Lords Sitting of 11 July 1962

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock, The Lord Chancellor on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Chichester

LORD MABANE
The right honourable Sir William Mabane, K.B.E., having been created Baron Mabane, of Rye in the County of Sussex—Was (in the usual manner) introduced.

PUBLICATION OF MOLONY REPORT
2.45 p.m.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: 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 whether they are now in a position to announce the date of publication of the Report on consumer protection submitted by the Molony Committee.]
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (LORD MILLS): My Lords, my right honourable friend the President of the Board of Trade expects that this Report will be published before Parliament adjourns for the Summer Recess.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, while wishing to be pleasant always to the noble Lord who has answered the Question to-day, might I ask him whether he is aware that it is very difficult to be so in face of that Answer, which I realise is not his fault? Does the noble Lord know that yesterday there was a firm date for this, and could he explain why that is not now the case?
LORD MILLS: My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Lady for her compliment. I
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am quite unaware that there was a firm date yesterday for publication of this Report.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that that puts me in rather a quandary, because had I been answered by a lesser luminary on the Front Bench opposite I would have said that I thought that the person answering the Question should have been informed of the background? But I do not wish to be discounteous—I say that most sincerely to the noble Lord. Might I ask him whether he himself would not regard it as quite extraordinary to ask this House to believe that it is not possible to get a firm date for the publication of this Report, when we were told on May 29 and again on June 27 exactly what I have been told to-day? Would the House not agree that, as there are only three weeks remaining before the House rises, it should be possible to give an approximate date within those three weeks, even if it is only an actual week, when this Report might be expected?
LORD MILLS: My Lords, I have a lot of the background before me. I have looked into the position and I cannot agree that it is extraordinary that we cannot give a firm date to-day.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, having one last try, if I may, might I ask, in view of all this, whether it would be possible for the noble Lord to tell me when it would be advisable to put down a Question so that your Lordships might be informed of the actual date of publication?
LORD MILLS: My Lords, I would not do anything to prevent the noble Lady from putting down a Question. This is the third occasion upon which the noble Lady has put down a Question, and there might still be a fourth.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: Yes, but would the noble Lord help me, as well as not preventing me?
LORD MILLS: I will do my best, my Lords.

DISCLOSURE OF INFORMATION UNDER EURATOM TREATY
2.47 p.m.
LORD CRATHORNE: 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 what obligations the United Kingdom would assume to provide civil and military information if the Government were to accede to the Euratom Treaty.]
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL AND MINISTER FOR SCIENCE (VISCOUNT HAILSHAM): My Lords, the Euratom Treaty does not require member States or their nationals to disclose to the Euratom Commission or other member States the results of their own atomic research and development programmes. There are provisions to encourage dissemination within the European Atomic Energy Community of information about the peaceful uses of atomic energy. Except for information owned or acquired by the Commission under its own research programme these provisions in general depend on voluntary co-operation. In certain limited circumstances the Euratom Commission can order a compulsory licence to be granted for the use of a patent. If this power is used, the person granted the licence must pay compensation to the patent holder. The amount is assessed, at the patent holder's choice, either by an arbitration committee set up under the Treaty or by the national authorities in the patent holder's country.
Member States and their nationals are required to disclose to the Commission details of new investment projects in the civil nuclear field and of the operations of their civil nuclear establishments. Information about the investment projects can be published only with the consent of the person or enterprise communicating it. The Lord Privy Seal made it clear in his opening statement in the Euratom negotiations on July 3 that we are proceeding on the assumption that we shall not be required to disclose or permit the disclosure of classified defence information to the Euratom Commission or to other member States.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I suppose that covers all the present members of Euratom, including France?
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, what I said covers everybody.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I think I will postpone any further question until I have studied more carefully the Answer of the noble Viscount, because I am rather intrigued by what may happen in view of statements by the President of the French Republic. I will have another look at it.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, I should like to inform the House that my noble friend Lord Dundee will be making a statement on Scottish economy at a suitable moment after 3.30.
LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (GENERAL POWERS) BILL
Read 2a, and committed to a Select Committee.
REGENT REFINING COMPANY BILL
Read 2a.

CITY OF LONDON (VARIOUS POWERS) BILL
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (LORD MERTHYR): My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, has informed me, and I am grateful to him for having done so, that he wishes to raise certain matters on Second Reading in connection with this Bill. I therefore do not propose to move the Motion for Second Reading this afternoon. Your Lordships may find it convenient to know that it has been arranged that the Second Reading debate of this Bill shall take place as last Business on Thursday, July 19.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH:My Lords, may I express my appreciation and thanks to the Lord Chairman of Committees for his courtesy and consideration in the matter, and say that I acquiesce in the proposal he makes?

NAVY ESTIMATES
2.52 p.m.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH rose to call attention to the Explanatory Statement on the Navy Estimates, 1962–63 (Cmnd. 1629); and to move for Papers. The noble Viscount said: My Lords, I rise to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. It is becoming a longer and longer period of my life since I gave up the political side of the administration of the Admiralty; and, as the years go by, so, it seems to me, the size and strength of our Royal Navy continues to recede. The Explanatory Paper makes it fairly clear how very difficult it is to come to a judgment as to the adequacy of present Forces, reckoning both those in commission and available and those which are under repair or in reserve, for the kind of tasks which still remain to be dealt with by them. The most apt title that I could think of for this Paper, and indeed I think noble Lords will agree the most apt title for the White Paper on Defence itself, would be "Looking Forward", because I myself do not see that we have so much to look forward to except a lot of promises—promises, promises, year after year, but not too much achievement, not too much spread of provision, not too much alternative in technical development which would give us the confidence we all want to have that we are being properly defended. The Government's record for providing equipment for the Navy is as disappointing, I think, as in the case of the other two Forces, the Army and the Air Force; and the rather—what shall I call it?—grandiloquent language which was used in the White Paper on the Navy's world-wide tasks and commitments seemed to me to be strongly in contrast to what are the true facts.
Perhaps your Lordships would not mind (because it is some months now since the White Paper came out and we are apt to forget these things unless we specially look them up) if I quoted something about the Navy from the White Paper on Defence:
"To discharge this responsibility we need a balanced and versatile Fleet capable of bringing force to bear under the sea, on the surface and in the air. By the use of task forces with a significant amphibious capability, seaborne military and air power can be exerted wherever
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our interests require it, to preserve or if necessary to restore peace … The great assets of seaborne power are its mobility and flexibility, which enable it to be redeployed and concentrated wherever our policies require."
Of course, I know that world circumstances have changed for us, I think unfortunately in many directions. I was saying the other day privately to the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, that the first function I attended after becoming the first Socialist First Lord of the Admiralty in 1929 was a naval dinner presided over by the late Lord Jellicoe, who was the First Sea Lord in the years previous and who commanded the Fleet in the First Great War. I always remember his taking me on a verbal tour around the Empire, telling me of all the situations there were and what were the tasks, and he ended up by looking me quite straight in the face—the first poor little Socialist ever to be First Lord of the Admiralty—and he said to me:
"The Scripture says, 'Thou shalt possess the gates of thine enemies', and that is where we are and that is where we have got to be."
I think the language of this White Paper on Defence speaks in almost the same kind of world-wide fashion, but where are the strengths really to cover these world-wide commitments and tasks which are spoken of in such language in the White Paper? I must compliment the First Lord of the Admiralty upon the clarity in which the situation is really portrayed in the White Paper. I am again glad to see the splendid illustrations in it, but when we come to look at the actual strength, then I just wonder and wonder.
Our capital ships of to-day are air-craft carriers There are six of them. I suppose one of the oldest is the one picked out by the First Lord of the Admiralty and reported to the House as being at any rate in the last stages of her journey. I think what the First Lord says is that she is due to be replaced by 1970, but the First Lord goes on to tell us in his statement that there is no need to begin at present to think about ordering another ship to replace her. Is it intended to reduce the total number of capital ship aircraft carriers? Or is it that some sudden, new discovery of construction has come about that will enable the next aircraft carrier to replace the "Victorious" to be completed far more rapidly than any of the others?

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If the "Victorious" is to go out finished in 1970, you have eight years left. I do not even remember a carrier of her type being completed in under nine years, and yet the time is not yet thought fit to talk about the design or the ordering of a ship of this character.
However, the First Lord will give us a better picture of that at the time. These are capital ships, large ships, very often the centre of any main operation; they must be to-day. When we think of the tremendous reliance we shall now be placing upon these six ships, I suppose the First Lord would admit that probably it would be only rarely that more than three would be in commission at any one time. I am wondering what the Board of Admiralty may be thinking about this publication by the Soviet News, on June 13, of the news issued by the Soviet Embassy to those of us who like to follow their proceedings. Here is an article attributed in its content to the Russian Admiral of the Fleet, Isakov:
"Aircraft carriers are ships of the past, just like battleships, which are obsolete in spite of the fact that they are now equipped with atomic engines and possess great speed; taking into consideration the new means of warfare at the disposal of the leading powers, and especially the progress made by the U.S.S.R. in rocket techniques and also in submarine construction, aircraft carriers are losing much of their military value."
It might be helpful to your Lordships if, during the course of his reply to the debate, the noble Lord, the First Lord of the Admiralty, could tell us what he really thinks of that situation. I am quite sure from what I know of the intelligence department of the Navy they have their ears pretty close to the ground and will be aware of statements of this sort and able to give us their views upon that.
Certainly there has been a very great advance in the kind of amphibious warfare that is required in modern circumstances, as was demonstrated and mentioned in the First Lord's Statement, in such an operation as that which took reinforcements when required to Kuwait, an operation which was carried out with the first commando aircraft ship, the "Bulwark". I think it was one which brought credit to all three of the Services Which were engaged in it. But I wonder whether the First Lord
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has considered what sort of strength he has in that kind of operation when it has to be carried out; I wonder whether he has thought about that.
I was tremendously interested to look at the illustration which he has given in sketch in the naval Statement as to What is the actual strength of the amphibious force required. It will be found on pages 14 and 15. When I look at that I just wonder in how many parts of the world at one time you would be able to provide this single and amphibious force to carry out operations at particular places; how many forces you could mount at one and the same time if you had two areas of trouble, sometimes regarded as minor trouble but nevertheless likely to lead to more major trouble unless dealt with at once. As I look at this, it seems to me you have hardly a duplication of a whole force available. You would be able, of course, to go to a fleet of 32 frigates to extract ships of that kind for inclusion in the force, but where would you get another commando carrier? You have two in your programme; one is operational; the "Albion" is under complete transformation to be a commando ship.
The First Lord seems to rely upon the fact that in the current year, 1962–3, you have both available; but if I understand the position aright, in view of the service which the "Bulwark" has done she is much more likely to be under major refit and you will apparently never have more than one commando ship available in this period ahead. And I see no sign at present of its being thought desirable, in these new days of development of this kind of amphibious warfare, to order more commando carriers. Could we be told to-day something more of the intentions of the Admiralty in this matter? I certainly agree with the First Lord; the kind of demonstration that was made at Kuwait shows it to be capable of expansion, to the general success of the work of any one of our three Services which is concerned.
When looking at the lists of ships which are shown in the White Paper, I am also concerned about the balancing and the general strength of the Fleet. Let us take, first of all, the cruisers. We have had reports from time to time in the last few years about the cruisers.

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What is the final goal of the total number of cruisers you are going to keep? Apparently you still have eight. "Bermuda" is pretty old, is she not? I do not know about the others. "Blake", "Lion" and "Tiger" are very long since designed, but they took so long to put into service that I suppose one would regard them as fairly modern. If you look at the other list, of those under repair or in reserve, you find there is not a really modern ship among them. "Belfast" is one of the old Town class, built and designed under the leadership of Lord Mouse 11, when be was First Lord of the Admiralty between 1934 and 1935. That is a long time ago. The same applies to the "Sheffield"; she is Town class, built about 1932–3.
With the present way of setting out the ships in the Navy Estimates Report it is more difficult for Members of Parliament and Members of your Lordships' House to be able to ascertain exactly these ages and times than it was before the war, when we had the Blue Book on Fleets, or much more detailed information, ship for ship, in the Navy Estimates than we have at the present time. But these ships are old. The "Gambia", the "Mauritius", of course, were built slightly pre-war or early in the war. Here we are, eight ships all told; all this great language about the world commitments and the world tasks we have to perform, and these are all we have. And if I take rumour to be right—sometimes rumour is right—this is larger than the total number of cruisers the Admiralty intend to keep. Is that so?
I must say, you can prevent a whole lot of trouble in a very short time if you have a cruiser with pretty heavy guns shadowing the place where the trouble is likely to be, and I have seen a good deal of that done in my time. It is a great pity that showing the Flag now would be confined to frigates and to what you can spare for the purpose of the very limited fleet of destroyers. You have twenty in commission, apart from the two special missile ships, and the others are all either under repair or in reserve. When the ordinary citizen outside looks at facts like these he must wonder to himself why on earth are we really spending (if I take the gross figure) £460 million a year to get so little, compared to the size of the naval defence
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that we have to be responsible for throughout our present commitments. It is a good thing—and I would readily acknowledge it—if you come to think of major war or anything of that kind that there is a good deal of difference in what events are likely to be and what they were when we were preparing for 1939; that I readily admit.
It is also, of course, quite clear from the operation of the joint forces of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation that in a world war we should have a great deal of the task on the naval side taken over by the United States, instead of our being left alone as we were in 1940 and practically the whole of 1941, having to cover practically the whole of the Allied naval defence of the world. But in spite of all that, when you come to examine the actual lists here, how poor they are…
Turning to amphibious forces (I hope the First Lord will tell us if I am wrong in my figures), so far as I can tell, you can count almost on the fingers and thumbs of your two hands the number of landing ships and tank-landing craft. There are certainly not many more, if one looks at the two lists of those actually in commission and those under repair or in reserve. This is an extraordinary feeble provision to have, not only for the actual operation as it may arise, but for the adequate carrying out of the training of troops and crews concerned.
I must say that the more I sat and thought about this, the more I felt that we were not doing as well as we ought to have done. I hope that the First Lord will not think that I am just trying to be difficult. I have a genuine desire to see that if the country grants £460 million a year—all of which the First Lord, in his Explanatory Statement, carefully explains to us is the real and not the net extent; because you are really spending the money on what is required for the Navy—our citizens ought to know that we are getting full value for our money.
I am bound to say, too, that money spent in this way can really pay dividends. It is only just and due to the Navy of to-day to remember events like Kuwait, and the relief brought there, as it was again recently in the West Atlantic when people were in trouble, and the

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great many tasks which are undertaken by the Navy at exceptionally short notice. We are all grateful for that; but it still seems to me that we might be getting much more for their encouragement and their equipment, and in the opportunities of using adequately the defence weapons that can be provided for them.
I should like to ask especially about another class of ship which the First Lord kindly explained to us on the last occasion—the assault ships. What has happened about them? I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Teynham, who seemed to think that these are supposed to be a sort of glorified destroyer; but in fact they are small cruisers. I have no particulars yet about their actual armament. Apparently they will be larger and better equipped than the destroyer missile ships; but I should like to know more about them. Is it true that at present, after all the big announcements, only one has even been ordered? When are we likely to see these assault ships, and what is the actual target in regard to their provision? Will it be two or will it be six? I rather understood at the beginning that you were going to look for something like six. I should like some information upon that. The more information the Government can give us about the increased power and strength that is to be put into these ships, the better it will be for the restoration of public confidence; because we want these things to be put properly in order.
Then I should like to say a word or two about basic policy. It occurs to those of us who are not now in such close touch as we used to be, when we worry about this and the other section, or to Members of Parliament who have not had connection with the Fighting Services, that much of this muddle and deficiency, this hangover, is due to the extraordinary changes, and to the zig-zag policy that is taking place. Zig-zagging in war was a very great asset in naval operations when dealing with submarines, so long as you had the speed in the vessel. But the zig-zagging of naval policy in the last ten years just has me beaten; and it has a lot of the public worried to death.
You have gone from the policy which was carried on by the noble and gallant
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Field-Marshal, Lord Alexander of Tunis, with great steadiness and capacity—a policy which no doubt had to be changed sooner or later, as the new circumstances of post-war opened out—through all kinds of proposals. Under the White Paper of 1957, we were going to have an actual economy in Defence expenditure because you were going to rely upon the one great deterrent, the nuclear weapon. Since then we seem steadily to have reduced our ordinary conventional weapons; we seem to be completely handicapped in any possible development on the nuclear side. And yet we are spending far more money than we were spending in 1957. People are asking exactly why it is, or why we have gone on in this curious way.
I think it is quite remarkable, in the circumstances, that when you come to look at personnel, and think of recruiting, training and the like, how well the Navy has continued to appeal to men, and women, who wish to join the Royal Navy. I think that is a tribute to their confidence in the belief that the Navy has still a tremendous amount of power left within its ambit to exercise on behalf of the country, either in its alliance in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation or, if we can continue the old, good feeling with members of the Commonwealth, in the wider Commonwealth sense. When I look at recruitment, I think it is quite remarkable, in view of the size of figures that were being talked about before, and what ought to be allocated to the Navy, when there was such tremendous slashings in general Defence personnel, that the First Lord can say with confidence to-day that he budgets for a full 100,000 personnel in the ranks of the Navy. I dare say that that means that he is pretty confident about recruitment.
I do not know whether he was present while all the traffic was held up along the Embankment last night. Perhaps he did not know what was going on. But there was a very large parade of naval personnel. I looked carefully to see whether they were all veterans. And they were not all veterans; there were youngsters as well. Apparently, there was some special inspection, and the salute was being taken from H.M.S. "President". A great feeling of satisfaction was left in

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my mind that so many of them, probably many of them volunteers, should have been on parade last night at a quarter to nine, marching past in salute and giving up their time to the Navy.
But there is one thing I want especially to mention to the First Lord of the Admiralty. It is this. If he will examine the figures (I had them in my head at one time, but I have not the details at the moment) he will find that, of the number of recruits who have offered themselves for the Royal Navy in the last twelve months, about one-third have actually been accepted. This is particularly apparent, I think, in the very much smaller forces like the Royal Marines. Having regard to the number of people who offer themselves for the Royal Marines, and even the auxiliary forces like the Territorials and the Royal Marine Auxiliary Regiment, it means that you can take only a handful of them.
As I puzzled over some of the difficulties of the Minister of Defence in getting adequate recruitment to the standards laid down in the White Paper on Defence, I wondered what sort of co-operation goes on between those who handle the personnel volunteering for service in the Navy, particularly in view of the amphibious nature of warfare. I wondered why you could not train men in the Royal Marines and expand the personnel in that service so as to use them jointly with the Army, thus strengthening the amphibious forces. Could we be told how much co-operation there is in that direction?
I want to ask a lot more questions, but I do not think I ought to do so, in fairness to the House and the many other speakers who are to follow me. I would say to the First Lord of the Admiralty that although I may have sounded rather grumbling, probing, nothing will ever take from my head and my heart my affection for the Royal Navy. I want to see that in the days that are coming it gets whatever is its proper effective apportionment of the nation's defence effort. I do not ever want to see it let down in its branches, its training, its enlistments and its equipment so that it will not be able at any time to answer any call on its services. I hope that when the noble Lord replies he will be able to restore some of our confidence. I beg to move for Papers.
3.22 p.m.
LORD TEYNHAM: My Lords, the noble Viscount who moved this Motion raised the question of the adequacy of the present naval forces. He went on to say that the White Paper is looking forward. I think that is quite true, but I would say that the noble Viscount himself was rather looking backward, and I do not think that the inadequacy of the Navy is quite so bad as he has painted. I think it is true to say that the guided missile destroyers and the air-strike and reconnaissance' planes have very largely taken the place of the old type of cruiser.
I think once again we can congratulate the First Lord of the Admiralty on his informative Explanatory Statement. The pictures and diagrams are very interesting indeed and, I think, most helpful. The rôle of the Navy in limited warfare is again set out very clearly in this pamphlet, but a veil is perhaps drawn over its potentialities in the event of all-out atomic warfare. I suppose it is true to say that no one will ever really know until that disaster—which God forbid!—takes place. In the past we have heard a great deal about the "broken back" theory after the first atomic strike has taken place, and I have little doubt the Admiralty are giving the whole matter continuous study and thought in conjunction with our NATO Allies.
The noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, raised the question of the new type of assault ships. I understand we are building two and that it is the intention eventually to have one allotted to each task force. I understand they are nearly four times the tonnage of the present tank landing craft. I have seen it stated that the building of this ship is to take about four years. Surely that is a very long time for a ship of this class. I believe the United States built a comparable ship in 26 weeks. Perhaps the First Lord would like to say something about the construction of these vessels, and when it is intended to lay down further vessels. The fact is that until we have these ships we cannot land tanks in the early stages of an assault in an opposed landing. The present tank-landing craft we have are really only follow-up ships.
I hope the First Lord will also say something about the Polaris submarine.

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I raised this question in considerable detail in our Estimates debate last year and I do not propose to go over the whole ground again. I would, however, repeat that it is not by any means too early to consider the next phase of naval armament apart from aircraft carriers. We cannot possibly afford everything, but I would say that the V-bomber force will one day have to be run down in numbers and replaced by Polaris submarines. There is no doubt that the Polaris submarine has now made it possible to combine the functions of the V-bomber and the functional submarine. We really must have a plan for the future—and we must have it soon.
I understand that design work for new aircraft carriers bas been put in hand for ships of about 50,000 tons, which tonnage is somewhat equivalent to that of H.M.S. "Eagle" and H.M.S. "ARK ROYAL". The noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, suggested that perhaps the carriers were out-of-date, but I would say that that is by no means true as yet, although the time may well come when they will be. There are two schools of thought about the plans for replacement of our aircraft carriers in the 1970 to 1990 period. There are those who think we should have the large carriers for strategic purposes as well as for use with the amphibious forces. There are others who feel that we should have a smaller carrier of the Commando type, like the "Bulwark", possibly with vertical take-off aircraft. I cannot help feeling that in the near future the long runway of the conventional aircraft carrier will no longer be necessary and that the vertical lift aircraft will become the standard type both afloat and ashore. Perhaps the First Lord of the Admiralty would like to give us his views on this question to-day. I suggest it would be a very great mistake to launch out into the building of large carriers at very great expense when the money might be better devoted to the missile-type Polaris submarine and the smaller type carrier.
There are one or two other questions I should like to put to the First Lord on matters of detail. Is it the intention of the Admiralty to develop a rocket-assisted torpedo? I understand the French Navy now have such a torpedo known as a "Melafon", and the United
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States also have one called the "Asroc". I also wonder Whether the First Lord can say anything about hovercraft or so-called "cushion" craft, and whether in fact the Admiralty are carrying out any experiments with it. Then, again, there is the hydrofoil craft, which has a very high speed and which might be very suitable for anti-submarine work. I understand that the Russians have built quite a number of these vessels both for commercial and naval uses.
There is no doubt that over the past few years we have built up a small but very efficient modern Navy, but I agree with the noble Viscount that it is rather depressing to realise that the operational fleet has in fact dwindled, year by year, in numbers. I believe that three years ago the operational fleet numbered 189; two years ago it was 185; and last year it was down to 177. It is true that the modern ship requires more men, which of course means more money and a great increase in building costs, and that there must be a limit to what we can afford to spend on the Navy. But I do hope that the First Lord will do all he can to reduce so far as possible the expenses, which I know are necessarily incurred in many ways, in shore-going establishments and so on, so that we can have more ships afloat in the Royal Navy as soon as possible.

THE SCOTTISH ECONOMY
3.31 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE EARL OF DUNDEE): My Lords, with your Lordships' permission, I will make a statement about the Scottish economy. A similar statement is now being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland.
The Scottish Division of the National Coal Board are to-day making public a review of the prospects of Scottish collieries up to 1966, which they are discussing with the trade unions. It shows that a substantial number of Scottish collieries have good prospects and will increase their manpower, that others will before long exhaust their reserves of coal and will have to close down by 1966 on that account, and that there is a third group of collieries, among which

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many have fallen short of paying their way, which have a doubtful future.
The net effect is likely to be a continued fall tin coalmining employment in Scotland over that period. But, because large numbers leave the industry each year on retirement and for other reasons, the number of men actually displaced from the industry will be much less than the total fall in employment. In these circumstances, the House will wish to know what immediate steps the Government are taking in relation to this situation; and in relation to its continuing policy of encouraging the development of new and growth industries in Scotland.
For the men who may be displaced the first endeavour of the National Coal Board will be to offer another job within travelling distance of their homes. The Board has a very good record in this respect; all but a small number of the men affected by closures in Scotland last year were placed in fresh employment within the period during which the Board pays redundancy compensation. The Board's allowances to transferred men have recently been improved and will aid those who move their homes.
My right honourable friend the Minister of Labour will ensure close cooperation between his local officers and the collieries, over the finding of new jobs for those displaced. As I have explained, the National Coal Board expect to be able to offer the majority of them jobs in other pits. In some cases, however, the right course may be to offer a man training in another trade, and my right honourable friend proposes to expand the resources of the Government training scheme for that purpose. He will consult… the unions in these trades, to secure their co-operation. It is the intention to increase the training allowances and the lodging allowances for those who leave home to take up work elsewhere.
As regards new industrial employment, my right honourable friend the President of the Board of Trade has already announced that the site of the Doni-bristle Royal Naval Air Station in Fife will be developed as an industrial estate, and it has been decided to proceed at once with the conversion of the big engineering shop into a factory for industrial use.
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The Government have also decided to acquire a further five sites suitable for future industrial development in various parts of Scotland, and in addition to build a number of advance factories. As already announced, assistance under the Local Employment Act is being resumed for the Bathgate area, which includes the new town of Livingston, as well as other districts where large overspill housing developments are under construction. This area is already providing a new growth point in the Scottish economy.
Some movement of workers, out of industries which are contracting into those which are expanding, is an essential element in economic growth and the higher living standards which that will bring. This is particularly important for Scotland. The Government's determination is to foster this economic growth and, at the same time, by looking ahead, to do all they can to meet the human, social and industrial difficulties which inevitably go along with economic change and fresh development.
3.36 p.m.
LORD GREENHILL: My Lords, no noble Lord who has heard the statement just made by the noble Earl will feel anything but despondency. This contains nothing of any encouraging kind to the people of Scotland, who are, on the admission of the Government themselves, so badly off for decent employment. The statement begins with the position of the coal industry in Scotland. Even the noble Earl cannot deny that the position is one giving rise to uncertainty, to alarm, to despondency, and even the efforts made by the noble Lord, Lord Robens, in order to try to assuage the anxiety of the coalminers of Scotland, have not succeeded in creating any kind of assurance in their minds that there is a future in the industry. Had my noble friend Lord Hughes been here, he would have told your Lordships, from his own personal experience, what the feeling is in Glenrothes—as you know, he is the Chairman of the Corporation there—about the effect of the attempt to make the coal industry any kind of hopeful industry for those who were encouraged to go and make their homes there. The picture of the coal industry in Scotland, with all the sympathetic statements

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made by the noble Earl, will give no encouragement whatever, either to those in the industry or to those whose children would expect, and perhaps, had hoped, to follow their parents into this long-established industry.
As for the developments to which the noble Earl referred, one is almost desperately concerned about the changes which are taking place in the very nature of industry to-day when Scotland, after being almost wholly dependent for her economy upon the development of the iron and coal industries, now finds that heavy industry no longer presents any hope at all for the working people of Scotland. The Government in the years in which they have been in power have done nothing to give any feeling of encouragement; and the lighter, the more scientific industries, the electronic industries, which are making leaps and bounds ahead in almost every industrial country in the world, are showing no kind of progress whatever in Scotland.
The noble Earl told us that he will give bigger allowances for those who will be diverted from the industries in which they had been brought up to the new industries for which they will be trained. My Lords, what kind of hope can that possibly give to men and women who are as intelligent, as anxious for work, and having as great a need of a livelihood as any other section of the community? What possible encouragement can there be for them in the picture which the noble Earl has just given us in the course of his remarks? The noble Earl knows as well as any of us know that there have been Reports be fore. One has only to refer to the Toothill Report for an indication of conditions in Scotland. I would ask, therefore, what possible purpose there has been in giving us the statement which has just been made by the noble Earl. What is there in it which will give either hope or encouragement to the working people of Scotland? What is there contained in this statement? What is the purpose of making it which war rants its being read to us this afternoon? My Lords. I wish I could say something encouraging to the people of Scotland as a result of the statement to which we have just listened.
BARONESS HORSBRUGH: My Lords, may I ask the noble Earl two questions, quite shortly? Can he tell us the percentage of those employed at present who they think will have to leave the industry and be trained for other industries? Further, as he has spoken of new sites, such as Donibristle and other places, I would ask whether the Government know of any firm offers from industrialists to go to those sites in Scotland? In conclusion, I would say only that if we could have those figures I believe Scotland would have more confidence, now that we have heard the worst; because a great deal of talk has gone on about the mining industry, and we have been waiting to hear what the facts are. I think there will be hope in Scotland that those mines that can go on, and can go on successfully, will now do better than they did in the past.
3.43 p.m.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, I am always very glad to hear the comments on this subject of the noble Lord, Lord Greenhill, and I am grateful to him for making his comments so fully. I am always against any suggestion of complacency, but I would suggest to the noble Lord that he has gone unnecessarily far in the direction of despondency in this matter. I do not think that anybody who understands the Scottish economy would try to suggest that we ought to develop the future of Scotland by maintaining those parts of the heavy industries which are now becoming uneconomic, but that does not mean that we cannot develop other parts of them, perhaps with a smaller proportion of the total population employed in them, to produce a larger output more economically; and, at the same time, to introduce, as we have been trying to do—it has been our policy for many years—a greater diversity of light industries and what are called "growth" industries that is, those which are rapidly expanding) into the Scottish economy.
In view of what the noble Lord has said, I should like to remind him that since the passage of the Local Employment Act two years ago, in 1960, £41½ million has been offered by the Board of Trade under that Act to new industries. That is about 60 per cent. of the total sum which has been offered to the United Kingdom as a whole; and

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the number of jobs which that is estimated to provide directly is estimated at just on 29,000. I think the noble Lord, Lord Greenhill, ought to recognise that, while that is not a contribution at which we ought to stop, it is a substantial one; and, of course, the number of subsidiary industries which we may expect to develop out of that is not yet calculable.
The noble Lord asked a particular question about Glenrothes. The development of Glenrothes is not tied to mining, although I know it was started in 1945 with a view to its being a mining town. But it is now tied to the Glasgow overspill programme, and there has already been considerable progress in the development of general industry in Glenrothes. All the facilities of the Local Employment Act will be available for further industrial expansion there, since the town is now included in the Kirkcaldy-Leven development district. While, again, I repeat, I do not want to indulge in any kind of complacency, I think the noble Lord should take some satisfaction and derive some hope from the development of new industries in Scotland which is going on.
My noble friend Lady Horsbrugh asked two questions, the first being about the percentage of miners who were being displaced. The only figure I have avail able here is not the number who are being displaced but the number for whom new jobs were not found during the redundancy period. My noble friend may be glad to know that during the last year there were only about 30 out of all those displaced by colliery closures in Scotland, the total number being 1,900, who were at any time receiving redundancy compensation from the National Coal Board, because we had succeeded so rapidly in providing new employment for nearly all of them. My noble friend also asked about the new factory sites. I cannot add anything to what I said in the statement, because I do not think it is wise to reveal in advance where you are thinking of buying new factory sites. We are proposing not only to get new sites such as Donibristle, which has already been decided on, but also to build more advanced factories, which we have often discussed in your Lordships' House and for which we have so far always been able successfully to find buyers.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: My Lords, can my noble friend confirm that I am right in thinking that the mines which will still be operating after 1966 will have many years of useful life before them, so far as can be seen now? Because if this is right, I think it would encourage people who are hesitating about going into the mining industry, for they will then feel that there is a future before them.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: I am very glad my noble friend has asked that supplementary question, because there are many coalfields in Scotland which we expect to develop in future, to increase their output, to employ more men and, also, to produce a greater output per man. The policy of the Coal Board in every part of Great Britain is to try to concentrate on those pits which are likely to expand most, and to increase their output per man.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, can the noble Earl say whether consideration has been given—or, if not, if it will be given—to the changes in the need for public transport occasioned by so many men having to go to different jobs in different localities?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: Yes, my Lords, that is a matter which is under constant consideration among the Departments and public bodies which are concerned.

NAVY ESTIMATES
3.48 p.m.
Debate resumed.
VISCOUNT MONTGOMERY OF ALAMEIN: My Lords, having satisfactorily diposed of the fears of the tribal areas north of the Border, we now return to a safer subject, the Royal Navy. We note that the affairs of Scotland are now in the hands of the Foreign Office: therefore, all will be well.
I listened with great interest to the speech of the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition. He was First Lord of the Admiralty in war time and Minister of Defence in the immediate postwar years. Therefore, his views command respect. I should like to approach this problem of sea power and the Navy in a rather different way, and I do that

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because I do not believe one can discuss the Navy except within the context of the Armed Forces as a whole. The three Fighting Services have to be integrated on a co-operative basis, and in the interests of financial economy we must get away from all competition between them. I believe that we must think nightly on the basic principles of organisation in our defence set-up.
I also think, my Lords, that we in this House are very apt to get led into details before we have cleared our minds on the broad principles of policy, and I should like to put the problem to your Lordships in this way. Although a major all-out nuclear war is unlikely, that possibility cannot be totally disregarded. If Russia thought she could hit us without our having the ability to hit back, we should be open to all sorts of pressures. Therefore we must be prepared and ready to play our part in the Western defence organisation, which is NATO. If your Lordships will allow me, I should like to deal first with that problem, with the defence of the NATO area.
From the earliest days of my military life I learned that, whenever you can, you must always consider a defensive area from the enemy point of view. Therefore, I invite your Lordships to come with me to a viewpoint high in the air over Moscow, and from that viewpoint to look Westwards at the NATO area. Enjoying our voyage through space to this viewpoint over Moscow, we have some conversation—I do not say very much.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Oh…
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: Too much…
VISCOUNT MONTGOMERY OF ALAMEIN: Your Lordships make some remarks. I give it as my opinion that a commander whose flanks and rear are secure is well placed for battle. Those of your Lordships who have held high command in war will know that it is quite a simple thing to penetrate a defensive front. The enemy can always penetrate our front at any time, and we can do the same to him. But his difficulties must then begin. If my front is penetrated, I at once strengthen the flanks, having reserves ready for that pur-
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pose. But before the battle, before the war ever begins, I ensure that the flanks of my whole area of operations are absolutely secure.
Remembering that principle, we arrive at our viewpoint over Moscow. What do we see? We are pretty high up in the air, and we have a good view. We see NATO Europe as one large peninsula, jutting out into the sea. The flanks are on the sea, from the North Cape right the way down to the south of Italy; and the rear is on the sea. And, in accordance with that principle with which your Lordships agreed during our journey through space, those flanks must be secure beyond any possibility of doubt. We also see that we have an air flank, and it is clear that we have to co-ordinate all the activities which operate in that air flank.
We then have a look at the land, and we see the enormous importance of six areas of land. Going from North to South, you have NATO. Scandinavia—Norway and Denmark. Then you have the United Kingdom islands. Then you have the Iberian peninsula—and if any of your Lordships is not clear where that is, that is Spain and Portugal. Then you have North Africa, and I should prefer to call that what used to be French North Africa—that is, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. Then you have Italy; and, finally, Turkey. When dealing with Turkey, I would particularly say Anatolia, because that is part of Turkey. Anatolia is the miliary key to the Middle East. Those six areas of land must be secured. They are essential to the overall security of the sea flank, and if that sea flank were to go, we should be in very great danger of defeat in any East-West conflict.
From that vantage point over Moscow we see that if we try to hold NATO Europe, the whole area, with a rigid defence, spreading the land forces evenly, as you would spread butter on a piece of bread, and aiming to be strong everywhere, we should merely be weak everywhere, and should then be in danger of losing everything. We must hold securely the vital areas, the lynch-pins of the whole structure, and elsewhere we must fight the mobile battle. The art of war is to be able to move yourself and to prevent your enemy from moving; and if you can achieve

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that very desirable end, you win. But your ability to manœuvre freely will depend on the absolute security of certain vital areas; because you manœuvre best around fixed points. If those fixed areas which I have mentioned are lost, then the sea flank is in danger, the air flank is weakened, the land defence disintegrates and we are at once in very grave trouble.
Now, my Lords, from that viewpoint we lift our gaze to include the whole NATO area, and we see at once the enormous importance to NATO Europe of the Atlantic and, behind it, of the American "support" area, as I prefer to call it. We see at once that, unless the NATO area is considered as one entity in defence planning, with a properly co-ordinated effort over the whole area, we cannot get any good results. If we look at it in that way, and study the whole NATO area, we at once see the enormous influence of the sea in our defence structure. If we cannot ensure the free use of the major oceans and seas, we could not survive in a major war.
The matter is really very simple: we have to confine Russia, or any aggressor, to a land strategy. From the days when we humans first began to use the seas the great lesson of history has been that the enemy who is confined to a land strategy is, in the end, defeated. That has been true since the days of Carthage In more recent times there is the example of the French Napoleonic Wars, and of the Germans in the Kaiser's war and in Hitler's war. Another example could be found in the Russo-Japanese War in 1904: Japan had sea control; she fought Russia at the end of long communications with her own shores, and she won. The Second World War, the late war, was fundamentally a struggle for control of the major oceans and seas—in other words, a battle for the control of sea communications—and until we had won that struggle, we could not proceed with our plans to win the war, as I and your Lordships know very well.
So to-day our strategy must be based on confining the aggressor to a land strategy; any other strategy is no good.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, would the noble and gallant Viscount say whether he is talking about a major war? Is the situation he is visualising before the nuclear exchange or is he
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setting it against a background of conventional war?
VISCOUNT MONTGOMERY OF ALAMEIN: My Lords, if you are going to come down to war, in my view it would be an all-out war. I do not see a war between East and West without the nuclear weapon being used by somebody. On that interesting point, before the next five years, maybe six—I should not like to be too dogmatic on that—the main agent for delivering accurate nuclear fire power against an enemy country will be "mannedad". After that time, the number of "mannedad" craft may well decrease, but I do not agree with those who say that the manned bomber will go out of business. In my view, there will always be a need for manned strategic aircraft, for two reasons—one, to give flexibility to the overall air plan, and the other, to locate interior targets in the enemy country. For forward planning over the foreseeable future, I suggest that it should be assumed that at least 25 per cent. of our total fire power delivery capability will be the manned bomber—that is, piloted aircraft. For air defence, the best ratio for the defence force will probably be three-quarters missiles and one-quarter manned aircraft.
There is another point. The more you consider this problem of NATO defence, the more obvious it becomes that it must be handled within a global framework. There cannot be just a NATO war. If war is imposed on us, it will be global, and we have no framework of global defence for the defence of the Free World. A global framework is particularly important for those activities which go on in the air. We now have short-range missiles, long-range ballistic missiles with ranges up to 5,000 to 6,000 miles or more, with nuclear warheads. Satellites circle the earth. We must have some framework for handling all this on a global system. We must have a global early warning system. We must have centralised global planning for air defence. And I would suggest that the need is urgent for some central agency or organisation, which is above the level of Supreme Commanders, to plan and direct all these activities and to control satellites. I would go further. I would say that every day which passes without such a higher organisation merely decreases the value of the deterrent.

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To sum up as regards NATO, we cannot fight without allies. There is no doubt that allies are most irritating, and they bring with them conditions which add to the irritations, but with our allies it is essential to have collective forces within the alliance as supreme rather than have self-sufficiency in every nation. And in our own case we should give priority to our sea and air Forces. Once we are out of Germany—and I have a feeling that the Germans might ask us to go quite soon—the Army can be relatively small, with great flexibility. The strategic rôle of the Army is to hold, and that should be the main responsibility of the armies of NATO Europe.
So much for the West. But when all is said and done, the immediate problem that confronts us here in this country is not war in NATO Europe. It is the cold war activities on the periphery, activities which could so easily lead to a bitter conflagration unless they are handled quickly and with determination. It is in that realm that we need the very greatest co-operation between the three Services, if we are going to have the right defence with due regard to economy. We cannot do that unless we have the highest possible degree of mobility, flexibility and interchange-ability. Of course, the greatest mobility will be found on the sea and in the air, which leads us to a maritime strategy. And East of Suez, where these things are most likely to occur, we must have a secure base, which is best put in an absolutely safe place, such as Australia—and Perth would be the right place. We should maintain there a division—maybe less, a brigade group—and then have operating centres in certain selected areas. The Air Force must be able to fly Army units quickly to the scene of any conflict with the right equipment. To do that they must have a large air freighter; and they have not got one.
One last word about the Army. I believe that the Army must learn to get its feet wet. The Navy are building modern assault craft, each one to take tanks, guns, vehicles and several hundred men. As they become ready one by one, I would hope that the Navy will hand them over to the Army saying, "These are your craft. Take them and
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run them. They belong to you and if you want a few bluejackets to help you to maintain them, we will certainly give them to you."
In these inter-Service bases overseas it adds enormously to the expense to have to build married quarters for the Army. I believe that the soldier has to go abroad for one or one and a half years and leave his family in England, like the sailor has to do, and after a year return to this country, to England or maybe to Scotland, and be relieved by others.
I also consider that the Army should interest itself in commando work and not let that type of operation be the preserve of the Royal Marines. Any good infantry battalion should be just as good as a marine commando. It is merely a matter of training. I think that all things of this sort would help to do away with boredom; and it is boredom from which the soldier is very liable to suffer. One last point. I believe that there is far too much conventional thinking in Whitehall to-day. That conventional thinking wants to be given a thoroughly good shake-up before it gets stagnant.
4.9 p.m.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, to get back to the British Navy, the Explanatory Statement reminds us of the Kuwait operation, one of the peripheral matters of which the noble and gallant Field Marshal has just been speaking. Two carriers, the "Victorious" and the "Centaur" were sent to the Persian Gulf "to give air support if necessary"—I quote the Statement. These are nuclear carriers, carrying planes which are capable of carrying nuclear bombs. I want to raise the question in this debate: were these two ships at that time carrying nuclear bombs? I know that this is not in itself a question of great strategic importance, because I assume that we could at any moment we like reach Kuwait, Iraq and the Persian Gulf with V-bombers from Cyprus or Aden, but it is still a question.
We know that when the American Sixth Fleet moved up to the Lebanon in 1958, the carriers in that fleet did have nuclear weapons aboard; that was announced at the time. It is the same problem as that which now exists in

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Quemoy and Matsu, where the Americans have howitzers which are capable of firing conventional or nuclear shells onto the mainland of China. I believe that there are no nuclear shells on the off-shore islands at the moment, but they could be flown in at short notice. You get the same pattern around the world in British and American Forces. We have the commissioning next Tuesday, I believe, at Lossiemouth, of the first squadron of Buccaneer aircraft. Where are they going? To what ship? And where is that ship going? Buccaneer is, to put a short word on it, an atomic bomber; and, of course, it is not the first atomic bomber to be held by the British Fleet. But it is faster and more efficient than Scimitar and is, therefore, an increase in the nuclear capability of these carriers.
Your Lordships might think of it like this. A nuclear Power, like Britain or America, is like a strawberry plant, and whenever anywhere in the world it sends forces which have both a conventional and a nuclear capability there goes out a sort of sucker of "nuclearity", and at the other end there springs up another strawberry plant in the form of a threat of nuclear war. This cannot be avoided; it is how it is; and it happens whether the forces are actually carrying nuclear weapons or not, even if they just have the capability to do it. And as more and more of the arms of forces become nuclearised, so are there more and more of the suckers of this strawberry plant making threats and dangers of nuclear war in more and more remote parts of the world. That is how it is, as I say, and that is how it must be once one has embarked on the extremely tricky path of giving everything a nuclear capability. But is this all right? That is a question to which I should like to have an answer from the First Lord.
What does a small Power, like Syria in the Lebanon affair, or Iraq in the Kuwait affair, do when it sees a carrier approaching which may or may not be bristling with nuclear bombs? What did Iraq actually do at the time of the Kuwait affair? I think the House will be interested to hear something about that. Did they protest to us, for instance? Is there any evidence that they thought of tunning to the Soviet Union and asking the Russians to send in a few nuclear-armed light bombers in order to
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make a parallel show of force on the other side? Such dangers are fairly obvious. I have heard—I do not know how true it is—that the Americans are considering withdrawing the nuclear weapons from the carriers in their Sixth Fleet, or at least of ceasing so much to carry them around the Mediterranean as part of the normal armament, as they do now. Will the Admiralty be considering the possibility of the same sort of action with regard to our own carriers? Would it be a good plan in future operations of the Kuwait or Lebanon type, of which we must expect to see more, if we were to say to the world: "Here are our carriers, and though they have a nuclear capability, as you know from published works, they have not in fact at the moment any nuclear weapons on board "? Would it have done any harm to say so publicly?
What Anglo-American arrangement governs the use or the threat of use of nuclear weapons from naval carriers? We know that the old neutral consultation arrangements came to an end in 1948. We know that there has been a lot of talk recently about joint strategic planning between the American and British air forces, and there is the whole tangle of command and control in NATO land forces. But what happens on the naval level? What happens about all this, not only in NATO, but in SEATO, CENTO, and ANZUS, where the power is to a far greater proportion naval than in NATO? It seems to me that these nuclear-armed carriers must be terrible "jackers-up" of tension, not only because of what they can do, but because of what they invite the other side to do: they are very juicy targets for a first strike.
I do not want to get into the argument about tactical nuclear weapons in Germany—whether they should be up front, or in reserve in higher command; but assuming it is difficult for us to withdraw atomic nuclear weapons in Germany, might it not be easier to withdraw them from the Fleet. I hope that the First Lord will be able to say something about all these questions when he comes to reply.
4.15 p.m.
LORD ASHBOURNE: My Lords, for the last two years in the debate on the First Lord's Explanatory Statement I have drawn attention to what seems to me to

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be a grave shortage of aircraft carriers, and I believe that this shortage still exists. Indeed, this was well demonstrated in the Kuwait operation last year. When everything was "Go" and the operation began, "Victorious" was, I believe, in the Hong Kong area and started off with a handicap of minus-5,000 miles. The only other available carrier, "Centaur", had just commissioned and was on her way out to the Mediterranean to work up. Quite apart from the fact that she must have been below average efficiency (the First Lord will correct me if I am wrong), she started with a handicap of minus-4,000 miles. Indeed, if there had been a serious air opposition in Kuwait the Navy would have been hard put to it to do its job of seeing that the Army got firmly established ashore. In fact, all went well; and all credit to those who were responsible for conducting this highly successful operation. But at the same time I cannot help feeling, that, with that "all", we had a little bit of Stanley Holloway's "little bit of luck".
My Lords, operations of that sort should not, I think, depend in any way on luck. Bad luck will come sometimes, and we must be ready for it. These things do happen, and we must insure against them. In order to avoid a recurrence, I believe it is vital that we should have another carrier East of Suez. I am not going to pursue that point: I have been through it all before, and I just mention it, in passing, because it still seems to me to be a point of prime importance in our deployment of forces around the world.
Before I read this year's Statement I contemplated drawing your Lordships' attention to the great importance to the Fleet of an adequate Fleet Train. But, having read it, I see that the Admiralty are, rather naturally, fully alive to this side of the business, and the wind has been largely taken out of my sails. Nevertheless, I should like to ask this question: Is the Fleet Train, as planned, large enough and sufficiently comprehensive to support our Fleet? I realise that one cannot be precise over this: there are too many unknown factors at the moment, such as area of operations and so on, and I suppose that a well-informed estimate is probably as near as one can go.
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A matter that I should like to probe, in particular, and which is closely connected with the Fleet Train, is the organisation for the setting up of temporary fleet bases that would surely be required in war for the accommodation of our Fleet and its forward base-support ships. In the definition of temporary fleet bases I include, of course, as always, their allied air bases. This matter is bound up with the point raised by the noble and gallant Field Marshal, Lord Montgomery of Alamein, in the Defence debate last March. Your Lordships will remember that he then put forward a strong plea for developing our maritime strategy East of Suez—and he said this again to-day—for a firm and secure base in Australia, possibly at Perth.
It is true that a few days later the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, in a debate on Foreign Affairs, put this "East of Suez" strategy in second place, and gave as his most emphatic first a secure home base, which nowadays, of course, means a secure Western Europe. I myself entirely agree with those priorities, but having built up a secure Western Europe (which was again referred to by the noble and gallant Field Marshal this afternoon) I would also agree that a permanent base in Australia is worthy of the closest study. I would, however, suggest Sydney as a possible alternative to Perth, for there already exists in Sydney a number of fine Fleet bases. The problem of temporary fleet bases is also connected with remarks made by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Ampthill, in the course of the Defence debate, when he referred to the possible revival of an organisation known as the Mobile Naval Base Defence Organisation, which existed before World War II, and which in the main was concerned, as its title implies, with the defence of temporary fleet bases, as opposed to their construction and equipment, which is the matter I want to put to your Lordships now.
Temporary fleet bases, as your Lordships know, were required in the last war on a very large scale—those that were provided by the Americans in the Pacific being, perhaps, the best examples. The base at Manus, in the Admiralty Islands, is one that I have particularly in mind, partly because I had first-hand knowledge of it during the war, and

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partly because full use was made of it by our own Pacific Fleet under the command of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Fraser of North Cape. Within about three months of capturing the Admiralty Islands from the Japanese the Americans had turned this almost desert island into a great fleet base, with alongside berths for unloading cargo, with floating docks, with a 10,000-feet airstrip, completed, they say, within fourteen days of the initial landings on the island. They built roads, storage accommodation, magazines, workshops, a hospital, clubs, canteens, and all those services which go to make up a fleet base. This was developed at top speed out of what amounted to a good natural harbour surrounded by nothing more than a few coral islands covered with jungle.
It is clearly recognised in the Explanatory Statement that in future afloat support will be an important and, indeed, a vital requirement; and the reasons for this are easy enough to understand. As was pointed out by the noble and gallant Field Marshal, Lord Montgomery of Alamein, in the Defence debate, we have lost the use of many of our former bases around the world, and who can say that in time we may not lose more? Such bases as we may have at the beginning of another war may well be attractive targets for nuclear or, indeed, for conventional attack. We have had plenty of examples of this in the past—Pearl Harbour, Singapore, Taranto and Scapa Flow, to name only four from the last war. It follows that in future maritime operations will surely have to be carried out in areas remote from usable permanent bases. And so it is clear beyond doubt that not only shall we require afloat support, but we shall also require temporary fleet and air bases. As the area of Operations moves, so it will be necessary to move these bases, often at very short notice. Here I need quote only one example. Four days before the assault on Okinawa the Americans captured the island of Kerama Retto, only twenty miles away. They captured this island simply to pro-wide themselves with an advanced repair and supply base; and four days after its capture it was available to the fleet for the repair of action damage, refuelling and re-ammunitioning.
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Of course, the Fleets operating in the Pacific in the last war, both the British Pacific Fleet and the American 3rd, 5th and 7th Fleets, were immensely larger than anything we are thinking about today. In 1943, when the Admiralty was considering mobile fleet bases for our Fleet-to-be in the Pacific, they were thinking in terms of 4 battleships, 4 fleet carriers, 15 escort carriers, 15 cruisers, 50 destroyers, and so on. Of course, the American Fleets were even larger. So from this angle our problem to-day is a much more modest one. Here it is, I think, interesting to recall that the purpose of these mobile fleet bases was laid down by the Admiralty at that time as being:
" the rapid provision of the facilities necessary for the sustained operation of the Fleet in an area far removed from established bases."
So, my Lords, there is nothing new in what I am saying now.
In 1943, the Admiralty also had to consider base facilities for Fleet Air Arm squadrons in the Pacific, and by January, 1945, five mobile operating naval air bases (or "MONABS" as they were called) had been formed. Their purpose was to enable captured airfields to be rapidly manned and equipped for naval aircraft temporarily disembarked for training and maintenance. But these "MONABS" did not include one vital thing: they did not include men or materials for constructional purposes; and, so far as I know, the same applied to the mobile fleet bases. So neither organisation could carry out the all-important business of building airstrips, roads, stores, accommodation and so on, and both had to rely on works that already existed—a very severe limitation indeed. We lacked, in fact, that splendid body of men who worked for the American Fleet, the construction battalions, or "Sea Bees" as they were called.
These highly trained men were a vital part of the American organisation. They were what we might call "combat civil engineers," though their own definition of themselves was "Soldiers in sailors' uniform, with Marine training, doing civilian work". They were formed at the beginning of 1942, and by the end of the war they were over a quarter of a million strong and represented some 60

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different trades. Their jobs ranged from the building of fleet bases in the Tropics to the setting up of power stations in the Antarctic. Fleet Admiral King said of them:
"The accomplishments of the Sea Bees have been one of the outstanding features of the war. Furthermore, the Sea Bees have participated in practically every amphibious operation, landing with the first wave of assault troops, to bring equipment ashore and set up temporary bases of operation."
As recently as 1957, Fleet Admiral Nimitz said:
"The original idea of having highly skilled construction workers in uniform has developed into one of the many valuable components without which we could not maintain our Navy as we know it to-day."
In the main, the Sea Bees were armed, and on landing they at once set about clearing exits from the beaches, surveying, and so on; and as the troops moved forward they followed close behind, levelling ground, building airstrips, setting up temporary buildings, and all that kind of work. This force is still in existence to-day in peace-time America, and it is a force such as this that I believe we shall want in a future war. As I have said, they are highly trained men, and it is no use waiting for a war to start before we form such a force. A trained nucleus, however small, must be available in peace time, together with their arms, equipment and transport.
My Lords, although our territorial commitments and responsibilities around the world have decreased since 1945, the Navy's responsibility for the protection of shipping is as widespread and as vital as ever it was; and with our limited and dwindling overseas bases it is clear beyond doubt that we must be ready to set up temporary bases in or near operational areas with the least possible delay. Let us make no mistake about it: the Fleet will not operate at full efficiency without them; and for this reason we shall require a comprehensive and properly balanced Fleet Train, and (and this is my point) a fully trained force of "Sea Bees". The Americans are past masters at this sort of business; they proved it, surely, up to the hilt in the last war. Let us profit by their example, and set about forming a nucleus force of "Sea Bees" of our own without delay.
4.31 p.m.
LORD AMPTHILL: My Lords, this is the third year running in which I have ventured to intervene in this important debate, and once again I was very glad that the debate was opened by the noble Viscount who sits on the Front Bench opposite. Although I may not agree with everything he said, as always I enjoyed the robust manner in which he stood up for the Navy.
It does not become any easier for one such as myself, a humble Back-Bencher long retired from the Royal Navy, even to attempt, let alone make, a worthwhile contribution to this debate; nevertheless, I think it is important, and a duty on those of your Lordships' House who are interested in or who have served in the Royal Navy, to make this attempt. This is the only opportunity we get in this House to debate in detail purely naval matters which are not really suitable for the wider scope of the Defence debate. I admit that the growing awareness of, and increasing emphasis on, the vital need for this country to pursue a maritime strategy makes it more difficult to discuss even purely naval matters without reference to the other Services. I do not think this is really a serious difficulty and, of course, it applies also to the debates on the Army and Air Force. I feel that these debates on the individual Services are extremely important and, with the Defence debate, form the most satisfactory method for your Lordships' House to consider matters of defence. Personally, I hope that these four important debates will not be rolled into one great omnibus debate.
As many of your Lordships will know from my previous interventions in our Defence debates, as well as in the Navy, Army, and Air Force debates, I am a fervent supporter of a maritime strategy, together with the inter-Service co-operation which that implies. Therefore, I particularly welcome the intervention of the noble and gallant Field Marshal in our debate to-day. Who knows, we may yet get him to join the Navy League? I am very glad that the noble and gallant Field Marshal has spoken so strongly in favour of a maritime strategy, and I think it cannot be emphasised too much because there are so many examples in our history, some

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quite recently, when we forgot or ignored the priceless asset of sea power and the flexibility of manœuvre which it gives us.
The Memorandum (Command Paper, No. 1629), which we are debating is once again, in my view, an admirably concise and informative document, and I should like to offer my humble congratulations to the First Lord and, through him, to those responsible for its production. I am very glad and particularly grateful that space has been found for reference to the Surveying Service, which some of us mentioned last year. I am also glad to see mentioned the Instructor Branch. From this statement in the Memorandum and various statements in the Press I gather that this branch has moved rather far from the days when we midshipmen had to contribute something from our princely remuneration of Is. 9d. a day to augment the emoluments of the naval instructors in our ships.
To my mind, the most satisfactory fact disclosed in the Memorandum is the figures about recruiting, and, even more, about re-engagement. These are most heartening and are shown most clearly on page 17 of the Memorandum. The least satisfactory feature is the small number of ships, aircraft and men which we get for our money. Nevertheless, I believe the Board of Admiralty have done and are doing their best with the funds made available to them, that they have got their priorities right, that they are building the right sort of Navy, and that our future planning is on the right lines.
I do no intend to play the numbers game with ships, because to do so effectively it seems to me that one needs to know much more than I do about the strength and composition of the Commonwealth Navies and, of course, those of our principal Allies. One is aware of the enormous naval strength, even to-day, of the United States of America, and I have been reading lately of the substantial naval programme for these days which is being undertaken by Canada, though I fear that this may now be cut back slightly. Nevertheless, when all the combined resources are totted up I suspect we have barely sufficient to protect the world-wide sea communications so vitally important not only to us but to NATO, CENTO and
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SEATO. Whether any general U-boat war on the trade routes is probable or not, the fact remains that our potential enemies have between 400 and 500 submarines, they have at least 12 cruisers and numerous aircraft; and I do not believe that they maintain these unless it is to interfere with the freedom of the seas. In our days the ability to assure free movement by sea at the right time and place depends not only on surface ships but also on aircraft.
This brings me to Coastal Command, which I have no hesitation in mentioning in this debate because this was intimately connected with the Navy. I must say that I view with some apprehension the present state of Coastal Command. It seems to me to be rather the Cinderella of the Services. We go on furbishing up our three or four score of old Shackletons, though I notice that other countries, including Canada, are producing new and up-to-date maritime aircraft. Unfortunately, I also saw in my Sunday newspaper that with regard to a new aircraft called the Breguet Atlantic 1150, which France has undertaken to produce for NATO, a credit of equivalent to £15 million has been withdrawn, and therefore I doubt whether that maritime aircraft will be available to NATO. I think this makes it even more important that the Minister of Defence should have a good look at Coastal Command, its aircraft and equipment, with a view to giving it a much higher priority in the shopping list, and I hope very much that the First Lord will be able to tell us when he replies that he will add his weight to this suggestion. While they are at it, I think the Ministry of Defence, and the defence staff generally, should give serious consideration to whether Coastal Command should not once again have at least a nucleus of flying boats—say, an up-to-date version of the Catalina. Earlier in this debate my noble friend Lord Ashbourne spoke, and I have spoken before, about the diminishing base factors and of the difficulties of those mobile bases, and I cannot help feeling that a few flying boats could be very useful until we had established bases.
My Lords, I propose to devote the main part of my remarks to a purely naval question of nuts and bolts, and that is propulsion machinery, but before

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I turn to this I must say how strongly I support my noble and gallant friend, Lord Ashbourne, in his plea for a substantial engineering and construction force as part of the Fleet's train.
I myself have spoken about the need for a Fleet Train. I endorse everything that my noble and gallant friend said about the "Seabees". They were the most remarkable asset to the Pacific campaign. My noble friend spoke so eloquently about them that I need not say any more, but perhaps many of your Lordships are unaware that we ourselves had not thousands but we had several battalions of Royal Marine engineers, who again called themselves assault engineers, and who gave most valuable service in North Africa, Italy and later in France. In supporting my noble friend, therefore, I repeat the suggestion which I made, I believe in the naval debate last year, that the very least we can do is to form a Royal Marine engineering wing of the Royal Marine Fleet Volunteer Reserve. I am sure we should have no difficulty in recruiting this up to strength in a very short time.
There are two other matters before I reach my machinery questions. The first concerns the Trade Division of the Naval Staff, now represented, I believe, by one comparatively junior officer in the Admiralty. The functions of the Trade Division, I understand, have been taken over by the Ministry of Transport. Many of us feel rather disturbed about this, if it be true; and I hope the First Lord can give us an assurance when he replies that if this is the arrangement it is working satisfactorily. I personally should have thought the Ministry of Transport had quite enough on its plate without taking that on.
The other point is Flag officers' sea training. I think this is certainly the most important junior Flag appointment in the Navy. Certainly if I were a young Admiral, or just promoted to be a young Admiral, it is the command I would want. We never had such a thing in the old days. It came into being during the last war and I think it is a thing of vital importance. At the moment this command is, I believe, based on Wev-mouth, and of course there are many technical reasons why this is a very suitable place.
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On the other hand, it has been suggested to me—and I have read it and talked about it—that sea training can be done much more effectively in a more remote spot than Weymouth Bay, where there are not the amenities, week-end leave and all those things which distract from it. I admit there are practical difficulties, but I am sure it is correct. I find that one can pull a ship's company together or a staff together if one gets them away from families and week-ends, too many of the fleshpots. Anyway, I throw that pebble in the pool. Maybe they will be forced to move from Weymouth Bay, because, as your Lordships may remember, Her Majesty's Government allowed the United States Air Force to put up a new-fangled station at Ringstead Bay, and I think it is quite likely that the sea training may suffer electronic interference I hope so, really, because my experts say it will and the Government's experts say it will not: I should like to be proved right.
I must turn now to purely nuts and bolts matters: ship propulsion. First of all, I should like to refer to the gas turbines boost machinery, the prototype of which is installed in H.M.S. "Ashanti", the first of the Tribal class frigates. I learn from the Press that reports on this machinery are most encouraging after some 3,000 hours running at sea. Nevertheless, I read in The Times of May 8 last that the Assistant-Director of Machine Engineer-ins, Ship Department, Admiralty, addressing the International Conference of the Institute of Marine Engineers, had this to say—I paraphrase: that the potential advantages of gas turbines in naval application have not been fully exploited. The Assistant-Director went on to explain that the advantages were: (a) compactness, hence great saving of space; (b) ease of control; one man can control this engine from a remote position; and (c) shipboard maintenance virtually eliminated between overhauls, thus leading to major reductions in engineering personnel carried on board. I think this is a very important advantage for more than one reason; our ships are overcrowded with men and gear as it is.
I am aware that this type of propelling machinery is being fitted not only in the Tribals but in the Devonshire class

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of guided missile destroyers. I understand that 31 such engines have been ordered. All this sounds very good, but I am disturbed by the statement which I quoted earlier that in their naval application these gas turbines have not been fully exploited. I hope that the gas turbine will be introduced rapidly wherever it is applicable, and that we shall not have a repeat of the water-tube boiler row of 1901, which was sparked off by a Member of the other place who said:
"I say briefly that the water tube boiler for marine purposes cannot work. If you experiment more with these water tube boilers you will come to grief again."
At that time the Admiralty were really on the spot because they had 1,500 Bellville boilers on order. However, there was an inquiry and the water-tube boiler was vindicated. Certainly by 1914 all Her Majesty's ships were equipped with water-tube boilers, not necessarily of the Bellville type.
I hope that the gas turbine engine will not only have a smooth and rapid introduction into service but that high priority will be given to further development work, on it. I personally hope and expect that later marks of the gas turbine engine will be as great an improvement on the existing type as the later types of water-tube boilers were on the original Bellvilles. I did my boiler room training on Bellville boilers, as did, I suspect, my noble friend Lord Teynham. I do not know whether my noble and gallant friend Lord Ashbourne is too young. They worked, but they were very difficult and dirty to maintain. My hands have never recovered from it to this day. I think there is a lesson in this little boiler interlude. Something good can be pushed aside. I hope gas boilers will not be.
I should like now to turn to nuclear-powered propulsion. May I remind your Lordships that the American Navy has the aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. "Enterprise" at sea and the merchant ship "Savannah" on trials. The Russians have had an ice-breaker for some time. All these are nuclear powered. Moreover, the United States Navy will have by 1970, so I read, 45 Polaris-armed submarines and 70 (as they call them) attack submarines at sea, and all under nuclear power. What are we doing about this? Our submarine "Dreadnought" is not
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at sea yet. The "Valiant" is only just laid down. We do seem to be rather slow nowadays. We did better 50 years ago. On January 3, 1905, the Admiralty Design Committee met for the first time to consider the design of the first all big gun battleship ever, an entirely new and, for those days, very complex ship. The keel of the ship resulting from this meeting was laid down ten months later on October 2, 1905. She was launched 18 weeks later in February 1906, and christened H.M.S. "Dreadnought". One year and one day from laying down she went to sea on her trials, and, for the Record, she was built in Her Majesty's dockyard at Portsmouth—and all credit to them! I merely mention this in the hope that it will spur us to a little quicker shipbuilding. It is not only the "Dreadnought". I think the noble Lord, Lord Teynham, also made a comment about the assault ship.
At any rate, I find it difficult to understand why the submarine "Dreadnought" is taking so long. Barrow has a reputation second to none for building submarines. The ambition of myself and contemporary submariners was to serve in Barrow-built boats—an ambition, so far as I was concerned, that was never achieved. If the reason is difficulties with the Westinghouse nuclear propulsion machinery supplied from America (as I have heard toll) one is even more mystified, because the nuclear-powered American submarines already at sea seem to be functioning satisfactorily, while others are being commissioned at regular intervals. However, important though this question of the "Dreadnought" is—land perhaps the First Lord can give us an answer when he replies—the really important question is, what are we, and in particular the Admiralty, doing about nuclear-powered propulsion for ships in general?
The Principal Surveyor of the Engineering Investigation Department, Lloyd's Register, Mr. Hildrew, in May last read to this same International Conference of Marine Engineers, a paper in which he drew the general conclusion that no reactor concept at present put forward shows any sign of being economic. He stressed the need for much more development work on land on all the systems at present under examination. This, and much else that he said, was of great interest, but I will

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not weary your Lordships with further technical details. However, it seems clear, from what this gentleman said, that we have some way to go before nuclear-powered marine propulsion is an economic proposition in the commercial sense. Of course, purely commercial considerations are of less importance to the Admiralty that those of weight, reliability and safety; and, most of all, the need to get nuclear marine propulsion machinery into service in certain classes of Her Majesty's ships.
So far as I can ascertain, the only research work being carried out on this subject directly for the Admiralty is a contract given to Rolls-Royce, for work on improved reactors. There is also, of course, the machinery installed in H.M.S. "Dreadnought", not yet at sea, and the land-based prototype nuclear machinery at Dounreay which is also not yet functioning. It is true that the Atomic Energy Authority are sponsoring considerable research work on this subject. For instance, they have given a study contract to continue further work on a reactor system originally put forward by a consortium of Vickers, Rolls-Royce and Foster-Wheeler. Then, as my right honourable friend the Minister of Transport announced in another place on November 8 last, the Atomic Energy Authority have signed an agreement with a consortium of Belgian companies—they call it "Belgonucleare"—to take part in a joint research and development programme on a reactor of advanced design known as Vulcain, which is stated to be very promising for marine application.
The Ministry of Transport are obviously more interested in the commercial application of nuclear marine propulsion, and I am sure that it will take time to achieve success in this field. In the meantime, are sufficient importance and sufficient priority being given to the Admiralty's urgent need (or so it seems to me) to get satisfactory nuclear propulsion machinery, not only for our new submarines but also, possibly, for the projected new aircraft carriers? I submit that this question of nuclear-powered machinery for naval ships is a matter of great importance and urgency, and, at this time, of even greater importance than in its purely commercial application. I have no
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more to say about the experimental work in progress on nuclear-propelled machinery for ships, but I hope that the First Lord will be able to tell us that the Admiralty are satisfied that they are getting enough priority in all these various projects, all but one of which are not under their direct control.
I mentioned the aircraft carrier as possibly being a candidate for such types of machinery. I fully appreciate the many difficulties which face the Admiralty in achieving a satisfactory design for the aircraft carrier of the future. Nuclear-powered propulsion is only one. There is the equally important and difficult question of what sort of aircraft they are to carry. Then, finally, there is also the purely policy decision, as to whether to build at all; and, if so, when. I personally agree with my noble and gallant friend Lord Ashbourne that we need another carrier at sea East of Suez as soon as possible; but at this late stage in my speech I do not propose to enter into detailed discussion of this matter. All I will say is that it seems to me that these two questions—the type of propelling machinery and the type of aircraft to be used—are fundamental in reaching any final decision about the aircraft carrier of the future.
If and when the Staff requirements are worked out, I am sure we can rely on the Royal Corps of Naval Constructors, that most capable body of fewer than 200 men, to produce the best possible design, and on our shipbuilders, private or in the Royal Dock Yards, to build them. I have mentioned quite deliberately the Royal Corps of Naval Constructors. They have been in existence as such for nearly 100 years, but of course their traditions go back much longer. Until 1873 the most senior constructor rejoiced in the title "Master Shipwright", a rank handed down from the reign of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth I. Now, I believe, he is called the Director-General of Ships—not quite such an attractive title. But why I have mentioned this Corps is that I think perhaps occasionally they might have a reference in the Memorandum.
I want to inform your Lordships also that my naval friends who are still serving, tell me that our new ships are most beautifully designed—I do not refer so much to the hull form or the external

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appearance as to the interior layout—no longer, to quote the argot of to-day "a dog's breakfast inside a ship." The Royal Corps of Naval Constructors would be the first to admit that these results could not be achieved without the magnificent co-operation they receive from the electrical and engineering and other departments. I am told that, both on new construction and refits, the cooperation and co-ordination between these departments is quite remarkable. Having heard that comment, my Lords, I thought I should include it in my speech.
I have nearly finished all that I have to say. In making my notes for this part of my speech it occurred to me what a wonderful thing it would be if we had a Royal Corps of Aircraft Constructors working closely with the Air Staff, as the Royal Corps of Naval Constructors works with the Naval Staff. I believe that if such existed, many problems would be solved, more quickly and more effectively than they are, including, of course, the type of aircraft to fly from our new aircraft carriers. The late Lord Fisher (better known as "Jackie Fisher") wrote:
"The essence of war is violence. Moderation in war is imbecility. Hit first, hit hard, hit anywhere."
I think that this Memorandum on the Naval Estimates which we are debating to-day shows that we are getting a Navy, albeit too small, albeit too slowly; but, nevertheless, one which can do just that—hit first, hit hard and hit anywhere.
5.0 p.m.
LORD ABINGER: My Lords, on occasions when we are discussing the affairs of the Royal Navy, I think our first thoughts must be for the officers and men of all ranks who man the Service. I should like to start by paying tribute, in all humility, to their matchless efficiency and morale. I speak as a retired Army officer myself, and I remember during the last war we in the Army occasionally grumbled, probably without justification, about the performance and efficiency of Army units or formations in which we did not happen to be serving ourselves. I remember that occasionally, in the early days of the war, we also grumbled, I am sure without any justification at all, about the support which we received from the
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Royal Air Force. But I can never for one moment remember the efficiency of the Royal Navy being questioned. Our faith in the Navy was absolute. We in the Army had no opportunity to see major fleet actions, but in our contacts with the Royal Navy, whether we were being landed by them in hostile territory, or, less happily, whether we were being withdrawn, we were filled with admiration for their work. I am quite sure the same spirit of efficiency prevails in the Service to-day.
My intervention in this debate will be a fairly short one. I seek information on one matter only. It seems to me that quite the most important point, the salient point, in the Explanatory Statement, is the fact, clearly brought out again, that we no longer possess a Battle Fleet. This, of course, is not a new situation; it has been developing ever since the last war. But I am not sure, even now, that we fully appreciate the significance of this revolutionary deterioration in naval strength. The Explanatory Statement goes into some detail about the ships which are available to the Royal Navy. Major Fleet units would, I suppose, include the three aircraft carriers, the four cruisers and perhaps the two Commando carriers. Presently it seems that there will be another three aircraft carriers and another four cruisers in service. But even if all these ships are operational, can they in any way constitute a force at all comparable with the great battle fleets which existed before the First and the Second World Wars?
I do not want to take the comparison too far, because I know that circumstances have altered, but, to see this matter in perspective it is worth remembering that even in 1939, when the Royal Navy was none too well off for ships, it could deploy some 29 cruisers and had another 27 cruisers in reserve. This total of 56 cruisers might, I think, be compared with the 8, at the most, which are now available. I should have thought that the few heavy ships that we have now available could constitute little more than a task force, perhaps two task forces; but they would be quite insufficient to play the rôle which the former Grand Fleet did. My Lords, if we agree that nothing equivalent to the old Grand Battle Fleet really exists now, we

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must surely consider very carefully how the functions which those fleets used to perform will be fulfilled in the future.
I myself speak as a layman in these matters, and I am very glad that a number of noble Lords with distinguished naval careers have taken part in the debate this afternoon. They are far more qualified than I am to raise these points. But I think some facts are clear even to a layman. For three, four or five hundred years our country has depended for its security very largely on a maritime strategy, and I think our forefathers were wise to pursue this policy. The proof of their wisdom lies in the fact that we have not lost a major war for 200 years, and our Island has remained secure from invasion for 900 years.
For a very long time the basis of our maritime strategy has surely been the existence of a large Fleet. I imagine that the functions of a Fleet are, broadly speaking, two. The Fleet enables us to maintain the strategic initiative in wartime; it enables us in time of war to attack our enemies in any part of the world and to land our armies on hostile territory or to withdraw them when they are in difficulties so that they can fight another day elsewhere. The very existence of a Battle Fleet, even if it remains in harbour, as it did for very much of the First World War, is a constant threat and deterrent to our enemies.
The second function of a Battle Fleet I should imagine to be the protection of our merchant shipping and trade routes. The main Fleet has always provided cover for the work of the lighter naval ships which are more directly concerned in this task—the smaller ships which escort our convoys in war time, which hunt submarines, or, in the first context, actually land or evacuate armies. Paragraph 6 in the Explanatory Statement gives a whole list of the smaller ships which are available to the Royal Navy, and their numbers are considerable. I should imagine that they could be increased fairly quickly in time of emergency.
The point I wish to make is this. Even if their numbers were two or three times as many, even if we had a huge number of destroyers, frigates and smaller naval
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vessels, would their services be of any avail if they were to be denied the cover of a main Battle Fleet which they have always had in the past? If it is conceded that a maritime strategy has kept our Island secure for hundreds of years, if it is further conceded that the basis of this maritime strategy has been the existence of the main Battle Fleet, and if it is finally conceded that we no longer possess such a Fleet, we have to ask: what is the substitute defensive plan? We all realise, of course, that the circumstances of defence have altered radically since the last war. There has been the development of nuclear weapons; there has been perhaps our economic inability to maintain the large forces we were previously able to do. Those of us who follow the fortunes of the Royal Navy are not necessarily arguing the case for great Battle Fleets with a wealth Of capital ships. What we are anxious to know is how the vital functions which such Fleets performed in the past will be fulfilled in the future.
Do Her Majesty's Government suggest that an air strategy can replace our former maritime strategy? The Royal Air Force is now very powerful indeed, and in some ways perhaps it is our premier fighting Service. It can attack our enemies in time of war in any part of the world. But could it ever give the necessary cover to naval ships which are escorting merchantmen—not so much the ships in coastal waters and home waters, but those on the oceans—and to smaller vessels engaged in combined operations, which cover the main Battle Fleets have provided in the past? Many of us feel that an Air Force will never be able to perform these traditional functions of a strategic Battle Fleet. Surely the strategic rôle of an Air Force is rather a different one.
Is it really the case then, as I suspect, that, as we ourselves no longer possess a heavy Battle Fleet we must depend on our Allies—to a great extent on the heavy ships, the capital ships of our Allies? Is it the American Battle Fleet which is to be asked to cover the work of such lighter naval vessels as we possess? It would be foolish to condemn such a position out of hand, because, after all, alliances are two-way affairs. If we depend on our Allies more than we have had to do in the

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past, then they in turn no doubt depend more on us. And, of course, the Royal Navy is making a very big contribution indeed to the main Allied Fleets. Nevertheless, it is a sad and sobering thought, if we are unable any longer to pursue an independent maritime strategy and if we have no plans to recreate a strategic covering fleet.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, the noble Lord has several times referred to a "battle fleet". What sort of ships has he actually in mind?
LORD ABINGER: Aircraft carriers, my Lords. We have six aircraft carriers, but, as I suggested, I think that is little more than a task force or two task forces.
Finally, I do question the lack of information in the Explanatory Statement on this vital matter of allied co-operation. The only mention of allied cooperation is in paragraph 48 which says:
"Discussions with Allied Navies aimed at practical co-operation in research and development are beginning to show encouraging results. Collaboration, which results in a saving of both time and money, is being negotiated on a number of research and development projects."
I do not think that gets us very far.
So I would conclude by asking the noble Lord, the First Lord of the Admiralty, who is replying in the debate, whether he is able to give us any more detailed information about the Allied Fleets, to which important elements of the Royal Navy will apparently be subordinate in time of war. Do these Fleets, for instance, include a considerable number of heavy capital ships, capable of forming a Battle Fleet to cover the work of lighter naval vessels? It may seem odd for me to inquire in this debate about ships in other nations' navies, but it seems clear that our own Royal Navy is going to require a great deal of help from these allied navies, if it is to succeed in keeping the oceans open for our shipping. I myself feel that any information about these allied ships, with which the Royal Navy is now closely associated, would be useful. I would only say that I think it is rather a tragic commentary on our own comparative weakness at sea that such a question has to be asked at all.
5.12 p.m.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I am sure it will have impressed all of your Lordships, how deeply and sincerely—I would also say sentimentally, but without, I hope, sentimental undertones—my noble friend who moved this Motion feels about the Royal Navy. Clearly, in taking part in a debate on the Royal Navy those who belong to another Service, like the noble Lord who has just spoken and myself, feel we have to proceed with a good deal of delicacy. I may say that, now that the Royal Navy has ceased its attempts to take Coastal Command from the Royal Air Force, I am able to approach a naval debate with a less critical eye than I might otherwise have had.
I should first like to refer to one matter, about which I hope the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, will tell us something; that is, the progress that he is making in regard to meeting the criticisms of the Estimates Committee on the control of expenditure. I know that some of this criticism related to the Admiralty itself, and to the size of the headquarters; and we have to take into account, inevitably, that in the headquarters, with all its responsibilities for design and research, it may prove very difficult to cut down numbers. But presumably the First Lord has been at pains to carry out the wishes of the Estimates Committe, and we should like to know how that is going.
There has been some criticism in this debate, both about the delay and about the cost of new developments. It seems absolutely inseparable from any form of Defence expenditure, that anything that is ordered costs a great deal more than was originally anticipated. Probably the worst offender in this matter is not the Royal Navy but the Royal Air Force, which has had the most prodigious increases in costs. None the less, I think that a number of people have been shocked at the cost of some of the new developments, particularly the cost of the new assault ships. It is not surprising, although regrettable, that we are not likely to have more than two of these new assault ships in the next three years, as I understand it. Depending on one's particular view of naval and military, or combined strategy, I should have

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thought that they had a very high priority, indeed.
I would first turn to a matter to which the noble Lord, Lord Ampthill, referred briefly, and that is the Surveying Service, the Hydrographical Service of the Admiralty and the Royal Navy. It is interesting to see that, parallel with their military activities (and we have commented on this before) all three services are apt to be involved, to a very considerable and, indeed, expensive extent, in activities which serve a much greater interest than that of the particular Service—whether it is the Royal Air Force with the Meteorological Service or, most especially, the Royal Navy with the Surveying Service. I tried to discover from the Estimates (and this is one of the matters that is prompting these remarks) how large a part these purely peaceful services of the Royal Navy play in these very large totals.
It is, of course, a fact that the Surveying Service and the Hydrographer's Office of the Royal Navy are held in international esteem. However far in certain matters our powers may have declined, there is no doubt that the hydrographic work and, increasingly now, the oceanographic work, as well as the general survey work of the Royal Navy, are the very finest of any naval hydrographic service in the world. There are many great names connected with it, whether it be Admiral Beaufort; or, more recently, Admiral Edgell; or even the present Hydrographer, Admiral Irving, who have all carried on the great tradition which is being pursued throughout the world. We are undertaking this service, against, in certain respects, declining responsibilities in regard to sovereignty, for countries—some of the emergent nations of the British Commonwealth—who are not themselves in a position to undertake this. One finds H.M.S. "Cook" very suitably operating in Fiji, and it is worth remembering, of course, that Captain Cook was himself at one stage, before the Surveying Service had really developed, a very effective surveyor. Indeed, if I remember rightly, the successful assault on Quebec was largely attributable to his survey of the St. Lawrence.
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It is interesting to note that a number of these ships have been taking part, particularly, in oceanographic work. This is a matter to which scientists, certainly, and those of us who are interested in the geographical field, attach tremendous importance. However much exploration of space there is going to be, there are still vast areas of the world which have not yet been explored, and these are in the oceans. The interest of geologists, biologists and, indeed, oceanographers is growing all the time; and in this work it is satisfactory to see the Surveying Service of the Royal Navy playing such an important part, and having to play it with more complicated equipment. It is worth noting, again, that the Royal Naval officers who take part in this are fully-trained surveyors. They are having to deal now with Decca navigators, and all this new equipment. It is also satisfactory to note that, while they are carrying out this high-level scientific work, they are also providing better and more useful charts for yachtsmen. Altogether, I am sure your Lordships would agree that we are very fortunate in the service that they render.
My Lords, we have had some discussion to-day on strategy, and I confess I have a number of critical remarks to make, with regard both to the equipment and to some of the concepts that still seem to lie behind the policy which Her Majesty's Government are following concerning the Royal Navy. I listened with great interest to the noble and gallant Field Marshal. There were moments when I felt so high above Moscow that I had difficulty in following the particular arguments that he was seeking to have with us. But it seems that the advent of the deterrent, of the nuclear bomb, has changed the picture so much that it is very difficult for any of us, the Government or anyone else, to visualise the sort of situation that would exist once a major nuclear exchange broke out. But, increasingly, the Government, urged by members of all political Parties and of none, have been stressing more and more the importance of the limited war rôle of our Defence Services. It seems to me that this is the primary rôle. It is in the prevention of war and in dealing with the

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"brush fire", the breakout in a particular area, which is the main activity of the Navy and the Army, and the Royal Air Force except for Bomber Command—and even here they may have their part to play.
I am sure the noble and gallant Field Marshal is right in that we really do not help ourselves if we think entirely in terms of a naval or air strategy. I do not know whether noble Lords will be shocked if I say that the important concepts of the Fleet in being the sort of thing we were brought up on, Admiral Marne and so on, have to-day gone to a large extent, and we need to think in very different terms—in terms, indeed, which I am inclined to think are implicit in the Government's White Paper on Defence, in the Estimates and in the Memorandum accompanying the Estimates. It is encouraging to see the sort of thing the noble and gallant Field Marshal has been urging coming out more and more in these Government documents. Personally, I do not think we have gone anything like far enough, but I would not wish to pursue this wider matter now because I want to make just a few remarks about naval equipment, about carriers and, particularly, about carrier aircraft.
Here, my Lords, we are confronted with the most enormous expenditure. When we think that a new carrier, one which is laid down for completion in 1970, 1971 or 1972, is going to cost something like £50 million, and that with all the aircraft and equipment it may well be £100 million, this is, in fact, though I admit it will not all be paid in one year, one-fifth of a single year's expenditure on the Navy. When we realise the long delays in the introduction of aircraft, then it is extremely important for the Government to make up their mind and not dither, as I really believe they are doing, on the question whether the Royal Navy is to pursue a nuclear or a conventional rôle. This has been bedevilling our defence, both in the Army and in the Navy, for the last few years. It is probably inevitable that it should be so; but we pay quite a heavy price for this. I am sure the First Lord will know that there has been serious criticism—and from within the Service—of the consequences of this, and of the type of aircraft that we now
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have in operation or coming into operation.
I hesitate to make these criticisms, for obvious reasons. One is aware that it could be argued that they would be damaging to morale. However, these are matters which have been spoken of, and I feel I must mention them, and I hope that the First Lord will be able to answer them. It is argued that the "Scimitar" should never have been bought. I appreciate the difficulties in taking such a decision, and we are now committed irrevocably to it. It was originally intended as an interceptor. One of its important rôles now is as a nuclear strike aircraft. It is suggested that if they are to deliver conventional weapons, their capacity is little more than that of a "Fury" of many years ago. The "Scimitar", I believe, can carry something like four 1,000 lb. conventional bombs. In order to take off from certain carriers, like the "Hermes" or the "Victorious", it is necessary for there to be a windspeed of 20 knots in addition to the ship's own speed. This does not apply to the "Ark Royal" or the "Eagle". I should be delighted to hear that this is not true, but I have had this information on pretty good authority. The range, again, is something I should like to hear about, for I understand the range is only about 200 to 400 miles depending on the load.
Unkind things are said about the "Scimitar". It has been alleged, again, that it is the answer to the threat of thrust, or the wingless wonder. This may be just Service talk of a kind which is always made: people are always apt to be rude about their equipment; but we want to make sure that we are not trying to produce over-sophisticated aircraft for what is more likely to be a limited war rôle. Again, it is suggested that the insistence of the Royal Navy or of the Government on creating a nuclear rôle for the Royal Navy and the Fleet Air Arm has led to the provision of aircraft which are a great deal less satisfactory to the keeping of the peace, in which the Royal Navy has such an important part to play.
Again there are criticisms of the "Buccaneer", the N.A.39, especially with the Gyron junior engine. I know that a later version is coming along, I think with a Spey engine, which will be

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more satisfactory. In so far as we share the views of those who are talking about an East of Suez rôle, of maintaining task forces and of providing some form of successor to the Fleet in being in these areas, is it really to be expected that they are likely to have to drop atomic bombs? It would be very much simpler if we could answer this; and it might well be much more profitable to this country to have more smaller aircraft carriers, carrying less sophisticated aircraft, able to be readily available wherever trouble arises, so that there would not be this necessity to steam 4,000 or 5,000 miles when any emergency arises.
We are well aware that the Royal Navy and the Admiralty, in particular, either had great luck or showed great prescience—I think it was a mixture of both—when the Kuwait operation came off. But they may not always be as lucky and they may not always be as prescient as they were on that occasion. I myself feel (and this has been argued quite strongly by Members of another place, belonging to all Parties; my noble friend Lord Alexander of Hillsborough made the same point in his speech, and I think the Government are hesitating on this) that we ought not to embark without a good deal more consideration on a really expensive carrier policy unless we are satisfied that there is an essential rôle for these large carriers.
My Lords, I should have thought that the important rôle for the Navy must be in helping to maintain the peace of the world, short of a nuclear war. I should like to support those noble Lords who have urged again a strengthening of the anti-submarine forces. I may say to the noble Lord, Lord Ampthill, that Coastal Command is in fact at a very high level of efficiency indeed. It is an extremely efficient Command, and the squadrons are doing pretty well with their old aircraft. But there is a necessity for a replacement; and this is a necessity which, as the noble Lord has argued, is of great importance to the Royal Navy.
We may be confronted with a situation in which pirate submarine activities (and by "pirate" activities I mean ones which might well be sponsored by another country, though not officially
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admitted) may occur. There might well have been submarine activity during the Kuwait operation, and there may well be in fields other than a single area. If any Power were successful in creating real trouble for us in the world, and could make it occur in several areas of the world simultaneously, if we found unofficial or pirate submarine activities thrown into the battle I think we might find ourselves in an extremely difficult situation in a military sense. I hope, therefore, that we are not sacrificing the security of the Royal Navy and of this country in these matters by putting too many of our eggs into the basket of a few very large carriers.
My Lords, there were a number of points of extreme interest made by noble Lords to which I should have liked to refer, and I hope the Government will consider them. It is always inevitable, when money is short, that good new ideas will never really get started, People are so busy trying to maintain what they have—and this is perfectly reasonable—that the possibility of developing new activities gets very much less. But I would urge upon the Government—and I am sure noble Lords who heard the noble Lord, Lord Ashbourne, would agree—the importance in this situation of trying to achieve complete mobility and a maritime strategy of making Naval forces, whether they be for the Air Force or for the Army, really self-supporting, and providing the necessary constructional or other forces similar to the "Sea Bees".
I do not wish to go into the question of whether the Royal Navy should have Polaris submarines. This raises bigger issues. Personally, I have very considerable doubts, in the long run, as to how important it is that we do maintain a completely British-controlled deterrent or nuclear deterrent; but I am quite certain that the work which goes into the construction of these new types of machinery, particularly into the development of nuclear machinery, will not be wasted nationally. It may appear to be extremely expensive at the moment for us to be building a second nuclear submarine; but surely this is going to pay off in terms of marine construction, whether it be Naval or whether it be civilian, in the future.

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I would say only this in conclusion: it is quite clear that in this House, as indeed in any British assembly, there is deep admiration and deep devotion to the Royal Navy, as there is, I hope, to all the Services. But we should like to be satisfied that the Government are giving the country value for money; that they are taking the right decisions in this new and ever-changing situation; and that we shall not see less and less return on the enormous expenditure which the country has to make on defence. I personally have a very large measure of confidence in the First Lord, and I hope that he will listen to the ideas that your Lordships have put to him to-day.
5.36 p.m.
THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (LORD CARRINGTON): My Lords, this is the fourth and last of the annual debates which we have on the Service Estimates each year, and we are, as usual, greatly in the debt of the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition for having put down this Motion. I think I have said before that there can be no doubt whatever where the noble Viscount stands in relation to the Royal Navy. He may think that the Royal Navy is too small. He certainly thinks that the Government and the First Lord are not very good. But his criticisms certainly do not extend to the officers and men of the Royal Navy, and he is as firm in his belief in the rôle and importance of sea power as ever he was.
I am glad, too, to think that this afternoon we have had, in addition to the usual and welcome speakers on Naval affairs, three new speakers. One was my noble and gallant friend Lord Montgomery of Alamein, who, whenever he speaks, certainly makes us think. He made, I thought, a most interesting speech this afternoon. The only thing I would quarrel with him about is that I beg leave to doubt whether he would be quite so silent as he said, as he raised himself in his balloon over Moscow, compared with the rest of your Lordships. Then there was the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, who brings a quite distinctive point of view of his own. The noble Lord asked me a number of questions. He asked me so many that I could not get them all down. I am sure he knows as well as I do that
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questions of the kind he asked are never answered, and I hope he will acquit me of any discourtesy if I do not do so.
Then there was my noble friend Lord Abinger, and I hope he will not compare the circumstances of to-day and the capability of the ships of to-day with those of pre-war. I hope that he will find in what I have to say the answers to some of his questions. My Lords, I do not think I can go into the strengths of the Allied Fleets, because I hardly think it would be proper for me to do so; but I might recommend to him Jane's Fighting Ships which I find to be a very accurate and interesting publication with regard to the navies of the world.
Although it is only to-day that we have turned our attention specifically to Naval affairs, in each of our previous debates the rôle of the Navy, and the part which it has been assigned in our defence strategy for the 1960s, has been touched upon. This is in itself, I think, a sign of a changed attitude towards the Navy. I must say that three years or so ago, when I first came to the Admiralty, I thought that I detected a tendency in your Lordships' House, and perhaps in the country too, to regard the Royal Navy as standing somehow apart from the main stream of our national defence. The role of the Army was always clear, and so was that of the Royal Air Force; and their two rôles were, quite rightly, I think, regarded as complementary. The movement of troops by air, and their tactical support by the Royal Air Force in battle, were concepts Which were well understood by everyone. But then there was the Navy, scattered about the world in its own separate element, the sea, detached and a little remote. The function and the purpose of the Fleet was apt to fee measured, I think, by the task which it carried out in the First and Second World Wars. Not surprisingly perhaps, when judged solely in that light, its rôle in the future did not seem entirely clear.
There were those who, remembering how close to defeat this country came in the Battle of the Atlantic, raised the alarm over the size of the Navy—forgetting perhaps our altered circumstances, our regional pacts, and the need for a balanced Fleet, as well as an antisubmarine Navy. Others saw all modern

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warfare as a push-button, nuclear affair, which would he all over in a matter of weeks, if not days—and wrote the Navy off as a waste of money. What, for them, had hitherto seemed the main task and justification of British sea power— keeping the supply line to Britain open in a protracted war—had apparently vanished in a mushroom cloud. And I am not at all sure that six or seven years ago my noble and gallant friend behind me would not have gone some way along that road.
Since then it has come to be recognised more clearly that the Royal Navy, together with the other navies of the Western Alliance, forms an indispensable part of the general deterrent in Europe; for example, which of your Lordships could contemplate with anything but dismay a situation in which we and our Allies had to face the Soviet Union entirely defenceless at sea? It seems to me that this aspect of our Naval rôle has been put with great clarity by my noble and gallant friend Lord Montgomery of Alamein. Here I agree very much with the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, and perhaps I may break off for a moment to say that I think the noble Lord improves with every year that passes. When I first became First Lord, I thought he started off by being rather antipathetic to the Royal Navy. Last year, he was not too bad; but this year I thought he had come on a great deal; and next year, I expect great things of him.
Few people, even three years ago, would have ventured to predict that the Navy's traditional task of keeping the oceans safe for British traffic would soon take on the new and wider meaning which the 1962 Defence White Paper has given it; though perhaps, looking back, it is easy to see now that the writing on the wall was already there—in the slowly developing nuclear stalemate between East and West, which has thrown what I might call the peripheral threat of Communism into strong relief; and in the steady growth of independent nations throughout the world, which has meant that we can now rely on fewer bases and installations overseas.
We are a great trading nation; and we have many vital national interests throughout the world which we must continue to protect, if we are to survive.
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We have also contracted new and powerful international obligations; and, as a result, the rôle and purpose of the modern Navy, and the value of British sea power, has acquired a yet broader significance. It is to ensure that Britain can play her full part, within the Alliance of free nations, in preventing the spread of world-wide Communism, and in preserving peace. If we are to do this, we must retain the ability to deploy our military power all over the world; and with the growing number of land and air barriers to the movement of our forces, the one free highway of the sea which we can always use—provided that we can defend it—is going to figure more and more in all our military planning and thought.
It is for this reason, which I believe has now come to be generally understood—and certainly I have heard no doubts cast on the value of sea power this afternoon—that no debate on Defence, or on the Army, ox even on the Royal Air Force, can nowadays be complete without taking account of the Royal Navy. For, as my night honourable friend the Minister of Defence has said, we must begin to think increasingly of the inter-dependence of the three Fighting Services: the efficiency of one will depend increasingly on the efficiency of the other two. And certainly the policy which the Government have decided to follow, for example, for the Army, which we discussed last month, makes very little sense without a strong and efficient Navy—and Air Force—to give it reality.
There is no disguising the fact that six or seven years ago there was doubt about what shape the future Navy was likely to take. I have already outlined some of the conflicting views which were then held by eminent and responsible people. In these circumstances, the Board of Admiralty at that time decided that the wisest course was to keep something of everything: to keep alive all the arts of naval warfare, so as to be ready to expand and step forward in any direction as soon as the uncertainty cleared. I think that the wisdom of this course has been borne out by events, for to-day we have a versatile Navy, equipped to flight in all the elements: on or under the sea, in the air, and, with the Royal Marine Commandos,

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even on land—the very nucleus of the kind of joint sea-borne task forces which the 1962 Defence White Paper prescribes.
Already the Navy has a significant amphibious capability, with the commando ships and the ships of the Amphibious Warfare Squadron; and this will grow substantially as our new assault ships, about which noble Lords have been talking, arrive. They will be called H.M.S. "Fearless" and H.M.S. "Intrepid" and will join the Fleet in about three years' time. H.M.S. "Fearless" will begin to take shape in a fortnight from now, when the first prefabricated section of the hull is laid down at Belfast. These ships are of about 12,000 to 13,000 tons and will carry a large body of troops, tanks, guns and lorries. They will be a very formidable addition to our amphibious warfare squadron.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, already the tonnage seems to have increased during the discussions on these new ships.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I do not think so. I think that they were always supposed to be about that size. Certainly that was the impression I thought I gave your Lordships last year, when they were first announced. They have not altered in that time.
We have maintained and modernised our aircraft carriers—extremely [powerful, mobile airfields—to support and combine with the land-based aircraft of the Royal Air Force in protecting our amphibious forces against attack from the air and in providing our troops with close support ashore.
This year also sees the introduction into service—on July 17, as a matter of fact—of the first operational squadron of the Blackburn Buccaneer, formerly called the N.A.39. This is a really first-class aircraft. I could not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, in what he said about to. I can testify for myself how it behaves at high speeds and at low altitude, since I was given a ride by the test pilot of Messrs. Blackburn at very high speed and very close to the ground during a visit I paid to Brough the other day. It was very interesting to note that, coming into land at the airfield in an ordinary conven-
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tional passenger aeroplane, the conditions were extremely rough and bumpy, while in the Buccaneer it was very noticeable how smooth it was at the same height—a very important factor in a low-level strike aircraft. I know that this aircraft will be a very great addition to the striking power of the Navy and will give useful service for many years to come.
It will replace the Scimitar, about which the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, had some rather hard things to say. I do not think that it is right to speak in terms of an aircraft alone. I think that the noble Lord must consider the weapon system. The new air-to-air missiles, the Sidewinder and Firestreak, with which we are equipping both Scimitars and Sea Vixens, will greatly improve their effectiveness and prolong their lives. The Scimitar is about to be replaced by the Buccaneer, but the Sea Vixen is a very sophisticated all-weather fighter which, with these air-to-air missiles, will remain effective for at least the remainder of this decade.
To strengthen still further the air defence of the Fleet and of our amphibious forces, the first two of our six new guided missile destroyers, the "Hampshire" and "Devonshire", will join the Fleet early next year, with their Seaslug weapons, which have turned out extremely well. I paid a visit only a fortnight ago to the "Devonshire" at Birkenhead, where she has just completed her initial trials, and I must say that she is an extremely impressive—and handsome—ship. I hope that perhaps some of your Lordships will be able to visit her when she is commissioned. There has been an excellent report of her trials from her future captain, and I think these ships are going to be first class. The fifth and sixth ships, your Lordships may be interested to know, are to be called H.M.S. "Fife" and H.M.S. "Glamorgan", to preserve the naval connections with Scotland and Wales.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: A new "Tribal" class.
LORD CARRINGTON: Yes; but we have another new "Tribal" class, as well. These two new ships will be even

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better than the first four, because they will have an improved anti-aircraft capability.
To protect our amphibious forces against submarine attack we have built in the last ten years nearly forty modern escorts of the "Whitby" and later classes; and the new "Leander" design, of which there is an illustration in my Explanatory Statement, has aroused interest all over the world. With our nuclear submarines we are hoping to break entirely new ground in the technique of anti-submarine warfare: for these boats, with their high speed and endurance, open up for the first time in history the prospects of an underwater convoy escort with all the advantages which ability to fight a submarine enemy in his own element brings. We hope to have the "Dreadnought" at sea by the end of the year; and provided the present labour dispute is settled fairly quickly, as I hope it will be, there seems every likelihood that we shall meet this date. I thought that my noble friend Lord Ampthill had some hard things to say about the time it has taken to build "Dreadnought". I wish he would come up some time and see how complicated it is to build a nuclear submarine; and perhaps he, too, might then appreciate the different conditions which exist in our shipyards as compared with those in the United States. I do not think we have done too badly in building "Dreadnought" in the time that we have.
H.M.S. "Valiant" has been laid down, and work is going on satisfactorily. I might also add that I paid a visit the other day to the prototype nuclear reactor which we are building at Dounreay in the North of Scotland, where, after a certain amount of difficulty and delay, the work is going ahead and the reactor will go critical next year. Perhaps I might add one thing at this point. My noble friend Lord Teynham asked me about the "Polaris" submarine. I am afraid I cannot add much to what I said last year, or, indeed, to what I said in the Defence debate this year. The vehicle for the deterrent is at the moment the V-bomber, at present arming with Blue Steel and subsequently to be re-armed with Skybolt. This takes us into the next decade. We are now
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examining what will follow, and, of course, a nuclear submarine with a ballistic missile is one of the alternatives which we are looking at at the moment.
Last, but not least, in the catalogue of what I have been saying is the fact that we can no longer rely on so many fixed installations as we used to, and we must not neglect, and we have not neglected, the afloat support which my noble friend Lord Ashbourne spoke about. As my noble friend said, I made a point of dealing with this very fully in my Explanatory Statement, because the ability to replenish and maintain a task force at sea is going to be absolutely vital to the success of our new mobile strategy. I can assure him that it is a point we certainly have not lost sight of.
So your Lordships will see that the Admiralty's concept of a balanced Fleet has paid off handsomely: none of the categories which we have built will be wasted and none can be dispensed with; each will have its essential part to play in the new strategy. And if in any one category we are not as strong as perhaps we should like to be—and as I know some noble Lords, on both sides of the House, feel we ought to be—that is the price we have had to pay in creating a balanced Navy within a defence budget Which this country can afford.
But in case 1 sound too complacent—and I hope I do not—I should like for a moment to turn to the future, where the problems facing the Government and the Board of Admiralty loom very large indeed. Perhaps I might take aircraft carriers, about which the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, talked, as an example, but only one example, of what I mean. I spent a week in H.M.S. "Victorious" earlier this year while she was taking part in a NATO exercise called Dawn Breeze. It was a most interesting and stimulating experience. The Admiralty spent many millions of pounds in modernising this ship, and, incidentally, came in for some heavy criticism for having done so. But the result, I can assure your Lordships, is a really formidable fighting unit.
The task of H.M.S. "Victorious" in the exercise was to launch a strike against an "enemy" target—an airfield

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—in the face of opposition which included submarines, high-speed bombers and warships equipped with surface-to-surface missiles. Our escorts, helped by maritime patrol aircraft of Coastal Command, proved more than a match for the submarines, which were never within striking range of us. Our carrier-borne fighters were able to, and did, intercept the bombers which were sent against us at a considerable distance from the ship. And with the help of reconnaissance reports from Shackletons of Coastal Command, we were able to hit the enemy's surface force, again many miles away, with our own strike aircraft, which later on completed the carrier's mission while we were still several hundred miles from the coast. I must say that I thought this was a most impressive display, first, of the versatility and striking power of the "Victorious"; secondly, of co-operation between all three Services; and, finally, of the very difficult target which a properly escorted and supported aircraft carrier presents to an enemy equipped with even the most modern weapons.
Our present aircraft carriers will last until the 1970's. But if we are to go on deploying air power around the world after this, I believe we must replace them: not to substitute for fixed land bases—for there are certain tasks Which land-based aircraft will always do batter—but to combine with them, as we did at Kuwait. But ships of this size and complexity, as the noble Lord said, take about eight years to design and build. So, if we are not to renounce here and now our ability to deploy air power by sea in the 1970's, we must start preparing to replace our carriers at once. This is what we are now doing by getting ahead with the first phase of design; this must in any case precede any question of ordering.
But it is not only eight years ahead that we must look, difficult enough as I think that is. Those carriers, assuming that we go ahead and build them, will have a life of twenty years or more, which means that they will still be operating in the 1990's. What will the world be like then? What will war be like then? What will aircraft be like then? These are immensely difficult questions; and I think we should be pardoned in the Board of Admiralty if we take a little time to answer them.
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People may well ask: can we afford them? But, on the other hand, can we afford not to have them, if we are to remain a world-wide military power? In fact, as carriers are the only airfields that I know of which can be moved from place to place wherever they are needed, they do, I think, represent the cheapest way of deploying ait power around the world. And, again, if we have them, it must not be to the exclusion of everything else—new frigates; new ships to replace our present cruisers; nuclear submarines (for, good as our conventional boats are, we want to go nuclear as soon as we can); a bigger and better amphibious capability; greater afloat support and so on.
In short, if we are to ensure that the Navy continues to be the first-class Service which it is to-day, and maintains its usefulness in the years to come, we must keep up the balancing act which we have performed, I think with some success, so far. But because of the time-scale of shipbuilding, as well as of recruiting and training the necessary men, the balancing has to be done now, making the most intelligent forecast that we can of what the long-term future holds. And it will become an increasingly difficult task as the cost of everything—ships, weapons, equipment and even manpower—grows with every new scientific and technical advance.
These are the special problems which the Government are facing to-day in their naval policy; and although I have no doubt that they will be solved, it seemed to me that your Lordships should perhaps be aware of them, and should reflect on them when you are considering What the future of the Navy should be, and when perhaps you are inclined to feel impatient with the time which it takes to reach decisions on these vital matters.
Before I leave this part of my speech, there are two allied subjects about which I should like to say a word, and these are habitability and work study. I think I have said before in these debates that I regard it as very important that we should try to make our new ships as comfortable as possible for the officers and ratings who serve in them. I believe that for the first time we have made a real advance in this field in the two new types of ship which are coming

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into service this year, the County class guided missile destroyers and the Tribal class frigate. With their centralised messing arrangements, their comparatively uncluttered passageways, their 100 per cent. bunk arrangements and full air-conditioning, they are a striking advance and something of which the Royal Corps of Naval Constructors—about which my noble friend spoke—can be very proud.
On work study, I may say that we have been doing this on various aspects of the Navy's work, and this has frequently helped us to make better use of our men and material. I would quote one example to your Lordships of what we have done. An investigation the other day into the usage of submarines resulted not only in an increase in operational availability of four weeks per year per boat, but also in a higher standard of maintenance in the boats themselves and a better-balanced task in the submarine bases and depôt ships. But I believe there is another field in which we can not only improve the habitability of our ships still further but also reduce their size and the complement needed to man them. We are now beginning to introduce work study into our new ships at the design stage; and it is the opinion of our own Naval Constructors, as well as of those in the American Bureau of Ships—to whom I should say we have lent a Naval officer who is a specialist in work study—that there is in this field a considerable scope for economy. I am quite sure this is one of the applications of work study which should be encouraged and, if necessary, extended.
My noble friends Lord Ashbourne and Lord Ampthill mentioned the Royal Marine Engineers, and asked whether consideration was being given to reconstituting the Mobile Naval Base Defence Organisation. As the noble Lord said, they were, at the time of their inception, a very good idea, but both the Royal Marine Engineers and the M.N.B.D.O. did very valuable and important work during the last war. But I think it began to be apparent, even during the war years, that both were to some extent a duplication of the Army, and they wore in due course disbanded. I must say, frankly, that we do not foresee the need
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for a separate organisation of this kind in the future, particularly as afloat support will, to an important extent, replace our reliance on fixed bases, and our repair, dep¾t and supply ships and tankers will operate from a very small number of forward bases which will call for comparatively little work ashore.
If engineer assistance is needed by the Commandos on any large scale, it will be provided by the Royal Engineers, and a squadron of them will probably form part of the amphibious group in an assault ship. But there will also be in each Commando a small number of men trained in the use of mines and explosives, as well as in operating certain types of plant. In this way, perhaps the tradition of the Royal Marine Engineers can be kept going.
My noble friend Lord Ampthill asked me about the gas turbine, and he made the criticism that the advantages were not yet fully exploited. My Lords, we have only just started. I think it says a great deal for the confidence which the Board of Admiralty have in this gas turbine boost that we have decided to engine all the D.L.G.s, or guided-missile destroyers, and the Tribal class, with this machinery. I assure my noble friend that although the water-tube boiler row was rather before my day, I am surprised that I have not been blamed for it. But I assure him that we will avoid anything of the kind with regard to the gas turbine.
My noble friend also asked me about nuclear power and propulsion as did the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton. As he knows, we are concentrating on nuclear reactors for submarines, because the advantages there are so very obvious. I think the advantages of nuclear-propelled surface ships are not at first sight so obvious as in the case of underwater vessels. As he said, at the moment there is no reactor which is anything like economic that can be put into a surface vessel. So we have decided to concentrate on research to find a nuclear reactor which is economic. Not only is the research being done, as the noble Lord has said, by Rolls Royce, but it is also being done by the Atomic Energy Authority. I am quite satisfied that we in the Board of Admiralty are having our say in what is being done.

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My noble friend Lord Teynham asked about the Hovercraft. As I think he knows, we have been evaluating the S.R.N 1 Hovercraft at Lee-on-Solent, but the trials which we have done have so far proved inconclusive, and we hope to continue them later this year. We think there is a naval application for the Hovercraft in the anti-submarine and amphibious warfare rôles, but I think we must do a little more of these trials before we know for certain. My noble friend also asked me about the likely requirement for a long-range antisubmarine weapon. No decisions have been taken about this yet. There are various weapon systems. There is the Malafon, the American Asroc and the Australian Ikara, at all of which we are looking at the present time.
I have been speaking for some time, and I do not think I have time to go into the question of the Select Committee on Estimates, about which the noble Lord, Lord Shaekleton, asked me. He will know that we accepted a number of recommendations of this Committee, and they have been put into operation. We said that we would do what we could about a number of the other recommendations, and in fact a number of inquiries are going on at the present time. If the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, would like to know more, perhaps I may write him a letter and tell him how things are going.
I should like to end by saying a few words about manpower, and in particular about two branches of the Navy in which we have recently introduced markedly better conditions of service. In the Medical and Instructor Branches we are likely to have some difficulty in entering sufficiently qualified officers now that National Service has come to an end. The problems of the Forces' medical services are by now well known to your Lordships. We have recently introduced a far-reaching new deal for doctors and dentists in the Services in order to overcome the serious risk of severe shortage. I said something about this in the Army Estimates debate the other week. All the measures which are being introduced to encourage the entry of young doctors into the Army apply equally to the Navy, and our situation, I am glad to say, is not quite so serious. I am quite sure that these measures which we have introduced and, incidentally, which have
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the endorsement and support of the Council of the British Medical Association, will succeed in helping us to build up the service to meet the shortages which have been foreseen.
Next the Instructor Branch, to which I am glad my noble friend Lord Ampthill referred. In the Royal Navy we have had education officers for about 300 years, and the development of technology and the increased application of science within the Service have underlined their importance. We plan to have an Instructor Branch of about 600 officers, including a large number qualified in mathematics, science and engineering. The branch is mainly employed in colleges and training establishments ashore, but a number of officers serve afloat in both training and meteorological duties. Wherever they serve they make a full contribution to the life of the Navy beyond the strict scope of their teaching task.
I have recently reviewed the future of the branch because, with the end of National Service, the Navy is having to seek the highly qualified entrants required by the branch in a sharply competitive market. We need a steady annual entry of graduates. These are for the most part young men who are in the greatest demand in civilian life. We have therefore made three major changes in the conditions of service in the Instructor Branch.
First, we are reshaping the permanent element of the branch by restricting it to graduates and those with equivalent qualifications, and limiting its size to an extent which will enable us to promote more than half of our permanent instructor officers to the rank of commander.
Secondly, we are offering a wider variety of entry conditions. A few highly-qualified young men will be able to enter direct on permanent commissions, and other entries will be able to start on a short-service commission, with later opportunities for selection for a permanent commission or for transfer to a 16-year commission, carrying at the end of it a pension of over £500 a year. The professional qualifications of the instructor officer reduce their problem of resettlement in civil life and we believe that this 16-year commission will have a great appeal to those who want to

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serve in the Navy on attractive terms without committing themselves to a full career.
Thirdly, we have revised arrangements for the award of seniority on entry to take into acount not only all graduate qualifications but also all civilian experience. For example, it will now be possible for an officer to enter as a lieutenant with four years' seniority and to reach the rank of lieutenant-commander four years later.
I think these changes have made a good impact, though it is early days yet. Last year only 25 officers, including 5 with good science degrees, entered the branch. This year double that number have already entered or been selected for entry, including no fewer than 35 science graduates. I think that this is satisfactory so far as it goes. Certainly we attach the greatest importance to a vigorous and highly efficient Instructor Branch, and that depends on our ability to continue to attract the good men we need.
As for recruitment generally, we are running so far this year at about the same level as last, although it is much too early in the financial year to draw any firm conclusions from this. There are of course variations between the different categories and branches; for example, we are doing particularly well with Royal Marines and with Juniors (U), that is, the youngest entrants. But I should like to see more Juniors (O), that is boys aged between 16¼ and 17½, and also young adults; and in the recruiting organisation we are making a special effort to increase these numbers. This is not always easy, because these older entrants have usually left school some time ago and will already be earning their living. But there must, nevertheless, be a number of boys who, for one reason or another, are not happy in their job or want to see a bit more of the world. From the Navy's point of view, these rather more mature recruits are a welcome stiffening if we can find them because they play a more effective part in the Service all the sooner. We would be particularly glad to see more of these older entrants coming into the technical branches of the Navy, most of all perhaps on the electrical side. I think you will remem-
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ber that I put emphasis on this in my Explanatory Statement this year, and we are at the moment rather short of electrical entrants.
Re-engagement continues at a very satisfactory rate, at rather more than 61 per cent. over all—a really good figure. It is not quite as high as the rate we were achieving a year or so ago but, even so, it means that very nearly two men out of every three are re-engaging in the Royal Navy.
One of the effects of the new defence strategy will be that we shall tend to have more ships at sea, and this, in turn, will mean that a higher proportion of the Navy will be serving afloat. I think your Lordships will agree with me that this is a welcome trend and one which should appeal to young men who are thinking of making a career in the Navy; not—and I do want to say this—that the proportion of men serving afloat to-day is as low as people sometimes make out or, indeed, as a straightforward comparison of those numbers with Vote A would suggest. Because when you exclude those categories which inevitably spend most, if not all, of their time ashore—such as the WRNS; nurses; the Fleet Air Arm, of whom only a quarter can ever be afloat regularly; the Royal Marines, with their new and predominantly commando rôle—quite unlike the pre-war days when large numbers of marines formed part of the complement of sea-going ships; and young men doing their initial training—and consider the 58,000 or so trained general service ratings whom one expects to be predominantly at sea, you will find that no less than 54 per cent. of the Royal Navy are actually serving afloat. On average, therefore, these men serve rather more than half of their naval working life at sea and the remainder not only is spent serving in shore establishments and in ships of the Reserve Fleet, but also includes periods of training, and so on. There is a limit to the amount of sea service which it is reasonable to expect men, and particularly the older men with families, to perform, and I think this has already been reached for certain categories who play a vital part in the Navy and on whose re-engagement so much depends. Naturally, sea service means separation from wives and

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families and it presents a special problem in the Navy which cannot be overcome by means such as the provision of married quarters as it can be in the other two Services. I think this is a point which we must not overlook.
This year there is evidence that the Navy is once more, if indeed it was not always, a useful modern fighting service materialising before the eyes of those who come to join it. They have before them the new guided missile ships, the first of which commissions in October; the first of the nuclear submarines which joins the Fleet at the end of the year; they have the first operational squadron of "Buccaneers" which forms this month; they have the first gas turbine-driven frigates of the Tribal class; the new Wessex helicopter; and many other new equipments and weapons which are now coming into service. Altogether this has been, and will be, a year of achievement for the Royal Navy; and I do not discern in what has been said, either by noble Lords opposite or on this side of the House, that there is much dissatisfaction at the present time with naval affairs.
There are those who say that the Navy is not large enough. My Lords, I have often said before that there could be no First Lord and no Board of Admiralty who would be willing to say that they would not like to see a larger Navy. At the same time, bearing in mind the high level of taxation, the rising costs in the civilian sector of our economy and the large amount of money we already spend on defence, I do not think it would be reasonable to expect Her Majesty's Government to spend very much more on the Navy. I am quite sure that we have value for money, and that we are spending the money that we are allocated in the way most likely to achieve a properly balanced Navy, skilful in all branches at sea and air warfare, and, at the same time, capable of playing its part in cold, in limited and in global war. I believe that the stage is now set for the Navy to play a larger part in the defence of this country than it has done at any time since the end of the war; and I have no doubt that the equipment and, not least, the men and women who form the Royal Navy are as good as they have ever been in the past, or are ever likely to be in the future.
6.17 p.m.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I should like first of all to thank all the Members of your Lordships' House who have joined me in this debate to-day, because I feel that it has been really worth while. I think it has elicited from the First Lord of the Admiralty a great deal of information, even more perhaps than we got from the printed Statement. I must confess that I did not get one or two of the answers I wanted as to what is the Government's real cruiser policy of the future; how far they are going; whether they ought not to have some chance at least of being able to deal with events in at least two parts of the world at once where they employ a task force—something which, to me, does not seem possible on the strength—and so on. Nevertheless, perhaps when the First Lord looks through the opening of the debate he will feel inclined to write to me on one or two points. I will leave it at that, because I think the First Lord has demonstrated that, like so many of his predecessors, the Navy has rather captured him. That, by the way, is the only way to be a successful First Lord.
I think he shows a competent knowledge of the very detailed and interwoven sections of the Naval Service and provisions and can be thought by the House to be doing a good job in his vastly important post. At any rate I enjoyed his speech to-day very much—more, in fact, than I enjoyed his reply to the lively debate on the Defence White Paper. And that perhaps gives an indication of exactly how I feel about it. We have at least, I think, settled in your Lordships' House to-day among the majority the vast importance of having a maritime policy in the changing conditions of warfare likely to be in the world; leaving out, in the main, sudden, widespread nuclear war. And I hope that, as the days go by, we shall have such an integration of the three Services, all following the main principle of the great strength we can gather in a maritime policy, that it will do perhaps more than anything else to nip in the bud places of trouble and thus be able to preserve the peace. I beg to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

POLISH EX-SERVICEMEN'S PENSIONS
6.20 p.m.
LORD WINDLESHAM LORD WINDLESHAM rose to call attention on to the hardship imposed on ex-Regular members of the Polish Forces resident in this country by the refusal of successive British Governments to grant a pension to them; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, in March of this year I put down a Question on the subject of the Motion I have on the Order Paper to-day, the subject of pensions for Regular Polish ex-Servicemen, and in view of the reply which I obtained at the time from the First Lord, replying for the Government, which I considered to be unsatisfactory, I told him then that I would raise the matter again at the earliest possible moment. I am grateful to the usual channels for giving me time to-day in order to do so. My reasons for thinking that the reply I obtained was unsatisfactory I shall give a little later, but meantime, for the benefit of such noble Lords who are not perhaps fully conversant with the Polish contribution in the last war, I might remind your Lordships of one or two things before I go on to the main part of my speech, which contains a plea to do a certain thing.
May I remind your Lordships that the contribution of the Poles in the last war in all three Services was very considerable indeed, and I believe that is beyond dispute. It was considerable in the Navy, and I rather hope for a little contribution later from the noble Viscount who leads the Opposition, who with his great knowledge of the Navy will remember very well what the Polish contribution was during the war from the naval point of view. Then, also, the noble and gallant Admiral of the Fleet, Lord Fraser of North Cape, who I am sorry to see has just left the Chamber, will also remember the substantial contribution which the Poles made. The sinking of the cruiser "Gram" off Narvik early in the war was one event which will still be in your minds.
Where the air was concerned, you have only to go to Northolt and look at the Polish War Memorial there and count the numbers. In Fighter Command it was said between one-seventh and one-eighth of fighter pilots in the
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Battle of Britain were Polish. There is no need for -me to take the time of the House going over the Battle of Britain. We know what Mr. Churchill said about it. For one out of seven or eight of the pilots to be provided by the Polish Air Force was a very considerable achievement. Where the Army was concerned—and I will speak a little more about that later—there was, of course, the First Polish Armoured Division which eventually went to France with the 21st Army Group, and General Anders Second Polish Corps in Italy under the command of Field Marshal Lord Alexander of Tunis. I am again a little sorry that since in this House we enjoy the company of no fewer than four noble and gallant Field Marshals who had that Polish Corps under their command, none of them has seen fit to take part in the debate to-day. No doubt they are busy elsewhere.
I have no intention at this time of the evening of playing on sentiment. This is not a sentimental matter basically; it is a matter of fairness, of what is fair and right. Therefore, I will spare you a long list of stories about poor old men working lifts, sweepers in museums, and so on, though I could easily go on for a long time on that subject. But I will spare you that, because I want to stick to the facts of the matter. I have been impressed in the last few weeks by the extraordinary ignorance of this matter I have encountered practically everywhere. One noble Lord came up to me in the Prince's Chamber not long ago and said: "I am sympathetic to your ideas because I served with the Poles in the War, but we cannot do anything for them that we do not do for our own ex-Service men." I am not asking for anything for the Poles which is not done for our own ex-Service men; I am just asking that they should not have less.
What I really want, and what I am asking the First Lord, as spokesman for the Government, for, is a fair answer to a perfectly straightforward, fair question. Why are Polish ex-Regular personnel treated less well than their British counterparts when it was clearly laid down and understood in the Anglo-Polish Agreement of August 5, 1940, that they would be treated the same as British Servicemen in every respect?

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The Treasury answer to this could be as follows: "Pensions precisely were not mentioned in the agreement ". But then we assumed that we should emerge the victors at the end of the War, as indeed we did, and it was assumed that our Allies, Poles and others, Dutch, Belgians, Greeks and Norwegians, would be able to return home and draw their pensions in their own countries, pensions they had earned in peace and war. That was assumed, and a very reasonable assumption it was.
But came the Yalta Conference, and at Yalta an agreement was entered into by ourselves and our American allies with the Russians, admittedly in circumstances obtaining at the time which we could not disregard. I do not blame Mr. Churchill at all for what he did at Yalta; he had to do it. But the fact remains that at that point Poland was divided, split up, and a Government imposed upon it on that day; and from that day onwards 99 per cent. of the Poles serving under British command were not able to go home and get pensions. Even if they had gone home, and a few did, though inadvisedly in my opinion, they certainly would have got no pensions and would have done well if duress did not descend upon them. Therefore—and this is what I want to make clear—as a result of Yalta they had to come to us; they could go to nobody else to get the pension, not only for their war service under our command but their pre-war service in their own country, which was of value to us eventually because we profited by it.
Again, the saving to the British purse was fairly considerable. We acquired at the outset of the war a substantial body of trained men in all three Services. We did not have to pay to train them. They were perhaps defective in modern techniques, but they were trained men with years of service behind them, particularly in the case of the Army. The 2nd Polish Corps came from Russia, as refugees virtually, under their great leader, General Anders. The British Army picked them up, fed them, clothed them, formed them into units and formations and despatohed them to Palestine for training, where I, among others, was responsible to the Commander in Chief, Middle East, for that training. An Army corps is a very large number of soldiers, and that corps had only three
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or four months' training before they were fit and ready to join General Alexander's order of battle in Italy. A British corps would have taken two years from scratch to get to that point. Therefore a tremendous saving in money, though it is difficult to say exactly what it was, was effected to the British purse, and it is just a small part of that which these few old survivors are now asking for—a sum immeasurably less.
When the First Lord answered me in March he said that my contention that in other countries pensions were being paid to Polish ex-Servicemen was incorrect. I had, of course, taken the trouble to look it up before, but I have taken a great deal more trouble since to look it up again, and I can assure the noble Lord that, unless our sources of information are wrong in the most extraordinary way, in Canada the War Veterans have announced in a pamphlet that pensions are being paid already. It states quite clearly:
"Veterans of Canadian, Commonwealth and Allied Forces who served in World War and who have resided in Canada at least ten years will be treated the same as Canadian ex-Servicemen where pensions are concerned."
In France, the circumstances are a little different; and in any case we must remember that the French Army at the end of the war had no Polish formations under their command; neither were they signatories to the Yalta Agreement. Nevertheless, last year the French Government reached a decision by which it recognised the pre-war years of professional service in Poland, the service with all Allied Forces during the war (as we did) and the years of employment in France after the war, as forming one whole period of service entitling the Poles to the right of pension on the ground of securité sociale. As from that date such pensions have been paid in France to Poles who are over 65 years of age. That is the position in France. The point is that the pre-war service in Poland is recognised as forming part of the whole.
Finally, about a year ago in the United States a member of Congress proposed that the Congress of the United States of America should introduce an amendment to Section 109 of Title 38 of the United States Code, according to

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which any person who served on active service in the armed forces of any Government allied to the U.S.A. in World War I or II, and who has been a resident in the United States of America for at least ten years, should benefit to the same extent as if such service had been performed in the armed services of the United States. Mr. Robert Kennedy was approached in this matter, recognised its importance and supported the proposed amendment by a letter to Mr. Gleeson, administrator of foreign matters, and that amendment was filed under number HR3546. Whether any Polish ex-servicemen in the United States have in fact drawn a pension, I am not sure; I think it is possible that they have not. But that the clear intention is that they should, seems unmistakable.
What worries me a little on all this is this: if our Government put up a stand in regard to this matter and say "No", how is it that the present Prime Minister, writing to The Times precisely eleven years ago to-day, in 1951, wrote as follows:
"We in Britain have a deep and lasting debt to the Poles. The stories of the Battle of Britain, of Tobruk, of Monte Cassino and the discovery of the V1 would have been different without them. Can we truthfully say that we have discharged that debt while Poland is under the domination of a tyrannical foreign Power, and while in this country officers with 30 or 40 years' distinguished service"—
and other ranks, I should like to add—
"go from place to place seeking employment as dish-washers or liftmen? We are asking at the moment for no special treatment for the overwhelming number of Poles now in this country"—
this was written by the present Prime Minister.
"What we do suggest is that Her Majesty's Government should consider whether a scheme could be adopted whereby the comparatively small number of ex-regulars "—
that is, Polish ex-regulars—
"should receive a military pension.…".
There is the word "pension". The Prime Minister puts it much better than I ever could. He has put my case for me. That was in 1951. He made similar remarks on the same lines in 1952 and 1954; and Sir Winston Churchill, as is, I think, quite well known, spoke in a most firm and strong manner in favour
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of the Poles at the end of the war. The present situation therefore seems extraordinary.
What new factors have emerged to make the Prime Minister change his mind? When he advocated pensions to these people eleven years ago the sum of money involved was far higher than it is now, because during the past eleven years a great many of these people have died—many in destitution, I might say. So perhaps some new factor has emerged to make Mr. Macmillan change his mind. It is extremely difficult to know what it can be. Perhaps the First Lord will inform us in due course. The numbers themselves are very small indeed and are dwindling fast. In 1955, the latest reliable year for figures, seven years ago, there were 1,000 over 65. I am speaking now of all ranks. This has nothing to do with officers. This is non-commissioned officers and the like, and members of the Sea Service. There were 1,000 over 65, and about 3,300 between 60 and 65. That number must be much smaller now. Compare those figures with 8,000 killed and 30,000 wounded in the war. It is hard not to be a little emotional on the subject. I have heard it said, and I believe, that besides Polish ex-Service-men there are a lot of other Poles who would not be eligible, either because they never served in the Services or because they did not serve long enough. Certainly there are a great many such people.
Perhaps it is thought that unfounded claims would be put forward. I think that most unlikely. Those of us who know the Poles know that they are people who do not cheat at all. They are not that kind of people. In any case, even if a few "black sheep" tried it on, the Polish Resettlement Board have their records. They have now been passed, as I understand it, to a section at the War Office called the Polish Aftermath Section. These records are full and accurate. I have no reason to think that they are not. So perhaps if the gentlemen at the Treasury feel that this is going to be made use of by the wrong people, they are being unduly pessimistic.
Before I sit down, I should like to assure the noble Lord who is to reply that I am quite aware of the situation regarding disability pensions, grants, terminal grants—I know all about them. I have gone into them. I know that

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considerable sums of money were paid out at the end of the war, and since, to individuals under these headings: some disability, some not. But this is not what the Poles are asking for—and you must look at it through their eyes. To be a professional in their Services is a great honour. When a man joins it is for life; it is his life, it is his profession, and he feels strongly about it, and that when he has finished his time he will be treated still as a soldier or sailor and get his pension, and he will not be "dished out" with charity. He does not want charity. I believe myself that it is not the amount of the pension that these Poles are in the least interested about; I think that it is the fact that they feel they are entitled by their service to a pension, however small. I believe that is really what they want and, upon my soul! I cannot see what conceivable ground there could be for refusing it.
I have been asked: what is the sum involved? I do not know. If the number is 3,000 or 4,000 people, and the average pension, ranking from senior officer at the one end down to private soldier at the other, came out at, say, £250 or £300 a year, or something of that sort, for 3,000 or 4,000 people, it is about £1 million, and it would dwindle fast because these men are old. I gave the last figures seven years ago, of men over 65; they would now be over 70, and not living in very agreeable circumstances, most of them. So I would say that ten years would probably complete the whole thing. What has happened to us that we can say it cannot be done? Cannot we afford it? Of course we can afford it, but we will not do it. Will it create a precedent? Not at all! The Belgians went home, the Greeks went home, the Dutch and Norwegians went home, and drew their pensions but the Poles did not go home because they had no home to go to.
Finally, before I resume my seat I should like to ask your Lordships to put yourselves in the position of a Polish private soldier, let us say—let us forget the General—who has fought his way up from the Battle of Cassino through Italy against the German Army. When he hears the terms of the Yalta Declaration, which comes down to headquarters, to corps headquarters, and brigade, he hears that his home town has gone, that
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it is included in Russia, that he cannot go home. He is told that the Government in Poland will be the Lublin Committee, fifteen men of whom only one was a Pole, and he a Communist. What was he fighting for? What is the future for him? Did they come out of the line and leave a hole in Alexander's order of battle? They did not. They stayed and fought it out. If we cannot do anything for these poor old men now, all I can say is it is a very black day for this country. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
6.41 p.m.
THE EARL OF GOSFORD: My Lords, the reason I have taken the liberty of intervening in this debate to support the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, is the fact that I had the privilege—and it certainly was a privilege—to have two squadrons of Poles under my command during the war. I do not at this hour intend to rehearse again the facts which the noble Lord has placed before your Lordships in his usual logical and lucid manner. From what he said it seemed to me that the facts are plain and speak for themselves. The Poles made a great contribution, and it seems to me that we are being at the least niggardly. The Treasury are hiding behind the letter of the law. The Treaty, as the noble Lord stated, said that the Poles would be treated the same in every respect as our own men; but the fact that the word "pension" was not mentioned is what the Treasury, in their usual manner, grab at as an excuse for this pettifogging lack of thanks to gallant men who have lost their all, and live in our country having come to our help in our time of need. If Canada, if France and if the U.S.A. can do it, surely we can. I would ask the noble Lord who is to reply, if his answer is unfavourable, which I suspect it will be, to go back to his colleagues and tell them exactly what has been said in this House to-night. I beg leave to support the noble Lord opposite.
6.45 p.m.
VISCOUNT ASTOR: My Lords, seldom in one's life does one have to say that one is ashamed of the behaviour of one's own country, but I am afraid this

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is one of the few cases in all my political life when I can only look on our behaviour towards some of the most gallant allies that a nation ever had with shame at the way we have treated them. In 1940 we stood alone. General Sikorsky went to Mr. Churchill and said, "Are you going to fight?". The reply was, "Yes". The General then said, "Then the Poles will fight beside you as equals". The Prime Minister welcomed them to our side as equals, and when the events of the war took an unexpected turn and it was apparent that these gallant men, to whom we all owe so much, could not go back to their own country, I remember in this very Chamber the Prime Minister saying that we would offer them British nationality and treat them as wall as we treat our own people. Those were the facts, and no amount of legalistic, administrative wriggling and jargon can get out of that great debt of honour which we owe to these men.
Some people say, "Well, after all, we must treat them the same as we treat the British, and they served under British command for only five years. The British Territorials, who would have been in the British Army for only that time, would not be treated like a British Regular." But the Briton was able to go back to his own country, back to his business, his home, his own job, back to a country where he had a civilian occupation and in which he spoke the language. These men were going to a country whose language they did not speak, with no skill to offer except the skill of their miltiary service and their swords. I cannot conceive that any officer or N.C.O. or other rank in any branch of the British Service would feel an injustice or envy if we treated these few surviving Poles in the same way as if their entire service had been spent under British command; because, as the noble Lord so rightly said, during that critical moment in the war we got the benefit of all those prewar years of training and skill which those men obtained in their own country. Nor can it be said that it would create a precedent as regards other Allies, because they all had their own countries to go back to and were treated generously by their own Governments. Those are the two main excuses
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that will be given, but neither of them are valid in honour.
One cannot say too much about the sadness of these cases, when a general who commanded a corps has literally been working at night as a dishwasher in an hotel, when others of these men work as porters and liftmen—men Who bore high rank and who received high British decorations. The result is that these men are living in this ghastly sadness, and are now getting too old to work. They are getting to an age where they cannot continue any form of employment, and now they are just living as best they can on National Assistance and what very small funds they possess and on what private charity can be found to supplement them. If it is said, "Why cannot they go to the National Assistance Board and ask for a little extra?", my Lords, there is such a thing as pride. Pride is one of the few things those elderly and gallant officers have got left, and they cling to it.
Why could not these obligations, which the Prime Minister recognised so clearly eleven years ago, be fulfilled? I can only conceive that he is up against the very formidable machinery of the Ministry of Pensions and the Civil Service. I only pray that those civil servants who produce these logical, well-argued cases as to why we should treat these men so shabbily will not themselves, after a lifetime of serving the British Government, find themselves penniless exiles in a foreign nation dependent on such National Assistance as is available. There is a saying that we should do unto others as we would they should do unto us. I appeal to the hearts of those civil servants and Ministers, that they should consider our gallant allies and think how they would like to be treated if they were in that same position themselves, which we all hope they will never be.
What other countries have done may or may not be better than what we have done, but, my Lords, to me that is irrelevant. The Poles fought under British command at sea, in the air and on land, in their thousands. It is for us to give an example of the generous way to treat these gallant men. I cannot but pity my noble friend the First Lord if he has, as a junior Minister—or,

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at least, not as a Cabinet Minister—to put the Treasury case; he who had a gallant war record and who knew not only by hearsay tout probably very closely the gallant way in which those Poles fought. He cannot, of course, in answering this debate, change the policy of Her Majesty's Government. All I ask him is not to close the door, but to report to his colleagues in the Cabinet the evident feeling—if I judge it aright—of the whole of this House, and ask them to think again and remember the honour of this country.
6.53 p.m.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, I, too feel very strongly on this matter, and I am glad to have listened to the moving appeal which the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, has just made to us. He was closely associated with General Sikorsky and he has good knowledge of the circumstances. I should like to associate myself with all he has said, and particularly those moving words which referred to the sad circumstances in which many of those who fought with the Polish Forces find themselves in this country. It is indeed sad that officers who held high positions in the Polish Forces, having received high honours from His Majesty King George VI, should be in the position of having to live in the greatest austerity. But that is only a small part of the problem, and I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Windlesham for raising this matter, because, rest asured, the appeal which is being made so well to-day is widely supported, even if it may be echoed by only a few in this House to-day. My noble friend Lord Windlesham speaks with intimate knowledge of the Service side of this subject, and I support all that he has said.
I think we can all feel sympathy with the noble Lord the First Lord of the Admiralty. We know that, with his brilliant war record, his sympathy is great, as others have said; but he has the hard task of persuading the stony hearts of the Treasury and, goodness knows! that is going to take some doing. But, as my noble friend Lord Gosford said, I hope he will return to his colleagues after this debate, whatever may be the degree of adverse answer which we shall probably receive, and convince them that it is not compassion for which
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we are asking: it is justice, equity, and the same sort of treatment of our gallant Allies as we should wish to have meted out to our own men. My noble friend Lord Windlesham has given convincing reasons. The other nations have all recognised what their fellow countrymen did in this country, but the Poles had no country to which to return.
There is no need to reinforce what my noble friend Lord Windlesham has said, or the knowledgeable words of the noble Viscount, Lord Astor. But may I ask for the indulgence of the House for a few minutes while I look at the cause of this problem. Before World War I, I knew intimately what is now Poland, and I went there regularly. Let us remember that it was Poland which had to fight for her liberty after the Great War had finished. Their war went on into 1919, when they had to fight against the Soviets.
I visited Poland regularly several times a year throughout the life of the Republic. I remember, as others in this House, will remember, that at Easter, 1939, the Pact with Poland was signed. It was understood that we were going to support Poland against any possible opponents. What did we do? We signed this Pact, and it was like offering a trader a shop, saying you were going to support him by trading there, but giving him no money with which to trade. There was no support given. Even the £4 million of gold (I think it was) promised after that agreement, was withheld, through some difficulties. I remember being in Poland in August or September, 1939, and going to the great Arsenal, Stalova Vola, and seeing the Bofors guns being made under licence. We had agreed to support the Poles, but those guns were in cases for despatch to this country. I say that just from the civilian side.
I will not weary the House for long, but I want to add my earnest appeal to the noble Lord who is dealing with this Motion. My noble friend Lord Windlesham has persisted for quite a long time in his determination to put this matter forward. He will have the support and gratitude of innumerable Englishmen who knew the circumstances, as well as a possibility of mitigating the most unfortunate state of some of those whom his Motion aims to benefit.

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Clearly, many of us feel that on our honour lies a stain of omission, and we as Englishmen should recognise the debt we owe to Poland.
7.0. p.m.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: My Lords, may I support all the noble Lords who have spoken in this debate? I am filled with shame at the record of our country in this matter, as the Prime Minister was a few years ago, as the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, said. What has happened to make him change his opinion? What has happened to make members of the Government change their opinion? There is no reason at all of which I am aware. I do ask the noble Lord who is to reply if he will let his colleagues, and especially the Prime Minister, know the feelings of all the Members of this House in the matter, and I ask only that the matter be considered again.
7.1 .p.m.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I do not think that anybody can fail to have been impressed by the speech which the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, has made—or, indeed, perhaps particularly, by the speech made by my noble friend Lord Astor; because I know how he personally has occupied himself in this matter, and has got up a fund for this purpose. I suppose, too, that everybody in this House can remember the circumstances in which we went to war: the gallantry of the Poles and the Polish people; the terrible fate which overtook them; and the events which made it impossible for so many of them, after five or six years of exile from their country, fighting all over the world, and having won a reputation unsurpassed by any other troops, to return home. Those who remained in this country after the war and made their homes among us have a claim on us—a claim which Her Majesty's Government fully recognise. Sir Winston Churchill put it in this way in 1945—and these are his words—when he said:
"We should think it an honour to have such faithful and valiant associates dwelling among us as if they were men of our own blood."
My Lords, indeed we do regard it as an honour, and at the outset of what I have to say I want to make it quite clear on behalf of Her Majesty's Government
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that we recognise our obligations and join with the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, in paying tribute to these men and to their courage.
I should like, if I may—and I apologise for it—to take up a little of your Lordships' time in recalling what successive British Government have done for Poles who have stayed in this country, because I think it fair, when taking into account the terms of the noble Lord's Motion, also to take into account what in fact we have done. And if I mention the sums of money which have been spent, it is not, of course, because they have been given in any grudging spirit, but because they are some indication of the importance which has been attached by successive Governments to the subject. Whatever we have been able to do has, of course, been fully, justly and honourably deserved.
The Motion which the noble Lord has before the House refers only to ex-regular members of the Polish forces in this country. I do not know whether he meant to exclude those who were not regulars, but since we are considering a simple question (if it is simple) of suffering and distress, I do not see how one can differentiate between ex-regulars and ex-servicemen generally, since the latter just as much as the former were uprooted by the war and deprived of their livelihood and of their normal prospects of a career—and, of course, their contributions to the allied cause during the war were indistinguishable. At all events, what I propose to say next applies to them all without distinction as to whether they were regulars or non-regulars before 1939.
Polish ex-servicemen enjoy all the benefits which the State provides on precisely the same terms as British subjects. There is no discrimination against them of any kind because they are, or were, of Polish nationality. Thus, provided they contribute to the National Insurance Scheme and fulfil the other usual conditions, they are entitled to benefit under it in exactly the same way as any other British citizen. In the same way, any Pole in this country over the age of 16 who is suffering need or hardship by the standards laid down in the National Assistance Act is entitled to assistance as though he were a British citizen.
Now I am afraid it is true, my Lords, as I know from a debate that we had

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in your Lordships' House on the pensions of Forces' widows, that a great many people seem to regard National Assistance as a form of charity. I very much wish—and I am sure your Lordships do—that this were not the case. It certainly should not he so. National Assistance is part of the fabric of the modern system of social service which we have in this country, and is paid for from taxation. There must be some British citizens in similar circumstances to those to whom my noble friend has referred, and I hope that if they are in need of National Assistance they take it. I hope that no Pole who is in need will feel that there is any shame in taking what is his right.
VISCOUNT ASTOR: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord this, as he has made that point: what, for instance, is the pension which a retired British Lieutenant-General receives, and what is the pension which we give a retired Polish Lieutenant-General—someone of equal rank? Could he give us the figures?
LORD CARRINGTON: Perhaps my noble friend will let me go on with what I was going to say, because I was going to come to that point. That is the first point which I want to make: that the Government have, so far as the normal social benefits are concerned, carried out Sir Winston Churchill's wartime pledge to the letter. Polish ex-Service-men are treated exactly as if they were of our own blood.
But, my Lords, we have done more than that. We recognised after the war that something more had to be done to help these men to Settle down in their new home. Your Lordships will remember the Polish Resettlement Corps, which was formed in 1946 as a unit of the British Army, and which provided a home and support for many thousands of Poles until they could be resettled either in Britain or elsewhere. The cost of the Polish Resettlement Corps was something like £28 million. A great deal of effort and expanse was also devoted to obtaining suitable jobs for the Poles. The Ministry of Labour in fact found employment for about 82,000 men of the Resettlement Corps. Nor were others neglected. Seventeen thousand dependants of members of the Resettle-
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ment Corps, and Poles who decided not to join the Corps, also were found jobs. Special training arrangements were provided, and special agreements were negotiated on their behalf with both sides of industry.
Assistance was provided for Poles who wished to emigrate. About 14,000 took advantage of this, of whom nearly 13,000 received direct financial aid at a cost of nearly £1 million. Since the Polish Resettlement Act was passed in 1947, over £10½ million has been spent on special schemes of education for Poles in this country. That Act provided, too, for Polish hostels, largely for the benefit of ex-Servicemen Who were unable to look after themselves in a home of their own, and for families waiting for a home. In 1948 about 40 of these hostels were providing shelter for 16,500 Polish men, women and children. I am glad to say that the need for these hostels has now nearly disappeared, thanks to the success of our various resettlement measures. There are only five of them left, where 400 or so elderly and disabled persons ate fed and cared for and another 300 families are housed. Since 1947 they have cost the taxpayer £8½ million. Over £5 million has also been spent on hospital treatment outside the hostel scheme for Polish ex-Service-men and their dependants.
My Lords, this is what has been done. As former Servicemen, we have treated them as generously as we have been able to treat our own soldiers, sailors and airmen. They received war gratuities on exactly the same basis. All those who were disabled as the result of service in the British Forces, and the widows and dependants of those who died as a result of that service, received disability pensions and allowances under broadly the same conditions as British Servicemen did. About 4,500 disablement pensions and 460 widows' and dependants' pensions are now being paid at a cost of £¾ million a year. The total expenditure under this heading has been nearly £8½ million.
My Lords, this is a substantial catalogue of aid, and the cost of it has added up to the equally substantial total, up to now, of over £60 million. As I have said, we do not, of course, begrudge this expenditure, for there can

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have been few better causes; and, of course, the service which these men rendered to this country in fighting our enemies as well as their own is not measurable in pounds, shillings and pence. But it is worth remembering, when the suggestion is made, as I think it has been made this afternoon, that the British Government have behaved with a lack of generosity or consideration for the difficulties of these our war-time Allies who have since sought refuge in this country.
Now, my Lords, I should like to say a few words about the specific proposal for further aid which the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, has made. The pensions which we pay to our own soldiers, sailors and airmen, are not designed to alleviate hardship. I made it clear in the debate on Service pensions a year ago that they are occupational pensions; they are part of the contract entered into when these men joined the Forces. They are given for service rendered to the Crown, and they vary in amount according to the length of service given. To qualify at all for such a pension, our own officers and men must have been Regulars, and they must have given a minimum period of service which was certainly a great deal longer than the duration of the war.
It has been suggested that we ought to alter our pensions code in such a way as to take account of the pre-war service of Polish ex-Servicemen with the Polish Government; in other words, that we should assume the obligations of the Polish Government towards these men. But, my Lords, this suggestion raises a very real difficulty. For example, we do not know what these obligations were, or, for that matter, what obligations of the same kind the Polish Government may have had towards others in their service, such as civil servants, lawyers, teachers, and so on, who, although they were not Regular soldiers, nevertheless fought as Servicemen under British command during the war. Why should we single out only those who served the Polish Government as Regular soldiers, sailors and airmen?
THE EARL OF GOSFORD: My Lords, might I interrupt my noble friend, if he will forgive me? Perhaps he might
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ask the people advising him to get in touch with the Canadian Government and the French Government, who seem to have solved this problem.
LORD CARRINGTON: If the noble Earl will allow me to get on with my speech, I am coming to that point a little later on. By their action in coming to Britain to fight, these others also forfeited whatever benefits they might otherwise have looked forward to from their own Government, and it seems to me that we could not, and should not, draw the line where the noble Lord has suggested—to say nothing of ex-Service men of other nationalities who may to-day find themselves in a similar plight. My Lords, I really do not think it would be reasonable to expect the British taxpayer to accept as a general proposition that he should foot the bill for pensions given for services rendered, mainly before the war, to a foreign Government. In any case, as I said earlier, and as my noble friend said, this is a question of relieving hardship, and, in this case, it is quite impossible to distinguish between men who were Regulars and those who were not.
VISCOUNT ASTOR: My Lords, may I put this point? When a Pole Reserve officer who was a doctor, or an engineer, or a lawyer, came to England, after a certain time he was able to offer something. He had something to sell; he could be a doctor, or an engineer, and make his career. In peace time, the Regular soldier who had no training except as a fighting soldier, at a certain age, has nothing he could offer. It is a very real distinction.
LORD CARRINGTON: I think that follows in some cases, but I do not think it follows in all. For instance, with a Polish civil servant, I think you would find it difficult to say that he had something to offer. Therefore I would ask your Lordships to consider whether it is really justified to treat these men, who are already able to make full use of all the facilities provided by the State for the relief of hardship on the same footing as every other citizen of this country, more generously than we have been able to treat our own soldiers, sailors and airmen. Successive Administrations have felt that they could not justify this, and I may say that these appeals have been considered, and rejected, at the highest

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level by successive Prime Ministers. I am afraid I must confirm once again, as I did in my reply to the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, in this House on March 21, that this is also the view of the present Government.
Nor is the British Government alone in taking this view. In the United States, in Canada, and in France, Polish ex-Servicemen enjoy the normal disability pensions and social service benefits available to Servicemen and citizens of those countries. In addition, the United States and Canada pay certain benefits to veterans—that is, men, who may be Poles, who comply with certain conditions—who served in their Armed Forces or in the forces of their Allies. In the United States, Poles who are not naturalised benefit only if they served in the United States Forces. In Canada, the benefit takes the form of an allowance, subject to a means test, payable at 60, or earlier if the veteran is handicapped. In the United States, service with the armed forces can be counted towards retirement pensions payable under the social service system, and, in addition, allowances for those handicapped are also payable. We take the view that the men who served in the Armed Forces, whether our own countrymen or Poles, are fully covered by the National Health Service, the National Assistance, National Insurance, and Family Pensions Schemes, and, if disabled, by war pension schemes. These are comparable to the benefits which are granted by the United States and Canadian Governments.
My Lords, I hope you will not think in what I have said that Her Majesty's Government are in any way unsympathetic to the members of the Polish Forces who settled in this country after the war. I have tried to show what we have done, and to indicate what store has been set by the pledge given by Sir Winston Churchill at the end of the war. I will, of course, report to my colleagues the feelings of your Lordships, and ask them to read the speeches which your Lordships have made; but I hope that you will think that the reasons I have given for being unable to accept the noble Lord's Motion are sound ones, and that the noble Lord himself will feel that the ordinary welfare arrangements available in this country to Poles and Britons alike are adequate in this as in other cases.
7.18 p.m.
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, at this time of the evening it is not right to keep you very much longer, and I shall not do so. But before I sit down again, I should like to say that my reaction to the noble Lord's reply is one not so much of disappointment as of disgust. It is a strong word, but I think that the equivocation which we have just heard is not quite up to the standard of what one expects from the Government of this country.
The noble Lord said one or two things—and I have made one or two notes here—which seemed to show that he really did not understand the point that I was trying to make—maybe it was my fault. He said that Polish ex-Servicemen are treated in exactly the same way as our own men. But, my Lords, they are not. If they were, why are they not getting pensions? I cannot put it much clearer than that. The noble Lord, of course, was referring to war-time Servicemen, and in fact there was a little applause from the Labour Bench when he said that he saw no reason why the non-Regulars should not be treated as well as the Regulars. But the point is that they would not have served long enough. Surely that is quite clear. If any Polish Serviceman has not enough service to qualify for a pension, then he does not get it. But if he has enough service, then he should get it. That is the point we are trying to make; and no amount of talk about disability pensions and grants will make the slightest difference to those of us who feel that way.
The noble Lord made great play of the fact that the pension was not meant to alleviate hardship. It may or may not. I myself, get a pension, but whether I am enduring hardship or not is a matter of opinion. The fact remains that pensions are cash, and the recipients use them for whatever purpose they think best. They have earned them in pursuit of their chosen professions. Those men who have given such excellent service in the Territorial Army do not expect pensions and do not get them, but the Regulars expect pensions and they should get them. It is as clear as that.
The noble Lord made play with the fact that in Canada and the United

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States it was the Poles who had served in the Armed Forces of those countries who drew pensions—if he did not say that, I am sorry.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I did not mean to make any play with that. The noble Lord has a very suspicious mind. I pointed out that in Canada and the United States, pre-war service with the Polish Army was not taken into account.
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, in that case I have read the regulations wrong and will read them again. If your Lordships will read my speech in the Official Report, you will see that what I quoted as having been said in the American Congress covers the Poles who served with the Allied Forces in the Second World War and are now drawing pensions.
Finally, the noble Lord mentioned a matter of £8½ million. I am not clear over what period of time that sum had been disbursed. Perhaps he can tell us.
LORD CARRINGTON: In what context?
LORD WINDLESHAM: If the noble Lord has no recollection of the speech he has just made——
LORD CARRINGTON: I gave two figures of £8 million. One was the amount of pensions which had been paid since the war.
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, that means £8½ million over seventeen years—half a million a year: not a princely sum in regard to the number of people concerned. In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the answer, I cannot find myself able to withdraw my Motion.
On Question, Motion negatived.

TRANSPORT BILL
7.23 p.m.
Further considered on Report (according to Order).
Debate resumed on the Amendment moved yesterday by the Lord Chancellor, as already amended: after Clause 84 to insert as a new clause:
Temporary provision as to development of land in London
" .—(1) It shall be the duty of the Commission and of the Boards to consult the London County Council as to the use of their land in the administrative county of London so far as that land is not required for the purposes of their business, and to submit for the approval of the Minister of Housing and Local Government proposals with regard to the use of that land in a manner which is consistent with proper planning and which, in particular, is consistent with the need for keeping a proper balance in the use of their land as between new office accommodation and other accommodation for trade business and industry on the one hand, and new living accommodation (with the amenities required by a resident community) on the other hand; and in making those proposals account may be taken of living accommodation provided or to be provided on any land belonging to the Commission or the Boards which lies outside, but in the immediate vicinity of, the administrative county of London.
(2) The following provisions of this section shall have effect as regards any application made before the date certified by the Minister of Housing and Local Government as that on which he has approved proposals under the foregoing subsection, being an application for permission under Part III of the Town and Country Planning Act, 1947, for development of land in the administrative county of London which belongs to the Commission or a Board at the time when the application is made; and the said date shall be certified by the said Minister by order contained in a statutory instrument.
(3) If on any such application for permission for development consisting of the construction, reconstruction or alteration of a building—

(a) which is designed or intended for use as office premises, or

(b) part of which is designed or intended for use as office premises and is suited for separate occupation,

permission is refused by the Minister of Housing and Local Government, either on appeal or on the reference of the application to him for determination, or is so granted subject to conditions, no compensation shall be payable in respect of the refusal or imposition of conditions under section twenty of the said Act of 1947 (which relates to development not involving an increase of more than 10 per cent. in cubic content) or paragraph 1 of the Fifth Schedule to that Act (which relates to statutory undertakers' operational land).
(4) Subsection (3) of this section shall not apply to an application for permission for development consisting of the reconstruction of a building destroyed or damaged by fire or accident.
(5) In this section references to the Minister refusing permission or granting permission subject to conditions include references to the Minister and the appropriate Minister refusing permission, or granting permission subject to conditions, under paragraph 1 of the Fifth Schedule to the said Act of 1947."
LORD MOLSON LORD MOLSON moved, as a further Amendment to the Amendment, at the end of the proposed new subsection (3) to insert:
"nor shall any such compensation be payable in respect of any application for permission for development which is inconsistent with the scheme as certified by the said Minister under subsection (2) of this section except as provided in subsection (6) of this section; "
The noble lord said: My Lords, your Lordships may remember that we adjourned last night in order that there should be an opportunity for this Amendment to be more fully considered and for my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor to reply to it. I had it in mind to ask my noble and learned friend some questions about the meaning of this clause on the first day, when he first introduced it. I did not do so, because I assumed that it was entirely my own stupidity which had caused the matter not to be entirely clear. However, I have had the opportunity of talking with a number of noble Lords, and with people outside the House who have special knowledge of the matter, and I am afraid that exactly how this clause is going to work is still extremely obscure. My noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor has repeatedly said that the purpose of this clause is to meet the points of the noble Lord, Lord Silkin. At col. 11 of the Official Report [Vol. 242 (No. 100)], he said it was to meet
"!particularly his second point, that compensation involved in the refusal of planning permission might deter the planning authority from refusing permission for office development on surplus land."
On the other hand, my noble and learned friend said (col. 32):
" The new clause has no permanent effect on the compensation rights of anyone."
If that be so, the clause cannot meet Lord Silkin's point, which is also the point of the Amendment of my noble friend Lord Conesford, which was
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carried against the Government by a majority of 20 on May 29.
On this Amendment Which I am now mowing, let me put the whole problem as simply as I can. Let us suppose that the consultations provided for in subsection (1) take place and reach a satisfactory conclusion. Let us suppose that, of the 1,000 acres in the administrative County of London, 800 are made available for housing and 200 for commercial development. Let us also suppose that the Railways Board intend loyally to see that these approved proposals are, in fact, carried out. My noble and learned friend has urged several times that we should have no unworthy suspicions, and I wholly accept that. As the clause is drafted, the Railways Board will be able to claim in respect of the 800 acres to be used for housing the existing use value of that land plus 10 per cent., and the night to receive this payment could anise from the moment the Minister of Housing certifies by order that the scheme provides for a proper balance in the use of the land.
As I understand this clause and the general law, there is no ban on the Railways Board's seeking planning permission for the use of the whole of the 1,000 acres for commercial development. In this case, the Railways Board, or anyone who had acquired the land from them, could seek permission to develop, knowing that it must be refused under the approved proposals. The effect of the refusal would be to entitle the Railways Board or the purchaser to compensation amounting to the difference between the value of the land for working-class housing and for industrial purposes.
I have been at pains to inquire from the London County Council what kind of figures would be likely to apply. In the East End of London, where the greater amount of this surplus land is to be found, the difference between the price for housing and for commercial purposes might be the difference between £5,000 or £6,000 an acre and £30,000 an acre. It follows that in respect of the whole 1,000 acres the amount of compensation payable would amount to millions of pounds. If this interpretation of the clause is right, it means that the only effect of this clause as at present drafted is to require a comprehensive

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plan to be made for the use of the 1,000 acres and to postpone the collection of compensation until after the Minister of Housing has certified that the plan provides for a proper balance in the use of the land. The cost of carrying out the development would be in no way diminished and would almost certainly be far too heavy for the London County Council to bear. The approved plan would, therefore, be frustrated by the very difficulty which my noble and learned friend has said this clause was designed to remove.
Repeatedly in his speeches my noble and learned friend has said that, under the Plan, planning permission would not be given for land which under the approved proposals should be used for housing, to be used for commercial purposes. He has, however, omitted to mention that this refusal (which I entirely agree would come about) would at once give rise to a claim for compensation. There is nothing in the clause which would make it an act of bad faith for the Railways Board to claim that compensation: indeed, it might be considered their duty to do so. As a public Board, it might be considered their duty to produce the largest possible sum of money for the land which is in their administration. I repeat my noble friend's words at column 32 of the Official Report for July 9:
"The new clause has no permanent effect upon the compensation rights of anyone."
I derive some hope that what I am asking is what the Government intend the clause to give from another passage in my noble and learned friend's speech, in the same column. He there said:
"But what they "—
that is the Boards—
"will not be able to do, if complying with the proposals, is to claim from the London County Council or the Minister planning permission which would enable them to sell the land for more valuable use, including the existing use."
I am sorry, but I do not know exactly what my noble and learned friend means by that. There is nothing in the clause to prevent the Railways Board from applying for planning permission. It will, of course, be refused; but that very refusal will provide the basis for a claim to heavy compensation. It is apparent, I think, that this clause as at present
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drafted would enable the railways to get the best of both worlds.
Let me again give a practical example of something which is in contemplation at the present time. The Railways Board desire to build themselves additional offices over the central London stations. Normally the London County Council would refuse planning permission for this purpose; and they could refuse it without having to pay any compensation. But it is apparent, I think, that under the proposals to be approved by the Minister some additional office development of this kind should be permitted to the Railways Board. In present circumstances, this can give an immense increase in value to the land concerned. But the clause does nothing conversely to require the Railways Board to set off this increase in value against the compensation which they could claim on commercial land—for example, railway sidings—if it were to be used under the approved proposals for the less valuable purpose of housing. That is why I say that the clause as at present drafted gives the Railways Board the best of both worlds.
I know my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor and his extreme accuracy of expression so well that I feel quite sure that he has not, in fact, been saying inconsistent things, although I find it extremely difficult to reconcile them. All this matter of town and country planning and compensation is so immensely difficult that I make no apology for still being in a fog about it. The only way that I can think of to reconcile these quotations from my noble and learned friend is this. Does he consider that if the Railways Board have made proposals under subsection (1) which have been approved by the Minister they are thereby precluded from asking for planning permission to do something contrary to those proposals in order to found a claim for compensation? It is certainly not illegal for them to do so. And I should not have thought that it implied any bad faith at all; I should have thought it was provided for in the wording of this clause.
It is, I am told by the London County Council, a fact known to planning authorities, and approved by them, that an application for planning permission can quite legitimately be made by

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persons who have no intention of availing themselves of the permission; the application is made solely for the purpose of providing a basis for a claim to compensation. Are we to understand that my noble and learned friend and the Government assume that the Railways Board will not do this? Do they take the view that it would be wrong for the Rail-ways Board to do so? I think the Government could, by administrative action—by a direction given by the Minister of Transport—prevent the Railways Board from acting in that way. But any action that the Government took to prevent the Railways Board from claiming compensation would not at present bind any purchaser of land from the Railways Board—and I happen to know that negotiations which would involve the whole of this question have reached a fairly advanced stage. As there is nothing in the clause to give effect to this interpretation which I am putting forward as a possible way of reconciling these various things, I am moving this Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment to the Amendment moved—
At the end of subsection (3), insert the said words.—(Lord Molson.)
7.40 p.m.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, it might be convenient if I say a few words in support of the noble Lord's Amendment at this stage, although there are various aspects of the clause which he has not—and rightly so—covered in his speech and which we might have to come back to later on when we discuss the clause as a whole. I think the real issue—and I fully agree with the way in which the noble Lord has put it—is this: What will be the liability of the London County Council as regards compensation once this clause has been passed? There is a good deal of misunderstanding and ignorance as to what are the general obligations of a local authority as regards compensation, and I hope the noble Lord will not think me unfriendly if I say that I believe he has put the case as to the liability for compensation rather higher than is actually the fact.
As I understand it—and I do not claim to be an expert, if ever I was one, because it is a very long time ago since I had to deal with these matters in a practical way—there are three circum-
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stances in which a local authority may become involved in compensation in respect of the refusal of planning permission. The first is where the applicant has an existing user right. The existing user right would take the form of having a building before the appointed day under the 1947 Act which they wanted to redevelop, or which had been destroyed and they wanted to rebuild, and where they would normally, under the Third Schedule to the 1947 Act, be entitled to expect to rebuild to the same cubic content together with 10 per cent. They have not an automatic right to rebuild, but if they wish to do so and they are refused, then they are entitled to compensation. That is the first instance. Applying that to the Transport Commission, there will be many old buildings that the Transport Commission might want to redevelop for office purposes, which they could redevelop to very great advantage by providing considerably more superficial space for offices than exist together with 10 per cent. If they were refused, then the compensation might be quite considerable.
The second instance is where a person desires to build in conformity with the development scheme. Taking the case of the Commission, if they want to build offices in an area which is zoned under the scheme for commercial purposes and they are refused, that, in my view, would give rise to a claim for compensation. The third case is the case where, as a result of refusal, land has been rendered incapable of reasonably beneficial use. Then, under Section 19 of the 1947 Act, subject to various Amendments, the owner of the land is entitled to ask the local authority to purchase that land; he serves a notice under Section 19 and the local authority is required to purchase. Those are the three circumstances in which, in my view, a claim for compensation might arise.
I am somewhat puzzled by the wording of the new clause because, like the noble Lord, Lord Molson, I fail to understand what is the purpose of having disposals discussed with the London County Council, approved by the Minister and becoming operative, if, after that, the Transport Commission can either make an application which is in conflct with the proposals or make an application which complies with the proposals

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which they have agreed upon, and then claim compensation. For instance, these proposals contemplate that there will be a balance between residential development and commercial development. If they apply for permission to carry out residential development in accordance with the agreed proposals, but it is in an area which has been zoned under the London County Council scheme for commerce, are they to get compensation in respect of a refusal, or are they to get compensation because they are not allowed to build offices? If they were to apply for permission to erect offices in such an area where they have agreed there is to be housing, are they then to get compensation in respect of the refusal to permit offices, even though they have agreed under the proposals, which they themselves have submitted, that this is to be housing land?
I should be grateful if the noble and learned Viscount could, first of all, confirm whether I am right as to the various cases in which an applicant can claim compensation. Am I right as to the circumstances in which the Commission might be entitled to compensation; and as to how these general rights are affected by the new clause, and particularly by the fact that they have to submit proposals which have to be confirmed, and that, presumably, they have some binding force? I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Molson, that this is a most difficult clause to follow. I think I have it right, but I am not even now clear as to what is the position about compensation. If the right to compensation remains unaffected, then I think the whole of this new clause would be a façade, merely a pretence that something is being done when in fact it is not. There is nothing to stop the Commission from doing exactly what they want to do, what they would have done apart from this clause, and what they could have done after the clause, and get the same amount of compensation as they would have got under the original Clause 11 which this House rejected. I should be very grateful if the noble and learned Viscount could clarify the position.
7.49 p.m.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, I think it may be convenient to my noble
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and learned friend on the Woolsack if at this stage I add such words——
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT KILMUIR): My Lords, I think we ought to have a fair distribution. I should like to hear what my noble friend has to say, but I think that both my noble friend Lord Molson and the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, have dealt with the clause very widely. I hope that we shall not repeat in the discussion on the clause exactly what we have said now, but I should very much like to hear my noble friend Lord Conesford.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, I certainly shall not repeat at a later stage what I propose to say now. I am under the impression that the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, is right when he says that my noble friend Lord Molson has, in certain respects, overstated what would be, I think on any showing, the right to compensation. My fears, however, are so similar to those of the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, fears which would be alleviated by an Amendment on the lines of that now proposed, that I think that I should say why I think that some such Amendment is needed.
In one respect the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, overstated the effect of the clause when he talked about the proposals approved by the Minister becoming operative. Nothing so decisive ever happens under the clause. The only effect in law, I submit (I am sure my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack will correct me later if I am wrong), of the approval of these proposals by the Minister is to fix a date. It does nothing of any kind apart from that. I believe that the universal desire of all those who supported my Amendment which was carried on the Committee stage, and of all those who have considered this problem, is that the new clause of the Government shall effect a real improvement. I am sure that that is also the Government's own intention, but the Government's intention will not be achieved if the proposals approved by the Minister fix the date and do nothing else, and if, that date once past, those proposals can be torn up and nobody need look at them again for any purpose whatsoever.
The two defects to which I drew attention—the defects which the noble Lord,

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Lord Silkin, has mentioned in the speech he has just made—would be cured substantially either by the Amendments that I moved yesterday or by the Amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Molson this evening. I think that there is one drafting matter which makes Lord Molson's Amendment wrong at the moment in its actual wording, because he refers to the "scheme as certified"; and there is, of course, no such thing. I think we can all guess the amendment which could be made to that; but the general line of the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Molson, would cure the trouble seen both by the noble Lord himself—though I think he has exaggerated the compensation which would be involved—and by the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, and by myself.
The only other matter I want to mention is this. My noble and learned friend on the Woolsack has said very emphatically on several occasions in the course of these discussions that it would be wrong to subject a public body to permanent limitations such as those proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Molson, the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, and myself. May I say, quite briefly, why I believe my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack is wrong about that? The reason I think he is wrong is that the land with which we are concerned is public land for which the public have already paid. The body at present owning that land are by this very measure being relieved of an obligation to repay the public immense sums of money. They are being relieved of immense debts. Is there really anything wrong in saying: "By Act of Parliament you are excused all those debts, and you should not have the right to claim compensation if you cannot put the land to a use which would be contrary to the public interest"? I do not think there is any sense in saying that that is wrong.
Let me put this as a test. When we say that we want to give a public Board all possible freedom, we mean that, if we give it, we give the Railways Board, for example, all possible freedom to run the railways. But would anybody have said there was anything improper, or unjust or inequitable in this measure, if it had been said that, in return for relieving them of this immense public debt, they must hand over their surplus land to the Government for their use?
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Nobody could have said that that was utterly wrong in principle, and therefore I suggest that what we ought to do, to make this clause a reality and to secure justice, is to decide that under the Government scheme proposals should be put forward by these bodies and approved by the Minister of Housing and Local Government.
Once the proposals are approved two results should certainly follow. Any application to develop the land in any way inconsistent with those proposals should be capable of being refused without a liability to compensation, and irrespective of who is the owner at the time the application is put forward. The only exceptions I make, of course, are for some of the circumstances dealt with by my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack, when he pointed out that wholly new circumstances might arise—new land might come in and all that type of thing—with which Parliamentary draftsmen are most capable of dealing, but which we amateurs can hardly tackle. But the general principle should be this: that the proposals, once approved by the Minister, should be proposals which, if they are contravened, will not involve a liability on the planning authority, and that should be the case no matter by whom the application is made.
7.58 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, we have had three more interesting speeches and I shall try to deal with all the points that are raised. I am rather disappointed in that on the six occasions (I think it is) when I have tried to make the point to your Lordships I have obviously completely failed to convey comprehension to those who have been listening to me. But, as a countryman of Robert the Bruce—and it was the seventh time that the spider attempted and was successful—and with a very cheerful heart I also shall try for the seventh time.
The main aim of the Amendment is to deprive the Commission or the new Boards of compensation for refusal of planning permission for office development in land where such development would be at variance with the proposals submitted by the Commission or the Boards under subsection (1) of the new clause and approved by the Minister

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under subsection (2). I want to deal with the points in the three stages: first of all what actually happens before the approval by the Minister, which, as my noble friend Lord Conesford has just said, fixes a point of time.
Let us look at the real problem which we, as a House, were trying to solve. The real issue, and I think the basis of the feeling created among your Lordships, was that in London we have two problems which are interrelated. On the one hand, in the opinion of most people there has been too much office building, and on the other, the office building creates transport difficulties both in the streets and for the commuters coming up. That is the problem with which we are trying to deal. Here we have—I do not want to be tied to an actual figure, as I said to the noble Lord, Lord Molson, yesterday—something between 1,000 acres and 1,500 acres of new land coming in. We have to see that that is dealt with according to a sensible view of the two problems that I have mentioned; that is, that we do not want excessive addition to office building and we do not want an addition to our transport problems.
Let us take the stage that is going on now. What is going on now is negotiations between the Commission and the L.C.C. I think that none of your Lordships who has spoken to-day, with great respect to your knowledge and ability, has really paid sufficient attention to subsection (1) of the new Clause, because that says that
"It shall be a duty of the Commission … to consult the London County Council as to the use of their land in the administrative county of London so far as that land is not required for the purposes of their business, and"
secondly,
"to submit for the approval of the Minister of Housing and Local Government"—
will your Lordships look again because it seems to me that your Lordships have forgotten the next words time and time again—
"proposals with regard to the use of that land in a manner which is consistent with proper planning and which, in particular, is consistent with the need for keeping a proper balance in the use of their land as between new office accommodation and other accommodation for trade business and industry on the one hand, and new living accommodation."
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This is the first stage in the matter. Of course, one must impute beneficial motives to two public bodies as a matter of law; I do it also as a matter of fact. Both sides will be trying to solve that problem.
At that point, until the Minister has given his certification, then under subsection (3) if an application is made
"consisting of the construction, reconstruction or alteration of a building (a) which is designed or intended for use as office premises, or (b) part of which is designed or intended for use as office premises and is suited for separate occupation"
and permission is refused, then the compensation will not be payable. What we have really been arguing about, and we have gone round in circle after circle about exactly the same point, is whether it is likely that either by themselves or the purchasers the Boards are going to apply for planning permission for something entirely different from what they have agreed with the London County Council and put up to the Minister as a proper balance. I submit that I completely demolished the practicability, the possibility, of any suggestion of that kind in the way that it was put up to me yesterday.
But my noble friend Lord Molson puts it a new way to-day and I admit that I have a new point to meet. His suggestion, summarising it, is that the Commission or the Boards might still wish to put in an application for planning permission for office development which would be quite inconsistent with the certified proposals, purely for the purpose of securing compensation for its refusal. Perhaps my noble friend was inclined to put it on the sort of general duty of protecting their assets, and I suppose he had in mind the possibility of safeguarding existing use value for office purposes in a site which they had agreed under the proposals to devote to housing. In other words, and this is what it comes to really—they might intend to use the land for housing in accordance with their proposals but at the same time feel it right to obtain compensation for giving up existing use value of the site for office purposes.
I think there are at least two reasons why that is so remote a possibility that to legislate for it would really be outside the approach of legislation. You do not legislate for remote possibilities in

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order to attain a logical and dialectical perfection which we do not reach on this terrestrial planet of ours. I give two reasons. In the first place it could have reality only in those cases where the Commission are using existing buildings for office purposes and where, as part of the proposals under subsection (1), those buildings are to be turned over to residential use. I ask the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, to note that there must be the two things, because one of the points that was worrying him was using an existing office building for office purposes. If he will follow me, I think he will agree that it could only have any reality, first, where the Commission are using existing buildings for office purposes; secondly, where, as part of the proposals under subsection (1), those buildings are to be turned over to residential use, and where there would be substantial compensation payable under Section 20 of the 1947 Act for refusal of planning permission to rebuild the office buildings in modern form with an extension up to a 10 per cent. tolerance. You have only to state these points to see that that is almost as limited a possibility as one could imagine. May I say to the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, I will come back to his compensation points specifically at the end.
Secondly, while the new clause does not provide in terms for that remote possibility—and I do not think it should be taken into account and form part of the proposals put to the L.C.C. under subsection (1)—although it is not in the clause, clearly in the interests of both parties it would be inevitable that account should be taken of it in settling the overall proposals. If that remote possibility were likely to occur, it would be a matter which both sides would take into account, and therefore in practice any attempt would be contrary to the basic intention of the discussions.
Now I want to say one word about the questions of compensation which were worrying the noble Lord, Lord Silkin. The provisions of the new clause proposed by this Amendment would, in respect of office building in London, exclude the Commission and the four new statutory Boards from all compensation, under two heads. I am sure my noble and learned friend Lord Conesford sees that I am not making a bad point.
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At the moment I am discussing it up to the critical date. I think the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, would agree with this: that the first of the two heads is that if any person is refused permission to enlarge, improve or alter an existing building by operations which do not increase its cubic capacity by more than 10 per cent., compensation is payable under Section 20 and the Third Schedule to the 1947 Act.
The noble Lord will also remember Chat compensation can be reduced by any undertaking of the Minister on refusing permission to grant planning permission for any other development. We all know the 110 per cent. floor space point. As I told the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, on Monday, that is not a problem in relation to new office building; it applies only to existing offices. That is not really the problem which raised this difficulty in the House. We were not considering—I do not think my noble and learned friend Lord Conesford was really considering—that question, if it did arise, and I do not see how it can. That was not a problem. The problem which was worrying the House was that unused land would be devoted to office building. Compensation applies only to existing offices. I do not think that was the intention of the House, and I do not see any reason why that matter should cause us any trouble at all.
The second point is, where permission is refused or is granted only conditionally for the development of operational land, special compensation provisions apply again, as Lord Silkin remembered, under Section 35 and the Fifth Schedule, and there surely the compensation is equivalent to the loss suffered by the undertaker by reason of the refusal, including the estimated net loss of the receipts of the undertaking. That basis of specially favourable compensation is excluded by Clause 84 of the Bill, where the Commission or the new Boards wish to develop surplus land commercially for non-operational purposes. It would apply to any refusal of planning permission to build offices for railway or other operational purposes on operational land. But that is not one of the matters which we are really considering. What is done on operational land is nihil ad rem of the problem which has been troubling the House.

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The next stage in my argument is to deal with what is really the point of this Amendment and the point which my noble and learned friend Lord Conesford made, that it is not enough to come up to this date of approval by the Minister, that this ought to go on; and, allowing for differences in the Amendments, what both my noble and learned friend Lord Conesford and my noble friend Lord Molson say is that in the future, after this date, after the agreement has been made, the Commission should not have the right to deviate from the agreement which they have made. That is really what it comes to. I have given my views on that.
There are really three points. First, I think it would be too rigid in effect. There may be changes in circumstances over the passage of time Which would make it desirable and acceptable on planning grounds for development of land belonging to the Commission or the new Boards otherwise than in accordance with proposals already approved under Subsection (1). My noble and learned friend Lord Conesford, quite naturally, replies to that argument by saying," Very well; the Minister of Housing can give permission." But as I answered him when he put this point, that is not the problem which we are considering. We are considering when, in the future, for reasons entirely unconnected with the discussions between the L.C.C. and the Commission, the Minister, from his view, thinks that there ought to be certain conditions attached to a permission to build, conditions unconnected with this altogether, that the Boards are not to get compensation when these conditions are attached. I think that is wrong and that it is too rigid; and I think we disagree fundamentally on that point.
My second point, which I do not need to repeat at length, was that the effect of the Amendment might be to throw doubt on the position of additional land becoming surplus to operational requirements in the future; and my third point was that one should not freeze the matter. A future new development plan and the changing requirements and aims of the planning authority might make the original proposals considerably out of date. I really cannot see why one should put on the public Board this
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freezing into the future. Of course, my noble and learned friend Lord Conesford, as he always does, met that point; and his answer to the point is a most dangerous one. What he is saying is that under this Bill the railways, the Commission and the Boards that run the railways are getting financial advantages. There has been great argument, largely on Party lines, as to whether or not there should be relief on their capital charges. Certainly over the last seventeen years, I should have said—ever since the question came up—there has been great dispute on that point.
However, assuming that there is a basis for the argument that the railways are going to get some financial advantage, surely it would be a bad way of giving financial advantage if you were, with your next breath, so to speak, to hamstring the financial policy. If they had said "No, we are not going to consider the London problem. We are not going to consider the need for limiting office accommodation and putting up housing accommodation," then one could have said, "All right, if you are not prepared to play, we shall have to find some method of relieving you of what we think are wrongful gains." Here they are prepared to play; the two great bodies are prepared to work together. I cannot see that it would be unfair if they got financial advantages which everyone thought they should get quite irrespective of this point. They were not given to the Commission with the point in mind that they could use that fact in order to justify the position that is taken to-day.
I should like finally to say a word on the question of the quantum of compensation I think my noble friend Lord Molson realised that he gave a completely exaggerated and impossible estimate of what would happen, and I think the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, threw out a defensive line on that point at once. The situation which Lord Molson described will not apply to all the land owned by the British Transport Commission, but only to a small part. I do not know what amount of land is to be developed for office use or retained for existing office use, because that will depend on the outcome of the current discussions with the B.T.C. Those who have considered it tell me

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that they do not think it will be a large proportion: they think it will be a small proportion. There could be no question of compensation for existing value and 10 per cent. for 800 acres. There is no compensation for refusal of planning permission unless the refusal relates to an application to add a 10 per cent. increase in the limited case I mentioned. The amount of this compensation is dependent on the existing use of a building, and the total would not be anything like the figure that was mentioned.
My Lards, I have the greatest possible respect for the views of my noble and learned friend Lord Conesford, and those of my noble friend Lord Molson; and, as I have already stated, I respect anything the noble Lord, Lord Silkin says, in this field of town and country planning (I am speaking quite genuinely, and I am not saying this as a debating point); but I should like to explain where I feel the difference between us anises. We started out on this exercise with the intention of getting a proper balance for the use of excess railway land between housing and office or commercial or business or industrial use. We have put forward a method which clearly will enable that to be done. All my noble friends have forgotten the original "war aim", if I may put it in that language, and are now really prepared to oppose anything which will give the Commission the chance of compensation in the future in respect of any part of their land, whatever changes may occur. The Government accept that, and I hope noble Lords will feel that, even if they disagree with my points, I have certainly done the utmost, to the extent of my poor ability, to explain what these points are based on and the general reasons why the Government have taken this position. Therefore, I must ask the House not to accept this Amendment, and to pass the new clause.
8.25 p.m.
LORD MOLSON: My Lords, I am sure we are deeply indebted to my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack for the very great patience with which he has expounded what everybody, including himself, agrees is a difficult and obscure clause, dealing with a very difficult subject. I can only say, with
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regard to the figures of compensation that might be involved, that the figures of £5,000 to £6,000 for housing and £30,000 for commercial development were obtained this morning from the London County Council as applying in the East End of London. If that does not apply to the whole of the 1,000 acres—and I agree that it does not—I did not commit myself to any figure as to what the total compensation would be. It is obviously a matter nobody knows about, although those most competent to make an estimate say that it would be a very heavy burden.
I am much relieved toy what my noble and learned friend said about the Government's intentions with regard to claims for compensation where land is used in accordance with approved proposals. My advice is that there is nothing to prevent the owner of land from making a claim for development even though he has no intention of asserting that claim. It was not exactly under this provision of the Town and Country Planning Act, 1947, but there is a famous case where a golf club made a claim for permission to develop, while making it quite plain they had no intention of doing so, and in fact recovered compensation out of the £80 million available for that purpose. But it is quite clear, I think, from what my noble and learned friend has said, that it is not the intention of the Government that the Railways Board should exercise what I think would be their legal rights. It can no doubt toe dealt with in the proposals Which would have to be approved toy the Minister. In view of what I regard as the partly satisfactory explanation which my noble and learned friend has given, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment to the Amendment.
Amendment to Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Amendment, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 89 [Interpretation]:
8.30 p.m.
LORD MILLS: My Lords, Amendment No. 81 is consequential. It inserts into the interpretation clause a definition which makes it clear that a reorganisation of the police under a scheme in pursuance of the new police clause

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should be deemed to be a reorganisation "effected by this Act" for the purpose of compensation in Clause 79. In other words, it makes clear that if any of the officers or servants of the Commission suffers loss of employment, or toss or diminution of emoluments or pension rights, or whose position is worsened in consequence of a police reorganisation scheme under the new clause, then he shall be eligible for compensation.
The eligibility for compensation applies not only to the reorganisation made by the original police scheme, but also by any amendment to that scheme made not later than six months after the scheme initially comes into effect. It may well be that experience in the working of the scheme will show the need for an immediate adjustment, because some part of the scheme was not quite right in its original form. It is right, therefore, that any such immediate change should also come within the meaning of "reorganisation" for the purposes of compensation, but that any change made after six months should be regarded as a matter of ordinary organisation and management and not part of the original reorganisation effected under the new Clause. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 99, line 13, at end insert ("the re-organisation effected by this Act' includes any re-organisation effected by a scheme under section (Organisation of transport police) of this Act, including any amendments of the scheme made not later than six months after the date on which the scheme comes into effect.")—(Lord Mills.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Fourth Schedule [Distribution of Commission's securities]:
LORD MILLS LORD MILLS moved, in Part V, to insert at the beginning of paragraph 2, "Subject to the following provisions of this Act". The noble Lord said: My Lords, with your Lordships' permission, Amendment No. 89 might be considered with Amendments No. 93 on the Fifth Schedule and Nos. 94, 95, and 96 on the Sixth Schedule. These are incidental Amendments to clarify the effect of the Bill on the distribution as between the Railways Board and the Holding Company of the existing rights and liabilities of the Commission under agreements with bus companies.
It will be remembered from our previous discussions that under the Railway Road Transport Acts of 1928, the main line railways were empowered to run road transport services or to enter into agreements with bus companies to provide services. They decided to conclude agreements, and the principal agreements were made with the British Electric Traction Group and the Tillings Bus Group. In 1948, the British Transport Commission acquired all the shares in the Tillings Group. Agreements subsist at present between the British Electric Traction Group and the Commission, who were vested with the railway interests by the Transport Act, 1947.
There are two categories of agreement: the working agreements on co-operation between the railways and the individual bus companies and the parent agreements between the Holding Company of the bus groups and the railways, in relation to the acquisition and maintenance of shareholdings in the operating bus companies by the railways. Joint Standing Committees which were advisory in function, were set up in respect of each of the bus companies. Under this Bill the Commission's shares are to be transferred to the Holding Company, but the Bill also provides that the rights and the liabilities of the Commission in the working agreements with the bus companies are to be transferred to the Railways Board. We have come to the conclusion that the vesting provisions in the Bill are not precise enough in their operation on these agreements and the Amendments put this right. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 115, line 22, at beginning insert ("Subject to the following provisions of this Act").—(Lord Mills.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Fifth Schedule [Miscellaneous Items in the Distribution of the Commission's Assets]:
8.36 p.m.
LORD MILLS LORD MILLS moved, at end of paragraph 5 (b), to leave out "and". The noble Lord said: My Lords, Amendments Nos. 91 and 92 might be conveniently taken together. These are minor Amendments. Under the Transport Act, 1953, the road haulage undertakings returned to private enterprise,

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and in this connection leasehold lands and properties were sold, but there are a number of contingent liabilities left with the Commission. Under Section 77 of the Law of Property Act, 1925, there is still an implied covenant on the person who assigns a leasehold property to pay the ground rent and perform the covenants of the lease if the assignee fails to do so. These liabilities are, of course, contingent liabilities, but under the Bill as drafted they will pass to the Railways Board on vesting date. They really have nothing to do with the railways, so we feel it is more appropriate that these contingent liabilities—and they are contingent liabilities—should be transferred to the Transport Holding Company, which is to take over the road haulage companies of the Commission. The Amendments provide accordingly, and I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 116, line 35, leave out ("and").—(Lord Mills.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD MILLS: My Lords, I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 116, line 38, at end insert ("and
(d) any rights or liabilities of the Commission under covenants, express or implied, relating to land disposed of by the Road Haulage Executive on behalf of the Commission or to land disposed of by the Commission which was at any time in the possession, as between that Executive and persons other than the Commission, of that Executive").—(Lord Mills.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD MILLS: My Lords, this Amendment is consequential. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 116, line 38, at end insert:
("6.—(1) This paragraph applies to any agreement—

(a) which was made with, or relates to, a company operating motor omnibuses or other road passenger transport vehicles, being a company which is listed in Part IV of the Fourth Schedule to this Act, and

(b) to which the Commission became a party by virtue of the Part II of the Transport Act, 1947, as successors of a railway company having powers under the Railway Road Transport Acts of 1928 mentioned in paragraph 1 of Part II of the Second Schedule to this Act.

In the following provisions of this paragraph 'the omnibus company' means any such company as is mentioned in paragraph (a) of this sub-paragraph.
(2) There shall be transferred to the Holding Company any rights and liabilities of the Commission under so much of the agreement as relates—

(a) to securities issued by the omnibus company, and in particular to any right of pre-emption which may arise when any such securities are disposed of,

(b) to the raising of capital by the omnibus company,

(c) to the election or nomination of directors of the omnibus company.

(3) Any rights or liabilities of the Commission under the agreement which are not under the foregoing provisions of this paragraph transferred to the Holding Company shall be transferred to the Railways Board.
(4) Without prejudice to the foregoing provisions of this paragraph, any term of the agreement to the effect that the omnibus company shall not without the consent of directors of the company nominated by the Commission compete with railway services of the Commission shall have effect, as from the vesting date, as if it referred to the consent of the Railways Board and to the railway services of the Railways Board.").—(Lord Mills.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Sixth Schedule [Distribution of Commission's undertaking]:
LORD MILLS: My Lords, this is consequential on Amendment No. 89. 1 beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 118, line 42, after ("divided") insert ("or distributed").—(Lord Mills.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD MILLS: My Lords, this also is consequential on Amendment No. 89. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 120, line 26, leave out from beginning to ("references") in line 31 and insert ("In this paragraph references to the Board include").—(Lord Mills.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD MILLS: My Lords, this Amendment again is consequential on No. 89. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 121, line 22, leave out ("and the Holding Company").—(Lord Mills.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Seventh Schedule [Transitional provisions]:
8.40 p.m.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, we have discovered a modest and minor defect in paragraph 6 of Part II of the Seventh Schedule, which deals with the transitional arrangements for the control of passenger fares in London. This Amendment is to cure it. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 125, line 45, at end insert ("for the alteration of all or any of their faxes subject to the London fares orders (whether or not all or any of those specified in the application were the fares affected by the order).
(2) Any application by the Commission in compliance with subsection (5) of the said section twenty-three (which requires the Commission to apply within a prescribed time for confirmation of an order under subsection (2) of that section) which is pending before the Transport Tribunal when section forty-three of this Act comes into force shall be deemed to have been made in compliance with the foregoing sub-paragraph, and the proceedings on that application shall be continued in such manner as the Tribunal may direct as if they were proceedings under section forty-five of this Act.")—(Lord Chesham.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, this is the other half of an amendment, the first half being Amendment No. 49, to give effect to certain things we wanted. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 127, leave out lines 16 to 21 and insert:
("11.—(1) If when the principal section comes into force there is before the Minister a recommendation of the Central Transport Consultative Committee or the Transport Users Consultative Committee for Scotland or for Wales and Monmouthshire—

(a) with respect to any proposed closure,or

(b) with respect to any other matter,

the Minister may in connection with the closure or with respect to the other matter dealt with in the recommendation, as the case may be, from time to time give to the Commission or to any Board such directions as he thinks fit.
(2) The principal section shall not apply to a closure in connection with which directions can be given under the foregoing sub-paragraph.
360
(3) If when the principal section comes into force the Commission are providing, or assisting in the provision of, alternative services in connection with a closure which has taken place before that date, the Minister may from time to time give to the Commission or the Board concerned such directions with respect to those services, or any other services in substitution for, or in addition to, those services, as he thinks fit.
(4) The Minister may refer to an Area Committee any matter relating to alternative services provided by or with the assistance of the Commission or a Board—

(a) in pursuance of a direction under this paragraph, or

(b) otherwise than in pursuance of such a direction, if a direction with respect to those services could have been given under this paragraph, or

(c) in connection with a closure which has taken place before the principal section comes into force.

and the committee shall consider and report to the Minister on that matter.")—(Lord Chesham.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Tenth Schedule [Constitution, powers and Proceedings of the Transport Tribunal]:
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, Amendments Nos. 98A and 98B are both minor drafting Amendments. I beg to move them both together.
Amendments moved—
Page 139, line 43, leave out from ("rules") to (" under")
Page 139, line 45, after ("paragraph") insert ("which are in operation immediately before this Schedule comes into force").—(Lord Chesham.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
LORD MILLS: My Lords, Amendment No. 99 is a continuation of Amendment No. 80, applying Clause 70 to the Holding Company. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 141, line 37, after ("Board") insert ("or the Holding Company").—(Lord Mills.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
MINISTRY OF HOUSING AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDER (BRIGHOUSE) BILL
MINISTRY OF HOUSING AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDER (DONCASTER) BILL
MINISTRY OF HOUSING AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDER (SIDMOUTH) BILL
Reported, without Amendment, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.
House adjourned at eighteen minutes before nine o'clock.