HL Deb 12 December 1950 vol 169 cc852-63

2.45 p.m.

Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read,

Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Viscount Hall.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

House in Committee accordingly:

[The EARL OF DROGHEDA in the Chair]

Clause 1 [Reinstatement rights of reserves called up for whole-time service]:

THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (VISCOUNT HALL) moved, after sub-paragraph (c) to insert: (d) in pursuance of any enlistment for a period not exceeding eighteen months with a view to service in Korea.

The noble Viscount said: This Amendment is one of several which together implement an undertaking given in another place. The Amendments give effect to an Opposition Amendment designed to confer reinstatement rights on men who have voluntarily undertaken a period of whole-time service, with a view to service in Korea. There are in all about 1,100 of these men. They may be regarded as having undertaken a "duration of hostilities" engagement, rather than an ordinary engagement for a fixed period, and it is clearly difficult, especially in present circumstances in Korea, to deny them reinstatement rights. This Amendment covers other ranks who accept a War Office Type "K" engagement for eighteen months' service with the Colours, provided that their services are required for so long. These comprise men from civil life possessing the qualifications specified by the War Office for this engagement and National Service men who had not completed their periods of whole-time service. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 2, line 8, at end insert the said sub-paragraph.—(Viscount Hall.)

VISCOUNT BRIDGEMAN

AS the noble Viscount has said, this Amendment fulfils an undertaking given in another place, and we welcome it.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD HADEN-GUEST moved to add to the clause: For the purposes of this Act. no person shall be deemed to have entered upon such service until he has been examined by a medical officer of the branch of the service in which he will serve and been passed medically fit for that service in an appropriate category.

The noble Lord said: The purpose of this Amendment is to improve the present procedure in respect of the medical examination of men called up for service in the Armed Forces, in order to secure that, so far as possible, unfit men are not admitted to the Forces. The actual terms of the Amendment on the Paper do not refer to reinstatement, and it would appear that this omission might prejudice re-instatement. That difficulty can be over-come quite easily, however, by the addition of a few words, to the effect that nothing in the above-mentioned clause shall prejudice a man's right to reinstatement. Something of that nature would have to be inserted, I think. Reinstatement is, of course, the purpose of this Bill, but I venture to think that it is worth while considering how to restrict the number of unfit people who get into the Services. Let me say at once that, in placing this Amendment on the Order Paper I nave no intension of doing any-thing which would detract from my feeling of the greatest admiration of the work done, especially in the last twelve months, by both the Ministry of Labour medical boards and the Service boards, in bringing the whole question of examination to a more perfect condition than it was be-fore. Many noble Lords will already know the book that I have here, the book of the Pulheens; it came out during the war period and led to very great advances being made in the question of medical examination, as a result of which large numbers of unfit people were not admitted to the Services at all.

I wish to lay stress upon what I have just said, that very great improvements have been made in the methods of examination of men called up for service in the last twelve months. and I have no doubt whatsoever that even greater improvements will be made in the future. It is with the object of getting those improvements made that I am raising the matter this afternoon, because I think there is a definite possibility of further improvement. May I be allowed to de-scribe quite shortly the two main medical examinations which a man called up for service undergoes, and why I think they could be improved? The first examination—and I am speaking here of National Service recruits—is that carried out by the Ministry of Labour medical boards when the person reaches the age of recruitment. After this examination, the man returns to his ordinary civilian occupation. If he could remain in that occupation and be examined during the carrying out of that occupation by a Service medical board, there would be no question of this Amendment appearing on the Paper, because it would mean that the man would be examined from both the Ministry of Labour and the Service point of view before he was actually posted, ft is the letter of posting which goes from the Ministry of Labour to the man—which is sometimes sent two months or longer after his initial examination—which chanses him from a civilian into a member of His Majesty's Forces. I know that a certain number of recruits at the present time are discharged from the Service by the Service medical boards immediately they appear before them. The number is decreasing, because of the greater co-operation between the boards of the Ministry of Labour and the Service boards, and be-cause of the increasing scientific exactitude of the methods of examination. But a certain number of cases, notably of men suffering from tuberculosis, get through the net, and they have to have treatment. For instance, a man may spend one week in the Army or any other Service, and may then be diagnosed as suffering from tuberculosis. He has to be kept in hospital and treated for eight months or more, and thus becomes a liability upon the Army, instead of on the National Health Service, as he should have been. That situation occurs also with other things— for instance, a number of psychiatric misfits also get through because they are more difficult to spot.

It is desirable for several reasons to avoid having unfit men in the Services. It is undesirable, first, for the sake of the man himself, because he is unsuited to service life; secondly, for the sake of the Service, which needs fit men and, thirdly, and by no means the least important, for the sake of the adequate and proper functioning of the medical branch of the Services. The medical service has to face not only what I think is rather humorously described as "warfare by means of conventional weapons," but also in the future, if we should get into another war, chemical warfare—gas warfare, biological warfare (including bacteriological warfare) and atomic warfare. Therefore, in any future war the medical branch, which, unfortunately, is understaffed at the present time, must have a tremendous burden placed upon it, not only for the Service it is looking after but also for all the civilian population in the area in which it happens to be stationed. It is for those reasons that I wish to bring forward this Amendment. If it were passed, it would obviate loading the strength of the Service with a number of ineffectives, and loading the medical service with tuberculosis and psychiatric cases with a considerable hospital clientele.

The Minister may say that the plan itself would involve other complications. If that is to be the answer, may I suggest that the question of a closer rapprochement between the Ministry of Labour medical boards and the Service medical boards should be considered? In the last twelve months there has been considerable rapprochement between those boards— unprecedented, as a matter of fact, in the medical organisation—and sergeant testers have carried out tests of mental efficiency on recruits to assist the National Service boards. I believe that something on those lines would take at any rate a good many steps in the direction which I am urging upon your Lordships this afternoon. Organisation on these lines has already resulted in a big decrease in the intake of unfit men into the Service. I think that further organisation on the lines I have suggested would decrease the number of unfit men still further, and I believe that it would be of great advantage to keep as many unfit men out of the Service as possible. It is for that reason that I beg to move this Amendment this afternoon.

Amendment moved— Page 2, line 32 at end insert the said words. —(Lord Haden-Guest.)

VISCOUNT HALL

My Lords, my noble friend has raised a very important point, and one which has given the Ministry of Labour and the Service Ministries a good deal of thought, but it does not quite come under this Bill. I can assure him, however, that every care is being taken with persons who are called up for service at the present time. I myself, with my Service colleagues, will take note of what my noble friend has said and will certainly consult him in relation to this matter, in which he has had a long and valuable experience during the course of the last four or five years. I would ask him to withdraw his Amendment and to take any opportunity which may present itself to introduce legislation to deal with the points which he has put before your Lordships this afternoon.

LORD HADEN-GUEST

My Lords, in response to my noble friend's request, and in view of the assurance which he has given me, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.

3.0 p.m.

Clause 2:

Reinstatement rights of persons voluntarily extending their service under Part I of National Service Act, 1948

2. Where any person whose term of whole-time service under Part I of the National Service Act, 1948, was due to end on or after the fifteenth day of July, nineteen hundred and fifty, and before the first day of October, nineteen hundred and fifty, voluntarily under-took to serve whole-time in or with the regular forces for a further period not exceeding six months immediately after the time when the said term would have ended, his term of whole-time service under Part I of the said Act shall be deemed, for the purposes of Part II thereof, to have been extended so as to comprise that further period of service.

VISCOUNT BRIDGEMAN moved to omit "and before the first day of October, nineteen hundred and fifty." The noble Viscount said: The two Amendments which stand in my name are consequential one upon the other; therefore, with the leave of the House, I will speak about them together. These Amendments deal with the case of the few thousand airmen who, in response to a request by the Air Ministry, extended their period of National Service for one year for service in Korea. At the present time they are excluded from the operation of this Bill, and we drew attention to that matter on Second Reading. Attention was also drawn to it in another place. I am not pretending that this is an easy matter, because if ever there was a borderline case, this is one.

The facts of the matter are these. These men were National Service men; they were called up as National Service men and, therefore, for the purposes of this Act, I think they should be regarded as National Service men. When they completed what was at that time, I believe, their twelve months' service, they were asked whether they would volunteer for another year. I understand they were given very good terms upon which to volunteer for that extra year—terms with which no one could quarrel at all, except for one fact: that no one seems to have told them at that time that if they volunteered for the extra year they would lose their rights of reinstatement under the Act. The Air Ministry have complicated the matter still further by introducing a class of airman who enlists for three years—the same period as will be served by these National Service men —but who will no. nave done any National Service. Therefore, there are the two classes existing side by side, one class doing three years' service, none of which is National Service and with no right to reinstatement, and the other having done two years of National Service extended by one year but with a loss of their right to reinstatement.

One comment I have to make at this stage is that the Air Ministry, when they made what might be called "fancy" terms of service, did not give all the attention they might have given to the effects of those terms of service upon reinstatement. I would venture the suggestion that if this Bill becomes an Act, and if Service Departments ever devise terms of service for the future, they should take great care to see what the terms of reinstatement are under this Act and the original Act. In the meantime, I am inclined to think that the class of person I have mentioned should come within the terms of this Bill, because in my view, they are essentially National Service men. Whether that will raise insuperable difficulties I do not know—perhaps the noble Viscount will tell us in a moment. In any case, whatever happens to this Amendment, this class of airmen obviously deserve well of their country, and it would be most deplorable if they were allowed to fall between two legislative stools. I beg to move.

Amendment moved — Page 2, leave out line 36.—(Viscount Bridgeman.)

VISCOUNT HALL

The noble Lord raised this point on the Second Reading of the Bill, and he has repeated to-day the arguments which he then advanced. The position is very largely that which has been stated by him—other than this. The Royal Air Force has introduced this new scheme of a three-year engagement mainly in order that men, who would be called up for National Service, can come into the Service direct from civil life for three years, during which period they serve their National Service, but their Reserve period is reduced by one year. So it does mean that they give a three-years' full-time service and a two-and-a-half-years' Reserve service, instead of two years' full-time service and three and a half years' Reserve service. That is the position as it applies at the present time.

There are something like 10,000 men serving under this scheme. Of these 10,000 men, 7,500 have accepted service direct from civil life, and large numbers are continuing to do so—indeed, they are coming in at the rate of something like 500 a week. Only 2,500 of the 10,000 men have transferred to the engagement after starting their National Service, and only 500 of those want their National Service to count. It must be remembered that, as the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, rightly said, all men on this engagement receive very good conditions, because they get the full Regular rates of pay, instead of the pay given to National Service men. Therefore, it is clear that, from the day they accept the Royal Air Force engagements, they become essentially Regulars and, as such, are outside the scope of the Bill. If we made the con-cession now asked it would be very difficult to refuse to give reinstatement rights to men who voluntarily enlist for the three-year Regular engagement in the Army, or for certain posts in the Royal Navy. There are some Regular engagements in the Army which are even shorter than the three years, so your Lordships will see how difficult it is to discriminate between the one and the other.

For us to accept this Amendment would be to abandon the principle on which reinstatement has been based. We think it better to stick to the principle upon which we have worked—namely, that when the State compels a man to leave his civilian job and enter the Service, he is entitled to have his job back when his compulsory period of service is finished; but when he volunteers for a Regular engagement, then he has left his civilian job and chosen the Service as a career, whether it be for a short or a long period. It should be remembered that the success of the reinstatement scheme which has been in operation for a very long time has been largely due to the good will of the employers, who have been most helpful in this matter. If we require them to take back men who voluntarily leave their service in favour of the Forces, then we should, I think, lose their good will in this matter. It must also be noted that it would be unfair to those who have to give up their jobs to make way for these men. We think that the result would be that the whole scheme of reinstatement would be jeopardised.

Except for the odd cases, none of these men will come out of the Royal Air Force before March of next year, and the great bulk of them will not come out until about March, 1953. It will be quite possible to identify them readily from their release documents, and steps can then be taken to ascertain how many of them find any difficulty in securing employment with their former employers or, if they prefer it, with other employers. I can give the noble Viscount the assurance that my right honourable friend will be ready to arrange for any of these men who is in any difficulty in securing employment to be given every assistance by the Ministry of Labour and, in particular, that the Ministry will be pre-pared in appropriate cases to make special approaches to their former employers about reinstating them. Should these steps not meet the situation, the Minister would be prepared to consider further whether something more is necessary, and possibly would consider statutory reinstatement rights in this matter. Here I would like the Committee to know that the scheme of reinstatement of Regulars, based upon the experience of last year, indicates that the Ministry of Labour are taking a very active interest in this matter, for, notwithstanding the fact that over 40,000 men were discharged from the Services during the course of last year, only 419-a fraction over 1 per cent.—were registered at the local offices as unemployed. That is an indication of the interest which the Minister of Labour is taking in this matter. I think that the noble Viscount can safely leave this matter where I suggest it should be left, and I trust that he will withdraw his Amendment.

VISCOUNT BRIDGEMAN

I am most grateful to the noble Viscount opposite for what he has said, and particularly for the assurances that he has just given us. We all want this Bill to pass into law, and in the light of his assurances I think that the arguments are far too evenly balanced to make me wish to do otherwise than withdraw my Amendment. Before I do so, there is one last word to be said. I think there are two morals to this story for the Service Departments. One is that it is not desirable to have a large variety of special terms of service, and if they can be avoided so much the better. Secondly, whenever special terms of service are devised which involve conversion from National Service into some form of Regular Service, I do hope it will be clearly explained, in the proper instructions, at what point a man loses his rights under the reinstatement procedure. If that can be done, there will be no doubts and no disappointments. Then, as the noble Viscount has said, we can come back to the reinstatement procedure if any of these 6,000 or 7,000 men turns out to be in difficulties about employment in the future. I shall not be moving the following Amendment, and I beg leave to withdraw this Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 2 agreed to.

Clause 3 [Reinstatement rights of per-sons who accept commissions]:

VISCOUNT HALL moved, after sub-section (1) to insert as a new subsection: () Where any person serving whole-time as a commissioned officer under any such arrangements as aforesaid has undertaken, with a view to service in Korea, to serve whole-time as a commissioned officer for a further period not exceeding twelve months immediately after the time when his service under the said arrangements would have ended, any further period of such service in pursuance of that undertaking shall he deemed, for the purposes of subsection (1) or, as the case may be, subsection (2) of this section, to be comprised in his period of whole-time service under the said arrangements.

The noble Viscount said: This Amendment is complementary to the Amendment to Clause 1, which confers reinstatement rights on other ranks who undertook a period of service with a view to service in Korea. It covers National Service men who have been awarded commissions during their whole-time service and men who, under special arrangements, had accepted commissions for a period equal to the period of whole-time service they would otherwise have been required to perform—especially doctors and dentists who have accepted commissions in the R.A.M.C. and the R.A.D.C—who have undertaken a further period of whole-time service with a view to serving in Korea. The reference in the Amendment to twelve months is explained by the fact that it was a condition of service in Korea that they should have at least a year to serve after disembarkation overseas. In order to satisfy this condition, they were given the opportunity of taking advantage of standing arrangements under which National Service officers can extend their periods of whole-time service for up to twelve months. Emergency commissioned officers who volunteered for a period of service in Korea and were accepted, were put into the Regular Army Reserve of Officers and are already covered by Clause 1 of the Bill, as it now stands. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 3, line 20, at end insert the said new subsection.—(Viscount Hall.)

VISCOUNT BRIDGEMAN

I take it that this Amendment does in fact cover the case of all officers, apart from serving Regulars, who are serving or likely to be affected. If that is so, then we shall be ready to accept this Amendment.

VISCOUNT HALL

Yes, that is so.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Clause 3, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 4 [Special provisions in case of persons serving for two periods]:

VISCOUNT HALL

This Amendment is consequential on the Amendment to Clause 1. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 3, line 45, leave out ("or paragraph (c)") and insert ("paragraph (c) or paragraph (d)"),—(Viscount Hall.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Clause 4, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 5 [Adaptation of various sections of National Service Act, 1948]:

VISCOUNT HALL moved at the commencement of the clause to insert: (1) Section thirty-six of the National Ser-vice Act, 1948 (which relates to the time for making applications for reinstatement) shall have effect, in relation to any period of whole-time service which consists of or ends with a period of whole-time service entered upon in the circumstances mentioned in section one of this Act or such a further period of whole-time service as is mentioned in subsection (3) of section three of this Act, as if for the words 'second Monday' in subsection (2) of the said section thirty-six there were substituted the words 'third Monday'; and section thirty-seven of the said Act (which relates to the duty of an applicant to state availability for employment) shall have effect, in relation to any such period of whole-time service, as if for the words 'fourteen days' wherever they occur there were substituted the words 'twenty-one days'.

The noble Viscount said: This Amendment also implements a promise given in another place to give partial effect to an Opposition Amendment designed to give the men covered by Clause 1 of the Bill rather longer than National Service men within which to apply for reinstatement and notify their availability for work. The extensions of time are from the second to the third Monday after release in which to apply for reinstatement, and twenty-one days instead of fourteen days thereafter within which the applicant may notify when, within this period, he will be available for employment. The extension of time has been given to the officers, by the inclusion of the reference to Section 3 (3), and men who have volunteered for a period of service in Korea as well as to those covered by Clause 1 as it stands at present. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 4, line 26, at beginning insert the said new subsection.—(Viscount Hall.)

VISCOUNT BRIDGEMAN

Once again we are grateful to the noble Viscount for meeting us in this way.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Clause 5, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 6 agreed to.

Clause 7 [Application of Act to persons whose service ended before the commencement thereof]:

VISCOUNT HALL

These two Amendments provide that the retrospective provisions of this clause shall apply to National Service officers who have voluntarily undertaken a period of whole-time service with a view to serving in Korea. If any of these officers should already have returned to civil life, he will be able to exercise his reinstatement rights as from the passing of this Bill. I beg to move.

Amendments moved—

Page 5, line 23, after ("two") insert ("or subsection (3) of section three");

Page 5, line 36, after ("Act") insert ("(other than a period extended by subsection (3) of that section)").—(Viscount Hall.)

On Question, Amendments agreed to.

Clause 7, as amended, agreed to.

Remaining clauses agreed to.

Then, Standing Order No. XXXIX having been suspended (pursuant to the Resolution of December 7), the Amendments reported; Bill read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.