HL Deb 05 March 1946 vol 139 cc1069-78

2.50 p.m.

LORD CALVERLEY

had given Notice that he would ask His Majesty's Government whether they are in a position to make any statement on the present numbers and progress of the An Training Corps and on their policy regarding the future of the Air Training Corps; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I shall not, I hope, detain your Lordships for any great length of time, but I am speaking to the converted when I suggest that one of the finest institutions we had for the first few years of the war was the A.T.C. I should say that at the peak period there were 170,000 youths attached to the A.T.C. in this country. I do know, at any rate, that in Yorkshire we had at the peak some 30,000 youths in the Corps. They were all enthusiastic, and they had equally enthusiastic officers, working on a voluntary basis, doing their best to make not only the members of the A.T.C. air-minded but also their mothers and fathers and other citizens. Everything was going absolutely grand, but the position was affected by the policy of the National Government. May I say here that I do not blame the ex-Secretary of State, nor the two Under-Secretaries both of whom are now members of this House. But the two Under-Secretaries had, as it were, to act the part of wicked uncles, and some of the youths instead of being directed into the R.A.F., owing to the exigencies of the war situation, were directed into the Army. In passing I might say that, so far as I know, this was taken with a pretty good grace, though it was felt that this was a shrewd blow when the future of the A.T.C. was to be considered.

The Air Ministry got the idea that the A.T.C. did not need a lot of money. The per capita grant was small—in fact it was rather mean—but so impressed were men and women possessed of money that they looked upon it as a good investment to see that the Air Training Corps did not lack for the sinews of war so far as money was concerned; so much so that when the Secretary of State for Air was approached for money we were not very successful in getting it. I say that it was looked upon as an investment. There are many of your Lordships who know even more about the inside working of the A.T.C. than I do, but you saw growing before your eyes not a pampered youth which had to be subsidized by all sorts of expedients in order that they could attach themselves to some youth movement, some club or another, but a youth movement being trained in self-discipline, which is one of the finest things anyone of us can possess. To be taught, as these boys were taught, integrity, honour and real leadership and various other qualities which go with self-discipline was proof to them that self-discipline was not a frigid code of "Thou shalt not" but something which was vital if they wished to make a great contribution to their day and generation. That was the A.T.C. from 1940 to, say, 1944.

Now we find there has been a shrinkage and I ask my noble friend the Secretary of State for Air if he can give us some figures for to-day. I know that in Leeds, where not so long ago there were eleven vigorous units, there are to-day three units with a paper strength of eighty-five and an actual attendance of somewhere about a baker's dozen. This has been largely owing to the policy of the Air Council. I have no hesitation in laying this reproach—and I call it a reproach—at the door of those in King Charles's Street. I suppose that King Charles's Street has got a good reply and can say "This baby of yours is not ours at all, but the baby bequeathed to us by the War Cabinet of the war years." The A.T.C. is a precious possession of ours, but we can see this great voluntary organization, this magnificent feeder not only to the Royal Air Force but to the whole of civil aviation disintegrating before our eves. Now we are calling upon the Secretary of State and His Majesty's Government to see what they can do to help these boys to help themselves. Those of us who have the privilege of working in youth movements, whether attached to an approved school, a board school or Eton, know that if you can give a youth an objective you can have his enthusiastic support. But when there is simply a calling together of boys in an aimless sort of way, when there is no policy, that is the difficulty.

It is policy that we are asking for this afternoon, so that we can save this magnificent organization. We need this organization in the future even if it is only for the sake of real citizenship. That is why I am pleading with His Majesty's Government this afternoon to come forward with a policy. I believe there is going to be a new organization to begin some time in February. I do not know much about this, except that we have had the resignation of the Director-General. About a year ago the advisory committee was sacked and the chairman was sacked. If you wish to win the confidence of boys, and also of parents who sometimes think that there may be some military motive, which is utterly unfounded, behind it, you have got to have a strong civilian committee. I hope we shall be told that along with the appointment of a new Director-General we shall have a new civilian committee representative of the whole country. One or two of us can suggest the name of a chairman. It should be a useful body co-operating with the Air Council at the Air Ministry.

I know that we are getting busy with regard to Territorial Associations and I have heard a rumour, but only a rumour, that the A.T.C. is going to be incorporated with the Territorial Associations. That is all to the good. It will also he all to the good if we could have the Sea Cadets brought in from the coastal towns of the country and so make a trinity of the youth movements welded together into one, with perhaps one Minister of Defence when we weld the Armed Forces of the Crown under one Ministry. That is by the way, and I must not be controversial. What I want to see is, as has been suggested, a senior division for men of the Air Reserve and also a preparatory division for the younger boys, so that we can have a Commonwealth A.T.C. in active and close contact with those of our brothers across the seas who belong to the same family as we do. So I am asking that we shall have a target and some idea of what is going to be the recruitment in the future. The Secretary of State may be able to tell us what the ceiling of that recruitment is going to be. I do not know. What we want is an air objective and their you will find that what is now left will be saved. There will be a revival of interest if the boys have that objective.

The A.T.C., though of course the youngest of the three Forces, should not be looked upon as a Cinderella, and there should be a real Director of the A.T.C. One does like to have an ornamental head, I agree. The boys like to see him at football matches when he is shaking hands with the two "elevens," or something like that, but they want something more than a grand-looking gentleman in uniform. They want somebody who is going to revitalize them. They want a director to be a director, and to be able to guide them even to greater heights than those they attained in the past.

Very diffidently, therefore, I put forward this matter, and not simply to the Secretary of State. What I really do want, and what I should like to ask for, is the active and sympathetic co-operation of everybody concerned, in order that once more we shall have an A.T.C. in this country co-operating with similar bodies in the Commonwealth. I beg to move.

3.1 p.m.

LORD CROFT

My Lords, I am only going to intervene for one moment to say on behalf of my noble friends that the greatest sympathy is extended to the Secretary of State and to the noble Lord who introduced this subject, and to give an assurance that we shall do everything we possibly can to help the Air Training Corps and the other cadet movements in the country to maintain the wonderful position that they achieved in the war. We all realize—I do not think this is controversial—that of necessity we must for some time have larger forces now that the war is concluded and in the next two or three years if we are to undertake not only our own obligations but our obligations in support of the United Nations Organization. If that is so, and if it be the position that a comparatively large number of people are brought into all three Forces, the Navy, the Army and the Royal Air Force, it is also probably true—I think noble Lords here will not deny this—that the length of service, if there is any addition to the regular Forces, cannot be of very long duration. It may be eighteen months; it may be two years; I am not going into that now. But whatever time it may be, I think the Secretary of State will agree it is going to be extraordinarily difficult to get young officers and non-commissioned officers in the Army, the Navy and the Royal Air Force in considerable numbers. It is almost impossible to make an officer in the short period which is contemplated, and therefore it must be of assistance to all three Services if we can keep a Cadet Service not only of the same standard which was achieved in the war, but of an even higher standard.

It is our desire that the boys, irrespective of the class of the community to which they belong, may "get on" on their merits, that they may achieve noncommissioned rank, with perhaps special facilities to enable them to reach commissioned rank in the near future. My humble opinion is that the Forces of the future are going to constitute a very considerable problem, and what we want to do is to get our young leaders immediately. For that reason I hope that the Secretary of State will encourage the noble Lord, Lord Calverley, by giving him a favourable reply. I can assure your Lordships that we, who saw the advantages of the Cadet Corps to' the three Services during the war, will give our full support to the Government in any measure they may take to strengthen these Forces, and to maintain them at as high a level as or an even higher level than that which was achieved during the war.

3.5 p.m.

LORD MOUNTEVANS

My Lords, I should like to support the noble Lords who have spoken. As one of the Regional Commissioners of Civil Defence it was my duty to look after such things as E.W.S. tanks, and those little things which were so easily pilfered in shelters. From the year 1940, when the A.T.C. and other Cadet movements received considerable encouragement, the manners of the youngsters from 13 to 17 improved so much that they might have taken their motto not from Eton but from Winchester —"Manners makyth man." From 1940 certainly up to 1945 the whole character of these youngsters improved. They took a pride in their Corps, and the existence and encouragement of such organizations does appear to be part of the solution to the vexed question of volunteers or conscripts. I should like to add my humble support to what the other noble Lords, have already said.

3.8 p.m.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR AIR (VISCOUNT STANSGATE)

My Lords, first of all I should like to express my gratification for the amount of interest and sympathy which has been shown from all quarters of the House for the Air Training Corps. My noble friend who opened this debate spoke of the value of the A.T.C. as a part of the national youth movement. With that, of course, we all sympathize. He will excuse me if I direct myself more to the A.T.C. as it appears to the Royal Air Force, because my function here is to explain the relationship between the two organizations, what we hold it to be and what we hope to do to help. I should like also to thank my noble friend who moved this Motion, and other noble Lords in this House, for the spirited public work which they have done in many activities in relation to the A.T.C. I am going to deal with the funds of the organization in a moment, but State funds are naturally rather limited, and we have, necessarily, depended to a very considerable extent on the feeling of people that this was a good movement and that they were willing to make their private contributions to it.

Dealing with the organization of the A.T.C., as everybody knows we have our open units and our school units. We have the District Inspecting Officers, we have the Area Commanders, and then above that the Director-General of the A.T.C. We are now instituting a Reserve Command, and so my noble friend may expect to find certain changes made in this chain of organization. The Area Commands, will be absorbed in the Reserve Groups; and the place of the Director-General of the A.T.C. will be taken by the Commander-in-Chief of the Reserve Command. That will very much simplify things. It will pool together our Auxiliary and Reserve forces with the A.T.C.. and altogether I think will result in a marked improvement in the general organization.

That brings me to the consideration of what my noble friend has said, not for the first time, about the wisdom of setting up an Advisory Council. I was under the impression that in recent years there had not been an Advisory Council, though my noble friend knows more about it than I do. If there had been, I would suggest that in the reorganization which I have described, it would be better to allow the A.T.C. to be linked up with the Territorial Army and Air Force Associations. It would be better to allow the County Territorial Associations to get this work done. It would seem hardly worth while to ask men of standing to give a great deal of time to an Advisory Council which would be dealing with only one facet of work the whole of which could more authoritatively and helpfully be dealt with by the Council of County Territorial Associations. That is all I have to say about the general organization of the Corps. If the particulars I give now appear to be rather detailed and pedestrian, I am sure those interested in this Corps will not complain, because it is on the little things that the success of local efforts may depend.

I do not know whether your Lordships would like me to describe the financial arrangements—they are probably familiar to you all. The State pays the rents and rates of unit headquarters; travelling expenses to courses, though not from home to duty; pay and allowances to officers and warrant officers at their training camps; and compensation for any injury that might unfortunately occur—in addition to providing training equipment, rations, uniform and the per capita grants for efficiency and proficiency. We have made a change this year which I hope will be of help to the units, which is that we are going to pay the entire cost of the provision or renting of accommodation direct from State funds. That, I think, should make the task of the unit organizers a great deal easier.

My noble friend asked me for particulars about strengths. He was kind enough to warn me in advance of the nature of his inquiry and I did have some figures got out. Of course the figures are not altogether comparable—the war has come to an end, for one thing. They are as follows: In October, 1944, we had 133,000 cadets, about 8,000 officers and approximately the same number of in- structors. On January 31 last year we had 116,000 cadets, and on January 31 this year—the most recent figures I have—we had 67,000 cadets and about 5,000 officers and 3,000 instructors. Of course, the decline is due partly to the termination of the war and partly to the diversion or return to other forms of activity of the public-spirited men who have been throwing their hearts into this work during the war.

The figures for recruiting are not discouraging. The latest figures I have are as follows: In the year ended January 31 last, 34,700 boys joined the Corps, and in the quarter ended January 31 last 6,250 joined the Corps. By that we are very much encouraged. As I have said, many men who have acted as instructors have, for example, been forced to go back to their other work. In passing I hope your Lordships will allow me to say a word of sincere thanks to those who have collie forward, without a great deal of public notice, to act as instructors in this Corps. I wish it were possible for them to have the Defence Medal, but there are terms laid down by the Honours and Awards Committee which preclude that. However, every means we can take to recognize the services both of officers and of instructors we certainly shall take, and I feel that they will know they have widespread and sincere public approval.

The thing that attracts people into the A.T.C. is, of course, flying. I do not want to say anything to annoy the noble Lord, Lord Croft, who was an officer in the Army, but in the Royal Air Force we feel we have something special which no other Service possesses. As Mr. Gladstone said, "You cannot fight against the future; time is on our side"—but that I will not elaborate. Of course the boys are interested in flying, but there is a snag in that to which I am going to come later. Flying is the great magnet we have in the A.T.C., and we are rearranging the number of aircraft and making them as plentiful as possible. There was an establishment called the Halton Flight which used to go about to various centres. We are going to have that split into small flights which will be distributed throughout the country, so that the boys shall have the best possible opportunity of getting passenger flights. The main idea of the boy who joins the A.T.C. is, of course, to fly, and if you cannot send him up in a powered machine you can at least send him up in a glider. The A.T.C., your Lordships may be surprised to learn, as indeed I was, is the largest gliding organization in the world. We have ninety gliding centres, and last year we had 6,000 cadets trained to the "high hop." The "high hop" means that you go up to 90 or 100 feet; the low hop merely means that people just start and do not go very far. During the year 200,000 glider launches were made.

We have been able to dispose of a certain amount of material from the Air Force as the war has come to an end, and we always have in mind how much is useful and may be made available to the Air Training Corps. We regret that we have not been able to give the boys greatcoats. As your Lordships know, a man leaves his greatcoat behind when he is demobilized, but what with the difficulties of reconditioning and the enormous demand for clothing, not only here but in a stricken Europe, the A.T.C. have not been able to get greatcoats, although we have made improvizations from time to time. I am sure my noble friend will agree that it is in sympathy and practical help that real encouragement is given. Another thing which we have done is to arrange for the Works Department to dismantle transport and re-erect hutments where possible. My noble friend also referred to the Dominions. I do not know that our contacts are very close, but by the exchange of literature and the distribution of news we are doing everything we can to maintain contact with the Dominion cadet organizations.

The point of all this really is: what are we going to use the A.T.C. for? It has, of course, its great value as a youth organization, but that is a much wider thing—the Board of Education comes into that. From our point of view, however, we want to encourage people to be air-minded and encourage the best possible recruits to join the Air Force when they are called up, or when they volunteer. All the boys would like to be assured that if they join the A.T.C. and do well they will become air-crew, but you cannot give that promise. The Air Force is a sort of pyramid: for the one man in the air you have a great organization, much broader based, supporting him. If for the present we aim, as we will aim, at a total establishment of 75,000 for the Air Training Corps, there is a reasonable hope that every boy who serves in it and so wishes will reach the R.A.F. Whether he will get air crew status or not one cannot say, because that will be a matter of hot competition. But if a boy puts his heart into the A.T.C., not only will he reach the R.A.F. but he will have done everything in his power—something considerable—to qualify him in the competition for the envied rank of a member of an air crew.

3.20 p.m.

LORD CALVERLEY

My Lords, I sincerely thank my noble friend for what he has said. He mentioned that the boys were covered in respect of injuries, but I want to say that at times his department, or some department connected with the Air Ministry, has been slack and sometimes payments have had to come out of private pockets because the money has not been forthcoming quickly enough. I was glad to hear what he said with regard to finding new and more interesting equipment from his works department and also that stock was being taken of stores which are now no longer needed by his department but which are of interest to the A.T.C. I note what he says with regard to the Central Civilian Advisory Council. If we can have County Associations I should say that what he suggests will fill the bill and take the place of the Central Committee which we used to have and which his Ministry sacked somewhere about 1944, I believe. I am grateful to my noble friend for what he has said and I am grateful to your Lordships for the interest you have displayed. These youths did very well in the past; their brothers are now growing up and will, I am certain, catch the spirit of sympathy displayed this afternoon and go forward to greater heights of service. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.