HL Deb 29 February 1940 vol 115 cc726-31

7.3 p.m.

THE DUKE OF MONTROSE rose to call attention to the inadequate provision of comfort, at certain places, for members of the Services, when travelling or on leave; and to move for Papers. The noble Duke said: My Lords, at this hour of the evening I have no intention of detaining you for any length of time. I am only anxious to bring to your notice some short comments in regard to the welfare of soldiers and sailors when travelling on leave or when stranded in any of our towns. I feel sure that after I have brought the shortcomings to your Lordships' notice you will agree that they ought not to be allowed to exist a moment longer. I think the best thing I can do would be to read a short extract from a letter that I have received from one of His Majesty's Lords Lieutenant, whose name I have handed to the noble Viscount who, I am informed, will reply to this Motion. He writes: Hundreds of sailors and soldiers are continally passing through here and have nowhere to stay. They are sleeping four deep on the floor of the Sailors' Home and on the station platform. The R.T.O. approached me on the subject and I have had talks with the corporation. They have been doing their best, and they have got the Y.M.C.A. to provide eleven beds, and they are prepared if properly backed to give another twelve beds. The Soldiers' and Sailors' Home have twenty-one beds; but, as stated above, the men are lying as thick as peas on the floor of the dining-room and lounge. The matron of the Y.M.C.A. says she has got hold of a house where fifty beds could be provided for seamen if timely help in meeting the expense was given. I do think something officially should be done in this matter. There have been two scathing articles in the local Press, and it does no credit to the authorities. Official parties who travel on warrant are of course dealt with otherwise, but what I have said refers to others, and men on leave. It is not fair to the soldiers and sailors whose gallantry was described to us so effectively by the First Lord of the Admiralty the other night in another place. That is not the way they should be treated—left to lie out on the station platforms in rows, left to lie in our waiting rooms without any fire and unable to get any tea, or coffee, or a biscuit or anything. That is not the way, I am sure, your Lordships would wish them to be treated.

And that is not the only thing. I know of two ports frequented by minesweepers and trawlers where no arrangements are made for the men when they come ashore. The result is the young men wander around the town and go into places where I am sure none of your Lordships would wish your sons to enter. I know another place where there is a big naval base with a large number of officers. The officers have a mess where they can get refreshments and make themselves comfortable at any time of the day or night. In that same building there are eighteen or nineteen young women working in the W.R.N.S. These women have not a single sitting-room there to use when they are on duty at night for twelve hours on end, and not a single arrangement has been made to enable them to have a cup of tea or a biscuit during the whole of their twelve hours of duty. When I said to them, "Why don't you provide yourselves with these things?" they said: "We are ranked with acting sub-lieutenants of the Navy, and for some reason or other we have all had our salaries reduced, and this is not the time to ask us to put our hands in our pockets and provide gas rings, electric rings, tea kettles, tea pots, jugs cups and saucers and cutlery." Surely these things should be provided by a grateful country, allowing these girls to provide their own provisions.

I think I have said enough to show your Lordships that everything is not well as regards the comfort and the welfare of many of these men and women who are serving in the Army and the Navy to-day, and what I say is supported by strong letters in The Times from people like Vice-Admiral Hardman-Jones and General Ramsay. I never like to criticise without making some suggestions. It is all very well to say, "Leave the thing to charity." Charity may cover many things, but in these days it cannot provide all the money that is required for these things because of the burden of taxation, and in view of the multitude of public appeals. Charity or public service cannot meet all the costs of this comfort and welfare for our seamen, and what I feel is that the Government should provide some of the money. I believe they could very well take a leaf out of the book of some of our great municipalities and establish what is called a Services Common Good Fund, to which the Admiralty, the War Office and the Air Ministry could all make equal contributions. The fund would be open to the public, and private subscriptions could be made to it. This fund should be under a Director of the Services Common Good Fund, and the Director should be at liberty to give grants or make loans or give assistance by money to any recognised organisation which will carry on rest houses, sleeping quarters, canteens and so forth by voluntary effort. It is important that the Director should be able to do this off his own bat, and free of all other interruption, otherwise it will simply mean the circulation of a mass of papers over every small detail. I feel that if some such fund was in existence under the charge of a good director none of the shortcomings to which I have referred would exist to-day, and I am sure your Lordships would wish to have them removed as soon as possible. I beg to move.

7.10 p.m.

THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (VISCOUNT COBHAM)

My Lords, I hope the noble Duke will not be disappointed if I reply to the remarks he has made; I rather think he hoped that the Minister for the Coordination of Defence would be the Minister to reply to him. As a matter of fact the Department for which I am responsible in this House has given a far more advanced lead, if I may so put it, than the other two Departments in all the matters that have been raised by the noble Duke. The noble Duke touched on three details, one of which he had not previously brought to my attention, that is, the accommodation for the women's services in one particular port. I can assure him that I will look into the matter and find out what can be done, but at this moment I have not got the information.

With regard to the letter he read from a Lord Lieutenant I would say that the place in question is one of the most important junctions in the North of Scotland. The letter was written on February 6, at the end of a week of weather of exceptional severity. The whole of the railway services of Scotland were in a tangle, and it is quite true that at that particular place there was congestion. The description he gave of men sleeping on the floor was no doubt not exaggerated. As soon as we heard of what had occurred we took steps to see that those conditions should not arise again. As the noble Duke has said, there was nothing like enough accommodation, and the first thing to do was to find out how many troops normally pass through that station. We found the normal number of soldiers, sailors and airmen was something like fifty a night. We have now got 58 beds there, within a week there will be another thirty, and the Y.M.C.A. are prepared to provide another thirty if required. We shall probably ask them to do so and that will give us a total of 118. At Christmas and Easter time when there is more congestion of men on leave the number of Service men to be looked after may go up to 100, and we shall see to it that we have enough beds in hand for well over that number.

With reference to the ports which the noble Duke mentioned, I think it was on January 8 that he first asked the Admiralty whether he could give some service at a particular port. The Admiralty were not then ready to give an answer, but the answer now is that the use of that particular port has been given up and there are no naval ratings there now, nor any airmen or soldiers. The War Office organisation had got in touch with that place through the Church of Scotland, and was ready to provide comforts for naval ratings if the Admiralty had not given up its use.

Having dealt with the particular questions raised by the noble Duke, I should like, even at the risk of boring your Lordships, to indicate something of what is being done for the welfare of the armed forces of the Crown. I maintain, and I am ready to establish now, that never before have our men been so carefully and so well looked after as they are at present. As railway stations have been mentioned I would like to say that we already have organisations at 49 railway stations where soldiers, sailors and airmen can be accommodated if they happen to be stranded there for a night. That is only a beginning. We are going on, but as the railway officials concerned at each station and also the Command in which the station is situated have to be consulted, negotiations take some time. Besides the Navy, Army and Air Force activities which are usually grouped under the heading of N.A.A.F.I., there are other bodies in close co-operation with the War Office and they already have 1,445 canteens in England. They have put 109 mobile canteens on the road, and they are going to put 457 on the road. They have already sent 14 mobile canteens overseas, and they are going to send 132. The total number of the efforts of these people in such matters as station depots, canteens and mobile canteens—the Near East I might say is now being developed—is 2,281. I think your Lordships might like to know the names of the bodies which are concerned in this work. In the middle of September I presided over a meeting which was attended by representatives of the Y.M.C.A., the Y.W.C.A., the Catholic Women's League, the Salvation Army, the Church Army, the Methodist Church of Scotland and Toc H. They are generally known now as the philanthropic bodies, and they are the people who are organising this great effort which I have just mentioned.

The noble Duke mentioned in a letter a sum of £15,000 which should be put up by the Admiralty, the Air Force and the War Office to help in this matter. Well, my Lords, that is a mere drop in the ocean to what these people are spending. They are collecting and spending enormous sums of money in this effort which they are making and which I have described, and the value of which to the armed forces of the Crown cannot be exaggerated. When a man comes on leave from the Fleet or from overseas, he is taken charge of immediately he lands in this country. He is met on the train—this is the War Office administration—he is given pay, his pay-book is scrutinised, and any money that is owing to him is sent to his home. When he arrives at his station, 'buses are provided for him to take him to whichever station he wants to go to—whether he wants to go to the Midlands, the extreme North, Lancashire or Yorkshire. Every 'bus is labelled, and he is told by loud-speakers where he is to go. If he wants to stay in London, over 2,000 beds are available for him, and a great many hostels are provided by those bodies which I have mentioned. If it so happens that, by enemy action or by fog, he is delayed in getting back to his destination, there is not only all that provision for looking after him in London, but also, down at the ports from which he would be sailing, there is accommodation for a very large number of officers and several thousands of men.

This welfare organisation is, of course, still in its infancy. It already covers eleven different heads, and I have only touched upon one of them. I do not want at this late hour to occupy your time in describing any of the others, especially as my right honourable friend the Secretary of State is likely to do so when he introduces the Estimates in another place. I will merely say that, although it has already grown to considerable proportions, although it is active and doing well in the various Commands and in France, still we look forward to seeing its efforts still further widened and its services given more and more to the troops for whom it cares.

7.25 p.m.

THE DUKE OF MONTROSE

My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Viscount for his very full and sympathetic reply. It would be lamentable if the Press or the public got the idea that the official interest in the welfare of the men ceased at the gate of the dockyard, the barracks or the aerodrome, and that what happened outside did not matter at all. I know that welfare officers have been appointed in the different counties, but I know three of them, and I do not think their work has been a success. They have not been supported with financial means, and when they do put forward a matter it becomes an official paper and spends its time wandering round Department after Department for ages, and very little is done. I can only say that I hope that the well-meaning efforts described by the noble Viscount to remove the lack of comfort and welfare which exists in some cases will not be allowed to be throttled by any red tape. We are at war, and we want to get rid of these unpleasant things. My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.

Motion for Papers, by leave, with-drawn.