HC Deb 19 February 1973 vol 851 cc173-89

As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.

10.14 p.m.

The Minister of State for Defence (Mr. Ian Gilmour)

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

In the course of the debates on the Bill we have had a number of interesting discussions covering a wide field. Opposition Members have taken the opportunity to raise a number of wide-ranging topics. I fully understand the extent and nature of these wider problems—

Mr. Speaker

Order. Will hon. Members conduct their conversations outside the Chamber?

Mr. Gilmour

I fully understand the extent and nature of these wider problems which are exercising the minds of hon. Gentlemen on the Opposition benches, but I still maintain that they are neither enlarged nor made more difficult by the proposal to transfer the Weapons Group to the Ministry of Defence. Throughout the debates there has been a general acceptance that the transfer is substantially a question of good organisation and administration, and that it is right that these specialist resources and facilities which are predominantly devoted to defence research and development and production should be brought under the single management of the Procurement Executive.

Some anxiety has been expressed that the transfer of the Weapons Group may detract from the collective responsibility of Ministers for nuclear weapons policy. However, as has been explained both here and in another place, AWRE is only one link in the procurement chain leading to nuclear weapons. The establishment at Aldermaston plays a key rôle in the development of warheads and the procurement of their essential components. Transferring this link to the management control of the Ministry of Defence does not in any way change the existing responsibility of the Department for the assembly, operational deployment and maintenance of nuclear weapons systems. Nor does the transfer change the collective responsibility of Ministers for nuclear weapons programmes and policy.

The matters in which the Weapons Group is uniquely competent are important, but they are only one of the many factors that have to be taken into account in the determination of defence policies concerning the nuclear deterrent.

A number of hon. Members have voiced difficulties about reconciling the security attaching to nuclear weapons and the need to release sufficient information so that there can be informed debate on the subject. Naturally, no one has suggested that we should jeopardise national security for the purpose, and I think it has been generally acknowledged that a high security classification of nuclear weapons technology is essential for reasons of our own national security and our obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, as well as the undertakings in the agreement between this country and the United States of America.

Nevertheless, some steps have recently been taken, although necessarily on a classified basis, to make available to the Defence and External Affairs Sub-Committee of a Select Committee of the House some information about the nuclear weapons programme.

Right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House have naturally been concerned that employees on transfer to the Civil Service as a consequence of this legislation will not have their pay and conditions of service worsened. The Government fully recognise the responsibilities they have towards those affected, and the undertakings given in both Houses are explicit. These undertakings will be embodied in the agreements with both the staff associations and the unions and can, if the employees' representatives so wish, be made legally binding.

On the position of industrial employees, there has been some criticism of the time it has taken to resolve the outstanding points. As has been explained in the House and in Committee, the industrial grading structures at AWRE are significantly different from those in comparable Ministry of Defence establishments. To effect a smooth transition it has been necessary to carry out grading exercise covering some 2,400 jobs, and to do it as near as possible to the date of transfer. The process of reaching agreement with the unions on gradings for particular jobs is in train and there will be a further round with them on 5th March when we hope that all outstanding matters will be settled.

Inevitably, there have been some questions from the unions on how our findings will affect particular categories, and we are dealing with these. But I can give the House an assurance that, whatever the outcome, nobody will lose any pay. Where the industrial Civil Service rate for the job is better, the individual will get the benefit, and where it is worse he will retain his existing rate of pay on a mark-time basis.

There have also been requests for clarification on matters like leave and sick pay. In both cases the Atomic Energy Authority's scales are better, and individual employees will retain them as a personal entitlement for as long as that advantage continues. The age of retirement has also been the subject of questions on a number of occasions. Although there is no corresponding right in the Industrial Civil Service, employees who are fit and willing to work until they are 65 will be able to do so.

As far as superannuation is concerned, those industrial employees now in the AEA scheme can either continue to pay a 4+ per cent. contribution and remain in the scheme, or they can transfer to the Industrial Civil Service non-contributory scheme bringing with them their reckonable service.

So far as the non-industrial staff are concerned, negotiations have been proceeding very satisfactorily and are now in their final stages. A further meeting will be held later this week with representatives of the staff side, when it is hoped again that final agreement will be reached. As regards their superannuation, the staff may remain in the AEA's superannuation scheme, in which case they will retain the retiring age of 65 unless they voluntarily opt to change to 60. A draft agreement has been drawn up and only a few points of detail now remain to be finally cleared.

I hope the House will agree that what I have said demonstrates how seriously the Government regard their obligations in this matter.

Finally, a great deal of discussion has centred on the future of civil work at the AWRE, which accounts for about 20 per cent. of the professional and scientific effort of the establishment. Because of its expertise in plutonium chemistry and technology, the establishment has played an important rôle in the development and supply of experimental fuel assemblies for the Atomic Energy Authority's fast reactor programme at Dounreay. It has already been agreed that this effort and facilities will continue to be made available by the Ministry of Defence to the Atomic Energy Authority as a repayment service, and a draft agreement for this purpose has already been exchanged between the parties.

The other civil work undertaken by the AWRE is mainly for various Government Departments and bodies such as the Science Research Council. The acceptance of the work follows the Rothschild principle of a customer-contractor relationship—that is, the customer says what he wants, the AWRE does it if it can, and the customer pays. The AWRE has been able to build up and maintain these relationships, which are mutually beneficial because, within the extensive and specialist facilities and multi-disciplinary teams essential for carrying out the nuclear weapons research and development programme, there have been margins of capacity and effort which it has been possible to deploy in parallel with weapons work on certain civil activities of value to these other customers. Such arrangements will not be affected by the transfer and the facilities will continue to be made available within the limits of the resources of the Establishment and the demands of defence programmes.

As I said on Second Reading, this is a simple and sensible Bill, and as such I commend it to the House.

10.25 p.m.

Mr. E. S. Bishop (Newark)

I do not wish to detain the House for long because I know that there are others who wish to raise questions of importance. There are two matters to which I wish to refer which were mentioned during Second Reading and in Committee. I appreciate that the Minister has already referred to the negotiations about staff conditions for transfer. The other issue is secrecy and the concern which is felt about the transfer of civil work to the Ministry of Defence, with the resulting consequences.

The aspect which concerns most people is the question of whose finger should be on the trigger. This arises from policy-making being involved in the transfer of Aldermaston from the AEA to the Ministry of Defence. The basic reason for concern has to do with the transfer, which my hon. Friends and I do not oppose. It is based on the fact that at present nuclear work, civil and military, is carried out by the AEA as a contractor for the Ministry, so that in theory if not in practice two Ministers are or can be aware of what is happening in an area of policy-making which is not generally open to the public.

What will happen about civil research and development after the transfer when civil development of nuclear energy may be clouded by the same kind of secrecy as envelops defence aspects, when it should really be more widely spread? Although I understand that fusion for civil power generation is centred at Culham, having been transferred from Aldermaston, there is still the military work with civil undertones going on at Aldermaston which is of some importance.

Aldermaston is still responsible for psychological and experimental work on the British laser fusion activity and I wonder whether Aldermaston will be handing over the computational side of its research with those civil undertones. Will the Minister give an assurance putting at rest the fears that in future nuclear policy decisions will rest with one Minister? We know that he has told the House that this will be a matter for collective responsibility. With this specialised activity it is better to have more than one Minister. However, more people sharing the responsibility when they are not fully aware of the consequences may not, in the end, be very much better than having one Minister taking sole responsibility.

The dilemma is that the Minister will be advised by scientists and civil servants about vital policy matters such as the provision of Polaris and Poseidon, which has its roots in Polaris, but which is a bigger and more devastating weapon. As my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Dr. David Owen) has pointed out, the Select Committee of which he is a member is currently looking at the position of our strategic forces and the expenditure necessary for continuing these forces into the 1980s. During the Committee proceedings he said: within the next five or six years a British Government will have to make decisions about British nuclear weapons through the 1980s and perhaps into the 1990s That will have financial implications for the Weapons Group and for Ministry of Defence accounts."—[OFFICIAL REPORT Standing Committee F, 13th February, 1973; c. 70.] Many would agree that the House should have some opportunity to probe the increased spending and the implications of the policy changes involved. Earlier we asked about the kind and the extent of the information the House should be given irrespective of whether we were hawks or doves. The value, if any, of having nuclear weapons lies in revealing our capability to other super-Powers. It would be frightening if complete secrecy left a potential enemy in doubt—only to learn the awful reality when it was too late. In their current negotiations the Government are using the nuclear potential as a bargaining counter for the lowering of force and capability levels elsewhere. My hon. Friend reminded us that there was a strong military lobby urging the Government to buy Poseidon and that there is no point in doing so unless the decision is taken to give Poseidon the capability of a multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicle, which would be under the control of the United States.

I should be out of order if I were to go into the policy merits or otherwise of such decisions, but we are right to ask what is the Government's policy about letting the House know before—and I underline "before"—nuclear defence work is carried out at Aldermaston by the Ministry of Defence, the new boss, not only because of the strategic importance of the decisions, but because of the high cost involved which might otherwise be shown in the Weapons Group accounts or elsewhere.

How can the House be kept unaware of the Government's policy in these matters and yet be kept aware of the escalation of costs which will surely follow the greater R and D on such projects, especially following the Government's decision if they were to decide on an approach to the United States about Poseidon and the MIRV? That could be a very important decision which may be known only after the Government have taken their decision. Has the Comptroller and Auditor-General, who I imagine has authority to be made aware of these aspects of spending, the right to take the matter to, say, the Public Accounts Committee and make it aware of policy commitments? I understand that in the past the Committee has been given classified information of this sort.

The Minister will no doubt remind me that the Select Committee on Expenditure has the Sub-Committee to which I referred and this is better than nothing, but the question arises as to whether the Sub-Committee has the time, in view of its other responsibilities, to go into the matter of defence, especially concerning nuclear energy development, in the depth required. This point was made in the Sixth Report of the Expenditure Committee in which it said that it had not the resources to go in depth into the matter of Concorde. The same would apply to defence, which would be a much wider and deeper liability.

On the point about staff transfers, we welcome the Minister's further announcement that talks have taken place and that some agreement has been reached. I should like to raise two questions following representations made to me. One concerns non-industrial employees. Will the Minister give an assurance that all craftsmen at AWRE will have a right to the Civil Service allowance of £3 on transfer to the Ministry of Defence, this being the only way, it is thought, of avoiding discrimination among craftsmen in the AEA who are on the common rate? The Minister agreed, as shown in column 42 of the OFFICIAL REPORT of the Standing Committee's proceedings on 8th February, that on transfer no employee would be worse off. Early in 1972 the trade unions at AWRE agreed, at the Minister's request, in view of the proposed transfer, to give up the chance of higher earnings from incentive bonus schemes. Compared with AEA employees at other establishments where such schemes have been introduced, craftsmen and non-craftsmen have had their earnings reduced by about £4 and £5 a week respectively.

I have been asked whether after the transfer AEA chargehands will keep the higher AEA rates compared with the Civil Service rates. The same question applies to other employees. There was some contradiction in the Minister's comments in Committee. Having given an assurance that none would be worse off, I suspect that he thought that there might be problems of differentials when people came in with different conditions from those obtaining in the Civil Service.

Although the Rayner Report was issued in 1971 and the transfer was proposed for a year ago, despite the advance on negotiations announced today by the Minister, I hope that all these matters will be properly settled before the transfer takes place in April 1973. I hope that the Minister will comment on my two main points, namely, the conditions of staff transfer, and the problem of how the House and the country are to be made aware of the vital policy decisions which arise from the transfer.

10.35 p.m.

Mr. Hugh Jenkins (Putney)

I followed closely the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Mr. Bishop), but I did not understand him to say that he was the representative of a part of a party which is wholly opposed to nuclear weapons and the retention of nuclear bases. I did not catch that nuance in his remarks. I therefore want to fill that accidental lacuna in his speech by pointing out that the Labour Party is wholly opposed to nuclear weapons and the retention of Polaris and Poseidon. When he talked casually about the transfer from Polaris to Poseidon, it occurred to me that at some point there should be introduced into the debate some recognition of the total cleavage between the parties here. One cannot be on all the Committees one would like in the House and to that extent I apologise for intruding in this cosy little debate at this stage.

There is no building that I have seen more and been inside less than Aldermaston. During those marches, Aldermaston acquired a profound significance in the Labour movement. One would hardly think so tonight, and the degree of public attention given to this matter has decreased somewhat. Thousands of people have expressed their abhorrence of nuclear weapons by marching to and from Aldermaston. Now, this building, which had that sort of significance, will pass wholly into the hands of the Ministry of Defence. The consequence, I suppose, is that, instead of being able to ask questions about the place, as we could at one time—although we rarely got answers—we will face a blanket of secrecy.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) said on Second Reading: I have not changed my view on the matter. I have been consistent. I have always wanted to see the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment under civilian control."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 30th January, 1973; Vol. 849, c. 1183.] The vehemence of his wishes in this matter seems to have declined somewhat over the years. Although my right hon. Friend—I am sorry that he is not here—has been consistent, the degree to which we are emphasising the consistency of our views this evening seems to have declined.

Mr. Bishop

I said that I thought that I might be ruled out of order if I went into a major debate about whether we should have nuclear weapons— Polaris, Poseidon or anything else. What I said—and I think that my hon. Friend will agree with me—was that the transfer brought real dangers that this area might go under a cloak of secrecy, and that the House and the country should be made well aware of what is happening. Some of us expressed the same feelings of concern on Second Reading and in Committee.

We had a major debate when my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Dr. David Owen) and others said that the most important aspect is not that this is an administrative transfer, but that an area which could have been the concern of two Ministers will now come under one. The House and the country should know what decisions are being made in our names by ministerial advisers, scientific and otherwise, whom we cannot get at because we do not know what is going on until decisions have been made. These are important aspects; there is hardly any difference between my hon. Friend and me.

Mr. Jenkins

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that explanation, and I am delighted to know that there is less between us than I had thought.

Sir Harmar Nicholls (Peterborough)

Is the hon. Gentleman pursuing what is a normal tactic on these matters? We hear a responsible speech from the Dispatch Box that will appeal to one section of the community, and then an irresponsible speech from the back benches that will appeal to another section of the community. All things to all men. This is much too important a matter for that sort of tactic, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will confess that that is what he is doing.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. E. L. Mallalieu)

I think that this is the point at which it is proper to intervene to say that I hope hon. Members will confine their remarks to the Third Reading debate.

Mr. Jenkins

I shall do exactly that, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and restrain myself from replying to the hon. Member for Peterborough (Sir Harmar Nicholls), except to say that to question fundamental issues of this sort, far from being irresponsible, is responsible. It is right and proper when a ministerial change of this sort is being made not to pass it off as a minor operation.

Something quite fundamental is taking place. We are beginning to lose control of something about which all of us, whether or not we take an anti-nuclear view, must, if we are intelligent and responsible people, be concerned. We cannot regard the whole question of nuclear weapons, which for the first time in history are capable of destroying mankind, as a minor detail of movement between one Department and another.

I am glad that my hon. Friend takes the same view on the subject as I do. He said in Committee that the AWRE was moving into the general morass of the Ministry of Defence, and in reply the Minister described that statement as infelicitous. I thought that it was extremely accurate.

I am happy to bring my contribution to the debate to an end on so harmonious a note, though I must say that there are many of us who still regard the question of nuclear weapons as one which hangs over the whole country and, indeed, over the whole world. We are not content that the AWRE is passing into the hands of the Ministry of Defence. This is a fundamental issue, and one that will occupy the House considerably during the coming year. It is significant that by the Bill the Government wish to keep this issue under their control. This is a matter not for the control of the Government, but for the control of the House and, fundamentally and in the end, a matter for the control of the people of this country.

10.43 p.m.

Dr. David Owen (Plymouth, Sutton)

I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Mr. Hugh Jenkins) that though we may differ on the issue of nuclear weapons we do not differ on the central issue, which is the control of nuclear weapons—the control by civilians, by civilian Ministers and by this House.

One of the things that disturbs me most about the Bill and the way that it was discussed in Committee is that we have not advanced the cause of arms control and disarmament one iota. The Government have been extremely quiet about whether they are genuinely satisfied with the machinery of Government as it affects arms control, disarmament and the whole issue of advice that they receive on nuclear weapons.

I do not intend to rehearse in detail the arguments that we went into on Second Reading. Suffice it to say that one of the central objections raised to the Bill was the general unease of many of us on this side of the House about the present controls of arms, the offshoots of arms, nuclear weapons, enriched nuclear materials, the ease with which these materials are flown or shipped around the country, and the whole question of national and international safeguards. There is the feeling that the Government must come forward with new proposals.

I confess that I have the fervent belief that if the cause of disarmament is to be enhanced in the next 10 years, we delude ourselves if we believe it can be separated from defence and the Ministry concerned with defence. One of the mistakes has been to believe that disarmament can be separated from the Ministry of Defence. The record of recent years where the two super-Powers have been negotiating disarmament on most complicated arms control methods has tended once again to emphasise that this issue cannot be separated from Defence Ministries.

My concern is not so much that Aldermaston will be transferred to the Ministry of Defence but that the Ministry in taking this under its wing is not also taking unto itself the more important responsbility of thinking anew about arms control and disarmament. The United States Government have a separate agency, the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, in which outside experts can bring their views direct to the President on these central and important matters. No such machinery exists in this country.

I have suggested some of the changes which might take place, and I hope that the Government will consider them. I hope, too, that the Minister will re-emphasise his somewhat grudging willingness in Committee to look into the whole question of the machinery of government. I believe that a Secretary of State for Defence cannot effectively carry out his duties without also taking on the responsibility of looking constantly at sensible, rational ways in which we can first achieve arms control on the path to overall and general disarmament.

The Minister has reminded us that it used to be the case that debates on these matters occupied the attention of leading politicians. Great concern was expressed about these matters. In many ways, we were concentrating most of our arguments entirely on trigger mechanisms which were said to be extremely vulnerable. They have been greatly strengthened. I do not think that the danger of the accidental firing of a nuclear weapon was ever as great as was made out—

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order. The hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Dr. David Owen) is wandering far from a Third Reading debate.

Dr. Owen

I wish to keep within the rules of order, of course. However, we are dealing with a question of ministerial and governmental responsibility for the Weapons Group which makes nuclear weapons and, indirectly, with the way in which this House is to exercise control. These are complicated machinery of government changes, and this Bill clearly is not the vehicle to make the changes. I hope that the Minister will realise that the words spoken in Committee were not just to delay the passage of the Bill but to express the Opposition's deep-seated and fundamental anxiety.

My hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Mr. Bishop) referred to Poseidon and Polaris. We cannot open our newspapers without reading about imminent decisions on Poseidon. My hon. Friend quoted some words of mine. My intervention in that debate was to say that I could not understand the rush or why the Government were generating this tremendous urgency, with leaks in Washington and elsewhere.

There are sensible and rational arguments for continuing with the Polaris weapons system for the next two or three years, and putting our diplomacy behind the SALT in the hope that it will not be necessary to go for a second generation missile system and to spend the vast sums involved in any such decision. At this juncture, the case for delay seems to be overwhelming. The case for Poseidon was only won when the United States Government were concerned about antiballistic missiles and ABM defences. Since we have a treaty as part of SALT I to limit ABM defences, the need for Poseidon missiles and indirectly more spending at Aldermaston seems considerably less than before.

I believe that the Government should go steadily on the issue and not be bounced into making a rapid decision, because the military inside the Ministry of Defence seem to want to conclude an agreement with Washington to provide very expensive missiles and to increase expenditure on nuclear weapons by a formidable amount. The essential issue is for arms control and disarmament. It cannot be separated from the Ministry of Defence, which has a central responsibility. I should like the Government to take more interest than they seem willing to undertake.

10.50 p.m.

Mr. Ian Gilmour

With the permission of the House I will reply to the debate.

The hon. Member for Putney (Mr. Hugh Jenkins) said that the Labour Party is wholly opposed to the proposition of nuclear weapons. We on this side of the House are well used to the collective amnesia of the Opposition. But the hon. Gentleman can hardly have forgotten that the Labour Government nutured and kept nuclear weapons throughout their six years in office. We are doing nothing different from what they did. If the hon. Gentleman thinks it is sensible and liable to appeal to the good sense of the British people that the Labour Party can suddenly turn round, after it has been supporting a defence policy based on nuclear weapons, and say that it is opposed to nuclear weapons, he is not a very good judge of the British people.

Mr. Hugh Jenkins

When it comes to a speedy turn round hon. Gentlemen opposite are the great experts.

Mr. Gilmour

Anything that the Labour Party achieved or tried to achieve when in power it has now repudiated—Europe, industrial relations, and now, if the hon. Gentleman is to be believed, nuclear weapons. That is not a very good record.

I will not follow the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Dr. David Owen), Mr. Deputy Speaker, as I should be trying your patience rather hard if I did. The hon. Gentleman has written to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, so we can leave the matter there.

The hon. Member for Newark (Mr. Bishop) asked whose finger will be on the trigger. The same finger as was on it before. The hon. Gentleman, with his characteristic honesty, showed that he was not really convinced by the argument he was seeking to put forward when he said that previously there had been two Ministers in theory if not in fact. That admirably summed up the situation that the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton, put in his book on the subject. Indeed, the right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn), in answer to an intervention by me on Second Reading, agreed that he had not been engaged in these matters.

On the particular specialised point of the manufacture of nuclear devices, which is all that we are concerned about here, there has never been more than one Minister directly concerned, although the ordinary collective responsibility of Ministers will still apply. There is, therefore, no change whatever in constitutional or operational arrangements in the matter. The Bill makes not the slightest difference to either of those matters.

Mr. Bishop

Does the Minister recognise that there is a difference between the situation we are now leaving, where two Ministers have the responsibility—to what extent they exercise it depends on the policy of the Government of the day—and the position now where the user and the contractor in the Department will be operating in an area of complete secrecy? The main point that I was making was that the joint United States-United Kingdom programme, established by the Polaris sales agreement in December 1962, an agreement between President Kennedy and Prime Minister Macmillan, followed an era when a lot of military nuclear defence work was being carried on, and it reached the stage where the two countries came to this agreement.

My hon. Friends and I are worried that we could have a situation where this House may be told of an agreement with other countries arrived at by this Government which will follow a lot of underground or secret work which has been carried on for some time and the country is committed in consequence. We want to know what will be carried on—this can be done through a Select Committee on Defence—so that we do not get to the stage where the rate of advance is so rapid that we can have an international agreement which is a fait accompli to which the country would be opposed.

Mr. Gilmour

That is very interesting and may or may not happen, but it is not remotely affected by what happens under this Bill. The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry never had the slightest thing to do with these matters and whether or not we enter into any agreement with the United States is not affected by who is nominally responsible for Aldermaston. Aldermaston affects only a small part of our nuclear future. The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, or the Minister of Technology as he then was, was only nominally responsible for it and never went near it. Now we have only one Minister really and nominally in charge, whereas before we had one Minister in charge and two Ministers nominally in charge. It does not affect the matter.

The whole matter is not one of substance, nor is secrecy affected. Aldermaston has been shrouded in secrecy from the word "go". It will not be made more secret by bringing it into the Ministry of Defence. It is secret because we are dealing with extremely dangerous matters. Secrecy will not be affected and, as I pointed out in earlier discussions, Lord Chalfont said in a recent newspaper article that he thought there might be less secrecy now that Aldermaston was coming into the Ministry of Defence than there was before. I would not put it as high as that, but there is no reason to think that secrecy will be affected, and indeed we would be rather sorry if it were.

On the civil side of the work there will be no more secrecy than there is now. One of the attractions of civil work in AWRE is that it enables scientists to publish their work, which they cannot do in work on nuclear weapons. Part of the point of the civil work is that it should be published, so there is no danger at all of secrecy being increased at Aldermaston.

The hon. Gentleman asked me two questions about pay. In view of the source of his information, I think he will know the answer. He will know that the trade unions have asked for the £3 per craftsman, and it is under consideration. They have also asked for the AEA allowances, and that also is under consideration. This will be discussed at the meeting on 5th March.

I was also asked about the computational work in AWRE. It is done for Culham because the AWRE has the more powerful computer. It does the work and it will continue to do so if Culham desires it. There is no problem about it. Everybody will be anxious to keep the work where it is. The Comptroller and Auditor-General has his own staff at Aldermaston and will have the same powers as he had before.

I will go out of order if I deal with all the very interesting points raised by the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton, the hon. Member for Newark, and the hon. Member for Putney, but this is not a matter that is suitable for a great ideological debate. It is a simple, technical measure and that is all we are seeking to do and that will be the only result of the Bill.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed, with an Amendment.

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