanctions and the policy the Government have initiated. The stronger sanctions that have been taken by the Government have been whole heartedly supported on this side of the House and by the Opposition, though very much with tongue in cheek. Even so, many hon. Members opposite fully support these stronger actions. We are moving to the "crunch." with sanctions when we reach an oil embargo.
  Some months ago my hon. Friend the Member for Willesden, East (Mr. Freeson) asked the Prime Minister about oil sanctions against South Africa at the time when we cancelled the aircraft which were to have been sent to South Africa. The Prime Minister said that to implement oil sanctions on a modern nation was tantamount to declaring war on it. This is where we are moving now in relation to Rhodesia. We have to take this step. Those hon. Members who continually challenge hon. Members on this side of the House as to whether or not we are in favour of force know that our answer is that we should make the sanctions strong enough and swift enough to overthrow the Smith régime without resorting to force. That is the crux of the matter.
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations has had a very tough job under trying conditions. He is attempting to maintain the situation. But we have had indications from Persia and elsewhere that other nations are prepared to implement the sanctions. I hope that, if he cannot answer tonight, then the Prime Minister will be able to tell us tomorrow that oil sanctions are to be imposed and that we shall try to make them work. The way to do so is to put a blockade on Beira Port.
  I see that the right hon. Member for Preston, North (Mr. J. Amery) has now gone. He nods his head and says, "Hear, hear", but does not get up and say what he would do. He was one of the leaders of the Suez rebels. He was the person who believed in gunboat supremacy. Last week the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Eldon Griffiths) spoke very strongly against stepping up the action against Smith. But other quarters of the world are in favour of any action

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  to see that the policy he attacks is brought to a successful conclusion. Because it happens to involve Smith and a White Rhodesian minority, the hon. Gentleman is not prepared to go that far.
  The hon. Member for Cathcart talked about splitting and dividing the white Rhodesians. What about the 4 million Africans in Rhodesia? That is the issue which has the whole of Africa and Asia in turmoil. The British Government have to take firm control, for Rhodesia is our territory. Does anybody believe that if the Smith régime did not have a modern air force and a modern army equipped with modern weapons, we would not have moved into Rhodesia on 11th November when U.D.I. came? It is the possibility of using arms against a well-armed minority which is worrying people.
  Not many debates are held in such a dramatic form. If the Government believe that oil sanctions and other sanctions which I welcome are essential and are the answer to the problem, they must turn back this tanker, irrespective of what other tankers are coming and from where. We can settle that when the final decision is taken about the blockade and other action.
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations last week was in Zambia negotiating with Kenneth Kaunda. He has met many African leaders and we have all heard the rumblings from the African Continent about relations with Britain. I believe that my right hon. Friend is trying to hold a balance and to maintain a multi-racial Commonwealth—and there is no Commonwealth which is not multiracial. The world is not on an East-West axis, but on a North-South axis. We have to come to terms with people whatever the colour of their skins and we have to remember that coloured peoples constitute two-thirds of the world's population. How can we allow a tiny minority to twist our arm and flout, the changes of the twentieth century?
  We have seen an indication from the Smith régime that the initial sanctions are beginning to hurt—a very good sign. The Rhodesians are having to tighten their belts, and the Smith régime is trying to convince them and to bolster them up
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  with stories about our attacking pensioners and is saying what it will do about that. Our first actions are beginning to be felt, and the quicker we take other steps, the quicker will the Smith régime be overthrown. After what has happened, how can any hon. Member talk of negotiating with Smith and his Cabinet? Yet that is what the official Opposition are hankering for. A letter in The Times this morning is an example of the way in which the trend is going and I hope that my right hon. Friends will have no truck with these people.
  The debate is timely and important. We are asking the Government to step up the actions which they have already taken. If they do, in a matter of days we could see the end of the Smith régime, and that is what we want.
  8.33 p.m.
  Mr. Eldon Griffiths: As the hon. Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme) has referred to my statements of last week, it might be permissible for me to put two things on the record. I hate racialism, and I have lived in a society in the United States where I have seen it in action perhaps a little more closely than the hon. Member has. There is no more obscene thing in human history than the application to a man, because of the colour of his skin, of the character of inferiority and I reject it and I hope that the hon. Member will accept my rejection. But, secondly, I hate war and in what he has said this evening the hon. Gentleman has seemed to suggest that, in order to stamp out the evil of racialism, he is prepared to espouse the evil of war.
  I do not see the equation so easily as that. I find it more complex, more delicate and more difficult, and it is for that reason that I sympathise—and I do not find that easy—with the position in which the Prime Minister and the Government find themselves this evening.
  The House is debating in the dark. There are facts which are known to the Government but not known to us about where the tanker is and precisely the reasons why it is difficult for the Government to interfere with its deliveries. Until we have heard those facts, we are not in a position to judge and I very much regret that the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, who has been

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  sitting on the Front Bench, has not felt it to be his duty to intervene in the debate and provide us with the facts about which we are debating. Until we know what the facts are and what is in the Government's mind, we are beating about in the dark. I very much regret that the Government have not seen fit to intervene in the debate, and put the House in possession of facts upon which it could make a judgment.
  This debate has moved into a general debate upon the Prime Minister's handling of the situation and I should like to add my thanks to those who have made the debate possible. In the handling of this delicate and dangerous situation the Prime Minister has got himself, and this country, into very grave difficulties. [AN HON. MEMBER: "Rubbish."] He has placed himself in the position of a wasp in a jampot, and the more he flaps about the more he is covered with difficulty and is incapable of moving.
  If there is any doubt about that let me point to two things which he has done. He has succeeded in having himself attacked by the white racialists who support Mr. Smith and by the black nationalists who oppose Mr. Smith. He is in a position where, in this House, he is attacked from the extreme Left and from the extreme Right. It takes genius to achieve this. The reason, I regret to say, is that the Prime Minister has spoken out of both sides of his mouth, and he has continued to do so. He began by saying that there should not be punitive action against Rhodesia, and the party on this side of House gave him its support on that basis. Only last week we had the punitive action over pensions. At the beginning he also said that force was ruled out. Now, in the Prime Minister's own words, there has been an intimation that force is not ruled out. He has spoken out of both sides of his mouth.
  One day he talks of an olive branch, and says that we are now going to have a new peace initiative. This was said within 24 hours of screwing up the sanctions as far as they could go and using this intimation of force. I do not complain that the right hon. Gentleman should follow either of these policies, but I wish that he would not follow them both together and expect the House of Commons to believe that he is being consistent, because quite plainly he is not.
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  We need to try to define what is common ground between both sides of the House over policy in Rhodesia. I would define the correct policy as an attempt to get that unhappy country back on the road towards a multiracial democracy, with safeguards for the white minority under the rule of law.
  If that is the objective that we are seeking, we have to measure everything which the Government do in terms of whether it is likely to be effective in achieving that result. That is the purpose of the House examining the Government's Rhodesian policy. We are told that the Commonwealth is likely to be broken up. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe) and the hon. Gentleman the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot) both made much of this point. It may be so, but where is the threat to the Commonwealth coming from? It is coming mainly, I regret to say, from the African States themselves.
  It was not in this House that the threat to break up the Commonwealth arose. It arose in Addis Ababa at the meeting of the Organisation for African Unity. I regret this, but the Organisation has put down an ultimatum saying that unless this Government have crushed the Smith régime by 15th December they will break off diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom and leave the Commonwealth. Is there a Member of this House who seriously believes that that is a responsible way for a Government to act? I think that it is a measure only of the immaturity of those Foreign Ministers gathered in Addis Ababa that they were prepared to make that threat. Not an hon. Gentleman opposite will say that it was a responsible statement.
  Mr. Newens: Does not the hon. Gentleman agree that the attitude taken by many back bench Members on his own side of the House has greatly contributed to the attitude being taken by the African States to which he has referred?
  Mr. Griffiths: The Commonwealth has a long history, and it is extraordinary to me that any hon. Member should believe that it is responsible for a member Government to threaten this country with ultimatums on the ground of something which it may have heard in the House of Commons and not liked. [HON. MEMBERS: "Answer the question."] I am

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  answering the question. The answer is very precise. I do not accept that it is responsible for any Commonwealth Government to give ultimatums and to threaten to march out of the Commonwealth because of something which may have been said in the House of Commons or anywhere else. The interests of the Commonwealth are much greater than that.
  To that kind of irresponsible ultimatum there can be only one answer from a British Government, and it is an answer which we may have to regret. The Commonwealth is founded, above all else, on mutual acceptance of differences in our society. We do not like many of the things in other Commonwealth nations. I did not like the killings which accompanied the recent election in Western Nigeria, or the refusal of India and Pakistan to negotiate over Kashmir, and I do not like the dictatorship in Ghana. But this does not mean that I propose that we should immediately intervene or force them to bend to our will.
  If the Commonwealth is founded on anything, it is founded on mutual respect for differences. Therefore, our answer to this ultimatum from the African States must be this: "If you do not like the policy of the British Government, and if you propose to go all the way and to move out of the Commonwealth because we are not prepared to do what we believe would be disastrous in Central Africa—if you press the ultimatum on us for that reason—then on your head be it".
  Mr. Will Griffiths: I understand and sympathise with what the hon. Gentleman said about Western Nigeria and Ghana and noninterference in the internal affairs of other countries of the Commonwealth. But, in drawing this analogy with Rhodesia, it must have escaped the hon. Gentleman's notice that we are directly responsible for Rhodesia.
  Mr. Griffiths: I was not dealing with our responsibility at the moment. I accept that. I am simply making a reply tc the ultimatum delivered by the African States. They are saying to us, "You must do in Rhodesia what we ask of you, namely, go to war". The British Government with the support of this House, have decided that they are not willing to go
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  to war over Rhodesia. On that point, the African States are saying, "If you do not go to war, if you do not do what you yourselves believe to be disastrous, we shall quit the Commonwealth." To that we can give only one answer, namely, that it is an irresponsible ultimatum, that we do not accept it and that we are not prepared, in the Prime Minister's words, to be pushed around in that fashion. We must make our decisions in the areas of our responsibility, which include Rhodesia. I take the hon. Member's point.
  The constitutional lawyers, above all else, have got us into a most absurd position over Rhodesia. The House is being asked to follow policies which many of us, perhaps most of us, doubt will work, against a Prime Minister whom we do not recognise but who has all the real power, on behalf of a Governor whom we all admire but who does not even have a telephone. By any measure this is absurd. It is not of our choosing, but that is the position, and it is because of the illogicality of the British position that we seem to have got lost. We have lost our purpose there.
  I come back to what I said. It is our purpose in Rhodesia to try to restore this unhappy land to the path of multiracial democracy. Of course, we want that, but I do not believe that we can achieve it unless we provide for the white minority as well as for the African majority a reasonable safeguard for their future. That was what U.D.I. was all about. It was about the fact that most of the white people in Rhodesia had fears for their future. Some of them are racialists—I have no truck with them—and others are ordinary British people. Whatever they be, they were fearful that Her Majesty's Government might be pushing Rhodesia too rapidly into the state of African democracy that has led in so many other countries to chaos. That was their fear.
  If we are seeking to resolve this matter and to attract the moderates whom we are told so much about, we have above all to tackle the problem of their fear for the future. I believe that the ways in which the Government have tackled the situation have so far proved themselves to be ineffective. If I believed that economic action against Mr. Smith would

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  bring the result which we all hope to achieve, I should support it to the hilt. If I believed that force would achieve the purpose which I have defined, I would support it to the hilt. My doubt is whether it will be effective. [An HON. MEMBER: "What does the hon. Member support?"] I will support what is effective in achieving our purpose. I have defined this purpose many times. I will come presently to the policy that I propose.
  The consequential actions that followed U.D.I. had the support of both sides of the House. The cutting off of Smith from the sterling area and the Commonwealth connection had the support of this House. Where we are getting into different ground is where we seek to find whether the actions that hon. Members opposite are proposing now will achieve the result we want.
  On the economic front, it is plain that we will not get a universal policy of sanctions against the Smith régime. We will not get it, because South Africa and Portugal have lined themselves up against it. To that extent, there is a gaping hole in any economic embargo that this country or its allies seek to impose. For that reason alone, it seems to me unlikely that the economic sanctions that the Government are imposing will work.
  There is, secondly, the fact of experience. The United States, with all its great power, imposed upon the tiny island of Cuba, 90 miles off its shore, the whole range of economic sanctions backed up by the power of the United States Navy. There was an island which had an economy just as precarious as that of Rhodesia. It had almost no trading partner and no common frontier, such as Rhodesia has. The result of two and a half years of tight economic squeeze on Cuba was simply to make Fidel Castro stronger than he had ever been before. Once again, therefore, one has to face the fact that on the record, this type of policy appears not to achieve the object which we wish to see.
  Then there is the third point. We assume that this policy, tightening the belt, producing unemployment, hunger, perhaps disease—this is what it means—will somehow or other make moderate men leave Mr. Smith, forsake him and come back to the British nest. I wish it were true, but I doubt it. I see no
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  evidence that unemployment, hunger, disease and a breakdown of the national economy will somehow restore these people to the British fold.
  I do not know what effect it will produce. It may well produce chaos. It has certainly produced suffering. There is no evidence on the record historically, however, that this will make those people forsake the Government which they have chosen and come back to the one they have thrown off.
  Mr. Scholefield Allen: I lived through the Abyssinia campaign. Mussolini declared that if an oil sanction had been imposed on Italy for a fortnight, he would have been on his back.
  Mr. Griffiths: Of what Mussolini may or may not have declared, I have no knowledge. I am looking at the facts as they exist. We have the facts over Cuba and China. The United States imposed upon the Communist Republic of China, year in year out, the tightest possible blockade and the result has been simply to fasten the grip of the Communists more tightly than ever on the people of China. That is not in doubt. I do not oppose economic sanctions if they will produce the result that we want to see, and it is for the Government to demonstrate that they will. But if they are not going to produce that result, one is entitled to be doubtful and sceptical, and I am both.
  Beyond that, what is the constructive policy that the Prime Minister is now edging his way into?
  Mr. Manuel: Will not the hon. Gentleman agree that the facts which he is quoting are historically wrong? He cites the case of China, but surely the great difference between China and Southern Rhodesia is that the mass of the people were behind the Communist régime in China and that is why they succeeded in the face of the massive American blockade.
  Mr. Griffiths: If the hon. Gentleman believes that, he can believe anything. Ten million people were executed by the Communists.
  I want briefly to detail some of the constructive arguments that I would ask the Government to consider. Having attacked the policies that the Prime Minister has been putting forward, it is

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  incumbent upon me to suggest an alternative approach.
  One would like to see the British Government offering the carrot of a conciliated settlement with extensive educational and economic advances, above all for the Africans in place of the stick of unconditional surrender which is virtually all that they can see in the Prime Minister's hand at the moment. [Interruption.] I will deal with the hon. Gentleman's point in the few remarks that I have yet to make.
  I am perfectly well aware that in the Prime Minister's conversations with Mr. Smith and in the offers of both the Conservative Government and the Labour Government there were extensive proposals for economic and educational advance. I think that that was what the hon. Gentleman sought to say, and I accept that. I know that the Prime Minister has reiterated it. I want to hear him reiterating it again and again, loudly and convincingly. I say that he has not done so. [Interruption.] I will deal with that point as well.
  I should like to see the British Government spell out a blueprint of how they see Rhodesia developing under British guidance over the next 10 or 15 years. Until we deal with the white population's fear of the future and the African population's ambition for the future we shall not get to the heart of the matter. I should like the Prime Minister to say that while we cannot recede in any way from the ultimate idea of one man, one vote—the multi-racial democracy—we cannot achieve that tomorrow. The Prime Minister has not said that we can, but I should like him to define the qualifications by which Africans shall come on to the electoral register in Rhodesia.
  It is reasonable to say that those Africans who wish to come on to the electoral register and participate in the future of their country should live up to at least four requirements. First of all, they should be literate. Secondly, it is right to ask that they should be of fixed abode and not nomads. Thirdly, I think it is right that they should be law abiding. [An HON. MEMBER: "Is Smith law abiding?"] These are the British views that I am putting forward. I am not putting them forward on Mr. Smith's behalf.
  Mr. Buchan: Do you say that these conditions should apply only to Africans?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Roderic Bowen): Order. Would the hon. Gentleman please address the Chair?
  Mr. Buchan: Mr. Deputy Speaker, is the expression "law abiding" only to apply to Africans? We are faced with breakers of the law who happen to be Smith and his cohort.
  Mr. Griffiths: Perhaps I can put the hon. Gentleman's mind at rest by saying that, of course, I make no distinction when I say that people should be law abiding. Everyone should abide by the law. If hon. Gentlemen opposite wish me to say that I regard Mr. Smith as a rebel, I do so. He has broken the law. That is what this debate is all about. The debate is about how we can effectively put an end to the rebellion.
  If the British Government were to define the conditions on which they were prepared to move towards the multiracial society which we all want, they would go some way to assuring the white population of its future, which is what it is really concerned with. I repeat that I should like to see the British Government say that the qualifications required for going on the electoral register in Rhodesia are that a man, whatever his colour, must be law abiding——
  Mr. Buchan: That wipes out Smith.
  Mr. Griffiths: —secondly, that he must be literate; thirdly, that he must pay some tax——
  Mr. Heffer Mr. Heffer rose——
  Mr. Griffiths: I shall complete my speech more quickly if I am allowed to continue without constant interruptions. Nevertheless, I give way to the hon. Gentleman.
  Mr. Heffer: Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that the point that he is making about literacy has arisen in the southern States of America? One of the difficulties is that the system there is administered by the white minority, and in the past some of the best negro scholars have been kept off the electoral roll, despite the fact that they were highly educated.
  Mr. Griffiths: I am trying to define what the British Government's position should be, and if Mr. Smith and his white cohorts in Rhodesia are not prepared to accept it, we shall be quite clear where we stand. I shall be quite clear where I stand. I am not clear at the moment.
  I ask that the electoral qualification should require of all men that they be literate, that they be law abiding, that they pay some tax, and that they be of fixed abode. If the British Government could make these things clear, they would go some way towards giving the white minority a little assurance that the Africans with whom, quite rightly, they are to be asked to share their future, will be responsible men, will be men with whom any of us here would be willing to share our future because they are literate, because they are law abiding, because they pay some tax to society, and because they live in a fixed abode.
  I ask that the British Government should not merely confine themselves to the qualifications for being on the electoral register, but should offer again—and spell out what it means—to provide an economic and educational crash programme in Rhodesia. I know that the Prime Minister said these things on the telephone. I want him to come to the Dispatch Box and say that during the 10 years while these electoral qualifications are being achieved, and the number of Africans on the electoral roll is growing, according to British policy, not Mr. Smith's policy, we as a nation will be willing to spend a large sum of money to bring 500 to 600 Africans to our teacher training colleges each year, to bring Africans to learn at our police academies, to bring them here to learn to be J.P.s., to learn to be sanitary experts, to learn to be all the things that go to make up the woof and the warp of a civilised nation and at the same time we should be willing to spend perhaps £100 million over the 10-year period on improving the whole social infrastructure of Rhodesia. If hon. Gentlemen opposite think that that is a lot of money, perhaps I might remind them that they spent more than that on abolishing prescription charges.
  We should try to give the white minority an assurance that the Africans with whom they are to share their future will be educated, responsible men, and
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  we should back this up by providing the wherewithal for Rhodesia to achieve this advance.
  The hon. Member may say that the Prime Minister has offered this, and that the last Government offered it, and that Mr. Smith would not accept it. Let us say again, clearly—and in detail, not in general terms—how much money and how many teachers we will supply, where they will come from and when they will go. Let us be as precise as possible and put our proposals up before the forum of world opinion as well as British opinion. If Mr. Smith rejects those proposals again, people such as I will be very much clearer about the way in which our policies should develop.
  I want to see the Government once again affirming and spelling out in detail what they are prepared to do over the next 10 or 20 years in Rhodesia, and spelling it out in such a fashion as to show both the white minority and the black majority that their futures are assured and that they will peaceably arrive at the multi-racial democracy that I want to see. But I want to see the Government spell this out rather than to move us step by step, inexorably, to the war that may well otherwise come, and that will more assuredly spell the end of the Commonwealth than anything else. Let them spell it out by publishing a White Paper on the matter, and offering this opportunity once again before they go over the brink, to war.
  9.1 p.m.
  Mr. A. Woodburn: I came in to listen to this debate, and I heard my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot) deliver a very reasoned speech. I cannot say that I found it all quite sound tactically, but it was a reasonable contribution to the debate and it put a case for the Government to answer. Since then, in the latter stages of the debate, there have been some of the most irresponsible speeches I have ever heard in this House.
  The hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Eldon Griffiths), in a broadcast the other night, did the marvellous gymnastic trick of justifying both sides of Conservative Party policy as expressed in the recent debate on Rhodesia. That was a triumph of speechifying for the Conservatives,

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  because the hon. Member achieved what appeared to me to be the impossible; he reconciled the views of the right hon. Member for Preston, North (Mr. J. Amery) with those of his leader and the right hon. Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Sir Alec Douglas Home). Anybody who can do that can obviously deliver the kind of speech that the hon. Member delivered tonight. He has said everything that could have been said on every side of the Rhodesian question. He has been for the blacks, for the whites, against everybody, for the Government and against the Government. It has been impossible to follow either his logic or his reasoning. I give him credit for the fact that it is reasoning, but he did not reach any reasonable conclusions.
  The hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward M. Taylor), with his usual university debating agility, managed to indulge in the maximum amount of condemnation of everybody without making any constructive contribution towards a solution of the terrible problem with which the country is faced.
  As a simple observer—I have no Government knowledge of the question—I want to tell the House some of the factors as I see them. During the period of Conservative Government the policy was continued of giving freedom to people who had previously been subject to our rule. The hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds talked about violence. Where could there have been more violence than in Kenya? He brought out all the arguments about the ignorance of the natives and their savagery. I must remind him that the natives of Kenya were pictured as savages during the Mau Mau period. Mr. Kenyatta was imprisoned for nine years, but we now find that he is one of the greatest African statesmen, and that the advice he has given concerning this crisis has been among the best. We have been told the same thing about every African country.
  It has been pointed out, however, that the white settlers in Kenya, although they have not got all they wanted, are now settling down in a multi-racial State. The other day President Nyerere, in Tanzania, told his people that they must not interfere with the harmonious relationships existing between whites and blacks.
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  The same thing is happening in Uganda. I found that there was no distinction among races there. The people mixed together as friends and colleagues, and there was not the slightest indication of the question of colour entering into relationships between the whites and the blacks.
  Naturally, when the people of these countries become the Government, they want to get good jobs for the people who are educated. There are few good jobs in a place like Uganda, and it is natural that the administrative jobs should pass gradually into the hands of the people who are native to the country. However, there is a university there with a black principal and a large number of white lecturers and professors. There is a medical school where black doctors and white work side by side. Even in the Congo, about 72,000 Belgians are still working there—some people may say that it would be better if they were not—and co-operating in the life of the country.
  Rhodesia was part of the Federation, which has now broken up Northern Rhodesia has formed its Government under President Kaunda. Malawi is ruled by Dr. Banda. Nobody has suggested that there has been any difficulty in these countries co-operating and making a multi-racial society work.
  Southern Rhodesia has been the exception. It had a Constitution which was designed eventually to lead to a multiracial society. It has been the policy of this country for 50 years that, in our trusteeship of these nations, we would educate them until they were able to govern their own country. We did this in the case of India, and by the time we left India the Indians had reached the stage when they were already running their country. Practically no British people held administrative jobs. It was not a question of being put out—we walked gracefully out and left the country to the people inhabiting it.
  A different problem arises in a place like Rhodesia, where practically the whole country has been built up round the economy created by white settlers. The same is to some extent, true of Northern Rhodesia. The Africans, realise, I am sure, that this economy is valuable to them as much as to anyone else. Until U.D.I. occurred, the Constitution of 1961

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  operated, under which there would be gradual progress towards majority rule. Who talked with them? Who could have interfered with the 1961 Constitution? The Constitution was there. It was their business to carry out its provisions. It is true that world moral pressure was exerted on them to speed up this process by bringing the Africans into Government, but, instead of that, I understand that they have been limiting the education of Africans and preventing them from going on beyond primary school.
  I heard the principal of the college in Salisbury, speaking on this subject, say that there was no doubt that the African children in Rhodesia were as capable of being educated to the same degree as white children in Rhodesia. Therefore, what can justify the Government of a country not allowing children who have the ability to be educated to their maximum potential? In other words, there is a policy of suppressing the education of the people and not allowing them to achieve the civilised state which the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds wants them to reach.
  The world today is no longer governed by force but largely by moral pressure. The one great triumph of the United Nations is that every country in the world has to justify, in the face of world opinion, its treatment of its own people and its behaviour towards other people. Therefore, how can Britain, which is responsible for Rhodesia, justify what is happening in Rhodesia if it seems to be a repressive policy?
  Mr. Smith has declared war on the whole moral purpose of the world. That purpose is to bring people up to the state of civilisation and equality which we all desire to see. Mr. Smith has declared—and I heard him myself—that it was their business to preserve white domination. He did not use those exact words, but he meant white domination of the blacks for time immemorial.
  This represents a challenge to the whole world, and not merely to Britain. It represents a challenge to the blacks in Africa, to India, to the United States, which is in the process of with great difficulty trying to bring its people to a state of complete equality, and to the world in general. Mr. Smith has declared
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  racial war on the black population of the world and, in particular, on the black population of Rhodesia.
  The hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds and the hon. Member for Cathcart, merely say that we should do nothing.
  Mr. Eldon Griffiths: I did not say that.
  Mr. Woodburn: They propose nothing and said that anything which we tried to do would be futile. They said that nothing would work, which meant, in effect, that we should leave Mr. Smith alone to get on with his policy.
  I put it to hon. Gentlemen opposite that during 13 years of Conservative rule independence and majority rule was given under former Colonial Secretaries to several countries. It is to their credit that this was achieved. I repeat, that was done by Conservative Administrations and not by a Labour Government. Indeed, one of the former Colonial Secretaries has been denounced by his colleagues in the House of Lords for ruining the Commonwealth by being too smart by half. The former Colonial Secretaries did a great job in extending the freedom of home rule to the people of those countries.
  The only exception is Rhodesia and, therefore, when the right hon. Gentleman the former Prime Minister discussed the matter with Mr. Smith and when Mr. Smith asked for independence on his own terms, this country could not possibly, in the moral attitude of the world and with the attitude which has prevailed in Britain for the last 50 years, refuse to say that before handing over responsibility for self-government there must be the right eventually of majority rule.
  Hon. Gentlemen opposite have made a number of smart quips and university debating points about what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said about this or that on one occasion or another. Are they not aware that this is a serious matter and that we are not in a debating society at a university where somebody scores points? It is entirely irresponsible for the two hon. Gentlemen to whom I referred to give encouragement to Mr. Smith in his rebellion by saying that it is futile for us to do certain things, that those actions will be ineffective, that nothing can be done and that, in the long

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  run, Mr. Smith will win. If that is the case, God help the progress of that country and the progress of the world.
  Could Britain, in these circumstances, do nothing? Is that not what those two hon. Gentlemen opposite were suggesting? If not, they should have suggested what we could do. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will read the wonderful, simple sort of suggestions made by the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds. Does that hon. Gentleman think that my right hon. Friend had not considered those facts previously or that he will, next week, be able to resolve all the difficulties by doing what the hon. Gentleman suggested?
  Mr. Eldon Griffiths: The right hon. Gentleman is obviously in high dudgeon. I must correct him. I wish to see Smith's régime come to an end, and I wish to see Rhodesia put back on to a multiracial path. The right hon. Gentleman must not misquote me.
  Mr. Woodburn: My hon. Friends approve of the hon. Gentleman's objectives, but none of us heard anything in his remarks that would enable us to achieve them. He said something to please everybody—and something which displeased most of us. I approve of his policy to bring Rhodesia back to the line of progress. This is our objective. Nevertheless, the hon. Gentleman made no practical suggestions for achieving that, except by giving us to believe that we should allow Mr. Smith to carry on with his policy of suppressing Southern Rhodesia for the next generation. Britain could not stand still and do nothing.
  France is a very logical nation. France refused to take any action at the United Nations to suppress Southern Rhodesia. Why was that? It was because General de Gaulle's representative said, "If we acknowledge that the United Nations has any right to interfere in this matter, we are tacitly accepting that Mr. Smith's Rhodesia is an independent nation and no longer part of the British Commonwealth. It is a matter entirely for Britain." He said that France would not interfere, and if we once accept the point that Mr. Smith has to be left alone this ceases to be a British affair and becomes
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  the affair of the United Nations and of every country, with Britain playing a very minor part in it.
  Britain has therefore accepted the responsibility. The hon. Member approves of that, and his leaders approved of it, and demanded it, but now they do not want to allow Britain to accept its responsibility and do the job in the best way she can. It may be that some of these steps will not be successful, but hon. Members opposite should not be quite so pessimistic.
  We have applied sanctions. Since the League of Nations days it has always been the policy of this party that the countries of the League of Nations—now of the United Nations—should try to avoid war if it were possible; that they should use every method short of war to bring rebels and rebellion into order. Had the other nations backed up sanctions in the case of Abyssinia, Mussolini would have come to heel, but the application of sanctions was blacklegged by certain nations and the whole policy collapsed.
  This is where I rather differ from my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale. Mr. Smith has declared war on the whole Commonwealth. He has declared war on the principles of his Government. That war has to be fought. How do we fight it? Do we allow every Tom, Dick and Harry to rush in prematurely and be beaten? Bernard Shaw wrote a play called "Lord Augustus Does His Bit." Lord Augustus was a terriffic leader in the Army. He was told to retreat. He would never retreat—being a true Briton—so he rushed forward and, of course, was taken prisoner. When the Germans interviewed him, he told them that he would not retreat and gave them his ideas on military strategy. So the Germans said, "You are the man we want. We are prepared to exchange you with any general in the British Army and we will send you back to help the British," because that kind of warfare where people put themselves out on a limb is just not winning a war or a battle.
  When we have people in charge of an operation, they have to handle it in the way that is best. As I gather, the Prime Minister said that the way to do it was to make sure that oil sanctions would be effective before imposing them. That is to say, we had to get agreement amongst

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  the oil-dealing nations to impose sanctions and not tackle it spasmodically by stopping a ship here and there. That was the policy declared last week, and I do not remember it being altered. I therefore cannot understand this excitement.
  I cannot appreciate why, until this policy is altered, someone should want to start a guerrilla war, stopping a ship here and there. If this policy is to be effective it has to be applied, as it should have been in the case of Abyssinia, by all the nations involved. I am not convinced about the part of Portugal and South Africa. They might be inviting too much trouble getting mixed up with Rhodesia. They should be careful. They themselves are vulnerable to world opinion and may also be vulnerable to other things that might reflect on them if they were to get mixed up in sanctions.
  It has been suggested that we ought to use troops. I have a certain sympathy with those who feel a measure of caution here. I remember Suez, when right hon. and hon. Members opposite used troops. The worst thing in the world for this country is to start to use troops without being prepared to make a job of it. The reason why the Africans are calling for us to use troops is that they know that their troops would be no match for the very effective Southern Rhodesian troops, who are well equipped and well armed. Obviously, the Africans would suffer terrible casualties if they entered upon war. They would do it if necessary, but they want Britain to do the job.
  If Zambia is not altogether willing to have our troops on its territory—this does not seem to he settled yet—how do the troops get to Rhodesia? I remember Suez and Cyprus. It is not so easy for a big army to curb a population. Therefore, those who have to decide these questions must think carefully and make proper provision before they start moving troops anywhere at all. The worst thing would be to move troops and make a mess of it. I hope that Her Majesty's Government will not attempt anything of this kind until they know what they are doing, where they are going, and what the result will be. Anyone who is prepared to take a gamble is a fool unless he knows the result, but if he gambles and knows the result he is a wise man. In my view, our Government must be
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  trusted to have a little common sense in this matter.
  The problem is to do what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Preston, North has proposed, in his saner moments, and that is to try to get Rhodesia into the Commonwealth again and working on a proper basis. Some hon. Members tell us that everyone is behind Mr. Smith. But Roy Welensky is not behind Smith. Sir Edgar Whitehead is not behind Smith. Winston Field is not behind Smith. Garfield Todd is not behind Smith. The business men of Rhodesia are not behind Smith. The F.B.I. sent out a delegation, before all this started, to advise people there to get this man to stop his mad nonsense and be reasonable. That is what they wanted to do, but they had no power because of what Mr. Smith, not with his British colleagues so much as some of his Boer colleagues, wanted to do. We all talk about our kith and kin, but it must be remembered that some of these people are South Africans who do not have our outlook on these matters at all.
  We are talking about 250,000 people, about the population of Aberdeen, dominating 4 million Africans. They are having a fine time of it, of course. One can understand their reluctance to give it all up. But does anyone believe that they can perpetuate their sort of Government in a world in which people are moving towards freedom and in which it is the plain duty of the British Government to do what they can in the circumstances to secure what they know is the right end? No one can guarantee success. No one can guarantee that sanctions will succeed. Is the alternative to have no sanctions? This is what seems to be proposed by hon. Members opposite.
  As my hon. Friends have said, the Leader of the Opposition has become quite irresponsible in this matter. He is so anxious to play party politics and score little points that he is losing his dignity as party leader and is becoming a mere political hack. I hope that he will carry on no more like that. I give credit to the right hon. Member for Kinross and West Perthshire, who rose manfully at that Box, in spite of his colleagues, and confirmed that the Prime Minister was doing exactly as he had done in his offers to

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  Mr. Smith. When hon. Members condemn the Prime Minister for his actions they are automatically condemning their former Prime Minister who pursued exactly the same policy, the policy which we have continued.
  9.25 p.m.
  Mr. Peter Bessell: The debate was initiated to discuss one oil tanker, and it is upon that oil tanker that I propose to concentrate my remarks. It has been suggested by the hon. Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme) that the eyes of the world are upon that tanker. I suggest that the eyes of the world are upon Her Majesty's Government and the decision which they will make about the fate of that tanker.
  This time last week I was in New York at the headquarters of the United Nations, and I had the opportunity of a number of informal and quite unofficial conversations with members of the delegations there. Two things impressed me above all else. The first was that Britain's sincerity in the matter of the illegal régime in Southern Rhodesia is under suspicion, that even our best friends are doubtful whether we seriously intend to take the measures that are necessary to overthrow the Government of Mr. Ian Smith. The other thing, which depressed me more than anything else, was the very obvious cynicism of the representatives of the Communist countries who believe that we shall take enough measures to save our face but not sufficiently strong measures to ensure the fall of the Ian Smith Government and that, consequently, we shall seek to please all sides of opinion while at the same time refusing to take the necessary steps to enforce the rule of law.
  In those circumstances, I believe that the issue of this one oil tanker assumes a very considerable proportion indeed. This afternoon the Prime Minister quite cordially and openly welcomed the actions of the Government of Iran in imposing oil sanctions upon Southern Rhodesia and carrying them immediately into effect, but in the very next breath he stated categorically that he was not prepared to turn back this one oil tanker, British owned and British controlled, whose contents will serve Southern Rhodesia. This is, in effect, saying that we welcome the action of one country in imposing oil sanctions but we ourselves are not pre-
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  pared to follow that example. Yet it is the British nation which has the prime responsibility for resolving the situation in Southern Rhodesia.
  The suggestion was also made by the Prime Minister that because there were other ships following the oil tanker it was not important to turn back that vessel, that Southern Rhodesia would, in fact, obtain her supplies from another source. That argument is absurd. It would be equally sensible to argue that we might today be supplying arms to the Viet Cong on the grounds that if we did not supply them somebody else would do so. If it is to be said that we must supply Southern Rhodesia with oil because if we do not another nation will do so, why are we imposing sanctions at all and why have we taken the measures to restrict the economy of Southern Rhodesia? It is quite probable that countries such as South Africa and Portugal will take steps to do everything in their power to assist Mr. Smith, and if one argument is logical then so is the other.
  I believe that the Prime Minister, whose handling of this situation I have until now admired profoundly, is wholly wrong in this matter. I believe that the eyes of the world are on the Government and on the decision which he has either made or will make in the days ahead.
  There has been reference to the position of the Commonwealth. My hon. Friend the Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe) referred to the ultimatum issued from Addis Ababa. I share his view—a view expressed by other hon. Members—that the ultimatum is melodramatic and possibly absurd. But the fact remains that it was the result of a deep-rooted concern felt by the African states—a concern and fear that Britain will not take the measures necessary to crush Mr. Smith.
  It may well be, as the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Eldon Griffiths) said, that the ultimatum is an indication of immaturity, but the fact remains that it was issued after long and serious debate by African Foreign Ministers meeting in Addis Ababa and that it was not an ill-considered or ill-judged move in their opinion, nor in the opinion of the countries they represent. It follows, therefore, that a decision of the Government about the tanker must have

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  a psychological effect upon the States concerned in that ultimatum—as, indeed, it will have an effect upon all other members of the Commonwealth who are anxious to see the Smith régime crushed.
  We are in danger—in serious and real danger—of a break up of the British Commonwealth. If that occurs it will be a profound tragedy, not only for Britain and not only for the member States of the Commonwealth but for the whole world—and if for no other reason we have to decide to take measures which are painful, which we ourselves dislike, in order to crush the Smith régime, then the fact that by so doing we shall preserve intact the British Commonwealth is to me a sufficient reason.
  Mr. Woodburn: Would the hon. Gentleman agree that in order to crush Smith, we should smash up the economies of the whole of Rhodesia, North and South? Or does he mean that we should get rid of Smith and try to preserve the economies of both countries for the benefit of the people who live in them?
  Mr. Bessell: Of course I want to see the economy of Rhodesia preserved if possible, but I do not think that the preservation of the economy of Rhodesia is the main issue in this matter. It may be an important issue but it is not of overriding importance. I am concerned, as other hon. Members have shown themselves to be concerned, to see that the interests of the white minority are preserved, that they are taken care of and that they are treated as fairly and as equitably as the indigenous people of that country. The real issue, the only issue in the eyes of the vast majority of the free countries of the world, is whether Britain really believes that she has a duty to uphold the rule of law.
  Mr. Daniel Awdry Mr. Daniel Awdry (Chippenham) rose——
  Mr. Bessell: I have given way once and I do not propose to give way twice because I know that many other hon. Members wish to speak.
  The issue is: does Britain intend to uphold the rule of law? Does she really care about the rule of law? That is the question in the minds of millions throughout the world. Or do we instead intend to permit the defiance of the authority of the Crown and of Parlia-
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  ment which has so far been expressed by the behaviour and the conduct of Mr. Ian Smith's Government?
  If we as a nation really believe in a democratic system of government for ourselves, it follows that we must believe in it also for those Colonial Territories for which we still have care. If we believe in the terms of the Charter of the United Nations and all that that means in terms of individual freedom and human rights, then we apply them not just to a few nations, but in all our relations with every nation on earth and in particular with those for which we still have a responsibility. If we really believe as a nation and as a people in upholding the rule of law, then the illegal Government in Southern Rhodesia must be crushed, and that is the first and, I believe, the only consideration in this whole matter.
  Mr. Awdry Mr. Awdry rose——
  Mr. Bessell: No, I cannot give way. Does this ship—[Interruption.]
  Mr. Speaker: Order. It is not in order for the hon. Member for Walthamstow, East (Mr. John Harvey) to interrupt from outside the Chamber.
  Mr. Bessell: I wish to be brief because I know that a number of hon. Members wish to speak.
  Does this ship seriously affect the future of the illegal Government in Southern Rhodesia? I believe that it does, because it is the most profound single test of the sincerity of the intentions expressed by Her Majesty's Government and its resolution to restore the rule of law which it has yet had to face. As I have said, there is a widespread suspicion throughout the whole of the free world and among Communist countries that we do not seriously intend to take the measures which are necessary to ensure the defeat of the Smith Government.
  This one issue, as I have said, will have a profound psychological effect upon world opinion. I say to the Prime Minister that this is for his Government, in the eyes of the world, the moment of truth. I said at the beginning that I thought that the hon. Member for Salford, West was not quite correct when he said that the eyes of the world were upon the

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  tanker and I said that they were upon the decision which will be made by Her Majesty's Government. I will amend that further. I believe that after the remarks made at the Dispatch Box this afternoon by the Prime Minister, the eyes of the free world are now upon the right hon. Gentleman.
  9.38 p.m.
  Mr. David Ennals: The House is grateful not only to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) for initiating the debate, but also to the hon. Member for Bodmin (Mr. Bessell) for bringing us back again to the small sharp issue which we are discussing this evening. This is not the time for a general debate on Rhodesia, and I shall be extremely brief in associating myself with a plea to the Government that they should take action which will prevent this one tanker from going to Beira.
  It will be said, as it has already been said in the House, that this would be only a gesture. I agree that it would be only a gesture. It is far more important that economic pressures should be effective and that oil sanctions should be organised and should work, but we cannot ignore gestures. The hon. Member for Bodmin was right to say that, rightly or wrongly—and I believe that it is wrongly—our sincerity is being questioned. If we ask ourselves why the African States at Addis Ababa issued their ultimatum, we would all agree that it was impossible for the Government to accept and that it was irresponsible and that it was calling for action which was unreasonable. But beneath it all was the question in the minds of some of these Foreign Ministers about whether they felt confident, totally confident, that though they might disagree with the methods being used by the British Government, come what may we would see this job through to the end. It is because, I think wrongly, they were not able to give an affirmative answer to that, that they have taken this decision. I would transfer the question to the Europeans in Rhodesia. I do not believe that we can ask the loyal European Rhodesians to come out against the illegal Government, to risk their livelihood and their futures if there is no certainty over what would be the outcome of this struggle.
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  While I have agreed with every action taken by the Prime Minister, and while I deplore the irresponsible and cheap jibes which came from one speaker on the other side of the House, what is required more than any other thing is a statement from the Prime Minister that, without question, and however long it may take, the task which this Government has set itself is not just to return Rhodesia to legality but to set in motion the process, however gradual, towards majority rule and that nothing will deter us from that task. It is in this light that I believe we must look at the incident of the ship. There is no question that people are asking about the sincerity of the British Government. One reason why they are doing so is because of statements that have been made from the other side of the House, not only from the back benches, where extremely irresponsible statements have been made, encouraging to Mr. Smith, but also from the Front Bench.
  We are looking not to the Opposition but to the Government. If they decide that the ship should go on, while in the long run, in terms of actual oil, the significance may not be very great, the fact that we do not take this gesture of stopping the ship, could lead to misunderstandings that are not only unjustified, but which could be profoundly important. It is for this reason that I want to add my voice to those who have made their appeal and ask the Prime Minister, if not tonight or tomorrow, to say that this ship, for which we can issue an instruction, should not arrive in the port.
  9.43 p.m.
  Mr. David Steel: When we are faced with a rebellion in Rhodesia there are only three possible methods of bringing it to an end. One is the use of economic sanctions, another is the use of force and the third is a combination of these two. There seem to be no other alternatives and these are the spheres of discussion which are open to us. Therefore, when the hon. Members for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward M. Taylor) and Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Eldon Griffiths) come forward with varying suggestions, that in some form or another we can treat with the rebels, that we can in some way offer them various proposals, these proposals

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  must clearly fall into one of two categories.
  They are either a repetition of the proposals made to the Smith Government before U.D.I., in which case there is every likelihood that they will be turned down and there is no reason why we should offer such proposals after U.D.I., or else they are new proposals, in which case they must be a retreat from the five principles which successive British Governments have laid down as preconditions of the granting of independence to Rhodesia. There can be no question of accepting any of the suggestions which came from these sources. I believe that the British Government must declare themselves on two points. They must state what is their long-term objective following the bringing down of the Smith régime. This we have not had.
  The Leader of the Opposition has suggested that we can go back to the 1961 Constitution. I believe that this is not a possible solution and that it would not be acceptable to the majority of the people of Rhodesia. The right course is to say that the form of policy which the British Government should pursue would be, having brought the rebellion to an end, to impose a period of direct British colonial rule and to make steady progress towards the normal transition to majority rule such as we have experienced in all other territories under our control. This is a matter on which the Government have yet to declare themselves clearly in the eyes of the rest of the Commonwealth.
  The other matter on which the Government have to declare themselves clearly—and this is where the issue about the oil tanker comes in—is their immediate determination to bring down the régime in Rhodesia. We have had too many phrases like, "We shall not stand idly by", which are capable of one interpretation by the African Commonwealth, one interpretation by the readers of the Daily Mirror and another interpretation by the Conservative Opposition. These phrases must stop. We have to have phrases which indicate clearly to the African Commonwealth that the British Government and this House are absolutely serious and clear-cut in their determination that this régime shall be brought to an end.
  Mr. Awdry: May I put a question to the hon. Gentleman which I tried to
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  put to the hon. Member for Bodmin (Mr. Bessell)? Does the hon. Gentleman's party contemplate using force to achieve these ends?
  Mr. Steel: I think that I indicated what the possible courses of action were. The Liberal Party has never ruled out the possibility of circumstances which might involve the use of force. We do not believe that this should have been ruled out. We are not saying that this is a desirable course. What I am saying is that the British Government must, at every step, make absolutely clear and in unambiguous terms what is their determination and their policy.
  It is in this context that we come to the question of the tanker heading for Beira. We are told that it is vital to maintain oil supplies to Zambia. In the next breath we are told that there are other ships behind this one which will supply oil to the pipeline. These two statements seem to me to be contradictory. Either the oil flow to Zambia is imperilled by stopping this ship, or it is not. We should have this point cleared up in the reply tonight.
  In the course of Questions earlier today the Prime Minister said, with a note of pride in his voice, that Britain had done more in the form of sanctions than any other country. This is not a matter for pride. This was essential and natural. This was our responsibility. I do not see this as a matter for self-congratulation. It is not good enough that the Prime Minister should dismiss as an idle moral gesture the suggestion that this ship should be turned back. As many people have said, this is, if nothing else, a moral issue. It is not an issue on which it is easy to make practical suggestions. A moral gesture on this moral issue could be exceedingly important at this time, and that is the case of those of us who are urging the Government to take a swift decision on the diversion of this ship.
  The Organisation for African Unity and the whole African Commonwealth are concerned about our good faith in the present Rhodesian situation. To put it another way, they are concerned with their kith and kin who happen to represent the majority of the population in Rhodesia. May I end by quoting the statement of President Kaunda in an

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  interview which appeared in last Sunday's Sunday Times—and it seems to me that he was speaking not just for himself but for the whole of African opinion in countries throughout Africa:
  "I must be frank. It is a terrible problem for the Zambian Cabinet and me to decide whether Mr. Wilson is determined with sufficient singlemindedness to carry this through to the end. Mr. Bottomley explained to me at length the difficulties of the Labour Government with their tiny majority. I understood that difficulty. But what is good politics in England may be bad politics in Africa. Let us say I still remain to be convinced that Britain will be absolutely committed to help us."
  I believe—this sums up our case—that it is because they remain waiting to be convinced that we are absolutely committed to help that we must turn this ship back.
  9.50 p.m.
  Mr. Paul B. Rose: I wonder how many times the door has to be slammed in the face of the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Eldon Griffiths) before he realises the true nature of the Smith régime. A great deal has been said by that hon. Member and by his hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward M. Taylor) about the question of majority rule and the nature of the Smith Government. They seem to have overlooked the official documents relating to the negotiations, at page 72 of which Mr. Smith said that he must make it clear that the Government party in Rhodesia did not believe in majority rule, that they accepted that the 1961 Constitution would eventually bring it about, but that they would not take any action to hasten this process. In other words, they were quite prepared to frustrate the process.
  I did not intend to enter this debate until I heard the hon. Member for Cathcart, the cabin boy, so to speak, in the ship of which his right hon. Friend the Member for Preston, North (Mr. J. Amery) is the captain, but unfortunately, unlike some captains, he refuses to man the bridge. We had an example of this only the other day when the hon. Member for Cathcart was left wallowing in the sea while the rest of the crew of this peculiar ship were not prepared to follow him or to stand by their convictions,
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  which were easily expressed at the Monday Club or at rallies at Caxton Hall but not in the House of Commons.
  The hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart referred to this debate, which was so well introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer), as an exercise in international public relations. I can only assume that the hon. Member was indulging in an exercise in Glasgow public relations, which is something that we have witnessed from him for some time.
  Mr. Edward M. Taylor: The point I was trying to make was that hon. Members on this bench, and particularly the group occupying the benches behind the hon. Member, are not representative of the main strength of both their parties' points of view.
  Mr. Rose: On the contrary, strange as it may seem, I feel that on this issue I am very much a representative of my party's point of view, having supported throughout every action taken by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister in connection with the Rhodesian situation. This is the very first time that I have felt any doubt, because up to now he has played it with remarkable coolness, ability and skill.
  My feeling is that there are hon. Members opposite who are willing to play appeasement in this dangerous situation as much as there were others who were prepared to play appeasement in another situation which was equally dangerous. When the hon. Member for Cathcart talks about opposition in Rhodesia, he should realise the extent to which the Government of Southern Rhodesia is willing to fetter opposition and to stop the expression of opposition. In spite of this, many brave voices have been raised in Southern Rhodesia and it is up to us to show those people that we mean what we say.
  A strange comparison was made with Cuba. The difference is that in this case we are applying economic sanctions on behalf of the great majority of the people of the country—four million of them—rather than against the majority of the people. There is a strange proposition inherent in the decision with regard to the tanker. The proposition is rather on the lines that it is legitimate to do an evil act if others also are prepared to do it. That kind of defence was rejected at the

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  Nuremberg trials as not being a defence. It is up to us to set an example of international morality, because this is where we have to see justice done. It is not good enough in this situation merely to know that we want justice, as many of my hon. Friends and a great many hon. Members opposite want it. We have to show the world that we are intent upon achieving it. All the more so in this particularcase—and it is not a frivolous point—when the Government have in a sense a majority of shares in the particular company which is sending oil to Rhodesia.
  I want to know why the Government feel it legitimate to give another two weeks' start, so to speak, to the Smith Government. There may be an explanation for it. I accept economic sanctions to the hilt. We have said that we reject direct military intervention at the present stage, mainly because of the geographical factors and the military factors involved apart from any other question of principle. If we accept that sanctions are the only way to bring this rebel Government to heel, surely we have to make them as effective as possible? If the Government of Iran can set an example, surely it is up to us in the seat of Government here purporting to have control over the Rhodesian situation to set an example to other countries.
  It may be that shortly we shall be imposing oil sanctions, but how foolish it would be to allow another two weeks' lease of life to the illegal government in Rhodesia by sending in that oil shipment, and how many countries may take heart from and be encouraged by our action if we refuse to send it.
  We are deeply indebted to what the Prime Minister has already done, but it is not for the Government to do the maximum consonant with support from the Opposition Front Benches. It is for the Government to decide what is right, and it is up to the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition to decide which side he is on. Is he on the side of the civilised people in his party, or is he on the side of the lunatic fringe in the Monday Club? That is a decision that he has to make. The decision should not be made by the Government Front Bench.
  It is for us to show the world that we really mean what we say and that we are going to apply sanctions to the hilt
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  as quickly and as sharply as possible. They may hurt, and they will have to hurt if we are going to succeed, but it is the lesser of two evils eschewing, as we do, the use of force. It is the only way to bring the rebel Government to its knees.
  Our first consideration should not be how far we can take the Leader of the Opposition along with us, because the only result of doing that will be that we shall advance towards him and he will retreat, as we have seen happen before. The only way that we can resolve the situation is to stand firmly by our convictions, apply the sanctions necessary and not hesitate, because the march of history is on this side of the House and not that side.
  9.58 p.m.
  Mr. Stan Newens: I want to say how grateful I am to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) for raising the subject-matter of the debate. It is very important that we should have an opportunity to discuss it, and the debate has been timely and appropriate.
  I should be less than honest if I said that I am other than profoundly disappointed by what the Prime Minister said today. I am very proud of the way in which my right hon. Friend has stood up to Smith so far because, beneath all the conciliatory attempts which have been made to resolve the situation in the best possible way, there has been a firm determination to resist Smith, U.D.I. and the consolidation of a police state, and to resist the shilly-shallying of the Opposition. The determination which the Prime Minister has shown has had the overwhelming support of the majority of the British people and certainly a very considerable measure of support even on the other side of the House.
  The decision which has been made about the tanker contradicts the line which the Prime Minister has taken up to now. He has spoken out in favour of short and sharp measures which will bring Smith to heel. Unfortunately, the decision not to stop the tanker will spread despondency among the opponents of Smith and give satisfaction to his supporters.
  Just consider for one moment the position of those people in Rhodesia who

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  wish to be loyal to the British Government and who wish to see Smith laid low. Will this decision encourage them? I maintain that it will profoundly dismay them. Consider the position of those people in the African States who have been doubtful of the resolve of the British Government. Will it encourage them to trust in Britain's determination to go through with her policy? I think that it will encourage them to doubt British sincerity on this matter.
  It is not enough for us—
  It being Ten o'clock, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mrs. Harriet Slater.]
  Mr. Newens: I consider that it is not enough to count the moral effect of such a move lightly, because basically what we must seek to do in this country is to win the support of the majority of the Rhodesian population against Smith. I do not think that permitting this ship to go through will help to win over that population to our point of view. I believe that all necessary measures, including force, should be used to bring Smith down. I hope very much that the use of military force will not be necessary, but it is quite clear that the need for military support will be the less the stronger the sanctions and the more clearly it is shown that we intend to impose them.
  Stopping the ship going through is not merely a moral gesture. I have been told that it will provide two weeks' supply of oil. If this enables Smith to hold on longer, I think that it will help to postpone the end that we are seeking to achieve. I believe that it will be easier to make oil sanctions effective if Britain acts now, and therefore, even at this late stage, I think that my right hon. Friend should go to the Prime Minister and make it clear how necessary we on this side of the House, and many hon. Gentlemen opposite, feel it is to revise the decision which has been announced today. We must remember that, with the wisdom of hindsight, it is easy to see mistakes a long time after they have been made. At this moment we are at a crucial point is history. We are at what may be a turning
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  point, and we must act with resolve now if we intend to see that Smith is brought down.
  I believe that many hon. Gentlemen on the back benches opposite are prepared to accept a situation which will lead to white supremacy being consolidated in Rhodesia. The hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward M. Taylor) refused to answer the question that I put to him, and I can only assume that he refused because he knew what the reaction would be to a clear statement of his true position with regard to Smith.
  I hope very much that my right hon. Friend will be able to discuss this matter with the Prime Minister, and that a decision will be taken to turn back this tanker, to speed up the agreement to stop other tankers going through, and to see that sanctions are made really effective. I am all for plugging the holes afterwards, but let us turn off this tap now.
  On this side of the House there is almost unanimous agreement that Smith be brought low. We want the Prime Minister and the Government to take all necessary measures to see that that aim is achieved. I hope very much that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations will realise the sincere feelings which have been expressed by the majority of hon. Members who have taken part in this debate, and that all necessary measures, including the one that I have suggested, will be taken to see that the Smith régime is brought down at the earliest possible moment.
  10.4 p.m.
  Mr. George Y. Mackie: Many speakers have mentioned the profound effect on world opinion of the lack of a British gesture in turning back this ship. I do not know what it would cost if the oil had to be pumped out into the sea—perhaps £100,000—but I know that the cost of landing this oil in Rhodesia would be infinitely more. I was profoundly shocked to hear the Prime Minister's reasons for not stopping the ship.
  I once saw a newspaper cartoon which made a deep impression on me. It was a picture of two torturers in a dungeon, in the Middle Ages. They were dressed in black, wore masks and were leaning on axes. They had instruments of torture such as the rack and thumbscrews,

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  and the rest, and one was saying to the other, "As I see it, Jack, if we did not do it someone else would." This is the reason twat the Prime Minister gave for not making a moral gesture which is supremely important. I say that this will have a profound effect on world opinion. The Prime Minister and the Commonwealth Secretary should consider the profound effect that it is having in this House, not least on hon. Members on this bench.
  10.5 p.m.
  The Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations (Mr. Arthur Bottomley): This has been an interesting and useful debate. It would be dishonest of me if I told my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) that I welcomed it. I make that point not for personal considerations but because of my colleagues in the Department who, day in day out and week in week out over the past four months, have been heavily engaged with me in trying to solve the Rhodesian problem. Earlier today I told them, "Well chaps, you can have the evening off".
  But I accept what my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot) said. The first responsibility of Ministers is to this House. When I heard that the debate was going to take place I hurried round at once. I am sure that it has not escaped the notice of my hon. Friends that, except for the Opposition Chief Whip—who, by custom, seldom speaks—the Members of the Conservative Front Bench have been noticeably absent; not only on this subject, but on any aspect on the Adjournment for which they have the right to challenge the Government, they have been absent.
  One thing upon which we can all agree, perhaps with one exception, is that we want to bring down this evil régime in Rhodesia in the shortest time. My hon. Friends and, I believe most hon. Members opposite, too, agree that it is preferable to do this by means other than the use of force. That is why we all agree that economic sanctions should be imposed. We may differ about the degree of severity with which they should be imposed, but my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister himself put the Government's view on record, in answer to a Question from the Leader of the Opposi-
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  tion, on 23rd November, when he said that
  "there is the position of Zambia to be considered, along with other countries. These matters will have to be very carefully studied, and while we must insist that whatever sanctions are applied must be effective, we do not want those which are damaging and ineffective, any more than we want to create damage or resort to ineffectiveness. It is very important that in this we proceed only in agreement with others principally concerned."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 23rd November, 1965; Vol. 721, c. 252.]
  It is in this respect that I have been trying to work. My hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale asked what I discovered as a result of my talks with President Kaunda and others. President Kaunda has the responsibility to provide for his people, and he wants to do so in the best possible way. We must remember that he and his Ministers have had just over 12 months of full authority. We want to help them. We have a duty to see that Zambia develops peacefully and successfully.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Walton said that one way in which we could make sure of doing that was by an airlift, and he cited the example of Berlin. I ask him to believe me that this question has been considered, but that it is a different situation from that which existed in the case of Berlin. In Berlin there is a highly developed society, and there are airports, and so on. If an airlift were possible to save Zambia, it would have been put into operation already. This is not forgotten: we want to provide an airlift and it is one of the things which we have to look at. Indeed, one of the experiments now going on, which is proving successful, is an aircraft picking up copper from Zambia, taking it to Tanzania and bringing oil back. This is a beginning, but it will be a long time before we can say that it is successful.
  On the subject of oil, those hon. Gentlemen who have raised the matter should tell me what they really want. Do they really want to make a gesture, an isolated gesture, in respect of this ship—[HON. MEMBERS: "Yes."]—regardless of consequences, or do they want an embargo on oil and other goods going to Rhodesia with the least possible damage to Zambia and other African countries? The Government are trying to concentrate not on gestures alone but on the most effective

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  means which will do the most damage to the Smith régime and the least damage to the parties we represent—
  Mr. Heffer Mr. Heffer rose—
  Mr. Bottomley: My hon. Friend will forgive me if I do not give way: I have very much to say. If I gave way I would not answer every point put to me tonight and I must do that if I am to do my duty.
  As far as Africans generally are concerned, I am bound to tell the House that, with one or two exceptions, they take the view that, whether it is oil or other supplies, this will not do the trick. They do not think that economic sanctions will be effective. They have said to me continually—I have tried to destroy the argument—that, on the two occasions that sanctions were applied, they were failures. The first which they mentioned, of course, is that of Abysinnia. It was never intended that economic sanctions should succeed in that case. The other case is that of Cuba: I tried to explain to them that, in that case, there was one major country determined that the economic blockade should not succeed.
  However, in the case of small Rhodesia, as a result of the United Nations' decision, the whole world is determined—or they should be if they are to abide by that decision—to apply economic sanctions. I repeat that these economic sanctions, properly applied, will succeed. In these circumstances, we should not talk about force. I told my African colleagues, "It is easy to use force if you are not prepared to face the consequences, the economic deprivation, the misery, the loss of life, the bloodshed. Try my way first before you resort to those methods."
  Britain has applied strict economic measures, of which the House will be aware. We have stopped all aid, the export of arms—the list has already been given, and if the House accepts it, to save time, I will not go through it. Not only economic measures have been applied but stringent financial measures too. All these things have been done. Unfortunately, others have not followed that lead, except for the O.A.U. conference last Monday, which decided that it would apply economic sanctions. I am glad that that is so, because if economic sanctions are applied in this way, we shall get the required result.
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  I will now go on to talk about—[An HON. MEMBER: About the ship.]—I know about the ship and I will answer that, but I want to answer the points which have been put to me and I will do it in my own way—
  Mr. David Steel Mr. David Steel rose—
  Mr. Bottomley: No. I will talk about it. Leave it to me—[Interruption.]Do hon. Members want a reply or do they not?
  When I visited Zambia, the President told me that he wanted to be sure about safeguards against the illegal régime in Rhodesia. In the first case he said that he was afraid of the Rhodesia Air Force, which has very efficient and effective aeroplanes, and he wanted British aircraft to give the adequate defence he required. In this connection we assured him that we could meet his wishes. While being sorry that the Foreign Minister of Zambia doubts the efficiency of these machines, I can only say that they are the best machines available and that they will see any of the Rhodesian aeroplanes out of the sky.
  He next said that he wanted an opportunity to have troops not in Zambia—he could look after his own internal affairs—but on the Rhodesian side of the dam. He was afraid that the switch would be used and he would lose his power. I had to say to him, "If you put forces on the other side this would result in an armed conflict, resulting, without doubt, in the cutting off of power, or perhaps even the dam might be mined and blown up, in which case you would be deprived of the power".
  The next point is oil. He is concerned about oil supplies as well as other supplies. One of his troubles is the putting on of economic measures and the fear that they will make it more difficult for him to survive. He rightly says, "This is no responsibility of mine. To some extent it has been caused by the illegal régime in Rhodesia, but by the failure of past British Governments to do what was right in the case of Rhodesia".
  So I had to say, "We are anxious to keep you alive and we will do all we can to assist, whether it is oil or other things. We wish to meet your needs and we together will work out a contingency plan". I believe that until that contingency plan

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  is properly worked out and operated we should consider very carefully anything we do which might damage the economy of Zambia.
  I will now attempt to answer the other points put to me in the debate. The hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward M. Taylor) impugned the character and veracity of the comments made by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. It so happens that I was present at the interview with Mr. Garfield Todd and at the talks which we had. What has been said is a lie. I went out of my way on one occasion to say of Mr. Smith, the then Prime Minister of Rhodesia, that he was a man with some integrity and character, although in blinkers. It has been my experience since I have said that, in negotiations with him, to find, in fact, that what I have just said has been confirmed not once but more than once. He has lied not only to me but to others. This is one of the reasons why we cannot deal with Smith in any way—because he is not a man to be trusted.
  I will tell the hon. Gentleman what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and I said to Mr. Garfield Todd. My right hon. Friend said, as I did, to him that we, the British Government, were determined upon unimpeded progress towards majority rule in Rhodesia on a basis acceptable to the people of Rhodesia as a whole. That is what we said to him. We stood by it and we still stand by it.
  The hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Eldon Griffiths) put some questions to me and the one matter with which I wish to deal in particular concerns his remarks about our peace aims and how we might see a way of transferring power to Rhodesia in such a way as to give satisfaction to the people there as a whole. The hon. Gentleman wanted to know about electoral qualifications for Africans. He asked whether we might do something which might be on the basis of, say, literacy, law abiding, taxpayers or fixed abode. I understand from what the hon. Gentleman said that if something like that—some sort of standard of that type—could be reached, that would be a fair way of negotiating and saying that the Africans should be brought into discussions fully on such a basis.
  Mr. Eldon Griffiths Mr. Eldon Griffiths indicated assent.
  Mr. Bottomley: Naturally, this goes far beyond the 1961 Constitution and, in fact, would give immediate majority rule. If the hon. Gentleman really means that, then I am glad to find that he has come far ahead of any of his colleagues and that he joins with marry of my hon. Friends.
  One reason why the oil embargo is not fully on is because we have not yet got other countries following our lead. If everyone was to put on the oil sanction it would be very useful, but not as effective as the economic and financial sanctions that have already been applied. The amount of oil consumed in Rhodesia is relatively small—about 400,000 tons a year. If we were to stop one ship, there are between 400 and 500 other ships at sea, many of which could slip oil into Rhodesia very quickly. The other economic pressures are much more effective.
  One reason why the Smith régime is stronger than it ought to be is that hon. Members opposite, instead of backing the economic measures which the Government said were essential, have stated that the measures must not be punitive or effective. This has encouraged the Smith rebel régime—[HON. MEMBERS: "Rubbish."] The hon. Member for Farnham (Sir G. Nicholson) has been very courageous and consistent throughout, and I do not associate him in an way with that comment. The right hon. Member for Enfield, West (Mr. Iain Macleod), who was perhaps more responsible than anyone in the House for the wind of change, has encouraged the rebel régime.
  Smith has said that a high rate of investment would come about and the standard of living would improve. He was encouraged to believe that by some hon. Members, but the way in which he has been putting it to his people could lead to his downfall. Mr. Smith said to his people, "Look, if we get our independence, we will get increased investment and our standard of living will rise." In fact, this is not happening, and there are people in Rhodesia who are getting discontended and discouraged. We should encourage that feeling. I think that we can do it in a way which, ship or no ship, will bring us the result that my hon. Friend the Member for

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  Walton wants, and which we all want, but it is a matter of judgment how to bring this about with the least discord for Africa and for our own economy.
  I sometimes wonder whether all hon. Members recognise how much damage we are doing to our own economy in order to carry this policy through. We believe that it is necessary, and it is far from being an empty gesture. It will hurt the British people. Hon. Members should face that and recognise their responsibilities in this respect——
  Mr. Thorpe Mr. Thorpe rose——
  Mr. Bottomley: No, I shall not give way. In Rhodesia——
  Mr. Thorpe: Answer the debate. What about the ship?
  Mr. Bottomley: If the hon. Member has not heard me referring to the ship, not once but two or three times, he and perhaps other hon. Members have not been listening or according me the courtesy I extended to them.
  I believe that our economic squeeze—in particular the recent very severe measures we took—is beginning to tell on Rhodesia. The white Rhodesians are now being compelled to face up to the hard facts of life. It is a dismal awakening for them. Mr. Smith has shown it to be so by his latest pained pronouncements. The House will not expect me to name sources, but I can say that I get constant information from Rhodesia and letters expressing disappointment with the Rhodesia régime. That kind of demonstration will grow. I want to be in a position to encourage it to grow and to get these people to co-operate. I think that mine is the best way, and I do not want to be told otherwise by the hon. Gentleman opposite who has not the responsibility—if he had, he might look at things in a different light.
  I want to refer to the decision taken last Friday in Addis Ababa. I am very glad that at last the African nations as a whole are following our lead on the question of economic sanctions. This will enable us, as I have said, to bring down the illegal Government. I hope that they will implement their resolution as speedily as possible. It has taken them a long time to come to it. The Common-
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  wealth countries have been very good on this. My criticism is not of them, but I have a criticism of other African countries who have not taken the opportunity to follow our lead. However, the decisions of the O.A.U. and of our Government are now identical. We all want the restoration of constitutional Government in Rhodesia and then, I hope, a peaceful transition to eventual majority rule in that unhappy country. I am sure that my hon. Friends and hon. Members opposite basically agree with me. We want to see that the British Government, who have this responsibility and who cannot abdicate it, are able to bring about the end we all desire.
  Hon. Members on both sides will, I think, acknowledge that, if there be any disagreement at all, it is about methods and timing. In this respect, I can tell the House that, whoever may be pressing us, whether it be the O.A.U. or hon. and right hon. Members of this House—and we welcome it—the right and the onerous duty to decide this issue rests nevertheless with myself and with the Government. We shall determine how we shall bring about the downfall of Smith and his supporters. As I said in Kampala on 4th December, the British Government and people are in no mood to be pushed about by anyone who believes that we ought to take irresponsible actions. We do not propose to take foolish or hasty steps which could result in plunging the larger part of Africa into a blood bath. But, naturally, we fully understand and sympathise with the passionate African feelings about the possibility of a second white supremacy State in Southern Africa. Britain's aim and the Government's aim is racial equality, but our hearts must not get the better of our heads. We shall restore constitutional Government in Rhodesia, but we shall do it in our way and in our time.
  I conclude as I began, by saying that I did not welcome the debate but I think that it has been extremely useful and valuable. The only reason why I did not give way to hon. Members occasionally was that I felt that I had an obligation to all hon. Members. I have tried to answer all the points that have been raised. If I have failed to do so, this is not because I chose that way but merely because the limited opportunity to take down all the points rapidly

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  and cover them in succession did not enable me to do so.
  The illegal régime in Rhodesia will not go on. It is our endeavour to bring it down and I believe that, if we bring it down, we shall win the support not only of the House as a whole but of all liberal minded people in this country and the world over.
  Mr. David Steel: The right hon. Gentleman has still two or three minutes left. He must realise that the object of the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Haffer) and of most hon. Members in taking an interest in the debate was not to have a wide-ranging discussion on all points but to debate the particular question of allowing the oil ship to go in. If the right hon. Gentleman is not prepared to give us an assurance that the Government
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  will look at this again, and if they are quite determined that they will not intervene, we are entitled to ask the right hon. Gentleman to give a reasoned explanation of the grounds on which they have reached this unfortunate decision.
  Mr. Bottomley: I repeat that, during the course of my speech, I have endeavoured to cover all the arguments and points raised. If the discussion had been specifically on an oil embargo, I should have addressed myself to it, but that would have been discourteous to other hon. Members. I can only reiterate that I dealt substantially with the question of oil.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes past Ten o'clock.