Lords Sitting of 15 December 1937

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
QUAIL PROTECTION BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to.
EMPIRE EXHIBITION (SCOTLAND) ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.
ROTHESAY HARBOUR ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.
GLASGOW BOUNDARIES ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.

COUNTY MEDICAL OFFICERS OF HEALTH.
LORD MERTHYR LORD MERTHYR had given Notice that he would ask His Majesty's Government how many county councils in England and Wales have failed to formulate arrangements for securing that medical officers of health shall not engage in private practice a medical practitioners, in accordance with the provisions of Section 111 of the Local Government Act, 1933; in respect of how many of these counties, if any, the Minister has not exercised his power of requiring the councils to formulate arrangements; in respect of how many counties, if any, has the Minister not himself formulated arrangements after the failure of the councils to do so within six months of being so required; and what steps are proposed to be taken for ensuring the better observance of the law; and move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion for Papers and to ask the Question which stands in my
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name. This Question is substantially the same as one which I asked in your Lordships' House about twelve months ago, and the reason why it is being asked for the second time is that the position disclosed by the answer which I then received from the noble Viscount (Viscount Gage) was to my mind of a highly unsatisfactory character. The noble Viscount gave me, I am satisfied, the very best answer which he could give, but he cannot make bricks without straw. The legal position, if I may state it very briefly, is that in the Local Government Act of 1929 there is, in Section 58, a mandate to county councils to formulate schemes under which medical officers of health in county districts shall not be able to engage in private practice, and, also in that Act, power is given to the Minister of Health, in default of the county councils doing this work, to enable him at the expiry of six months' notice to do the work himself. That mandate and those powers were renewed by the Local Government Act of 1933, in Section III.
In December, 1936, when I asked this Question before, I was told that out of sixty-one county councils no fewer than twenty-seven had not formulated these arrangements, and that was nearly seven years after the Act came into force compelling them to do so. I think that is unsatisfactory, and I am very anxious to know, now that we have nearly reached eight years since that day, how many more county councils have carried out and observed this mandate. I have paid careful attention to the reasons given me by the noble Viscount in the reply which he was good enough to make last year. Amongst other things he said that the principal cause of delay was the fact that the review of county districts, also under the 1929 Act, had not been completed. Unless I am mistaken, that review has now been completed, with one possible exception, and I do not think even that; and if that was the principal cause of the delay I venture to suggest that now that cause is removed the work ought to proceed apace.
The noble Viscount then mentioned the default powers contained in the Act, and stated that those who did not agree with this particular reform resented the imposition of these default powers. No doubt that is correct, but I who am on the other side in this little battle claim, and

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I hope with some justification, that His Majesty's Government ought to help those who are on the side of the law in this matter and ought to implement the wishes and directions of Parliament expressed in one of the best known Acts which is upon the Statute Book. Then the noble Lord said that the relations between the Ministry and the local authorities have to be maintained with discretion. My observation upon that is that what is called, in Whitehall perhaps, "discretion" is a quality that may bear different names in the country, and I do not think I should be overstating it if I said that in some places that quality is called not "discretion" but "weakness." In 1936, a year ago, there were these twenty-seven councils and the noble Viscount said that the majority of them were taking steps to comply with the Act. If that be so, I confidently expect that he will be able to tell me to-day that that majority have now completed taking those steps and have reached the end of their journey.
He also mentioned that three counties only appeared to have failed to take any steps at all to comply with the Act. I desire to know what has been done by the Ministry in connection with those three counties. Has the Minister taken upon himself his powers to give the necessary notice? If so, has that produced any result? And if the notice has expired has the Minister himself formulated the arrangements? The noble Viscount said, quite rightly, that this appointment of full-time medical officers had to be delayed until the existing medical officers retired, which might, in some cases, mean a long period. I agree, but does not that really add an argument to my side? If there is to be this inevitable delay in the appointment, is that not an argument for all the greater haste in the formulation of this scheme? Temporary appointments of medical officers of health on a part-time basis are still being made, to my knowledge. I know of one appointment made since last year in an urban district where the medical officer receives the princely salary of £10. He is not a permanent official and yet presumably he is expected to acquaint himself fully with local government and public health legislation.
I do not think that is a satisfactory state of affairs. Why, if that is so, has the Minister not used these powers? Why are we always being asked to pass fresh public health legislation if the existing legislation is not to be enforced? Why are we so often asked to spend, and why do we spend, so many hundreds of thousands of pounds upon the building of wonderful sanatoria for curing disease if we cannot afford the few thousands which would be necessary for the appointment of full-time medical officers which might prevent the disease? This is not, as I said last year, a good subject for economy. If it is thought to be so then something should be done to indicate quite clearly that this particular piece of legislation is not going to be enforced. I do not want to weary your Lordships, and sometimes I have asked myself whether I am right in persisting in this matter, in renewing the Question which I asked only a year ago. But when I think of some of the conditions in country districts in regard to housing and sanitary arrangements the answer is always that I ought to persist.
If your Lordships will be indulgent, I would like just to quote one illustration of what I mean when I say that housing conditions—and I think they could be improved to some extent, at any rate, by the appointment of full-time medical officers—in this country are very far from being satisfactory. The day before yesterday I visited a house. After walking for a quarter of an hour from the nearest road I reached this building, which contains two rooms, one 12 feet by 11 feet 6 inches and one a little smaller than that. There are apparently no foundations to it. There is no damp-course; there is no back door; there is no food store; there are no rainwater troughs or pipes; there is no ventilation except through the front door when it is open and through a few small holes in the roof which, as a matter of fact, is the best part of the house. There are two small windows, very heavily patched and repaired, neither of which can be opened. All the windows and doors face north. The chimney stacks of the house are loose, and it is clear that if the house did not happen to be in a sheltered hollow at any rate the chimney stacks, and possibly the whole house, would long since have blown down. Water from a mound of earth at the back of the house soaks literally through the wall on to the floor of the kitchen, which is a very bad mortar floor. In that floor is a hole just sufficiently

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large to take the saucepan which is used for baling out this house. I was told, and I can quite well believe, that in that dwelling sleep does not depend on darkness or light but upon whether it is raining or fine.
In this house live seven people. Five of them, of both sexes and of an average age of over eighteen years, sleep in one room. Each of those five persons has 27½ square feet of floor space. Your Lordships will remember that no windows in this house open. Four of the male members of this household work at the local colliery, where there are no pithead baths and where conditions are unusually wet. Your Lordships can well imagine the condition of affairs when they go home, always covered with coal dust: and very often wet to the skin. This house was condemned two-and-a-half years ago. I am informed that the medical officer paid his last visit over a year ago. This is not a picture of life fifty years ago, but of the day before yesterday. I have heard people say—though not referring to that house—that they are satisfied with the present conditions of the appointment of medical officers of health. I am not satisfied, and I have asked myself therefore whether I need apologise to your Lordships for taking up your time this afternoon. So long as these conditions exist, conditions which I have seen for myself, I do not think I need make any apologies. I know that other people are to blame, but am I wrong in starting from the top and in asking that at any rate the Ministry of Health and His Majesty's Government shall do their part in trying to implement this legislation? I should like nothing better than to be told this afternoon that there is no further reason for me to ask this question; and that it will be done, the Act will be carried out and the conditions under which people are compelled to live will thereby be remedied. I beg to move.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, I think the noble Lord opposite deserves the cordial thanks of your Lordships' House for the persistence with which he has raised this Question. He brought it up for the first time just a year ago; he has raised it again to-day, and I only hope that he will continue to raise it until he receives a satisfactory answer from the Government. That hope will, I think, be shared by all members of your Lordships'
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House who have acquainted themselves with this problem. It is urgent, both in itself and because it raises certain questions of principle. As the noble Lord pointed out, the Local Government Act, 1929, contained a provision whereby local authorities were asked to employ whole-time medical officers of health who were not at the same time carrying on a private practice. That provision has not as yet been fully applied. That in itself is an extremely unsatisfactory situation. An Act has passed through both Houses of Parliament, it has received the Royal Assent, and it has not yet, eight years after its passage, been fully carried out. I am perfectly certain that your Lordships will not wish to encourage people to think that the law of the land can be evaded by quietly ignoring it. I am perfectly certain that your Lordships will wish to uphold the authority of Parliament and to obtain respect for the body of law for which it is responsible. That is the question of principle that is raised by the matter to which the noble Lord opposite has referred.
There is also the practical problem of how to enforce the existing by-laws and the body of law which have to be applied by local authorities in their areas if our standards of public health are to be maintained. As these provisions can only be applied by a person who can give his whole time to the job and who has enough opportunity to be able to study the matter with which he has to deal for the local authorities, it is clearly harmful that a medical officer of health should have to divide his time between his own private practice and his duties towards the local authority who employs him. It is quite evident that these minimum provisions of public health cannot be properly maintained unless the conditions laid down in the Local Government Act, 1929, are fulfilled.
I think that the claim that can properly be made to the Government is that either we should receive an assurance that this Act, which has by now received the full consideration of the local authorities and about which they have surely had time to make proper arrangements, will be carried out in the spirit and in the letter of the law, either by the local authorities or by the Ministry of Health in virtue of its power to take over this function if it is not discharged by the local authorities; or we should be told by the Government

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that they are willing to amend the Local Government Act or the Public Health Act, as the case may be, by deleting the provision that has not at present been properly operated. Those seem to me to be the alternatives which can very fairly be asked of the Government. For my part, I share the noble Lord's hope that the Government, in spite of the really unjustifiable delay which has taken place, are in a position to tell us that almost all the county councils have been able to employ a whole-time medical officer of health, and that those who are not in such a position will be relieved of their duty by the Ministry of Health.
VISCOUNT GAGE: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Merthyr presented his case again with great clarity, particularly when he referred to my previous reply as highly unsatisfactory! Again, however, I think he has been inclined to present the issue as a simpler one than it really is. He certainly suggested that if the local authority did not prepare a scheme itself, the Minister of Health had the duty of imposing one on it. Of course that is not actually the position. The Minister has no power to compel the local authority to adopt a scheme that he makes. It is true that he can make a scheme, but if the local authority do not like it, all the Minister can do under the Act is to insist that they shall not engage any more part-time medical officers. It was realised, of course, when this Act was passed that there might be difficult and obstructive authorities who were really intent on frustrating the objects of Parliament, and therefore these default powers had to be given. At the same time, I think that most of us would agree that, when dealing with this rather delicate and important question of public health, it is better if possible to arrange things so that the Ministry, the local authority and the doctors all work harmoniously together as a team. The noble Lord talked about bad housing. I entirely agree with him. I must confess that I did not quite follow his argument, but it seemed to be that the extent of bad housing depended largely on the presence or absence of a whole-time medical officer of health. Yet I think your Lordships will remember that he said that the house about which he was talking had been condemned two years ago. If that is so, it
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seems to me that the part-time medical officer did his duty, as I suppose it was condemned on his recommendation, and it was the authority which seems to have been at fault in not carrying out that recommendation.
I would just like to put one or two arguments, as a matter of principle, on the other side. Your Lordships may have read recently in the Press a letter emphasising the extreme importance of keeping collaboration between the public medical officers and the local practitioners. Supposing the Minister were to use this power a great deal more freely that he has, and supposing some mishap took place in the locality, might it not be said that the Minister had contributed to lack of collaboration by interfering prematurely and without local knowledge? Then we must also realise the practical limitations of the procedure which the Act lays down. Lord Merthyr did touch upon them, but I do not think he gave quite enough weight to them. As he said, in some places the part-time medical officers have not yet completed the period for which they were engaged to serve under contract. I do not myself see very much point in preparing a scheme a long time before these contracts have ended, because in that case it might be sometime out of date before these contracts did fall in.
The noble Lord also referred to the long period which has elapsed since the passing of the Act, and he referred to the explanation of that which I gave on the last occasion, which was that the county review under the Act of 1929 had taken much longer than was anticipated, and that one authority had not yet completed its county review. I do not think it is necessary for me to go into the reasons for the delay in the completion of that county review, but it does furnish some explanation of the delay which has occurred, because it is impossible to formulate a scheme before you know the extent of the area which you have to cover. I am not arguing for a moment that the Minister ought not, in any circumstances, to do anything. On the contrary, I quite agree that these whole-time medical officers should be the rule, and on the whole I rather welcome this debate as showing that Parliament does take an interest in the matter, and would be prepared to support the Minister in any action which he might take. But I

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do want to suggest that these default powers ought to be used with certain judgment—I will not use the word "discretion" if the noble Lord thinks that means "weakness." I think they ought to be used with discretion, and when you have different values in different parts of the country, it is rather difficult to lay down any hard and fast rule as to what the Minister ought, or ought not, to do.
Parliament gave the Minister a discretion in this matter, and he has, rightly or wrongly, used that discretion to encourage the authorities where he thought that there was a real case of obstruction or a real breakdown in the Act, and he has not used it where he felt that there was a genuine but slow effort being made to formulate these schemes. I think it is necessary to repeat this point, because I quite admit that if you do not take them into account the noble Lord has prima facie a good cause for complaint. I am perfectly prepared to lay any Papers that he may require, and to give him any information which he may require; but I would ask the House to judge these statistics in the light of the difficulties which the Minister himself has got to face, and which I have endeavoured to put forward, and not to dispose of the matter in quite such summary fashion as the noble Lord would have us do.
There are sixty-one counties which, under the Act, have to formulate these arrangements. Thirty-nine have already done so. One is on the point of sealing arrangements which have already been made, and in another case the Minister has used his powers and formulated a scheme himself. That leaves us with twenty outstanding cases as against twenty-seven last year. In one case the county review under the Act of 1929 is not yet completed. In two cases arrangements have only just been completed. In two more cases the populations of the counties concerned are so small that arrangements have in fact to be made with neighbouring counties, and these, in turn, have been held up for some of the other reasons indicated. In all the remaining cases except four, the Minister is satisfied that a scheme in some degree or other of completion is under consideration. I can give the noble Lord full particulars of these cases if it is necessary, but he will see that there are two more
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cases where the Minister now feels that the arrangements which he thought were going to be ready last year require further consideration, and in two of them he has already started default procedure. In the county in which I think the noble Lord is particularly interested, default procedure was started but was suspended temporarily because it was understood that the county was putting the matter in hand and was likely to produce a scheme of its own.
I would perhaps draw your Lordships' attention to what I said last year in my concluding sentences. I said:
"I hope I have satisfied the noble Lord that, though progress may be rather slow, it is going steadily on. It never was contemplated that this reform should be carried out in a short time; but, provided the progress is steady, we feel that the purpose of the Act is served."
I do not know whether, having now heard what I have said, my noble friend still thinks the Minister has not made sufficient use of the "big stick." I would suggest that there is the other side of the question, because although I am entirely in agreement that the law ought to be observed, and there are great advantages to be derived from having whole-time officers, the really important thing is that their employment should take place under conditions where the best advantages can be obtained. Although wilful defiance of the law ought to be resisted, if you are going to achieve durable success, as we hope we are, you ought to start your scheme in a good atmosphere and not one of suspicion and non-co-operation. After all, we are a democratic country, and although I hear noble Lords opposite reiterating that, I do not always feel that in practice some of their speeches seem to bear that out. We are trying, as I have said, to preserve co-operation, because we feel that it will be the most efficient course in the long run.
LORD MERTHYR: My Lords, much as I should like to, I do not intend to enter into any argument upon the points raised by the noble Viscount. I may possibly reserve that for a future occasion, though I hope that that will not be necessary. But may I just say that I do very much envy the facility with which the noble Viscount can present to your Lordships' House in such an admirable way what I really must describe as a very unsatis-

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factory case. I am very grateful to him personally for taking so much trouble this afternoon, and I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

SOLDIERS' MARRIAGE ALLOWANCES.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, in the absence of my noble friend Lord Strabolgi, I beg formally to put the Question which stands on the Order Paper in his name—namely, to ask His Majesty's Government what are the present regulations with regard to allowances for the wives and children of married soldiers under the age of twenty-six; whether any alteration in these regulations is contemplated; and to move for Papers?
VISCOUNT BRIDGEMAN: My Lords, perhaps I have been at closer quarters with married soldiers and their problems than most members of this House, and so I am venturing to say a very few words on the subject. So far as the rates of allowances themselves are concerned there does seem to me to be a great deal of room for improvement. If I am right the allowances are intended to cover the married soldier's expenses in the matters of providing lodgings, heating and lighting and of moving between stations. They may have been adequate at some time in the past, but in practice they very rarely cover these present-day costs, particularly in cases such as those of the permanent staff of the Territorial Army, and, if I am not mistaken, there is no provision whereby the rate of allowance can be increased in stations where rents are specially high, or in cases such as that of the Territorial Army Staff in the City of London, who have to live on the housing estates a long way from their place of duty. We are led to expect many reforms in the Army these days, and perhaps it is not too much to suppose that an inquiry into this subject is already being undertaken; if so, may it be hoped that it will lead to rather better treatment for those people who are already entitled to marriage allowances?
The question of marriage allowances for soldiers under twenty-six years of age is a very different matter indeed, and, even
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if it is desired to take every step to increase the population of this country, I feel that there are many very much better ways of doing it. There may be callings in which a young man under twenty-six can safely marry and bring up a family, but to my mind the Army is not one of them. It can never be a place for the young married man, and will never be so, whatever allowances it may be decided to give. I think myself that the great majority of those who join the Army realise this perfectly well, for it is certainly not the best recruits who marry at an early age. The conditions in the Army for young men are all against marriage. Most recruits, at least in the fighting arms, come to their foreign service within the first three years of their service in the Army. Apart from that, there are a great many stations, not only abroad but even at home, like Salisbury Plain and Catterick, where accommodation of the right kind is extremely hard to find at a reasonable price. On top of that, frequent moves make it impossible for a young married soldier to rent a house of his own or to take advantage of hire-purchase schemes to furnish that house. He is forced to live in rooms, and if he is ordered abroad his wife and family will have to be left behind him in almost every case. Then, when the time comes for the soldier to leave the Colours and start his life afresh in civil life, another period of hardship will be in store for him.
It is for these reasons, I imagine, that the age for marriage allowance is fixed at twenty-six years of age. But that means in practice that soldiers will not qualify for marriage allowance until they have extended their service with the Colours, that is to say, until they have decided to make the Army their profession, and at that time they are, or certainly should be, within measurable distance of being allotted a Government married quarter, wherever they are stationed. For such men, those who have made the Army their profession, the treatment should be as generous as it is possible to make it; but in my experience as a regimental officer, which covers some time, I feel that to give marriage allowances to the younger man is to do nothing but to subsidise improvidence. The present good rule fixing the age at twenty-six years acts as a very salutary deterrent to early and improvident marriages, and that deterrent in my own

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experience is very often necessary. To lower the age for marriage allowances then would, I feel, bring in the long run nothing but distress to the individual, and a good deal of disrepute to the Army, which we should all be concerned to avoid. For that reason I hope that this Motion will not be accepted.
THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (LORD STRATHCONA AND MOUNT ROYAL): My Lords, I am sure I shall be interpreting the wishes of your Lordships if I make it my first duty to-day to extend our congratulations and best wishes to the noble Viscount who has just addressed the House. It is surely all to the good of your Lordships' House that we should have in future the benefit of the experience of one who has had a distinguished career in His Majesty's Army; and, if I may strike a personal note, I am indeed glad that it falls to my lot to press these congratulations upon the noble Viscount, because my last service in another place was that period of two years in which I had the honour and pleasure of serving his distinguished and beloved father.
I am extremely sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, has been unable to get here this afternoon, and I wish to begin my speech in answer to him by thanking him for letting me know, as soon as he put down this Motion, the lines on which he wished the investigation to be made, and on which he proposed to address your Lordships. I shall, therefore, stick, as far as possible, to those lines which he set out in that previous notice which he gave me. I should like to explain first of all to your Lordships what the Army has in the past done for the married soldier, and what it now does for him. Before the War there was no special provision for the married soldier other than a separation allowance, which was issued only when the soldier was unavoidably separated from his family by the exigencies of the Service. There was no age bar, but the separation allowance was issued only to soldiers on the married quarters roll, which included then, as it does now, all warrant officers and colour-sergeants, 50 per cent. of sergeants and some 3½ per cent. of corporals and privates. The total cost of this allowance in 1914 was some £45,000 a year.
To-day a great deal more is done for the married soldier. In the first place
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there is to-day, as there was before the War, the married quarters roll, which now includes some 16,000 soldiers. Of these some 14,000 are in public quarters, and may be regarded as being in comparatively comfortable domestic circumstances. The remaining 2,000, for whom public quarters are, for one reason or another, not available, get lodging allowances at what is known as the "married rate." In addition, all families on the married quarters roll receive marriage allowance, regarding which I will give further details in a minute or two, less 1s. a day. This deduction represents that part of the marriage allowance which is already covered by the free quarters or lodging allowance which I have just mentioned. It is important to bear in mind that all these families on the married quarters roll get free conveyance on change of station both at home and abroad and also free medical attention.
In the second place there is a group of soldiers, some 5,000 in number, who are on the marriage allowance roll. This covers all soldiers, other than those on the married quarters roll, who have attained the age of twenty-six and are married and living with their families. The allowance continues to be issued when the soldiers are separated from their families by the exigencies of the Service. The weekly rate of this marriage allowance at present is 10s. for the wife if the soldier is not on the married quarters roll and is receiving pay at 3s. 8d. a day or less. For soldiers in receipt of higher rates of pay than this, the weekly rate of marriage allowance is scaled down below 10s. to 7s. In addition to that, 5s. a week is payable in respect of the first child, 3s. for the second child, 2s. for the third child, and 1s. for the fourth and each additional child. The total annual cost of marriage allowance in the year 1937 is £656,000, which compares with the figure of £45,000 in 1914 which I mentioned just now, and illustrates the very large increase that has been made in the provision for the married soldier.
For married soldiers under the age of twenty-six, which is the main point raised in the noble Lord's Motion, no provision by way of marriage allowance is made at all. The age bar of twenty-six was introduced in 1920 after very exhaustive consideration by a Joint Committee on which the three Service Departments were repre-

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sented. It must be borne in mind that a large part of the Regular Army is always outside the United Kingdom, and it is physically impossible for units sent overseas to take with them an unlimited number of wives and families. There is also a very strong objection to any system which encourages men to marry and then separates them for periods of, perhaps, five or six years from their wives and children. Consequently, it was felt at the time that it was desirable to discourage the young soldier from marrying with all the attendant difficulties that such an action would involve, and that the way to do this was to fix the age limit at an age that would in practice exclude the great majority of short-service men in the Army. The majority of Army recruits, as your Lordships are well aware, enlist at the age of about eighteen or nineteen and usually pass to the Reserve after six or seven years' Colour service—that is, before they have reached the age of entitlement to marriage allowance.
The considerations which then determined the policy of the Army still hold good to-day. If the age limit were reduced below twenty-six the result would undoubtedly be an increase in the number of marriages among young soldiers. If it were carried down as low as, say, twenty-one, as I think was going to be suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, it would admit large numbers of soldiers on short service, both those who are married already between the ages of twenty-one and twenty-six and others who would be induced to marry by the extended scope of the allowance. The result would be an increased pressure on the very inadequate accommodation which exists at a certain number of military stations for the families of men who are not entitled to public quarters. As my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for War said yesterday in another place, "the Army deliberately appeals to celibates." For the present, therefore, I think I may say that the policy of His Majesty's Government is to do what they can to improve the circumstances of married soldiers over the age of entitlement to marriage allowance, but to take no step that would act as an inducement to quite young soldiers to get married and thus involve their families in hardships which are practically inevitable.
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This policy is in no way affected by the recent decision to take in as recruits married men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-eight. No married man is enlisted under the age of twenty-six unless he can show that his family is adequately provided for. This condition was imposed in order to prevent any addition in the number of wives for whom insufficient provision can be made by their husbands. The real problem is created by the marriage of young soldiers after enlistment, and, as I have already stated, it is not the policy of His Majesty's Government to encourage such marriages by any alteration of the Regulations. I should just like to add, before I sit down, that I shall bring the statements made by the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, to the notice of my right honourable friend, who is, of course, examining this problem to-day. But I do not think I can add any information on the Question put down on the Paper, and I hope the noble Lord or his representative will feel that I have dealt with the matter adequately.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, I should like to take this opportunity of joining with the noble Lord opposite in welcoming the noble Viscount as a speaker in our debates and in congratulating him on his first contribution. I should also like to express the hope that his specialised experience may be available to us on other occasions. The noble Lord for whom I am speaking regrets very much indeed that he is unable to be in his place this afternoon to put his Motion, and I am sure he would wish me to express very cordial thanks to the noble Lord for the extremely comprehensive and detailed reply he has given in answer to this Question. I beg leave, on behalf of my noble friend, to withdraw the Motion that stands in his name.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

SCOTTISH ADMINISTRATION.
THE EARL OF MANSFIELD THE EARL OF MANSFIELD rose to ask His Majesty's Government if they are giving serious consideration to the suggestion contained in paragraph 107 of the Report of the Committee on Scottish Administration, which suggests the appointment of an additional Under-Secretary of State for Scotland; and to move

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for Papers. The noble Earl said: My Lords, as many of your Lordships are aware, just over a year ago the Government appointed a Commission under the chairmanship of Sir John Gilmour, formerly Secretary of State for Scotland, to investigate the present position of Scottish administration. Their Report was brought out with considerable expedition, and is a most valuable document. The Government have signified their intention, I understand, of adopting at least its main recommendations, and a word is therefore necessary as to why I have put forward this Motion to your Lordships to-day. The reason is that the question which I venture to raise—namely, the desirability of appointing another Under-Secretary of State for Scotland—is not a recommendation of the Report. All the Report did was to recommend that consideration should be given to the question. In the meantime, we do not of course know what the result of that consideration will be, as it is always easier to make a fairly substantial alteration in a Bill before it is presented to Parliament than afterwards, I hope that these few words of mine may possibly, as they are backed with much greater authority than my own, help a little in inducing the Government to do as some of us would like.
The position of Secretary of State for Scotland to-day is an exceedingly onerous one. It may possibly not be known to all in your Lordships' House that the Secretary of State for Scotland has duties to perform in Scotland himself which are performed in England by the following Ministers: the Home Secretary, the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, the Minister of Health and the President of the Board of Education. He carries out also a certain proportion of the functions of the Minister of Labour and of the Lord Chancellor. He has, in addition, a large number of undefined responsibilities, inasmuch as he is regarded by a considerable number of people in Scotland rather as being in the position of a Regent to whom they can apply in all cases of uncertainty or trouble. Your Lordships will, I think, agree that these are a very large number of offices to be held by one man, and that the single Under-Secretary of State for Scotland that is provided to assist the Secretary of State is not perhaps an adequate amount of assistance.
There are many Scottish Bills brought forward, usually a considerable number in each Session. At the same time, many other Bills—in fact practically every Bill with the exception of a few for England and Wales—which do pass through Parliament affect Scotland to a greater or lesser extent. The result is that the Secretary of State or his deputy has to spend a large portion of each summer sitting on Scottish Grand Committee whilst Scottish representation is required in some other Committee where Scottish interests are directly or indirectly affected by some Bill. In many cases the two Law Officers of the Crown for Scotland, the Lord Advocate and the Solicitor-General for Scotland, are not able to carry out these duties, as the questions involved are often administrative rather than legal. Then we are now in the process of transferring a great proportion of the activities of the Scottish Office, hitherto carried on from Whitehall, to Edinburgh. That is going to mean that some official of the Scottish Office, the Secretary of State or Under-Secretary, will have to be in Edinburgh and in Scotland generally considerably more in future than has been the case in the past, which will mean an even greater difficulty in carrying out the Parliamentary responsibilities of the Office.
At the present time the position, as far as your Lordships' House is concerned, is that some member of the Government is entitled to reply on behalf of the Scottish Office to all questions that may arise on Scottish affairs and to take charge of all Bills relating to Scotland. I suggest that that is really not very fair to Scotland, because the Scottish business that is carried on in your Lordships' House is, I consider, in no way inferior in importance to that which is done in another place, and as Scotland is in fact represented there always by two Ministers, I think it is only fair to my native country that it should have one of her own in your Lordships' House. Furthermore, the position of the Minister who has charge of Scottish affairs in this House is not an enviable one. Your Lordships are very fortunate, and so is Scotland at the present time, inasmuch as the noble Lord, Lord Strathcona, carries out these very difficult duties with an ability and an industry which I think are appreciated everywhere, but I believe the noble Lord,

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Lord Strathcona, will himself admit that his position is not an easy or a pleasant one, because he is forced to reply on behalf of an Office with whose normal activities he is not concerned. He is obliged to learn every question as it comes before him, often at very few days notice, and if supplementary questions in regard to administration should arise in the course of debate he is obviously unable to speak for the Department concerned and can only refer the matter to the Secretary of State.
That position, I suggest to your Lordships, is not a good one for Scotland, so far as the Minister who speaks for Scotland in this House is concerned. I think, therefore, that your Lordships' House is, for every reason, fully entitled to have a representative of the Scottish Office more or less permanently in it. There are a very considerable number of your Lordships who are interested in Scotland, not merely the Scottish Representative Peers but a large number of others who, like myself, are not Peers for Scotland but do also sit here. There are a large number of Scotsmen who, since the Union, have been given Peerages of Great Britain and the United Kingdom, and there are a considerable number of others who., although having no direct ancestral connection, have ties with Scotland through marriage, business, residence or other causes. In those circumstances I think that direct Scottish representation in your Lordships' House is very much overdue.
There is just one other further point I should like to make, and that is upon the purely political aspect of the matter. There is a movement in Scotland, not of very great strength, which would set up a separate Parliament for Scotland. That movement does not have the adherence of many responsible people in my country, but there is no doubt whatever that the one thing which is calculated to increase that movement is the feeling that Scottish affairs are not having due representation in London. The new conditions under which far more Scottish business will be transacted in Edinburgh is all for the good, and it should go a very long way towards satisfying the sense of grievance which a large number of people hold were Scotland given direct representation here. There has been in the past, undoubtedly, some cause for complaint of
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neglect of Scottish business. The new Bill which will be brought in as a result of this Report, will, I hope, go a very long way towards removing these causes of dissatisfaction. I think it would go still further if the course which I venture to suggest to your Lordships this afternoon were to be adopted. It is probable that the Government have not yet fully considered the Committee's Report. I do not therefore press my noble friend Lord Strathcona for a definite reply to-day. All I would ask him is that he will convey to the Secretary of State for Scotland and to the Cabinet the substance of what has been said here this afternoon, and, with the hope that they will consider it as sympathetically as possible and, if they find it at all possible, grant us what we ask, I beg to move the Motion.
LORD STRATHCONA AND MOUNT ROYAL: My Lords, the noble Earl was good enough to consult me some time ago before putting down this Motion and to indicate to me the lines upon which he intended to address your Lordships. The Report of the Committee on Scottish Administration, now known as the Gilmour Report, makes many valuable recommendations with the object of securing better organisation and increased efficiency. The Report is of great importance to Scotland, and I can assure your Lordships that serious consideration will be given—and is in fact now being given—to all its recommendations. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland has already indicated that His Majesty's Government are in sympathy with the general intention of the Committee's recommendations, that intention being that so far as practicable Scottish administration should be concentrated in Edinburgh. The particular point which is now before your Lordships—the appointment of an additional Under-Secretary of State for Scotland—is not a matter with which the Committee on Scottish Administration were directly concerned, as the noble Earl has already pointed out. The Committee's inquiry related to the organisation of the permanent staff. In their Report however the Committee have drawn attention, as the noble Earl has drawn attention, to the heavy burden which falls upon the Secretary of State for Scotland, and the exacting nature of his responsibilities. The suggestion that there should be a second Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State

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for Scotland, possibly with a seat in your Lordships' House, was frequently put to the Committee in evidence; and the Committee have therefore called attention to the matter, though they have refrained from making any specific recommendation.
The suggestion that the Secretary of State should be assisted by the appointment of a second Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State has been discussed in Parliament before. In 1919, the Ministries and Secretaries Bill was introduced, proposing that the Scottish Secretary should be given the status of a Secretary of State and the assistance of a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State—without affecting the appointment of a Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health under the Scottish Board of Health Act, 1919. The Bill, however, failed to become law owing to the opposition to the financial proposals. Again, as recently as 1932, the appointment of a second Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland was suggested in the debate on the Address in the House of Commons when the then Secretary of State for Scotland indicated that the time was not opportune for discussing the suggestion. Now that the matter has again been raised by the Gilmour Committee the Government will certainly give it consideration, and in doing so they will give due weight to the views which have been expressed in your Lordships' House today by the noble Earl. Noble Lords will appreciate that I cannot give any indication as to what the result of such consideration is likely to be.
THE EARL OF MANSFIELD: My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend for an answer which is quite as full as I could have expected or deserved. I would just like to stress two points. The first is that since 1919, owing to the mass of new legislation, the duties thrown upon the Scottish Office, as upon every other Government Department, are vastly greater then they used to be. Secondly, as we are now going to have a complete overhaul of Scottish administration, now is the time to make the change. We do not want to have more frequent changes in administration than are reasonable, and it is certainly essential that this change should take place at a very early date. Surely, therefore, now is the time to appoint this additional Parliamentary
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Under-Secretary in order that the increasing amount of work which is being thrown upon the Scottish Office may be dealt with even more adequately than in the past. I thank my noble friend very much for his reply and I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

PETROL AND OIL SUPPLIES.
THE DUKE of MONTROSE THE DUKE of MONTROSE had the following Notice on the Paper:—To ask His Majesty's Government—
(1) Whether in the event of war, they are now satisfied there will be sufficient supplies of (a) petrol, (b) fuel and Diesel oil in this country, not only to furnish the requirements of the Navy, Army and Air Force and their ancillary services, but to provide for food production, public transport and other essential services.
(2) Whether they have any definite plans for alternative supplies of power derived from fuel produced from home sources. If so, what fuels, and where can supplies be obtained; and will any alterations be necessary to enable oil-propelled vehicles to use these fuels. And to move for Papers.
The noble Duke said: My Lords, in asking the Question which stands in my name I feel some apology is due to your Lordships for once again troubling you with a subject such as that of the oil supplies which will be available in this country in case of war, but the fact is that quite a large number of people are very anxious to know where we stand in this matter. Up to now, I am afraid, we have generally been put off with what one may call vague generalities or deferring generalities, such as statements that the matter is still under consideration, and so on. Surely the time has come when we ought to be told something more definite so that we should know how matters stand. Only a few days ago your Lordships were discussing the question of possible gas attacks, and we were envisaging the possibility that we might be bombed and gassed. Then we were told that a great scheme was in existence by which the country would be divided into areas, and that officers were going to be appointed to show us how to seal our doors and windows and so forth. Has

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anything of the sort been done with regard to oil supplies? Has any such organisation been prepared to look after the oil supplies available in time of war?
After all, the oil supplies are the be-all and end-all of our national defence. Without adequate oil supplies we could never stave off gas attacks, we could never stave off the starvation of our people, and our national defence would be bound to collapse. I think I am right in saying, as showing the importance to be attached to oil supplies, that last year we imported two billion five hundred million gallons of oil for our Services. One thing is certain, and that is that, prodigious though these figures may be, we should use far more oil in the event of war than in time of peace. It would be only right and proper to envisage that we shall require in this country at least three billion gallons of oil. I ask the Government whether they can assure us that there will be three billion gallons of oil in this country on the outbreak of war and that they can maintain that supply even if the war goes on. The other day I saw in The Times an article written by a special correspondent. I do not know whether the article was inspired, nor whether it represented the views of the Government, but the writer assured us that Great Britain controlled the great bulk of the oil supplies in the world. He said that the experience of the Great War went to show that by adopting the convoy system we only lost 1 per cent. of our shipping, and so our oil supplies were safe and assured.
On the face of it, that would seem a very confident assurance. But there are just one or two points that require examination. The first is, where do the bulk of those oil supplies lie: in what country? I say that they lie, for the large part, in countries which you can by no means call free of internal trouble. They lie in countries like Iraq, Mexico, Venezuela and Trinidad (which has the largest supply in the British Empire). In each one of those countries there have quite recently been serious internal troubles—strikes, riots and sabotage. Is there anybody who can guarantee that if this country became embroiled in a first-class war, the discontented elements of those countries would not rise and try to get back a little of their own? They might even go so far as to seize the
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supplies of oil. And there is another danger. At the time of the Great War we had behind us the resources of the United States of America, and we were able to borrow from them an innumerable number of tankers to bring in the oil. Are we certain that we shall be able in another war to count on the resources of the United States of America, so long as our debt to America remains unpaid? I think that I have said enough to show that, so far as our oil supplies are concerned, there are many dangers much more grave than anything to be met with on the high seas.
Then, as regards the naval defence of our oil supplies, the writer of the article never mentioned that we had not been able to use the convoy system until the War had been going for two years. Before we could use a convoy system we had to drive off the sea every raider; we had to bottle up the enemy's fleet in its harbours; we had to be in a position to say that we had the indisputable command of the sea. It would have been suicide to use a convoy system before we had command of the sea. Is anybody prepared to say that we shall have command of the sea within the first few months of the beginning of another great war? Yet it is in the first few months that we shall require oil supplies, any amount of oil. Look at it whichever way you will, there is only one sure safeguard against all these troubles, and that is to make provision for a supply of fuel, on which to drive our motors, from sources within our own country. That is the only sure safeguard we have.
We have shadow schemes for munition supplies, and for factories for making munitions. So has France; so has Germany. But they have shadow schemes for transport as well, to be propelled by fuel from within their own borders. France has a shadow scheme envisaging the conversion of 40,000 lorries to run on charcoal from the French forests on the declaration of war. Have we anything of the same sort? Nothing at all; nothing has been done to provide a shadow scheme of the same sort. Why not? I do not know why not, but I know that in March of this year the Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence, in reply to a Question in another place, said that a special Committee was to be appointed—
"To consider and examine the various processes for the production of oil from coal and

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certain other materials indigenous to this country, and to report on their economic possibilities and on the advantages to be obtained by way of security of oil supplies in an emergency."
What does that mean? What do the terms of reference to that Committee mean? They mean, if they mean anything at all, that the Committee were to investigate a source of power alternative to imported oil.
Following that, and trying to help forward that aim, I organised in Palace Yard a demonstration of transport propelled by coal, or by gas from coal. Many of your Lordships and a number of members from another place attended that demonstration and expressed interest in it. After that, being encouraged by them, I wrote and asked if I might give before that Committee evidence which I had collected from my own experience and from abroad. This is the answer I got:
"The members of the Committee do not consider that they would be justified in giving consideration to the use of solid fuels which might be used as a substitute for imported oil fuels."
Whatever were the Committee appointed for if not to consider alternative fuels? If they were to study alternative fuels, why did they refuse to look at other fuels which have been found successful in other countries? I cannot understand that at all, and it seems to require some explanation.
I am told that the Government contemplate putting down a plant—a foreign plant—called the Fischer-Tropsch, capable of turning out 20,000 tons of petrol from coal. That is an efficient plant but an exceedingly costly one. They will not put down a Fischer-Tropsch plant to turn out 20,000 tons of petrol under £3,000,000. Quite a number of British low-temperature carbonisation plants costing £250,000 are capable of turning out smokeless coal which will give a propelling power equal to 57,000 tons of petrol. That is to say that for one-tenth of the cost you can produce by British plant double the amount of propelling power. Why should we be burdened with a burden of £3,000,000 to put down a foreign plant when all you have to do is to draw on the coal from British mines, the wood from British forests and the peat from British moors? Why not study these things? Why have the Government neglected these things?
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That is what we want to have an explanation of, and I hope that the noble Earl who replies to this Question will let himself go and give us a detailed reply. I beg to ask the Question and to move the Motion which stand on the Paper in my name.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (EARL DE LA WARR): My Lords, I think the House would wish me to thank the noble Duke for raising this question, which is one of very real importance. We all appreciate, quite apart from the fact that the noble Duke has put down this Motion to-day, what he has clone for the advancement of certainly one side of this subject. He has asked me to be definite and not to try to content him and your Lordships with vague generalities. I am afraid that it is not very easy, on a matter of this kind, which affects so vitally some of the most intimate details of our defence arrangements, for me to attempt to be as definite as I think the noble Duke would wish me to be. I can, however, tell him certain steps that His Majesty's Government have been taking. But first of all I would like to impress upon the noble Duke a point of which I am not sure he is quite certain—namely, that the Government do attach the greatest importance to this subject. We realise that oil, and oil products, are the raw materials not merely of war but of our peace activities, and it is therefore absolutely vital that in our preparations the very closest consideration should be given to this subject.
There is actually sitting now, and it has been sitting for some time, a Sub-Committee of the Committee of Imperial Defence, and a Cabinet Minister is in charge of the work of that Sub-Committee. It has before it the consideration of such questions as the quantity of reserves of oil, both in relation to peace requirements and war requirements, taking into account, that is, all civil and industrial needs as well as the needs of the Forces. It has before it the duty of considering the question of the security of the reserves which we are rapidly building up—security from the point of view of location and security from the point of view of the lay-out of the storage. Then it has before it such questions as that affected by the amount of tanker tonnage at our disposal, and there I might mention a particular point that the noble Duke has mentioned, the question of the protection

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of that tanker tonnage in time of war. That matter is naturally under the special consideration of the Admiralty which, incidentally, is strongly represented also on this Committee. There are also the Question of rationing, and various schemes of control, both in this country and in other countries over which we have any control. All these and every other matter concerning the supplies and reserves of oil are under our constant and very active consideration, and every one of those questions that I have mentioned has been tackled. The Committee has gone a very long way, with regard to many of the questions, towards the solution of the problems presented by these points, and where it has not actually completed its survey it is at least somewhere towards completion.
The noble Duke has mentioned other points. He has mentioned particularly the question of alternative supplies—alternative supplies, that is, produced in this country as opposed to our dependence on imports. I think first of all we have got to face the fact that, whatever is done with regard to alternative supplies, we are never going to be able to produce all, or anything like all, our requirements in this country, and therefore the question of contacts with importing countries, control over foreign or Empire supplies, control over refining and refiners, and all these questions, have to enter into our general consideration. Nevertheless, the Government have felt that it was most important that we should do what was possible with regard to the consideration of the question, for instance, of oil from coal. The noble Duke will remember that the Government by methods of preference—very heavy preference—have taken considerable steps to encourage various processes in this country. I need only mention Billingham as one great plant which has been erected as a result of what the Government have already done. The noble Duke has mentioned the possibility of other plants being started. He has mentioned particularly the process known as the Fischer-Tropsch plant. I can only remind the noble Duke that I think his source of information is the Press, and it is a rumour in the Press, and one which, from Government sources, I am certainly not in a position to confirm; but there has been a suggestion of the provision of capital for the development of these processes, especially in the Special Areas.
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As the noble Duke knows, it was really arising out of these suggestions that we appointed the Falmouth Committee, and I think your Lordships would desire me to express, not only on behalf of the Government, but of yourselves, our deep sense of gratitude to the noble Lord for the immense amount of work he has put into this Committee—work for which he was peculiarly suited. That Committee was, of course, appointed specifically to deal with the technical and scientific side of the production of oil from coal, and I think that explains why the Committee did not feel itself in a position to examine the other processes which the noble Duke has mentioned. I regret that I cannot give your Lordships any information about the contents of the Report of that Committee, because it has only very lately been remitted to the Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence, and we have had no time, as yet, to decide what steps to take with regard to it.
I would, however, ask your Lordships to believe that we are examining that Report, and examining it from the point of view of taking any possible action envisaged therein, and we are also examining many other questions with regard to alternative supplies of fuel. The noble Duke has mentioned a number. He mentioned one perhaps rather more suited to France, with her great forests, than to this country—charcoal. But there are also the other systems which, as he reminded us at the beginning of his speech, he himself has helped to demonstrate—various systems of running cars on gas and so on. There, again, I am afraid I am not in a position to tell your Lordships exactly what steps the Government are taking; but I must ask you to accept my assurance that we are considering every single one of these propositions that have been put before us. They are in nearly every instance being tried out. I would once again emphasise to the noble Duke that, whilst I feel to some extent that I must apologise to him for not being more definite in my reply, nevertheless the Government not merely have this question under their active consideration, but they are in fact taking action with regard to a very great number of the points that he has put before us.
THE DUKE OF MONTROSE: My Lords, I very much appreciate the reply of the noble Earl. I realise that I gave very short notice of the line that I was

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going to take, and he was speaking therefore under some difficulty. But of course the main point is that we are still being told that alternative supplies and resources for oil are under consideration, and if we are going to assume that we could be bombed, it must be remembered that the oil storage tanks could be bombed too, and that would greatly shorten supplies. At the present moment the oil storage tanks are easy targets. They are all above ground, they are visible from the sea, and they can be destroyed either from the air or from the water. As regards the increased numbers of tankers, you have to detail naval vessels for their protection, and no Admiral could possibly spare these until he had command of the sea. As regards alternative fuel, it may be true that we are not producing much at present, but the potential supply is unlimited, when you come to think of all the coal and wood that exist in this
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country. I think that the time has come when an organisation similar to that which we have for gas should be formed for oil. The country should be divided into areas for the production of alternative supplies. Inside each area there should be depots for supplies, and there should be information conveyed to all those interested in fuel propulsion—farmers who have to provide food, transport people who run the omnibuses, fishing people who run their fishing vessels. But not one of them at the present moment has heard anything whatever about the organisation for alternative oil supplies in this country, not one. However, I thank the noble Earl for his reply and I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.
House adjourned at a quarter before five o'clock.