HL Deb 25 January 1949 vol 160 cc172-3

2.37 p.m.

LORD HAWKE

My Lords, I beg to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.

[The Question was as follows:

To ask His Majesty's Government when they propose to publish the full recommendations of the Burrows Committee appointed in May, 1948, to look into the organisation of the National Coal Board.]

LORD CHORLEY

The Committee was appointed by, and reported to, the National Coal Board and the question of publication was, therefore, one for the Board and not for His Majesty's Government. The main recommendations of the Burrows Committee, and the National Coal Board's views on them, were published in a statement issued by the Board on November 22, 1948.

LORD HAWKE

Since the main recommendations of the Burrows Committee have been so excellent as to warrant legislative action, why have His Majesty's Government not called for the publication of all the recommendations?

LORD CHORLEY

The noble Lord is no doubt familiar with the paper in which the statement by the National Coal Board on the Report of the Burrows Committee was issued. He will there see that a good deal of information put before the Committee was communicated to them on a confidential basis, and the reasons why that sort of information could not be set out were expressed in the introductory pages to the Report. I am quite sure that your Lordships will think that this is a very proper attitude.

LORD HAWKE

We have had the main recommendations. I am not asking for the publication of the evidence, but may we not have the rest of the recommendations?

LORD CHORLEY

I have pointed out to the noble Lord that this is a Report prepared for the National Coal Board. I have no doubt that those who are responsible will take into account what the noble Lord has suggested.

LORD LLEWELLIN

Does it not come to this: If the Report is published at all, why should we not have the whole Report? If we do not have the full Report, but only those parts of it which may appear to the National Coal Board to be a prop rather than a prod, then it is not much use relying on it.

LORD CHORLEY

I think the noble Lord will realise that a Committee of this kind must collect a great deal of material of a confidential nature and that, after all, they are responsible people who can judge as to what can be published without giving rise to a breach of confidence.

THE EARL OF SELKIRK

How can the recommendations be of a confidential nature? And if they affect the National Coal Board, surely they are a matter of public concern.