DEPARTMENT OF TECHNICAL CO-OPERATION BILL

HL Deb 01 June 1961 vol 231 cc877-924

3.18 p.m.

Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.

THE PAYMASTER GENERAL (LORD MILLS)

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill to establish a Department of Technical Co-operation be read a second time. The decision to establish a separate Department dealing with these matters was announced by the Prime Minister in another place on March 21 last. The Bill is a very simple one. It creates the Department, provides for the Minister to be in charge of it, and gives him authority to appoint his staff. I cannot give your Lordships a definite date on which the Department will come into being, should your Lordships approve this Bill, but it is certainly intended that a start should be made as soon as possible. And a great deal of preparatory work is being done behind the scenes to ensure that, if and when this Bill finds its way to the Statute Book, there will be no undue delay in the new. Department entering upon its functions.

The major purpose of this new Department is to achieve an improvement in our Governmental machinery for dealing with requests for technical assistance. At the present time, these requests are dealt with by one or other of the three Overseas Departments, according to whether they come from a foreign country, from one of the independent countries of the Commonwealth, or from one of our dependent territories. All such requests will in future be handled by the new Department, irrespective of where they come from. But to say that this is just an organisational change is not to decry it. Technical assistance will be provided in the United Kingdom more readily and more effectively, and this is a real advance in what we can do for the less developed areas of the world.

There is no intention that this change should of itself, at least initially, create a need for more staff or lead to greater expenditure. In the first year, at least, the expenditure of the now Department will be largely balanced by an equivalent reduction in the expenditure of the three Overseas Departments. But the hope is that we shall be able to provide better value for money and a better service of assistance for those who seek it from us. The term "technical assistance" has connotations of a semi-scientific or engineering kind, at least to the layman, which are in some ways misleading, though not, of course, to those of your Lordships who have taken an interest in these matters. The new Department will provide assistance, the provision of experts, equipment and training facilities not only in strictly technical subjects but in such matters as administration. Indeed, as the Financial Secretary to the Treasury said in another place, the types of experts recruited last year for service in the dependent countries range alphabetically from "administrators, architects, auditors" to "veterinary".

The Minister in charge of the new Department will work within the broad lines of overseas policy as determined by the Foreign Secretary, the Commonwealth Secretary and the Colonial Secretary but this does not mean that he will be simply an executant of policy. It will always be open to him to initiate consideration of policy in the field of technical assistance. There has, in fact, been criticism that the ministerial chief of the new Department will not hold Cabinet rank, and certainly it is true that a situation could not arise in which the new Department had one policy and an existing Overseas Department had another. But the new Minister would, of course, have access to the Prime Minister, and it can be taken as evident that this will ensure that the point of view of the new Minister is given due weight in Ministerial discussions.

I have explained that the purpose of the new Department is to fill a gap which was seen to exist in our governmental machine for the ready and effective consideration of claims for help in the technical assistance field. This may lead your Lordships to wonder why the Government have limited their organisational changes to deal with technical assistance only and not to cover requests for the provision of help by way of capital. I should like to emphasise that the new Department will not provide capital aid: the responsibility for this will remain with the overseas Departments. In practice, decisions about capital aid turn on a number of political considerations and on the capacity of the United Kingdom to find the resources. Co-ordination of claims will be dealt with, as now, in the normal processes of interdepartmental discussions. The loan or grant is moreover made to the overseas Government, and such proposals do not usually involve the United Kingdom Government in any close technical examination of the project or plan for which the money is to be spent. I beg to move.

Moved, That the Bill be now read 2^a.—(The Lord Chancellor.)

3.25 p.m.

THE EARL OF LISTOWEL

My Lords, we are all grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Mills, for the clear statement of the Government's intention in setting up this new Department. Glancing at the list of speakers I feel that we shall have an interesting and useful debate. I see that the noble Lords, Lord Casey and Lord Twining, are to speak, and I know that, with their lengthy experience of the Commonwealth, they will be able to give the House, with great authority, the views of the recipients of technical aid. I also notice that the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, is among the speakers this afternoon. He, too, I know, has experience of the administrative system of the Commonwealth, and will no doubt tell us what he thinks of the prospects of the administrative efficiency of the Government's proposals. Let me say at once that we hope that the Department will be set up as soon as possible, and we on this side of the House desire to expedite this matter to the best of our ability. We shall therefore not put down Amendments—at least, so far as I am aware, after discussions, we shall not put down Amendments at later stages—and therefore we hope to bring forward the date on which the new Department will be set up.

As for the Bill itself and the setting up of the new Department, we welcome this because it is intended, and I am sure genuinely and sincerely intended by the Government, as a step forward in the direction we all want to go, towards much more economic aid to the poor and under-developed countries from their more industrially developed and wealthy neighbours. We all hope that what the Government intend will in fact be achieved; but how big a step forward in this direction this Bill represents, even if it succeeds, as we all hope it will, is a matter to which I should like to come in a moment.

There is another reason why this new Department is a good thing. It is the first time one Department has been given power to deal with the economic requirements of the whole Commonwealth, of the Colonies as well as the independent Commonwealth countries which have, of course, hitherto been dealt with separately by the Colonial Office and the Commonwealth Relations Office. It is true that the new Department would deal only with the requirements in relation to technical advice and personnel, and not with their economic requirements, such as capital investment and markets for their produce. But we are at least regarding the Commonwealth as a whole, as an economic entity, and this will make it easier when the time comes—and I think most of us will agree that the time has not come yet—to regard the Commonwealth as a political whole, and to have one Department to deal with our political relations with all our fellow members.

The Bill encourages us to look forward to the time when the Colonial Office will be merged with the Commonwealth Relations Office in the way the India Office was merged with the Commonwealth Relations Office when India became independent and the Dominions Office was transformed into the Commonwealth Relations Office. In time past and, indeed, at the present moment, we have given and give much more technical aid to the Colonies than to the independent Commonwealth countries. But it is generally recognised that the needs of the new Commonwealth countries in Asia and Africa are no less urgent than those of our remaining dependencies. Indeed, some of these countries, like Sierra Leone and Nigeria were Colonial countries up to a very short time ago. It is certainly a good thing that the Bill recognises the fact that political independence does not lessen economic need or our responsibility for meeting that need, and that it will help to redress the balance in the dispensing of economic aid between our Colonies and the self-governing members of the Commonwealth.

One example of this, I imagine, will be that the Advisory Service of the Colonial Office will now become available to such independent Commonwealth countries as Sierra Leone and Ceylon, if the Governments of those countries want advice about any of the subjects within their competence. Your Lordships will note in Annex 3 of Command 1308 that there are no fewer than 23 advisers, in alphabetical order from "agriculture" and "animal health" to "television" and "tropical soils", so that independent Commonwealth countries will be given a wide range on which to draw when they want technical advice, which up to now they would not have been able to receive from the expert advisers of the Colonial Office. That will certainly he one advantage accruing from this much more efficient system of co-ordination.

Another should be—though here I am bound to express a doubt—the working out of an equitable system of priorities based on the need of the recipients and not on political "pull" or political influence. The reason why I express a doubt is that the status of the new Minister will not make it easy for him to work out such a system of priorities and to see that this system is, in fact, adopted. I cannot help thinking that the Government has made a mistake in obliging this new Minister to take orders from three other Ministers, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations and the Foreign Secretary, instead of giving him the same status as that enjoyed by any other Minister in charge of a Government Department.

What happens, for example, if the Foreign Office thinks Latin America is more important: than Africa, or if the Colonial Office thinks Mauritius needs agricultural advisers more urgently than Pakistan does? How are these differences of opinion to be resolved? Unless these conflicting claims can be adjusted at the official level, they will have to be settled by Ministers—that is to say, by a Cabinet committee or, in the last resort, by the Cabinet itself.

The new Minister, the Secretary for Technical Co-operation, as he will be called, will not, so far as I can see, be able to argue his case before the Cabinet. I followed very carefully what the noble Lord, Lord Mills said: that the new Minister would have access to the Prime Minister. That, of course, is the night of every Minister, and it may be very helpful to the new Secretary for Technical Co-operation. But every other Minister in charge of a Government Department, even if he is not a member of the Cabinet, if he is a Minister of Cabinet rank, as the new Minister will be, has the opportunity to state his case and to present his own arguments, if he differs from another Government Department, before his colleagues in the Cabinet. I cannot help thinking that this is one of the essential weaknesses in this proposal. If this new Minister had the same status as any other Minister in charge of a Government Department, there would be this opportunity of putting his case whenever his judgment was questioned by other Ministers. I think there is a real danger of his judgment being questioned in matters of priority where our technical resources are limited and where demand will greatly exceed our potentialities of meeting it.

The fact that his senior civil servant will be only a Director-General and not a Permanent Secretary will not make it easier for him to settle differences with other Departments at the official level. Of course, Directors-General are not unknown in the Government service. I remember that at the Post Office we had a Director-General, but if my recollection is right, he was always on the same level as Permanent Secretaries in other Government Departments, so that when there were differences between officials he was arguing from the same level and with the same authority. I do not at all like the idea that the senior civil servant of this new Department will be a Deputy and not a Permanent Secretary.

I hope that nothing that I have said will be taken as a criticism of the new Minister or of his senior official. But I feel that it is a very great pity that economic aid, which, after all, is a matter of supreme importance to the Commonwealth and to two-thirds of the world's population, should be given a lower place in the Government hierarchy than, for example, transport or fuel and power. To support what I have said about my criticisms having no relation to personalities, may I say that I very much welcome the report which I read in the Press (which, of course, has not at the moment official authority) that Sir Edward Boyle is likely to be the new Minister. If this is so, I am quite certain that the Government could make no better choice, and no choice would receive more general approval in all Parties. I also hear from the same, perhaps somewhat unreliable, source that Sir Andrew Cohen is likely to be his first Director-General. I had the very great privilege of working with Sir Andrew Cohen when I was Minister at the Colonial Office and he was head of the African Department, and I can say from personal experience, as your Lordships well know, that there is no more able or brilliant administrator in Whitehall than Sir Andrew Cohen. I am quite certain he and Sir Edward Boyle would be a formidable combination in any Government Department; and perhaps indeed, their exceptional ability will ultimately secure for them the status which they certainly deserve.

The other weakness of this Department is surely that its scope is limited to technical aid and does not include financial aid. How can those two things in practice be separated? How can money and men be dealt with separately? It is obvious that any large development project depends on technicians, most of whom in existing circumstances, must be expatriates, as well as on loans or grants to finance them. I cannot think at the moment of any other donor country which divorces technical aid from capital aid in this way. These two aspects of economic aid have, I think very rightly indeed, always been held together by the Colonial Office. When grants have been made by the Colonial Office from Development and Welfare Funds for the building of a reservoir or an agricultural station or whatever it may be, the technical advisers to the Colonial Secretary have been available to help forward the development schemes financed by these grants. It seems to me a very sensible way of working. If I am wrong the noble Earl, Lord Perth, will, I am sure, correct me. I am sorry he is not speaking himself, but the noble Lord, Lord Mills, will wind up at the end of the debate. If I remember rightly, that is the way things were done at the Colonial Office and probably the way they are still done.

It seems unfortunate that the new Department is not a Department of economic aid instead of a Department of technical co-operation, with responsibility for our whole national effort, financial and technical, in the field of aid for under-developed countries. In this event it would have been able to take over responsibility for the expenditure of public funds for development and welfare in the Colonies, and also Government relations with the Colonial Development Corporation. This latter step, I think, would be extremely desirable, because it would enable the Corporation to become a much more useful agency by operating throughout the Commonwealth, and it would then be a Commonwealth Development Corporation and not just a Colonial Development Corporation, a suggestion that has been made from many quarters of this House for some time past. I feel that the Government to-day has missed an opportunity.

I think the new Department will not be judged simply by its success in getting the right men to the right places overseas, although, as the noble Lord, Lord Mills, said, that is its first object. That is certainly important, but it is not—I have heard contrary views—absolutely certain that it could not have been done by means more economic than setting up a new Government Department. While the creation of a new Department could be justified solely by the higher degree of co-operation resulting in the better placing of technical personnel, to my mind, in the long run, from the point of view of the public and Parliament, its essential job will be to secure the services of a much larger number of skilled technicians for posts in under-developed countries. I know it is the intention of the Government that a larger number of men should be made available for these posts.

I am sure that what we must do is to expand the volume of technical aid at present provided by this country, and this is probably the contribution to economic aid which we are most fitted to make from our own resources. It will certainly be hard for us to increase substantially our capital investments overseas from public funds while our balance of payment situation remains precarious. I am not at all sure that the financial pundits may not be able to find a way round this difficulty in the end, but it is certainly not likely to happen overnight. In the meantime, we should train more men for service overseas and, above all I think, obtain the co-operation of the professional organisations in this country in encouraging their own members to accept contracts for limited periods in Commonwealth or foreign countries.

However much use we make of the Oversea Service—and I hope we shall make the greatest possible use of this magnificent Service, and place as many of its men as possible in technical posts when they cease to be employed in the countries where they are at present rendering service—I do not believe that there is any other way than making use of the professions for obtaining a really worthwhile expansion in the number of experts available for keeping services going in any development projects in these backward areas. There the essential thing is to get the goodwill of the bodies and their guarantee to their own members that they will lose nothing in respect of their professional careers—indeed, that they will gain, as I am sure they will, by a period of service overseas. My Lords, I am sorry to have had to express these doubts and criticisms. I hope that they will not be justified by events. We certainly welcome this Bill as a step forward, even if it is rather a timid one, in the direction in which we all want to go.

3.44 p.m.

LORD OGMORE

My Lords, I think that the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, has made a most powerful speech and has analysed the background of the Bill and put up some of the points upon which many people have had some doubt. But, on the whole, I believe that we in this House should be prepared to give a welcome to this Bill. In my view it is a step forward. Whereas previously there were three Departments who were concerned in the same field, to-day at least there will be one organ of government which will have sole responsibility for a great part of the work in these various territories other than the financial work. That must be a step forward.

Only a month ago I had the honour of being in Freetown at the independence celebrations in Sierra Leone. At the main ceremony, when His Royal Highness the Duke of Kent presented the constitutional instruments to the Prime Minister, Sir Milton Margai, in replying the Prime Minister said, though not in exactly these words: "We have to-day obtained political independence, but that does not mean that we have economic freedom. We shall need a great deal of help". He then said: "I hope we shall receive this from Britain as well as from elsewhere". If they do not receive it from Britain they will receive it from elsewhere—let there be no doubt about that.

The fact is that we are at this moment coming into a completely different field of activity than was the case in the past. In the old days, the types of country which became independent—Canada, Australia and so on—were countries with great natural resources and any number of educated people who could handle their affairs. But that is not the case with many of the new countries which are becoming independent. As the Prime Minister of Sierra Leone said, they need great help. They need financial help, economic help, technical help; and this Bill will give them, or enable us to give them, the technical help which in many cases they could not get before. That must be a step forward.

I imagine that this is in fact a compromise. Your Lordships will remember that a year or so ago we had a full-dress debate in this House on the question of whether there should be a union between the Commonwealth Relations Office and the Colonial Office. That question has never yet been resolved. There are many powerful arguments for and many against, but the Government have obviously decided that this is the compromise in this particular field. Your Lordships will all know of the great argument for the union of these two Departments, of the need for one organ of technical assistance.

I, with the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, am particularly pleased that the new Director-General, so we are told, is to be Sir Andrew Cohen. He is a live wire, if ever there is one, among civil servants, and I am sure that the new Department will get off to a good start so far as he is concerned. Whether his stay in New York, in the United Nations, has taken some of the steam out of him, I do not know. I hope not.

The Minister will be a most important person because, as the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, said, this is going to be, or may be, something of a Cinderella Department. It will have to deal with three powerful Departments—in fact with four powerful Departments. There was one which the noble Earl did not mention, the most powerful of all: it has to deal with the Treasury, and we all know what that means. It has to deal with the Foreign Office, which is a law unto itself; it has to deal with the Commonwealth Relations Office, a very much expanding Department, and it has to deal with the Colonial Office, with its past traditions and experience. Here is this Minister, comparatively junior in rank compared to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Foreign Secretary, the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations and the Colonial Secretary. They are all men of personality and power, quite apart from their offices. This man, who you may say is a second ranking or perhaps even a third-ranking Minister, has to deal with these Whitehall pundits. I hope that the other Departments—particularly the Treasury—will play the game by him and not regard this Department as a sort of dustbin into which they can throw off unwanted activities, and, secondly, that the Minister will himself he a man of personality, energy and initiative. It is most important that the first Minister should be a good man.

The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, has said that the new Minister is going to be Sir Edward Boyle. The latest rumour going round the corridors of the Palace at 1 p.m. to-day was that Sir Edward Boyle is not going to be the man. I agree with Lord Listowel that he would be a good Minister. He has been a Treasury Minister and he knows their little ways. But whoever it is. I beg the Government to have regard to the sort of consideration that both the noble Earl and I have raised concerning this point.

Of course, the effect of removing a large number of technical people from the Colonial Office must have great repercussions on the Colonial Office, where there are at present three Ministers. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Mills, will not be prepared to say to-day what these repercussions may be, but obviously they will be great. It is going to affect the Colonial Office very materially to have all this work taken from them. The Colonial Office in the world to-day is the sort of office which gets far more kicks than ha'pence. I should like to pay a tribute, unpopular and unorthodox though it may be, to the Colonial Office and to the Ministers there, to the colonial civil servants and the staff in the Colonial Office. Under very great difficulties through these years they have performed a great task nobly, in my opinion; and when the history of this period is written, if it ever is, with any sort of impartiality I am sure that they will receive their just reward. They are not likely, apart from Heaven, to receive it anywhere else. They certainly will not receive it at the United Nations at New York, from my experience of the United Nations.

I do not think that we in this country have any reason to be bashful about the assistance we have given since the war, particularly compared to other people. Let us take, for example, the figures of external investment in the sterling Commonwealth in the post-war years. Seventy per cent. has come from the United Kingdom, as compared with 15 per cent. from the United States and 10 per cent. from the World Bank. There is nothing much wrong with that. Of course, we have given a great deal of assistance to other countries as well, to foreign countries and to the World Bank, at a time when our own resources have often been highly strained. At the N.A.T.O. Parliamentary Conference last year we were given the figures of the contributions made by the various N.A.T.O. countries, and Britain was very well up the list. Eighty per cent. of the West German contribution to so-called under-developed countries was in the form of export credits. That is, of course, a contribution to their own economy; it is very little contribution—though I suppose it is some—to others. But it is mainly a contribution to their own exports.

Switzerland is another wealthy country. Owing to the fact that until recently they had no tradition of giving aid of any kind, there has hardly been any assistance whatever, in a technical or any other form, from them to underdeveloped countries. But it so happens that the present President of Switzerland was previously the Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organisation; and for the first time, I am glad to say, assisted by the Swiss Ambassador here, who is a very enlightened man, Switzerland is materially extending her contribution in the technical field.

I should like to ask the Minister a few questions. I regret that I have not given him notice, owing to the fact that we have been on holiday, and if he cannot answer I shall understand. First of all, will all the territories in the Cornmonwealth, whether they were originally Colonies or not, be eligible for assistance? Will Pakistan and India, for example, be eligible? Ceylon, of course, will be. Will countries like Iraq be eligible? Secondly, will the Oversea Service come within the scope of this Ministry? The Oversea Service, according to the Government's own White Paper, Cmnd. 1308, has 14,000 pensionable officers and 6,500 overseas officers on contract terms. That is a total of 20,500 officers, which is a pretty big force. Will that force, as it were, come within the scope of the control of this Ministry? That, of course, would increase its power considerably.

On the main question, I should just like to say this. The needs of these territories, we all know, are very great; but I feel that in all cases they must play the game. It happens continually, unfortunately, in certain territories that the expatriate officer or technical assistant is made the scapegoat and whipping boy if something goes wrong. Many of them have said to me over the years that they resent very much the sort of criticism that is made of them in the local Press; and even if there is no blame the local politicians do not explain the facts to the public. I think there are two ways here. If we help these territories, as we are doing very considerably, in technical and economic matters, we are entitled to ensure that our own officers get fair play and a fair deal in the localities to which they are posted.

The second point that I should like to make is this. All these plans and all this assistance have reactions here. We can send out, we will say, to develop a Jaw school or engineering school or what-you-will in these various territories. But when the students reach a certain stage they have to came here for further education. What arrangements are we in this country making to ensure that when they come here they are properly looked after and properly treated? I believe that this is the Achilles heel, and always has been, of the help. When young men and women come over here we make few or no preparations for them; we do not look after them in the way they should be looked after; and other people, very undesirable people, get hold of them. People from what we would regard as being undesirable quarters even meet them at the ports when the ships come in. The first welcome the students get is very often a Communist welcome. The reason has been that the Overseas Departments deal with the overseas territories and the Home Departments deal with the home territories. The Home Departments regard themselves as having no responsibility for people who come from overseas, and the Overseas Departments regard themselves as having no, or little, responsibility for these people when they have arrived here. Much of the excellent work that will be done under this scheme which is proposed in the Bill will, in my view, be lost unless we in this country take the necessary steps to ensure that the people who come over here are looked after.

I will give your Lordships one simple example which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, and I myself have raised time after time: the training of law students. That is admitted by the Denning Committee to be most inadequate. The accommodation for them in Inns of Court is most inadequate; the lecture room accommodation is almost non-existent, or is very poor. We have been long enough teaching lawyers, and I should have thought that we could do something about the position in that sphere. Nothing has been done up to the present, in spite of the interest of the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack. That is one simple illustration of the sort of impact in this country our activities abroad have.

There is one final word that I should like to say. The work in this Bill is not in itself enough. It is a great contribution, but it is not enough. I have always felt that, in order to develop the sort of territories we are dealing with, there must be a wholesale contribution from all elements in our national life. In Sierra Leone, for example, one of the most impressive ceremonies was the ceremony when the Doctorates of Law and other degrees were given at Fourah Bay College. The Fourah Bay College has been looked after, nursed and developed very largely by Durham University throughout the years: the link between these two institutions is very powerful indeed and is much appreciated by the graduates of the Fourah Bay College, who, I may say, receive Durham University degrees.

If only we could get in every other walk of life that sort of spirit that is so strongly emphasised between Durham and Fourah Bay what a great thing it would be! If we could get the professional bodies in this country and the trade unions and the great industries and commercial houses, as it were, to extend their interests and develop their opposite numbers in these various territories, then I believe we should not only be doing our duty but also be making a tremendous contribution to resolving the struggle taking place in the world to-day. And nowhere is that more true than in Africa—because it is in Africa that, to a large extent, the future battle between Communism and the way of life in which we all believe will eventually be decided.

4.1 p.m.

LORD CASEY

My Lords, I support this Bill for the improvement of the means of canalising technical assistance to the under-developed countries. My reason for taking up a little of your Lordships' time on this subject is that for a number of years I have been politically responsible in my own country, Australia, for external affairs, which includes the Colombo Plan and the dispensation of such aid as our economy in Australia can afford towards the free countries of South and South-East Asia.

Aid administration of this sort has grown up in an ad hoc fashion—one might almost say in a haphazard fashion—in the relatively short period that it has been in existence. As the noble Lord, Lord Mills, told us in introducing the Second Reading of this Bill, it is now the responsibility of what one might call the three major overseas Departments—the Foreign Office, the Commonwealth Relations Office and the Colonial Office—with, of course, the watchful eye of the Treasury in respect of finance, and also the interest of a number of specialised Departments. This Bill seeks to pull together at any rate the greater part of this gargantuan authority into this single authority, under one single new Department, under a single Minister and with a single Departmental head. This must result, I believe, in greater efficiency, greater speed of administration and greater economy.

I assume that the decision of Her Majesty's Government to create a new Department of this sort is an indication of their belief that international aid of this sort has come to stay. International aid of this sort is a new departure, as I think we all know. It is only ten or fifteen years old, because it was really only after the war that the conscience of the world was stirred in respect of the need for economic and technical aid to the under-developed countries. Before the war it did not exist, except, of course, from a mother country, such as the United Kingdom, towards its own colonial and dependent territories. But the giving of aid from one independent country to other independent countries was, I believe, quite unknown until after the war.

I start from the premise that I am sure most noble Lords do: that in modern times there is an obligation on the developed countries to come to the aid of the under-developed countries. I think one should define those two words, "developed" and "under-developed" because they are not terms of art. There is a wide difference among the developed countries as to their degree of development. There is also a wide difference in the spectrum of the so-called under-developed countries as to their degree of under-development. But I think the two terms are useful shorthand terms which will not be misunderstood. There has been a tendency in modern times for all of the what one might call donor countries to concentrate their aid-giving machinery into one department or agency. The United States has for some time dispensed its aid through one major authority, one major organisation; and I have noticed lately, in I think the most recent Address of President Kennedy to the American Senate, that there was forecast a still greater concentration of the aid-giving instrumentalities by the amalgamation of I.C.A. and the American Development Loan Fund into one new agency, to be called the Agency for International Development. That is to be in the State Department, and responsible both to the Secretary of State, Mr. Dean Rusk, and also more directly to President Kennedy himself.

In making this announcement to the American Congress, President Kennedy spoke, I think, of two important considerations. He stressed the connection between trade and aid and said that it would be necessary under this new, combined organisation to have a close liasion between the departmental authorities in the United States responsible for trade and this new agency responsible for aid. Furthermore—and I think this was equally important, if not possibly more important—he mentioned a fact that has been for some time in the minds of a number of us concerned with these matters: the fact that in order to get continuity in the recipient countries and to give them opportunity for more long-range planning, favourable consideration should be given to aid commitments by the United States for a longer (and I think he inferred a considerably longer) period than one year. With respect, I would suggest that those two matters might be taken into consideration by Her Majesty's Government after this new Department is formed.

Now Canada has recently done the same thing. They have announced the concentration of all their aid-giving agencies, which in the past were appreciably more than one or two, into one agency that will take care of all economic and capital aid and also technical aid and training in all its forms. In Australia and New Zealand, all aid for the under-developed countries, through the Colombo Plan and otherwise, is dispensed through one single agency—I think in each case the Department of External Affairs.

As I am sure noble Lords are aware, there are two types of aid. First, there is bilateral aid, given by, say, the United Kingdom to, say, India or Pakistan; bilateral aid given direct from a so-called donor country to a so-called recipient country, such as under the Colombo Plan and, I think, other plans of that sort. Secondly, there is another form of aid given through United Nations agencies—several of them. That is given in the form of money, which is dispensed by the particular United Nations instrument. Now I notice, or I seem to notice, a certain anomaly in this Bill, in that the task of this new Department is to be the dispensing and the administration of technical assistance, but also, as I understand it, it is going to be responsible for the dispensing of aid through United Nations auspices. In other words, it will be dispensing economic aid through the United Nations, and yet it is estopped from dispensing economic, capital aid directly on a bilateral basis to other countries.

There is, I think, a certain anomaly in that, and, with respect to the noble Lord, Lord Mills, who I think anticipated this question, I was not, if I may say so, completely convinced by his explanation. What the noble Lord said was that political considerations were involved in economic and capital aid that, by inference, were not involved in respect of technical assistance. With respect, I am not quite convinced by that, because I think there are political considerations in almost everything that a Government does. The United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand found no difficulty in allowing one single agency to dispense both economic, capital and technical aid. Perhaps the noble Lord might find himself able to expand a little on his explanation of the reasons that have moved Her Majesty's Government to exclude economic and capital aid from the ambit of those who are going to run this new Department.

I notice in the record of the debate on this Bill in another place, and also in your Lordships' House today, a certain disappointment at the ambit of the Bill, and that no new approach to the business of administering and canalising aid to other countries overseas had been envisaged. For myself, I do not believe that an optimum means has yet been evolved by any country for the dispensing of economic and technical aid. To the extent that I do not believe that an optimum means has yet been evolved, I echo the disappointment which was voiced in another place. I think a number of people would have welcomed a wholehearted review of the machinery and techniques of giving aid to other countries. If one is right in believing that Sir Edward Boyle is going to be the Minister of the new Department, and that Sir Andrew Cohen will be its Departmental head, these gentlemen can be relied upon to bring their acknowledged capacity to bear upon the problems. These two distinguished men—if they are to be these two men—will carry great public confidence, and I hope one can assume that they will give thought to evolving the optimum means of aid-giving.

My Lords, may I give a few instances of things to which I believe consideration might be given? It is the practice now to invite large numbers of students to come from Asian and African countries for training to the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. In the case of some proportion of them, I believe that in the course of the several years they are in the host country they tend to grow away from conditions of life in their own countries. I am not at all sure that the present system is the best way to handle this matter. I agree that it is essential that there should be some post-graduate training of Asian and African students in this and other developed countries, but whether it is right in respect of large numbers of people of undergraduate status coming from the Asian and African countries to the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and so on, for training, I am in a little doubt. I believe that the Government should consider the possibility of establishing additional educational institutions in the Asian or African country concerned—and, of course, with the agreement and co-operation of these countries—with teachers, professors and lecturers from this country and other Commonwealth countries.

On this question of Asian and African students and their training, it is a case (if I may use the term) of whether it is better to bring the bees to the hive, or the hive to the bees. This country is bringing large numbers of Asian and African students to our shores for training—which is bringing the bees to the hive. The question of establishing additional educational facilities in other under-developed countries is a case of taking the hive to the bees.

Another point to which I think consideration should be given is the possibility of the stabilisation of prices of exports which are important to some of the Asian countries. This has been discussed on a number of occasions. It has been raised at several international conferences, such as those under the Colombo Plan, E.C.A.F.E., and the like. The subject gets no support from the representatives of the United Kingdom or the United States. Every time I bring it up you can almost hear a pin drop, and the subject is dropped like a hot brick. However, it is constantly in the minds of those in the Asian countries. It has been said that a 5 to 10 per cent. drop in export commodity prices from Asian countries wipes out completely all the international aid which those countries have had during the period of that drop in prices. I realise some of the difficulties of price stabilisation schemes, but I still think some scheme, perhaps a half-way scheme, would not be entirely impossible to adumbrate and put into operation. I commend that, among several other suggestions, to the noble Lord in charge of this Bill, for transmission, if he would be so good, to those who are responsible for this measure.

My Lords, if I may speak briefly about the volume of aid, I realise that there is technical assistance offered within the ambit of this Bill; but I believe that economic aid to under-developed countries, as I think has been said before, will be one of the great economic and political problems of the 1960s. One has only to look at the Indian Third Year Plan to realise the gap which exists at present between the overseas funds available to the Government of India, and the volume of aid which will be necessary to make the Indian Third Year Plan even reasonably successful. As we know, India is making a Himalayan effort to improve her economy and turn it into a self-generating economy, if not in the period of this Third Year Plan, at least as soon as possible thereafter. For myself, I believe that the importance of India in the Commonwealth, and in the world, is all too easily overlooked. In my view, the thoughts of all of us, in all parts of the Commonwealth and outside it, should be directed towards means of helping India to overcome her economic and social problems, which loom up enormously big in front of her in the years which lie immediately ahead.

All countries of the world, in respect of this problem of overseas aid, are obsessed with the competition which exists between their domestic obligations and their international obligations; and in this competition, I think in all countries, between domestic and international obligations, the domestic obligations always win. I believe that this problem needs a great deal more thought, not only in this country but in all the democratic countries of the world. I believe that the 1960s will underline and demonstrate the tremendous need for a great deal more economic and technical aid by the developed countries to the under-developed. Whether it should be given in the form of gifts or loans, or otherwise, is arguable; but that again is outside the scope of this Bill, which excludes the economic and capital side.

I should like, very briefly, to take this opportunity of bringing to your Lordships' notice a proposal of the United Nations for the holding of a large conference in 1962 to discuss the impact of science and technology on the underdeveloped countries of the world. I bring this up, possibly selfishly, because I was responsible for introducing in the United Nations two and a half years ago a motion which drew attention to this subject. To my great surprise and relief, that motion was unanimously passed— which, as your Lordships know, is a rare occurrence in the United Nations! In the intervening two and a half years the matter has been taken seriously. It has been made the subject of a very high level of U.N.E.S.C.O. discussion, resulting in a report by that distinguished French scientist, Professor Auger. Stemming from that, again, is this large international conference being called next year, 1962, to consider the impact and the application of existing scientific, and particularly technological knowledge in aid of the under-developed countries. I must admit to a little sinful pride in the fact that the initiative I was able to make on behalf of the Australian Government is beginning to show what might be called useful fruit.

Although I support this Bill as a first-class measure for co-ordinating the machinery for administering aid overseas, I believe that the Minister in charge of it, who I understand is to be Sir Edward Boyle, will start at least with one hand tied behind his back. Whether he will be able to get that hand free in the course of the struggle remains to be seen. Maybe this is captious criticism, because when this Bill becomes an Act it must inevitably be a considerable number of months before the new Department can get on its feet. But if it is true that Sir Edward Boyle is to be the Minister, and Sir Andrew Cohen the departmental head, then I think we may feel that in these two men we have a first-class team, who can be expected to investigate not only the few matters that I have ventured to mention this afternoon but also a great many others which involve the policies and practices of administering overseas aid. My Lords, what I have said, and what other noble Lords will venture to say, to-day may be rushing the jumps a little: after all, this measure is only the simple machinery to create a new Department. What that Department does, when it is created and gets into its stride, is another matter.

I noticed, when the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, spoke, that they seemed to be in some doubt about the range of countries to be the beneficiaries of the work of this new Department. As I understand it (and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Mills, will correct me if I am wrong), this Bill will create a Department designed to administer external aid to all the under-developed countries of the Commonwealth, self-governing and otherwise, and also to a further range of countries that come within the ambit of the Colombo Plan, and possibly also of C.E.N.T.O. As I have said, I support the Bill. I do not believe that it is a Bill which can with advantage be amended in your Lordships' House. I believe that we have to accept it as it emerged from the House of Commons. It is a good beginning, but no Bill that translates itself into an Act is sacrosanct. With the experience of the Minister and his Department in the next few years ahead, I hope that means will be found for improving the machinery of administering aid, as apart from the business of setting up the new Department to administer it.

4.24 p.m.

LORD BRIDGES

My Lords, given my background, the setting up of a new Government Department obviously has interest for me. But the few remarks that I want to make to your Lordships this afternoon spring from my experience as Chairman of the British Council. The British Council recognise that at the present time the responsibility for technical aid is much too widely diffused, and we greatly welcome the concentration of effort which will result from the setting up of the new Department, which we wish every success.

The British Council have, of course, a special interest in the new Department, for the work of the Council to-day is mainly of an educational character and is primarily directed to the less developed parts of the world. This follows the reorientation of the work of the Council which followed the Drogheda Report. This strong educational bias in the Council's work gives it a common interest in some aspects of the work of the new Department. For as I see it, sooner or later those responsible for technical aid have to make sure that the country to which the aid is being given has sufficient people of the night training and educational standards to carry out efficiently the projects for which the aid is given. Clearly, therefore, there are important points of contact between the work of the new Department and the work of the British Council.

Then there is the question of staffs stationed overseas. To-day the British Council have staffs stationed in 75 countries overseas, and the greater part of the work of these officers is directed to educational ends. It would be a mistake to think of this educational work solely in terms of the teaching of English overseas. Important as this is, the work of the Council covers a much wider field of education in foreign countries and in independent countries within the Commonwealth. I do not know what the new Department has in mind about the appointing of staff overseas, but here again is a field in which there is both the scope and the need for the closest cooperation between the new Department and the British Council.

There is the third point, which I had not intended to mention, but about which the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore spoke—namely, the need for good arrangements for the reception of overseas students when they come to this country. The noble Lord spoke rather critically of the present system. I agree that this is a very important matter, and I agree that it needs a thorough organisation. Nevertheless, I should like to have the chance to tell the noble Lord sometime about the thorough and careful work which is done to-day by the British Council in meeting students, finding lodgings for them and in what one might call pastoral care and after-care for all the students who are brought to this country under the Council's ægis.

I hope that none of your Lordships will think that these few remarks which I have made are made from the point of view of a landowner looking out over his property to see that the boundary fences are in good order and in no danger of being broken down. That is not at all, the point of view from which I am speaking. I know that in all these borderline questions, the British Council will be fully consulted. The point of view I want to put forward is a completely different one. It is simply that after over 25 years of work overseas, the British Council have accumulated a great deal of experience in fields which are comparable to those which fall within the sphere of the new Department. I believe that this experience could be of a good deal of value to the new Department, and I am anxious to make it clear that we look forward to the closest co-operation.

For example, at the present time, representatives of the three Overseas Departments—the Foreign Office, the Commonwealth Relations Office and the Colonial Office—serve on the executive committee of the British Council. We hope that these representatives will soon be joined by representatives of the new Department. But even before the Department is fully established, I believe that on many points the experience of the Council's staff could be of considerable service to those responsible for shaping the new Department in its early formative stages, and I want to make it clear that any help which the Council can give is at the service of the new Department now.

Some of your Lordships have expressed fears that the new Department would be, as one noble Lord called it, a "Cinderella Department." I can only say that if the two names which we have heard mentioned as the names of the men likely to be appointed as Minister and Director-General of the new Department prove to be the right names—and I sincerely hope that they do—the idea that the Department will be a "Cinderella Department" is, if I may say so, slightly comic.

4.30 p.m.

LORD WALSTON

My Lords, I find it extremely difficult to welcome this Bill, unless indeed one can say that a starving man welcomes the crumb that falls from the rich man's table. To my mind, if I may be allowed to speak frankly, this is a dreary little Bill, putting forward dreary little proposals for dealing not with a dreary little subject but with what in fact is the greatest challenge that we have to face to-day. In saying that, I should like to associate myself with what my noble friend Lord Listowel and other noble Lords have said about the persons whose names have been mentioned as likely to be in charge of this Department. But we must not be led astray by the fact that they are going to be good people into thinking that the organisation itself is capable of doing the job that it should do.

What is the job that we should like this new Department to do? And why do we want it to be done at all? Perhaps I might give one or two examples from my own purely personal experience, dealing with a small part of our present Colonies and small individuals. But because it is a small part, and because they are small individuals, does not mean to say that they are not replicated 10 million times throughout the whole world. I have a farm in one of the small islands of the Caribbean. I went there some four or five years ago, and when I first arrived there I went to one of the larger villages on the island and made contact with the local priest. I asked him about the education in the area, and he took me to the school. The school had been a church. It was a building perhaps the size of this Chamber, and was divided into two floors—top floor and ground floor. It had no other division whatsoever in it. In that school building there were 1,100 pupils sitting in the two rooms, and there were ten teachers, only one of whom had any qualifications; the rest of them were young men and women of 15 or 16 years of ago, who could read and write, and that was about all. The pupils had to come from a distance of anything up to ten miles, not along good hard roads as we know them here, or with the help of school buses, but on their feet over mountain paths; and, naturally, on most occasions, only half of them turned up.

One cannot be surprised that the rate of illiteracy there is very high. But what does "rate of illiteracy" mean when you get down to individual cases? Again let me give one or two examples. On this farm of mine out there I have many people working for me, some of whom are extremely intelligent. I have in mind one particular man who is a first-class tractor driver, good with stock and intelligent. He deserves promotion, and I should like to promote him. But that man cannot read or write, so it is impossible for me to put him into any position of responsibility; and it is impossible for him to advance in his own world and to make his own modest but useful contribution to the general welfare of the community of his island and the world. That is what happens when you do not have the facilities for teaching people how to read and write.

I have another young man working for me who is hoping to be an assistant farm manager. He was able to be taught how to read and write, and went to what was called college—a higher form of education—where he was able to pass his general certificate examination. As he was interested in agriculture, he wanted to take his general certificate in chemistry, botany and zoology. But there were no teachers for those subjects, and he was forced to take his three G.C.E. subjects in history, hygiene and religious knowledge—all useful things in their way. But surely we ought to be able to offer to people in one of our own Colonies who are anxious to get on, and who have the capabilities for getting on, the sort of education which will enable them to play that part in the welfare of their country which they want to play, and which we also want them to play. I want to underline the fact that, although this happens on this one small island, it is something that also happens throughout the whole of our Commonwealth and throughout the whole world in many areas for which we have no direct responsibility.

I will leave education now, though one could go on speaking indefinitely about it, and touch briefly on medical services, again quoting from this particular island. One hundred thousand people live on the island. There are at present ten doctors, but by the end of next month, unless the situation has changed in the last few weeks, there will be only five. Nobody wants to go and work in that particular island for the salary which can be offered; a young man who might be interested in going out and gaining experience knows that he will lose his place on the ladder in this country, or whatever country he may go from, and so dare not take the risk. Here I would suggest that the association for dealing with overseas civil servants could play its part, and should, I suggest, overcome the initial disadvantage from which it suffers by changing its name and embracing not only our own Civil Service but also all Commonwealth civil servants. I feel that if rather more tact were used in making use of some of these people, who have served this country and the country to which they have been attached so well in the past their services could be made use of in other areas in the future far more than is being done at the present time.

Now I should like to say a few words about agriculture. I do not think there is any need to remind your Lordships that in the world at large, leaving out the highly industrial countries like our own, agriculture is far and away the most important industry, the most important source of wealth and the most important way of life. It is something that we cannot afford to neglect when we are thinking of any country other than our own, and even our own. I agree wholeheartedly with what the noble Lord, Lord Casey, said when he talked of price stabilisation. I imagine that he was not confining his remarks purely to agricultural products, but was referring to other primary products, also. If we are sincere in our desire to see economic advancement in the under-developed areas, we must face the fact that unless these people receive for their products, whether they be agricultural, mineral or anything else, a stable price and one which shows them a modest return on the investment and on their labour, they will never achieve the prosperity which we say we should like to see them achieve.

We have done a lot in the past to help agriculture, and I do not think we have a record of which we should be ashamed. We have the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture, now absorbed in the University of West Indies, in Trinidad, which covers the whole world in tropical agriculture and not merely the Caribbean area. We have many institutes, extension services, teachers and advisers throughout the whole of the Commonwealth and throughout the whole of the former Colonial Empire. They have done, and are doing, good work, and it would be a crime if the work which was being done by those individuals and in those institutes were allowed to fall by the roadside. It would be a crime if that were not expanded and increased to a far greater extent than is being contemplated at the present time.

I should like to suggest, in this connection, that we might well consider the setting up of some form of International or Commonwealth Agricultural Research Council, which would go far towards co-ordinating the work which is being done, and to assessing the priorities for fresh work that should be undertaken. When we talk about agriculture we are far too inclined to think only of producing crops. We do not pay enough attention to such questions as who owns the land, how it is owned, and who gains the benefit from the cultivation of the land. I believe that here we have lost a great opportunity—not irrevocably: it is not too late—but we can still do something about this very real problem if only we will turn our minds to it.

The question we have to ask ourselves for those territories for which we are to-day responsible, and for all those territories over which, by reason of our greater experience, our technical know-how and our economic strength, we have some form of—not control, but ability to direct and advise, is: what sort of rural society, what sort of agrarian system, do we wish to see there in the years to come? For instance, do we wish to see in Kenya, a topical country, a land of peasant proprietors, each man owning his own small family holding, the backbone of the country perhaps, but with the difficulties and inability to compete, in a modern and mechanised world, with other producers? Or do we wish to see some form of eighteenth-century English yeoman farmer—the survival of the fittest; the more efficient gaining greater wealth, buying up the holdings of his less efficient neighbours, creating an economic enterprise on which he can use the new machinery where he can develop the new techniques, where he can produce efficiently and in competition with the rest of the world? But then what happens to the people whose land he has taken over? What happens to those who have fallen by the wayside? Will they become unemployed, rural proletariat? Will they go to the cities? And, if they do, can they be absorbed? Will there be sufficient industry? Or possibly there is something to be said for a form of cc-operative farming venture. After all, the fact that the Russians have cooperative farms is no reason why we should say they are anathema to ourselves.

My Lords, I am not saying which of these ideas is the right one. I do not know. But I am suggesting to your Lordships that this is one of the most pressing problems which confronts us to-day, and one with which this new Department must concern itself with the utmost vigour and urgency. Those are only some of the things which, in my opinion, we ought to do.

Now why should we do them? Why should we concern ourselves with this problem at all? As the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, said, there is one reason—that is, quite frankly, our competition with Communism. If we do nothing, our influence, the influence of the Western World, and what we in this country stand for, will go by default. I assure your Lordships (and I am sure that you know it even better than I do) that these underdeveloped countries judge rival political systems not by studying textbooks, but by results. Those countries which really help them with their problem are the countries to which they are going to look and by which they are going to be influenced. Those countries which, however fine their words may be, in practice neglect them, are the countries from which they will turn. If for no other reason than this, it is essential for us, in our struggle in the cold war which is going on to-day, to realise that that battle can be won or lost by what we achieve in these under-developed areas; and to say that we cannot afford the money to fight that battle would be the same as saying in 1940 and 1941 that we could not afford to carry on the war against Germany because of our balance-of-payments problems.

That is only one of the reasons. The second reason—a stronger one to my mind—is that we owe it, certainly to our former colonial territories, to help them at this time. We cannot deny the fact that we have grown rich in this country through the produce of our Colonies. That is past history. We have done good things for them. We have helped them, and we have improved their standard of living. But we ourselves have benefited. And if, for instance, we had left in Jamaica some of the wealth which came out of that country in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and invested it there, there would not be the outflow that we see to-day of Jamaicans from their own island to this country. So we owe it to them, simply for what we have taken out of their countries, to do something now, something radical and something that will go a long way towards improving their standard of living and their opportunities for a better life.

Finally, the overriding reason, surely, why we must help these other countries is purely one of common decency. Call it Christian charity, if you like. When we, as individuals, have a neighbour who is in poverty, who is struggling to bring up his children, who has problems of a domestic, economic kind, whether we do it or not, we know full well in our hearts that we ought to go and help that man. It is not right for a country to have different standards of morals from an individual. We must accept as a nation the standards which we approve by giving our support to individuals. For that reason I think that, either way, we have this overwhelming obligation to the underdeveloped countries.

What are we going to do about it? What does this Bill propose to do about it? What this Bill proposes to do, in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Mills, is to give us better value for money in the way we are distributing this wealth. I wrote this down: "To fill a gap in the administrative machine." That is all this Bill is proposing to do. But we must surely have more than that. We may have gaps—I am sure we do—in our administrative machine; but we have vastly greater gaps in our thinking and our planning. And what this new Ministry should be doing is to fill these gaps. That is what our Government should be directing its new Department to do.

May I conclude with a Story which was told me about the late Ernest Bevin when he was Foreign Secretary? One day he summoned a certain number of foreign editors of some of the leading newspapers in this country to him in his office at the Foreign Office at four o'clock. They arrived and were given their cups of tea and their biscuits. They chatted, and then he turned to them and said: "Gentlemen, I have been thinking lately. I have been thinking about Africa. There is a hell of a big country. It has I don't know how many hundreds of thousands of square miles in it, and I don't know how many hundreds of millions of people. I have not time to study it myself: my time is taken up with the Americans and the Russians, with Berlin and with Palestine, and with things of that kind. Don't forget this is going to be a very big problem in the future. I shall be dead by the time it is, but I should like you to think about it." That is all he said to them, but, my Lords, I wish he had said it to some members of the present Government, and I wish they had been thinking about it, so that when this Bill was produced—and I am glad that it has been produced—it would have been a Bill commensurate with the problems and commensurate not only with the size of Africa but with the rest of the underdeveloped world, which, if we are to live in peace in generations to come, must be brought to realise the benefits that our way of life can give.

4.51 p.m.

LORD TWINING

My Lords, I am sure that most people who are familiar with the problem of these countries which need technical assistance will welcome the objects of this Bill, although some may think that it does not go far enough. At any rate it is a first step. The field, of course, is enormous, and the question of finding suitable staff is as important as that of providing the money and the equipment. Most of these countries will for some years to come need expatriate staff, because they have insufficient trained men of their own, and I would entirely agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Casey, has said about the training of those staff. It is important that facilities should be provided for their training in their own countries wherever possible, but of course it will be necessary for some of the higher technical and postgraduate training to be undertaken overseas, particularly in this country.

The provision of overseas staff should be regarded as a temporary expedient and urgent steps must be taken to set up these arrangements for training them. It is to be hoped that the rich reservoir of experience and of qualified men who served in Her Majesty's Oversea Services will be used to the full. Let me say that the view sometimes expressed that because these men have been associated with colonial rule they will be unacceptable has been greatly exaggerated. If what so many of the noble Lords have said this evening is true, and I hope it is true, that my old friend and colleague, Sir Andrew Cohen, will be the first Director of the Department, then it seems that Her Majesty's Government do not think colonial experience inhibits a civil servant from conducting this work.

We also have the instance of Tanganyika, where the Prime Minister, Mr. Nyerere, has not only made public speeches in which he has asked the officers of all Departments to stay on but has sent a personal letter to all the administrative officers in Tanganyika and almost begged them to remain in the service of that Territory.

But staff with good technical qualifications and experience may be difficult to obtain in adequate numbers from this country. I believe that it would be wise, at least in some cases, for aid to be channelled through international agencies who can recruit staff from a wider field. Take, for example, the meteorological services. These are of vital importance in connection with civil aviation, particularly for international air services, besides providing information of great value to farmers and others. It seems that there is an acute shortage of qualified meteorologists and in some areas the Departments are hard put to maintain services at the standard required. Weather is surely a subject that transcends political boundaries and it seems a wholly suitable field in which an international service could be built up. It is to be hoped that the Minister of the new Department will give urgent study to this matter and will initiate discussions with the world meteorological organisation to this end.

The range of activities in which technical aid is required is too wide to discuss in detail to-day, but may I make a special plea for the medical services? At the very time when under-developed countries are anxious to expand their medical services they are finding it more difficult to recruit an adequate number of medical personnel from this country. Young medical practitioners here find that they are placed at a disadvantage in their position in the profession when they return to this country after a few years' service overseas. Something should surely be done to rectify this.

Finally may I make a plea for a sense of urgency? There is criticism, which I think has some substance, that such aid as we do give is often too long delayed and that the Departments concerned have tended to drag their feet. If the West does not provide aid quickly it will be offered from sources which may not be in the best interests of the recipients if they feel impelled to accept.

4.56 p.m.

LORD SHACKLETON

My Lords, I want to speak for only one minute, because f think there has been an important omission from this valuable discussion so far, and that is in reference to voluntary aid in technical co-operation. While it is clearly of extreme importance that fully qualified men and women should go out in this way, the end of National Service has produced a situation when young men, in particular, and young women in very large numbers are seeking opportunities to perform services overseas.

I hope one of the duties that the Ministry will regard as belonging to it and to which it will turn its urgent attention is in supplying help and also some co-ordination among the voluntary bodies. There are already some in existence who are doing a first-class job. Mention has been made of the British Council, and I should particularly like to refer to a comparatively new organisation, Voluntary Service Oversea, which sends boys of about 18 without special technical training to far distant parts, where they have done an absolutely first-class job. I think the noble Earl, Lord Perth, has had experience of this himself in Gambia. It is of profound importance that this opportunity for these young men is seized, and it is important that we take them when they are young, if possible just after leaving school or when they are just completing their apprenticeship, and there will equally be a need for taking young men and women after they have completed their time at universities.

I am not urging that we should set up some grandiose plan like the Kennedy Peace Corps, about which grave doubts in the United States are felt, but we should take the opportunity now of capitalising on this fact that National Service has come to an end and that service overseas is good for our young people. It is not a one-way traffic only. We are not merely giving; we shall also receive by taking advantage of this opportunity.

4.58 p.m.

BARONESS SUMMERSKILL

My Lords, I believe both sides of this House to-day will welcome the objective of this Bill. It is a very limited objective, everybody agrees. I think we all find it difficult to understand how it will be possible to administer a Department which is concerned with technical co-operation without that Department being given at least some control over some funds. When your Lordships on both sides of the House wonder how this has come about, I can only surmise that the big Departments concerned, about which we have all been speaking, have refused to surrender that part of their empire which is necessary to do if this Department is to conduct itself as a fully-fledged Department which can administer aid to the under-developed countries of the world. However, these things happen behind the scenes, as we all know, and we cannot alter that situation at this moment. All we can do to-day is to discuss this very limited Bill, and to improve it or to point out the omissions which we believe should be recognised by the noble Lord, Lord Mills, on the Second Reading of the Bill; and that is what I propose to do.

So far as technical administration and the co-ordination of technical co-operation are concerned, I believe that this Bill is long overdue, and I am not surprised that behind the scenes there is a desperate haste to establish the Department, perhaps within a month or two from now. In my experienec of politics this is absolutely unprecedented. I have never before known it to be suggested that a new Department should be established within a few weeks of a Bill's receiving the Royal Assent. However, we shall be only too pleased if there is this haste to establish this particular Department. Indeed, I think we should be gratified to see the Government at long last recognising the present tempo of historical change. And may I here echo what the noble Lord, Lord Twining, has just said; that if we do not recognise this, other countries will; and other countries will provide that assistance which we should have provided many years ago.

While welcoming the limited objective of this Bill, I would say this: as a legislative measure I would characterise it as a puny little Bill. My noble friend called it a dreary Bill. I think it is a puny little Bill with immense potentialities. We have already mentioned the possibility of the Minister, whoever he may be, perhaps acquiring further powers, and we hope that that will be so. So far as the omissions are concerned, there is one grave omission, and I want to devote most of my remarks to that. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Mills, is receptive to new ideas and I hope he will be vulnerable. Those responsible for designing this Bill have either been unrealistic or have been subject to undue pressure from the Foreign Office, the Commonwealth Relations Office, or the Colonial Office. Consequently this Bill of a few clauses is totally bereft of a driving force which will enable it to achieve its maximum potential.

I propose to illustrate my point with the question of the furnishing of medical technical assistance, a matter which has already been mentioned, but the inherent weakness of this Bill will similarly affect all fields where technical assistance is needed. In medicine there is a great shortage of doctors of most kinds in many countries overseas. I would remind your Lordships that in the past the medical missionaries have provided some of our finest ambassadors—indeed, that is equally true to-day. With all due respect to the Church, while the description of miracles from the Bible may evoke wonderment, the miracles of modern medicine evoke lasting gratitude. Furthermore, in these countries this service is a personal one which can affect very large communities. They may admire the efforts of the technicians in the field of agriculture, in the field of engineering—a big dam, a big bridge; and a long-term project may make an important contribution to the wealth of the nation. But if we are to make a real impact on a community, to bring technical administration which an individual can himself assess the importance of in his own lifetime is of tremendous importance. That is why I cannot over-estimate the importance of supplying medical aid for these countries.

About eighteen months ago, I stressed the importance of sending registrars, who were impatiently awaiting promotion in this country, overseas without losing their place in the queue. I put the case to the Minister of Health. The Minister of Health said, "No, this is not my Department, you must go to the Secretary of State for the Colonies". The Secretary of State for the Colonies patiently heard my case, and approved in principle. Valuable months have passed—which proves to me, of course, that for two Departments to agree on the proper approach, the proper direction, of a new idea takes a long, long time.

So far as I know, no comprehensive scheme has yet been advanced for technical co-operation in the medical field, although we know that for the last few years the United States has attracted from this country some of our brilliant young men. I do not know which island the noble Lord, Lord Walston, was referring to. I suspect it was St. Lucia, because he talked about 100,000 people with five doctors. Here is St. Lucia, longing for some of these brilliant young men who through the years have been attracted to the United States of America: registrars, sick at heart, disappointed because there has been no future for them in this country, because promotion has been blocked for a period. We have lost them because there has been no comprehensive scheme on which the Departments have agreed. Of course, this approach to matters is nothing new. There are the most eminent medical men and women in this country who feel frustrated because no action has been taken—Professor Kenneth Hill, of the Royal Free Hospital; Professor Tunbridge, of Leeds University; Professor Seddon, in Birmingham; all in their own little circle trying desperately to help the St. Lucias, the under-developed countries, those countries which are being penetrated by excellent technicians from other countries. Now these men and women are looking to this new Department, the Department for Technical Co-operation, for action.

The Department may be established next month, or a month after; but whether action will be taken is another matter. For, as has been said—and I want to emphasise this: it is the most important point I want to make to-day; it is the most grave omission from this Bill—the Minister in charge of this Department is to have a rank equivalent only to that of Minister of State. The chief civil servant will be known as the Director-General, an imposing title, but his rank will be equivalent not to that of a Permanent Secretary but to that of a Deputy Secretary in another Government Department. The Minister will be subordinate to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, the Secretary of State for the Colonies and the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations. Those are the men who will have the ear of the Cabinet and a voice in deciding priorities. In the whole of this field the very essence of the success of this scheme is to decide priorities. I say that the new Minister is to have too many masters and the attitudes of those masters will differ.

May I give, in order to illustrate my point, an actual example of a decision which might have to be made? We have heard about the Colonies this afternoon; I think we now have thirty colonies. Those Colonies are desperately in need of specialists of all kinds, particularly medical specialists. I also know that the medical authorities in Athens and Baghdad would welcome our help. I understand that Athens and Baghdad would be eligible for help. Baghdad has great respect for British medicine; it has a vested interest in British degrees, and would be only too delighted to welcome our help. The circumstances and needs in Athens and Baghdad, and in the Colonies, should be weighed up by one Department only and then action should be taken. This Bill, and the explanation of the Financial Secretary, Sir Edward Boyle, in another place, makes it quite clear that three other Departments may have to be consulted before a decision is reached.

Let me tell your Lordships how I think the various masters of the Minister created under this Bill will arrive at their decisions. The Foreign Office may be guided solely by diplomatic considerations and may urge that Iraq and Greece should be given priority. In the eyes of the Foreign Secretary that is a most important priority. The Secretary of State for Colonial Affairs might be guided by humanitarian considerations because of conditions such as we have heard of this afternoon in St. Lucia. He will say, "How can you deny St. Lucia certain doctors when the infantile mortality and the incidence of disease is "—as I expect it is—"so high?". The Colonial Secretary in his own eyes will, of course, be quite right. Then, if it is a question of one of the Commonwealth countries wanting a specialist, the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations may be motivated by the need to uphold the prestige of the Mother Country in the Commonwealth. All of these are laudable aspirations, but are not conducive to immediate action.

I realise to-day that both the noble Lord, Lord Mills, and Sir Edward Boyle appreciate this tremendous difficulty. They have come to this House and to another place, and have said "The answer to this is that the Minister will have access to the Prime Minister". Many noble Lords who have spoken this afternoon have been in charge of Government Departments; I have some knowledge of administration. If we went over the heads of near-colleagues to the Prime Minister on every occasion when there was some difficulty, the Prime Minister could well say, "You are really not fit for your job." All sensible people delegate certain work, and the Prime Minister delegates functions to his Ministers. He is not sitting at No. 10 waiting for his secretary to say. "The telephone has rung. The Secretary of the Department of Technical Co-operation is having trouble about the distribution of veterinary surgeons." The noble Lord himself told us this afternoon that the number of technicians here is large—it went through the alphabet, he said, from administrators and architects, right down to veterinary surgeons. In the next breath he said "If the Secretary of this Department has trouble with his overlords, then he must go to the Prime Minister." Surely this approach is unrealistic.

My Lords, my criticism of this Bill is its inherent weakness as an administrative measure. Surely the criticisms the noble Lord has heard this afternoon have not been debating points. They have not been academic; they stem from an experience in Ministries such as my noble friends and I have seen of the appalling waste of time and energy involved where there is divided responsibility.

5.14 p.m.

LORD MILLS

My Lords, I am most grateful for the helpful debate that we have had. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, struck the note when he said that, although he had various criticisms of the Bill, it would and should, in his view, lead to more economic aid. We are all conscious to-day, whatever may have been the outlook in the past, of the difference between the developed and the under-developed countries, and of the kind of lives which—as those of us who have travelled round the world have seen—are, unfortunately, followed in many parts. Accordingly I should like to answer at once one question put by the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, by saying that this technical aid is available to any country—no country which needs it is excluded. The purpose of the setting up of this Department is to facilitate that end.

I do not share the apprehensions of the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, or of the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, about the effect of having at the head of the Department a man of the rank of Minister of State. I should like to say right away, from my own knowledge, that the three Overseas Departments which have been mentioned this afternoon have themselves been most anxious to bring into being co-ordinat- ing machinery of this kind, and they have not attempted to reserve to themselves anything which could properly, in the view of the Government, be assigned to this Department. It may be that its responsibilities do not go so far as some of your Lordships would wish. But it is a start. I myself believe that it is the right start. Let us get the machinery co-ordinated, and do not let us overload that machinery with functions which it is not capable of carrying out at the present time.

The question of financial aid, which has cropped up all the time, must surely range much further than a Department of this kind. The Treasury are obviously vitally concerned. So, too, are the politics of the aid; and it is right, I think, that they should be considered by the particular Department concerned in arriving at a recommendation as to whether financial aid should be rendered and the extent to which it should be rendered. The noble Earl was worried lest there should not be sufficient scope properly to deal with what he described as the system of priorities. Of course we must have regard to what is possible—what is the supply available. There is no doubt, to my mind, that the establishment of this Department will greatly aid recruitment; but it does not necessarily follow that a man recruited is willing to go to a particular place. It may be that he is willing to go to one place but not to another, whereas the priority may be for the other place. All that can be considered in this Department. It has been my experience that when there is a difference of opinion, it is usual to ask the Minister who differs to come to the Cabinet and have the opportunity of explaining his views.

The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, was the first to mention the names of Sir Edward Boyle and Sir Andrew Cohen. Until the Department is set up, it is obviously impossible to have a decision on who is going to rule it. But I am sure that both those gentlemen will be most grateful to the noble Earl, and to others of your Lordships who have mentioned their names, for the tribute they paid to them, a tribute which I think is greatly deserved.

THE EARL OF LISTOWEL

My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord for one moment? I thought he was going to amplify his statement about a Minister going to the Cabinet when he differed from his colleagues. I should like to ask this question: will the Secretary for Technical Co-operation be asked to go to the Cabinet when he differs from any of his colleagues in the three major Departments with which he will be connected?

LORD MILLS

My Lords, that, of course, depends upon the Prime Minister. I was just giving my experience: that if there is any difference of opinion it is usual for the Minister to be asked to come and give his views.

THE EARL OF LISTOWEL

My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt again, but this, I think, is a major point. I should like the noble Lord opposite to consider the extreme importance of allowing the Minister to argue his own case when he differs from his colleagues in these three major Departments. I do not ask the noble Lord to say any more, because obviously he cannot speak for the Prime Minister or for his other Ministerial colleagues. But I think that Parliament would view this Department with much greater optimism if it thought that the Minister in charge would have the opportunity of stating his case, like Ministers in charge of other Government Departments, whenever he differed on a major issue from the heads of these three other Departments.

LORE MILLS

My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for saying that he would not expect me to say anything more. I could only say it has been my experience on the odd occasion—I repeat, the odd occasion—when there has been a difference of view that the Minister has had the chance of explaining his point of view.

It is true, as the noble Earl said, that we do look forward to the co-operation of the professions in this matter, and I hope that the plea he made to the professions will be widely read and advertised. They are doing a great deal. There are a great many people doing a great deal. There has been a lot of help going on for a long time. But it is never enough; we want more. The noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, said that this Bill was a compromise. It is not a compromise. It is a deliberate decision to set up a Department which the Government think is the right Department at this time to deal with the problems with which we are faced. The noble Lord paid a tribute to the contributions from Britain to the under-developed portions of the world, and I was very glad to hear that, because I do not think the continuing help which is going on all the time is realised.

The noble Lord asked me certain questions. The first I have already answered by saying that the technical assistance facilities will be available to everyone. The noble Lord talked about the Over-sea Civil Service and asked me whether the responsibility for that would fall to the new Department. There is in this case a division of responsibility. Questions of recruitment, conditions of service and payments to local Governments to top up the officers' pay will be for the new Department; discipline, promotion and posting will be for the Colonial Secretary in colonial territories or in territories for which the Colonial Office is responsible, and, of course, the responsibility will be for the respective Governments in the case of officers in independent countries.

LORD OGMORE

My Lords, will that not be a rather complicated system to run? If the topping up of pay, as the noble Lord described it, and presumably selection, and so on, are to be the responsibility of the new Department, is it not going to be rather difficult to have another Department dealing with other aspects of the Service; what territory a man shall go to, and that sort of thing? Would it not be better to make a clean sweep and have the whole thing under the new Department?

LORD MILLS

My Lords, I do not take that view. I think the division is quite a clear one. There is a Service administered by the Colonial Office. There are certain arrangements made with other countries whereby, if they cannot pay what should be paid to these men, arrangements can be made for this new Department to take in hand and deal with it.

I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, took the view he did about students and others coming to this country. The noble Lord, Lord Bridges, really answered him on this point. The British Council have done, and are doing, great work in looking after these young men and women; and there are voluntary bodies who do it, too. I should have thought that, on the whole, the arrangements are not bad and they are getting better all the time.

LORD OGMORE

My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether he has ever been present when a boat train gets in from any ship bringing a large number of students into this country? I was on a boat train only three weeks ago or a fortnight ago, and the scenes of chaos when the boat train arrived were, he can take it from me, no credit to this country whatsoever. If he will compare, or ask his officers to compare, the sort of reception that students coming to this country get with the sort of reception students get in Moscow he will be amazed. I would ask him to look into this matter further. Because, although the British Council do admirable work, it is not nearly sufficient to deal with the huge problem in this field.

LORD MILLS

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, and I certainly will make it my business to look at it further. But I wanted to make the point that something tangible and real is being done in this direction and that the British Council are to be congratulated on what they do. The noble Lord also referred to law students, and I will bring what he said to the notice of the authorities.

The noble Lord, Lord Casey, made a very powerful speech. Before I say anything more, I should like to refer to the part played by Australia in the field of aid, notably in South and South-East Asia. The noble Lord said that international aid has come to stay, and that this Bill was a recognition of that fact, and of the fact that there was an obligation on this country to render aid where it can, and particularly to the under-developed countries for which we have been responsible. I could not agree more with his view in that respect. The noble Lord also referred to the question of multilateral and bilateral aid. I think it is now understood, from what has been said, that, broadly speaking, the new Department will deal with non-capital aid rather than with capital aid. But, of course, by its experiences it will influence the thinking on the part of those Departments which are responsible for capital aid.

THE EARL OF LISTOWEL

Can the noble Lord say whether the new Department will deal with the contributions which the United Kingdom Government make to the United Nations and its Agencies for economic aid to underdeveloped countries? That, I think, was the question which the noble Lord, Lord Casey, was asking him.

LORD MILLS

In fact, the new Department will not deal with capital aid which is channelled through the Specialised Agencies. Our contributions to these Agencies will continue to be made through the Home Departments directly concerned—the Ministry of Health, for example, paying our contribution to the World Health Organisation; the Ministry of Agriculture to the agricultural organisation, and so on.

I was interested to hear the noble Lord, Lord Casey, speak of the Report by the United Nations Science Committee. I am sure that the proposed new Department and the new Minister, when appointed, will follow those developments with great care and attention, and I will see that the noble Lord's remarks on this matter are brought to their attention in due course. Then the noble Lord mentioned the importance of prices of primary products. I am sure we all realise the desirability of ensuring a fair return to those countries exporting them, but that subject is not really within the scope of the present Bill. However, the noble Lord is quite right in pointing out that the value of the aid, in whatever form it is given, can be reduced or lost by undue falls in commodity prices. It is a very important matter, and I am glad the noble Lord drew our attention to it.

The noble Lord, Lord Bridges, spoke about the British Council, and I warmly welcome his approach to this problem. The Government look forward to close and fruitful co-operation between the British Council and the new Department, and I am quite sure, as the noble Lord has said, that the experience of the British Council's staff will be of value to the new Minister and his staff. I know that those who are concerned in the preparations for the new Department are most anxious for early talks with the British Council, and will welcome the valuable help they can give and the offer by Lord Bridges to make it available.

The noble Lord, Lord Walston, described this as a "dreary little Bill", and the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, referred to it as a "puny little Bill."

BARONESS SUMMERSKILL

With tremendous potentialities.

LORD MILLS

I am glad the noble Baroness has repeated that: "with tremendous potentialities". I do not quite see why anxiety is expressed that the Department, in the form which it is intended to take, will not be able to rise to those tremendous potentialities. I myself have given a lot of thought and time Ito this problem, and I do not share the apprehensions which have been expressed on this subject. I think the new Department will rise to these potentialities.

Having described this as a "dreary little Bill", the noble Lord then proposed that the Department should take upon itself 1:he problem of considering and deciding what form agriculture should take in the different countries to which aid is extended. I am sure we were all very interested to have the noble Lord's alternatives—not his views; he said he had not any on that particular problem. But the question of what kind of agricultural set-up there should be is surely a matter for the Governments of the countries to which technical aid is given, and not a matter for this Department.

LORD WALSTON

Might I suggest, my Lords, that that is just one part of technical aid that we might give—some advice on this matter?

LORD MILLS

I can quite imagine that our advice might not be as welcome as one would think. These people might prefer to run things their own way. It is for us to advise ourselves how we want our own business run here. Still, as the noble Lord said, we do owe every help that we can give. He added that we really need a Bill commensurate with the size of the problem. I think the noble Lord was inclined to ignore what has been going on for years, and what has been increasing all the time. For example, I do not think the Caribbean has been without help from this country; nor for one moment do we neglect to do anything we can which will help forward their economic life and their standards of life.

The noble Lord, Lord Twining, referred to the important problem of education overseas, and said that there was a rich reservoir of men experienced in overseas service. I hope that every advantage will be taken of the undoubted help that those men can be, and much of what we have been doing recently is designed to make it more possible for those men to continue to give help to countries when they become independent.

It may be suggested that other countries should increasingly be associated with the United Kingdom in the provision of technical assistance. We are wholeheartedly in support of that line of thinking. It will be remembered that the Colombo Plan arose out of a meeting of Commonwealth Ministers in 1950, and many Commonwealth countries are still proud to be associated with the Plan, both as donors and as recipients. The Commonwealth Education Scheme arose from the Oxford Conference in 1959, and a special Commonwealth African Assistance Plan arose from the Commonwealth Finance Ministers' meeting in London last autumn, and they are both co-operative Commonwealth efforts.

I think the needs of the less developed countries for technical assistance can be met fully only by co-operative effort of this sort. Of course, the actual carrying out of individual technical assistance projects can best be met by direct bilateral arrangements. The noble Lord, Lord Twining, also referred to the question of a sense of urgency. I agree that that is one of the most important matters which the Department will have to keep in mind. Aid, to be effective, must be quick. I think the setting, up of this new Department will ensure that these problems are dealt with more speedily than has been possible in the past. The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, referred to the question of voluntary aid, voluntary service overseas, and the importance of using that as far as possible, particularly as National Service is coining to an end. I think that was a very valuable and helpful contribution, one that should be kept in mind and should be acted upon.

I was most interested in the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill. She said that a Bill of this kind has been long overdue, and I agree. She talked about the present tempo of the historical change which is going on. The Bill is a step to recognising that and dealing with it. It may not go so far as the noble Lady would wish, but I think it is better to get to our objectives step by step. It would be so easy to say: "Here is a new Department; now the whole world will change"—and give it everything to do. I think it has a very big job to do, even in the limited sense of this Bill, without adding so much more to it. The noble Lady referred to the question of furnishing medical assistance. This is a very grave and difficult problem, as I well recognise. There is the question of a man's career being interrupted, and how that should be dealt with. After all, what every country strives to get are the specialists, and the people who can teach others how to become doctors. They would themselves like to run their own medical service. This country, with its National Health Service, cannot of course provide every country that has not enough doctors with the doctors it needs. We have to go through the process of trying to help them get the men who will teach medicine to those who wish to become doctors, and I am sure the noble Lady appreciates that.

I would just say a word or two about what is being done by United Kingdom Departments, and by the World Health Organisation. There is an arrangement, which has proved very helpful, for the interchange of registrars between the Commonwealth hospitals. The Colonial Office has recruited an average of 106 doctors a year for service in the medical departments of the dependent territories. It is true, of course, that the National Health Service, under the terms of its legislation, is concerned only with medical matters in this country; but where it is possible to establish local universities more and more doctors are being turned out. The demand is increasing, and therefore there is much to be done. The supply of the right kind of men and women is, as the noble Lady knows better than I, very limited. This is a subject which must have the very early attention of this Department. It is a subject which has been bothering us all, because the need to get to closer grips with the question is very well recognised.

There is one new development, which I might just mention and which has emerged from our discussions, and that is the formation of a Commonwealth Medical Association, with a Secretariat provided by the B.M.A., whose objects seem to be to effect at the professional level the closest possible link between the national medical bodies. We should welcome that as a practical and helpful measure of co-operation. However, the noble Lady has brought this problem prominently forward this afternoon. I am sure it will have the attention it deserves, and I will do my best to bring it before the new Minister when he is appointed. My Lords, I believe I have answered most of the questions raised. I think that the Bill is neither "little" nor "puny". It is an important Bill, and I am very much encouraged by the general support it has had. I am sure that the criticisms have been helpful and they will be looked upon as such.

On Question, Bill read 2^a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.