Lords Sitting of 15 March 1961

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Hereford

CHRONIC BRONCHITIS
2.35 p.m.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government the percentage of all persons in receipt of sicknes benefit, in the following age groups: 50–54, 55–59 and 60–64, who are suffering from chronic bronchitis.]
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (THE EARL OF DUNDEE): My Lords, medical certificates submitted in support of sickness benefit claims do not usually distinguish chronic from acute bronchitis. Of all persons in the three age groups mentioned who were receiving sickness benefit on May 30, 1959 (the latest date for which figures are available), some 11 per cent., 14 per cent. and 18 per cent., respectively were suffering from some form of bronchitis.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer: I appreciate the difficulty in getting these figures. But do they not show that bronchitis is a very considerable form of disability, particularly among middle-aged and those in later middle-age? Is it not a fact that many of these folk could be in work, sheltered work, were it available? The noble Earl mentioned yesterday that a Committee was to sit to consider this problem of bronchitis. Will that Committee have power to look at the aspect I have mentioned, to see whether it is not the case that many of these people could be usefully employed in sheltered work, rather than sitting ill, or nominally ill, at home because there is no work for them?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, I think it is the case that bronchitis is
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more responsible than any other single disease for disability and that a great many people who suffer from it could usefully work in suitable conditions. But the resettlement officers of the Ministry of Labour pay a great deal of attention to this matter and do their best to help bronchitics. There are about 400 employed in the Remploy factories, and I have no doubt that a few hundred more are employed in local authority workshops, for which there are no analysed figures. The inquiry which I mentioned yesterday, and to which the noble Lord referred in his supplementary question, begins in June. It is being conducted by the Ministry of Pensions, with the help of the other Ministries concerned, and also, we hope, of the doctors and local authorities.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, I thank the Minister again. He spoke in terms of hundreds. I am afraid that the problem is measurable in tens of thousands of people who are suffering from this disease. The noble Earl did not answer my question about whether this inquiry would cover the provision of sheltered work for bronchitics in receipt of sickness benefit.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, that is no doubt the object of the inquiry. Its direct purpose is to get information.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, could the noble Earl say what special provisions are made in those areas where the incidence is highest?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, I would say that that would probably depend upon the local authorities. Remploy would no doubt try to do more in a place where it is known that the incidence is higher.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, I am inquiring about treatment in hospital.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, again I thank the Minister. This problem is too big, unfortunately, for Remploy and the local authorities, so far as we are able to ascertain. What is needed is the co-operation of private industry to provide places for these bronchitics whose working capacity is severely limited.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, it certainly requires the co-operation of private industry, not only for the purpose of finding suitable employment but also in regard to registration as disabled persons. Very large numbers of bronchitis do not register, either because their medical practitioners do not advise them to do it—they do not think it would be worth while—or, maybe, because they think it is not much use registering since the opportunities of employment are not great enough.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, the noble Earl referred to the responsibility of local authorities. Surely he is aware that the Ministry of Health are responsible for local hospitals, and I asked what special provisions they are now making in those areas where the incidence is highest.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, the question which I had in mind, and which I think the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, had in mind, is how to employ bronchitics who are disabled. If the noble Lady wants detailed information about the health aspect of the matter, it would probably be better if she puts down another Question.
LORD LATHAM: My Lords, is the noble Earl certain that there is sufficient co-operation between the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Labour as regards finding employment for bronchitics?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, I do not know whether there is ever sufficient co-operation to achieve perfection between any two bodies of people who are engaged in the matter, but I do not know of any reason to think that there is any lack of co-operation which demands to be put right.
LORD LATHAM: My Lords, may I follow that up by saying that there is evidence to show that the absence of information from the Ministry of Labour leads to non-employment of bronchitics who are employable?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for
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giving me so much information. I only wish that I had given him a little more in return.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, may I ask one last question? The noble Earl said that one of the troubles is that general practitioners do not advise bronchitics to register. Will he encourage them to register, because that would be most effective co-operation?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, I think that that is being done so far as possible; but the registration of disabled persons is, of course, entirely voluntary. We cannot make them register.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, I should like to inform the House that there will be two statements at a suitable moment after 3.30 this afternoon, one by my noble friend Lord Mills, who will make a statement on the reorganisation of the British Transport Commission, and one by my noble friend Lord Newton, on doctors' prescriptions.

LAND COMPENSATION BILL [H.L.]
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT KILMUIR): My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to consolidate the Acquisition of Land (Assessment of Compensation) Act, 1919, and certain other enactments relating to the assessment of compensation in respect of compulsory acquisitions of interests in land; to the withdrawal of notices to treat; and to the payment of additional compensation and allowances in connection with such acquisitions or with certain sales by agreement of interests in land; with corrections and improvements made under the Consolidation of Enactments (Procedure) Act, 1949. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a —(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read 1a, and to be printed.

DFENCE
2.43 p.m.
Debate resumed (according to Order) on the Motion moved yesterday by Lord Carrington: to resolve, That this House approves the Report on Defence, 1961 (Cmnd. 1288).
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, towards the end of the last war, I found myself, rather to my surprise, in Athens on the night of the German evacuation of that city. To disguise the fact that I had only a dinghy load of troops under my command I had been "jacked" up to Brigadier for the occasion. So I hurried round to the top Greek General I could find to impress him with my exalted and, I must say, quite bogus rank. He only spoke French, so I proudly introduced myself to him, "Je suis le Brigadier Jellicoe". He was not impressed. Unfortunately, I had forgotten that in French "brigadier" means "corporal". However, I would ask your Lordships to remember, as I am only too well aware at this moment, that sandwiched between my noble friend the First Lord, who opened this debate so ably, and my noble friend, another "former naval person", who will close it, is a young corporal and not an old brigadier.
I think our debate yesterday was a good one. We had characteristic speeches from the noble Lord, Lord Rea, and the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough. May I add, in passing, since this is the first opportunity I have had of saying so from this Box, how much our Armed Forces and, in particular, the Navy, stand in debt to the noble Viscount? May I also thank those noble Lords who from this side of the House gave broad support—not uncritical, but always constructive—to my noble friend's Motion. Again I listened with particular interest to the noble Lord, Lord Kennet. I felt yesterday that he made an important contribution to what is badly needed in this country—dispassionate but searching discussion of the great problems of arms control and disarmament.
On our contribution to the strategic deterrent, I wish to say very little. Indeed, as becomes the corporal, I shall be leaving some of the broader issues of this debate, including the two noble Lords' Amendments (if those are broad issues)
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to be dealt with by my noble friend the Leader of the House. My job, as I see it, is to try to clear away some of the underbrush and to answer some of the questions posed by noble Lords, so that my noble friend can follow majestically behind. But on our contribution to the deterrent I wish to say just this. I believe that Bomber Command is to-day a force of unparalleled efficiency. Both my noble friends Lord Merrivale and Lord Ampthill wondered whether paragraph 16 of the White Paper might not minimise the difficulties our V-bombers would meet with in penetrating to their targets. I can assure those noble Lords that the words in the White Paper:
"The force"—
that is the V-bomber force—
"has the capacity to penetrate to its assigned targets"
do represent the considered opinion of the Air Staff. Incidentally, having visited the headquarters of strategic air command at Omahah some eighteen months ago, I know that our special contribution to the heavy deterrent is very fully recognised by the responsible American military authorities. I believe we have been right to make this contribution in the past and that within the measure of our resources we should continue to do so.
My noble friend Lord Merrivale asked two rather searching questions about Blue Steel and Skybolt. Consistent with security, to use his phrase, I am afraid I cannot go into any detail about the operational availability of Blue Steel. The position is this. The firing trials of Blue Steel, which began in this country last year, are now continuing at the Woomera range in Australia; and, as the Memorandum accompanying the Air Estimates indicated, rounds are being made available to the R.A.F. this year for handling and maintenance trials preparatory to the introduction of the weapon into service. As regards Sky-bolt, I would refer the noble Lord to the assurance given by my right honourable friend the Minister of Defence in another place recently, that provided the development of the weapon proceeds satisfactorily—and we have every reason to believe it will—we shall receive it on time and without strings.
A good deal of attention was given yesterday to N.A.T.O. I was glad to note that none of your Lordships

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queried the basic purpose of the Alliance or our membership of it. Nevertheless, there appeared to be a fairly general feeling on both sides of the House that we may have got the balance between the shield and the sword in N.A.T.O. (to use perhaps rather out-of-date phraseology) wrong. There appeared to be a fairly widespread feeling that N.A.T.O., as a whole, and the British Army of the Rhine, in particular, may possess too small a conventional capacity. The argument, as I understand it, is partly based on the strength, equipment and training of B.A.O.R. As regards strength, it is true that the Army of the Rhine is at present slightly below strength. As regards equipment, it is a question of some "jam" now and a lot more in the next few years. Broadly speaking, I believe it is true to say that virtually all the equipment, personal or otherwise, with which the soldier in B.A.O.R. was familiar in 1957 has been replaced, or will be replaced within two or three years. I repeat, all the equipment.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, on that point, may I ask whether, in the course of the noble Earl's speech, we can have an answer to a point I put yesterday: that is, whether it is Intended that the personnel of B.A.O.R., which has been reduced progressively on two occasions, is to be further reduced in the current year?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I think I shall be wise to stick fairly closely to my brief here. But I should like to reply in this way to the noble Viscount. While the Army is being reorganised, we cannot sometimes avoid having units which are under strength. Nevertheless, it remains our intention to maintain the strength of B.A.O.R. as close to 55,000 men as we can in the circumstances, and we shall certainly keep N.A.TO. generally informed of the position.
Now a word as to training. It is true that major training exercises in B.A.O.R. often assume the use of tactical nuclear weapons. We possess those weapons in Germany, as indeed do the Russians. It would, we believe, be criminal stupidity in these circumstances not to train B.A.O.R. in exercises which assume the use of nuclear weapons. To do so, indeed, is an essential part of the deterrent. But from the fact that we do so
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it should not be held—and I emphasise the word "not"—that B.A.O.R. is not prepared to fight a purely conventional battle.
In dealing with these rather mundane matters of numbers, equipment and training of our forces in N.A.T.O., I may be putting the cart before the horse. I suppose that the "64,000 dollar question" is whether, in the ordinary circumstances of nuclear equipoise, N.A.T.O.'s existing strategic concept remains valid. That strategy was evolved before the present balance of nuclear power between East and West was struck. As your Lordships know, we have taken the initiative in proposing to our Allies a comprehensive review, not of N.A.T.O.'s purpose or rôle—for that we do not in any way challenge—but of N.A.T.O.'s strategy, in which the whole question of the balance between nuclear and conventional forces, to which so many of your Lordships referred yesterday, and the provision of M.R.B.M.s and the control of N.A.T.O.'s nuclear armoury would be considered. So far we have reached the stage of defining the various problems which arise. We do not yet know what the answers will be, but I am sure that, in discussion with our N.A.T.O. Allies, they eventually will be found, although I would guess, in answer to my noble friend Lord Teynham, that these discussions, complicated and comprehensive as they are bound to be, are likely to take a little time.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, may I ask a question on that last passage, which is very important? I have been looking up what the Minister of Defence said in another place about this question of strategic and tactical targets. I realise that the Minister spoke about the reappraisal in certain respects, but are we making any representations against the Norstad proposal that he should be given the right to use certain tactical weapons against targets even though they are inside Russian territory? Is that part of the matter to be discussed?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I think I must deflect that question a little, because the whole question is now between Governments, and I think it would be quite wrong for me in any way to prejudge it.

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I should like to turn for a moment to our extra-N.A.T.O. commitments, and to touch again on the question of strategic mobility, to which many of your Lordships referred yesterday. In this context I would draw your Lordships' attention to an aspect of Communist world strategy which we ignore at our peril. In his speech of January 6 Khrushchev drew a sharp and significant distinction between world wars on the one hand, and what the Communists term "wars of national liberation", on the other. Khrushchev says that world or local wars are not inevitable. However, wars of liberation, guerilla wars, like those in Algeria or Laos, are, to quote his words: "Not only permissible but inevitable". They are "sacred", and Communists should "support such just wars fully and without reservation."
We should take these serious words seriously. They mean, as I read them, since Khrushchev speaks of support "without reservation" that the Communists reserve the right, as it were, to extend aid, including military aid, towards any movement which they choose to deem a movement of national liberation. They may calculate that their growing resources allow them to take greater risks than hitherto. Sheltering under the umbrella of the Soviet-American nuclear equipoise, they may feel more disposed to exert nuclear blackmail on us and our friends, friends, especially in areas deemed not absolutely vital to our security. Thus Communist policy may grow increasingly adventurous in selected soft spots. There are already straws in the wind; Cuba; the Soviet unilateral intervention in the Congo, and the Soviet air-lift to the Kong Lae forces in Laos, carried out, I may add, with the same Soviet planes, or some of them, as were used in the Congo. Now I do not wish to cry "wolf" or "bear", but surely all this means that we and our Allies must be prepared to meet increasingly powerful, and possibly dangerous, Communist pressures in those vast areas which lie to the South, in Asia, Africa and, indeed, Latin America, the middle ground between the committed West and the committed East.
The problem of these areas has been debated in some detail in your Lordships' House recently. I think we are gener-
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ally agreed that the best deterrent—and I use the word "deterrent" advisedly—to Communist pressure and infiltration in these areas, is for us in the West to do all we can to ensure, by a wise political approach, and by generous, imaginative and co-ordinated policies of aid, that the innate desire of these new nations for independence rests on secure political and economic foundations. We should try not to expose the Communists to what I would call the Congo temptation. Yet we cannot be certain that political and economic measures will always suffice.
This is one of the many areas where our defence and economic policies co-exist with our general foreign policy. In many areas of the world to-day, the crust of stability is very thin, and dangerous and dynamic forces lie beneath that crust. In our small and highly-strung modern world, situations can get very quickly out of hand, as my noble friends Lord Bridgeman and Lord Bird-wood made clear yesterday. That is why, to use the words of the White Paper, we
"have to play our part in many parts of the world by maintaining conventional forces to prevent or contain minor incidents which might otherwise develop into major conflicts."
Unless we believe that little England is the destiny of this country, we must continue to discharge many world-wide responsibilities, political, economic and, if necessary, military, outside the N.A.T.O. area. We must do so either alone or as a member of the Regional Alliances to which we belong, or in the framework of the United Nations, as the case may be.
We cannot discharge these responsibilities unless our forces are well trained. well equipped, adequate in numbers and possess strategic mobility. I believe our forces possess the requisite strategic mobility, or have come a long way towards acquiring it. Two of the Services, of course, the Navy and the Royal Air Force, possess a high degree of built-in strategic mobility. For example, "Dreadnought" has an endurance inconceivable only a few years ago. A Valiant bomber, again as an example, using in-flight re-fuelling techniques, flew non-stop last year to Singapore, over 8,000 miles in 154- hours. Such mobility is naturally increased by the dispersion of our forces and

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the network of bases on which that dispersion rests.
With mobility in mind, I am sure your Lordships approve the decision to commission H.M.S. "Albion" as a second commando carrier. I had the mixed pleasure of following the noble Lord, Lord Harding of Petherton, in this debate a year ago, and I was struck by his description of "Bulwark" as a fish without a tail. I am sure he will welcome the fact that there will soon be two fishes at sea. "Bulwark" and "Albion", and that they will acquire at least one tail in the new assault ship. Again, I hope that he will welcome the complementary decision of the Army to start replacing their old LST.s in the coming year with new, bigger, speedier and more efficient logistic supply ships. When executed, these decisions will considerably increase the ability of our Armed Forces to swim, an important matter in these days of Lord Ampthill's air barrier. Having served in one of the earliest commandos, I am very glad that we are planning to form a new Royal Marine Commando.
The same pattern applies in the air. The R.A.F. are continually carrying out exercises to practise and extend the mobility of R.A.F. squadrons and R.A.F. units. Detachments of V-bombers have regularly flown to Malta, Cyprus and the Far East. Mobility is also being extended by the increased use of in-flight refuelling, and last year a detachment of Javelins, your Lordships will recollect, flew to Singapore with the aid of in-flight refuelling.
To snuff out the candle of some local conflagration, troops on the ground are obviously needed. If the forces immediately available are not sufficient, there are theatre reserves deployed in the Midde East and in the Far East. Behind those stand in this country the three highly trained and well equipped brigades of the Strategic Reserve at a high state of readiness. May I say here that I was surprised by what the noble Earl, Lord Lucan, said yesterday about the Government's alleged coyness about our troop dispositions. I confess I rather sympathise with his æsthetic inhibitions about the White Paper's strip cartoons. But then he went on to say with reference to the map on page 4 that the symbols in it were, and I quote his words [col. 843]:
"merely a protective device on the part of the Departmental Ministers to protect themselves form criticisms in this country".
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This did surprise me. In both the Naval and the Air Estimate memoranda very full maps are included showing naval and military dispositions. In view of these I really feel the noble Earl was rather over-egging the pudding.
The steady growth of Transport Command has already greatly added to the mobility of our strategic reserves. The admirable strip cartoon at the back of the Memorandum on the Air Estimates illustrates the growth of this vital Command. For the strategic lift, Transport Command now has all its 23 Britannias, in addition to the 10 Comet 2s. Comet 4Cs are on order to replace the Comet 2s and we are now actively considering the possibility of further increases in the strategic Transport Force. Fifty-six Argosies are now on order for the medium-range force, the backbone of whch remains the very useful Beverley and that old friend, the Hastings.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, before the noble Earl leaves that matter, can he say anything about the Britannics, when we may expect them in service?
EARL JELLICOE: I can say this; they are now called the Belfast, and we may expect them in service in what I think is now becoming the fashionable phrase, the mid-'sixties.
THE EARL OF SWINTON: One White Paper says in 1964.
EARL JELLICOE: I was being more cautious than the noble Earl, but it does say 1964, as he says.
Have we sufficient strategic and theatre air mobility? As in the United States, I think the straight answer must be, No, and that is why the Government, like the American Administration, propose still further to expand our air transport force. However, just because we have not yet got all we should like, we should not be blind to the very striking growth of Transport Command. In the last ten years its air-lift potential has expanded threefold, and it will continue to grow. I have often heard Transport Command referred to as the Cinderella of the. Royal Air Force. If so, she is growing up very rapidly, like that precocious young lady, Lolita.
My Lords, it is no good having mobility unless we have the men to be

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mobile. Two noble Lords, my noble friend Lord Bridgeman and the noble Earl, Lord Lucan, focused attention in our debate yesterday on the manpower problem. I would remind your Lordships that yesterday the First Lord stressed the advantages of volunteer professional all-Regular Forces. The noble Earl, Lord Lucan, quoted Cromwell at us. May I quote Cromwell back at Lord Lucan? In a letter in September, 1643, to Sir William Spring, with which no doubt the noble Earl is familiar, Cromwell wrote "A few honest men are better than numbers". And as the First Lord said, the Government are mildly optimistic about the numbers.
The noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, asked if paragraph 48 of the White Paper of 1957 stands. The answer is, Yes. He also asked if we were thinking of National Service. Obviously, in a matter of such importance it is only prudent for the Government to consider all possibilities. All courses of action must be examined, including some form of selective service. But I would again draw attention to all the other possibilities to which the First Lord of the Admiralty referred yesterday, and emphasise that we are planning for success in this matter, not failure. In planning for success, I quite agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, that we cannot afford to ignore the youth organisations as aids to recruiting. We can, of course, explore this aspect in greater detail in our debate on the Army. Meanwhile, I would merely draw the noble Lord's attention to the fact that the War Office intend to spend 20 per cent. more next year, as compared to this on the Army Cadet Forces.
The noble Earl, Lord Lucan, emphasised (and I think I have his words right) that money is not the only thing that attracts men into the Services. I could not agree more. That is why, for example, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for War is encouraging adventure training in the Army. That is why, while maintaining discipline and smartness in the Army, he is making it crystal clear to all Army units that there is all the difference in the world between good discipline and smart turnout and pointless "bull". The noble Earl, Lord Lucan, also asked whether television advertising, which will play an important
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part in the War Office's vigorous and enterprising recruiting campaign, will be paid for. The answer is: Yes, if these advertisements are on commercial television.
Finally, my Lords, I should like to touch on two aspects of Defence expenditure. The noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, complained that the Government had failed to live up to paragraph 72 of the 1957 White Paper. The noble Lord, Lord Rea, mentioned the rising level of Defence expenditure as a threat to the social services. I should like to try to get the record straight on this. The expectation in 1957 was that the five-year plan would reduce the burden of Defence on the economy. No undertaking was given that expenditure would come down substantially. Indeed, the 1957 White Paper specifically drew attention to the reasons why reductions in manpower could not be expected to bring with them comparable cuts in expenditure.
The 1957 expectation has, in fact, proved accurate. The burden of Defence on the economy has been reduced in the last few years, whether measured as a proportion of the gross national product, in terms of the manpower absorbed by the Defence programme or of the proportion of the metal-using industry working for Defence, or indeed by any other of the criteria which can properly be used in measuring burdens on the economy. In simple expenditure terms, too, the five-year programme is achieving its purpose. In 1957 we faced the prospect of a steep rise in Defence spending in real terms; in fact, if we allow for price rises over the period, expenditure has been held steady, as the diagrams in paragraph 38 of this year's White Paper make perfectly clear. And this, my Lords, is despite two important facts. First, receipts in aid of the Defence Budget had declined by over £80 million between the 1957–58 and the 1961–62 Estimates, due to the fact that we no longer receive substantial sums from the United States and Germany, and also because the sales of surplus stores have fallen away. Secondly, there has been a change in the items covered by the Defence Budget since the 1957 White Paper which has added about £90

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million to it. But for these various changes, none of which has been determined by Defence policy, actual expenditure for the coming year would have been less than in 1957–58.
LORD REA: My Lords, are we to assume that at the end of the five-year period the actual recurring expenses will be reduced?
EARL. JELLICOE: My Lords, I think that is too fast a ball for me.
LORD REA: I apologise.
EARL. JELLICOE: My Lords, we heard a pretty powerful—
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I do not think the noble Earl will expect us to accept in toto what he has just said. I must say that he has done his level best to explain the position, but it does not mean that it can safely be assumed that the new plan, when it is fully implemented, will further appreciably reduce the burden on the economy. I think that his explanations, and even excuses, show nothing approaching that satisfaction which was promised four years ago.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, then it must be a failure in my powers of advocacy, because I thought I made it perfectly plain that it had reduced the strain on the economy as measured by any of the ordinary criteria by which strains on the economy are measured. I will try out my measuring tape another time.
We heard a pretty powerful speech yesterday evening from my old friend, the noble Viscount, Lord Caldecote. I had the impression that the two main considerations which he put to this House commanded broad assent: first, that it was necessary in the national interest that new weapon systems, when adopted in principle, should be carried forward to completion with all possible despatch; second, that the financial stakes are very high—he rightly drew our attention to the fact that some 40 per cent. of the total Defence budget, £650 million, goes towards equipment. Consequently, it is, as I think the whole House will agree, of vital importance that we should obtain full value for money. I can assure my noble friend that the views which he put to the
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House yesterday will receive most searching consideration.
Meanwhile, may I just say this? The total expenditure on the development of a major new weapon system, like a guided weapon or an aircraft, may run into many tens of millions of pounds. We must therefore be as certain as we reasonably can be in this world of accelerating technology that, before we agree to the start of a full-scale development programme, we are backing the right horse and have got the right odds. The noble Lord drew our attention to the comments of the Public Accounts Committee on three guided weapons projects whose total direct cost finally proved to be many times the original estimates. The Govment are not prepared to permit this sort of situation to continue, and I am sure your Lordships will agree that they are right in principle in demanding the most careful examination of proposals for new projects.
That said, I should like, nevertheless, to reiterate that my noble friend's remarks will receive most careful attention and consideration; and I would draw his attention to something of which I am sure he is already perfectly well aware—namely, that a Committee, the Zuckerman Committee, has been at work for some time on these particular problems. They are near to the end of their investigations now, and I am certain that their Report when it has been completed will help to reinforce measures already taken to improve control of expenditure and to insure that we get the best possible value for money.
My Lords, I know that there were several—indeed, a great many—questions posed yesterday which I have not answered. Rather than detain your Lordships longer, I feel that it would be best if I or my noble friend the First Lord were to write lo any noble Lords left out on a limb. For my part, that I gladly undertake to do. I think it is now high time that the corporal left the parade ground. In doing so, I merely wish to state my, belief that our Defence policy is coherent, that the balance of our forces is, broadly speaking, right, and that these forces are highly efficient. I therefore ask your Lordships to reject the two Amendments if they are moved, and to accept my noble friend's Motion.
3.17 p.m.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I should like first of all to congratulate the noble Earl. Not only have we on this side, and I have personally, a great affection for him, but we have welcomed his many valuable contributions in the past as a critic of the Government. It is rather sad when these more forthright critics are silenced and brought into the silent Lobby of the Government. Luckily, there is always a continuing "refreshment" going on in the other direction. It is one of the most surprising things that, as soon as a distinguished member of the Government, especially if he is concerned with Defence, leaves the Government—this is particularly true of another place—he immediately proceeds to attack the Government with regard to their Defence policy. It is most fortunate for the Government this year that the noble Lord, Lord Head, is in a far distant "other place", so that he is not here to join his criticisms to those which have come, as the Government freely admit, from both sides of the House
Clearly, the Government must be aware of the seriousness of the criticism of their Defence policy. Although much of what I have to say will be critical, this does not mean that I, or anybody who is critical, thinks that this is an easy task. It is, as has been said before, one of the most extraordinarily difficult jobs to produce an effective Defence policy and to sustain it. Our first complaint is that the Government will go on pretending—although the noble Earl departed a little from that course—that all is pretty good; that we have the right plan and that, on the whole. we have not much to worry about. This White Paper really is a pathetic document when we remember the original grandiose words in relation to the first year of the five-year plan. Now we get a document which consists of little more than a notice on the door of the Ministry of Defence, saying, "Not at home", or, possibly, "In conference".
We should like them to come out of their conference and face the consequences of their attempt to carry out a policy much of which is already in ruins and I shall attempt to show later the way in which it is in ruins. And we are not helped by the fact—and I am sure
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the noble and learned Viscount finds it as painful as we do—that there are so many terrible clichés and bits of jargon in the White Paper. There is the extraordinary statement in paragraph 28 that:
"At this time of rapid scientific development, even advanced weapons are almost sure"—
very careful!
"to be superseded by something still more advanced."
The noble Lord, the First Lord of the Admiralty, said almost the same thing in his exceedingly cautious speech. I do not think this is worthy of a statement that could be called a statement on Defence. It is, in fact, a soft-pedal on the five-year plan. The only good thing I have to say with regard to these publications is that the Service Memoranda seem to be very much better; they go into a great deal more detail. But I caution Her Majesty's Government, as did my noble friend Lord Lucan yesterday, to be a little careful about these cartoons. All kinds of interesting information might go in. We could have pictures of all eleven Ministers of Defence since the Defence Plan was created. They must not overdo that.
The main criticism we have of the Government springs from this attempt to have the best of all worlds. It is a temptation to all Governments outwardly to try to show this, although nobody knows better than Governments the impossibility of achieving it. I would start by referring to paragraph 8 of the Report on Defence, 1961, and draw attention to the difference between the statements in that paragraph and paragraph 31. That in paragraph 31 is a fairly modest statement. It says:
"How to keep our place, to preserve a proper balance in our effort, and to avoid the risk of deploying our limited resources of manpower and money over too wide a field has been the subject of much study."
But in paragraph 8 we get back to the original Sandys:
"The primary purpose of our defence policy is, therefore, that it should protect us, our allies and our friends against the whole spectrum of possible aggression and military threats, from the small local action which might be the beginning of larger and more dangerous adventures through 'nuclear blackmail' to nuclear war."
Her Majesty's Government cannot really suggest that it is possible to provide defence against the whole spectrum

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of aggression right through to nuclear war itself. This may be a matter of misunderstanding, and I do not doubt that we can have a jolly time trying to interpret those words; but our complaint is that there are too many of these loose and rather pompous statements. The main issue between critics of the Government (and these are critics, again, on all sides) is, of course, the question of the deterrent. I, for my part, do not question that we now have a powerful deterrent force. I do not question that our V-bombers are equipped and able to deliver most devastating retribution. It is certain, too, that they are at a high standard of efficiency and that the reaction time is as good as, and may well be better than the Government have already claimed; and although there may be only 200, and only a proportion may get through, it is fair enough to argue that they represent a tremendous force.
Our criticism of the present position is not that we have not, at this moment, an effective deterrent, or contribution to a deterrent, or whatever the Government like to call it, but that it has been secured at the cost—and too high a cost—of other aspects of defence; and furthermore, that it will become a wasting asset (and nobody can be more aware of it than the Government) unless they are really going completely to eat the words in the 1957 Defence White Paper, where we had, in paragraph 61. the statement that:
"Having regard to the high performance and potentiality of Vulcan Victor medium bombers and the likely progress of ballistic rockets arid missile defence, the Government have decided not to go on with the development of a supersonic manned bomber which could not have been brought into service in much under seven years."
Our criticism is in regard to the development of the missile and the position that will exist at some time—to use the felicitous phrase— "in the middle' sixties". There is in the White Paper this year a statement that:
"Equally we must be ready to scrap anything that has served its purpose, become outmoded, or whose ultimate cost may prove to be beyond our resources."
This, of course, is a piece of recent hindsight in relation to Blue Streak and is part of the epitaph of Blue Streak. But we have scrapped the main part of our defence policy in the scrapping of
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Blue Streak, and, as one who in earlier years defended Blue Streak and has defended, and is still a believer in, the strategic Western deterrent, I would say I believe we have in fact scrapped our continuing contribution towards it. We Dave not in this House, this year, had any talk about an independent deterrent. I ask the Government to stop talking about an independent contribution. Cannot we just call it a contribution? There was an attempt last year by the noble and learned Viscount, as he may remember, to define what an independent deterrent was. I think we might just call it a contribution and have done with it.
The question is: what in fact is its value—and this is the test by which it has to be judged in the whole pattern of Western defence—in the main purpose of preserving our position and the position of the Western world? I do not myself regard it as particularly moral to say that one should disapprove of atomic bombs as opposed to other weapons, nor, indeed, do most of my noble and honourable friends in either House; and we may as well face the fact—and I am sure the Government and most of us will agree—that it does not make us any more moral because we are inclined to walk on the other side of the street from the atom bomb and dismiss it from our sight. But the question, and our criticism, is whether, in fact, this emphasis on the deterrent that we have sustained despite the collapse of the original main part of the policy, is right to-day.
I should like briefly to say something about the position of the Labour Party. If I am to accuse Her Majesty's Government of coyness in their statements, then we might as well face frankly the Tact that there are divisions in other Parties, as well, on other subjects, and that there a very profound division on this subject. It will do no good to the noble and learned Viscount to ask these innocent (and we all know that when he is innocent he is at his most mischievous) questions about the Constitution of the Labour Party. As a former Chairman of the Conservative Party, he knows perfectly well what it is. I should like to analyse the position of people critical of the policy of Her Majesty's Government, and the range of criticism. There is the point of view of the pacifist to whom, I believe, most of us are sympathetic, and whose sincerity we recognise. Then there

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is the position of the unilateralist who says that it will be a contribution to the peace of the world if Britain sets an example by opting out without agreement in regard to the use of nuclear weapons; and I do not propose to develop that point. Then there are those who are what are called "multilateralists". And finally, there are those who believe that the national advantage is best served by always pursuing a national policy which does not take full regard of the fact that we are part of a great alliance.
My Lords, there are signs still to-day in the Government, and particularly in the speech of the Secretary of State for Air in another place, that there are people who are harking back to this older view, a view which (as the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, in his most interesting speech yesterday suggested) has never been part of the British historical approach to these matters. As he pointed out, our defence has in the past always been based on the marginal intervention in regard to the balance of power. If you are going to choose a marginal intervention, the question is this: what, in fact, is the most effective part of it? The Government argue that the Americans welcome our nuclear deterrent. It would be difficult for them not to do so. We are their Allies, and a certain amount of politeness between Allies is reasonable. But it is interesting that much of the main support has come from air force commanders, who are inclined to support anybody who supports a manned aircraft. It is comparable with (and I shall have to be careful with the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough) the position of those people who have a very strong devotion to the Navy and its deployment.
But the argument that the bomber will always get through, which has been used frequently in another place and is also matched by rather excessive statements, again from the Secretary of State for Air, about clawing down enemy bombers (and the Government are continuing to boast about Lightning fighters) leads us to a position in which we find a state of complete confusion. I say this in regard to our thinking. Again, it is very difficult to be clear minded. Even with the development of Blue Steel and, one year later—which we are told is all there is
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likely to be in it if the Government's hopes come off—of Skybolt, is that really going to redress the balance vis-à-vis the ballistic missile? I accept what the noble Earl said about the hopes that we shall get Skybolt and that there will be no strings and no double keys, one round the neck of a Royal Air Force officer and another round the neck of an American officer, and that it will in fact carry a British warhead. But we still have not got it; and the Americans have not yet, so far as I know, completely decided that this is going to be part of their policy. If we do not get it, then the final residue of our nuclear deterrent contribution will be in ruins.
My Lords, we now have to consider, not what is going to happen this year only, but what is going to happen in 1970 or, according to the First Lord, in 1990 in regard to some matters. The truth of the matter is that the Government have no idea at all. They have no idea what might replace the manned bomber when it has served its usefulness. Another aspect of this blindness which has been shown in our national planning and thinking is in regard to the development of atomic weapons by other Powers. This is a genuine dilemma. The longer we go on, the harder it will be to head off the French. It may well be argued that nothing will head off President de Gaulle, but we are not making any attempt on this subject. We are making no attempt whatsoever, other than in the attempt to get agreement with regard to general disarmament, to stop or to reduce the spread of nuclear weapons.
We then come to General Norstad's statement in which he talks about putting nuclear weapons into N.A.T.O.; and the Government have, very rightly, not made up their minds on this point. It is a matter which we shall have to face up to. I must say, speaking personally—and I emphasise that this is a personal point of view—that I am not ready yet to oppose, in all circumstances, the idea of the strategic deterrent being part of the N.A.T.O. setup. But it is certainly too early to think about it now, and it is certainly not right at the moment to think of it as part of the European, or SACEUR, Command in N.A.T.O. Why should N.A.T.O., or SACEUR, to be more exact, need it?

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I should like to know what might be its use.
Here we come to the problem of distinguishing between strategic and tactical weapons. The noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, I think, adjured us last night to try to avoid talking about "nuclear" or "tactical" weapons. Unfortunately, the beastly things must have some sort of name, and we must therefore go on calling them something. I quite accept the statement, which I think was made in another place by the Government, that a tactical weapon is a weapon which, at that moment, you use tactically, and that a strategic weapon is one that you use strategically; and that this is perfectly clear so far as things like Polaris are concerned. But the difficult), is for the other side to distinguish. To put it mildly, it would be very difficult for a potential enemy tracking a Polaris into his own territory to distinguish between the military interdiction and a strategic onslaught. I think we might find it rather difficult to expect him to refrain from strategic retaliation, even if he himself were to call it military interdiction. I think, for this reason, that the use of Polaris on land must be "out" so far as Europe is concerned. I say this very reluctantly, because I have prejudices on this matter. I think that probably the future of the Western deterrent may well lie in the Polaris submarine under American control.
Here again, we have a statement on the use of these nuclear weapons from a Government spokesman:
"We believe it is essential N.A.T.O. forces should be seen to have mobile conventional forces and nuclear weapons from the smallest yield to the highest and that we should have the capability of using them in tactical interdiction or in strategical."
What does this mean, and how can we regard the Government as having a clear policy when we have statements of this kind, again, I may say, from the Secretary of State for Air?
I should like to touch briefly on the equipment of our Forces in Germany with regard to so-called tactical nuclear weapons. We know that the Army is under strength; the noble Earl made a rather shy admission of that. There are some rather stronger figures which I could produce. But it is a fact, which has been testified to by many people, that our Forces in Germany are exces-
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sively dependent on short-range nuclear weapons, whether they be the 8-inch Howitzer or Honest John or the Corporal; and this is not true to the same extent of other countries. It is not true, I am told—and the Government will correct me if I am wrong—of the Americans themselves.
We understand, as has been made clear by Government spokesmen, that in the event of anything more than the smallest outbreak, these so-called tactical nuclear weapons will be called into use. This is something of which many people outside the House are extremely critical, as are other countries. It is not only a question, as someone suggested in another place, of a policeman being hit on the head in Berlin. There might be another kind of incident of the Korean type, even in Europe. There might be something in Greece; there might be something in North Norway, which is wide open in the event of a change in Russian policy. I do not think it is likely to happen, but this situation is what shield forces are for. It is wide open to a conventional military take-over. On the other hand, I would not make the suggestion—and it is no part of the official statements of the National Executive or the leaders of the Labour Party in another place—that we can at this moment take these short-range nuclear weapons away from our troops. We cannot do so. But we think we ought to step up the so-called conventional arms, and that these tactical weapons ought to be brought further back so, that they are not automatically called into use, as would be almost hound to happen to-day, with the inevitable development of (another curious term) escalation, which would lead on to an unleashing of the full, atomic fury.
My Lords, I should like to refer shortly to this question of the strength of our forces in Germany. We are in honour bound, and have been, to maintain certain forces in Europe. The original figure was four divisions. Then it was 75,000 troops. Later, it was whittled down to, I think, 65,000; then to 55,000; and subsequently, I think, it went down to 45,000. Now the number, nominally, is 55,000, although the Government know perfectly well, and we know, that I the number does not stand at 55.000.

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The effect of this deficiency is far greater than the simple numbers, as the noble Earl and anybody with experience of these matters knows. A fall below establishment is a far more serious thing than the simple numbers that are missing. It affects the whole efficiency of the unit. It is no good Government spokesmen saying, as they did in another place, that it is normal for our Forces to be below strength and below establishment in peace time. These troops are meant to be in Germany, available, if necessary, for immediate action. They are there as part of a shield force to give us time, and possibly to prevent the outbreak of a full, strategic, atomic war. We, unlike the Americans, are below strength, and we are not fulfilling our obligations to our Allies in this matter.
The Government have been less than frank about recruiting. Last year they said that the target was 166,000 Regulars. Now it is this year; and last year's target was apparently 160,000, according to the White Paper. Are we really likely to reach our figure? Here I was mystified by a statement made by the First Lord, when he said that two or three years ago we expected to be 40,000, or possibly, 25,000, below the minimum needed, and that in fact we are going to do very much better. What I should like to know is: was it the same minimum, or was it the minimum of the Hall Committee, which said we ought to have somewhere round 200,000 or 220,000 Regular troops? I do not know whether, when the noble Viscount comes to reply on this, he can tell us. We should like to have some clarification.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL AND MINISTER FOR SCIENCE (VISCOUNT HAILSHAM): My Lords, perhaps it would be convenient to say now—because when I come to reply, a lot of water will have flowed under the bridge—that it was the same minimum, the first of the alternatives put by the noble Lord.
LORD SHACKLETON: I am grateful for that clarification. But we are, of course, faced with a dangerous situation. I am not going to go into this argument about National Service or selective service, which has already been widely canvassed. I think we are all agreed that the last thing we want is a reintro-
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duction of National Service, and I should not be prepared, necessarily, to cross the Floor, as honourable Members in another place would, if the Government were to re-introduce National Service. Nevertheless, I believe that the Government have now to advance a little nearer to this bridge which they are refusing to cross. We have got as far as hearing that the Government might be prepared to face a reduction in medical and educational standards—this, I think, is an alarming prospect—and there have been suggestions, too, of more recruiting from colonial territories. I have no objection at all to recruiting from colonial territries; the only trouble is that it is apt to be extraordinarily expensive.
The Government must now take what I believe is the only way to attempt to meet our present commitments, and that is to put a tremendously greater effort behind increased mobility. A three-fold increase in the air-lift potential since Suez (I think it was) is not enough. We are told that it will be six times in an emergency. I do not know whether that means that Coastal Command will be brought into use again, whether it means the use of charter aircraft, or what it means.
EARL JELLICOE: May I interrupt? I think it means an increase in the utilisation of existing forces.
LORD SHACKLETON: I see. In other words, in an emergency, for a short period, they would be able to get this six-fold increase. My Lords, we have discussed this matter previously, and we know that the lift is still quite inadequate. We have had the figures with regard to "Operation Starlight", and the noble and gallant Field Marshal, Lord Harding of Petherton, had some strong things to say on this subject earlier. We were told it was only 175 tons lifted. That figure has now been corrected since the White Paper was published and the amended figure, if the Government are not aware of it, is 600 tons. I do not quite know how this calculation has come about.
My Lords, where is the sense of urgency? Is the Belfast due in 1964, the mid-'sixties or 1967? Now is the time when we ought to have this; and it is now—I emphasise this, for it is the burden of our criticism of the Government—that we are falling behind on our

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commitments. It might be well to the interest of the Western defence if, instead of trying to negotiate for Skybolt, we were to negotiate for a good supply of C130 transport aircraft, so that we could spread our vital Regular troops further.
We have an improved position with regard to mobility on the Naval side. We have the development of commando carriers. Again, we shall be debating the Navy Estimates, and I hesitate to go too far in asking the question: What are our large carriers for? But I feel that here is rather a striking example of the split in Government policy, in that they have a large Navy, trained and equipped for what might be called a conventional war—namely, anti-submarine war, even if it is with nuclear submarines—while our Army is at the moment equipped for a nuclear war. I have very grave doubts whether generalised submarine warfare is likely unless we are faced again by the full force of war—or is this a possibility? Do the Government in fact visualise this as one of the developments that might happen?
My Lords, I have not time to go into this question of commitments. I do not agree with the many people who suggest that our present commitments, or many of them, are necessarily a hang-over from colonial days. The presence of our troops in Africa, wherever they may be, may well be absolutely essential to the discharge of our responsibilities under the United Nations. But the painful fact is that we have not enough to go round; and, somehow or other, we have to solve this problem. I would sum up by saying that our main criticism is that there has been, as in previous years, and still is, too much emphasis on the deterrent. II: is a painful choice to make, but what is the most important contribution we can make—and again I emphasise this—to Western defence? Where is the shortage? It is surely not in regard to nuclear weapons: it is in regard to forces in the field. When the Government say that the main framework has not changed, I would reply that it has changed critically, and that our policy, or the carrying out of the policy, has not been adjusted to it.
My Lords, among many requirements we had was a reform of our Defence organisation from Mr. Duncan Sandys. I repeat what I think many noble Lords suspect: that this is a bit of a scramble
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between the Services. This year, the Navy has got a bit more and the Air Force a bit less. It may be very difficult keeping these three Services going, but could not the Government contrive to take just a little wider look and study the situation against the background of our commitments to our Allies? Much of this difficulty clearly springs—and I say this in all sincerity—from the Government's fundamental unwillingness to face their relationship with Europe. We know that many of them believe in interdependence, and no one more so than the noble Earl who opened the debate today. But we still get statements like: "Our part of the air defence of Europe will remain under British sovereignty, and we can withdraw our fighters whenever we like."
The criticisms which are made are criticisms based on the need to judge coldly what is best for our country, and what is best for the world. I think we should concentrate further on improving N.A.T.O. There have been many criticisms of N.A.T.O., but here, my Lords, is a great Alliance: something of which we as a country should be very proud, and something which has played a unique part, in a way no other alliance in all history, I believe, has played, in preserving the sort of ideals of democracy for which we stand in this country. This country has played a tremendous part in building up N.A.T.O. I think perhaps our greatest contributions have not necessarily been only in the outward display of overwhelming force; they have also been in tactical spheres, staff work, and so on.
We have played a major part, but what is the balance that is best for the Western Alliance? The criticism which we have made is too wide, and has come from too many sources to be put down purely to Party political rancour. We know that the Government carry a heavy responsibility. The noble Earl has said that we get "a little jam to-day" and that we shall get some more to-morrow. The question is: have we enough jam at the moment, or enough material forces to deal with the situation? We were not ready at the time to cope with Suez. I am not going to go into the merits of Suez; but we know from the events which transpired that we were not ready. We in the Opposition—and this is one of the main reasons why we put down our

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Amendment—believe that the Government have not only failed in their duty to ensure that we are ready to play our part in the Western Alliance now, but have also failed to produce any effective plans for the future.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, it may be convenient if we interrupt the debate at this stage. My noble friend has a statement to make, and I would ask the House to consider this course.

REORGANISATION OF BRITISH TRANSPORT COMMISSION
3.52 p.m.
THE PAYMASTER GENERAL (LORD MILLS): My Lords, with your Lordships' permission, I should like to repeat to you a statement which is being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Minister of Transport. This is the statement:
"With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I should like to make a statement about the initial steps the Government propose to take in the reorganisation of the British Transport Commission under the proposals recently approved by the House.
"In accordance with the new arrangements Sir Brian Robertson will, with my agreement, retire from the chairmanship of the Commission with effect from 1st June, 1961.
"The House will, I know, share to the full the Government's warm gratitude to Sir Brian for his outstanding services as Chairman of the Commission since 1953 and for the devotion with which he has carried out his heavy responsibilities. Having regard to the terms of the appointment, the Government intend to take powers in the forthcoming legislation to enable the Commission to pay him, in addition to his superannuation award, a sum of £12,500.
"I have decided to appoint Dr. Richard Beeching as Chairman-designate of the new Railways Board. Dr. Beeching is a Director of Imperial Chemical Industries Limited, and was a member of the Special Advisory Group on the Reorganisation of the Commission. To enable him to take
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part immediately in the preparatory work which has to be done, I have to-day appointed him to be a part-time member of the British Transport Commission. On Sir Brian Robertson's retirement, Dr. Beeching will become a full-time member of the Commission and will also assume the chairmanship until, when the reorganisation comes into effect, he can become the first Chairman of the British Railways Board.
"I take this opportunity of thanking Imperial Chemical Industries for releasing Dr. Beeching for five years.
"I told the House on 30th January last that, in view of the special nature of this task of reorganisation, it might be necessary at the start to bring in a few new people at the top, and that the Government would need to pay regard to the special needs in their search for the best available talent and in considering suitable terms. The Government consider it fortunate that Dr. Beeching is prepared to interrupt his career with the Imperial Chemical Industries for a period of five years to take up this especially challenging task. It would not be right to expect him, in addition, to accept a substantial financial sacrifice, and I have decided, with the agreement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that Dr. Beeching shall be paid, from 1st June next, his present remuneration with Imperial Chemical Industries, which is £24,000 a year."
3.56 p.m.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, may I first thank the noble Lord for giving us a copy of the statement made in another place. I think the first comment one might be allowed to make (one must be brief to-day) is that we share the view of the Minister with regard to the services of Sir Brian Robertson. We do not know how he has managed to do as much as he has done, with all the political interference he has had for the last seven-and-half years. Therefore we do not think that the Government is being especially over-generous to him in the allocation they are making to him, although it is quite generous for the period involved.
However, I must say that it raises the other question, and that is what sort of

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compensation, through this change in Government policy, is going to be given to other services of the Transport Commission. There is not the slightest indication yet, so far as I can tell, as to what will be done in that line. There are various degrees, periods and characters of services which have been rendered, and the Government may well be assured that, in view of the step taken here and the subsequent one which I will mention, there will be many anxious inquiries as to their intentions with regard to compensation for a change in a given situation which is entirely due to Government policy.
Now I would refer to the new appointment. I think, in the circumstances, it is an extraordinary position in which Parliament is placed. As to the academic qualifications and a certain amount of commercial experience of Dr. Beeching, there can be no question at all. But Parliament has to face a situation in which a salary is to be paid on a commercial basis, according to the standards of Imperial Chemical Industries, Limited, for a period of five years, in order to carry out a reorganisation which is apparently to be conducted on lines unknown to Parliament. It is to be conducted under the control of a member of the Group who made the recommendations as to what should be done, and the Government have not thought fit to submit those recommendations or that Report to Parliament. The cost will be £24,000 a year, with no indication at present whether that is completely inclusive of all superannuation charges or compensation involved. My comment at this stage is that it may be said politically that the people at large have "never had it so good"; but according to the valuations which are placed by the Government, or even by the directors of Imperial Chemical Industries, Limited, on an individual's services, I think a lot of people will think that it is mainly a class which has "never had it so good".
4.0 p.m.
LORD MILLS: My Lords, in reply to the points raised by the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition, I may say that the Government reached agreement with Sir Brian Robertson, who is perfectly satisfied that the Government had no desire except to acknowledge his ser-
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vices and deal generously and properly with him. I would say that the Government intend to take powers in forthcoming legislation which will enable them to deal with any other member who may have to be dealt with. These powers have not yet been decided. Therefore I cannot inform your Lordships any further than that the Government will deal properly with anyone who falls to be dealt with. The noble Viscount said that he did not know what the proposals were. It is true, as was said at the outset, that the Government did not propose to publish a Report which was available to them and was one of the matters taken into account in deciding what the reorganisation should be. But the Government did publish a White Paper giving their proposals and that was available to your Lordships' House.
As regards the question of the remuneration proposed to be paid to Dr. Beeching, I would point out that it is merely continuing for him the remuneration he now enjoys outside, as I explained to your Lordships; and it seems right, as my right honourable friend said in his statement, that Dr. Beeching should not be asked to suffer in this respect. He is being loaned from the I.C.I., and the Government are merely continuing his remuneration.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, if that position applies, surely it applies whenever an industrialist joins the Government. Yet the Government pay their Ministers substantially less than, perhaps half of, what is offered to Dr. Beeching.
LORD MILLS: My Lords, I am delighted to hear what the noble Lord has said.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, in view of the fact that the White Paper made a feature of encouraging railwaymen to believe that they might achieve the highest posts, can the noble Lord say what principles have governed the Government's decision in this matter in choosing, instead of an experienced railwayman like Mr. Grand, a gentleman, however distinguished and experienced in business, who apparently has had no experience whatever in railways and transport?
LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, before the noble Lord replies, may I say that I agree with what the noble Lord,

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Lord Stonham, said? I welcome very much the fact that Sir Brian Robertson will be made an ex gratia payment for his valuable services from 1953. There is one question I should like to ask the noble Lord, though I do not know whether he can reply now. How is it that the statement which we have just heard was announced this morning in the Daily Express? Secondly, I do not doubt in any way the technical capabilities of Dr. Beeching, as he is a Technical Director of I.C.I., but I would ask the noble Lord what administrative or operational experience he can have of railways. The noble Lord said that he would be employed for a period of five years. This seems to be the period during which the major part of the reorganisation and modernisation will take place. I wonder whether the noble Lord will not agree that possibly somebody with great experience of the operational side of railways should have been considered.
LORD REA: My Lords, may I ask the noble Viscount the Leader of the House whether he considers that this debate is in order?
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I was just asking myself that question. I am always reluctant to interfere with attempts by noble Lords who ask questions after an important statement has been made. If I may make a suggestion, I think that instead of putting a series of questions, one after the other, your Lordships should try to put them one at a time, because I have noticed more than once that when there is a long series of questions, with each sneaker saying, "Before the noble Lord answers" the last, and then asking something totally different, we begin to get out of order. I think that if my noble friend answers the two questions just put to him, it might be for the convenience of the House if noble Lords refrained from further comment until there was an opportunity of debate on Question.
LORD MILLS: My Lords, in reply to the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, I would say that it is indeed desirable that every encouragement should be given to those in the railway service. With your Lordships' permission, I would read what my right honourable friend the Minister of Transport had to say in another place on
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January 30 last. He said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 633 (No. 42), col. 618]:
"A new structure and reorganisation can do a great deal to make railway problems manageable, but of equal importance is the quality of the men who will provide leadership, and the morale of staff and workers. The railways must have the best leadership available. There must be opportunities in all parts of the railways for those with ability to get to the top. At the start it may be necessary to bring in a few new people. The task is challenging, and I believe that the time is crucial. The task is not only running one of the biggest industries in the country, if not the biggest; it is the task of transforming its structure, its outlook and its finances. The Government will have to have regard to these special needs in their search for the best available talent and in considering the terms on which it can be obtained."
I think that that answers the second question of the noble Lord. Lord Merrivale. There are many people. and there will be many people, concerned in the management of the railways, and many people with great experience of railways, but what is needed at this time is to have as Chairman of the Railways Board someone who has already studied the problems and who, in the opinion of the Government, is competent to take over that charge.
The noble Lord referred to an announcement in the Daily Express. I wish that I could answer his question. I do not know. But this I can tell him: that my right honourable friend the Minister of Transport will take all steps open to him to try to find out.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, perhaps it would be convenient for the House if my noble friend Lord Newton were now to make his statement, before we resume the debate on Defence.

DRUG PRESCRIPTIONS BY DOCTORS
3.57 p.m.
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, it may be for the convenience of the House if I inform your Lordships of the statement being made this afternoon by my honourable friend the Minister of Health in another place.
The statement is as follows:
"The Secretary of State for Scotland and I recently asked the Standing Joint Committee on the Classification of

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Proprietary Preparations, of which Lord Cohen of Birkenhead is Chairman, to consider if they could help doctors in prescribing by giving more guidance on proprietary preparations.
"The Committee has now reported and the House will wish to know its principal conclusion. The Committee advise that, while there should continue to be no absolute restriction on the prescribing of any drug which the doctor considers necessary for the treatment of his patient, he need not normally go outside the drugs and preparations described from time to time in the British Pharmacopœia, the British Pharmaceutical Codex and the British National Formulary, together with the drugs that the Committee classify as N (new drugs of proved value not yet standard), and P (drugs for which there is prima facie evidence of therapeutic value but where the Committee want further evidence before firm classification). The Report goes on to advise that a doctor who prescribes other preparations may be liable to be called on to justify his action if the cost of his prescribing is being formally investigated.
"The Report will be published and, in consultation with the medical profession, will be brought to the attention of all doctors.
"My right honourable friend and I are aware that the pharmaceutical industry may be apprehensive of the effect of this advice on its future progress and development; but we are sure that any such apprehension would be ill-founded. Many standard preparations are, and will no doubt continue to be, available only in proprietary form, or cost little more or no more in proprietary than in unbranded form. This, together with categories N and P, and the individual doctor's professional discretion, will continue to provide full scope for the products of the industry's research and development to find their reward."
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, I should like to welcome this recommendation of the Committee presided over by the noble Lord, Lord Cohen of Birkenhead. I think that it will go some way towards reducing the cost of these expensive and unnecessary
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drugs which are consumed in the country to-day. May I gently remind the noble Lord that the spokesman for the Opposition on health in another place recommended that, this should be done, so far as drugs included in the British Pharmacopœia, the British Pharmaceutical Codex and the British National Formulary and those classified as "N" drugs are concerned. But I realise the difficulties that his Committee have been under during the past years. I would only ask him about those classified under "P". Does he think that we are leaving the door a little ajar for the more unscrupulous drug houses to bring pressure to bear on the more gullible doctors? I always feel that the test of any drug is the clinical test.
The other question that I would ask—and I listened to the noble Lord carefully—is with regard to doctors being asked to justify their prescribing. Only those doctors whose costs are under examination will be asked to justify their prescribing. I expect the noble Lord knows that comparatively few costs are examined, and therefore it may be that only a comparatively few doctors will be asked to justify their prescribing. The other point that I want to make is this. I would remind your Lordships that there may be a great outcry from the more Right wing of the medical profession, because they will allege that to-day their freedom has been taken from them. I think those of us who understand these problems are quite happy that proper treatment will be given to every patient, because your Lordships should remember that the first health insurance scheme in the world was introduced in Germany by Bismarck at the end of the last century; and in Germany for many years they have followed, and follow to-day; the advice which has just been given. They are also prepared to examine the prescribing of any doctor who they believe has over-prescribed or has prescribed an unnecessarily expensive product.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, I should like—
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, it is rather difficult for my noble friend to bear in mind a great number of comments, and I was wondering if the noble Lord would permit him to answer the noble Lady.
LORD AMULREE: Certainly.
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, I am obliged for the general welcome which the noble Lady has given to the statement. The first question she asked was about the risk being taken in including drugs in category "P" among those which the Committee recommend should be prescribable. So far as I know, the noble Lady need not have any fears about this being an unnecessary risk; and I would emphasise that this is a recommendation of a very distinguished Committee. With regard to her second question, I should like to make it plain that the recommendations in this Report in no way alter the present position: that if a doctor appears to be prescribing excessively he may be asked to show that any drug, in whatever category it is, was necessary for the patient.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, I should like to welcome the statement which has been made and which will, I am sure, give a certain amount of satisfaction to members of the profession who have wondered whether there would be some restriction on prescribing. I am pleased to see that if a doctor thinks that certain drugs are necessary for his patient there will be no restriction on prescribing them. Secondly I understand that the Report is to be published and circulated and will be available to members of the profession. I am sure that most of them will try to do what they can to keep down the cost of prescribing expensive drugs.
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Lord.

DEFENCE
4.15 p.m.
Debate resumed.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, perhaps I may recall to the House that some time ago we were talking about Defence. I feel that this debate has been a little confused, for two reasons. The first is that the Government are not clear in their own mind as to what they want from Defence. They are guilty, if not of double thought, at least of double talk; and they certainly need no lessons from Mr. Khrushchev in that particular respect. As far back as 1957, in the
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famous White Paper which has been quoted so often to-day and yesterday, the Government said this:
"The growth in the power of weapons of mass destruction has emphasised the fact that no country can any longer protect itself in isolation. The defence of Britain is possible only as part of a collective defence of the free world".
Later on it says:
"Provided each member nation plays its fair part in the joint effort, it is not necessarily desirable that each should seek to contribute national forces which are themselves self-sufficient and balanced in all respects."
I think that is an excellent statement of the case; and it is one with which I, and, so far as I know, all Members of the Liberal Party, would entirely agree. In the present Report on Defence, in paragraph 23, the Government re-emphasise this point of view and say:
"A narrow, nationalistic policy for the choice and production of arms makes no sense to-day."
Again, we entirely agree; in fact, that point has been made by more than one speaker in this debate. But the Government do not carry out the policy which they advocate—and this is where the "double thought" and "double talk" come in. I believe that we really have the independent deterrent mainly to satisfy the gunboat mentality on their own Benches and not for any real defensive purpose whatever. I cannot believe that a Government who set out these admirable statements of policy can at the same time desire to go completely against them, as they do with regard to the independent deterrent.
Quite apart from the points I have been mentioning, and its failure to draw this clear distinction, the White Paper does not deal with any of the pressing points which ought to be dealt with in the world of Defence to-day—particularly our relationship with N.A.T.O. and the various problems which the N.A.T.O. Commander-in-Chief, General Norstad, has put to the Parliaments and Governments of the Atlantic Alliance. There is no need for me to go over these points again for they were clearly stated in the debate in your Lordships' House as recently as January 25. That is less than two months ago. On that occasion the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, took part. May I say that he knew all about General Norstad, because he and I were sitting next to each other when General Norstad

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made his famous speech. So he knows exactly the points I am referring to in that debate.
The noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, speaking less than two months ago, said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 227 (No. 29), col. 1266]:
"May I, in conclusion, say why I feel the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, is so particularly timely? There are two reasons. The first is that the N.A.T.O. Powers are now confronted with a whole complex of unresolved and vastly important problems. There are the strategic and military problems to which much attention has been paid in this debate."
A little later he said:
"To my mind, all these problems are important and all are pressing; and their resolution is overdue."
My Lords, it was overdue on January 25 last. It is even more overdue to-day. Yet in his speech to-day the noble Earl gave no indication at all that anything was overdue: everything in the military garden, he said, was lovely.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I do not think the noble Lord is being quite fair on this. I have no intention of eating any words I said in public, and I do not think I have any need to do so. Because what I said at this Box about an hour ago was that a whole segment of vital problems was at this very moment under review by N.A.T.O. in the N.A.T.O. Council.
LORD OGMORE: What the noble Earl said on January 25 was that "their resolution is overdue." And it is bound to be more overdue to-day. Taking that speech as it was given, it must be a clear indication to all of us that the Government were guilty of considerable delay in coming to a conclusion on these various important points. On none of the points that were raised in General Norstad's speech have we had any indication from the First Lord, or from the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe—and I venture the prophecy that we shall have none, either, from the Lord President—as to what is exactly the British point of view on these important points.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I should like to know what the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, is trying to say. My noble friend has said that these things are being discussed in N.A.T.O. circles between Governments. Can the noble Lord really be asking us to declare in public a positive position, in advance
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of our Allies? Is that what he is asking us to do? I just want to know.
LORD OGMORE: I will tell you what I am asking you to do; and that is to make up your minds on these points, and give a lead in Europe. Your own Back Benchers have said so. Just a moment; you can interrupt in a moment. Ask the Back Benchers who were at N.A.T.O. They will tell you how the other nations in N.A.T.O. consider that we have dragged our feet on military and other points for years past. When the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, said that resolution of these problems was "overdue", he meant it; and he is quite right. I am just pointing out that even now we have not been given by the Government any decision on these important matters.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: I think I am entitled to press the noble Lord on this point. I asked him about his main criticism of the Government, which seems to me to indicate that he thought some positive statement in answer to these questions should have been given in this debate or in the White Paper. Is it or is it not the view of the Liberal Party, for whom he speaks, that we ought to make statements of that kind in advance of discussion with our Allies?
LORD OGMORE: I should like to know who are dragging their feet. It is all very well hiding behind the fact that no agreement has been arrived at with our Allies. But whose fault is that? For all we know, it may be the British Government who are holding up agreement, and this may be just a smokescreen behind which the Government can hide. So I am not at all impressed by that challenge of the Lord President. I am not at all satisfied that the Government are giving the lead in military matters in N.A.T.O. which they should have done. On certain of the matters raised by General Norstad there is no objection whatsoever to the Government making their decision quite clear to this House and to the country at large. It is the sort of thing which can greatly affect this country, because no other N.A.T.O. country except the United States has the independent deterrent.
The Labour Party—and this is the second reason why I think the debate has been rather confused—have put up

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seven policies on Defence, any of which you can choose. The Lord Chancellor will remember the famous Duck case, when the counsel put up seven defences and was asked by the judge which the jury was to choose. The counsel said: "You can take any one of them. I do not mind. Any one is as good as the other." That seems to me to be the attitude of the Labour Party: they have put up seven policies. But the official policy of the Labour Party is. of course, unilateralism. The noble Viscount the Lord President of the Council, whether he was speaking with his tongue in his cheek or asking for information, or whether he was simply trying to upset the equanimity of the Front Bench—and one can hardly accuse him of that—was quite right in putting that point to the noble Viscount Lord Alexander of Hillsborough yesterday. For we are entitled to know what is the policy of the Labour Party on this important issue.
As I understand the situation, the official Labour policy is unilateralism. The policy put forward by the noble Viscount, the Leader of the Opposition, yesterday was, so far from unilateralism, that he wished to retain the independent nuclear deterrent; and he urged the Government to increase the conventional forces, particularly the Navy. The noble Viscount is quite logical in all this, because he has not changed. To be fair to him, he has always held those views, and he has quite conscientiously expressed them. But they are poles apart from the official policy of the Labour Party. One would have thought that the policies of the Labour Party would have been exhausted, but there was a new one from the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, who said that it did not matter having nuclear weapons so long as they were obsolete. I will leave it at that.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I am quite sure that the noble Lord, who, as I have said before, has left us for a less progressive position, has enjoyed himself very much on this point. But he had sufficient evidence of the Labour movement to know that it does not matter whether there is a division of opinion coming from the Left Wing or the Right Wing. We have a right to discuss it afterwards,
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whether it has been passed or not; and we go on discussing it. What counts is what the representatives of the people in Parliament decide shall be submitted to Parliament.
LORD OGMORE: We will leave it at that.
So far as the Liberal Party are concerned, all I need say is that both the Parliamentary Party and the Assembly are agreed. We are agreed that we should not retain the independent deterrent, but should support the Western Alliance and N.A.T.O. to the full, and strive for a multilateral disarmament. That is quite a clear-cut policy. It was one supported not only by the Liberal Party, but by many other equally distinguished people, people of great experience in the Armed Forces and others.
I think, if I may say so, that the wind of change will before very long blow the Conservative Party along to that policy. They will not admit it, of course. We know how the Conservative Party changes. I am not sure whether it was the noble Lord, the present First Lord, or his predecessor (I think it may have been he himself) who two or three years ago, in one of these debates, answered a point I had made. I suggested that the Government should do what they are now going to do—that is, to fly troops abroad for exercises. We were told then that this could not possibly happen. It was inconceivable, that British troops could ever be flown out of this country abroad on exercises, because it would be so expensive and so administratively impossible that he wondered how anybody with the slightest idea of the Services, such as I assumed myself to have, could have possibly put up such an absurd suggestion. Now they are to do it. Not only that. They have made a training camp in Borneo, of all places, where they are now flying out troops for exercises—and I do not blame them; it is good idea. But they pour cold water on many suggestions made here, and afterwards quitely adopt them. I am quite sure your Lordships will see that in a year or two the Conservative Benches will adopt the Liberal policy on defence.
I should like to make one further point about conventional forces. This is the real crux of the question, as I see it.

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If we are spending such a vast amount of money on our deterrent, we are not able to afford the quality or the numbers of conventional forces. As the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, quite rightly said (he gave the figures and I will not repeat them) in Germany they are neither equipped nor in sufficient number to keep our promise to the N.A.T.O. Alliance and to be really efficient as part of the shield forces. I would re-emphasise that General Norstad has said that the first requirement is to have conventional forces with a substantial conventional capability and that those forces must be adequate in quantity, in weapons and in what he called "survival posture" (I am not quite sure what that means)—and this on an urgent basis. This is what he said last November. To-day, the conventional forces are not in that position so far as N.A.T.O. is concerned, and our forces, unfortunately, are not sufficient in quantity or equipped with adequate weapons or in other respects as the Commander-in-Chief would wish. How are we going to get them? When are we going to get them?
One point has not been mentioned at all in this debate and it is a very important point. You can get the horse to the water; you can start him drinking; but he does not seem to drink very long. So far as the infantry are concerned—I am not quite sure what the figure is in regard to the other arms; it may be the same or it may be less or more—one in five of all recruits into the Army leave within three months. That is a very serious figure. I do not think it has been mentioned though I may be wrong—I gather I am. However, it has not been developed. Yet that is a very serious figure, because a loss of one in five, 20 per cent., within three months is an enormous wastage. However attractive our recruiting posters, and however great our recruiting efforts may be, if 20 per cent. leave within the first three months there is something radically wrong. Quite a number of the recruits leave because they are medically unfit, but only yesterday the noble Lord the First Lord of the Admiralty, told us that they were going to have another review of the medical requirements.
THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (LORD CARRINGTON): My Lords, what I said was that we should
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not know until the end of this year what the position would be about the 165,000, but that before we came to a decision on the question of reintroducing National Service or some form of selective service there were other ideas which we ought to examine, among which was that of reducing medical standards.
LORD OGMORE: I have got the quotation. He says (col. 773):
"The shortages, we believe, will be only limited and temporary,"—
Why that should be so I do not know. There are no grounds for thinking that.
"and there are ways other than the reintroduction of National Service for dealing with them—for example, by adjustment of medical and educational standards, and further civilianisation. All those methods would be examined."
I am simply saying that as 20 per cent. now leave the Forces for one reason or another—quite a number of them on medical grounds; they are found to be unfit to serve—and as quite a number of them have to have three months' schooling as soon as they get in because their educational standards are so low, what hope has the noble Lord, by a reduction in the already low medical and educational standards, of increasing the number in the Forces? I should have thought that art attempt to reduce the standards either of physical capacity or of educational capacity, which are not high by any means, would be a retrograde step.
I mention this point because not only is it our great drawback so far as N.A.T.O. is concerned, but I do not agree with suggestions that have been made very largely in this country that we should cut down our overseas forces in areas other than N.A.T.O. I think it is most important in certain areas, most of which are mentioned in the White Paper, to retain troops on the ground. If we evacuate troops, as is suggested, from places like Gibraltar, Hong Kong and East Africa, I cannot see how the authorities in those places could be responsible for law and order. There are very few battalions scattered over the world, and to reduce the numbers any further would be disastrous. Another suggestion that has been made is that we should reduce the number of troops in the West Indies. So far as I know, there is only one battalion in the whole

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of the West Indies, that vast area. Really, if it has come to this, that in order to supply the conventional forces that we need we have to remove the only battalion in the West Indies, then I think the Government's policy must be very wrong.
My Lords, I believe that in all probability we shall have to spend even more on the forces than we do at present, on their amenities—perhaps even on their pay. The fact is that I think we should find certain men going into the Army, whatever the conditions were, even if the conditions were very poor indeed. They are the natural soldiers. It would not matter really what conditions were like; there would still be the basic element in the Army, because they love soldiering—within reason of course. But in a labour sellers' market, which we have to-day, it is quite impossible to suppose that we can get the balance of the Regular professional Army without inducements better than the inducements of civil life. After all, the soldier, sailor and airman have to put up with restrictions on their freedom, with being moved to various parts of the world at short notice, which the civilian has not.
For all these reasons, we have to do better than the civilian employer does. We have to increase the inducement to the soldier, sailor and airman. That means, my Lords, that we can no longer—and this is the point I am making—afford the independent deterrent, which is merely a vestige of the gunboat era; it is merely a sop to Conservative Back Benchers. We ought to spend all the money we can afford for the Armed Forces on the soldier, sailor and airmen, and on the conventional armaments, and forsake the other, relying for protection on our situation as part of the Western deterrent of N.A.T.O. and other organisations of that kind.
4.40 p.m.
BARONESS SWANBOROUGH: My Lords, I would apologise for the fact that I was absent from the beginning of this debate. I would obviously not have been absent for any discourteous reason, but the date of the debate was advanced by a day and I had a longstanding engagement which it was impossible to forgo. I crave your Lordships' indulgence and I apologise, although I make
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no apology for turning from the Armed Services to the Fourth Service, the question of Civil Defence. For all those who have been concerned in any way whatsoever with Civil Defence the implications of the White Paper of a further spending is a very welcome sign, because the spending of the greater amount of money will make a great deal of difference to Civil Defence in the whole of the country.
At the start, I must declare that I have a very real interest in this regard, inasmuch as I am closely associated with two auxiliary Civil Defences—the W.V.S., which is the Women's Auxiliary to Civil Defence. Many things have been both written and said about Civil Defence but, taking the United Kingdom as a whole, few people—too few—have devoted more than a most perfunctory attention to the whole question of Civil Defence, what it means, what it deserves from them and what it deserves from the nation. Those men and women—they are less than one per cent. of the adult population of the country—have in proportion done all they can to inform themselves of the rudimentary methods which must govern their work if any attack be made on this country. They have learned what will be required of them if ever they are called upon to serve the community in the event of attack.
They know that Civil Defence is in itself a worth-while form of insurance, a way of defraying one's responsibility to the community; that it exists to safeguard as far as possible, and to restore, that which remains in the community after an attack should nuclear war occur. They have learned that although casualties would be very heavy, survivors would also be great in number. Not only would it be necessary to cope with the horror of fire, the aftermath of blast and the problems of fall-out, but the continuation of life itself. The strengthening of the morale of the survivors must depend on the readiness with which Civil Defence members can undertake their commitments and can help to start some sort of of day-to-day life within the community. Those people who have joined Civil Defence have learned something of what to expect. Their training aims to teach them not only how they can use themselves and the members of the Corps, but how they can use those who are available at the time in any way that is possible.

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Of course, it is true to say that if you were within a certain distance of a hydrogen bomb you would be instantly destroyed; but it is also true to say that if you are outside a given radius, you can survive if you know how to take the simple precautions that help to preserve life, and how to appreciate instructions in regard to "staying put" for a definite time. This country has been bedevilled from time immemorial by its weather, but it might be that in this regard it could be our greatest standby.
When I was a girl, the catchword of the day was "muddle through". We learned in the bad years of the last war that it was no longer a way to protect others; that in an age of specialised knowledge it is necessary to follow the trend, not slavishly but with common sense, of training for the job; and that is why training is to-day so much a part of Civil Defence—training, not just how to command, or how to deploy, but how to do and how to be. These are things that need to be done within a network of the necessary services. The value of communications and the speed with which their interruption must be overcome, the appraisal of situations and their full evaluation in relation to radio activity and fall-out, as well as of the other dangers, must be understood and techniques mastered.
Speedy action in taking cover and the keeping of people where there is most protection, however difficult; the full value of instant action and reporting in regard to fires; the assessing of situations in regard to local conditions, be they survivors that must be cared for, radio-active conditions which must be guarded against, food problems which must be accurately judged and reported, immediate situations which must be handled if life is to be safeguarded—all these are but a few of the phases that those who are occupied with Civil Defence must understand and for which those who join Civil Defence must be trained: training how to be, so as to provide the courage necessary to face a sudden holocaust, which would have as its object as much to destroy a nation's morale as to eliminate its life.
Civil Defence has many facets, and while extra expenditure will help in many ways, the ultimate worth of Civil Defence as a national service, its real need and its real strength, must always
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lie in the numbers of reliable and trained volunteers it can count on; and this, in turn, must depend on the national interest and support shown by the leaders, not only of the community, but of the nation itself. People do not join Civil Defence because they like it. They join it—this is indicated by the figures as they are reported—because individually they have come to the conclusion that it is their duty to do so. This is a laudable and a right motive; but it has had the inevitable result that there are too many older people in Civil Defence, and this must be rectified if Civil Defence is to be what it should be.
The country is sadly short of wardens—the pivot post in Civil Defence. This type of responsibility has to be trained for, and should be assumed by those who are able to shoulder control and are of an age to face stress and strain. It is clear that the men and women who could do this work and do it well do not, as yet, recognise sufficiently its importance, because of the lack of support given to Civil Defence by those in high places. Industrial Civil Defence has made great strides, and excellent work has been done by those who have been organising it. But, just as there is a need for leadership from the centre for Civil Defence as a whole, so would industrial Civil Defence be benefited and greatly enriched if the captains of commerce, indeed the admirals of commerce, showed some sort of concern about it. Voices raised in the wilderness are apt to have only their own echo, and in this age of sound transmission the populace, if they are to play any sort of realistic part in this undertaking of Civil Defence, must have a louder clarion call than they are getting—a call to endeavour, a call to continuity of effort. That call must be made by the centre and not by their own well known protagonists.
The country as a whole is curiously unaware of what Civil Defence really means, and indeed of what it is trying to do. But it is even more unaware of what the potential threat is, and what conditions might have to be met. This nation may be slow—possibly it may be not only slow, but apathetic—but it is comprised of men and women who can never have their courage questioned; and if facts were faced, and if men and

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women realised, or perhaps I should say recognised, that even if there were millions of casualties there would still be millions of survivors, they would then also realise and recognise that these millions of survivors are the people who are the responsibility of us all; and the only machinery so far devised to care for them on a post-attack basis is Civil Defence.
There can be no question at all that much more leadership has been needed in this difficult period of time when Civil Defence, which is something that everyone should acclaim, has become a thing almost not to be mentioned in public. Men and women have given their time, their energy, their everything, in order to keep alive something they believe in. And I think a great meed of praise should go to the little man and the little woman at the local level who have given of themselves in order not only to fulfil their Civil Defence duties but to face the tedium of training so that they would be able to cope with the situation were it ever to occur. It is true that training at the start was of a monotonous type, but this is gradually being rectified, and to-day training is more realistic than ever it was before; and this is indeed a step in the right direction.
It seems to me that too many people in the world feel that having an idea and passing it on to somebody else to carry through is enough. I long to see a practical solution to the problem of Civil Defence, and I think it could be achieved if everyone who could think would take the trouble to think through and not just "fluff" the thought, and if, having done that, they could assume the responsibility that they decided was theirs. It is obvious that the measure of responsibility would be the greater for those who had a greater evaluation and understanding of their own place in relation to others within the life of the nation. But if people throughout Great Britain were to evaluate their own responsibility to the nation and would then give this in a definite contribution to Civil Defence, a great deal of work would result for Civil Defence. The country would thus have a great strength on which to rely, the nation would feel that its leadership was good, and eventually Civil Defence would be so strong that poten-
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tial enemies would hesitate to contemplate an attack. We have often been told that no nation ever attacks another if it is not sure of a certain percentage of success; and if, as a nation, we have a resistance strong enough to make it not worth while attacking us, surely we are paying a fair rent for our room on earth.
Responsibility for Civil Defence is delegated, as your Lordships know well, to local authorities. To my mind, this is right and proper, and I believe that many who have given a good deal of thought to the subject would agree that the responsibility for Civil Defence—which means responsibility not only for the service but for the training and keeping of the whole Corps up to date, should be delegated and decentralised. It is unthinkable that Civil Defence could be controlled from the centre. Delegation and decentralisation are the only hope for its proper working; and this delegation to regions, to counties and county boroughs, as corps authorities, is necessary because of the strength that could be invoked at the shortest possible notice. Local authority services, whether they be water, or sewage, housing or medical, welfare or other public services, are all closely concerned and need to be handled by those who have the value of experience as well as knowledge of the locality. But, even so, it is extremely difficult for local authorities to keep what is a national service at the level and standard of a national service without a great deal of central backing, central stimulus and central encouragement.
I understand well some of the many difficulties of any Government in this regard. I know from long experience that the timing of support from the centre is something which has to be jealously guarded. But I also know that the withholding of such stimulus can have an atrophying effect on local endeavour and can eventually stultify it to such an extent that the thing itself dies of inanition. Men and women, many of whom can ill afford it—and I do not mean in finance but in health, time and personal relationships—have been the backbone of Civil Defence in the lean years. They have kept the premiums of our national insurance paid in this respect, and I hope that if they can be strengthened in their resolve by a new stimulus, Civil Defence may look

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to a realisation by all the members of the community of their duty to play their part.
Most people join the Services because they have a feeling that they would like to be in the Navy, the Army or the Air Force. But men and women do not join Civil Defence because they like it as a Service; they join because they believe it to be their duty to do so; and in a way I cannot help feeling that that is a much better reason. But that particular reason will not have its full worth unless the leadership of Civil Defence is strengthened by men and women who, devoting their time and their understanding to the philosophy which must be behind the undertaking itself, can give a really thoughtful steering to the future of the Service, so that it can be a strength to the country and eventually, through that strength, help to bring peace to the world
4.54 p.m.
LORD SAYE AND SELE: My Lords, I wish to speak to your Lordships on the subject of Civil Defence, but not, I need scarcely say, with either the knowledge or ability of the noble Lady who has spoken before me. I, too, declare an interest, but not for myself—rather for your Lordships, because if this business goes wrong, I can only say you are all "for it", including the Front Bench opposite. I heard a lot of oratory this afternoon on the golden statue of Defence, but the subject on which I am talking is feet of clay. Oddly enough, in this Defence White Paper the foot of clay has at last got into the door. It has got its earthy foot another inch further into the door than it had last year. Last year there were three inches of script in the White Paper. This year there are four inches; and that, I am sure, is something of which to be proud.
Civil Defence also got quite a bit in Annex III. To me that has always been a queer term. I thought it was a kind of ladies' annex round the corner. That is on page 15 of the White Paper. It will be seen that in 1960 the Post Office were included, while this year they are not included in those figures. I am afraid I wasted a considerable amount of time trying to work out how the extra £3 million was coming to Civil Defence this year, but I think in the end I was satisfied. Your Lordships will notice also, that Civil Defence has none
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of the pretty pictures, the cartoons which have been referred to this afternoon. Civil Defence has not even a place in what I would describe as the "phalanx" of the nation, on page 18, and that seems to me a very great omission.
Little things like these do not give one confidence in the co-operation between the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence, or, indeed, in the wish of the Government to tell the country how they really stand. Cannot we hope to have some more figures?—because, after all, they are, or can be made, encouraging. What we want in this business of Civil Defence is encouragement. What are the war duty establishments throughout the country, both in ordinary Civil Defence and in industrial Civil Defence? I know there are war duty establishments, because we have them in our county organisation, but we are not told, in this White Paper, what they are, or what is the present strength. Nor are we told anything of the relative functions of industrial and ordinary Civil Defence. There, also, I would ask whether the Government are really satisfied. I think not.
In 1960, scientific officers were referred to and the position with regard to them was said to be especially encouraging. I went away from that debate particularly encouraged, except that I knew that out of the twelve scientific officers we had only two in my county. We still have only two. We have lost one and found another. I believe my county is second in strength in the southern region, and yet we have only one-eighth of the warden strength. When one looks at it, that proportion is very small. One might say, for example, that we on the Liberal Benches would be the wardens for the whole of the Conservative Benches opposite—and, indeed, perhaps we are. One must realise that trained personnel cannot be produced all of a sudden. It is not a bit of good coming at the last minute and saying, "Let us have Civil Defence", because that is not possible.
Education is the basis of Civil Defence, and among the daily Press the Daily Mail, early this month, began to tell the people that they need not necessarily die if they should come into contact with nuclear fall-out, if only they will learn what to do. The noble Lady who spoke before me referred to the educational efforts of the "one in five" scheme of

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the W.V.S., the Women's Voluntary Services. There is no doubt—I have seen them in action in my county—that the W.V.S. and their "one in five" scheme are doing a wonderful job of education, but only for women. Of course, the noble Lady knows perfectly well, as indeed your Lordships do, that the women have greater imagination than the men and so are very much more forthcoming. That is all there is to it.
The Minister of Education takes cover behind the idea that he must not interfere with what is taught in the schools. That is all very well, and, in theory, it is right. But he has Her Majesty's inspectors of schools, and they go round and have no hesitation whatever in giving their views about whether this or that is taught properly or taught in the right place. They are very firm about it. I suggest that, if it is really the Government's policy to get on with Civil Defence, the Minister of Education might add weight to his inspectors, who, at any rate, would be able to pass it on to the schools that they inspect. I do not know how many of these inspectors or, indeed, how many of the other members of the educational profession have attended a course at the Civil Defence Staff College. I expect it would be tactless to ask. But it would be a very good thing if they did attend. There was a nice course for your Lordships five or six months ago. It was most interesting.
I believe that the technical college is the right place—and the age of students there is right—at which to teach Civil Defence. I certainly believe that any student, man or woman, who accepts a grant to go to a university should be expected to give some personal service to the country in return. That seems to be a reasonable idea. Why should hundreds and thousands of students go and have a merry time and an admirable time at the universities, paid for by the country, or very largely paid for by the country, and in return give nothing, except, of course, their quality when they leave?
I am not altogether happy about the policy of paragraph 42 of this White Paper. It suggests that:
"available Service manpower could be effectively deployed to aid the civil power…".
I think that "available" is probably the key word there. I feel that the Govern-
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ment's tongue is, so to speak, in its cheek in using that expression. I cannot imagine that any manpower, with our reduced numbers in the Services, could possibly be available to aid our civil power. We used to have mobile columns and National Servicemen. Now they have gone; the Services are reduced, and I believe they will be fully employed, if occasion comes, in minding the enemy. I would much rather read in this paragraph that Civil Defence will be available to help the Services with the enemy, for I think the Services will need their help to steer them through the columns of refugees and through the nuclear areas, the fall-out areas. Of course, they may have their schemes already; I do not know. Let Civil Defence realise, which they then would, that they are supporting the Services and the Civil Defence will itself become a more proud Service.
We read in paragraph 41 of the White Paper that
"this…programme will make possible improved progress".
I hope sincerely that it may be so. But, have no doubt, these schemes are dry bones, and they are expensive bones, unless the Government can breathe more life into them. Do your Lordships envy the new Inspector General of Civil Defence his job of inspecting his dry bones? I do not think it will be a very pleasant one, or very encouraging, at present. I hope that under the urge of this House the Government will take seriously the duty of giving the bones life.
5.6 p.m.
THE EARL OF GOSFORD: My Lords, like the noble Baroness, Lady Swan-borough, I must apologise to your Lordships for the fact that I was unable to be present at the first part of this debate yesterday afternoon and for the same reason: that the debate was put forward at rather short notice and I had an appointment which I was unable to alter. I will not follow the noble Lord, Lord Saye and Sele, nor, for that matter, the noble Baroness, on the path of civil defence; though I, like the noble Lord, welcome the fact that it has now four inches in the White Paper instead of three.
But, my Lords, I will come back, if I may, to the more military side of the

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White Paper. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, opposite will be disappointed to find that I am not, in fact, going to tear it to pieces as he expected ex-Members of the Front Bench perhaps to do. I find it a balanced document. We cannot have everything: we must cut our coat according to our cloth. I think that the wise advice which serving officers who form the advisory body which advises the Government have given on the matter has certainly on this occasion been good and as balanced as one can get. If I had any criticism, I might, perhaps, say that I wished there might be more spent on anti-submarine work, in view of the remarks in paragraph 3 of the White Paper that
"The Soviet fleet of submarines is of great size."
But we are basing our defences wisely on N.A.T.O. Another point that I personally should like to see altered is this. N.A.T.O. itself should be extended on its flanks, particularly its Southern flank. We shall, one of these days, be outflanked if it ever comes to a shooting war. Also, while on the subject of N.A.T.O., I should like to say that I agree wholeheartedly with what my noble friend Lord Birdwood said yesterday in welcoming the fact that German troops might exercise in this country. If we are going to be a part of N.A.T.O. and knit the countries of N.A.T.O together, and knit the German forces into the N.A.T.O. forces, then we must welcome Germany as in fact France, who suffered so much under her heel, has done already.
Bomber Command, I am glad to hear from the noble Earl in front of me, is in good heart. I am one who fully subscribes to the fact that we ourselves should have our own deterrent. It costs only 10 per cent. of the bill—I say only 10 per cent., but it is a large sum of money—and I regard it as 10 per cent. spent very well. Incidentally, the noble Earl was talking about being an honorary corporal, or an acting-brigadier, in the French Army. I think he is lucky that he was not for a few short seconds a marshal, because a maréchal des logis in the French Army would certainly be looked upon with great scorn by a corporal when washing out the ablutions and doing the other
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horrible jobs that a maréchal des logis has to do.
My Lords, this has been a long debate, and I will not go into detailed criticisms, which I will reserve for the debates on the Estimates themselves, except to mention one point—that is conscription. In spite of the pessimism of noble Lords opposite, particularly on the part of the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, I understand that the Government's plans are not going so badly as it would seem. I think it would be a very backward step to revert to conscription. The units themselves, of all three Services, are much happier without having in their midst men who have had to he dragooned into them. One man in a unit, if he is disgruntled because he has to be there, can be a source of very sore thought and feeling, and very bad for morale. Incidentally, I did not quite understand what the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, was talking about when he spoke of establishment, and of being up to establishment. I cannot believe that he did not have the same experience as myself in the R.A.F.; for no unit that I was in was ever up to establishment. That is one of the crosses that C.O.'s always have had, and always will have, up to a point, to bear.
The main burden of what I should like to say is on the subject of disarmament, both full disarmament and unilateral disarmament. The White Paper opens with the remarks
"There is only one answer to the threat to mankind posed by armaments. This is to reach a satisfactory agreement on general disarmament under effective international control."
With those words I, and I am sure all civilised people, heartily agree. Nevertheless, it seems to me that the attainment of this goal is not helped by propagandists of unilateral disarmament, whether they are merely people who walk down the street with banners or wherever they state their case, and in whatever form they do so. I do not say that they have no right to do so. 'This is a free country, and one has one's right to say what one feels and thinks. But it certainly seems a pity that they do not think for a bit before they propagand this form of activity, this proposition, which, in the eyes of the world—and, as I think the noble Earl, Lord Listowel said, in the eyes of America—makes it appear that

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we are becoming a neutralist nation. That, I am sure we are all agreed, is one thing which we are not. These people must not forget the words in paragraph 2 of this White Paper that:
"the strength of the Soviet forces remains formidable".
Formidable it does remain, my Lords. And one must remember that if it were not, first of all, for the deterrent, and now for N.A.T.O., those forces would be, and still could be, within a day's march of these very shores. Our strength against that is with N.A.T.O., and in combining with the Western and the Free World; and the last thing we must do is to give to the outer world this feeling that we are going, in however short a manner, towards neutralism.
On the subject of disarmament there is, however, one point on which I am rather pessimistic. We are hoping that one day, one day soon, we shall get agreement with the Russians (and the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, mentioned this) to have full disarmament—and, of course, we had that startling statement by Mr. Khrushchev some time ago in which he suggested complete and utter disarmament at once. But it occurs to me, my Lords, that we ought not to expect that disarmament will hasten fast. I think it will hasten slowly, and for the reason that I cannot see how Russia can agree to disarmament unless China does, too; and, although it would appear that Russia can dictate to China, I frankly do not quite see that that in fact is so.
So, my Lords, I think there is no doubt that we must work towards disarmament, but we must not try to hasten it by advice for unilateral disarmament ourselves, because we shall only end up with the miscalculation of the 'thirties, when Hitler thought that we were "yellow".
5.16 p.m.
LORD HARDING OF PETHERTON: My Lords, I should like to begin my remarks by assuring the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, that I most heartily welcome the decision to convert another carrier into a commando carrier and to build an assault ship. I fully agree that two fish sharing one tail is far better than one fish without a tail. I should infinitely prefer two fish, each with its own tail.
There are two other announcements in the White Paper which I also most
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warmly welcome. I refer first to the statement in paragraph 15 in regard to the setting up of new Near and Middle East Commands on a unified basis, and I hope that the proposal to do the same in the Far East will not be long delayed. I am sure that that is a big step forward in developing our command structure overseas on modern and up-to-date lines. Secondly, I welcome very warmly the statement in paragraph 31 of the White Paper that we are to resort in future—and here I quote—to a system
"of preparing in the early summer of each year a full forward costing of the defence programme, covering the following five financial years".
In my own experience, immense sums of money have been wasted or misapplied in defence expenditure over the years by rigid adherence to the system of annual budgeting, and if the Minister of Defence can make a reality of the intention which is implicit in the paragraph to which I have referred, and can institute a system of five-year budgeting for weapons, equipment and building for defence purposes, he will, I am sure, be rendering an outstanding service to the Armed Forces and to the country. I also congratulate the Government most heartily on, at long last, having authorised the award of a General Service Medal for operations in Southern Arabia, and in that respect I would say, "Better late than never; but better never late".
Now I should like to address myself as briefly as I can to the more controversial questions of manpower for the Armed Forces, the balance between our nuclear and so-called conventional forces, and the extent to which our forces in Europe should be dependent upon or independent of so-called tactical nuclear weapons. That latter question I find the most difficult problem of all, and as it directly affects the second problem I have mentioned and has some bearing on the first I propose to deal with it first.
It has been argued in this debate—and similar arguments were advanced the other day in another place—that, irrespective of the target or the type and size of projectile, the use of nuclear weapons in a local or limited conflict would lead directly and inevitably to all-out nuclear war. To put it another way, it is claimed, as I understand it, that the integration of nuclear weapons into the

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armoury of the land forces of N.A.T.O. has made it impossible for the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe to take any military action in Europe without precipitating global nuclear war. If that is so, it does, I fully agree, present us with a most serious situation. I know there are those—and I think there are many—who argue that if fighting breaks out between East and West in Europe the conflict cannot be limited in any case. I personally do not share that view. On the other hand, the cost of providing land and tactical air forces capable of operating effectively, without or with nuclear weapons, according to taste, seems to me to be prohibitive. What is more, and speaking professionally, I find it extremely difficult to envisage effective arrangements for turning what I would describe as a non-nuclear weapon force into a nuclear weapon force at very short notice if, unexpectedly, it is subjected to nuclear attack by the enemy. Then, again, how can any commander hope to maintain the morale and the offensive spirit of his forces if they are launched into battle without nuclear weapons against an enemy who may or may not be equipped with such weapons, and may or may not be intending to use them?
Those are some of the practical difficulties which seem to me to arise out of this question, and I wonder very much whether the use of nuclear weapons for tactical purposes in a local conflict would directly and inevitably lead to total war. Of course, there is always a risk that what starts as a local conflict may rapidly extend; but whether that happens or not will not, in my opinion, necessarily and always depend on whether or not nuclear weapons are used within the area of the conflict. It will depend, in my view, on whether or not the bone of contention is considered by the enemy to be worth the risk of suicide. In other words, it will depend more than anything else on the credibility or otherwise of our nuclear strategic striking force as an annihilating retaliatory instrument of war.
My Lords, throughout history war has been limited, sometimes by accident, sometimes by design. In this century there have been two examples of limited war—the Civil War in Spain, and the Korean War. Even the Second World War did not become total, in that poison
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gas was not used by either side—I admit for different reasons—and some regard was paid to the so-called rules of war. I can see no reason to suppose that when both sides decide that it is to their advantage to localise the conflict, wars will not be limited in the future as they have been in the past. In fact, it is my belief that the factor of fear of extermination if the conflict is allowed to spread, provides a stronger reason than ever before in favour of localisation by both sides. Consequently, the all-important consideration in localising a conflict is, I submit, not whether or not nuclear weapons are used, but what type of nuclear weapons are used, and what targets they are aimed at: and, perhaps even more important than that, whether the door is left open for a settlement of the conflict which can be accepted by both sides. If the enemy can be made to realise preferably before, and certainly very soon after, fighting breaks out that he cannot have it all his own way except by recourse to total war, he is likely to compromise.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, may I ask the noble and gallant Field Marshal a question? I am much obliged to him for the clear statement he has made, but is it not a question not merely of the size of the nuclear weapon in regard to a limited war, but also of what is your target? Is it merely an enemy target, or is it one involving a fall-out from a weapon which you fire at them and which involves the whole population? That is a very serious matter to consider, because once you have made an attack of that kind as the first structure, then we submit that you call forth back on you the heaviest kind of nuclear attack which you can expect.
LORD HARDING OF PETHERTON: My Lords, I find myself pretty well in complete agreement with what the noble Viscount has said. May I repeat what I said just now? I said that consequently the all-important consideration in localising a conflict is not whether or not nuclear weapons are used, but what type of nuclear weapons are used, and what targets they are aimed at. I would agree with the noble Viscount that if, for example, there was a local conflict in Europe between East and West, and in the course of that conflict the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in

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Europe were to aim Polaris missiles at a target which was right outside the area of the conflict, even if it could be described as of an interdiction type, that would not be what I should consider to be the correct use of nuclear weapons in a local and limited conflict. The whole problem bristles with difficulties. Whatever weapon you use calls for great skill and discretion and, I would say, judgment and wisdom, on the part of the commander who is controlling the forces concerned, and perhaps even more important still, on the political aims of the Governments that support him, and on the directive which he is given by those Governments. But I cannot see any sound argument for saying that because a weapon used is in itself nuclear, it must necessarily lead inevitably and directly to total war.
That, my Lords, I submit, is the nub of the primary problem which faces N.A.T.O. to-day. In paragraph 21 of the Report under discussion, it is stated that a full study of N.A.T.O. nuclear strategy is being made. But from all I hear and know and have read of the higher direction of N.A.T.O., I, personally, am not very hopeful that the study now being made will provide satisfactory answers to this very difficult problem, having regard to the statements which already have been made and which I think have been referred to in your Lordships' House this afternoon, about the use, for example, of Polaris. I had the advantage of some recent discussion with the German General who is now to be the Chairman of the Military Committee of N.A.T.O. From that discussion and from what I know from past experience of the N.A.T.O. higher structure, both political direction and command, I would say that the whole of the N.A.T.O. organisation —the higher direction, the superstructure, both political and military—calls for reorganisation, and, indeed, revitalisation, to bring it into line with present-day needs.
However that may be, my Lords, I feel as certain as anyone outside the machine can be that to be an effective deterrent against military action on a local or limited basis, what I would call the shield forces of N.A.T.O. need to be equipped with the best available weapons, conventional and nuclear suited to their task (and I would em-
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phasise those words, "best available weapons, conventional and nuclear, suited to their task"), and be up to strength and highly mobile and flexible, which I am afraid is more than can he said for the British contribution to the shield forces of N.A.T.O. at the present day. The same applies, in my view, to the shield forces of C.E.N.T.O. and S.E.A.T.O.
That brings me to my next question, the balance between our own strategic striking force—namely, Bomber Command and its ancillaries—and our so-called conventional forces, from which we contribute to the collective shield forces of N.A.T.O., C.E.N.T.O. and S.E.A.T.O., and from which we also provide the garrisons and security forces required in territories for which we are individually responsible. Although the Minister of Defence may not be prepared to admit it, since he took office there has been, in my estimation, a change of emphasis in favour of our conventional forces and their ancillary and supporting organisations—for example, Transport Command; and it is a change that I, for one, warmly welcome as a step in the right direction. The Report now before your Lordships' House carries that change a step further, but I wonder whether it goes far enough.
Speaking the other day in another place, the Minister of Defence said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 635 (No. 62), col. 1198]:
"The White Paper is the first to be written against the background of the probability that both sides now have enough nuclear explosive to destroy one another."
I would not challenge that statement. In fact, I should have thought that the Minister could have gone further and substituted the word "certainty" for "probability". However that may be, the deduction I would draw is that there is no longer any need to expend our resources on the production of nuclear explosives and we can now safely concentrate on the means of delivery and on keeping pace with future developments in science and engineering as affecting nuclear weapons, warning systems and the like. On the face of it, that should result in some reduction in the cost of our nuclear striking force. I accept that no one outside the highest official circles can find out, or be told, whether that is so or not.

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I also agree that we should continue to maintain our own nuclear striking force—and I am deliberately refraining from the use of the vexatious adjective "independent" in this connection. I believe that we must maintain our own nuclear striking force, for the reasons set out in paragraph 10 of the Report, with which I find myself in general agreement. All the same, I cannot escape the impression that in these days of strategic nuclear sufficiency it should be possible to redress still further the balance between our nuclear and conventional forces in favour of the latter, and so provide the resources needed, for example, to accelerate the strengthening of Transport Command in the interests of mobility; to expand the housing programme even more than has been proposed; to subsidise adventure (which I believe will be of the greatest attraction to an all-Regular force); to provide for other measures calculated to stimulate recruiting, and last, but far from least, Ito provide both commando carriers with their necessary tail.
That leads me to my third question —manpower. Here I hope that I may be excused if, for obvious reasons, I refer primarily to the Army. In Table I of Annex I of the Report under discussion, the estimated total strength of the Army on April 1 next is shown as being 230,000. A year later, on April 1, 1962, it is estimated that it will have fallen to 198,000—a drop of over 30,000. During the following year there is likely to be a further drop of another 30,000, making a total drop of 60,000 in the course of the next two years. As the Army is already hard put to it to meet its current commitments, and a number of units in Rhine Army and Strategic Reserve are under-strength, and since there is apparently no intention of ducking our responsibilities in different parts of the world, I must say that I am puzzled by the equanimity with which the Ministers responsible appear to face the large reductions in strength which they estimate will occur during the next two years.
There will, of course, be a substantial saving of manpower in the training organisations when the change to an all-Regular Army has been completed, but that will not, in itself, be sufficient to compensate for a reduction of the order
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of 60,000. What is going to happen in the next two years that makes this reduction acceptable? That is the question that I submit must be answered, in order to restore confidence in the Government's policy in regard to manpower for the Army.
From a professional point of view I am strongly in favour of an all-Regular Army. But I am even more strongly in favour of an Army that is free from the evils and weaknesses that stem from overstrain through under-manning, and I am most strongly opposed to accepting men who are mentally or physically substandard in order to provide the numbers required. As in so many of these matters, no one outside official circles can determine with accuracy the precise strength required. But my estimate is still, as it was last year, that during the next few years, at any rate, the figure of the manpower required for the Army to enable it to carry out its commitments without overstrain—unless the Government have it in mind to make some drastic reductions in commitments which they have not yet disclosed—will be nearer 200,000 than 160,000. I realise that this is not the time to go into the details of this question, which would he more appropriate for discussion in the debate on the Army Estimates. All I would say, therefore, at this stage is that by some means or another the Army's manpower problem must be solved. If, once again, through inadequate manpower, the Army is allowed to drop back into the state in which it was between the two world wars, it will take a very long time to recover.
I have nearly done, my Lords, but before I sit down, there is one other and quite different point to which I should like to refer, in the hope that it is not out of order to raise it in this debate. During the past eight months I have been horrified to read of the intolerable position in which the troops of the various national contingents that comprise the United Nations Forces in the Congo have been placed. I am not suggesting for one moment that there is, or ever could be, a military solution, to the Congo problem. But I dread to think that British troops might find themselves at some future date in a position similar to that of some of the contingents in the Congo, with no clear political direction

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and with no proper command and staff organisation at their head.
I know that the whole question bristles with difficulties, but I would urge Her Majesty's Government to take the initiative in this matter, if they have not already done so, by pressing for a thorough and comprehensive study by the United Nations Organisation of the whole business of the employment of armed forces under the direction of the United Nations and of the command and staff organisation needed to enable them to operate effectively. The military setup in the Congo at present appears to be nothing less than a shambles.
In conclusion, may I repeat that warmly welcome the setting up of the new unified commands in the Middle East, the introduction of a five-year costing system and the plan to build an assault ship. I consider that the most urgent problems facing us in the field of defence to-day are, first, to play our part in improving the capability of N.A.T.O., C.E.N.T.O. and S.E.A.T.O. generally—and particularly N.A.T.O.—to deal effectively with local incidents and limited aggressions; and to work thoroughly and hard and very deeply on this question of the use, or otherwise, of nuclear weapons in limited aggressions in Europe. Next (I do not mean in order of importance), I regard it as important to redress the imbalance that I believe still exists between our own nuclear striking force and our so-called conventional forces; and finally, we must solve the Army's manpower problem—and do it quickly.
5.40 p.m.
THE EARL OF SWINTON: My Lords, the speech which we have just heard from the noble and gallant Field Marshal will, I am sure we should all agree, be invaluable to the N.A.T.O. Governments who have to go into consultation on the matters which he raised at the outset of his speech. It was a speech characteristic of him and one which those of us who had the good fortune to serve with him and to know his wise and practical vision would expect. I think we have been wise to give two days to this Defence debate, because it is the only opportunity we have of considering as a whole the problems of the Minister of Defence and the three fighting Services and the problems
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of supply and all the inter-related topics. And what topics are not inter-related and inter-dependent? Certainly foreign affairs, Commonwealth affairs and economic affairs are all matters which are inter-related and, therefore, within the scope of this Bill. Your Lordships need not be alarmed, because I do not propose to cover the whole field. I shall never, I hope, forget some advice given to me by Mr. Balfour forty years ago on the Treasury Bench in another place when, I regret to say my Lord President, a Law Officer, was talking at quite interminable length. Mr. Balfour said to me: "My dear Philip, it is always desirable to tell the truth, but it is seldom, if ever, necessary to tell the whole of truth." I certainly have tried to follow that advice.
I support the Motion and the White Paper. I do not think I disagree with anything in the White Paper, except that I must admit that I share the anxiety of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Harding of Petherton, about manpower. If I have a criticism at all it would be this: that the White Paper should contain a little more. The Services are rightly anxious about security, but there is, at any rate, one place where inter-Service security is remarkably effective, and that is in the information which is given to Parliament. The White Paper is a Bowdlerised edition that I think would pass any censor. But I do not complain unduly about that. I have been a Service Minister, and I have also been in charge of security. Ministers must be careful. We, on the sidelines, while I hope we speak with a sense of responsibility, need not be quite so inhibited. I should like, first, to deal with a few specific matters, which though they relate to individual Services yet are of importance in the combined structure and plan. That will lead me back, I hope in not too disjointed a sequence, to the Motion itself and to the challenge in the two Amendments upon which we shall be invited to vote.
Let me take first the air. Some of us have been pressing for many years that throughout the present decade our deterrent would be largely dependent upon our long-range bombers. We were told that we were old-fashioned and unimaginative. Old, some of us certainly are; but some of us have had experience of developing and producing new

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weapons, though much simpler weapons than those which are developed to-day, and we know something of the delays and frustrations which are inevitable. I am sure the Government are right to pursue their bomber programme.
I will come to the value of the independent deterrent at the end, but for the moment let me assume that we should have a deterrent. If so, what should it be? I do not think I underestimate the dilemma of Service Ministers. As old Service Ministers on both sides of the House will agree, there is always the duty to be forward-looking and imaginative. I hope that when I was a Service Minister I did not wholly fail in that when we ordered the Spitfires off the drawing board and banked so tremendously, and happily successfully, on radar. You must be forward-looking and imaginative, but at the same time you have to be realistic in what can be done. The better is so often the enemy of the good.
I think that the Government, on the whole, if I may respectfully say so, have been just about right in this bomber programme in both respects. We know that we have the right bombers and the effective missiles (there is no doubt about this, I think) that they can carry; and we have our own developments in that respect. I should say myself—though nothing is certain—that we have the best bet on Skybolt, with our own warheads. I am sure, therefore, that the provision of bombers is the right policy for ten years. Like the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Harding of Petherton (we have both always been great advocates of inter-Service co-operation), I welcome the evidence of this increased cooperation between the Services: the combined commands, the commando carriers and the landing-craft. That co-operative working and integration is at least as necessary in small outbreaks as in large. I welcome the development in Transport Command, and that it is increasingly able to meet the needs of the Army strategic reserve in mobility.
What we used to call the Britannics have now, by a process of baptismal regeneration, become Belfasts; nobody will begrudge Northern Ireland that change of name, particularly if they come forward up to date. I think I was right when I suggested to my noble friend that 1964 is given in one of these documents
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as the date for these, but we should like to be sure that that is a firm date. Then I would ask (although one does not always want to be asking for more) whether ten are enough. Certainly ten is a great improvement on what we had before; but I would not spoil a ship for a ha'p'orth or tar—though it is, I realise, a bit more than a ha'p'orth. After all—I think this is a glimpse of the obvious —the essence of a mobile reserve is that it should be mobile, and I hope that whatever is the necessary or right number of Belfasts will be provided. In passing, I should like to congratulate the Royal Air Force on the reduced accident rate. That, I think, is a tribute to efficient training and effective equipment.
Most of us heard—I had to read it, because I had to go—an extraordinarily interesting speech last night from my noble friend, Lord Caldecote. He speaks with great practical knowledge as a producer of some of the best aircraft which this country has ever seen, and as a great engineer. I thought many of his suggestions were very wise and well within what he was pleased to call the Constitution. I will give him a precedent which 1 hope may strengthen his hand in his approach. When I was at the Air Ministry I am afraid I did not always pay quite as much regard to the Treasury as I ought to have done. I accidentally doubled the size of the shadow factories in the teeth of a Cabinet decision to the contrary. It was a fortunate mistake on my part. In order that we should not be held up in matters of finance, my noble friend Lord Bridges, who was then a senior officer in the Treasury, came and was bedded out in the Air Ministry. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Tedder, will bear me out that this was very effective in getting things through quickly. I remember Lord Bridges—Sir Edward Bridges as he then was—passing £30 million in one morning, and I certainly think we got value for money.
What my noble friend Lord Caldecote said leads me to say a word or two about research. Research is all important. I think it is the most difficult of all the problems with which the Minister of Defence and his colleagues have to deal. It is very easy to criticise. There has been a great deal of criticism in both Houses about the amount of money

919
which has been wasted on Blue Streak, and so on. Of course, it is the right and the duty of Parliament to criticise. But I think it is difficult, if not impossible, for Members of Parliament to criticise research projects with any accurate knowledge. Indeed, I am sometimes inclined to think that Ministers themselves are a little handicapped in the same way. But, after all, no one can tell with any certainty how a project will turn out, and one must take chances. All research is in the nature of a gamble.
I should like, if I may, to suggest certain lines on which I think Members in either House can usefully criticise the expenditure on research. Parliament can, and should, hold a Minister to account for how he places his research and development contracts. I would suggest, at any rate, three things which the Minister should do. First of all, he should insist on firms giving better estimates. I must say that looking at the escalator of expenditure from estimates which have started down at a few millions and suddenly risen up to £1,00 million, it seems to me there must have been a certain amount of rather loose estimating. The Minister should get the best estimates the firms can give. My second point is that he should have—and he should have it in the contract —the right to review when successive sums are reached. My third point is that he should avoid "time and line", the percentage on cost contract. That is a terrible incentive to extravagance.
I am preaching now what I practised myself in, I agree, what were easier contracts, but the whole time I was at the Air Ministry I never placed a single time and line cost-plus contract, whether it was for aeroplanes, air frames, shadow factories, aerodromes or anything. Of course, in ordering off the drawing board, you ordered machines without the faintest knowledge of what they were going to cost. You could make a guess. What we did was this—and here let me take a concrete example. Suppose we thought that a Spitfire would cost £10,000 —in the end we got the price down lower than that, but nobody knew what the first lot which were made were going to cost. What we said was this: "We shall have to pay you what it costs." We did that with all the things we ordered in that way. We said, "We will pay your actual
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cost, but we will not give you a percentage on your cost: we will give you a fee." Taking, as we did, 7½ per cent. as a reasonable fee, and estimating the cost of the article at £10,000, we paid the actual expenditure of the firm, whether it was £10,000 or £15,000, plus the agreed fixed fee. But the firm never got more than the fixed fee. I know it is more difficult now. Apparently you cannot tell within tens of millions of pounds what something is going to cost. But I still think the Government would be well advised to consider how far that principle could be adopted. My experience was that the better the firm, the more willing they were to play on those lines. I do not think any of us can reasonably complain if an experiment fails. "'Tis not in mortals to command success." But what you must do (and it is much the hardest thing of all) is make up your minds when to cut your losses.
However much we may differ on the details of defence, we shall all be agreed in this: defence, foreign policy and economic policy are inevitably, inescapably, linked and inter-dependent. In our debate last year on March 10 I said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 221, col. 997]:
"Foreign policy, economic policy and defence are all interdependent. We cannot isolate one from another; we cannot put any one of those elements into a watertight compartment. We cannot draw closer together in integrated defence, which is vitally important, in integrated defence in strategy and in integrated defence in the common use of weapons, which is hardly less important, if the N.A.T.O. countries are to drift apart in economic policy. I do not think it is too much to say that if the N.A.T.O. countries were to split into two conflicting economic camps the N.A.T.O. Alliance could not long survive as an effective defence organisation."
When I said that, I do not think any noble Lord disagreed with it. It was perhaps about the only thing in my speech with which all noble Lords did agree. But it is certainly not less true to-day, and it does not become less true and less urgent with the passage of time. I sincerely trust that all our partners in N.A.T.O. will realise that fundamental truth, as I am sure our own Government do.
I come back to the Amendments and the issues on which we are to be asked to vote. The Liberal Amendment is more detailed. In substance, it invites us to

921
abandon our own deterrent defence and to shelter behind others. We collect but we do not subscribe: rather a novel Liberal principle, I should have thought. The Labour Amendment is understandably less specific. I suppose, indeed, we cannot know until the autumn whether the Labour Party are going to come out in favour of unilateral abandonment of the defence of this country. The Leader of the Party and the Leader of the Opposition in this House wage a stout fight against that; and more power to them in that fight! Incidentally, I would say in passing that I think the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, ought to have a little private tuition from, say, Mr. Frank Cousins on the Constitution of the Labour Party before he attends the general meeting, or soviet, or whatever it is, in the autumn.
For my part I have no doubt that nationally and internationally it is essential that we should have our own nuclear deterrent. The position of this country as an independent nuclear Power gives her a strength and an influence in disarmament conferences, and particularly in seeking agreement on nuclear tests. Frankly, I could not at all follow the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, that we had no moral right to ask other people to desist while we had the bomb. On the contrary, I should have thought we could make all the more convincing case when we came into disarmament discussions or discussions about stopping tests. I am sure the noble Lord, the First Lord of the Admiralty, was profoundly right when he said that it was quite ridiculous to suppose that if we gave up our independent, but interdependent, deterrent it would stop other countries, China for example, from proceeding with whatever she is doing. I should not confine that —nor, I am sure, would be—to a potential aggressor; I am sure it is equally true of our own Allies. Does anybody suppose that if we suddenly stopped unilaterally General de Gaulle would stop whatever experiments he thought it was right to conduct, and to conduct to a finish? Anybody who believes that really would believe anything.
Of course, collective security is essential, but we are also responsible for our own defence, and it is vital that we should have that defence and the means of delivering our countervailing weapon, a means swift, certain and devastating in
922
its retaliation. That is our shield, but it is also, I think, our most effective contribution to collective defence. The main Opposition say it is not for them to tell us their programme. Indeed we appreciatc—and I say this honestly, with sympathy—that they cannot tell us what their programme is. But I must equally say that this country is not only entitled but will insist upon knowing, and knowing in good time, what that policy is and whether they are going, many of them much against their will, to abandon the essentials of our defence. I believe the Government are holding firmly to those essentials, and that, so far as I can understand them, both the Oppositions would shirk or abandon some or all of them. In those circumstances, I unhesitatingly support the Government.
6.5 p.m.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, it is always a great pleasure to follow the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, in a Defence debate. I suppose there is no one alive who did more to prepare us for war than the noble Earl, Lord Swinton. I need hardly say he was treated disgracefully by the Conservative Party, following the rule: if you have got a good man, keep him out of office—as with the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, for so long—or get rid of him. It, of course, got rid of the noble Earl before the war, so that he was not able to complete the splendid work which undoubtedly he was doing. It is always a great pleasure to listen to him.
I think if I may say so—and he knows my respect for him—the noble Earl was making rather a tired joke when he referred to the Labour Party conference as some kind of soviet. I think perhaps he will take it from me that the relations between Labour leaders to-day—he mentioned the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and others—are probably a great deal better than the relations between the leaders of the Conservative Party. I do not know whether Lord Listowel and Mr. Cousins sit down to cards together—I have no reason to suppose they do not, or cannot, or are not keen. But we have the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, saying he would not sit down or stay down at cards with the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury. So if we are talking about dissensions I think we must point out that to-day,

923
whatever the position might have been a fortnight ago, the Government are in a weaker position than noble Lords on this side have ever been. We are not bringing the sort of charge against the Government that was brought by the noble Marquess last week against the Minister for the Colonies. We are not saying that they have "outwitted" anybody: we say that they are incapable of outwitting anybody. We do not say they are "too clever by half"; we say that they are not half clever enough.
However, it falls to my lot, in this friendly atmosphere, to speak last on this side on behalf of the official Amendment. I have little doubt that our noble Leader will carry us into the Division Lobby, and we shall await his guidance as to our official attitude to the Liberal Amendment, which has many features that attract us. I cannot say that my old friend—and I hope he is still my old friend—Lord Ogmore, assisted us very much in supporting that Amendment by a series of rather derisory remarks about his old colleagues; but as one who is himself a political convert I can assure him that the first few years are the worst, both for oneself and for one's friends, old and new. I need not tell the noble Lord that, because he has, of course, out-smarted me, as he has done the job twice, so to speak, against my single contribution. I must say in fairness, as he twitted us a little dialectically, about our policy, that many of us are anxious to support him. But whether we shall be able to after his speech is something upon which we shall receive guidance before the close of the debate.
The technical case—if one can put it that way, but in fact there is a very profound question of principle behind it —has been powerfully stated by a number of speakers from this side of the House: by the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, in the first place; by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and to-day by the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton. I think I shall not be accused of rather tedious "flannel" if I say that Lord Shackleton, one of the younger Peers, has established himself in the last year or two as an outstanding speaker.
THE EARL OF SWINTON: Hear, hear!
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: I am glad that the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, agrees.
I do not want to try to draw in the noble Lord, Lord Harding of Petherton, on any political side. I have no doubt that if I did so he would repudiate any political leanings whatever. But certainly many things he said, and indeed it seemed to me most of his arguments, were very closely in line with what was said by Lord Shackleton; and that, coming from a great authority like the noble Lord, Lord Harding of Petherton, certainly gave us extra strength. In particular the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, emphasised the point that the imbalance which exists between the nuclear and the conventional weapons should be redressed without delay in the conventional direction. While there were other points in Lord Shackleton's speech, I suppose that was perhaps the most outstanding of all his points, and it seemed to receive very strong support from the noble Lord, Lord Harding of Petherton. I am sorry not to be able to draw into the argument the noble Baroness, Lady Swanborough, because if there is anybody, apart perhaps from the late Lord Baden-Powell, who has built up a voluntary movement in this country it is the noble Baroness; and we were all pleased to listen to her to-day.
As I say, the main arguments have been placed before the House, but in case there are those who have not heard them, I will quote one sentence only from Lord Shackleton. The same points were made in other ways by the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, by Lord Listowel and by Lord Lucan, who of course all spoke most effectively. But Lord Shackleton emphasised the fact that while the whole framework of the situation had changed in recent years the Government's policy has not been adjusted to meet this change. They are carrying out a policy which in fact has already been established; and on the question of the future they have no plans at all. I am simply quoting the words used by the noble Lord, Lord Shackle-ton. But if one could put something in a nutshell and explain to the noble Earl why we are dividing against the Government, as I imagine we shall be doing, that sentence and what was said along with it, set it out as shortly as possible.

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But I want in these few remarks of mine, to strike slightly new ground in this debate—though it has been often struck in earlier debates, and would be struck much better to-day by the noble Earl. Lord Attlee, who has just come come back from India, than by myself. With one sentence in the White Paper we can all agree. It has been referred to most favourably:
"There is only one answer to the threat to mankind by armaments. This is to reach a satisfactory agreement on general disarmament under effective international control. The Government intend to press for this by all means in their power".
We all agree with that statement, and I think we all particularly applaud the decision to put it at the very beginning of the White Paper. I feel that that is in fact right. But what I do question is the energy, the enlightenment and the imagination of the Government in pursuing this aim.
After 30 years of argument about disarmament one thing surely is plain. No country will surrender its means of national defence, such as that may be, without accepting some alternative security. I have no doubt that 1 speak for many in this House when I say that the reduction of national armament will depend before all else on the pace at which an International Police Force is established. That is something that has been said for many years in the Labour Party, and I have no doubt by many others outside it. In the nuclear age there is an additional and overwhelming argument for an International Police Force. This is a point which can be made in a Defence debate where, as the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, has said, foreign policy, economics and defence are all intertwined. So I make no apology for dealing with it.
We have had references to the Nuclear Disarmament Movement. There was a critical reference. The noble Earl, Lord Gosford, did not, of course, dispute the right of that Movement to propound its ideas. He said that we are a free country. I myself regret that in this House there are not one or two champions of nuclear disarmament who are at least vocal in the cause. The noble Earl, Lord Russell, has spoken along these lines; but I think we have sometimes omitted this point of view—which is one that appeals to many people in this country—from our discus-
926
sions just because it is not usually put forward in this debate. Be that as it may, it seems to me, and I have no doubt to many others, that there is a kind of moral dilemma if we simply carry on as we are and hope that the balance of terror will avert the coming of another war.
I suppose that almost all of us to-day —perhaps everyone in this House—and leaving aside a number of high-minded people outside this Assembly, would agree that the country must he adequately defended, so far as that is possible, by military means in the present age. But so long as nuclear weapons are possessed by our side (whether the nuclear weapons are possessed by us or by our Allies is, from the morale point of view, unimportant) we deem it impossible, in an age of national sovereignty, that our country should be defended without nuclear means so long as other people have nuclear weapons. Yet how can anybody as a Christian conceive himself actually pressing the button that would use this weapon? No doubt some people can and some people cannot. For me, it is a quite intolerable moral dilemma; and I believe that it cannot be solved so long as it is approached in purely national terms.
There is a bounden duty, it seems to me, on anybody who calls himself a Christian or a humanist, or who claims any ethical standards at all, to work unceasingly in this age for the transcending of national sovereignty by the institution of world government. Of course that is a far-reaching ideal but, in the concrete, from the point of view of defence, which we are discussing to-night, the vital step is the transfer of nuclear armaments, in the first place, and then of important national armaments, to an international body or authority which would use them, if at all, only through the agency of an International Police Force.
On that point I became particularly interested in what the noble Lord, Lord Harding of Petherton, was saying about the Congo and the need for organising, if I understood him aright, a force of that kind on a better footing, should the need arise in future. I hesitate to labour an egotistic recollection of which the noble Lord is perhaps unaware, but in 1957 I myself was chairman of an

927
all-Party committee which drew up and published a detailed plan for a small international force. We had expert Service advice, and it was approved by certain Service leaders afterwards. In fact, that plan was welcomed as a valuable contribution—I am talking of 1957 —by the Foreign Secretary of the day, then Mr. Selwyn Lloyd. That particular plan, for which, remarkably, I, as chairman, was rather responsible, although I had guidance from elsewhere, was praised by a good number of noble Lords in this House in 1957. So that, if I may say so, I am supporting the noble Lord, Lord Harding of Petherton.
A good many people, some of them Service chiefs, have been at work on this problem for a number of years. Under persistent pressure from all sides of politics the present Government have allowed themselves to reach a point where last Monday the Lord Privy Seal in another place said this [OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 636 (No. 72), col. 980]:
"Her Majesty's Government support the principle of a United Nations permanent force, while recognising the practical difficulties of administration and the financing that such a force would create."
He went on to say, in answer to a supplementary question:
"We have pressed it, but we have not yet had full support for it."
This is not a Party point. I do not think it would be difficult to find many people concerned with this problem in all directions. But most of us would say that this pressure for a permanent International Force was almost invisible. I am not sure whether the noble Lord, Lord Harding of Petherton, had even heard of it: at all events, he did not reveal any sign that he knew that this was a national policy. Therefore, I do not think we can take it that we can expect the man in the street in this country, let alone anybody in any other country, to be aware that this has been a matter on which the Government have exerted pressure.
Last year the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, who was then Deputy Leader of the House, aroused widespread public interest by declaring himself personally in favour of world government. At that time he said that he was outside the "inner defence circle". Perhaps tonight he can tell us whether he is inside the
928
"inner defence circle", or whether his elevation has left him still in the cold. At any rate, he was, he said, in a relatively uninstructed state last year. Tonight he will speak probably with greater information. But the noble and learned Viscount said that last year, and thereby aroused a lot of interest. Therefore I wish to ask him (I have given him a little notice) what he will say about that same matter this year. Last year he said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 221, col. 912]:
"As I contemplate the hideous weapons on both sides, which even in my partially informed state I know to have been invented—and here I speak only for myself"—
he spoke personally last year—
"I regard either a world authority or total disarmament, in the long run, as the only rational objective"—
In case anyone should wish to suggest (and I am sure the noble and learned Viscount would not wish to do so) that he was then talking of world authority and not world government, the noble and learned Viscount said later, in column 918:
"For me at least, as I have said, world government and total disarmament, remain the ultimate aims."
I hope that as Leader of the House, inside the "defence circle", as I would imagine him to be, he will be able to speak for the Government and not just offer a personal view in endorsing that support for world government.
Meanwhile, the Labour Party have not been idle, with my noble friend Lord Attlee giving us a very strong lead, speaking on this very subject of world government all over America, in Europe and recently in India. Last year, 168 Members of Parliament and Peers called on the Labour Party to take the action necessary to write world government, as a specific object of policy, into the Party constitution. Then, world government featured in a statement from the National Executive last year: and in the statement recently issued on behalf of the three organs of the Labour Movement, world government is referred to in Article 1, which I quote:
"The only final guarantee of lasting peace and freedom is to replace the anarchy of power politics by world government."
That has now been stated in a most unequivocal way by the Labour Party. In case someone asks whether there is not another view in the Labour Party, I would

929
say that to the best of my belief there is no other view on this paragraph of the document issued by the majority of twelve "wise men". There is another document subscribed to by a minority which accepted the first four paragraphs, and this paragraph, as one of its objectives. Here, I am referring to the Crossman document. So it is clear that in the Labour Party world government is now Target No. 1.
I am most anxious not to claim a monopoly of Socialist wisdom in this field, and it would be positively dishonest to do so. The chairman of an all-Party group for world government is a Conservative Member of Parliament, and as recently as March 3 last, in another place, a Conservative M.P. moved a Resolution, which was seconded by a Labour M.P., calling for the creation of an International Police Force of 20,000 men. Leading Liberals, from Mr. Clement Davies downwards, have been untiring on behalf of this cause. But if Her Majesty's Government wonder why we in the Labour Party at least take such an extraordinarily poor view of their efforts to protect us from annihilation, I would call attention to the remarks made by way of intervention by the honourable gentleman the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in the same debate in another place on March 3.
After listening to eloquent pleas for a world authority and a World Police Force, he said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons Vol. 635 (No. 66) col. 2025]:
"This was part of the Western disarmament plan and was re-embodied in the proposals put forward at the 1960 Ten-Nations Disarmament Committee, which showed that the Government are fully behind these proposals."
I regard that statement as misleading. No doubt the noble and learned Viscount is hoping and working for this, but to say that the Government are really pressing hard for an International Police Force at the present time is not consistent with anything known to the public. I myself would say that until they come out openly and press at the United Nations for the immediate establishment of an International Police Force and at the same time show themselves ready to offer a base to such a Force, they cannot be acquitted of the charge of flirting with this tremendous subject while we hover on the brink of annihilation.
In conclusion, whilst it is not surprising if some of us are twitted about
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public arguments which are taking place in the Labour Party, I thought the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, who is usually so extremely fair, was unfair in one respect, in that he seemed to imply that we were not putting forward any policy at all. There is the statement to which I have referred which no doubt will go before the Labour Party Conference; but to say that we have nothing to offer would he misleading.
THE EARL OF SWINTON: My Lords I appreciate that and all the documents which have apepared, that of the honour- able gentleman Mr. Crossman, and Mr. Cousins. What I intended to say—and I believe I am right in this—was that until the Conference (and I beg your Lordships' pardon for having called it "Soviet") takes place next year which, under the constitution of the Labour Party, settles the policy of the Party, it is impossible to say what is the policy of the Labour Party. I believe that it was fair to say that.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I think it is impossible ever to say precisely what is the policy of the Opposition. When noble Lords opposite were in Opposition and we were in Government, they were much more "cagey" than we have been about statements of policy. I speak as one who served in two Ministries of Defence, and I never knew what the policy of the Opposition was; and in that sense I do not think it would be wise to come forward with a detailed plan. But here is a policy which has been set forth by a great majority, the leaders of three governing bodies of the Labour Party, in regard to world government, the particular topic with which I was trying to deal; and so far as I am aware there was absolute solidarity and unanimity on that.
The truth is that these problems are enormously difficult. It was said of the father of the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe —and I was very pleased to hear the noble Earl speaking to-day—that he was the only man who could have lost the First World War in an afternoon. I suppose that could have been said of the noble Earl; he could have lost this debate in an afternoon. He certainly did not do so. I think he put up a very good show, although, in a sense, the debate was already lost. It is no good pretending that on technical

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aspects, which have been dealt with by other speakers, or on the aspect with which I have dealt, we have any confidence in the noble Lords opposite. We look upon them charitably but as, politically speaking, a delinquent team. Delinquents, as my noble friend Lady Wootton of Abinger and other experts will agree, can be divided into three main classes: the aggressives, the perverted and the inadequate. I am not accusing noble Lords opposite of any aggression, except towards one another; and that, of course, is their own affair. But I do not think they suffer from any other kind of aggression. Their only perversion is to suffer from a kind of delusion of popularity which I do not think will last much longer. But I am afraid that we, from this side, with all the sympathy in the world, must dismiss them as totally inadequate to perform the duties which, with all their patriotism, they are seeking to perform and therefore it will give me very great pleasure, as it will my colleagues, to go into the Lobby in support of this censure Motion.
6.29 p.m.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords the remarkable speech to which we have just listened, if it illustrated nothing else illustrated the extraordinary unsuitability of a Motion of censure for a debate of this kind. If I may, I will revert to that topic, but I will say here that my own view is that in matters of defence it is far better that this House should regard itself, in a sense, as a Council of State, with each Member of it contributing, as very many Members of it have contributed in the last two days, to the better understanding of the subject, than to try to divide itself into two or three Parties who will vote "Content" or "Not-content" when the truth is—and everybody knows it—that differences of opinion on this subject are almost infinite, some of them amounting only to differences of degree, others to differences of kind.
The position of the member of the Government who has to answer the debate is, I think, a little spoilt by the fact that an unsuitable Motion of censure has been moved. Because I think one would want—I certainly should have liked—to deal in much greater detail than I am going to be able to with a
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number of the very constructive speeches to which we have listened from all sides of the House. But when the Leaders of the Opposition Parties, exercising their undoubted right, put down censure Motions, of course the Minister who has to reply for the Government has to concentrate on the censure and neglect to an almost, to me, intolerable degree the detailed suggestions and criticisms which have come forward from speakers whose main concern was with the nature of the problem and its solutions rather than crude Party differences.
But, my Lords, I think that, before I embark upon this stormy sea, the House will forgive me if I thank noble Lords from all sides of the House who have taken part in this debate. I may perhaps be forgiven on this occasion for offering a special word of thanks to noble Lords on my own side of the House, and particularly, perhaps, as his speech is still fresh in my mind, to my noble friend Lord Swinton. Once more he has given us of his best, partly in assisting me in replying to the censure much more shortly than I should otherwise have had to do, but, not least, in putting before the House the fruits of his experience, in regard to which, if I do not reply in detail, I will only say this: I will draw my right honourable friend's attention especially to what he has said, which seemed to me most valuable.
I should like also especially to mention the noble and gallant Field Marshal who spoke from the Cross Benches. I do not think that the noble Earl, Lord Longford, was right in seeking to compromise him with the Opposition at all. I myself will not seek to embarrass him by praise from the Government. But I should like to say this: so far as his contribution was concerned, his firm support of the nuclear policy of the Government clearly makes nonsense of both the Amendments before the House. Although it would be almost impertinent to comment in detail upon his criticisms, I will, if I may, at the appropriate moment, say something as regards his criticism on manpower.
Then there were the two speeches we have listened to this afternoon from the noble Baroness, Lady Swanborough, and from the noble Lord, Lord Saye and Sele, about Civil Defence—most appropriate, if they will allow me to say so,

933
and most welcome in reminding us of the essential nature of this Service. In particular, if I may say so, what the noble Baroness said deserves to have very wide publicity indeed, both as illustrating the need for Civil Defence and as illustrating the fact that it is both necessary and desirable as part of our total defence effort. It would perhaps be wrong of me to mention every speech that we have heard. I will refer later on to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, and I shall, I hope, refer in the course of my remarks to those of my various noble friends who have so kindly given support to the Government in what they have said.
But, having said that, I should like to examine a little the main currents of argument with which noble Lords from the Liberal and Labour Benches have sought to support their several Amendments. My noble friend Lord Jellicoe has already pointed out that the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Rea, in support of the Liberal Amendment really proceeds from a false premise. His whole case was, I thought, a trifle ignobly based upon expense, and he was saying that the whole of this expense was growing to a stage at which our national economy could no longer bear it. The noble Lord is wrong in point of fact. Page 9 of the White Paper establishes quite clearly that the relative burden on our economy is, as my noble friend pointed out earlier this afternoon, growing a little less rather than a lot more. This, of course, is a complete answer to that part of the noble Lord's case. If I may be allowed I will revert to his case about the deterrent at a slightly later point in my speech.
From the noble Viscount who leads the Opposition we heard, as we often do, a splendid Right Wing Die-hard Conservative speech; and very splendid it was! It was not, I think, a pure coincidence that, despite the well-merited cheers with which it was greeted from his own side, the loudest cheers of all came from the 15-inch guns of the noble Earl, Lord Cork and Orrery, who happened to be sitting on the Cross Benches at that time. And they were, of course, well merited. The noble Viscount's case was quite different from that of the noble Lord, Lord Rea. The noble Lord, Lord Rea, was saying that we really cannot afford so much on defence, and let us cut
934
out the nuclear deterrent because this is contrary to interdependence and we cannot afford it; let the Americans bear the burden. But the noble Viscount, in his splendidly Conservative speech, was saying that we have really let the Forces down too much. You were given, he said, magnificent Forces by us in 1951; they are now fewer in number, there are not so many ships—and perhaps we have not got the money either, if I may adapt the ancient song to modern conditions. He was advocating, by implication, an expenditure on our Armed Forces which would have been very much greater, certainly, and would have been more like that in the situation of 1951 immediately after the Korean war.
My Lords, in answer to the noble Viscount I would simply say this. What I now say is not intended as a criticism at all of the Labour Party policy when they were in office or of the policy of 1951, in 1951, to which he referred with, such pride. But I would tell him, plainly and bluntly, that if we were to attempt to defend this country with the large forces based on National Service, or the weapons ancillary to them, which we had in 1951, we should be doing only a little: better than if we sought to defend this country with the forces that went into the Crimean War. Because it is literally true that in these ten years the whole conception of military power and military action has been absolutely revolutionised. Rightly or wrongly, we have been given the military advice to do approximately as we are now doing. We have been told that, in the current military situation, it is better to have small, mobile, professional Forces such as we are trying to build up than to have the large forces which the noble Viscount is complaining that we have been running down. That advice may be wrong, but it is the best advice that we can get. The only complaint I have to make about the noble Viscount is that he seemed to fail to realise at all that it had come from professional military sources. He regarded it as a form of weakness on the part of the Conservative Party and not a form of weakness on the part of their military advisers. My Lords, that really disposes, I think, of the noble Viscount's approach to this matter.
It is, of course, true, as the noble and gallant Field Marshal and other speakers

935
have said, that in getting our mobile professional Forces of a smaller character we are finding difficulty in recruiting. This has been made very clear in the White Paper, and my noble friend Lord Jellicoe made no attempt to conceal the fact: but that would never drive us back to the policy of 1951. What it must do is to lead us, at the end of the year, as my noble friend said, to review the situation then, and to get the small, mobile, professional Forces we want by some means appropriate to the getting of those Forces; and I am afraid that the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, will be no nearer satisfaction—the satisfaction of a return to the policy of 1951—at the end of 1961 than he is in March, 1961.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, if I may say so, the policy in 1951 was not exclusive of the use of nuclear power, which was a part of the equipment of the two main partners in N.A.T.O., the United States of America and ourselves. But we also had the troops, and it is since 1951 that you have so let the economy run down that you can no longer afford that joint effort which we were then able to produce.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: The picture of the economy of 1961 being so much below the economy of 1951 is an attractive one, but I will not pursue it this evening.
Before I come on to the question of the nuclear deterrent in the strategic role, to which the noble Viscount has quite properly referred—and I make no complaint about that—I should like to take him a little further into the question of the revolution in weapons, because a great deal of the discussion during the two days we have been talking about this vital subject has revolved around the question of the revolution in weapons which has taken place. I am going to talk about only one aspect of it, and to some extent I must even now frankly confess that I am expressing my own judgment of the matter, although I think it is worth while doing so, despite the fact that I could not claim to be doing much more than that. The aspect I want to refer to is the advent of the tactical nuclear weapon
936
to the battlefield. This is what has really, in many ways, revolutionised the situation.
About that, broadly speaking, two different points of view have been put forward in your Lordships' House. One was that of the noble Earl, Lord Lucan, and other speakers, who said yesterday that it was certain that the use of tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield would inevitably escalate to the extent of strategic nuclear weapons, with their devastating and world-destroying effect, and he said that everyone was agreed about that, As to that last statement, he happened to be inaccurate, because the noble and gallant Field Marshal—who, if he will allow me to say so, probably knows far more about this particular subject than anyone else in the House—happened to hold directly the opposite view and to expound it with very great force this afternoon.
Now, on that point, I will say only this for myself: I, to some extent, stand mid-way between those two positions. It has never been proved to my satisfaction as certain that these weapons would escalate. I have the doubts of the noble and gallant Field Marshal on that point. On the other hand, I would defy anyone to say that it was certain that they would not; and the practical deductions to be drawn from the latter proposition might, in practice, bring me a great deal closer to the noble Earl, Lord Lucan, although in theory I am much closer to the noble and gallant Field Marshal. This leads me to what, to my mind, is by far the most relevant point in considering the White Paper, which is the relationship between conventional and nuclear forces.
I agreed with my noble friend Lord Bridgeman when he said that this particular distinction is one which does not, in point of fact, any longer conduce to very clear thinking about the subject; and I noticed that when the noble and gallant Field Marshal referred to the two sides of our effort, the conventional and the nuclear, he was in fact using those words in a sense very different from that used by any other speaker. He made it absolutely clear that what he described as the conventional forces (on which he desired, with other speakers, to see a greater emphasis), included forces in the hands of which there would be nuclear

937
tactical weapons. This illustrates the very point which I am trying to make; and it also, I think, constitutes an answer, both to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, in what he said yesterday, and to some of my noble friends, who demanded an increase in the conventional forces, not in the sense used by the noble and gallant Field Marshal but in what I might call the older and even more conventional sense.
Here, again, I must say that I speak only for myself, but when I was First Lord, nearly five years ago, I had formed the opinion, rightly or wrongly, that within tin years of that date it would not be possible to consider the kind of event to which the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, referred this afternoon in the course of his interesting and valuable speech. You could not, I believe, consider the possibility as indefinitely continuing that something like the Korean, encounter would take place on the Continent of Europe. I do not think it is valuable to state in any detail why I came to that conclusion then. I will give two reasons only for it, and will say that I still believe that I was right, and that if in any sense I was wrong I believe was wrong only in the sense that when I gave to myself a period of ten years it ought perhaps to have been written down a good deal less than that.
My Lords, I think that people tend to regard nuclear and conventional weapons rather as one might regard two alternative nibs to a fountain pen. If you want to screw in a nuclear nib, you can write a letter, and then, if it does not suit your handwriting, you can take it out and screw in a conventional nib. My Lords, it is not like that at all. The lines of communication, the deployment, the tactics and the composition of a force which has nuclear weapons of a tactical character are fundamentally different, I should have thought, from those of one which has only conventional weapons; and I would say that, whatever may be true about the possibility or danger of tactical nuclear weapons escalating to the strategic nuclear scale, the danger of a heavy conventional assault escalating at least to the tactical nuclear scale was infinitely the greater of the two.
At the risk of pursuing this personal view of mine—it is a little too long, but I still attach great importance to it, and
938
I will therefore do so—I simply ask the House to consider this point. Suppose one was the commanding officer of a Communist force about to commit an aggression across the Continent of Europe. Both sides are in fact, as we know, equipped with tactical nuclear weapons, supported in the background with weapons in the megaton realm. How are you going to deploy your forces for the attack? How are you going to form them up in the forming-up places? How are you going to put your lines of communication? Surely, knowing that, on the other side, there are tactical nuclear weapons, you will have to adopt that degree of dispersion which is necessary to shield your force from an annihilating blow from one of those weapons. If you do that, where are you going to get your fire power to mount an attack unless you use your own tactical nuclear weapons in support of your attack? I would say, without doubt, that a great deal of thinking in this debate, demanding a reversion to conventional weapons, is as out of date as the demand that we should revert to the shape of the forces in 1951.
Now, the conclusion which I draw from this fact—a very serious conclusion; and again I speak personally—is this. I draw the conclusion that when I sought to speak last year, as I did, in opening this debate, in the sense to which, in part, the noble Earl, Lord Longford, was referring, I was not, as some people thought, putting forward some rather starry-eyed moral view of my own. I was stating, in what I regarded as logical terms, the very view which has been reiterated by every responsible Government on both sides of the Iron Curtain, including the Russians, that we are faced with the necessity of preventing a war altogether., if by war you mean any thing on the Korean scale, and excluding only the type of encounter which was referred to by, I think, my noble friend Lord Bridgeman yesterday as "checking relatively small incidents", and which has been referred to during this debate, as "brush fire stopping", or "police action", or "bush fire stopping". I believe that to be the only logical conclusion of the revolution in weapons to which I have been referring.
The object of our defence policy is not to win a war; it is not to fight a war;

939
it is to prevent a war, and that policy will have failed unless it succeeds in that object. It is necessary to point this out, my Lords, because the kind of armed force, the balance between the nuclear and the conventional and between the tactical and the strategic, which would be required for the purpose of preventing a war is not necessarily the same as that which you require for fighting it. The deterrent (as it is called) has succeeded so far. My right honourable friend the Minister of Defence was quite right in saying that in another place in the comparable debate. It has succeeded so far in preventing a war in circumstances in which, I would venture to say, but for the terrible nature of modern weapons, it is only too probable that war would have broken out in the last ten years. To that extent the policy is a success.
But what I said last year, and what I say this year, is that it is not infallible, and when I contemplate, as I contemplated last year, and as we now contemplate again this year, the kind of weapons, tactical and strategic, which are in existence, I cannot but think that unless a means is found of bringing armaments to an end within a measurable time, sooner or later the weapons will be used, and whatever degree of escalation there may now be feared will take place, whether the first weapons which are used are conventional, or tactical-nuclear. That only underlines what I said last year and what the White Paper says in paragraph 1, that our policy ultimately is based upon the need for disarmament.
When I said that, I was not seeking, as the noble Viscount said and as he reminded me yesterday, to avoid discussion on the White Paper. I was raising what, to my mind, is the most important item for discussion on the White Paper, and it is from there that we need to go. It was precisely because, if you are going in for general disarmament, you must have general disarmament with inspection and control, as the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, said in the course of his speech in regard to the Sixth (I am afraid they are called "Pugwash") Conference. It is precisely because you have to go in for inspection and control at the same time that I referred in plain terms to a world authority, primarily to police the
940
inspection and control of the disarmament which is necessary, if we are not to get into the situation which I have described. And I went further for this reason: because I think if you have disarmament without any form of international force, you will in fact have created a political vacuum like the Congo; and political vacuums like the Congo would inevitably lead to the danger of rearmament and war at the precise moment when confidence was returning. It was for that reason that I said last year that that is what I believed. My Lords, I still say so this year. I do not think it is suitable, even in a debate of this importance, that I should speak as a spokesman of the Government and use words in the foreign policy sphere which are better spoken by the responsible Foreign Office Minister. But, so far as I know, this is the kind of thought in which we believe, and it is the kind of view, I think, to which one is driven logically by a contemplation of the sense of the White Paper.
My Lords, it is in that context that I would ask your Lordships to consider the policy revealed by the White Paper. It does not, of course, offer absolute security to the people of this Island. I do not know of any policy that would offer absolute security to the people of this Island at the present time, and I should not, therefore, think that it was a criticism of our policy that it did not. On the contrary, I would say, with sadness but with complete conviction, that nobody could guarantee, even if we took the right decisions upon the material available, that the material has in every case been adequate; or, alternatively, that even if we took the right decisions upon adequate material, that it lay in the power of a single Government in this country to guarantee success. Despite taking the right decisions, we might easily be overwhelmed with disaster.
What does emerge from the policy is this. It must be seen in the context of our foreign policy, in the context of our economic policy, in the context of our aid to underdeveloped countries, and in the context of the determination and character of our own people. It is true, for the reasons given best. I thought, by the noble and gallant Field Marshal, that inside that policy, so far as weapons and arms are concerned, we think we should retain a nuclear component.

941
My Lords, I have not been able to follow the Liberal Party in their suggestion that that nuclear component is inconsistent with interdependence. On the contrary, it fits into the pattern of the alliances; and I may say we are a member of more than one alliance, the membership not identical in every case. It therefore behoves us to have forces which are available for all three. It tits into the pattern of defence, and it is, I should have thought, an important, perhaps even an indispensable, part of the effort of the total alliance. I cannot see why this is said to be inconsistent with interdependence. It is part of interdependence. The Americans have infantry, but we do not, for that reason, seek to abolish the Brigade of Guards. Because they have infantry, we do not say that we cannot afford infantry too. I cannot see that to our more advanced and sophisticated arms the same argument need not apply.
On the contrary, I should have said, quite frankly and bluntly to the noble Lords in the Liberal Party, that if we want our alliance with the Americans to be healthy—and nobody wants that more than I, being both by blood and extraction half American, although by loyalty wholly British—we must at all costs avoid the kind of picture of Britain which Americans are only too ready to paint: a tourist attraction, with conventional uniforms, techniques and skills, eking out what dollars we can earn by selling whisky and motor cars. If there are to be advanced technologies, in war or in peace, Britain and Europe must have their share of them. I should be the first to ask that these technologies should be abandoned altogether, if we could make a success of the nuclear tests conference; but so long as they exist, the idea that we should content ourselves with something obsolete, and shelter behind the advanced technologies of America, is not only ignoble but ultimately can undermine our friendly relations with our Allies.
I should like to deal with two other arguments put by noble Lords opposite. It is said that this attitude is inconsistent with what I might call our attitude on the fourth Power question. We are giving a bad example to Ecuador and the Argentine, to quote two countries referred to by the noble Lord opposite.
942
I do not think that that is so; and even if I did, I do not think that it would be conclusive. The one sure goal to rid the world of the fear of the spread of nuclear arms is to secure success in the Test Ban Conference between the three great Powers. We cannot, with any degree of respectability, go to the smaller Powers and say that they cannot do this, so long as the great Powers already have the weapons and are quite unable to agree amongst themselves over their control.
If we are concerned with lessening the fourth Power problem, we must concentrate on succeeding in the big Power problem which revolves round the Test Ban Conference. If we are to influence our Allies and our potential antagonists, our place in that Conference, and our influence there, will depend on the maintenance and, if I may say so, the maintenance in efficient form, of that part of our Defence effort which consists of the nuclear deterrent. This is not, as the noble Lord, Lord Rea, seems to think, an intolerable burden. The White Paper shows that it is not a very large proportion of our Defence effort and my own view, for what it is worth. is that if we out it off, we should have to substitute different forces with different weapons, but with something equivalent in the way of hitting power, which would cost us a great deal more—though I would not say that we must exclude what the noble and gallant Field Marshal put forward: that we should put more emphasis on one rather than the other. And I was very glad to hear him point out that, during the tenure of office of my right honourable friend, a change of emphasis was, at any rate to the experts, discernible.
There is only one other point on this that I would make to the Liberal Party. It would be vain to suppose that if we took their advice, we should save any money at all. As good Allies and loyal friends, we must devote at least as big a part of our gross national product to external policy—whether it be aid to under-developed countries, the stamping out of malaria, or support works—as to put us in proportion to our main Allies. Should we decide to abandon one part of our Defence effort, we should be in honour bound to spend the same amount of money and effort on some other aspect of our external policy. After all,

943
America spends on external policy a higher proportion of her gross national product than we do. Let nobody ever say that they can afford what we cannot afford.
I would say that, adopting the policy of the White Paper, we must bend our efforts towards world peace—and this is what gives added force to what my noble friend Lord Kennet said yesterday. Last year, there was (and this is largely the explanation of my making the speech I did) a reasonable chance of those efforts bearing fruit. It is not for me now to recapitulate the circumstances which destroyed the hopes I then entertained, but, for some of the reasons that the noble Lord has given, I would say that it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that those hopes might reasonably rise again this year. Therefore, let us not abandon them. If we do go on with them, and those wishes realise themselves, let us not delude ourselves that the future is going to be any easier—but at least it is going to be a future.
We shall have to face the challenge of the statement of the 81 Communist parties. That will involve, believe me, at least as much of our gross national product as our policy on arms does now. We are not going to get off a lot of money by saving on these weapons. But at least mankind will have an assured future and secure, sooner or later, a situation in which the value of our own
moral standards and our own way of life can be measured against Communism in objective terms instead of in terms of relative force and mutual terror.
7.10 p.m.
LORD REA: My Lords, I beg to move the Amendment standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Amendment moved—
Leave out all the words after ("That") and insert:
("this House deplores the fact that, in spite of an increased defence budget in excess of £1,655,000,000, Her Majesty's Government have failed to provide a convincing explanation of the part to be played by Britain in a co-ordinated Western defence system and further, while approving the declaration contained in Command Paper 1288, that ' a narrow nationalist policy for the choice and production of arms makes no sense to-day,' regrets that Her Majesty's Government do not recognise that this declaration is inconsistent with their continued adherence to the concept that Britain can only maintain her position in the world by relying on independent nuclear projects.")—(Lord Rea.)
On Question, Whether the said Amendment shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 33; Not-Contents, 81.

CONTENTS

Addison, V.

Granville-West, L.

Rea, L.

Airedale, L. [Teller.]

Hughes, L.

Samuel, V.

Alexander of Hillsborough, V.

Latham, L.

Shackleton, L.

Amwell, L.

Lindgren, L.

Shepherd, L.

Archibald, L.

Listowel, E.

Silkin, L.

Attlee, E.

Longford, E.

Summerskill, B.

Boyd-Orr, L.

Lucan, E.

Taylor, L.

Burden, L.

Macpherson of Drumochter, L.

Terrington, L.

Carnock, L.

Nathan, L.

Williams of Barnburgh, L.

Colwyn, L.

Ogmore, L.

Wise, L.

Crook, L.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L. [Teller.]

Dalton, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Abinger, L.

Bossom, L.

Conesford, L.

Ailsa, M.

Boston, L.

Congleton, L.

Ailwyn, L.

Bridgeman, V.

Craigmyle, L.

Amory, V.

Buckinghamshire, E.

Crathorne, L.

Ampthill, L.

Carew, L.

Crookshank,V.

Atholl, D.

Carrick, E.

Digby, L.

Auckland, L.

Carrington, L.

Dundee, E.

Baden-Powell, L.

Chesham, L.

Dynevor, L.

Bathurst, E.

Cholmondeley, M.

Ellenborough, L.

Birdwood, L.

Coleraine, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Blackford, L.

Colville of Culross, V.

Ferrier, L.

Foley, L.

Jessel, L.

Robins, L.

Fortescue, E.

Kilmuir, V. (L. Chancellor.)

Russell of Liverpool, L.

Fraser of Lonsdale, L.

Long, V.

St. Aldwyn, E. [Teller.]

Freyberg, L.

Lyell, L.

St. Oswald, L.

Furness, V.

Margesson, V.

Saltoun, L.

Gage, V.

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Savile, L.

Goschen, V.

Melchett, L.

Sinclair, L.

Gosford, E.

Merrivale, L.

Strang, L.

Hailsham, V. (L. President.)

Mersey, V.

Stratheden and Campbell, L.

Harding of Petherton, L.

Mills, L.

Stuart of Findhorn, V.

Hastings, L.

Milverton, L.

Swinton, B.

Hawke, L.

Newall, L.

Tedder, L.

Horsbrugh, B.

Newton, L. [Teller.]

Teviot, L.

Howard of Glossop, L.

Ormonde, M.

Teynham, L.

Ironside, L.

Perth, E.

Torrington, V.

Jellicoe, E.

Radnor, E.

Waldegrave, E.

Resolved in the negative, rent disagreed to accordingly.
7.20 p.m.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER HILLS-BOROUGH: My Lords, I beg to move the Amendment standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Amendment moved—
Leave out all the ("That") and insert
("this House has no confidence that the policy set out in the Report on Defence (Cmnd. 1288) will provide effectively for the defence of Britain."), —(Viscount Alexander of Hillsborough.)
On Question, Whether the said Amendment shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 38; Not-Contents, 80.

CONTENTS

Addison, V.

Granville-West, L.

Rea, L.

Airedale, L.

Hughes, L.

Samuel, V.

Alexander of Hillsborough, V.

Latham, L.

Shackleton, L.

Amwell, L.

Lindgren, L.

Shepherd, L. [Teller.]

Archibald, L.

Listowel, E.

Silkin, L.

Attlee, E.

Longford, E.

Summerskill, B.

Boyd-Orr, L.

Lucan, E.

Taylor, L.

Burden, L. [Teller.]

Macpherson of Drumochter, L.

Terrington, L.

Carnock, L.

Morrison of Lambeth, L.

Williams, L.

Colwyn, L.

Nathan, L.

Williams of Barnburgh, L.

Crook, L.

Ogmore, L.

Wise, L.

Dalton, L.

Peddie, L.

Wootton of Abinger, B.

Douglas of Kirtleside, L.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Abinger, L.

Craigmyle, L.

Ironside, L,

Ailsa, M.

Crathorne, L.

Jellicoe, E.

Ailwyn, L.

Crookshank, V.

Jessel, L.

Amory, V.

Digby, L.

Kilmuir, V. (L. Chancellor.)

Ampthill, L.

Dundee, E.

Long, V.

Atholl, D.

Dynevor, L.

Lyell, L.

Auckland, L.

Ellenborough, L.

Margesson, V.

Baden-Powell, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Bathurst, E.

Ferrier, L.

Melchett, L.

Birdwood, L

Foley, L.

Merrivale, L.

Blackford, L.

Fortescue, E.

Mersey, V.

Bossom, L.

Fraser of Lonsdale, L.

Mills, L.

Boston, L.

Freyberg, L

Milverton, L.

Bridgeman, V.

Furness, V.

Newall, L.

Buckinghamshire, E.

Gage, V.

Newton, L. [Teller.]

Carew, L.

Ormonde, M.

Carrick, E.

Goschen, V.

Perth, E.

Carrington, L.

Gosford, E.

Robins, L.

Chesham, L.

Hailsham, V. (L. President.)

Russell of Liverpool, L.

Cholmondeley, M.

Harding of Petherton, L.

St. Aldwyn, E. [Teller.]

Coleraine, L.

Hastings, L.

St. Oswald, L.

Colville of Culross, V.

Hawke, L.

Saltoun, L.

Conesford, L.

Horsbrugh, B.

Savile, L.

Congleton, L.

Howard of Glossop, L.

Sinclair, L.

Strang, L.

Swinton, E.

Teynham, L.

Stratheden and Campbell, L.

Tedder, L.

Torrington, V.

Stuart of Findhorn, V.

Teviot, L.

Waldegrave, E.

On Question, Resolution agreed to.

HOUSE OF LORDS OFFICES
Second Report from the Select Committee, made, and to be printed.
House adjourned at twenty-eight minutes before eight o'clock.