Lords Sitting of 13 April 1943

Preamble
The House met, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.

SECRET SESSION.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (VISCOUNT CRANBORNE) (Lord Cecil): My Lords, before the House proceeds to the business of the day, I wish to move that the sitting of the House be in Secret Session in order that your Lordships may discuss certain matters which can hardly be discussed in public. I beg to move.
Moved, That the House do now sit in Secret Session.—(Viscount Cranborne.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.
The Official Reporter then withdrew.
House in Secret Session.
House resumed in Open Session.

NURSES BILL.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD SNELL: My Lords, the general purpose of this Bill is to improve the status of an essential and noble service and I am sure your Lordships will receive it with sympathy. I will very briefly describe the Bill's actual proposals and they too will, I believe, meet with your approval. The Bill has three main objects. One is to secure for nurses known as assistant nurses a recognized status as an essential part of the nursing profession. The Bill provides that assistant nurses should be placed on a roll kept by the General Nursing Council, which is the body responsible for the training and examination of nurses. The second object is to protect both the nurses and the public from unqualified persons who represent themselves as nurses. The Bill does this by restricting the use of the title "nurse." Thirdly, the object is to bring under control agencies for the supply of nurses which are commonly known as nurses' co-operatives. The Bill introduces a system of licensing and inspection of these particular agencies. The measures proposed in the Bill are, broadly, in line with the
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recommendations made in the interim Report issued at the beginning of 1939 of the Inter-Departmental Committee on Nursing Services, known as the Athlone Committee, and they also take up many of the recommendations made in August, 1942, by the Nursing Reconstruction Committee of the Royal College of Nursing under the Chairmanship of my noble friend Lord Horder. The Bill, I may say, was prepared after the fullest consultation with nurses, with their employers and their professional organizations. It has been generally welcomed by all concerned.
It may be useful to describe very shortly what the present situation is. The Nurses Registration Act of 1919 set up a State register of nurses for the sick and protected the title of "registered nurse," but there is nothing in the Act itself to prevent any person from calling herself a nurse and from practising nursing, even if she possesses no qualifications. Undoubtedly the general public is often deceived into the belief that a person who calls herself a nurse is properly qualified to nurse the sick when, in fact, she has no qualifications at all. A good many nurses are referred to as "assistant nurses," but the term has no accepted meaning and it may be used to describe a variety of persons from those without any training to others who have had a fair amount of training or experience as nurses. There are about 16,000 women known as assistant nurses employed in hospitals and many of them are doing very useful and highly-appreciated work.
These assistant nurses and a large number of State-registered nurses are also employed in private work generally through the agency of the so-called nurses' co-operatives. The activity of these agencies has been criticized. They supply nurses to hospitals as well as to private patients. Many of these organizations are highly reputable; others are less scrupulous and have no hesitation whatever in employing nurses with little or no qualification, and in passing them off to patients as qualified. All this means, first, that the sick public, who must of course be the first consideration, may find themselves treated at considerable expense by women with little or no nursing qualification; secondly, that the status of the nursing profession itself is undermined by the competition of these unqualified women who claim the title of nurse and

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pass themselves off as nurses, even though they have no training and no experience; thirdly, that the competent assistant nurse herself, like the State-registered nurse, is adversely affected by the competition of the unqualified person. This Bill proposes to remedy some of these defects.
Part I of the Bill provides for the establishment of a roll of assistant nurses for the sick to be kept by the General Nursing Council. The Council will make rules, which will be subject to the approval of the Minister of Health, regulating the conditions: of admittance to the roll, including rules as to training and examination. There is provision for the admission as existing assistant nurses, of persons engaged in bona-fide practice before the introduction of the Bill. The Bill provides for the formation of a special Assistant Nurses Committee on which there will be five representatives of assistant nurses and six members appointed by the General Nursing Council. Before the Council can take any action on any matters wholly or mainly concerned with assistant nurses, such matters roust be reported on by the Assistant Nurses Committee who will also deal finally with all disciplinary matters. These previsions aim to secure a better status and recognition for the assistant nurse. There is great need for competent assistant nurses who may not be able to reach the qualification rightly set for the State Register but may be admirable practical nurses when acting under supervision. I ought to say in passing that our chronic hospitals are very largely dependent upon the services of these assistant nurses.
The Bill proposes restrictions on the use of the title of nurse. Some representatives of the nursing profession have proposed that it should be made an offence for any person other than a State-registered person or an enrolled assistant nurse to nurse the sick habitually for gain. This was, I believe, recommended by the Nursing Reconstruction Committee over which my noble friend Lord Horder presides, but after the fullest consideration the Minister felt unable to accept that suggestion. "Nursing the sick" is, after all, a very vague expression and it would be a serious thing in the judgment of the Minister to ask Parliament to make it an offence for persons to perform small services which might, on a strict construction,
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be regarded as nursing duties. The Bill does, however, go a long way toward meeting the idea behind the suggestion by making it an offence, under Clause 6 of the Bill, for persons other than State-registered nurses to use the title of nurse. There are certain exceptions from the restrictions on the use of the title. The children's nurse, for example, retains a traditional and well-merited right to the use of the name "nurse" provided she does not use it in circumstances or in a context which suggests that she is something other than a children's nurse.
Part II of the Bill provides that agencies for the supply of nurses shall supply only registered nurses, enrolled assistant nurses, certificated midwives, and other classes who may be prescribed by the Minister. This will put an end to the practice which less scrupulous agencies have followed of supplying wholly unqualified nurses. That is, in my judgment, very important. My own experience has taught me that being ill is a whole-time job and that a patient ought not to have his attention deflected by having to verify the quality of the nurse who attends him. Few greater wrongs can be done to a helpless patient than to place him in inefficient hands. When the nurse appears the patient will-tingly and very gratefully surrenders himself to her delicate, and yet quite firm, tyranny because he believes she knows far better what is good for him than he knows himself.
I think that what I have said covers the general scope of the Bill, and your Lordships will not require me, I imagine, to go through the separate clauses seriatim. The general purpose of the Bill is to improve the status of an essential and, as I have said, very noble service. Your Lordships will, I am sure, receive the Bill with sympathy. It received but little criticism, and no challenge, in another place, from which it emerged with the general good will of the whole House. I therefore ask your Lordships to give the Bill a Second Reading, and I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2—(Lord Snell.)
LORD ADDISON: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friends, in giving our general support to this Bill, I may say that I notice the influence of my remonstrance upon the character of its presentation to the House by my noble friend Lord Snell.

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I know that, of course, it is not his Department for which he is speaking.
EARL DE LA WARR: My Lords, on a point of order, is it in order to refer to something that happened on an occasion which was not a public occasion?
LORD ADDISON: My Lords, I stand corrected. I was about to observe that the speech to which we have just listened was, to a considerable extent, read, and I think that on the whole that is not a practice which should be followed where it can be avoided. But I know that the noble Lord was speaking for a Department with which he is not habitually engaged, and therefore he was bound to be guided by the brief that had been supplied to him. We all know what a facile and attractive speaker he is, and I cannot but think that he, with his consummate art in presentation, would have made the Bill sound more attractive if he had been able just to tell us about it in his own words and had not been handicapped by a Departmental brief.
I hope that your Lordships will not expect too much from this Bill. It is stereotyping a name but not much more than that, and I am not quite sure whether it will go very far. It will prevent, or make more difficult, certain types of imposture, but I hope that it will not make more difficult, in any humble household, the services of Good Samaritans. Although such people cannot be described as nurses they are very necessary and acceptable on thousands of occasions. But I think that when we get some of the results of the Committee presided over by my noble friend Lord Rushcliffe, we shall be dealing with something which is more effective, so far as the calling of nurses is concerned, even than this Bill. What nurses have suffered from, for generations almost, is the fact that they have been very badly paid, and that the profession has not been an attractive profession, as it ought to have been, except to large numbers of self-sacrificing women. Further, there have been conditions in certain medical schools, I am sorry to say, which have caused some resentment in that grown women have been treated as if they were school girls. Naturally, the women, in many instances, did not like the discipline and restraint that that implies. I myself was responsible for passing the Nurses Registration
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Bill through Parliament twenty odd years ago, and I well remember the trouble I had trying to get it agreed upon in advance. But we do hope that this Bill, by defining nomenclature and restricting the profession, will emphasize the urgent need for improving the attractiveness of the profession and its facilities generally, so that a vastly greater number of young women will be encouraged to enter it.
LORD HORDER: My Lords, I am not likely to-day to disobey the exhortation that from time to time has fallen from the lips of members of your Lordships' House as to long speeches, for, although I have no mandate to say so, I feel I can assure your Lordships that so far as my profession is concerned this Bill meets a very sympathetic ear. But what is much more important—and in this regard I am able to speak with authority—the nursing profession welcomes this Bill, or will welcome it if and when it becomes law, together with the valuable economic adjustments which have been recommended by the Committee over which my noble friend Lord Rushcliffe presides. These two things taken together will succeed in raising the status of the nursing profession in this country as nothing has so far done. The noble Lord, Lord Snell, has said of the members of the nursing profession that it is a noble and essential service which they are rendering, and if this raising of their status and this appreciation of their services are a little overdue, as some of us think, well then at long last, perhaps, we are giving our estimate, to some extent, of the measure of their value to the country.
When my right honourable friend the Minister of Health brought this Bill forward in another place, he said that on broad lines he was following the recommendations of the Athlone Committee and of the Nursing Reconstruction Committee, under the ægis of the Royal College of Nursing, of which I have the honour to be Chairman. It is true that my right honourable friend has followed those recommendations, as he expresses it, on broad lines. But you have heard from my noble friend Lord Snell that in one respect my right honourable friend's courage forsook him when he came to deal with one of our suggestions for the protection of the patient. The feeling of the Committee, which was the result of much consideration, was that in the in-

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terest of the patient, at a time when he was in no condition to protect himself, and of the nurse, it was reasonable that the profession should be closed to everyone except three grades of person: the State-registered nurse, the assistant nurse, enrolled as she must be if this Bill is passed into law, and the student nurse. We should not allow a sick person to be exploited by any woman or man who cannot be put into one of those categories. My Committee still consider that that would be in the interest both of the public and of the nursing profession, and, when this Bill reaches a later stage, I shall move an Amendment which, though it may not achieve quite as much as that, will go a little further in tightening up the Bill so that the public may not be so easily exploited. The medical profession and the nursing profession welcome this Bill, because we believe that it does improve the status of nursing and the safety of the public.
LORD RUSHCLIFFE: My Lords, I do not propose to trespass on your indulgence for more than a very few minutes, but, as Chairman of the Nurses Salaries Committee, to which both Lord Addison and Lord Horder have referred, I should like most warmly to commend this Bill to your Lordships' acceptance. There is very little that I need add to the precise and concise statement of its provisions given to us by the noble Lord, Lord Snell, in introducing the Bill, and what he said has been reinforced by the noble Lord, Lord Horder, speaking with all the authority of his great position in the medical world. As Lord Snell pointed out, the first object of this Bill is to set up a proper standard of training for assistant nurses, and to secure for them a recognized status. The importance of the assistant nurse in the nursing world was brought very vividly to our attention in the Report of the Athlone Committee, which said:
"It will not be possible for at least some years to come, or perhaps ever, to carry on the nursing services of the country without the aid of the assistant nurse."
Later, the Committee said:
"At the present time many of these women are doing excellent work in hospitals and institutions, especially in caring for the chronic sick."
That, as the noble Lord, Lord Snell, has pointed out, is the first object of the Bill.
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The second object of the Bill is to protect the nurses and the public from unqualified persons who call themselves nurses, when in fact they have no qualification at all. The third object of the Bill is to place under restriction and control those agencies for the supply of nurses which are called nurses co-operatives, and to secure their proper control by a system of licences and inspection. Lord Horder's Committee went very fully into the position and status of assistant nurses, and the object of this Bill is to carry out the recommendations made in that part of their Report, and to secure for these people a proper standard of training and a recognized status in the nursing world. Speaking as a complete layman in these matters, that seems to me a wholly desirable object, and I think that this Bill secures it. Lord Snell tells us that there are about 16,000 nurses who are described as assistant nurses. I have been informed that in some local authority institutions no less than 40 per cent. of the nursing staff are assistant nurses. If that be true, as I have no doubt that it is, those figures show the importance and the urgency of dealing with this matter as this Bill does deal with it. With regard to the limiting of the use of the title of nurse to a person who has proper qualifications, in my view, again speaking as a layman, that is a wholly desirable and long-overdue reform. It is exactly what in other professions is done statutorily. If a person calls herself a nurse, the public ought to know that she has certain qualifications appertaining to the exercise of her profession.
With regard to the third point, which concerns these agencies for the supply of nurses to which I have referred, some of them are undoubtedly very reliable, and perform a useful service in supplying nurses to those who ask for them. It is certain, however, that some of them are neither reliable nor responsible, but are in fact most unreliable and irresponsible. Some of them have been sending out to act as nurses persons who have no qualifications whatever. They have charged high fees both to the patient and to the nurse, and I think it is beyond doubt that in present circumstances, with the shortage of nurses, they have increased the fees which they charge for a service which is completely valueless, and which may indeed be almost mischievous. In my view

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that part of the Bill, like the rest of it, is a reform which is long overdue. Those are the three main objects of the Bill. All of them are commendable, and should be accepted without any hesitation by this House. As your Lordships will see, this Bill has the double object of safeguarding the nurses themselves, the members of a great profession, giving them safeguards to which they are fully entitled, and also of protecting the patient in the time of his need from being exploited by unworthy, unscrupulous and unreliable people.
On Question, Bill read 2, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

ARMY AND AIR FORCE (ANNUAL) BILL.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR AIR (LORD SHERWOOD): My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Croft, I desire, in moving that this Bill be read a second time, to mention one or two of the amendments in the law which have been made in it. The first occurs in Clauses 3 and 4 of the Bill, and deals with a question which has arisen owing to the fact that it is no longer merely members of the Royal Air Force who may be in charge of aircraft. The situation may arise where an Army pilot is in a glider, and the question comes up of who is in charge, the towing pilot, who belongs to the Air Force, or the glider pilot. It is laid down that it is to be the pilot of the towing aircraft who is in charge. The second point arises because there are now many aircraft in charge of people who are not subject to the Air Force Act. In the North Atlantic there is a ferry service where Liberators, which carry R.A.F. markings, come across in charge of B.O.A.C. pilots or civilian pilots, and those people have to be given authority to command. That is given to them in this Bill.
Another amendment is designed to remove the anomaly that in time of peace the punishment for crashing or endangering aircraft has differed from the punishment in time of war. This is an obvious anomaly, which has now been abolished. Under Section 29 of the Naval Discipline
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Act no difference is made between peacetime and war-time if a captain endangers his ship, and the same rule is now going to be applied under the Air Force Act. Clause 4 puts into the Army Act what is already in the Air Force Act, and this is due to Army pilots flying aircraft and having therefore to be subject to Air Force law.
Clause 5 will enable certain appointed Brigadiers under certain conditions to exercise powers of summary jurisdiction over subalterns and officers up to the rank of Captain and warrant officer, which at present have only been vested in a General Officer, who had the power to call a general Court Martial. This has been found a great inconvenience, particularly in India, where the distances are great, because the summary powers have to be exercised quickly, which of course is impossible when a long distance has to be travelled. It seemed to be an advantage therefore to make a change. Although the power is exercisable by Brigadiers they will not be exercised by everybody who holds the rank of Brigadier but only where the Brigadier is dealing with an offender below the rank of Major. With regard to Clause 6, if a man is in a detention barracks there is no power to release him for compassionate reasons owing to illness or death in his family, but under this clause his release will be possible. The power will only be used on compassionate grounds. The period of release of course will not count in his sentence, which will be suspended during the time of his compassionate release. This will remove what has often been a difficulty in the case of prisoners undergoing detention.
Clause 7 deals with a rather more complicated question, but it really makes no change in the status of the persons concerned. At the present moment women serving in the Forces do not come under the Army Act or the Air Force Act themselves; they are under a separate Act. This clause will bring them in. It will make no difference as to what happens under the various Acts which have already been authorized. If members of the Women's Forces go to the Dominions or certain foreign countries at present it is not quite certain under which Act they come. It has been thought advisable therefore to make this alteration. Clause 8 deals with a small point.

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It gives power to a Colonel on active service to reduce a non-commissioned officer to the ranks. This has been found necessary because in many places there may be three Brigadiers, and two of them may be Colonels, and yet they have different powers. This is a simplification which I think your Lordships will approve.
Clause 9 brings up the question of the Statute of Westminster. There are two clauses in the Statute of Westminster which may or may not have been accepted by the Dominions when they adhered to that Statute. There have been hitherto two Dominions, Australia and New Zealand, which have not adopted Sections 2 to 4 of the Statute of Westminster. Now it became necessary to name them in the Army Act, and while in their own Dominion their forces remain under their own domestic laws when they go abroad they have to be governed by the text of the Army Act. Now Australia has accepted these sections and Australia is therefore excluded from the relevant clauses of the Army Act and the Air Force Act, but New Zealand remains in the same position as before. Clauses 10 and 11 make certain alterations to definitions in the Army Act and the Air Force Act. Your Lordships will see that one of the clauses relates to the definition of certain expressions in Northern Ireland. These should have been altered before. There are also one or two definitions which have to be changed, such as those involved by the introduction of gliders, which is a new expression not previously contained in the definition. Alterations have therefore had to be made both in the Air Force Act and the Army Act. They are purely definitions and not of very great consequence. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2.—(Lord Sherwood.)
On Question, Bill read 2, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

RAILWAY FREIGHT REBATES BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3 (according to Order); an Amendment (Privilege) made; Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

WAR DAMAGE BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee on recommitment of the Bill read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Comrnittee.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly:
[The EARL OF ONSLOW in the Chair.]
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT SIMON): My Lords, it is possible, I think, to move these Amendments, which are only verbal, en bloc. The Bill was introduced as a Consolidation Bill and went to the Joint Committee of both Houses. The Committee have now made a Report and in that Report the Committee state that the Bill "reproduces the existing law as embodied in the three Acts which it consolidates" and the Committee "are satisfied of the expediency of the consolidation." The Committee make four or live suggested verbal changes in the Bill, purely for the purpose of making it easy to understand, and it is those Amendments which I have to move. I move the first one as a matter of form and perhaps then I might move the remainder en bloc.
Amendment moved—
Clause 27, make lines 28 to 38 on page 24 a separate clause.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I should like to ask the Lord Chancellor a question. This is a pure Consolidation Bill. He has informed the House, and we accept what he said, that it does not make any substantial difference in the law; otherwise to pass en bloc, and without consideration, substantial changes in the case of a Consolidation Bill which is supposed to do nothing except consolidate, would be a strong measure. It would be stronger still if Amendments are not given notice of in the ordinary way but are, as I understand, in manuscript.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I entirely agree with the noble Marquess. Apart from my own assurance, I call attention to the Report of the Joint Committee of the Lords and Commons. That Report states that the Bill as drafted "reproduces the existing law as embodied in the three Acts which it consolidates," and that it is expedient to make the consolidation.

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Indeed, the Committee go on to say that they "are of opinion that the Bill as amended is pure consolidation" and "represents the existing law as regards war damage, and that the Bill should be allowed to proceed." The only Amendments which are suggested will be found on Page 3 of that Report. It is available, and the Amendments to that extent are not in manuscript. These are the Amendments which the Committee suggest, not to alter the law in the very least, but merely to secure that the way in which it is expressed will be rather easier to understand.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: That is quite satisfactory.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: With your Lordships' permission, I move the rest of the Amendments en bloc.
Moved, That the remaining Amendments proposed by the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills in the clauses of the Bill be made.—(The Lord Chancellor).
On Question, Motion agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: There is also a proposal to alter the Title of the Bill so as to insert at rather more length the names of the three Acts which are being consolidated. That is purely for the purpose of better understanding. The Bill was quite correctly drafted from the lawyer's point of view, but it is more intelligible to put in the names of the three Acts as is proposed. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
In the Title, leave out ("Acts, 1941 to 1943") and insert ("Act, 1941, the War Damage (Amendment) Act, 1942, and the War Damge (Amendment) Act, 1943 (other than provisions thereof for amending the War Risks Insurance Act, 1939)").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Title, as amended, agreed to.

SHORT BROTHERS.
LORD TEVIOT LORD TEVIOT rose to call attention to the exercise of power by His Majesty's Government under Defence Regulation 78 in the case of Short Brothers; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, before moving the Motion standing in my name I wish to
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make a few observations. The first one is that I have not now, and have not had at any time, any interest in the shares of Short Brothers. I do not propose to criticize the Minister's action in taking over the management of this undertaking. In fact, without full knowledge of all the circumstances, it would be an impertinence to do so. In war-time, with the powers that the Minister has, it is permissible that he should do anything he feels justified in order to further the war effort. What I propose to bring before your Lordships is the question of taking over the shares of this company. This action on the part of the Minister has caused considerable alarm and concern in the business and financial world. I look upon it as establishing a very dangerous precedent, not only from the commercial point of view, but from the political point of view.
Your Lordships are aware that there has been a considerable amount of discussion for some time past in regard to nationalizing all the means of production, distribution, and so on. This is a very drastic step which has been taken. I wonder why it has been done. The Minister, so far as I have studied what took place in the other House, has not given a satisfactory answer to that question which was put to him. He merely said, as far as I can remember, that he was acting on the will of Parliament under Defence Regulation 78. I have discussed this matter with a great many people, and so far I have been unable to discover why, in order to get efficient management and production of whatever commodity a company may produce, it should be necessary to take over the shares. If the Minister could show us, or even tell us, that this information is inadvisable because it would be giving information to the enemy, one would immediately drop the question. But what has happened here is that this company—lock, stock and barrel—has been taken over by the Minister. It is a public company of some standing. It has been in existence for a great many years, but has only been a public company since 1936. I am a little bewildered by a question that was asked of the Secretary of State for Air in the other place with regard to the quality of the various aircraft which this company produces. It was an amazingly praising reply. He said that these aeroplanes, flying boats, etc.,

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were of very good quality, that they had always given great satisfaction, as indeed all the products of this undertaking had always done. It set one thinking why, then, this drastic operation on the company's activities.
What of the future? I notice that in another place, according to the Official Report, Mr. William Spens, now Sir William Spens, on August 6, 1941, raised this very question as to the danger of implementing Defence Regulation 78. In that debate he withdrew the Motion he had on the Paper because the Minister who at that time answered his query, Mr. Harold Macmillan, gave what appeared to be the reassuring statement that this only applied to war-time and would not be maintained in peace-time. That was just what one would expect and what one had hoped. Let me develop this a little. It is well known to your Lordships that the privileges of the trade unions, which have had to be interfered with during the war, are going to be restored in their entirety after the war. I can see no reason why any business or affairs which have been interfered with owing to the war, where the interference has been necessary to the war effort, should not similarly be reinstated if all the privileges of the trade unions are to be returned after the war. We have, I think, an analogous case to this one in the railway companies. The Government came to the conclusion, quite properly I think, that they could not expect the railways to run efficiently during the war, in view of the immense amount of business that the Government would necessarily give them, but the Government did not take the shares of the railway companies. They came to a very amicable and successful arrangement on the financial side with the railway companies, and I can see no reason why the same sort of arrangement cannot be made with all companies the management and general conduct of whose business it may be found necessary to take over—that is to say, the production side of companies.
I have looked up the record of dividends of this company, and I find that since they became a public company in 1936, they paid substantial dividends up to 1941. They have paid rather less dividends during the war than before the war. Surely it would be quite easy to go to the company and to the shareholders and say:
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"We are going to pay you during the war, while we are managing your company for you, a certain dividend—shall we say an average dividend such as that which you have been accustomed to receive?" What is the Government's position going to be after the war in this particular case and the cases of other companies that may be dealt with in the same way? I do not think I am exaggerating when I say the Government will find themselves in possession of a competitive commercial undertaking. What are they going to do about it? There is no mandate from the country for such an operation. I do not believe that the House of Commons appreciated that under Defence Regulation 78 the Government were given authority to take over a business and run it in a competitive manner after the war. The Prime Minister has reassured us on this matter up to a point in a statement made the other day, when he said that the Government would never think of introducing anything of the sort I have indicated. But in my view, and in the view of a great many other people, that is what has in effect happened in regard to this particular company.
I do not believe the people of the country generally or the House of Commons had any idea of such an eventuality arising out of this particular Regulation, and I believe that if they had had such an idea at the time when this Regulation was passed through the other place, it would not have had their consent. These remarks apply, of course, to any other organization which is operating and helping the country during the war. If the same thing happens in regard to other companies, the result will be that which I have described accurately. Finally, I want to ask the noble Lord who will reply to give us an answer to the questions I have raised, and particularly give us an assurance that any business or undertaking which has been taken over in order to assist the war effort will be reinstated in its business when peace comes, in exactly the same way as it has been decided that the trade unions are not to suffer but are going to be reinstated in all their privileges after the war is over. I beg to move.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, I think the House must welcome the opportunity provided it by the noble Lord opposite to discuss this extremely important and interesting case. It is the second occasion, I think, within a few

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months on which the noble Lord has made it possible for us to debate a matter of considerable public interest. In this case public interest has fastened upon two special aspects of the problem: firstly, whether the Government have in fact given this firm of Short Brothers a perfectly square deal, whether they have behaved in a perfectly fair and reasonable way; and, secondly, whether it is not vitally important as a matter of principle that in war-time the Government should acquire the same compulsory powers in relation to capital as it has in relation to labour. Such control on the part of the State would obviously show that no section or class interest could, in any circumstances, be allowed to interfere with the war effort, and I am very glad from what the noble Lord has said to find that he and I, and I imagine everyone else in this House, is of one opinion on this aspect of the matter. I think it is most important for the public to realize that Parliament will deal equally drastically with any section of the community that puts the brake even to the smallest degree upon our war production.
It is the first aspect of the problem which I think has occasioned the liveliest controversy. The noble Lord said he did not take exception to the Government taking over the management and control of this firm, but what he did object to was that the Government should acquire the financial assets of the business. I hope, although I am not sure that I shall succeed, to be able to convince him that it would have been impossible for the Government to establish full and effective control of the firm without acquiring its financial assets. From the information I have received the state of affairs in this firm had been unsatisfactory for a very long time. My noble friend Lord Brabazon, who I am pleased to hear will take part in this debate, will, I am sure, bear out what I say on this point. Indeed, it was evident for a considerable period before the present Minister of Aircraft Production took office. Left to their own devices the management of Short Brothers had not succeeded in putting their house satisfactorily in order. The Minister then tried to help the firm out of their difficulties by co-operating with the existing board of directors. Mr. H. D. Short re-
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signed from the chairmanship of his own accord in order to make room for Sir Frederick Heaton, who was recognized as being a man of even wider administrative experience. It should be noted that Sir Frederick Heaton was appointed by the original board of directors and was not in any sense a nominee of the Minister. Nevertheless, things continued to drift along very unsatisfactorily.
It was only at this juncture, after private enterprise had been given every possibility to prove itself worthy but when nevertheless the state of production in the business continued to be unsatisfactory, that the Minister availed himself as a last resort of the compulsory powers under Defence Regulations to put a Controller into the firm. I understand that up to this stage he had the approval of the noble Lord opposite. It was a difficult decision for the Minister to take and it was a brave decision. Many Ministers would have allowed things to drift. Evasion of difficulty is not unknown in Government Departments. The Minister, however, decided that the moment had come to put in a Controller. Having taken this decision and sent his Controller to be in charge of the management of Short Brothers, it was obviously necessary for the Minister to give his nominee authority without which the policy for speeding up production in this particular firm could not be effectively carried out. He had, for instance, to overcome any differences that might arise on the existing board of directors. This necessitated the resignation of those who felt on grounds of policy that they could not agree with the view of the Minister's nominee and their replacement by new directors. But the capital assets of a firm and its management are interlocked. The right to appoint directors lay with the shareholders and the Minister was therefore obliged to acquire their interests in order to acquire the right of appointment to the board of directors.
This expropriation of the shareholders of Short Brothers does not show any wanton interference with private property. It was necessary in order to establish full legal control over the affairs of the company. Critics of the Minister have said that the shareholders have not been altogether fairly treated. I beg to submit that there is no substance in that complaint, and that in fact the Government, by a

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curious piece of self-mortification, have deprived themselves of certain security with the result that the shareholders may receive more than they are actually entitled to. It may be argued, though the argument was not used by the noble Lord this afternoon, that the shareholders have had to sacrifice any appreciation in their investment that might accrue by expanding business during the course of the war or by the development of civil aviation after the war. But even if the shares were to rise in value under Government management, and owing to the enormously increased demands for military aircraft, it is hard to understand what claim the shareholders have to benefit, seeing that they were unable to put their affairs in order through the instrumentality of their own nominees.
The Excess Profits Tax, quite apart from its significance to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, is an acknowledgment by Parliament that public opinion does not tolerate any substantial measure of private profit out of the war. The long-term prospects of the firm are not perhaps so rosy as the immediate future. Judging by what he said about the desirability of the return of the shares to their owners after the war the noble Lord opposite may take a different view, but I submit that my forecast is one that is worthy of consideration. Whatever may happen after the transition from war-time production to peace-time requirements, it must surely be evident that the present activities of aircraft manufacturers will not continue on their gigantic war-time scale. I should have thought it ought to be some solace to the shareholders that whatever may be the possibility of a lost chance of improving their position in the near future, they are also protected against any loss they might have sustained at a later date. They are also safeguarded, and very effectively safeguarded, against inequitable compensation in the terms offered by the Government by a right of appeal within three months of the purchase to an independent arbitrator. That arbitrator is to be a chartered accountant, a perfectly independent and unbiased person, appointed by the noble Viscount, Lord Caldecote, the Lord Chief Justice. If his award exceeds the price offered it is binding upon the Government.
I submit that this procedure is very favourable to the shareholders of this firm
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or of any firm that may be taken over by the Government in the future. If an arbitrator is considered competent to give a sound and impartial award then his award should be binding upon both parties whether it exceeds or falls below the price offered. Your Lordships will remember, because it happened not so very long ago, that this type of procedure was adopted in the case of appeals by the owners of coal-mining royalties against the price offered by the Government of the clay. In that case the royalty owners were unfortunate. I do not suggest that similar circumstances would arise again, but if they did then the decision of an independent and expert arbitrator should be accepted whether it is in their interests or prejudicial to them. It has also been suggested, and I am not sure whether it was not in the mind of the noble Lord opposite, that this action of the Minister is the thin edge of the wedge of nationalization. The Prime Minister dealt very effectively with this argument in the course of some remarks he made at question time in another place. He pointed out that public control of the aircraft industry, whether producing for military needs or for civil purposes, was a matter of broad general policy which must be referred to the electorate. It rather astonishes me that anyone should have so little confidence in his own political leaders as to imagine that they would nationalize industry under the cloak of Defence Regulations.
I have tried to be short, following in that respect the admirable example of the noble Lord who introduced this Motion. I should like to summarize our point of view—and I think that on this rare and notable occasion I am speaking for all my friends on these Benches as well as for the Party which some of us endeavour to represent—by saying that we endorse the action that has been taken by the Minister on this particular occasion. We hope that if similar circumstances arise in the future the Minister will not hesitate to avail himself of the powers that have been conferred upon him by Parliament under the Defence Regulations, because we maintain—and I am sure that on this point there is very general agreement—that every step must be taken, whether it interferes with the interests of labour or the interests of capital, to extract the maximum of war production from our industries during the course of the war.
LORD BRABAZON OF TARA: My Lords, I hope that your Lordships will forgive me if I say a few words on this point. I have a particular affection for the firm of Short Brothers, and it is a sad thing, from my point of view, to see the individuality of this firm disappearing. I am not so much interested in that side of the case which relates to shares for I have never been a shareholder of the company at any time since it started. But I have been deeply attached, not only to the three brothers who started the firm, but also to the firm itself throughout its whole history. My mind goes back to the very early days of flight when I and Charlie Rolls gave the two Short brothers their first order for a balloon. Later I gave Short Brothers their first order for an aeroplane. They made for me an aeroplane which never looked like flying, and never did, in fact, leave the ground. Then they made another plane for me which did leave the ground, and it won the Daily Mail prize. Those are heroic days of the past. With great imagination, boldness, and trust in the future, those three brothers achieved great things, and I little thought that a few years afterwards I should be the Member of Parliament for Rochester, where they established their works. Of course, like other industrial undertakings they had a certain boom during the last war. Afterwards they had to go through that dreadful period which befell the aircraft industry in which they were just kept alive—chiefly by being given orders for the manufacture of omnibus bodies for London omnibuses. It was not really until the possibilities of civil aviation became generally realized that the firm came into its own.
In passing, I would, if I may, draw your Lordships' attention to a rather curious episode in the history of the firm, the rise of Gouge. The two elder brothers Short died, and the firm was left vested in the youngest of the brothers. Slowly he ceased to have a tight control, and Gouge rose in the firm from such a humble beginning as sweeping the floors in his capacity as office boy. He trained himself at night on the technical side of aircraft, and on the technical side of life; he went into the drawing office and he became one of the most outstanding designers of flying boats in the world. The proof of that is that the great firm of Short Brothers has been known throughout the world
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as builders of first-class flying boats. Now everything was perfectly all right while the factory was, so to speak, a family affair, with the men all in one area, one man knowing everything that was going on and knowing every side of the work. In those circumstances Gouge got on very well, producing his two or three aircraft a year. Then came the war and I do want your Lordships to appreciate how it affected this particular firm.
It was said in the House of Commons the other day that the greatest industry in this country was the aircraft industry. Perhaps your Lordships do not appreciate that the industry has grown sixty times since 1939. Can you imagine the strain and the difficulty associated with this growth; growing pains, multiplied sixty times over, as it were? One result has been that, instead of single firms, shadow firms have arisen here and there. Short Brothers, in these conditions, became a great industrial organization to manage, and there were many breakdowns. It must be borne in mind that most of the people in the industry now are new workers. It is true that they work very well, but you must remember that they have no background of general training in the industry, and you cannot switch them around from one job to another as you could the workers in the old days. The girls in aircraft factories, for instance, work better than anyone else in the world, but if a difficult phase in the requirements of a particular factory is reached, you cannot switch these girls around to a different branch of the industry as you could the old engineers with their all-round training and experience of manufacture as a whole. And there are certain changes in the demands made on these factories when you have a Ministry changing its mind every three weeks or so with regard to types or models which it thinks that it requires. It is very difficult to meet these changing demands.
There have been some firms which have achieved great success in spite of the difficult conditions. On the other hand, there have been some firms which have, so to speak, failed to get a proper grip on production so as to be able to go ahead like others. When I was at the Ministry, I tried to give Short Brothers all the help I could by detaching personnel to them and so on. But things got no better and it was obvious, considering the money the Government have put into the firm—

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nearly three times their capital—that the Government must take measures to improve production. As the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, has said, a Chairman was suggested. The Chairman the Ministry of Aircraft Production proposed was not acceptable to Short Brothers. They chose their own Chairman, and then real trouble arose when Sir Frederick Heaton investigated the company and made certain proposals. Those proposals were overruled by the board, and from that moment the situation was as bad as it had been at the start. And it was due to that—not to arty other reason, I would ask your Lordships to note—that the Minister had to appoint a Controller, and having taken control of the policy of the firm, what sort of position would be have been in unless he took over the firm, lock, stock and barrel? If he did not, he was going to lay himself open to charges of damage from the point of view of the effect of his action on the policy and prosperity of the firm.
It may be, I do not say that it is so, that this firm in the future is not going to make Short machines. If that were so, then it might well be claimed that the action of the Minister had affected the goodwill, and there might he legal action for damages in respect of such loss of goodwill. I see no reason to complain of what the Minister of Aircraft Production has done in this matter. The blame rested entirely on the directors of Short Brothers. To suggest that Sir Stafford Cripps is trying to nationalize the industry by a tick is a most unworthy suggestion for anybody to put forward. I do not believe it for one moment. Frankly, had I been in Sir Stafford Cripps's place I would have done exactly the same sort of thing.
However, those are matters that are over, but there remains the point that the individuality of this firm has gone. What are we going to do with this concern? We now have vast works throughout the country, and consideration of the question as to what is to be done with them is going to give somebody a pretty bad headache after the war. Are we going to look upon the undertaking and use it as one of our shadow factories? I have no strong feelings on the nationalization of essential industries; I do not care whether you nationalize the railways or electricity or gas. I refuse to get excited about it, because it is a question of dealing with essential things which are more or less
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standard, and which do not call for an immense amount of imagination. So far as the aircraft industry is concerned, however, I hope that your Lordships will remember how young it is. The only occasion on which an effort has been made to nationalize it was in France, and from the moment that it was nationalized it never produced any machines at all which were worth anything. A large part of France's trouble during the war was due to lack of aircraft. This industry, as I say, is very young; it wants imagination, vision and the willingness to take risks. If you try to run an industry of that kind from Whitehall with civil servants, you will fail.
What I think is the dangerous part of what we have done in this matter is that we have, so to speak, dissolved the individuality of a great pioneer firm. I do not know what the Government mean to do with this firm, but I entreat them to preserve it is an individual unit, even if they own it and even if they run it. I do not care whether they hand it back later to the present shareholders or to other people, but I hope that they will do something to keep alive the individuality of the firm, the team spirit and the imagination which it has possessed. We may blame and curse the aircraft manufacturers as much as we like, but do not let us forget that in this war they have delivered the goods. Do not let us wipe out the individuality of these great creative firms, because after the war, if there is anything at all in our dreams and hopes of the establishment of a different world, the aircraft industry will have a very big part to play in it; and I sincerely hope that we shall continue to use in the future those firms, those designers and those workpeople who have done so well for us during this war.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Sempill was in your Lordships' House last week, when my noble friend Lord Teviot had intended to move this Motion, but unfortunately he cannot be here to-day, and he has asked me to put a point on his behalf. It is a point with which he hopes that my noble friend Lord Sherwood will deal in his reply. The firm of Short Brothers, as my noble friend Lord Brabazon has explained, are a pioneer firm; they built the first power-driven aeroplane completed in this country, and it was piloted—Lord Brabazon, with his usual modesty,

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said nothing about this, but I welcome the opportunity of saying it, since we have known each other for many years—by Lord Brabazon himself, in 1909.
This firm occupy a unique position in the industry, and they were responsible for the foundation of the Society of British Aircraft Constructors, in conjunction with a limited number of others, who are classed as approved firms. They have a position of privilege in the industry which has existed since the last war. We are given to understand that they have now lost their commercial entity, although, as has been explained in another place, only for the duration of the war. No doubt the Government are anxious to maintain all the privileges which this firm possessed at the time that they were taken over. One of these is a seat on the Council of the Society of British Aircraft Constructors. The question which I want to ask my noble friend is whether this seat is, for the time being, to be occupied by the Minister of Aircraft Production.
With that I have discharged the request of my noble friend; but, while I am on my feet, I should like, with the indulgence of the House, to mention two points of my own. I should like to commend the temperate manner in which my noble friend Lord Teviot has put his case in moving this Motion. In view of the fact that this matter is of intense interest to an immense number of industrialists in this country, a great service has been rendered by raising the matter here. My noble friend Lord Brabazon, speaking with the great authority which he possesses on these matters, has emphasized that the individuality of the firm should be preserved. I am glad that he did not disagree with the policy followed by my noble friend who moved the Motion, and who pointed out that he raised the matter on a question of principle, and not with reference to the specific case.
It is because of that that I venture to suggest that my noble friend Lord Sherwood, when he comes to reply, should try to answer a question which naturally suggests itself to many industrialists. The requirement in this case was to achieve control of production. Can my noble friend say—doubtless there is good reason—why it was not possible, by the exercise of the powers at the disposal of the Minister, to acquire all the facilities of the
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firm, just as the Government have secured the facilities of the railways, without taking over the ownership? Might it not have been possible in this case, and might it not be possible in other cases where the need may arise, for the Government to have ready management personnel who could be sent to any plant which was taken over, so that the great success which has been achieved in the past in the Royal Ordnance Factories might be obtained also in the case of such firms?
Following from that, we have had an example of a Controller, Mr. Layton Bennett, being appointed to Short Brothers, and then after a short time going to General Aircraft, and then being replaced. I speak without knowledge, and certainly without any interest in the concern in question. I am merely voicing widespread perplexity when I ask why Mr. Trevor Westbrook should not have been invited to resume, on behalf of the Government, the work which he was doing for a period with Short Brothers before the Minister, no doubt for what seemed good reasons, directed his energies into another channel. He was engaged in a field in which, as he occupied so responsible a position under Lord Beaverbrook when he was at the Ministry, his services are understood to have been of great value. I only throw those thoughts out in the hope that my noble friend will in his reply give some indication to a perplexed industry as to this particular point.
LORD KENILWORTH: My Lords, I wish to speak for a few minutes from a rather wider aspect of this matter. I have been Chairman of the Society of British Aircraft Constructors. I am therefore well conversant with all the people in the industry and know their various businesses, so far as one can learn it from intercourse over a protracted period. I am entirely in agreement with much that was said by my noble friend Lord Brabazon, more particularly with his eloquent testimony to the firm of Short Brothers. Short Brothers are a rather highly developed type of firm, not entirely dissimilar from the whole basis on which the industry has been created. As Lord Brabazon said, the industry is a young one, as industries go, but, as one who has had wide experience of industrial undertakings, I have no hesitation in stating that it is as efficient as other industries. The men engaged in it are possibly

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visionaries, men with vivid imaginations and high technical qualifications, and they are very temperamental and from time to time perhaps not easy to work with. Be that as it may, this industry has done great things, as Lord Brabazon said, and we know the wonderful testimonials that have been paid to the young men of the R.A.F. in the Battle of Britain. I would remind your Lordships that the tools with which that Battle was won were made by this particular industry.
Therefore, far from being reproached, as they are being to-day—first one firm, and then another, and then another, whose organization is said to be all awry—I think they should be treated rather as doing their job efficiently and well. Criticism of the kind we have heard in this discussion is breaking down and interfering with the morale of managers, designers and work-people, and I am quite certain that, if it goes on in the way it has been doing, a very great disservice will be done to the country. The industry has always been subject to supervision by the Air Ministry. Some of that supervision has been vexatious, some of it has been helpful. Apart from the work which was done by the noble Lord, Lord Beaverbrook, as Minister of Aircraft Production, I do not think the Ministry has been very helpful to the industry. I suggest that if instead of starting these scares and upsetting people, they made more earnest efforts to co-operate with the industry and in a more tactful manner it would be to the advantage of the country.
LORD GEDDES: My Lords, it so happens that I have had a good many opportunities of seeing the work of Short Brothers during the period of the war. I had also seen some of it before the war, and I had admired the work they had done. I had flown many thousands of miles in their aircraft, and I was very fond of the craft, and very fond of the firm. But, as I watched them during the war period, I saw a great weakness develop. They were artists. They were people rather like the very finest coach builders in the motor trade, and what we wanted for the war was people who could turn out the planes in quantity. Actually at one time—I think it was while my noble friend was Minister of Aircraft Production—they were taking three times as many man-hours to turn out a plane as another firm was requiring to turn out a
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comparable plane. The actual figures at that time were somewhat in the ratio of 40,000 man-hours and 120,000 man-hours—a tremendous difference, a tremendous absorption of human energy and time. These great differences in efficiency in production—not in design—were what I saw frequently the Minister of Aircraft Production struggling to overcome. I saw that in Shorts there was an artistic temperament which really could not bring itself in any way whatever to meet the situation which existed, and in conversation members of that organization could not bring themselves to realize that there had to be a complete change. It is, I think, a tragedy of temperament as much as anything else, and it was absolutely inevitable that some change should be made in Shorts if we were to get delivery of all that we required. I know that from personal observation.
When it comes to my view, which I would like to express to your Lordships, on the question of the Government taking over the shares, I trust that no one will imagine that I am keen on the nationalization of industry. I think that along that path with certain industries lies absolute death and destruction for the industries themselves. With other industries it does not matter. But in this particular case I think in fairness to the shareholders the Government had to take over the shares. It is a completely different organization that has to be established. The plants which are managed by Shorts, for which the Government have put up so much money, will need to be worked in an entirely different way. I cannot conceive that it would be fair for the Minister of Aircraft Production, or any Government Department, to say, "I am going to make this firm do this, that, and the other thing, and I am going to let the shareholders bear the burden of all this extra expense." The only fair thing to do was to take over the shares. It does not seem to me to raise any general principle at all. Here was a firm which, as a result of its great history, as a result of many of its good qualities even, was unable to meet the requirements of the times, as I saw it. It had to be reorganized, it had to have its methods changed and altered, and I can see no other way of carrying out such a drastic alteration except by the Government taking over the whole concern, lock,

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stock and barrel. And that is what they have done. I have only one criticism to make of the Government, and that is that they did not do it much sooner.
LORD SHERWOOD: My Lords, you will certainly agree with me in saying that we are very grateful to Lord Teviot for bringing up this question, and anyone who had any doubt on the matter had only to listen to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, to realize how important this firm has been and what a necessary measure it was that the Government took. But I do not come here in any way to stand in a white sheet and apologize for what the Minister has done or for the methods he has had to take to deal with this very difficult question. This in wartime has got to be judged on war lines. The speeches which have been made in your Lordships' House have shown that this step was necessary. In his closing words my noble friend Lord Geddes asked why it was not done before. There are many reasons for trying to avoid doing something which, as has been so ably pointed out by my noble friend Lord Brabazon, may not necessarily be on the right lines when you are dealing with aircraft production, and not with something stabilized such as the railways.
I agree with the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, as to what has happened in this company. It is some time back since people got disturbed as to what was happening in Short Brothers. It was then that the first inquiry was made by Sir George Schuster and Mr. Robert Barlow. They went carefully into it, and reported that it was quite impossible for the company to continue as it was, and that it would not be able to carry the load of aircraft production we needed in time of war. They also reported that one of the greatest weaknesses came from the executive of this firm. It was then, as has been said, that Sir Frederick Heaton was put in by the board themselves, not by the Minister of Aircraft Production. He went absolutely hard at it, full of hope that he could avoid the next step, but he found the position impossible. This was reported to the Minister, and the Minister had to take action. He put in a Controller for a short time, and it was then that a report came back that it was impossible to go on unless the Government had complete control of this firm. The only way you can get control
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is by taking over the shares. I assure your Lordships that no other method would have achieved what is absolutely necessary at this time. It was in the higher executive that the interference came. This is where the weakness was, and the shareholders are the people who appoint the directors and obviously have a say. It was therefore necessary to take over the shares.
The noble Lord, Lord Teviot, asked: "Why not do what was done in the case of the railway companies? Why not take over the management, pay so much, and leave it as it was? "But surely Lord Teviot is asking for something which I am not going to argue—that is, the taking over of the whole industry, not just one weak part that has fallen down. All the railway companies have been taken over, and an agreement has been made to pay so much to the shareholders. This step is taken under the stress of war in regard to some weakness which we have found in the fabric of aircraft production. Therefore that system would no more work than if you suddenly said: "Grantham station is not very good, therefore we will take it over as a going concern." This is only part of an industry. It is a different matter altogether from the railways. If shares are taken over a new board can be set up. A new board has been set up and is working now under the same chairmanship as before.
The worry, as I see it, as the noble Lord, Lord Barnby, has said, is really directed to the question of what is going to happen to these shares afterwards. The Prime Minister made it quite clear, in his answer in another place, that there is no idea that this is taking over by nationalization or of keeping the shares which have been taken over because of this emergency. Of course I could not give the assurance asked for that everything taken over in war-time will immediately be handed back in peace-time. Take the simple case of the aerodromes that the Air Ministry has built. It has taken away farm land from farmers, but I cannot promise that that land will be given back. The Air Staff in days to come may need those aerodromes still, a great many of them, and no general assurance can obviously be given on that point. But the Prime Minister gave this assurance that our policy is "everything for the war" and after the war is won a fair and free

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review under normal political conditions. That is when these questions will come up. I agree with my noble friend Lord Brabazon that if there is one thing that must have freedom, and which it will not necessarily be an advantage to nationalize, it is something like aircraft production. Therefore there is no reason to fear that this is the thin end of the wedge. I can assure noble Lords that that is not in the mind of the Minister who took this action. He took it because it is necessary to the conduct of the war, and that is the only action that I stand here to defend.
LORD TEVIOT: My Lords, in spite of, perhaps, not being successful in putting some of my views sufficiently strongly before your Lordships, I am extremely glad that I brought this Motion before the House. I feel that if this debate had taken place and the answer of the noble Lord to the debate had been given earlier, there would have been no apprehension, no qualms, on the part of a great many people in this country as to what the future was going to be like. The noble Lord who has replied and my noble friends Lord Brabazon and Lord Geddes, speaking with great authority, have shown that, apart from the fact that the taking over of the company was necessary for the war effort, the taking over of the shares, in view of the position of the company, was also necessary. In that way when this debate is read, many of those who were very perturbed
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about the situation will be reassured. I thank the noble Lord for his speech, and beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

UXBRIDGE, MAIDENHEAD, WYCOMBE AND DISTRICT GAS ORDER, 1943.
Special Order proposed to be made on the application of the Uxbridge, Maidenhead, Wycombe and District Gas Company:
Laid before the House (pursuant to Act) for affirmative Resolution and referred to the Special Orders Committee.

ECCLESIASTICAL COMMITTEE.
The LORD CHANCELLOR The LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House that by virtue of the powers vested in him by Section 2 of the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act, 1919, he had nominated the Lord Hemingford to be a member of the Ecclesiastical Committee established under that Act and to serve for the duration of the present Parliament in the room of the Earl of Radnor.

SUNDERLAND CORPORATION BILL.
Brought from the Commons, read 1, and referred to the Examiners.
House adjourned.