§ Q4. Mr. Shinwellasked the Prime Minister what reply he has received from the Leader of the Opposition to the suggestion that matters relating to national defence should be the subject of consultation between the Government and Privy Councillors who are members of the Opposition.
§ The Prime MinisterThe right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition has now let me know that he would be very willing to meet me for a discussion on defence matters.
§ Mr. ShinwellAm I to understand from what my right hon. Friend has said that the conversations will be confined to the Leader of the Opposition and himself, and that the proposal that has been advocated by hon. Members on both sides of the House, and which is in the national interest, that there should be consultation on defence matters between both sides, has been rejected?
§ The Prime MinisterThat was not really raised in the proposal I made to the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition. The arrangement is that we should meet first to discuss what changes could be made, what further consultations of a regular character—or possibly at infrequent intervals at the convenience of the right hon. Gentleman—what arrangements could be made for mutual discussion on defence problems. 544 The question mentioned by my right hon. Friend, taking it much wider, for bilateral talks between defence spokesmen on the two Front Benches, is something we can always consider again, but, quite frankly, no decision has been taken in favour of it yet.
§ Sir Alec Douglas-HomeMay I ask the Prime Minister—I hope he will agree —whether from time to time either my right hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (Mr. Thorneycroft) may accompany me—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."]—or of course the Secretary of State for Defence accompany him? This may be thought right and convenient. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will agree, too, that these discussions should not be a matter for continuous Questions on the Order Paper asking how we are getting on. That would make a difficult matter even more so.
§ The Prime MinisterIt would be improper for me to try to regulate what Questions are put on the Order Paper. Regarding what the right hon. Gentleman has said, the position is quite clearly what he has in mind. Indeed, when the proposal was first made in the debate last December, I did say that the Leader of the Opposition and his defence spokesman or shadow Foreign Secretary—whoever might be appropriate in this connection—should meet their opposite numbers in the Government and discuss any problem of mutual interest in the field of defence. The talk to which I referred in my first Answer to my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) was intended purely as a talk between the right hon. Gentleman and myself—a talk of a procedural character —to decide how these talks should take place in future.
§ Mr. ShinwellIn view of what the Leader of the Opposition has just said, may I ask my right hon. Friend whether these conversations will be of a secret character and that what is conveyed to the Leader of the Opposition will be confined to him and not disseminated among his colleagues?
§ The Prime MinisterThere have always been talks between the Leader of the Opposition of the day and the Prime Minister of the day on very secret matters. As the House will know, because this 545 was reported to the House, 1 had a number of talks—not only with the right hon. Gentleman opposite, but with his predecessor—on questions affecting security, for example. These were always regarded as purely personal exchanges of opinion and not to be transmitted even to one's closest colleagues. So far as defence is concerned, right hon. Gentlemen opposite were, of course, until recently fully informed on all the most secret aspects of defence, weapons and the rest of it. We have long thought that it would be helpful, not only to the House as a whole but particularly to the defences of the country, if leading members of the Government and appropriate members of the Opposition were to discuss what was going on in the defence field on the basis that it would not inhibit either side from speaking freely—but with due discretion—in this House.