HL Deb 02 December 1947 vol 152 cc1048-68

4.18 p.m.

LORD LINDSAY OF BIRKER

had the following Notice on the Order Paper: To ask His Majesty's Government to appoint a Committee, or Commission, as they think best, to inquire into the problems of devolution and decentralization in nationalized industries; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, since I put this Motion down some time ago we have had two debates, one on the devolution of Scottish affairs and the other on the operation of the Coal Board, which have covered a good deal of the ground. I wish to begin by explaining why I have slightly changed the form of this Motion. In the Motion as originally put down there was a reference to Scotland. It said: … to inquire into the problems of devolution and decentralization in nationalized industries, with specific, but not exclusive, reference to Scotland. I put it in that form after consultation with some Scottish Peers, especially with my noble friend the Earl of Selkirk, whose absence we all regret. We had a long discussion on Scottish affairs in the previous debate, and now the noble Viscount, Lord Elibank, has put down a Motion for this afternoon, and the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, has put down another Motion which, so far as I understand it, advocates the discussion of Scottish Home Rule by a Commitee to be set up. I had hoped that by my Motion I might kill, or at any rate hit, two birds with one stone. But the well known perfervidum ingenium of my nation is trying to spoil discussion of my Motion and wants to have two stones at one bird—and I do not want my bird to be entirely omitted. Therefore I have taken out the specific reference to Scotland and confined my Motion to the general principle of decentralization in industry.

On the Motion on the Coal Board moved last Wednesday by the noble Lord, Lord Teynham, we had an extremely interesting discussion, not only on the Coal Board but also on the general question of decentralization in the nationalized industries; and therefore I do not want to weary your Lordships by going over the same ground again. I want to confine myself, so far as I can, to discussing the answers which we have already had on these Motions from the Government. In the debate on Scottish affairs on November 13 the noble Lord, Lord Morrison, said in the course of his reply: Criticism has been made in this debate of various forms of administration. Some of these forms, I would remind your Lordships, are new, and there is much to learn…. The Government are in full agreement with the view that in the management of socialized industries there should not be undue centralization "— not a very strong statement, because there never should be anything undue anywhere! Lord Morrison went on to say: I hope your Lordships will agree that there is no one solution which can be applied to the variety of industries now being brought under public ownership. Each case has to be considered individually and the form of organization worked out which will enable that industry to function with the maximum efficiency and give the best service to the community. In short, the aim of the Government is to secure a proper devolution from the centre and proper machinery for consideration of local problems. The Lord Chancellor assured us last Wednesday in the Coal Board debate that the Board were working hard at decentralization. He assured your Lordships that: … the Government do not approach this matter from the point of view that they have conceived a perfect plan and that they are not going to alter it. It is not our view that we are committed to a set pattern or anything of that sort. We hope to learn by experience. When I read those remarks I am, of course, encouraged—up to a point. Are not the Government already doing what I hoped? But I am also a little discouraged and I should like to say why. Of course it is true that there should be no uniform plan of decentralization, no uniform pattern which will fit the management of coal mines, of electricity, or of transport. No one could possibly think that there was one pattern which could be worked out in detail and then be applied to all these very different things. But that does not mean that there are not certain common prin- ciples, and I view with dismay, if I understand rightly what is proposed, the prospect of each of these commissions, boards and organizations of management of the various nationalized industries, working out its pattern on its own, without any reference to what other nationalized industries are doing, without seeing that the great body of common knowledge which there is in this matter is used to the full, and without seeing also that the general social advantages and principles are not considered. They should be considered.

What I should like to see is the appointment of a central Committee. I want on that central committee people of particular and peculiar knowledge of the nationalized industries. But I also want other people. I want to have big industrialists who have had some acquaintance with the problems of devolution in large industries, problems which are common to all big industries. I also want trade unionists, and people who are concerned with the problems of local government devolution. I will explain why later. I do not want only people concerned with devolution in Scotland: I want people who are concerned with devolution in other regions—in the North East, in Yorkshire, in Wales and so on. I also want people—and I realize how revolutionary this may seem—who have experience of the theoretical side of the matter. There are such people. I should like, for example, Professor Cole, who has spent much time on such problems and made some very interesting suggestions. And I should like people from the Institute of Public Administration—people who are experts. I should like the views of these people to be pooled for the benefit of the different boards. If you do not do that you will have separate boards saying," Oh, by the bye, we must do something about devolution," and somebody of the class called, I believe," back room boys," in the different organizations may be turned on to the problem in each industry, and they will produce very different schemes. I have read recently what has been arranged with regard to the railways. I do not criticize that because I do not know enough about it, but I am disturbed that these schemes are going on and are to be developed separately without consideration of the general consequences involved.

For example, the moment you get-down to questions of this sort you will find that there are two principles on which you can devolve or divide.; You can go on the principle of difference of function, or you can go on the principle of willingness, readiness and power to co-operate in doing the job. That is one of the most vital distinctions in all problems of centralized or local government. The man on his own special job will tend, I think, to give more than proper interest to the division of functions, and lay less than proper emphasis on local patriotism and readiness to do the job, because these involve imponderables. But I feel certain that any weighty Committee going into this matter will realize how powerful an instrument for efficiency regional patriotism is, and that it will be wrong to ignore, let us say, the natural characteristics of the Welsh, the fact that York-shiremen are different from all the rest of the world, and so on. I think such a Committee would put in a general directive that there should be concern about those regional differences. If that applies to principalities like Wales, or some regions like Yorkshire, how much, a fortiori, would it be obvious folly, criminal folly, to waste the national energy, keenness and natural peculiarities of the Scottish. That consideration would follow. Therefore, you would (and this is how I would want it) hit two birds with one stone.

But I am primarily concerned with the question of the devolution of nationalized industries. I think that there should be a Committee, of the kind I have described, with all the knowledge, both practical and theoretical, that can be obtained. General directives should be given to that Committee and then, if you like—I should hope that this would be done—there should be specific Working Parties for the several industries who, inspired and directed by those general principles, would then proceed to carry them out in the different industries. If I am told that I ought not to ask for that I would reply that that is an answer which makes me tired. It is one of these hopeless "either ors ": you either deal with the specific industry or you deal with the whole principle. Everybody knows that you have to deal with both at the same time. You have to ask what effect it will have on the general social structure, what effect it will have on the working of our democracy, and—I want to say even this, if noble Lords opposite will allow me—what effect it will have on the development of Socialism.

VISCOUNT SWINTON

We are greatly interested.

LORD LINDSAY OF BIRKER

I should like (but I will not, because time is getting on) to expound my theory of Socialism in reference to this matter. I think it would have been rather fun, because then I would have intervened in the dispute, as Lord Simon or Lord Samuel or those who sit behind them would have done, and said that I am the best Liberal. I maintain that I am the best Liberal, having been brought up in the Liberal faith. I maintain, as anybody who sees what is happening would do, that that is the way you must apply the principle of democracy to industry. If you do that, you had better sit on these Benches, but on condition that you do not think that Socialism ends with nationalization or that nationalization does the whole job. I will not continue on that point. However, I want to say very seriously to the Government, not only that they are making a mistake in regard to efficiency if they consider the separate industries one by one, by different committees under the Coal Board, the Transport Commission and so on, but that they are making a mistake if they think that this is only a question of efficiency.

Unless you can so develop your nationalized industries that you do not decrease the centres of responsible decision, but even increase them, you will be using nationalization to make worse an already serious tendency in this country which has nothing to do with nationalization. You might use nationalization to make something better. Unless you devise an active system of devolution in all the nationalized industries which gives you, along with your general control, small units where there is responsible decision, you will not deal with the other profound question with which we are confronted—namely, how to get the men to take an active part in production and show enthusiasm about it. I believe that nationalization may help in that problem, to a certain extent. I think it makes a real difference in the coal industry. The men think they are working not for the owners but for the Government as a whole and for themselves as a whole. I am sure that that is true. Nevertheless, an organization of the size of the Coal Board cannot arouse that kind of enthusiasm unless it works through small units.

May I enlarge upon those two points for a moment? We need not confine ourselves to the question of centralization at Whitehall; the tendency to crowd responsibility for decisions into London and into the City is in some ways just as wrong as the tendency to crowd it into Whitehall. I remember someone telling me a few years ago that there was nobody in Coventry who could make really responsible decisions in regard to their main industry, the motor industry; they were all made from London. I remember some years ago reading a remarkable article in the American paper Atlantic Month called "The Chain Store Mind," which explained the evil brought about by the disappearance of the local self-owned store and its substitution by the chain store, whose directives all came from New York. Individuality and local responsibility were disappearing and in every city there was the same sort of store in the same pattern and with the same sort of shop window, directed by people in New York who knew nothing, and perhaps cared less, about the local situation.

One of the advantages of nationalized industries is that it is in our power to shape them, and I think a wise and thorough plan of decentralization may go some way to curing this evil. If it did, it would make all the difference in the world, not just to the efficiency of the industries, but to the vitality, to the responsibility and to the health of local government generally, not merely in Scotland but all over the country. Therefore, I pray the Government to take this proposition of mine really seriously. I am not in the least suggesting that the Government are not in earnest about decentralization, for they clearly are, but, if I am right in my reading of the reply given by my noble friend Lord Morrison, they are proposing to do what I have suggested—namely, to have separate committees within each board. I do pray the Government to consider the other possibility, for both efficiency and democracy depend on the multiplication of centres of responsible decision all over the country.

Decisions about personal relations should depend upon those who make the decisions knowing personally that they can be effective. Decisions on technical questions should depend on knowing details and seeing for oneself on the spot. If you have to make decisions on a large scale, whether in Whitehall or in London or in the City, you go by rules, and you can decide only by the rules of the whole organization. The reason why I plead for a Committee with experts upon it, a central Committee where knowledge should be pooled, is that it is a great mistake to think that decentralization is an easy business. It is a very complicated business, and we need for it all the practical wisdom and also all the theoretical knowledge that we can obtain. That is what I want to urge the Government to do: to appoint a Committee—not a Commission, for that would take too long—roughly on the lines I suggest, let them work out the principles and give a general directive, and then allow Working Parties from each of several industries to work it out in detail. I beg to move for Papers.

4.40 p.m.

VISCOUNT SWINTON

My Lords, I am very glad that the noble Lord, Lord Lindsay of Birker, has returned to the charge on this matter. It is quite true that only a week ago we had a debate on the organization of national boards and we had from the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor a vary interesting and informative reply on behalf of the Government. But, apart from the interesting questions which the noble Lord has raised in his speech today and which I think were only partially covered in our debate, one very important thing has happened. Since we had our debate and the reply of the Government last Wednesday, the Transport Commission has issued the whole of its new plan for the organization of railway transport throughout this country. Frankly, that is why I intervene. I am not going to repeat the speech I made last time, with which the Leader of the House and the Lord Chancellor also, as he said in his speech, were in full accord. What has alarmed me, however is that the new plan announced by the Transport Commission seems most seriously to violate those very principles which I ventured to put forward and which the Lord Chancellor most emphatically endorsed.

I put to the Government four propositions with which, as I understood it, they were in complete agreement. I am not going into the question of nationalization or going to debate its merits at all now, but, judged by all standards of business or administrative efficiency, an organization to work the whole of the coal mines of this country, or the whole of the railways plus a great mass of other transport, is much too big. I do not want to press that, because the Lord Chancellor said he most cordially agreed. My second proposition was that, that being so, you must have effective decentralization, a proposition to which Lord Lindsay has lent us his experience and support today. The third proposition was that we must try to get comparative and competitive standards of efficiency within this unified monopoly. The fourth point was that we must avoid like the plague any sealed pattern—and no one was in greater agreement than the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack about avoiding a sealed pattern—and give to the regional boards the fullest power to try out their own ideas and to exercise their initiative.

I will quote only a word or two from my own speech, because I was interrupted most courteously by the Leader of the House, indeed, in almost a running commentary, to tell me that I was pressing at an open door. He kept on saying "We agree." What I said was this. It is in Column 976: Give the local men real responsibility, and encourage them to try out their own ideas. By all means let the Central Board watch and compare the results, and pool the experience. That is one of the things it is there for. But let the Board also remember that the same plan is not necessarily the right plan everywhere and at all times. What may appear at the centre to be a uniform business, in fact has great variety depending on local conditions. Then the noble Viscount said across the table "But, of course, we agree." I then went on to say: I am glad this is agreed, but I believe there is a great tendency to centralize and to send out these sealed pattern instructions from the centre"— and I think he shook his head. I went on to say: I shall be delighted if I am told that it is not so. I shall be delighted to hear that the practice is to be real delegation of responsibility and a real chance to these people to do their own jobs. I am perfectly certain that if we are to give the best to our customers, and the boards are to get the best out of their staffs, we must not seek to impose this uniformity upon them. Then I said, because I was again challenged, in regard to this uniformity: I am certainly not inventing these complaints about uniformity. I hope that it is not the intention to impose it, and that it will certainly not be the practice. I certainly can have no complaint about the reply of the Lord Chancellor on behalf of the Government. In Column 981, he said: The noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, suggested that the organization was too big. I quite agree; and the fact that it is so big makes it absolutely necessary that we should have a system of decentralization. Then he goes on to say: This shows, I think, that the National Coal Board, in setting up these organizations, were alive to the fact that a sealed plan is a quite hopeless conception on which to work. Therefore in their proper sphere these divisional boards must have full responsibility for their functions. So far as that went, I am bound to say I thought it a very satisfactory answer. I did ask how this was going to apply not only in coal but also in the even bigger organization of transport, and to that I received no answer. I do not complain; perhaps the Lord Chancellor was not instructed. But obviously if that effective decentralization is right in coal, which has infinite variety in the different coalfields, in the character of coal and in the salesmanship of coal, whether to the domestic user of a hundred different kinds or for export, is it not right in transport, which is perhaps even more varied? If you sit at the centre it looks as if coal is just coal and a railway wagon is just a railway wagon. That is not the way in which you give service; everything wants its own particular needs met.

I hoped, and indeed I expected, that when we came to transport we should get more effective devolution than we have in coal, although I honestly believe—at least I hope this is so—that the Coal Board is trying to get more effective devolution and to give more and more responsibility, not only to the regional boards but to the area managers. I am sure that is the only way, and I believe it is the intention. I believe it is what the Government mean, and what the Coal Board wish to do; but, frankly, I was horrified when I saw the new plan under which the railway transport of this country is to work. Although the Transport Commission have not yet taken over this long distance or semi-long distance or semi-short distance road transport—I do not know when they will or whether they will—these things have got to be worked in together in the regions. It is quite absurd to say that you are going to run a railway from Euston by one department, and the road transport between Liverpool and Manchester, or between Edinburgh and Glasgow, by some quite isolated body which communicates only by minutes or by letter with them.

I am not going to deal with road transport because that is still in the lap of time. There is, however, this new railway organization. On the face of it, it looked as if there was a system of devolution. We had this some time before. First of all the Transport Commission was set up, and then we had the Railway Executive which is under the Transport Commission. That is a tremendous hierarchy. The Papacy is hardly more hierarchically organized throughout the world. This business is getting almost as big as the Catholic Church. But there is the Transport Commission. That is the first thing. Then there is the Railway Executive which comes under it, but I will not criticize that. It consists of a chairman and six full time functional members each with a different functional responsibility. I have not the prejudice that some people have against functional people on boards; that is, provided that they are not too functional or too narrow.

I do not think the noble Viscount the Leader of the House, or even myself—and I hope, generally speaking, we were not bad members of the Cabinet—when we had big Departments of our own, were guilty of putting forward quantities of matters of detail. We tried to take not too departmental a view when sitting in the Cabinet. Also we did not bring up "tin-pot" questions to the Cabinet for decision, I would have liked to see in the Railway Executive a few more people who were not purely functional. I think that would have been useful. What I am anxious about are the regional boards which have now been established for the railways. On the face of it, they look all right. Six of them have been established and they correspond roughly to the four main-line railways. The Southern is one; the Great Western is another. The London and North Eastern is now split into two areas; and then there is the London, Midland and Scottish, less Scotland. Scotland, I am glad to see, is given a region.

The scheme sounds all right but it is not, because the boards have not adequate powers. There are regional functionaries sitting in Edinburgh or Glasgow to do what they are told to do by Whitehall, with no adequate powers of their own. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, when he replies, will be able to allay some of our anxieties on this matter, because it is not at all in line with what we were assured by the Lord Chancellor was to be done. The essence of the constitution of these regional boards should be that they should have a very wide discretion and very full powers. They should be able to serve the public with a knowledge of local conditions. They should not be uniform and above all they should be able to try out their own ideas and then let the Central Board see low these different ideas work, one board trying one system and another board trying another. It might well be that something of considerable value would come out of this conflict of ideas. Something might be found that would be quite applicable to local conditions in one place although it would not be, perhaps, in another. The essence of this devolution, of these interregional boards, is that they should have real regional responsibility and be able to use local knowledge and local experience. But they are not to have that.

Just observe how these regional boards are established. In each of these regions there is to be set up, I think, six officials, each of whom will have his different functions. There will be public relations, passenger, freight, commercial, operating, marine and civil engineering, mechanical supervision, and so on, corresponding exactly to the functional executives on the Railway Executive. And observe to whom those people are to be responsible. They are not to sit as a board, considering local conditions, working out their own local plans to meet local needs. Each one of those functionaries, directors on a regional board, is to be responsible to his opposite number at headquarters in Whitehall. Really that is not devolution at all. All that means is that a functionary is placed in Manchester or in Glasgow, or wherever it may be, and that functionary is used in the field to carry out orders from Whitehall.

I shall probably be told that there is a gentleman called, I think, a chief regional officer in each of those regions. His function is to be to secure that the policies laid down, and the general instructions issued by the Executive (that is, the Executive in London), are made effective. I had hoped that he was to be a more or legs independent chairman, who would draw these members of the local boards together and encourage them to use their initiative and their ideas. So far as I can see his principal function is to be to look into things. He is to be a snooper, curiosus, a gentleman who has to see that directives and instructions are carried out. I am not even paraphrasing, I am giving an exact quotation from what has been issued by the Executive. Observe, too: the local members of the six regional boards are not responsible to him; they are responsible to the individual officers of the Railway Executive in London. Can anyone say that that is real devolution or real delegation? I must be fair, however. The-regional officer is also to receive a copy of each directive sent down from headquarters to the offices of his region. No doubt that is advisable for his information, but it seems to me to have a sinister significance.

Instructions are to come from Whitehall. What are those instructions? Of course they will be on the sealed pattern—the very thing the Lord Chancellor said last time that we must avoid like the plague. There is no Party politics in this. For better or for worse—I think for worse—we have nationalized these industries. We have nationalized coal, and I believe that the coal people are making a genuine effort to delegate responsibility. Now we have just nationalized railways and the new authorities have had very little time to take over. We have got to try to make this thing work. The whole prosperity of industry and of the country depends on coal and transport. I am sure the noble Lord who is to reply for the Government will believe me when I say that I am not trying to make any Party point out of this. If we must have this form of control let us make it work. The Lord Chancellor agrees that in this way—that is, this working on the sealed pattern principle—lies absolute disaster. Yet, so far as I can see, within a day of the Lord Chancellor saying that he could not agree more with what I said about the sealed pattern (he almost said that it was "damnation" but I think he actually used a more suitable expression," anathema") we have before us this new railway organization in which all the principles laid down by the Lord Chancellor, which the noble Lord, Lord Lindsay, has appealed to the Government to carry out, seem to me to be completely set at naught.

We have no time in connexion with this matter for committees of inquiry. There are the Ministers and the Government; if they agreed last time that what I enunciated are the right principles I beg them to say so. This is a matter in which Ministers ought to intervene. It is not a matter of day-to-day management. It is a matter concerned with the whole principle on which the business is going to work. I beg the Government to intervene before it is too late. My noble friend quoted Mr. Herbert Morrison and that made a great appeal to the Lord Chancellor, but I have read other words said more recently by perhaps a less influential member of the Government. "Bigness is the enemy of humanity." That was said by a lesser light, perhaps, of the Government—I am not quite sure how they rank to-day—by Mr. Aneurin Bevan, and it is pretty true, though I do not quite know how the noble Lord, Lord Lindsay, would reconcile that with the philosophy of Socialism.

LORD LINDSAY OF BIRKER

Easily.

VISCOUNT SWINTON

I will not argue. I think bigness often is the enemy of humanity. Certainly in bigness we have always got to see that whatever merit it brings we keep the human touch. Excessive size is certainly the enemy of public service. I argue this once more because this is something beyond all Party politics, something on which not only the success of coal and transport but of industry, which depends on them, depends. I believe that in the teeth of what the Lord Chancellor told us last week—and of course he was sincere, and of course that was what the Government meant to be the policy—exactly the opposite policy is being carried into effect. I do beg the Government to intervene before it is too late.

5.3 p.m.

LORD CHORLEY

My Lords, I am sure your Lordships must feel indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Lindsay of Birker, for continuing this discussion on a rather different plane from that which occupied your Lordships last week. Your Lordships are aware of the interest which the noble Lord has taken in this matter. I think it was during the Report: stage of the Transport Bill that he pointed out that this was a matter of considerable difficulty and importance, the problem of reconciling the broad issue of nationalized industry with the local interests and patriotism of the people who are actually working in the field. He did even at that stage suggest that some sort of committee of inquiry might be desirable. I think he reflects the interest in this matter which is very general throughout the country and which your Lordships have evinced from time to time. He pointed out in his speech that this was a matter which had been very much discussed in the past and that a good deal of work has been done on it.

The Government are very well aware of this. Throughout the preliminaries to the measures which Parliament has been placing on the Statute book over the last month, the Government have had in mind this very problem and they have it very much in mind at the present moment. That was made clear in a number of speeches which have been made on behalf of the Government in your Lordships' House and elsewhere over the last weeks. The noble Lord, Lord Lindsay, referred to my noble friend Lord Morrison's remarks in your Lordships' House, and particularly to the remarks of my noble and learned friend, the Lord Chancellor, in the discussion on the Coal Board last week, in which he laid it down very emphatically that "decentralization is to be the rule and centralization is to be the exception." The noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, in the speech which he made last week, referred a great deal to the interesting lecture given by Sir Arthur Street. In that lecture Sir Arthur Street, after comparing the problem of administering coal with the rather different problem of administering electricity, said that the idea in the arrangements con- tained in the two Acts is "to decentralize as much as possible in the interests of flexibility and efficiency."

This matter, then, has been very much in mind throughout, but of course we must: not go too far in that direction. Obviously unification is inherent in the whole idea of socialization, and it is only in such unification that elimination of waste and overlapping can be secured. One of the main objects, I may say the fundamental object, in introducing nationalization is in order to obtain the elimination of waste and overlapping and the integration of these services in the national interests. That involves a considerable element of central control. The problem really is to establish a just balance between the amount of control needed in the centre and the amount of devolution which is essential in order that the industries may be properly worked and administered in the field. In a later passage in his lecture, Sir Arthur Street brings that out very clearly. Obviously without devolution and decentralization you will get an excessive bureaucracy, and the elasticity of the whole business is lost; a very great deal of the advantages of socialization is lost also. As was indicated by my noble and learned friend, the methods cannot be laid down in detail in Statutes.

The noble Lord, Lord Lindsay, has said he would be tired if he were told that conditions differ from one industry to another, but of course, quite obviously they do so. The framers of the Statutes had very clearly in mind the different amounts of devolution and different types of devolution which might be necessary in different industries. I will not trespass on your Lordships' patience, but if I had the time to make a detailed analysis of the different Statutes which have been passed, I could very easily show that the draftsman had these matters very much in mind, because according to whether one is dealing with coal, or transport, or electricity, a different kind of devolution is envisaged in broad framework in the Act. Within each industry the practical problems of devolution differ very considerably. The working out: of details is the business of management. All that the Statute can do is to provide the broad framework. This problem will be solved in the light of experience. It will be a case of solvitur ambulando.

VISCOUNT SWINTON

As he is coming to it, will the noble Lord forgive me for interrupting? Can he tell us what is the meaning of this new transport scheme which was announced after we concluded our debate last Wednesday?

LORD CHORLEY

We have listened to the noble Viscount's speech with great interest, and, naturally, I shall deal in due course with the matters which he has brought to the attention of your Lordships. At the moment I am doing my best to deal with the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Lindsay, whose Motion is before your Lordships' House at the present time. Of these boards the only one which has actually operated is the Coal Board and, as your Lordships know, we had a very interesting and useful discussion last week largely centring round the work done by the Coal Board. My impression after listening to the debate—and, indeed, it is borne out by the observations of the noble Viscount, Lord'Swinton—was that, on the whole, there was satisfaction with the work of the Coal Board, and it was felt that the Board were making not only a genuine effort, but very largely a successful effort, to deal with the devolution of the administration of the coal industry.

A very impressive speech was made by the noble Lord, Lord Hutchison of Montrose, who has not the reputation of covering his pills with too much jam, in which he said that he was very satisfied with the way in which the regional board in Scotland was doing its job. He went on to say: From what I hear, It is not being unduly interfered with by the Central Board in London: it functions well. Coming from such a source, obviously that is an expression of satisfaction which carries a great deal of weight. I think if noble Lords were not so suspicious they might gain confidence from what has happened there that a similar successful effort will be made in other branches of nationalized industry, when they get to work, to solve the problem equally well.

The noble Lord, Lord Teynham, in his interesting opening speech, made it perfectly clear that the questions would have to be dealt with as the events marched forward. Again, Sir Arthur Street, in the lecture which has been referred to so much, pointed out that: "The kaleidoscope is changing all the time. The com- plex patterns are reforming and rearranging themselves before our eyes." Obviously, it would be quite wrong to attempt to lay down any sealed pattern method of dealing with this problem of decentralization. If I may say so, it seems to me, as one academic to another, that the proposal of the noble Lord to set up a committee which would attempt to lay down some general principles for dealing with this problem of devolution would be sinning against that very principle of waiting to see how the thing will, in fact, develop in practice. A policy cannot be in vacuo. The noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, in the debate last week, pointed out, very cogently, I think, that policy is very largely derived from action. He said: "You cannot separate policy and action. Policy issues from action."—

VISCOUNT SWINTON

"In action." It was wrongly reported. "Policy issues in action." Your action is motivated by your policy.

LORD CHORLEY

The policy develops, so to speak, as the action goes along. That is what I understood.

VISCOUNT SWINTON

No. With great respect, I was wrongly reported. I used the words—I trust they were good English—" Policy issues in action." That is to say, you cannot separate one from the other. Policy must inform and direct action.

LORD CHORLEY

I am obliged to the noble Viscount for the elucidation of his speech. Surely, it must be obvious that the sort of rules for dealing with this matter must be discovered empirically as the matter develops. To lay down a pattern now, before most of these boards are under way, would be to manufacture an administrative strait-waistcoat which would be exceedingly cramping to the very industries which the noble Lord is anxious to see developing and working on the ground. After a period of experiment it may well be possible to deduce certain working rules of a character which can be generally applied, but at the present time I suggest to your Lordships that it would really not be possible to do so at all satisfactorily. To lay down mandatory rules for local organization would be to destroy the confidence of the managements of the industries at the very time when it is essential that they should feel they are free to work out their own difficulties.

VISCOUNT SWINTON

That is what the railways have done.

LORD CHORLEY

I suggest that, in those circumstances, it would be inappropriate to set up a committee to try and discover, from discussions which had gone on in the past, a number of rules which could be applied to coal, to transport and everything else. It may be that after the thing has worked for a time it will be possible to set up a committee, or that the administrators themselves will discover that there are certain rules which can be applied in that way.

The noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, has suggested that the arrangements which have been announced by the Transport Commission in regard to the organization of the railways is an infraction of the principles so very emphatically accepted by my noble and learned friend in the debate last week. I suggest that that is a completely wrong view of the matter. The whole object of the announcement made by the Transport Commission is, in fact, to establish a system of devolution which can work successfully. The noble Viscount suggests that the regional officers are just snoopers; that the Central Authority has sent them out into the six different zones in order to provide themselves with material on which they can keep their local officers in order. Nothing is further from the truth. These regional officers will be empowered to settle regional matters at regional level, and they will be given the necessary power of initiation of action to secure that that is done.

VISCOUNT SWINTON

To whom will the members of the local board be responsible? Will it be the chief regional officer, or to the gentlemen in London?

LORD CHORLEY

As I understand it, the functional officers, to whom the noble Viscount refers, will be responsible to the functional officers in London. But that does not mean that a very considerable devolution of power is not conferred upon them. The noble Viscount, as a business man, knows very well that if he sends his agent to establish a business, whether it is abroad or in Scotland or anywhere else, he confers greater or less powers of initiative upon him.

VISCOUNT SWINTON

The noble Lord has referred to me and challenged me on that. I am quite accustomed to sending people abroad but I have one rule, which is this: if there are people given an office abroad I put them under my man abroad and make them responsible to him; they are not responsible to somebody at headquarters here. That is the whole policy of this scheme. They are not responsible to the nominal chief.

LORD CHORLEY

But the man abroad is carrying out the noble Viscount's policy, and the question of how much local initiative he is given depends upon the noble Viscount. Knowing the noble Viscount as we know him, I am sure he would give the man a considerable amount of initiative. But the mere fact that the man reports to the noble Viscount does not mean that there is no devolution and that the whole thing is a sealed pattern. It may very well be, and no doubt will be, that the conditions in Scotland, where the whole of the Scottish railway system will be organized in one zone will be quite different from conditions in. shall we say, the North of England and again different from conditions in the West. It is, in those circumstances, a different type of discretion which will be conferred upon the different officers in Scotland and the North or West, as the case may be. Just as the regional officer will be given that amount of initiative and discretion which is required to deal with the problems that aria; in the region for which he is responsible, so will these functional officers be given initiative in the same way. That, as I understand it, is the organization which the Traffic Commission is setting up. The noble Viscount gave me No 1ndication that he was going to raise this particular matter and I am not further armed with material—

VISCOUNT SWINTON

I always try to give notice and I must say that I did raise the whole of this question in my speech a week ago, when I definitely asked what was going to be the transport organization and what was going to be the delegation. Immediately after that this Government announcement: was made, and therefore I not unnaturally assumed that as the noble Lord had been given a week's notice he would be in a position to deal with the Government's own policy.

LORD CHORLEY

I am not in any way complaining of the noble Viscount's action upon that. All I am saying is that I have attempted to reply in a genera] sort of way, and I am not in a position to give a greater amount of detail than that which has been publicly announced by the Transport Commission. I have attempted to give an interpretation of that, which I suggest to the House is perfectly consistent with a substantial and necessary degree of devolution being carried through in the organization of the railways, and which will be worked just as successfully as it is agreed devolution is being worked in the coal industry and as is being provided for in the electricity industry under the Electricity Act.

I suggest that it must be perfectly clear from what I have said to your Lordships that the Government have this matter very closely in mind indeed, that they have given great thought to the matter in the past, have provided for the general framework of it in these Acts of Parliament and will continue to keep the matter closely under observation. I suggest to the noble Lord, Lord Lindsay of Birker, that it would not be appropriate at this time to set up the kind of committee for which he asks, and in those circumstances I hope that he will withdraw his Motion for such a committee.

5.26 p.m.

LORD LINDSAY OF BIRKER

My Lords, I will not detain your Lordships for more than a few minutes. I only want to say that I am profoundly disappointed by the answer I have been given. I hope noble Lords opposite will never again reproach representatives of this Government for being too concerned with a priori methods. Any greater apotheosis of the general doctrine of muddling through I have never heard in my life. I am all for being empirical and I am all for regarding the facts, but it is worth having a plan. After all, if we are going to have organization of this kind it has to have a structure. You cannot say: "Let us have no structure; let us start the trains, see what happens and we will make one as we go along." That is not good enough.

Again, I must just reiterate my points about the Committee. If it is true, as I fear it is true, that each separate board or commission is going to work out its own plans of devolution and decentralization, it is very gratifying to suppose that there is so much wisdom in all the departments of the Civil Service that every single one is able to give a satisfactory answer to this most difficult problem. I do not believe it for one moment. I think there are such things as principles, which are quite different from sealed patterns. I am sure that a great deal could be done, and it would not take very long—you could have a committee which could report very quickly—to pool all the wisdom. Of course, if there are persons in the Government who, like Sam Weller, have the sort of eye that can see everything, hear everything and know everything, that is all very well, but it is not the case. As I said, I should feel better if the people in the Government who are carrying out these plans would even meet together and get some general principle. There is this knowledge, this experience, and it had better be used. If I may be allowed to say so, I should like the noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, put on this. As he gets up from time to time and explains about almost every form of organization that he has worked, I am, like the people in the hymn," lost in wonder, love and praise."

VISCOUNT SWINTON

I am not quite sure about the first line.

LORD LINDSAY OF BIRKER

I do pray the Government to think better of this. Of course you have to go ahead, and of course you have to recognize that things are different, but that does not mean going on if you think differently, otherwise you may easily get schemes which will have desperate social effects. I am more concerned in some ways—because I know more about it—about the further social effects of all this business, than perhaps the efficiency inside, about which I do not know. I am alarmed at the thought of all these separate boards sitting down individually and not considering the whole thing together. If the Government will not do that, I can only regret it. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.