MINISTERS OF THE CROWN (TREASURY SECRETARIES) BILL. (Hansard, 9 December 1947)

§ Viscount ADDISON
My Lords, this is a Bill to enable the Chancellor of the Exchequer to have an additional Parliamentary Under-Secretary. It is necessary to introduce this legislation because the Ministers of the Crown Act provides for two such Under-Secretaries and a third is now required. I am sure that in the present circumstances the Chancellor of the Exchequer needs all the help he can possibly have; and indeed otherwise he would not as a matter of urgency, have made this application to Parliament. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a Second time.

§ Lord LLEWELLIN
My Lords, we on this side of the House certainly have no objection to this Bill, of which the noble Lord has moved the Second Reading. The Government consider it necessary to have 4 this additional Under-Secretary and, indeed, owing to the compass of work that now falls upon him the Chancellor of the Exchequer probably does need it. We certainly have no objection.

The Earl of PERTH
My Lords, we on these Benches have no objection to the Bill. We assume that it will help towards the economic restoration of the country. But I would like, if I may, to put this question to the noble Viscount. Can he give me an assurance that this Bill will not lead to any overlapping, and also that it will not interfere in any way with the constitution and efficiency of what I may call politico-economic departments of the Foreign Office which are of extreme value, and helpful both from the foreign affairs point of view and from the point of view of our defence organization?

Lord STRABOLGI
My Lords, before my noble friend replies I hope your Lordships will forgive me for making a few observations on this Bill because it does raise, I suggest, very important matters concerning the whole machinery of government. As many of your Lordships have taken an interest in this question, and will probably take an increasing interest now, I hope you will excuse me if I very slightly and very briefly widen the debate. We now have the Chancellor of the Exchequer occupying the offices of Head of the Treasury and Minister of Economic Affairs. Further, as I understand from the explanations given in another place and from what appears in the Press, he is now the head of a very efficient and brilliant team of Ministers. There will be no fewer than nine of them when this Bill is passed, all concerned with various aspects of economic policy. There is the President of the Board of Trade, the Ministers of Food, Supply, Fuel and Power and Transport and the Secretary for Overseas Trade. It is this last Department which I assume to be the Department referred to by the noble Earl opposite.

The Earl of PERTH
No.

Lord STRABOLGI
Not the Secretary for Overseas Trade? Then there is the Financial Secretary of the Treasury, this new Economic Secretary and the Paymaster-General, whose duties have been defined quite recently in another place. Your Lordships will be aware that of those 5 nine Ministers all but the last three are engaged in heavy administrative duties. They are all heads of administrative Departments of great importance and scope. The three who are not heads of Departments are the Financial Secretary, this new Economic Secretary (when he is appointed), and the Paymaster-General. We have also a post of co-ordination between all the Ministers, as I understand, filled by the person of Sir Edwin Plowden, whose duties are obviously very important and onerous, and are, no doubt, very efficiently carried out.
What I think is missing—and this has been felt for a long time by those who take an interest in these matters—is that there is no separate planning department of suitable persons, who, having no day-to-day problems to occupy them, are able to plan ahead. I think it is admitted that no such department exists, and yet all experience in the not dissimilar problems affecting staff work to-day shows that it is essential to have a department which is divorced from day-to-day operations or problems of administration and which can devote itself to working out long-range plans. I hope very much that the Bill that we are passing now contains the nucleus of such a body. The name has been made public of Mr. Douglas Jay as the holder of this new office. We all know Mr. Douglas Jay. We all admire him. He saved me a great deal of money from time to time when he was City Editor of the Daily Herald. I read his column to my deep advantage. I hope that he will be with the other two Ministers I have mentioned who are not burdened with day-to-day administrative work, and that this means the beginning of the setting up of a planning department for the working out of long-range policy.
The necessity for such a department does not need, I think, to be stressed by me. If we are to have economic planning I suggest that we must have economic planners. I hope, therefore, that the installation in this important post of so well known an economist and so successful an administrator, does not mean simply the appointment of one more assistant for the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Minister for Economic Affairs, but really marks the beginning of this new addition to the Government which so many people, who are aware of these matters, feel to be very badly required. I do not press my noble 6 friend for any detailed reply now on the matters which I have raised, but I very much hope that my prognostications are correct.

§ Viscount ADDISON
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Strabolgi for what he has said in his concluding remarks. I can assure him that problems such as he has indicated are before us for consideration practically every day, and, for the time being, anyhow, I am quite clear that this system of appointment is the right system. I have noted the question asked by the noble Earl, Lord Perth. He asked me for an assurance. One is a little canny, shall we say, about giving assurances, especially on a topic of this kind. I can say this much, however: that I cannot imagine that this appointment will in any way overlap or interfere with the Foreign Office, where a group of public servants—and the the noble Earl has referred to them—provide Ministers with the most invaluable material, as no doubt they will the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I do not think that I can go any further than that. The noble Earl's own experience as an administrator is such that I know he will not expect me to do so.