§ Q5. Mr. William Hamiltonasked the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on the future of the Ministry of Aviation.
§ The Prime MinisterNot yet, Sir.
§ Mr. HamiltonCan my right hon. Friend say whether he judges the position to be that the role of this Ministry will be either an expanding one or a decreasing one? In any case, does he not think that the name of the Ministry, if not its function, will be increasingly a misnomer?
§ The Prime MinisterAs I have made clear in the House before, I think that this Ministry, which was set up at the beginning of the previous Parliament—and, Heaven knows, some of us supported its establishment—has turned out to be the wrong decision and that it should be, I think, over a period of time amalgamated with other Departments. This, I think, will be the policy that we should follow, but at the present time, not only in connection with the Defence Review, but also with the implementation and the working out of the Plowden Report, I think it will be necessary to keep it there for some little time yet. Longterm, I should have thought that it would have been right to amalgamate it with other Departments.