Lords Sitting of 31 July 1963

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

PENSIONS OF OFFICERS' WIDOWS
2.5 p.m.
VISCOUNT BRIDGEMAN: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have yet been able to give further consideration to the position of widows of Regular officers in the Armed Services who were bereaved before November 4, 1958, and if so, what action they propose to take.]
THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (LORD CARRINGTON): My Lords, Her Majesty's Government regret that they are not in a position to make any statement on this question at present.
VISCOUNT BRIDGEMAN: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that many people in this House and outside attach great importance to justice being done to Service widows, and would therefore like to express the hope that the Government will give the matter urgent study with a view to making an announcement during the next Session?
LORD CARRINGTON: Yes, my Lords, the Government are very well aware of what my noble friend says. A review has begun, but I do not think I can say now when it will be completed.
VISCOUNT BRIDGEMAN: I am much obliged to my noble friend.

ARMY RECRUITMENT OF APPROVED SCHOOL BOYS
VISCOUNT BRIDGEMAN: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether it is the case that those who have attended approved schools are no longer accepted as recruits in the Regular Army; and, if so, why.]
LORD CARRINGTON: No, my Lords. Boys from approved schools may be considered for the Army six months after their release, and those who are judged suitable are accepted.
VISCOUNT BRIDGEMAN: My Lords, in thanking my noble friend for that reply, may I say how glad I am to hear it?—because, as I am sure that he and the rest of the House know, about 20 per cent. of the boys who go to approved schools have committed no offence at all but are sent there for their own good. The loss of those boys to the Army, if they wished to join, would be considerable, and the possibility of joining the Army is a great opportunity to those boys.
LORD CARRINGTON: Yes, my Lords; and those are, of course, the reasons which the Army have had under consideration.
VISCOUNT BRIDGEMAN: I am much obliged to my noble friend.

UNUSED RAILWAY LAND
2.8 p.m.
LORD BOSSOM: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they can state the number of acres existing in Great Britain within urban or city limits under the control of the nationalised railways that are not now in actual use and for which no definite use has ben assigned; also, whether they can state the number of acres in rural areas within the control of the nationalised railways which are not now being used, and for which no definite use has been assigned.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT (LORD CHESHAM): My Lords, I am informed by the British Railways Board that while details of individual sites may

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readily be obtained from the Regions they do not keep a central register of land owned by the Board which is not required for the purposes of their business, and the information required by my noble friend is not therefore available.
LORD BOSSOM: My Lords, while thanking my noble friend for what I may call that lack of information, may I inquire as to the areas which will be reviewed in due course, and which are already nationalised property and obviously are not needed by the railways, whether there is any reason why Parliament cannot acquire these lands again for housing sites where desired—"where desired" is a most important qualification—at the price which the public originally allowed for these lands when the railways were nationalised?
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I think that raises another question. But my noble friend is aware, I am sure, that the Railways Board are naturally concerned to make the best possible use of any land that they have which is surplus to their operational requirements, in order to bring in the maximum revenue they can get. It is perfectly open to any concern, whether public or private, if the necessity so arises, to approach the Railways Board, who, I am sure, will be glad to talk to them on this basis.
LORD BOSSOM: I thank my noble friend for that comment, but is he aware that what the Railways Board or their representative, or whoever it may be, is attempting to recover on this land is infinitely more than its original value when the railways were taken over and compensation was paid, and that it would be very unfortunate if the public were denied the use of this land, which is so obviously necessary if the railways cannot use it, at a fair price?
LORD CHESHAM: My noble friend is aware, of course, that the Railways Board are not a housing authority, and, furthermore, that they are under a duty imposed by the Transport Act to make the best possible use of their assets.
LORD FERRIER: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that this problem of unused railway land is one which is important in Scotland, and that a good many opportunities are going abegging
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through the delays in making approaches and getting replies in regard to the use of such land?
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I infer from that that my noble friend is suggesting that the Railways Board are tardy in dealing with such negotiations.
LORD FERRIER: That is the case.
LORD CHESHAM: If that is so, I am sure that what the noble Lord has said will strike home.
LORD FERRIER: I thank my noble friend.
LORD BOSSOM: My Lords, would it be possible for the Railways Board to give a list of the available properties? No one can find out that information unless such a list is given. They are the only ones who have that information.
LORD CHESHAM: I have already told my noble friend that they do not keep a central register. It is a matter for them to decide in what form their property records are kept. But I have also told my noble friend that all this information, on an individual site basis, is readily available from the Regions.
LORD BOSSOM: I thank my noble friend for that answer, but I hope that in due course the information will be made a little more lucid for the people who want to try to help the nation.

HOUSING SITES OVER MARSHALLING YARDS
2.12 p.m.
LORD BOSSOM: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they can state the approximate acreage now employed by the nationalised railways for marshalling yards or below-ground-level railways, which can be covered and used for housing sites in the immediate years ahead.]
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I have asked the Railways Board whether they could supply the information requested by my noble friend. They tell me that they cannot do so. To attempt to provide it would entail an extensive survey

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and inquiries, the results of which would be unlikely, in the Board's view, to yield any advantage commensurate with the cost of undertaking them.
LORD BOSSOM: My Lords, while again thanking my noble friend for his comment, the answer is quite obvious—
LORD FERRIER: My Lords, I hesitate to interrupt the noble Lord, but is he aware that the loudspeaker apparatus is not working?
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL AND MINISTER FOR SCIENCE (VISCOUNT HAILSHAM): My Lords, I am aware of that, and I have already taken steps to remedy it, if possible.
LORD BOSSOM: May I thank the noble Viscount the Leader of the House for that kindness? But, as my noble friend has just remarked, while it is all very well to say they have no list, this is public property which was nationalised some years ago. Is the noble Lord aware that a concrete raft could be put over these places? We are in great need of housing sites. Could not an investigation be made into the costs of putting up these concrete rafts, and of the land that would have to be acquired in other places in order to house our people? I am sure that it would be helpful if we could get this information.
LORD CHESHAM: I take my noble friend's point, my Lords, and I agree on the necessity for housing. But again I am bound to say that the Railway Board are not a housing authority and their duty is only to develop their own assets to the best advantage. If my noble friend will think over the terms of his Question, he will realise that if they were to answer it accurately it would involve them in a very extensive and costly survey—simply in order to answer a question on a matter for which they (and I am not concerned with anybody else's responsibility) are not responsible.
LORD BOSSOM: My Lords, is it not a fact that that survey has to be made by someone? Could the noble Lord tell me who will make it, so that this land can be used? We are wasting thousands of acres.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, may I say that if it is thought necessary by anyone who has an interest that a survey of any site should be made, then it can be made? What I am saying is that the survey required by my noble friend's Question is not a starter for the Railways Board.
THE EARL OF LUCAN: My Lords, is the noble Lord telling us that the Railways Board do not know the acreage of land involved? If that is so, how is it that they manage to produce the figures for their Annal Report?
LORD CHESAM: No, my Lords, I am not telling the House anything of the kind. If the noble Earl will look at the Question on the Order Paper he will see that it refers to the acreage which can be covered and used for housing sites. The survey of the whole of the Board's acreage, to determine whether or not it could be covered and used for housing sites, would be an extensive and costly one, as I think the noble Earl must agree.
LORD BOSSOM: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for trying to help me. Will the Railways Board give the right of making a survey to anyone who wants to try?
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, if anyone can approach the Railways Board with a proposition that will interest them, then, in view of the duty that they have, I am sure they will consider it to the full.
LORD BOSSOM: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for his answer, I must say that it is rather nebulous.

THE YEMENI BORDER INCIDENT
2.17 p.m.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I desire to ask the Question of which I have already given Private Notice: To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will make a statement to the House, before the adjournment for the Summer Recess, as to the result of the Inquiry which was ordered into the facts of the crossing of the border between the Yemen and the Federation of South Arabia by British troops.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, my right honourable friend the Minister of Defence has only just received the very full and detailed report of the Court of Inquiry into the Yemen border incident. There has not yet been time to give the report the careful study that it deserves, and there is a possibility of disciplinary proceedings. For these reasons I am sorry that I am not yet in a position to make a statement.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I must say, on behalf of Parliament, that this is most unreasonable. This House is adjourning to-day, and the other place will be adjourning to-morrow or Friday, until the last week in October. In the meantime this Inquiry, which was ordered weeks ago, on a single, simple incident, is available to the Government but is not available to this House. I think that is quite an impossible position for the Government to take up. I think they ought to make a statement to this House to-day.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I am sorry that the noble Earl should feel that way. The difficulty is that the report was received by my right honourable friend only very late on Monday night, and in the circumstances I think it would be right that he and his Ministry should have the chance of looking into it and coming to their own conclusions. But as soon as that detailed study has been carried out, I will naturally inform the noble Earl of the result.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for the last offer; but I do not think that it meets the point of view of Parliament.

HOUSE OF LORDS' OFFICES COMMITTEE
Order of the Day read for the consideration of the Third Report from the Select Committee.
The Committee reported as follows:
1. PICTURE OF THE HOUSE IN SESSION
The Committee considered the progress of the painting of the picture of the House in session, and have placed the further implementation of the proposal in the hands of the Sub-Committee on the pictures.
2. REFRESHMENT DEPARTMENT
The Committee authorised an extra Housemaid for cleaning additional rooms used by the Department to be on the staff of the Lord Great Chamberlain for purposes of payment.
3. NAUTICAL ASSESSORS
The Committee considered the payments made to Nautical Assessors attending an Appeal in the House of Lords in an Admiralty action and sanctioned the application to this House of the revised scale of fees laid down in Statutory Instrument 1963 No. 683 (L.7), The Rules of the Supreme Court (Trinity Masters' Fees) 1963, with effect from 23rd April, 1963.
4. REVISED SCALES OF PAY
The Committee sanctioned the application of the following Establishments Circulars:—
E.C. No. 7/63 Central Pay Increase;
E.C. No. 8/63 Between the Principal's maximum and the Assistant Secretary's minimum
to analogous grades of the staff of the House of Lords.
The Committee also authorised revised rates of pay for the staff of the Accountant's Office with effect from 1st July, 1963.
5. RECORDS OF THE HOUSE

(a) The Committee were informed of the completion and reconstruction of the record repository in the Victoria Tower and of the opening by the Leader of the House on 3rd July, 1963.

(b) The Committee authorised two posts of Record Office Assistants on the staff of the Clerk of the Parliaments in the place of two Paperkeepers.

6. HANSARD REPORTING STAFF

(a) The Committee were informed of the increasing pressure of work of the Hansard Reporting Staff and accordingly authorised the appointment of two additional Reporters. The Committee sanctioned a special payment to the Editorial and Reporting staff in respect of additional duty performed during the period to the end of July 1963. The Committee also authorised the payment of Attendance fees to Reporters when the House of Lords sits after 10.30 p.m. with effect from 13th May, 1963.

(b) The Committee reviewed the agreement with Haynes Secretarial Services for the supply of typists for the reporting of debates and approved an increase in the rates of pay from 1st April, 1963.

7. DOORKEEPERS
The Committee sanctioned a special payment to the Doorkeepers for extra duties.
8. RETIREMENTS
The Committee sanctioned the payment of the following awards under the Superannuation Acts:—

(a) revised pension and additional allowance to Miss Lilian Katherine Hammond, Personal Assistant, who retired on 8th June, 1963;

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(b) revised gratuity to Mr. Edward Bern-ham Weeks, Custodian, who retired on 25th May, 1963;

(c) pension and additional allowance to Mr. George Charles Searle, Inspector of Custodians, on his retirement on 29th September, 1963;

(d) gratuity to Mr. Edward George Herbert, Custodian, on his retirement on 7th August, 1963;

(e) gratuity to Mrs. Elsie McCarthy, Housemaid, who retired, on 25th May, 1963.

9. AIR-CONDITIONING IN THE CHAMBER
The Committee recommended that air-conditioning be provided as a matter of urgency for the Chamber and asked the Lord Great Chamberlain to request the Minister of Works to take the necessary steps to implement this recommendation.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (LORD MERTHYR): My Lords, I beg to move that this Report be now considered.
Moved, That the Report be now considered.—(Lord Merthyr.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES: My Lords I do not think there is any particular point in this Report to which I need draw the special attention of your Lordships, but if any noble Lord wishes to ask a question I will, of course, do my best to answer it. I beg to move that this Report be agreed to.
Moved, That the Report be agreed to.—(Lord Merthyr.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LOCH TURRET WATER BOARD (HYDRO-ELECTRIC DEVELOPMENT) PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL
Considered on Report (according to Order).
Then, Standing Order No. 41 having been suspended (pursuant to the Resolution of July 23), Bill read 3a, and passed.

DEFENCE REORGANISATION
2.20 p.m.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH rose to call attention to the proposals of the Government for the central organisation of defence; and to move for Papers. The noble Earl said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
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I hope we shall all recognise this afternoon the importance of the issues raised in this White Paper on the Central Organisation for Defence. I think there is in paragraph 5 of the Paper a very frank admission that the hoped-for improvement in co-operation which was foreshadowed in the 1958 White Paper has not really been effective. I am not surprised.
The idea of having a separate Minister of Defence in peace time came from the Labour Government, after their associated experience under the Ministry of Defence in war and the organisation of staffs, production and research and everything else, so far as it had gone then. I believe that in the period from early 1947 until October, 1951, the main objectives of setting up that Ministry were successful. However, I should not like to be the judge of that, because I was the first of two Ministers of Defence in that period. I leave further comment to my noble friend Lord Attlee, who not only had the great experience of being Prime Minister throughout the period from 1945 to 1951 but also had served right through the premiership of Mr. Winston Churchill (as he was then) in the course of the war; and I think there is no one in this House with a greater and broader knowledge of the facts of the situation, which was continually changing with the changes in strategic considerations and weapons.
I come to the general question which is raised in my mind by paragraph 5 of the White Paper. The history of the Conservative Government since they took over in October, 1951, in regard to defence plans is quite extraordinary. I have been looking back through the volumes issued by the Government over the past two or three years. Not the least noteworthy was the last, which was issued last February in its new form, in its coloured jacket, containing the Estimates for the three Services and about 80 words of comment by the Minister of Defence upon the general work of the Services and, I suppose, the whole work of the Ministry of Defence. Not another thing was supplied in print at that time by the Minister of Defence. In dealing with that during the debate at the time, I made the comment that when, in the debate in another place, the Minister of Defence referred to the number of inquiries to be made as to the greater co-ordination of Ministry of

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Defence operations, it was a sort of smokescreen to cover up in the course of the debate all the faults that were in this volume, the explanation of which was contained in only 80 words. I think it is pretty clear that that was a smokescreen.
The admission of failure in paragraph 5 is, I think, something which can also be deduced from the comments which have been made from all parts of the House in the course of the last eleven or twelve years with regard to the Government's policy. If there has been any departure from the kind of success that we as a Labour Government wanted in the working of a Ministry of Defence in peace time, has been largely due to ministerial incompetence, in the series of nine Ministers of Defence in eleven and three-quarter years. The necessity to attempt this major reorganisation and reconstruction of the Ministry of Defence is largely due to the incompetence either of the Prime Minister or of the Ministers of Defence in arranging the conduct of the control of defence in general.
There are certain important questions which arise out of this. First of all, I suppose it is clear to everybody that this general proposal means the formation of one Ministry, and one Ministry only, for defence. It does away with the Parliamentary responsibility of the Ministers in charge of the three separate Services to both Houses of Parliament. That is a very important decision to take. It is easy to put that down on paper without considering all the detailed things likely to happen, from the point of view of the actual conduct of operations, of administration, production and research, as they arise; and above all, from the point of view of the maintenance of Service discipline.
I remember that we had a terrible naval mutiny at Invergordon in 1931. Because the other Cabinet Ministers concerned at that time are dead, I can say now what happened without revealing very great secrets. When certain very severe cuts were proposed, including the breaking of pledges to the pre-1925 naval enlistment, I said to the meeting of the Cabinet which was dealing with this matter, "If this is the line you take, then I cannot answer for the discipline of the Navy." One of the other members said,
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"Well, what has that to do with you, anyway? You are not responsible for the discipline of the Fleet." I said, "The discipline of the Fleet is in the hands of the first officers of the Fleet, but I have to be responsible to Parliament." Do I understand that the new proposed Chief of the Defence Ministry is going to be responsible to Parliament for the discipline of each of the three Services? I should like a specific answer on that point fairly early in the debate—perhaps the First Lord, who has himself some experience of this matter, will give me an answer. Is it going to be at third-hand or second-hand? If the Chiefs of the Service staffs are to be responsible to the Minister of Defence alone, will that relieve entirely the actual Service Ministers from any responsibility?
I now come to the point of the management which is to be carried on in future. If we go through the White Paper—and perhaps your Lordships will be good enough to have it in front of you as we go along—we see that the first heading is "The New Approach". Apparently the new approach is to be fastened down through a line from the Minister of Defence—or, rather, the First Secretary of State for Defence: I must give him his proper title—and to be maintained on the lines therein set out. I am anxious to know how far it is going to work. In the first place, he is to work with the Chiefs of Staff; and the Chiefs of Staff, who were changed in their actual control and composition by this Government some seven years ago, will be made permanent by, I suppose, legislation, which is what I think is proposed here. That Committee of Chiefs of Staff will have what is so frequently referred to now as a Supremo, who will be the chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee. For how long that will be, I do not know. We used to have rotation of the chairman of the Chiefs of Staff, one from each of the Services in turn.
The principal of the Chiefs of Staff will sit in the chair, and when there is disagreement he will report to the Minister; and it is specifically stated that he will also tender to the Minister his separate advice. I find it difficult to see how that will be fully acceptable to all the Services concerned. A great deal will depend on the origin and training of the Supremo for his high office,

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and which Service he comes from, whether the dispute is settled or sent to the Secretary of the Ministry for settlement with the special advice of one who has the support of somebody of his own training in the Chiefs of Staff Committee. That Committee may be comprised of two Navy representatives, two Army and two Air staff. I must say that I never found it necessary to have this sort of thing when I was Minister of Defence; nor was it found necessary in the case of my immediate successor. Nor should I think it was necessary at any time, until it was brought in in about 1956. I hope this is going to be looked at carefully, because it might lead to far more trouble than appears likely on the surface.
I want to make it clear, so far as my noble friends on this side of the House are concerned, that we are very much in favour of all real efforts to increase co-operation between the three fighting Services. It is to be noted that in paragraph 10, on page 1, it is specifically required that the Services should be kept separate. Apparently, there is some anxiety in the mind of the Secretary of State for Defence—I suppose it must be through him—that there is a great job yet to be done in settling their plans and programmes and the like which will cover the commitments and the rôles of all three Services. I must have read pages and pages in the last eleven and a half years upon the rôles of each of the Services, which are stated in the Defence White Papers. I still find it difficult to understand why, in the minds of a Government who have been in office for nearly twelve years and had nine Ministers of Defence, the rôles of each of the three Services have not yet really been settled. It is perfectly true, as they say in the White Paper, that the loyalty of each man in each of the Services is very much due to the history of his particular Service, his unit or its battle honours and the like, and it is necessary to keep these Services separate in organisation. But will the kind of organisation set up under this White Paper provide the best way to maintain that situation?
As I say, we are in favour of anything that will increase co-operation between the three Services, whether it is in the
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nature of streamlining to avoid unnecessary additional expense, cutting out delays—if that would be so—having more concentration upon particular and urgent problems than has perhaps hitherto been the case, and maybe preventing some of the grave errors which have occurred, in the last seven or eight years especially, and which have led to such considerable waste of public money on the development of weapons or methods of equipment, or whatever it may be. The real factor, however, is this. There is a widespread feeling in the talk one hears that you must not leave out of account the sort of thing that is often said about similar operations in industry and the like. Is this set-up, of one Ministry of such a size, of such importance and with such equipment as to make it slightly top-heavy, likely to produce the kind of results which are spoken of in connection with what is known as Parkinson's law, because of constant expansion?
In this connection, let me take the history of the Ministry of Defence itself up to date. It was started early in 1947 as a result of the decision we took in the Cabinet under Mr. Attlee (as he then was) to set up a peace-time Ministry of Defence. Its expenditure in the first year was about £500,000, and in the next year about £600,000. In the third year—I have a copy of the accounts which were the last I was responsible for preparing, published in February, 1950—the total cost was under £800,000. Now you have a Ministry of Defence organisation, not very different from the organisation which was formulated in 1947, which, according to the Estimates for the current year, costs£20 million. Anybody quietly commenting on that would say that it was a piece of evidence supporting Parkinson's law.
Is that going to be the experience in this one complete Ministry set-up, the expenditure of which, in the mind of the Secretary of Defence and again clearly set out in the White Paper, is likely to reach a little below£2,000 million per annum? Having regard to the projects now in front of us, with such objectives as the new nuclear submarines equipped for the operation of Polaris, or the development of aircraft of the type of the TSR.2—its history and its future project

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—and the great work still to be done upon other projectiles, is it not much more likely that the expenditure will be considerably above the estimated £2,000 million per annum which is referred to in the White Paper as a possible maximum?
There are to be about 400,000 men in the Services, and they are to be matched on the other side by 400,000 civil servants of different kinds; and these are all to be under one Ministry in which the Secretary of the Defence Department will be the only man responsible to Parliament. This is a very big project indeed. I am suggesting that unless the work is very carefully organised, you are likely to have less efficiency rather than improved efficiency.
I see a reference to the appointment of three Ministers of State for Defence, to be designated as Ministers of State for Defence (Royal Navy), (Army), and (Royal Air Force), as the case may be—not a very nice way in which to publish their particular activities and their position in these very important matters. Take, for example, the abolition of the office of First Lord of the Admiralty, which has been there for over a couple of centuries, and take his new position as Minister of State for Defence (Navy). What will it appear to be in the eyes of the various servants of the Admiralty all over the world? I suppose that with the personnel of the Fleet and the Civil Service, including industrial workers in different parts of the world in naval yards, there must be some hundreds of thousands. At present, they all feel that they have the right of access to the principal Minister in charge of the Navy. It is true, of course, that the three separate Departments under their present title managements are being abolished. You abolish the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty; you abolish the Army Council, and you abolish the Council of the Royal Air Force. But what takes their place? Boards—the Navy Board, the Army Board and the Air Force Board, which will meet in the Ministry of Defence, and are described as Navy, Army or Air Force, again in small brackets. It seems to me that unless the management is very efficient and economical, you will do worse under this arrangement than under the present one.
It does not seem that tradition is altogether being wiped out by the Government,
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because, although they abolish the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, for some reason or other they keep the two special reserve titles for the two first naval members of the Lords Commissioners at present. You still call the Chief of the Naval Staff First Sea Lord—"Lord" of what is not clear, because there are no Lords Commissioners left. And in the case of the Second Sea Lord, you call him still the Second Sea Lord—(Personnel), I suppose, although there are no Lords Commissioners left. It does not seem to me to be very effective to have just a slight bit of tradition left only for two senior sailors in those circumstances. I feel that something ought to be done to try to get a proper recognition of the importance of the nomenclature all the way round for the three Services if the members of the Services are to feel that they have the same full right of access to the various Councils which they have at present.
There is another point that I want to raise. In the course of the White Paper it is clear to several of my colleagues, at least (I do not know that we are all 100 per cent. agreed), that there is likely to be a good deal of duplication in what is set out therein. Of course you will have your Defence Staff. You are going to put them down to a certain level, all within one building. You are going to do the same, apparently, under the operations of the Permanent Under-Secretary of State, through the machine which he will set up with the help of his Assistant Under-Secretary of State. It seems to me that you are going to house in the central building not more than about 700 or 800 of the staffs of each of the Departments, comprising both their actual military sides and their actual civil sides, and that you leave in the rest of the buildings the work which is going to be carried on; and unless you duplicate by having a sufficient number at every stage, in both the military and the civil services, of somebody able to direct the course of the work in carrying out the main policy decided in the main building, then you will have very widespread and possibly growing duplication.
Speaking by and large, I would say from my consideration of the White Paper that, so far from there being any

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likely economy in costs as a result of the working of this White Paper, at the start, at any rate—I will put it in that qualified way—there will be a considerable increase of cost. On this point I think Parliament has a right to complain that on this matter there has not been a word of advice from the Government. Here is this great project, and there is not the slightest idea in the White Paper whether there is to be an expected reduction of cost or what—not the slightest. We do not know. All we know at present is that we are paying £1,838 million a year for our defences—which, with regard to personnel, are less than half what we handed over in 1951; and, with regard to a good many other matters like equipment and development of new weapons, we have been thrown out of stride and are not properly equipped for the next five years to meet the possible commitments that will arise. We really ought to be treated in Parliament with far more respect than that, and in an important matter of this kind we ought to have had some rough estimate as to whether there is going to be an actual economic effect; whether there is going to be a saving in money, in time or in what direction, in setting up this proposed organisation.
The other thing I want to say is this. In all these things coming along, as we take them stage by stage we can see some that are quite new and also likely to be duplicated. There is the paragraph in which it is stated quite specifically that four new organisations are to be set up. I should like the First Lord of the Admiralty to take that up and to tell us whether it will mean that nothing of a similar kind will still be done afterwards in the Service Department concerned. If you take the same sort of question with regard to actual planning, it is quite nice to read about the hopes that they have in joint planning for the future. But this is not the first time we have had a joint planners' organisation. Yet in all the Departments concerned we have always found it to be fundamental that each Department should have its planners. And very often, before a Chief of Staff can go to his own meeting with the other Chiefs of Staff to deal in discussions of joint operations he has to have some idea from his
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own planning staff how they will be affected in their own office and he will have to make up his own mind what he will have to say about it. There are many things to be done after that by joint planners with regard to the joint operations of the Services; and something also will have to be said about the method of communicating.
There is one thing I should like to be cleared up—and it will fall to experienced staff officers, like the noble and gallant Viscount, Lord Montgomery of Alamein, and others to comment upon it. There is one favourable line which shows that the Chiefs of Staff in the end will have retained the right to issue their orders to their own Services. But I also see there is to be set up a joint operational Department in the Ministry of Defence, and it reads to me in its context as if there would be some question whether or not the actual instructions with regard to operations would be sent direct from the Defence Department.
There is also the suggestion in the same section that there could be more co-operation with regard to signal services. I should like some assurances about that; what really it is expected to achieve and what will be the economic effects of more co-operation in dealing with signals. A good deal of signalling to-day has been rationalised, but I suppose that, by and large, if one looks at the almost worldwide basis that each Service Chief has to face, one realises that he will want his messages at all times to be fairly quickly despatched and to reach their destinations in the shortest possible time. But what economies could be effected in that direction? Is there any danger of there being a reduction in the number of networks? Is there going to be a suggestion that one network only would be in operation for the Services? There must be at least three now in operation. What economies can be effected, therefore, in the sort of set-up they are going to make in that respect? The same applies to the other Departments which are referred to in the section to which I am referring.
There is one other thing I should like to say. I am very pleased to see the emphasis placed upon the research and development which is so much under the control of the scientific adviser and his committee; that is very good indeed.

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But I am sad to see—and I do not know how this will strike other Members of the House—that the only profession which is never mentioned, yet which to me has always been important in dealing with the Services, especially with the Navy, is that of the engineer; and the engineer, as well as the scientist, the professional soldier, sailor and airman, is fundamental to all three Services. I should like to know how it is that in this connection there is no mention at all in the White Paper of the engineer. When I ask this I am not charging the Government with being the first offenders in this respect; I am not putting them in the dock in any way about it; but I should like to say a word of encouragement, at any rate at this time of reconstruction of this organisation, to the engineers, who have done magnificent work for all three Services. Theirs is a service which I have always very greatly valued.
The other matter to which I want to pay some attention is the question of concentrating Intelligence under the Secretary of State for Defence. Apparently he will be the only one responsible to Parliament for Intelligence in connection with defence. I do not know how closely this matter has been looked at or exactly how it is going to be worked. Intelligence and security are matters which spread quite widely in the Services and the Government—not only the military Services, but in the foreign service and home service. There is also commercial and trade intelligence of very great importance. This proposal, I take it, is to apply solely to defence, although, when the Admiralty were very much under discussion with regard to an espionage case, I think called the Vassall case, common remarks that I heard from the ordinary public and which I read in the Press were rather to the effect that if anybody ought to be sacked it was the Ambassador in Moscow at the time. The Government did not sack him because he was already retired; but your Lordships can see how widely this question, both of Intelligence and of security, goes.
If the Secretary of the Defence Department is going to take full responsibility for all the things which are set out in this White Paper, and is unable even to achieve the amount of successful delegation which any Prime Minister has to make, then I should think he
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will be quite in danger of what is called "going round the bend", because there is a concentration here which might do more harm than good. I hope it will do good; but I think that until we have had much further explanations we shall still have to wait before we can make up our minds. I beg to move for Papers.
2.55 p.m.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friends on these Benches and myself, I should like to say that we welcome the White Paper and the statement of policy it contains on the Central Organisation for Defence. We believe that it is essential in these days to have a unified Ministry of Defence with the absorption of the present Service Ministries. We think that this plan is right; that there will be central management in the Ministry of Defence with the structure of the individual Services retained. There may, of course, be criticisms as to detail; there are always differences of view as to detail. I think there is a justifiable criticism that this reform has come in rather late, but we think, "Better late than never", and we do not wish to impede the progress of the new Ministry.
We believe that it is right because it forms part of the pattern of defence requirements in modern times. We think that this pattern consists, so far as the military forces are concerned, of the security obligations for collective defence; that is, our responsibilities to NATO and the Atlantic Alliance, both in conventional forces and, so long as the Government retain their view on nuclear weapons, the V-bomber force with its missiles and, later on, the Polaris submarine. Secondly, we think that it ably provides for the sort of problems that we have called the "bush fire" problems, such as were found to be present in Kuwait and Brunei. Thirdly, there is the question of the Strategic Reserve, which is probably quite as important as any of the others. There, we need fast, mobile airborne and seaborne forces with bases in Britain, Malta, Aden and Singapore, and garrisons in those places, together with garrisons in Hong Kong and the West Indies, and possibly now in Mbabane in Swaziland, because very soon the High Commission territories are going to be pretty well isolated. We also need a task force east of Suez. This is one reason why we gave

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such a warm welcome to the advent of the decision to build a new aircraft carrier, which was announced by the First Lord in this House yesterday. This means that up to 1980, at all events, there will be three fast carriers in service, two of them East of Suez, and we regard that as a very important matter indeed.
But it is not only in military questions that we feel the need for this Ministry of Defence. There is also the economic question. The noble Earl, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, pointed out that the new Ministry will be responsible for the spending of something like £2,000 million a year, which is about half of the total expenditure of this country. It will control 400,000 men in the Forces together with 400,000 civilians. These are vast sums. Such expenditure is probably necessary, unhappily both on the conventional forces and on the deterrent—there is a difference of opinion on the deterrent, but I do not want to go into that to-day—but, while these commitments are maintained by the Government, they must impose an immense strain upon our national resources. This defence requirement, £2,000 million a year, together with the manpower it takes up, must compete with the export trade, with home requirements and particularly with our research facilities, which are very definitely limited. One Ministry, we believe, should be able to oversee this problem with its effect on manpower, taxation, and the balance of payments, far better than the system hitherto.
The noble Earl, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, talked about the expense of the Forces and compared it with the expenditure in his day. Of course, these expenses of armaments, like all other expenses are going up the whole time—in fact more than anything else. Mr. Lloyd George said in 1909, or thereabouts, that one Duke cost as much to keep up as two battleships. He would not say that today. He could not even compare a Duke to a sloop, leave alone two battleships. This aircraft carrier is costing £60 million to build, and I do not know how much it will cost a year to run—some fantastic sum—and I do not think any Duke can compare with that.
So far as the structure of the individual Services is concerned, we think the need
1156
for interdependence is highly important. The days when the war seemed to be not between Britain and the enemy but between the War Office and the Admiralty have gone. But there is no doubt that the loyalty of the individual in the individual Service is often to his Service, and to an even greater degree to his regiment or ship or squadron, as the noble Earl pointed out and as is pointed out in paragraph 10 of the White Paper we are discussing. I think that when making these vast plans we ought never to forget that; we must remember that so far as the man in the regiment, particularly, is concerned, it is a question of the historical continuity of the regiment, which he knows all about, and the sort of shadowy comrades that lie behind him, possibly back to the days of Marlborough.
There are only one or two further points I should like to make. The first is with regard to Commonwealth defence. I think that in future we shall have to give much closer attention to Commonwealth defence than in the past. It is going to be a rather different type of defence. We have two cases looming up at the moment. I hope neither will come to fruition, but there is a possibility and a danger. The first is the threat to India by China. That will possibly call for more aid, and I was very pleased indeed to see how promptly Her Majesty's Government offered aid on the previous occasion to India, and I hope we shall do so if the need arises in the future. The other case is perhaps different, perhaps not so different, but certainly of another type. I refer to a case such as that in Borneo, the new Malaysia. It will be quite impossible for the new Malaysia to defend its frontiers, those enormously long frontiers running through bush and across the tops of mountains and so on, without aid from the rest of the Commonwealth. I hope that that will be looked at by the new Minister of Defence, and that he will realise that Gurkhas and irregular troops, and all the rest of it, may be very important in those areas.
The only question I would ask the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, who is replying, is with regard to recruiting. However good the paper plans are, unless there are enough men and women to carry them out they are not going to have much effect. I have been very disappointed to

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see in the latest figures given to us by the present Minister of Defence, which are for April this year, that the all-Services recruiting as compared to April, 1962, has gone down, so far as men and boys are concerned, from 6,543 to 3,093, which is a drop of more than 50 per cent.; and so far as women are concerned, from 703 to 368. That is a very sharp decline indeed, and I do not know the reason. Perhaps the noble Lord will be able to enlighten us. It may be, so far as the Army is concerned, that they made rather a mistake in appearing to decline the services of married men and those who desire to get married; and there may have been other reasons as well.
One point which has not been mentioned yet but which comes up on this reorganisation is the fact that the Ministry of Aviation is not to be part of the new Ministry of Defence. In our last debate on Defence on March 13 last I urged the Government to retain a separate Ministry of Aviation, and I am very pleased they have done so. On all occasions when there has not been a separate Ministry of Aviation, civil aviation has suffered appallingly. It is an absolutely right decision, and I hope the Government will stick to this through thick and thin. Of course, there must be very close liaison and co-ordination, as indeed I understand there is going to be. But I feel that civil aviation is so different from the Service aspects of the Ministry of Defence that to put it in, and to have it controlled by, the Ministry of Defence would be quite wrong, and in this very difficult time through which civil aviation is passing it would perhaps do it irreparable injury.
We welcome the nuclear test ban agreement which is to be signed by the noble Earl the Foreign Secretary quite soon in Moscow. We are delighted to hear that, and we urge upon the Government, and we will support them in, every possible and proper measure of disarmament they will be able to achieve.
I have an apology to make to the House. As your Lordships know, I never, if I can possibly help it, avoid being present throughout the debate to the end; but it so happens that to-night I have an important meeting which I must attend, and it may be that I shall have to leave before the conclusion of the debate. I apologise to the noble
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Earl, Lord Home, and all speakers whose speeches I shall not be able to listen to. With those few words, I would extend to the Government, on behalf of my noble friends and myself, our very best wishes at the launching of the new Ministry for a smooth and successful voyage.
3.8 p.m.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I think all of us are very grateful to the noble Earl the Leader of the Opposition for having put this Motion down and given your Lordships the opportunity of debating this White Paper. I think it would be also true to say that while the noble Earl has given the Government's plans a rather lukewarm welcome, that was made up for, I think, by the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, who welcomed them wholeheartedly. In fact I think he had only one criticism: that they were not put into effect sooner. I have noticed that if the Opposition ever agree with anything the Government propose they always ask why it was not done years ago, so I do not take that criticism too much to heart. Perhaps I may answer at once one question which the noble Lord put to me—because I do not want to be diverted into questions of equipment and manpower and so on. He asked about recruitment. I would say this: my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for War acknowledges that the present situation is unsatisfactory. He is taking a number of steps to encourage recruiting and also to ensure that the needs of the Army are kept in the public mind.
I should also like to apologise to your Lordships if I leave a little time before the end of the debate. I think I have explained to most of your Lordships that there is a very special naval occasion this evening in Portsmouth which I think it would not be proper for me, as First Lord of the Admiralty, to miss; and I hope your Lordships will forgive me.
The noble Earl the Leader of the Opposition has spent very many years in Defence Departments, twice as First Lord of the Admiralty—on the second occasion during a very critical period in the history of this country, then as Minister of Defence—so anything that he says must be listened to with great attention and with great care. I intend, therefore, this afternoon to explain as best I can why the Government have decided to

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reorganise our defence organisation and on what principles we have tried to base our proposals.
Before doing so, however, perhaps I may be allowed to say one personal thing. It is, I suppose, rather unusual for a Minister to introduce, or to support, proposals which will entail the disappearance of his office and of the Department over which he has presided for a number of years; and it would be foolish to deny that there are those of us in the Admiralty—and I am sure, too, in the War Office, and in the Air Ministry—who are sad to see the disappearance of traditional offices and institutions which have been valuable in their time and played a great and honourable part in the history of this country. The Board of Admiralty has a long history, and it and the Royal Navy, as your Lordships know, have served the country more than well; and no one could be more proud or more honoured than I am to have held the office of First Lord for nearly four years. I should not, therefore, contemplate coming to your Lordships' House and advocating the abolition of these time-honoured institutions if I did not believe strongly that the time had come when we should take a step forward in our defence organisation.
We should not be afraid of altering our policy because we look back too much on the past. No country or Government can run its defence policy, or indeed any other policy, on nostalgia. I also was at one time at the Ministry of Defence, not in the great capacity of the noble Earl opposite, but as Parliamentary Secretary. I served three Ministers—first the Prime Minister, then Mr. Selwyn Lloyd and, finally, Lord Monckton of Brenchley. I came to the conclusion during that time, which was between the years 1954 and 1956, that if our defence policy was to be cohesive and if our resources were to be used properly, it was necessary for the Minister of Defence and the Ministry of Defence to have greater powers.
As your Lordships know, we went some way along this road in 1958, at the time when Mr. Sandys was Minister of Defence. I think that the time has now come when we should take another step forward. I think this mainly for two reasons. The first is that since the war we have been living under a sort of
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armed truce. It has been quite out of the question to follow the pattern which we usually follow, of starving the Armed Forces of resources in peace time until forced to reverse the trend by the threat or the reality of war. We have had to maintain carefully balanced forces over these last years, and the balance is necessarily a delicate one. It is political, it is military and it is economic.
The second reason—and it is closely related to the first one—lies in the cost and complexity of modern equipment. Prices for aircraft and ships and tanks have gone up out of all proportion to the general rise in industrial and consumer goods. I agree with all that the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, said on that point, though I should hesitate to say that my noble friend the Minister of State for Commonwealth Relations was not more valuable than a sloop. But as the price of equipment soars, so does the competition for scarce money from the Defence Budget become more intense. Of course it is the business of the Royal Navy to state the case for sea power, as it is for the other two Services to state their cases. I do not believe that unless there is a strong central control by a Minister of Defence it is possible to balance the three forces and their requirements properly, all, of course, subject to the overall political, military and economic considerations. As each of the Services becomes more and more interdependent, and as they co-operate more closely, the need for a single responsible Minister in a unified Ministry of Defence has become stronger—not of course to stifle opinion and comment in the individual Services or to stifle differences of view. The idea is that the new Secretary of State shall have access to all the facts and all the interpretations put upon them. But the decisions must be his and those of the Defence and Overseas Policy Committee and the Cabinet.
Having got so far, the Government then had to decide how this was to be brought about. There were two possible ways, I think, in which this could be done. They could either unify the three Services and administer them as one in a single department on a functional basis, or they could retain the separate identities of the Services, unite them in a common headquarters building, under the single control of a Secretary of State for Defence, delegating

1161
such duties as he himself would not have time to perform. As your Lordships know, the Government chose the latter alternative; and I am quite sure that they were right. I do not believe that at this point of time it is possible or desirable to unify the Services. Sailors are sailors; soldiers are soldiers, and airmen are airmen: they chose their ship; they chose their regiment, and they chose their squadron. Their loyalties are to their Service. Ever-increasing demands are placed upon their skill and their ingenuity by the increasing complications of modern weapons, and that of itself imposes greater demands for specialisation and not integration. I am quite sure that it is vital that the Services should retain their own distinctive traditions and identities.
Nor do I believe that functional organisation is possible. Ninety-five per cent. of the time of the Second Sea Lord in the Admiralty (as your Lordships know, he looks after manpower in the Navy), is spent necessarily on single Service matters, and only 5 per cent. on matters which affect the other two Services. And this is even more true of the Controller, who looks after production and equipment, whose time is spent almost entirely on naval issues. That of course is not to say that there are not fields in which it may be possible to integrate; but as a generality, that is certainly not so. It will, however, be necessary for the new Ministry of Defence—and this is embodied in its structure—to delegate.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, may I just say that there is no reason why you cannot get good co-operation between the particular kind of senior officers, the production officers, about whom you are talking. We did have some body which met in a hotel just the other side of Cockspur street, at the bottom of the Haymarket—it was called the "Plumbers' Club". It really comprised the Controller of the Navy and the man in charge of production for merchant shipping and repairs, and the men in charge of production for the other two Services. They did a lot in the war; they got together and did the job.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I am sure that is true. I am trying to explain the reasons why we have decided
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to create this kind of organisation. I think that as I go along the noble Earl may perhaps be more convinced that the Government are right in what they are proposing to do.
I was saying that it was necessary in this new structure to delegate. The advantage of this new system will be lost unless the Secretary of State for Defence can devote the time required to policy questions and to overall direction of policy, which should be his prime function. If he became involved in the day-to-day administration of the three Services, he would be lost in a mass of detail and so overworked as to be unable to do his job—and I think the noble Earl recognised that fact in his speech. Of course, it will lie within the Secretary of State's authority to intervene whenever and wherever he may think it necessary, but in practice he must delegate much of his authority for the management of the Services, and this delegation, to be effective, must be understood both by Parliament and by the Departments and the men and women of the Services themselves. In the words of the White Paper, efficiency, leadership and morale require a focus for the management of each Service and for safeguarding the career interests and the welfare of all ranks and all civilian staff.
It is proposed that this requirement should be met by the Navy, Army and Air Force Boards. A Minister of State who deputises for the Secretary of State will be identified with each of these Boards and with the management of a particular Service. And the Chiefs of Staff, as the professional Heads of each Service, will remain the senior Service members of each Board, and their position, as I hope to explain a little later, is extremely important.
The Government then had to consider the question of the Ministry of Aviation, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, about which there have been a number of different views and comments outside your Lordships' House. The main reasons why the Ministry of Aviation cannot readily be absorbed in the new Ministry of Defence are the indivisible character of the Ministry's responsibilities for civil as well as military research and development, and the gross overload on the Secretary of State for Defence which would result from the transfer of these

1163
responsibilities. This is a factor which we regard as overriding the arguments which can be advanced on other grounds, both for and against retaining the Ministry of Aviation as a separate Department.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, does that mean that the Minister of Aviation has won his way clear from what was intended to be thrust upon him?
LORD CARRINGTON: The noble Earl must not go back too far in his experience of what happened in the Labour Government. We attach great importance to the strengthening of the existing links between the Ministry of Aviation and the present Defence Departments.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: The noble Lord has not answered my question.
LORD CARRINGTON: The White Paper explains a number of steps which are to be taken. I did answer the noble Earl's question. I was saying that the Government, having weighed the arguments carefully, had on balance come down to feeling that we should leave the Ministry of Aviation outside the complex. I was going on to explain exactly how it was going to be tied into it, if the noble Earl will be a little patient.
The Minister of Aviation and the appropriate senior officials will be accommodated in the main Ministry of Defence building in Whitehall. The Minister of Aviation will attend the Defence Council whenever matters affecting his Department are being discussed. His Ministry will be fully associated with the new arrangements for the formulation of operational requirements, for the control of defence research and development and for weapons system evaluation. The Secretary of State for Defence will have ready access to the Minister of Aviation's establishment and staff. The normal arrangements for the conduct of inter-departmental business will be developed to provide for the fullest possible representation and inter-communication as between the Ministry of Aviation and the new Ministry of Defence.
Lastly, my Lords, the Government set out to retain as great a degree of flexibility
1164
as they could. My view is that the proposals in the White Paper should not be regarded as final but as part of a process of continuous development which has gone on since the war. As I mentioned earlier, although the management of the individual Services will be decentralised, we intend to try to encourage rationalisation of administration and the integration of management organisations wherever possible and we hope to extend a good deal the practice of one Service undertaking a task for another Service, or the other two. The Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff (Personnel and Logistics), a new appointment, and a Second Permanent Under Secretary of State have a particular responsibility for advances in this direction and for identifying what sort of thing might happen. These changes must be reflected in the organisation, and the Deputy Under Secretary of State (Administration) shown in the chart under the Second Permanent Under Secretary of State will preside over central establishment branches and over a Defence Establishments Committee.
My Lords, there have been outside—and I suspect there will be this afternoon—those who believe that the proposals for reorganisation should have been even more radical. I think that we have gone as far as we reasonably can, consistent with our responsibility for maintaining efficiency in spite of the inevitable temporary disruption. These, then, are the reasons behind the decision taken by the Government and my right honourable friend, the Minister of Defence, with the help, I may say, of two notable figures in the defence field, Lord Ismay and Sir Ian Jacob, who played a conspicuous part of their own in the defence machinery during the war years, who investigated the question and made a report to my right honourable friend. I think all your Lordships will be grateful to them for the hard work they have done and for the advice they have given.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, before the noble Lord leaves that point, could he tell the House whether in fact those two distinguished officers are in agreement with the Government's Defence White Paper proposals?
LORD CARRINGTON: I think I ought to leave that to the two distinguished officers. What I was saying was

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that they have been very helpful to Her Majesty's Government in making up their minds. That does not necessarily mean what the noble Lord is laughing about. I was being very non-committal.
There are one or two more detailed issues which I should like to touch upon. First of all, there is the question of the Committee on Defence and Overseas Policy which is to be set up under the Prime Minister. It has, I think, for some time been apparent that it is very difficult to separate these two functions: when we talk about our overseas problems and commitments we inevitably include defence, and vice versa. It has therefore been decided to amalgamate these two separate committees to examine questions of defence policy, not in purely military terms but in relation to foreign and economic policy as well. Though the regular membership will be small—the Prime Minister, the First Secretary of State, the Foreign Secretary, the Chancellor, the Home Secretary, the Commonwealth Secretary and the Defence Secretary—other Ministers will attend as necessary and so will the Chief of the Defence Staff and the Chiefs of Staff. So too if necessary will other officials and the Chief Scientific Adviser.
I should like to break off for a moment to say how much I agree with what the noble Earl said about the engineers. The fact that this White Paper concentrates in some paragraphs upon scientists does not mean that the Government do not believe that the engineers are important, and I know in my own Department what important work they put in.
Your Lordships will have noticed in all these new arrangements that the position of the Chiefs of Staff has remained unaltered. They remain the professional Heads of their Services and I believe that this is of great importance to each Service. There must be a focus and a Head. Sailors, soldiers or airmen must feel that there is someone who has a special duty to represent their interests and I am particularly glad—and I am astonished the noble Earl is not—that in the case of my own Service it has been found possible to retain the titles of First Sea Lord and Second Sea Lord, both of which are so well understood and well known throughout the Royal Navy. The Chief of the
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Defence Staff and the Chiefs of Staff will attend at full Cabinet meetings when appropriate and their right of access to the Prime Minister is preserved in the new organisation.
As the noble Earl and the noble Lord. Lord Ogmore, have said, we are setting up a Department which is very large indeed and of unprecedented size in this country. For this reason, and because of the delegation about which I have already spoken, the Secretary of State will be assisted by three Ministers of State for Defence. I stress "for Defence" since they will discharge whatever responsibilities the Secretary of State may delegate to them from time to time over the whole of the defence field. Their terms of reference will thus be different from those of the present Service Ministers, though I must say that I have found myself talking for the other two Services as well as the Ministry of Defence on a number of occasions in the last four years. At the same time, these new Ministers will have a special responsibility for a particular Service since it is necessary for the purposes of good administration and political control that there should be a Minister closely identified with the Boards of the Services and their general conduct. The noble Earl opposite asked whether the Secretary of State for Defence will be responsible for the discipline of the Forces. Yes, he will, but the day-to-day management will be delegated to the Ministers of State and the Boards.
Our general approach, therefore, is that there should be integration of the Services consistent with the maintenance of the essential individuality of the Services. This has been the approach, too, in the Defence Council and in the three Boards which supersede the present Councils. Policy concocted in a vacuum tends to be neither responsible nor realistic, and we have tried to avoid this. Management must be inspired by a proper appreciation of policy issues. The Department is unified by the Secretary of State being Chairman of the Defence Council and also titular Chairman of each Board, even though he will normally delegate this responsibility to the appropriate Minister of State. There is in addition a degree of common membership of the Boards and of the Defence Council itself, inasmuch as the Ministers of State and the Chiefs of Staff are members of both.

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There is one matter which I have not yet mentioned and that is the relationship between the Sovereign and the Services. There is to be no change whatever in the relationships and traditional links, except in the one case of the Board of Admiralty and the Lord High Admiral, and it is a particular pleasure to my colleagues on the Board of Admiralty and myself, who have been commissioned by Her Majesty to execute the office of the Lord High Admiral, that the Queen has graciously consented to assume herself that ancient and honourable title. So it will be that, although the
"Silk Flagg Red with a yellow anchor and cable in the Fly"—
as the Lord High Admiral's flag is described in Narborough's Journal of 1672—will be lowered from the Admiralty, it will continue to be hoisted by Her Majesty when she goes to sea and on other naval occasions.
To sum up, I believe—
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I do not recollect that the First Lord answered my question in connection with those four new organisations to be set up. I dealt specifically with Intelligence and with Signals.
LORD CARRINGTON: I did not answer that in detail, my Lords, and I apologise if I overlooked that. But I think that the noble Earl himself overlooked that, in paragraphs 35 down to 41, we do go into fairly full detail as to what we propose to do in these matters, and that is as far as I can take the subject this afternoon. Of course, these things have still to be worked out in final detail, but I think if the noble Earl will read these paragraphs he will see that they give him a very good idea in general terms of what is proposed.
My Lords, I believe we have effected a major and timely reform in our central organisation for defence which gives us the opportunity to improve the central control of defence policy without detriment to the efficient management, the fighting efficiency, the morale and the contentment of the fighting Services. I believe that we have created the means for achieving the objective laid down, to strike a proper balance between political and military commitments, resources and the rôles of the Services. The Secretary
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of State for Defence will be able to do this by gaining access to all the facts and all the experts, and through his mastery of a strong central organisation for administrative and financial control. I also believe that the new organisation, while it preserves the necessary unity of policy and management, does not preclude further progressive development in the direction of integration and rationalisation, wherever such development may be seen to be profitable. For all these reasons I believe the proposal to be worthy of your Lordships' approval.
My Lords, I know there are those in the Services and outside—and I think the noble Earl is one of them—who are anxious as to how this organisation will work. They look back, as I said at the beginning, with regret at the passing of some very familiar institutions. I do not believe that under the Government's plans those in the Services will notice that there has been any change. They will still have as their professional Head the First Sea Lord, the Chief of the General Staff or the Chief of the Air Staff. They will wear the same uniforms; they will owe their loyalty in exactly the same way as they do now, to their Service, to their ship, their regiment, to their squadron. Their pride in their Service should be unaltered. For those who work in Whitehall there will be some change, a change of scenery for two Services and the Ministry of Defence; some new neighbours for the Air Ministry. To begin with, they will have to learn the new organisation and get to know their opposite numbers even better than they do to-day—and they know them well to-day. If, as we profoundly believe, these proposals will make for better defence planning and better budgetary control, then everybody in all the three Services will benefit.
The other day my colleagues in the other two Services and I, and the Minister of Defence, sent a personal message to the Services and in it we said this. Ultimately organisation is not a matter of lines upon a chart. It depends upon people. The proposals now before Parliament create a framework for the new organisation. But in its growth and development the major part will be played by those who serve in the new Ministry of Defence, and those who from time to time join it for a tour of duty

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from the Services. My Lords, these are the people who are now engaged upon the massive task of implementing the proposals before you in the White Paper. I ask your Lordships to support and encourage them by endorsing these proposals.

TELEVISION BILL
Returned from the Commons, with the Amendments agreed to.
PEERAGE BILL
Returned from the Commons, with the Amendments agreed to.

PUBLIC ORDER BILL [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to, with an Amendment.
3.38 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (EARL JELLICOE): My Lords, I beg to move that the Message from the Commons be taken into consideration forthwith.
Moved accordingly, and on Question, Motion agreed to.

PUBLIC ORDER BILL [H.L.]

  COMMONS AMENDMENT
  Clause 1, page 1, line 8, after "1" insert "(1)".
  EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendment. It is a Government Amendment designed to make absolutely clear the effect of the Bill upon the Public Meeting Act, 1908. It is a very small matter, and I think I can explain the purpose of this Amendment to your Lordships very briefly. Under Section 1(1) of the 1908 Act it is made an offence to act at a public meeting in a disorderly manner, for the purpose of preventing the transaction of the business for which the meeting was called. In 1936 a new subsection (3) was added and this empowered a constable, on the request of the chairman of the meeting, to require a person reasonably suspected of committing an offence under the earlier provision of the section to declare his name and address. This new subsection made it a summary offence, which was punishable by a fine not exceeding 40s., for such a person to refuse or fail to give his name and address, or to give a false name and address. We have never proposed
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  that the increased penalties provided for under the Bill should apply to this relatively trivial offence in Section 1(3) of the 1908 Act, and we had not thought, and we still do not think, that the Bill as originally drafted had this effect. Nevertheless, there may be some ambiguity here, and in fact it was argued by a Member in another place during Second Reading that the Bill did increase the penalty under subsection (3) of Section 1. We have accordingly felt it right to make the position absolutely clear by substituting a reference to subsection (1) of Section 1 of the 1908 Act, for the reference which was in it until yesterday to Section 1 as a whole. My Lords, I beg to move.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Earl Jellicoe.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

DEFENCE REORGANISATION
3.38 p.m.
Debate resumed.
VISCOUNT MONTGOMERY OF ALAMEIN: My Lords, I have certain experience of the subject under discussion in Lordships' House to-day, first, as Commander-in-Chief of great armies in war-time, and, secondly, as a member of the Chiefs of Staff Committee in Whitehall. I should like to say at once that I give a general welcome to the Government's proposals as being a step in the right direction. Ever since 1948 I have advocated this step to ten successive Ministers of Defence—ten, not nine—but all declined to grasp this very prickly nettle. But now at long last we have the organisation.
I think it must be admitted that the organisation which we are to have from April 1, 1964, is a compromise between what is the right and proper organisation, and what the Government reckon will be acceptable in the Whitehall square mile for the time being—and I would emphasise "for the time being". The move over towards a centralised Ministry of Defence is revolutionary so far as we British are concerned. We are the only nation in the Free World, and, so far as I know, in the world not so free, which does not have this organisation. But that

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by itself is not the reason why we should adopt it.
The reason why we should adopt this organisation is, to my mind, quite clear. We learnt in Hitler's war, the late war, that no one Service can do any good by itself. In the campaigns in which the armies under my command took part we always had one flank on the sea—always; in the early stages of the campaign in Italy, in September, 1943, we had both flanks on the sea; and above us always was the mighty weapon of air power. Without sea-power and air-power we on the ground could have achieved very little. Therefore, any changes in organisation which tend towards making the three Services act as one close-knit fighting machine is right. It has come very late; but better late than never.
My Lords, to-day Service loyalties are divided, dependent on whether the fighting man wears khaki or whether he wears a particular shade of blue. I read with great interest in a London newspaper on July 17 a leading article on the new organisation. In that article were these words—and I quote:
"Inter-Service squabbles will continue, and it is right that they should do so".
I reckon it is not right that they should do so. We have suffered too long from inter-Service rivalries, each Service fighting for its own corner when money is tight. The result has been compromise all down the line, and never the right solution. The three Services must now learn to pull together as one team, and the proper way to ensure this is to train the officer to be completely inter-Service from his earliest days. With the organisation proposed, that would mean tri-Service cadet colleges—as they have in Canada, for instance, which I have seen and which are extremely good. It would also mean integrating the three Service staff colleges. Without those steps being taken, I do not believe that this new organisation will ever develop its full potential.
Now it is not clear to me whether the War Office is to retain its name or become the Army Office. That is not clear: but I hope the latter. The story is told of a lady who, during the war, wanted to go to the War Office to ask for some information about a relative. She knew it was somewhere in Whitehall, but was
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not quite certain where it was, so she said to a policeman at the top of Whitehall, "Officer, which side is the War Office on?"; and the "copper" replied, "Ours, I hope".
My Lords, there will come a time eventually when we shall have one fighting Service—eventually—some of whom serve on the sea, some in the air and some on the land. We cannot turn over to that system to-day; it would not be accepted in Whitehall and it would not be accepted in the nation. But it will come, and my guess is that it will come after the next world war. Now I have a certain sympathy with some of the remarks made by the noble Earl, the Leader of the Opposition, but I would add this to them. I do not think that, to-day, it would be right for the Government to produce a completed, final blueprint for the organisation we are now discussing. It is a revolutionary change, and the details must be evolved step by step. Where the present outline is proved to be wrong, changes must be made. I would say that it will take some years to get exactly the right answer.
I should like to mention a few points which, in my view, need very close examination—and the first one is manpower. A study of the White Paper leaves me with the impression that the manpower employed in the four Ministries is going to increase under the new, centralised organisation. I asked for the present figures, your Lordships will remember, last week, and they were published in the OFFICIAL REPORT. The grand total of the manpower in the Service Ministries in Whitehall is just under 24,000. That is quite a sizeable army. My Lords, the new organisation must result in a decrease in manpower at the top. If it does not, we shall have failed. I hope that the First Lord, or maybe the Foreign Secretary, will recommend to the Minister of Defence that, when the new organisation comes into being there must be, in the Service Ministries, an intensive use of weed-killer. I think the Minister of Defence should go into production with weed-killer pretty quickly. It will be needed in heavy and concentrated doses. In fact, I think that the whole question of manpower in the Ministries in Whitehall demands the closest scrutiny by Parliament at all times.

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The next point is what I would call political control. I have learnt in my military career that the higher direction of war and the direction of the military machine in peace time must always remain firmly in political hands. The allegiance of the fighting man in war and in peace must be given to the State. It is not open to the fighting man to change his allegiance because of any political views he may hold. Similarly, defence should be a non-Party matter, divorced from Party politics. But it is not, which is a very great tragedy. My Lords, the danger is this. From a study of the White Paper, it will be seen that under the new organisation the three Service Ministries have been downgraded; and so has the P.U.S., the Permanent Under-Secretary, in each Ministry. In fact, political control has been weakened. Very great power is now to be concentrated in the hands of two men: the Chief of the Defence Staff and the Chief Scientific Adviser. Under the new organisation, the Minister of Defence will need to be a pretty good guy. It will be fatal if he is to change frequently. Your Lordships will recall that we had ten Ministers of Defence between 1947 and 1962; and, during the two years from October, 1954, to October, 1956, we had four Ministers of Defence—Mr. Macmillan, Mr. Selwyn Lloyd, Lord Monckton of Brenchley and Mr. Head. If that sort of musical chairs is to go on, the new organisation cannot possibly succeed. The higher direction would then get into the hands of the Admirals, the Generals and the Air Marshals, with fatal results.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, before the noble and gallant Viscount leaves that subject, may I put this point to him? When we last debated these matters he favoured the downgrading of the Service Ministers. Does he still favour that, or not? I am not quite clear from what he said.
VISCOUNT MONTGOMERY OF ALAMEIN: I do not. I recommended that they should be called the "Secretary to the Army", the "Secretary to the Navy", and so on. What I mean now is that this question of political control must be carefully watched. That is the point. You were quite right.
Now, my Lords, I come to the question of the right of access to the Prime
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Minister. In the Defence debate in your Lordships' House on March 13 last I suggested that the three Service Chiefs must not be allowed direct access to the Prime Minister. I now see in paragraph 17 of the White Paper that this right is to be given. I consider it to be entirely wrong that they should be allowed to lobby the Prime Minister. How can the head of a department in Whitehall or, for that matter, in business have any firm authority if his subordinates are allowed to lobby a higher level when they feel aggrieved, or when they disagree with some decision given by their immediate boss? How can he have any full authority?
To allow such action is to encourage disloyalty; and that paragraph in the White Paper robs it of much of its value. If a Service Chief disagrees vehemently with some decision or some proposal—or if all three do—it will be the duty of the Chief of the Defence Staff to lay the matter before the Minister of Defence, who will presumably see the Service Chiefs concerned and give a ruling; and, if he thought fit, he would take them to see the Prime Minister. It will also be the bounden duty of the Chief of the Defence Staff to inform the Minister of Defence of differences of opinion among Service Chiefs; and I would add that he should always give his own opinion very firmly at the same time.
The next point is the choice of the Chief of the Defence Staff. I do not think we should adopt a system by which the appointment of Chief of the Defence Staff is held by each Service in turn. The present Chief of the Defence Staff is Admiral Mountbatten. It will be his task to get the Service side of this business what I would call properly "run in". If the best man to succeed him in due course is another Admiral, let him be appointed. We must always have the best possible man for this responsible job, and we must avoid "Buggins's turn". The issues at stake are far too serious for that. I should like to say one word about simplicity. When you look at the table at the end of this Paper you get the feeling that it is rather complicated; and it may be. What I would say, generally, is that tremendous administrative problems are going to arise; they will be really terrific. Therefore I am glad to see that the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Oakridge, is to speak

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shortly. I reckon that he has more knowledge of administration in war time than any other Member of your Lordships' House.
My Lords, I should like next to say a word or two about war in the nuclear age. The defence council, in my view, will need to embark on a serious study of this subject, because their thinking will affect the shape and size of our Armed Forces and of the Civil Defence organisation in this country. Let me give one example. I find it quite impossible to visualise a war of the future being supported by our present logistic or administrative organisation; but your Lordships will know very well that the British army in Germany is to-day being trained for a nuclear war with our existing administrative set-up. We have a vast complicated organisation for the distribution of material all over the world. There are hundreds of committees in peace time—there would be more in war—receiving millions of reports; and they issue thousands of instructions every day. No communications system would carry that load in war time. Anybody who thinks that the present administrative system will work after thousands of nuclear weapons have been exchanged is absolutely barmy. After the first nuclear exchange, nothing of any size or quantity will move on land in the area in which these weapons have exploded or are exploding. Only on the sea will surface movement of any size be possible. That is a very important factor.
The lesson is, I think, that the side which maintains its maritime strength in peace time is the one that will succeed in the reconstruction period which will come when the fighting has ceased. Hence the importance of sea power. Time will not allow me to develop the subject further. It is sufficient to say that the most intensive study is essential in order to get out of the logistic morass in which we are plunged to-day. There is also that very well-known NATO disease called "committee-itis"—a disease not unknown in Whitehall. It reminds me of the story of the boy who said to his father "Father, what is a camel?" The father replied "My son, a camel is a horse designed by a committee."
Let me conclude by saying that the new organisation is better than ever before.
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The way ahead may seem to bristle with difficulties. To those who think thus I would quote Metternich's observation,
"No matter is so easily settled as that which appears to present overwhelming difficulties."
My Lords, I know that very well. In the spring of 1944 I could have written a paper to prove that it was quite impossible to land our armies in Normandy. I could also write a paper to prove that it could be done successfully—which, in fact, I did. I accept absolutely the statement by the First Lord that the new organisation goes as far as is possible for the time being; but there is one point to consider. If we are not careful there will still be the danger of promoting individual Service interests over those of the nation. It has happened too often in the past; it must never be allowed to happen again.
3.58 p.m.
EARL ATTLEE: My Lords, it is one of the advantages of your Lordships' House that on subjects such as this we are able to hear distinguished members of the Fighting Forces. It has been remarked that it has taken a long time for this Government to produce anything. It they had produced it earlier we might have had the advantage of hearing the views of Lord Alanbrooke, Lord Cunningham of Hyndhope and others. I shall not be accused of standing against any integration of the Services; the question is how best it can be done. I recall advocating a Minister of Defence in the House of Commons as long ago as 1936. For many years we carried on a campaign for that; we got it in the war, and we set up that Ministry after the war.
A point always made against the idea of a Minister of Defence is that he will have far too powerful a Ministry—one man wielding immense power. Of course that was imagined by the Conservative Government, who would not allow anybody to stay in the Ministry of Defence for more than a few months in case he became too powerful. It had an unfortunate effect. We had not had what the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, demanded—a strong hand at the top. We had not had the strong personal contact that we should have had. It has been a great disadvantage all through that the Minister of Defence has been treated as a kind of siding in which Ministers were put, either on

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their way up or on their way down, and that no one put there has remained long enough to deal with these problems.
We are now to have an exaltation of the Minister of Defence and a downgrading of the Service Ministers. I do not like that. I always believed that the Minister of Defence should be a very important person; but I believed that he should have a definite sphere of operations, and that there should be a definite sphere for the Ministers of the Fighting Services. It is true that it was due to me that the Service Ministers were taken out of the Cabinet. I believe that that decision was sound, because the tendency used to be to make people heads of the Services just because of their status in the Party or in the House, and so they had to be Cabinet Ministers. We got rid of that principle. We also reduced the number of Ministers in the Cabinet by putting in the Minister of Defence and by that making the Ministers Ministers of Cabinet rank, but I never dreamed that we should de-grade them now by making them mere glorified Under-Secretaries. The title Minister of State was an invention of Sir Winston Churchill and merely gave a sort of extra status to an Under-Secretary. The title was used particularly for the Foreign Office, the Colonial Office and the Commonwealth Relations Office, but Ministers of State are little more than Under-Secretaries. And the heads of the Fighting Services are now de-graded down to the level of Ministers of State. I believe that that is a mistake. I do not know how it will affect the Services.
A second thing I never approved of was the interposition between the Chiefs of Staff and the Minister of Defence of the Chief of Staff of Defence. I think that that was a mistake. What the Minister of Defence required was not another "high-up", but an adviser, a helper, a co-ordinator. In fact, what he wanted was another "Pug" Ismay—very rare, but a man of that status—to assist him in his job of dealing with the Chiefs of Staff. I do not believe in having someone put over the Chiefs of Staff. Our view at the time (I think it was a general view) was that the three Chiefs of Staff were a Chief of Staff in commission, and, provided there was co-operation, it worked very well. I am told that it did
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not work well before the Second World War, but it certainly worked afterwards. We had very wise and skilled Chairmen, like the noble Lords, Lord Alanbrooke, Lord Tedder and others, and we were getting the kind of co-ordination we wanted, without the interposition of somebody else. Now we are to have a Minister in charge of all the three Fighting Services. He will be too powerful, and he will have too much work.
I do not like some of the set-up here. I do not like the idea in this chart of the Ministers, nominally at all events, having to preside over the Army Council under a different name, and over the Lords of the Admiralty, with a different name, and also over the Air Council. It is only a matter of nomenclature. There is an awful lot of "eyewash" in this White Paper. We are not changing the substance of anything by changing the name. In practice, the Minister will delegate the work to the Service Ministers. That is what it amounts to, after all. Unless he is going to be submerged in detail, he must leave this to the Service Ministers, who are now to be mere Ministers of State. It does not seem worth while to go to this degradation of these Ministers merely to put a purely nominal point, in which the Minister of Defence is to preside over all these Committees.
I do not care much for the set-up here. I think there is an awful lot of harness and too little horse. New Committees of all kinds are being set up. I welcome some of the changes, such as the new position given to the scientists. But all these things were in process of being done, and would have been done, and we should have had the necessary co-ordination, if we had had one Minister of Defence instead of nine. After all, the question is largely one of personality. The set-up works well if we have the right people. An immense amount of power is to be given to the Chief of Staff of the Defence Ministry. That is all right if we get an exceptional man, such as we have at present; but in legislation we must cater for the ordinary man. We shall not always have people with the kind of experience we have at present—like the noble and gallant Earl, Lord Mountbatten of Burma, for instance, or some of his predecessors.
I think that the idea behind this organisation is right. There is no earthly reason why we should not have had it before.

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It may need some slight changes. But I am not very enamoured of this setting up of a Pentagon in Whitehall—assembling there, so far as I can see, a whole mass of staff officers from the various Ministries. I think that it will lead to duplication. We shall have the same kind of officers duplicated in the Service Departments. The idea is that we shall integrate the three Services in one building, but separate the heads of the Services from their administrative units. I do not think that that is a good idea. Altogether, I do not care very much for this elaborate organisation here—all these different executives with staffs. I do not see that they will show any improvement on what we had before. I think that the Defence Committee of the Cabinet as we had it, ensured the right amount of co-ordination between the Foreign Office, the Commonwealth Relations Office and the Fighting Services. I do not see why we want these extra Committees. I think that the Chiefs of Staff, as the noble and gallant Viscount said will be suffering from "committee-itis".
Fundamentally, the matter rests on personnel. Who are we going to get to run the show? If we are not going to get an effective Minister of Defence, then the show will be run by his Chief of Staff, who may or may not be good. I should beware here of what I think is a real danger—the loss of ministerial control. Some people like the American system. I do not. You have the Pentagon. In my experience, anything less co-ordinated than the American system could not possibly exist. In war time, we had Admiral King fighting one war and the soldiers fighting another war; and with their system of only one Executive, the civilians had not much control. I doubt whether they have it to-day.
I think it is essential, as the noble and gallant Viscount said, that you should have adequate political control, and I do not think you get it. In Defence matters the Prime Minister should be constantly involved, and he must have the last word. In these days, when you are nominally at peace and do not have too much trouble, he must personally look into these Defence matters. I have always regarded a Minister of Defence as a Prime Minister's alter ego for Defence purposes; not an independent power, but working closely with him. That I think
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we had. I think it was proved by the way it worked when we had the sudden question of sending a force to Korea. We had no difficulty. It was worked out; the three Services co-operated, and it was all done in a very short time. We had our headquarters out there at Hong Kong, we brought in the Canadians and Australians, and we had the Commonwealth Division. All this worked very smoothly.
It depends on the men and their training. If your Air Marshals, Admirals and Generals are taught in the modern way in the Defence colleges, and so on, to work together and look at all Defence questions from the Defence angle, then they will work together. I cannot conceive anybody nowadays thinking that there could be a separate war without taking into consideration the necessary interdependence of the Services. It seems to me that the statements here, far from announcing some wonderful new gospel, are merely stating the obvious of what has to be done. Over-elaboration here merely means that they find it necessary to set out in great detail what used to be done, and what should have been done during the last twelve years. It is the spirit of the thing and the personnel that matter, not elaborate paper constitutions.
I do not think this should be put in force at once. It ought to be taken back and looked at again, preferably by a new Ministry. I do not think our present Prime Minister is really very good at administration. A Minister never seems to do his own job. A Foreign Secretary or Commonwealth Secretary is always liable to be superseded in any crisis by one of these peripatetic Pooh Bahs, Mr. Butler or the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham. I do not think the general set-up is good. I feel that we should get back to a good deal more simplicity, and more responsibility should be given to the people who ought to have the responsibility. As I say, I hope this will be taken back and looked at again, and preferably brought in by a new Government who understand the subject and know something about administration.
4.15 p.m.
LORD TEYNHAM: My Lords, I feel honoured at following the noble Earl, Lord Attlee. He must have had considerable experience in Defence matters, and I somewhat hesitate to criticise his

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views. I must say I am rather inclined to agree that the Ministers of the Fighting Services should remain of Cabinet rank, and perhaps the Government will give further thought to this point. I do not agree with the noble Earl that these points and others should be considered by a new Government. On the whole, I should like to congratulate the Government on this scheme for the central organisation of Defence as a compromise basis of the many conflicting interests. I am sorry that, as yet, it has not been possible to debate the Service Estimates for this year, which have a great bearing on the matter we are discussing to-day. Many of us realise the reasons for this.
I feel sure that the bringing together of strategic planning, direction of operations, intelligence and communications is all to the good and should make for better efficiency in the conduct of war. I am glad that the views of the extremists have been resisted. We have heard of recommendations in some quarters for a single, unified Defence Service, with even a common type of uniform. I suggest that any move in that direction would be quite unrealistic for this country. We have strategic needs and obligations which require the maintenance of at least two individual Services, and probably three, for a long time to come. But I think it is possible that in the not too distant future we may see the merging of the Royal Navy and the Air Force.
There is no doubt that the real reason behind this Central Organisation for Defence is financial, and it is hoped that Defence expenditure will be reduced. But I cannot help feeling that Parkinson's Law will very quickly become operative and little money, if any, will be saved in the great Civil Service establishment which will arise in Whitehall Gardens. I hope that the new central organisation will not mean that the Services are to be directed by a series of interminable committees. This could very well happen, and it is a danger we must guard against. I think it is a pity that the time-honoured names of Board of Admiralty, Army Council and Air Council are to be done away with, and these bodies are to have the new names of Navy Board, Army Board and Air Board. Surely this was unnecessary. But I suppose it was a sop to the extremists.
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In spite of what has been said by my noble and gallant friend, Lord Montgomery of Alamein, I am very much in agreement with the proposal that the professional heads of all three Services, the Chiefs of Staff, are to retain the right of access to the Prime Minister. I am sure this will have a steadying effect on the Services as a whole; I am certain it will for the Navy, for which I can speak. I think the officers and men will feel that they will have a degree of protection from the great octopus in Whitehall. Integration is very much a state of mind, and I suggest that if this plan is to be a success we must start considering the integration of initial training. I entirely support what has been said by my noble and gallant friend in this direction. It must mean the integration of training at an early age with the three Service colleges, and, in fact, a joint Service cadet college. I suggest that something of this nature must come about if the process of integration is to continue more closely in the future.
I do not mean to suggest that the Services should lose their separate identities, but in action they are increasingly interdependent. This will undoubtedly grow, and therefore some form of integration in training at an early age is, I feel, of the utmost importance. I think it is true to say that some of your Lordships are worried that integration may bring in its wake more and larger staffs and smaller actual fighting units. I am sure we all hope that this will not happen, although the danger is ever-present. On the whole, I welcome the plan of Her Majesty's Government. I feel sure it can be made to work if Service rivalries can be forgotten, and a great step forward can be taken in the provision of joint Service weapons which, in the long run, should save the country a great deal of money.
4.20 p.m.
LORD ROBERTSON OF OAKRIDGE: My Lords, I should like to start my remarks in the same was as I intend to end them, and that is by saying that I warmly welcome these proposals. During the course of my speech I shall have some criticisms to offer, and even some suggestions, but the real impression I wish to leave with your Lordships is that I welcome the proposals. I will talk of them briefly under the four headings, political, military, financial and scientific.

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On the political side, the proposals strike me as being simple, clear and right. I am glad that the title "Ministers of State" has been considered the right one for the four subordinate Ministers who are to have special responsibilities in relation to the individual Services. I am even more glad that they are to be regarded as deputies, as it were, to the Secretary of State, with responsibilities over the same defence field. I am afraid that in this respect I am expressing an opinion that is contrary to the opinion expressed by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, and that is a very awesome thought. But I am bound to say that I differ from him in this and one or two other matters in regard to this field, and if I express myself in moderate terms I trust that he will not think me impertinent or that I have forgotten my very great respect for him.
I have only one query about the political set-up, and that is this: who will represent the Government on defence in your Lordships' Chamber? Any of your Lordships who heard my speech in March will know that I personally consider that this Chamber should be the main forum for the debating of the great strategic and defence issues, and I feel that the Minister of Defence, with his responsibilities for over-all control, with a need for him to stand back, could do his work best if he were in this Chamber. But he might not be; I know that. If he is not, who will represent the Government here? I hope that it can be arranged that the Government will be represented here by someone of Cabinet rank. If that seems to imply a recommendation for promotion of the present First Lord of the Admiralty, well, why not?
I now turn to the military side of the organisation, and I use the word "military" in its widest sense. Here the critical decision forecast in the proposals put before us in March has been maintained; that is to say, responsibility for tendering professional advice to the Government on strategy has been placed collectively with the Chiefs of Staff Committee. All four Chiefs of Staff may be present at Cabinet meetings, and all four are to have the right of direct access to the Prime Minister. One hears it often said that this is the arrangement we had in the last war, and that it worked
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well then. That is probably so, but I think those who say this must also agree that no organisation, however well it has worked in the past, can ever be regarded as static, sacrosanct and immutable. If conditions have changed, the organisation may have to change, and I urge your Lordships to believe that conditions have changed enormously, as is brought out in the White Paper. What we need to-day, surely, is an organisation which will take account of what the Green Book on Defence (I think it is Cmnd. 1936) calls
"the essential unity of our defence forces".
We need an organisation to take account of the essential unity of our defence forces.
The noble and gallant Viscount, Lord Montgomery of Alamein, gave his reason again to-day for objecting to the right of direct access being given to the Chiefs of Staff. He supported his argument mainly with the idea that these Chiefs of Staff should not be given an opportunity to lobby over the head of the Chief of the Defence Staff. I agree with that, but I have another concern in this matter. It is that, under such an arrangement, it seems to me that professional military advice will be all too easily ignored. Picture the scene round that well-known baize covered table when some very awkward and tricky defence problem is being discussed, and all four Chiefs of Staff are present. They come into the room, having agreed upon their compromise advice to the Government, and it lies now before the Ministers. After half an hour or so of cross-examination of this individual and then that, it is my suggestion that their agreement will very clearly be shown for what it is, and all their previous disagreements, doubts, and fears will be laid bare, and then the professional military advice which ought to ring out clear for all to hear will be completely confused and irreconcilable. That is my fear about it.
The late Lord Grey of Falloden in his book Twenty-five Years, which I was rereading recently, ascribed many of our troubles of the First World War to exactly this tendency on the part of Governments—or the Government of that day, at least—to seek a variety of military advice. I will give your Lordships the page to show that this is a

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genuine quotation. On page 74, volume 2, he used this expression which stuck in my mind:
"The highest military opinion cannot be divided."
In this White Paper the Chief of the Defence Staff is referred to as the principal military adviser of the Government, and it is good at least that he is "the principal". But the very fact that that qualifying adjective is there shows that he is not the only one. Very deliberately, the highest military advice in this plan is being divided. So when the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, looked very hard in my direction and said that there were some people who thought these proposals did not go far enough, he was altogether right if he thought that I was one of them, because I certainly am.
On the other hand, what is being done is a great advance on what we have got already, and that I readily accept. In parenthesis, in March I made one suggestion in this field—namely, that perhaps it might be considered wise to give the Chief of the Defence Staff a higher rank than that held by any of his colleagues, and I have wondered since whether that recommendation appealed to the Government at all. Before I leave the Chiefs of Staff, I noted the point raised by the noble Earl, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, about the second title of the Chief of Naval Staff. I had noted that point myself, and thought it was a little hard on the soldiers. Could we not find a second title for the Chief of the General Staff? Perhaps he could be called First Land Lord. Landlords are not very popular, but he could be First Lord of the Land, and his colleague First Lord of the Air. That might be going too far. This is not, of course, a serious point, and I know that well enough. The Government have apparently agreed to this title, and it would ill become a poor "Pongo" like myself to appear to be jealous of it. But I should like to assure the Senior Service that their position in the high esteem and deep affection of all of us does not depend on a title of this sort.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord? I am following his arguments about the Chiefs of Staff with great interest. Is it his
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understanding that the Chiefs of Staff are never likely in the future to meet under the chairmanship of the Secretary of State for Defence which was, of course, provided for explicitly in the 1958 White Paper, and not in this? I was wondering whether that was his understanding.
LORD ROBERTSON OF OAKRIDGE: My Lords, I had imagined that meetings of that sort would continue. The actual structure of the committee working which is proposed is given in the White Paper, but I had certainly imagined that that kind of meeting would continue. The only point I am making is that I think it is a mistake to allow the individual Chiefs a Staff to be separate military advisers to the Government.
The White Paper does not tell us much about what is going to happen on the administrative side. I feel that is probably inevitable. This is detailed stuff and there is a great deal that obviously cannot be dealt with immediately. One feature which I welcomed very warmly was the appointment of a Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff for Personnel and Logistics. That, I am sure, is absolutely right, and I hope that he will be given plenty of authority.
I was also very interested in the solution adopted for defence signals. Maybe I am reading too much into this, but it seems to me that this is the first attempt to organise a technical service on a functional and professional basis. In using the adjective "functional" I hope I am not going against the disapproving voice which the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, used in regard to functional organisation. He did, I think, agree that there might be some cases where such an organisation would be appropriate. I personally hold the view that in due course we shall come to a more functional and professional organisation for all the engineering services, which will give us an organisation parallel to what exists in civil life. I am thinking of civil, mechanical, electrical and transportation engineers particularly. I think there is hope for great economies and for gaining efficiency; and, especially by working on the same lines as those adopted in civil life, it would facilitate expansion in war greatly. I looked in the White Paper for something to be said about other administrative services, notably supply, contracts and

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movement control. They are not there, and one can understand that, for they are detailed matters; but I hope that the fact that they are not mentioned does not mean that progress in their rationalisation has become bogged down.
On the financial side the decision is that there should not be one Vote and one Accounting Officer, but four Votes and four Accounting Officers. That is a matter of Treasury mystique, and I am not going to argue the point. There are only two things, it seems to me, that matter in this field. The first is that the authority of the Minister and of his Permanent Under-Secretary must not be qualified by measures herein proposed for decentralisation. In other words, he and his Permanent Under-Secretary must have the right to ask for any information from anybody inside the organisation at any time they like. The other point which I think is important is that the authority of the Minister and of his Permanent Under-Secretary shall not be, as it were, interfered with by the Treasury, but they must deal through him and not on any account deal direct with the individual Services. If the Minister could give assurances on those two points I certainly should feel satisfied about the financial provisions.
The correct organisation of research and development, as I think we have all recognised from the start, is one of the most difficult, tricky and urgent parts of this whole business. The existing organisation, it is generally accepted, is a flop. That is one of those brash statements unsupported by any evidence of which speakers are sometimes rather fond, but, I think, in this instance few will contradict me. Reading what is proposed in section X of the White Paper, which starts on page 7, I had the feeling of getting lost in a labyrinth of committees, working parties and panels. Committees are very good things, of course; we all have committees; they are very necessary. But I think noble Lords will agree that they are a menace in the absence of a clear chain of personal responsibility and personal authority, and that is what I do not find in this section of the White Paper. I think that the Government may like to have a look at it again and ensure that in the final draft of the Bill and whatever else goes out it is
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made more definite and more sharp. I hoped to find, for example, something like this:
"The Chief Scientific Adviser is responsible for all defence research and development. The scientific staffs of the present Ministry of Defence and the present Service Departments will work together under the Chief Scientific Adviser as the defence scientific staff."
I did find it there, but it was all tied up with qualifying adverbs and adjectives until the impression left in my mind was a very blurred one. I think it could be sharpened up.
The decision has been taken to retain the position as regards the Ministry of Aviation, which is responsible at the moment for the most important and most vital part of research and development for our fighting Services. The White Paper tells us, as we know already, that the Ministry of Aviation also has civil responsibilities. It tells us that these responsibilities are indivisible, which is no doubt right. If they are indivisible, they must stay with one Ministry. It might be the Ministry of Aviation, who will then act as agent for the Ministry of Defence; or it might be the Ministry of Defence, who will act as agent for the Ministry of Aviation; or it will have to be some new Ministry who will act as agent for both. The choice has been made that things should continue as at present, and that these responsibilities should continue to rest with the Ministry of Aviation. This decision is an odd one. I say "odd", because the work which the Ministry of Aviation does at the moment for the Defence forces is by far the larger part of its work and, by comparison, what it does for civil aviation is quite subordinate. The only justification I can see for this arrangement is that when such an immense piece of reorganisation is being attempted one cannot do everything at once, and it may be that the Government are maturing further plans for the better organisation of research and development generally.
This brings to my mind the chief criticism which has been levelled against the reorganisation—and it has been levelled this afternoon by the noble Earl the Leader of the Opposition—namely, that this is a tremendous reorganisation. It will create a monster Department; the Secretary of State for Defence will be overburdened; and the Chief of the Defence Staff (and this is the most horrible

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thought of all), in the words of that eminent journal which we read and whose wisdom we imbibe every Thursday, the Economist,
"will become eventually the most powerful salaried, unpolitical figure who has ever had the privilege of spending the largest part of our income tax for us."
This is a serious matter. I quite recognise that. But in all humility, I offer my (what shall I say?) philosophy in this matter to you. When there is a job to be done which clearly requires a single directing brain and a single controlling hand, then that job must be given to a single individual, and it does not help, and does not solve the problem, to split the job up between several men.
One must, however, take precautions in the matter. The first precaution, obviously, is the choice of the individual; and here, as regards the Minister, I entirely endorse what has been said about changing men round every few months as a question of political convenience. I entirely endorse what was said by the noble and gallant Field Marshal, Lord Montgomery of Alamein, about the Chief of the Defence Staff: we must have the best man available regardless of his Service and origin. That is the first essential. The second safeguard is that the man in question must be provided with an organisation to which he can decentralise without losing his grip on essentials. The third safeguard is that the men in question must be made accountable to his superiors, and in the case of the Chief of the Defence Staff that of course means his political superiors. In the case of the Minister, there is no problem; he is accountable to the Cabinet. The Chief of the Defence Staff is a difficult case, but I suggest his position is a little akin to those at the head of the great nationalised industries. There the matter of accountability, as I am perhaps in some position to know, has been a puzzle; but I think that we are in a fair way to settle it, and I believe if care is taken we can settle it satisfactorily in this case also.
Now I will end, as I started, by saying that I welcome these proposals warmly. In my view, they are a very important step in the right direction; they do the Government credit and I hope that the Government will pursue them, and that any Government that may come after the
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present one will pursue them also, because I believe they are fundamentally right. I have said I do not think they go far enough, but then one must recognise that Governments have difficulties in these matters. There were proposals of a similar nature matured not so very long ago, and such violent fanatical resistance was put up against them that they had to be completely dropped, and the clock was set back for some years. Therefore it is understandable if the Government feel they have to move by stages. I think that when these proposals have gone in and bedded down they will prove their own best argument for their development, and people will say, "This is very good. We ought to have done this before, and now we must carry it to its logical conclusion". And it is in that hope that I commend these proposals to your Lordships' approval.
4.42 p.m.
THE EARL OF SWINTON: My Lords, I can be quite brief, because I gave my views pretty fully in our debate in March when we had the statement on which this White Paper is founded, but I should like to give these proposals, now we see them in print, a very warm welcome. I think that in most essentials they are thorough and good. What I regard as the first essential is emphasised, and that is this: that the Minister of Defence shall be the author and originator of policy, and not an arbiter, as he has far too often been in the past. And there, quite frankly, I take issue entirely with the noble Earl, Lord Attlee. I think it is essential that the Service Ministers should occupy within the Ministry of Defence the subordinate position which is assigned to them now. It will remain a pretty important position. But if you try to get the best of both worlds in the way the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, suggested you will, I think, end by getting the worst of both worlds; you will make the Ministers the originators of policy and not the collaborators under the Minister of Defence, and you will turn him again into an arbiter.
The other matter which was not quite clear when we debated it before and on which I expressed a very strong opinion was that it is essential that the Minister of Defence should have control of research and development. That is

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now made clear in the White Paper, and I am very glad to see it, because I think it very important. The Minister will be assisted by the best staff which can be assembled from the three Services, and they will work together as a unified and integrated body; and he will also have a first-class scientific staff with a call on outside scientists. All this is to the good. Inevitably this central combined staff will be large, although quality is more important than size the more important the work is. But I should like to support the noble and gallant Field Marshal in his appeal that this large, centralised staff will be counterbalanced by a very considerable reduction in the staffs of the individual Services. Not only is this a necessary economy but—and this is a point that has not been taken but I think it is a sound one—unless there is economy by a reduction of the individual staffs I believe there is a real danger that those staffs, continuing on an enormous scale, may breed resistance to the spirit, and practice of integration.
Frankly, I like the plans and I like the machine, but I have one criticism—an important criticism, I think; certainly in Parliament it is important—and a constructive suggestion to offer. The Ministry and the Minister must obviously cover a huge field: the whole field of defence policy, long-term and applied scientific research and development, strategy and operational planning, and intelligence. That, indeed, is a full-time job. But, in addition, the Minister of Defence is responsible for the whole financial side: he must be. He has to present a single, combined Defence Estimate covering the whole of the activities through all the Services, and on the scientific side and the research side for which he is responsible. He is responsible for estimating for all three Services; he is responsible for all expenditure; he is responsible for placing orders and for all supplies; he is responsible for accounting; he is responsible for seeing that he gets economy in the staffs of the three Services. It is quite right that this financial, administrative, accounting responsibility should be vested in the Ministry and that it should be integrated in the same way as the rest of Defence, but it seems to me that while that is right, it requires the same
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centralised supervision and control as policy and strategy and research.
My suggestion is this. I know that the Permanent Under Secretary is made responsible for presenting these Estimates and I suppose he is the man who will appear before the Public Accounts Committee. But he is a Civil Servant and he cannot in any way be responsible to Parliament. Yet it is through the whole of this expenditure that Parliament ultimately exercises its control. Would it not be a good idea to have in this Ministry a Chief Financial Secretary, as you have in the Treasury to-day? It has been found desirable and, I think, necessary in the Treasury, with the enormously wide field that a Chancellor of the Exchequer has to cover, the whole of economic policy and finance as well as the mass of detail, that he should have a man of Cabinet rank, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury: and I believe that is working well in the Treasury to-day.
Would that not be equally desirable in the Ministry of Defence? Certainly, it would relieve the Minister of Defence of what would otherwise be an intolerable, and I think an unbearable, load, and I think it would be most acceptable to Parliament. That is the one practical suggestion I want to make to the Government. I hope that it may be carefully considered, because I believe they would find it a useful counterpart to their proposals and something which would greatly ease their administration and the relationship of the Minister to both Houses of Parliament.
4.51 p.m.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, there is a great deal of high power taking part in this debate. I have already counted two First Lords, one past and one present. We are to have another First Lord. We have had an ex-Secretary of State for Air; we have an ex-Secretary of State for War and the Chief of Staff. Therefore it is rather difficult for someone who was but an humble officer during the war (although, fortunately, I served on the staff of my noble friend Lord Douglas of Kirtleside, which was quite an education) to deal in these high-powered matters. But it is a fact that towards the end of the war, and indeed after the war, many people, at all levels, were discussing the need for a more unified approach to defence;

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and many of us at the most painful level of all, the level where it hurt, saw some of the consequences of inter-Service rivalry.
I start off, therefore, by advocating, as indeed I have constantly done since I first entered Parliament, when I was in the Air Force, an approach to a greater degree of unification of defence. The question is whether the Government's proposals help us in the right direction, whether they go far enough, or whether they are merely a device to cover up failure. There is no question that there has been failure. Whether or not we wish to blame the Government for it, the fact remains that they have been responsible for a failure—and they admit this in paragraph 5 of their White Paper, when they say that the arrangements have not secured the degree of central control necessary, and so on. It is quite obvious that, for reasons which several noble Lords and in particular, that non-political and gallant noble Viscount, Lord Montgomery of Alamein (who always makes a plea to take defence out of politics), have pointed out, one of the main reasons was this continual chain of Ministers of Defence marching in and out of the Ministry, with a certain degree of continuity supplied by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, when he was Parliamentary Secretary. The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, outlasted several Ministers of Defence, and, quite clearly, is far more qualified to be Secretary of State for Defence than many of those who passed fleetingly by.
It is curious with what almost frivolity and lack of seriousness the Conservative Government have taken Defence questions. I do not want to make too much of this point. Most people would expect a Labour Government not to be particularly interested in Defence. Instead, my noble friends Lord Attlee and Lord Alexander of Hillsborough are passionately interested in Defence, in a way that Conservative Prime Ministers have not been. Quite frankly, if Defence is to be taken seriously (this is really what we are facing up to in this White Paper) it is quite obvious that there must be much more continuity in the future, and Secretaries of State for Defence will have to occupy their position for a considerable time: not because I do not believe that political heads of Ministries are not in some degree interchangeable, but because
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it is obvious that, with the greater complexities and with the responsibility of dealing with as many high-powered professionals as there are in the Defence Services, we need not only a Secretary of State who will have an astute mind and great strength of character, but one who slightly knows his way around.
It may be that we are fated always to make gross errors in Defence and equipment, but the serious mistakes that have been made in recent years in the operational requirement field may spring from either a failure of man or a failure of system. It is not my object to-day simply to attach blame to the Government, beyond pointing to these failures. Now we hear a rumour that yet another cancellation is to take place—I refer to the TSR 2. Five years ago, we had a certain period of continuity in Defence and, when Mr. Duncan Sandys was in the office, a strong-minded Defence Minister. He imposed a strong and carefully thought out policy on the country. Unfortunately in the event it happened to be totally wrong—I refer to Blue Streak. I must confess that I was inclined to support him at the time. After that, we had Skybolt and Polaris, both afterthoughts in a way—Polaris "cooked up" in a couple of afternoons at Nassau. Now I think that TSR 2 is to go.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I think I must interrupt the noble Lord. I do not know why he should say that TSR 2 is to go. There is no question of its being cancelled.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I am delighted. I only hope that this denial does not follow the usual pattern of other denials that we have had from Ministers. I remember challenging the First Lord, whom I regard entirely as honourable in these matters (I hope he will not take this personally) on the subject of Skybolt and getting rather similar remarks. But while I am delighted at the moment to know that TSR2 is still included in the programme, I must say that whether it will be still there when the new Ministry of Defence is set up and we have the joint weapons for the Navy and the Air Force, I do not know.
But I was going on to say that we want to know whether this White Paper is primarily just a Paper of rather anodyne remarks. I see that there is the

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usual reference to flexibility. During the war I served under another officer than my noble friend Lord Douglas of Kirtleside—in fact, a rather more junior group captain who, whenever he was confronted with what was to him a totally incomprehensible situation, used to keep silence for half a minute and then said, "We must have flexibility". There is just a slight touch of that about the White Paper in this matter. But I am hopeful, in spite of the Government's abysmal record. As I say, it may be the fault of the system, or it may be the fault of the man. To a large extent I exclude the First Lord, who has done rather well. We have some anxieties as to whether the policy, to which, as I have already explained, I am emotionally disposed, is going to work. I should like to ask the Government some questions on this aspect. The Foreign Secretary has had to leave the Chamber, but with that usual courtesy for which he is noted, he was kind enough to tell me that he would not be able to hear my speech—a fate probably of no loss to him. But I should like, if possible, an answer to some questions, even though the Government may not have worked out the central organisation for defence, but simply produced a sort of prospectus.
My first main criticism is that, unlike the 1958 White Paper, in the present Paper they have their opening emphasis wrong. It is arguable that this is a debating point, but I assure the noble Lord—and I hope that the Foreign Secretary will confirm this—that it is unfortunate that the second sentence firmly says
"Authority and responsibility will be vested in a single Secretary of State for Defence"—
when in the other White Papers it has been made clear that the overall responsibility is vested in the Cabinet and in what is now to be the Committee on Defence and Overseas Policy. To this extent the emphasis is wrong.
The Government have not learned all the lessons of the past. They have ignored the very real virtues that existed in the Committee of Imperial Defence and the Defence Committee system; and, instead of strengthening this Committee on Defence and Overseas Policy, they
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are proposing merely to give them some more Committees to support them. There is a Committee and a Committee supporting that; and then, outside, is the new super-fortress—as opposed to the three smaller, but very impregnable, fortresses of the Service Departments. So there will be a super-fortress, and beyond that the Cabinet and the Committee on Defence and Overseas Policy. I believe that the emphasis is wrong, and I ask how far this is in accordance with the proposals put forward to the Government. The noble Lord raised the names of Sir Ian Jacob and Lord Ismay. He used them in the context of expressing appreciation, while being careful not to say that they approved it; but his words were rather inclined to lead us to believe that this is their plan. I should like to know how far this is their plan and how far the emphasis is right in regard to this.
Still on the question of the Committee on Defence and Overseas Policy, it appears to be the same as the Committee that existed before, the Defence Committee. The same people are invited to it, except the First Lord of the Admiralty, the Secretary of State for War and the Secretary of State for Air. And I suppose these wretched Ministers of State will now be included among others who will be invited to be present. Furthermore, the new Defence Council takes the place of the old Defence Board. Council and Board switch from one to the other. The new Defence Council has the same composition as the old Defence Board, except, again, that the Ministers of State have been down-graded. We are going to have a pretty gigantic instrument in the Ministry of Defence, and I should like to know how far some of these new joint organisations have in fact been tested in any way—how far there has been a dry run to see how they will work in certain conditions.
There are certain parts of the proposals of which I am entirely in favour. I think it has been an absolute nonsense in regard to Intelligence that there was a Joint Intelligence Board, but that the more important functions of intelligence were separated out; and, although there was close co-operation through the J.I.C. and certain other bodies, this type of functional unification is very desirable. Where I begin to get anxious is in relation to

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the Defence Operations Executive. I am sorry to go into this detail, but this is really the nub of my concern. It is proposed that the former operational Chiefs of Staff or Assistant Chiefs of Staff, A.C.N.S., A.C.A.S. (Ops.), and the Director of Military Operations, shall now all be brought together in a Defence Operations Executive. I suppose that under operational conditions, or even under exercise conditions, orders will go straight to Commands. Or will they go in some way through the rumps of the old Admiralty and the Air Ministry? This is a matter of some concern.
We know that the new Ministry of Defence is going to be every bit as large as the old Ministry of Defence, plus the three Service Departments, because that we have already been told. I may have misunderstood the answer to the question asked by the noble Viscount, and also to the question in another place. I think there should be room for economy here, and I shall be delighted if I hear that the orders will go straight to Commands. This would seem to be logical and would be equivalent to a joint headquarters at the highest level. There will of course be a certain loss. The Operations Executive and the Operational Staff will not longer be quite so closely linked to the Operational Requirements Staff. Here there is clearly room for some loss of efficiency.
I may say that generally I support the proposals in regard to operational requirements, and I think that the proposals in regard to the Ministry of Aviation are pretty good. But it is a pretty frightening picture of bureaucracy. I see that I have written down the word "nightmare". I hope it will not be a nightmare, although I suspect that the Secretary of State for Defence, whoever he is, will have a few. Despite the firm statement of the Government that they wish to make a real distinction between policy setting and management, I do not believe they have yet succeeded in doing this. The analogy is always taken with civilian activities, with businesses, for example; but, of course, the degree of policy and operational control that will rest in the centre is vastly greater than in any large-scale organisation which otherwise tries to decentralise. I am not sure that there is not some confusion between function and management.
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The same argument can be applied to the attempt to draw up balanced pictures of the three Services. Who for the Royal Air Force takes the place of the Chief of Naval Supplies and the Master General of the Ordnance? In paragraph 27 there is a list of officers. I realise that these Services are of a rather different nature, but here again we have the Staffs of the Principal Administrative Officers of the Royal Navy, Army and the Royal Air Force; the Staff of the Controller of the Navy; the Staff of the Master General of the Ordnance and again the R.A.F. left out. There may be a perfectly good reason.
LORD CARRINGTON: These are very difficult detailed points to answer at the end of a debate, and perhaps the noble Lord would like an answer now. The reason for that is that while the Royal Navy, and the Army, to a lesser degree, are both responsible for their procurement, the Royal Air Force is not. There, procurement rests with the Ministry of Aviation.
LORD SHACKLETON: Who, then, does the procurement? We see that we are going to have the staffs, but there is no mention of the Ministry of Aviation. I am a little alarmed about this—I am sure the Navy would be far more alarmed if they lost control of certain of their procurement. Is the operational requirement going to be handled purely by the joint staffs—of whom, I take it, there is at the moment a member of the Air Council—and not by someone who specially has this responsibility? I do not wish to press this point too hard, but these are the questions that will need to be answered.
The same thing arises when we talk about the Joint Signals Organisation. In principle I can see a good case for this, but the signals requirements for certain purposes may be very different indeed. What worries me is that we shall see the separate Services fearing that they are not getting precisely what they want, and building up secretly, or if not secretly, by hook or by crook, their own organisations to make sure that they do get what they want. It is clear that the most ruthless control is going to be needed to make this work, and the ruthless control may be of a kind that will make the Ministry of Defence a rather heated Kremlin-like centre.
Against this is the difficulty, I think, that there is going to be a good deal of

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political weakness. I am sorry in a way that it has not been possible to have the debate, which I had arranged with the noble Viscount the Leader of the House that we might have one day, on the subject of the structure of Government, because it is very difficult to see how you can gear these high-powered complicated structures into our Parliamentary system. But one way by which you are not going to succeed in doing so is by weakening the political content, and I think we all wonder—and I suspect there are anxieties in the Government itself about this—whether the substitution of Ministers of State for the First Lord of the Admiralty, or whoever it is, is correct. Probably one of the reasons why they are called Ministers of State is that no one has been able to think of a different name. I think the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Oakridge, suggested they might be called Secretaries, which is quite a good suggestion. Perhaps we might even call them Commissioners. I am sorry myself that we cannot retain the title, First Lord of the Admiralty. I agree wholeheartedly with my noble friend Lord Alexander of Hillsborough when he says that it really is a bit of a nonsense to keep the position of First Sea Lord and not to keep the First Lord, because they are both equally historic titles.
It is for consideration whether we ought not to have gone a good deal further. It is for consideration, also whether there ought not to be further Ministers of a functional kind with responsibility not necessarily direct to a particular Service, but to some particular aspect of the total responsibilities of the Secretary of State for Defence. I do not want to press this now, but what really worries me is that I think the Government have advanced towards a halfway house, and a halfway house which is not really going to be habitable for very long. We had the same curious error from the First Lord as we have had on other occasions, and which the Government keep on pressing—I think the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Oakridge, emphasised this on another occasion—in that they confuse Service loyalty with loyalty to a unit, to a ship or to a squadron. One totally incorrect remark
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I heard from the First Lord—and he is very rarely wrong—was that a sailor is a sailor, a soldier is a soldier, and so on. If there is one thing that is true of a sailor to-day, it is that he has always been liable to be a soldier, and now he is also an airman.
It is for consideration whether we might have tackled this whole problem not by setting up a unified Ministry of Defence, but by gradually unifying the Services themselves and preserving their existing Service structures. There has been this interesting suggestion, which has been advocated on previous occasions by Sir Ian Jacob—he has written a book on it, although I do not know whether it formed any part of his present proposals—that all officers above unit command level should in fact belong to a defence service, and no longer be members of the Army, Navy or Air Force. It is possible to give loyalty to a unit or to a concern without being a member of a particular Service. One of the most devoted supporters in battles with the Navy during the war—and I may say that his battles with the Navy were on the Allied side—was in fact an officer very well known to the noble Lord, Lord Douglas of Kirtleside: a Naval captain who had served with the Royal Air Force for a long time and had managed to understand their point of view.
It may well be that this super-Pentagon, which emotionally, as I say, I should like to support, is not going to work as well as it should do. There is the danger of over-centralisation, of the distinction between the functions of policy and day-to-day management not really being clarified, and I would still urge that there is not enough emphasis in it upon overall strategy, on economics and not merely on defence. The Committee on Defence and Overseas Policy should be a real centre of power, and it should be possible to break up the Service vested interest. I wholly agree that the case for breaking up the Service vested interest is still a strong one, but I am not satisfied as yet that the Government have really worked this out. We shall watch with a good deal of interest to see what their more detailed proposals are going to be.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, could I ask the

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First Lord to give us a little more information on the point my noble friend has just raised, about the Air Force not being included on the procurement side in that set-up? Because although the Minister of Aviation has, as it were, taken the place of the old Minister of Aircraft Production, it is only really on that side that they could be left out conveniently. They have all the other business of procurement.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I think I used the wrong word. I think I should have said "production" and not "procurement", the point being that the Royal Navy produces everything of its own other than aircraft and some guided missiles; the Army produces now—after the Ministry of Supply has broken up—quite a lot of its own equipment; but the Royal Air Force relies for its aircraft and guided weapons and missiles on the Ministry of Aviation.
LORD SHACKLETON: I think it might be drawn in on this beautiful blueprint.
5.17 p.m.
LORD SAYE AND SELE: My Lords, I myself agree entirely with the views which the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, put before you so simply and so shortly. I even have the temerity to agree with much that the noble and gallant Viscount, Lord Montgomery of Alamein, said to your Lordships. But I have to confess that I have always avoided and disliked the Staff work, and I am therefore at a very considerable disadvantage when I find myself confronted by this symposium of organisation.
As a regimental officer I see in this White Paper a very wide river to cross, and I hope that we shall manage to cross it and change horses either on one bank or the other, and not in the middle of the stream. Once again as a regimental officer, my recollections of Staff work make me very anxious. I wonder why it is called a Paper on Defence. Why not call it a Paper on War, and have done with it? That is entirely what it is. Every one of these Services has to do with war, except Civil Defence, and of course they come in in the background to war. The only one of the Services with no offensive part to play is Civil Defence, and so far as I can see it is not mentioned in this White Paper. I
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fail to connect it in any way with the diagram at the end, unless indeed it is where the word "Budget" comes in. I was delighted just now to hear the noble and gallant Viscount, Lord Montgomery of Alamein, speak up for Civil Defence, and the Civil Defence services will be thrilled to get support from such a high level. I have no doubt whatever of that.
Now is not the time to question the results of the new Civil Defence organisation, but it is the time to ask where and how this fourth arm fits into the new central organisation. Civil Defence is a most complete system affecting ten or more Government Departments; and being, as we were told, an integral part of our defence plans, I hope that we may be shown where and how the Civil Defence functions of these ten Departments are integrated into the new war machine and where the Civil Defence authority gains touch with the Secretary of State for Defence. This information will increase very greatly the interest in the Motion on Civil Defence which has been waiting for debate since last March.
I cannot help feeling that the authors of this new organisation have paid little attention to the fourth arm of the organisation; but, if it is indeed to be an efficient arm, it must be granted some equality of central planning and status with the other three. If its importance is recognised, it must also be seen to be recognised. That I do not find in this White Paper. Finally, if I may bring your Lordships down to earth for a moment, if one turns to the middle of page 11 of the White Paper it will be seen that a Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff is to be of three star rank. I presume that that means an Army captain.
5.22 p.m.
VISCOUNT BRIDGEMAN: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Saye and Sele, will, I hope, excuse me if I do not follow him immediately, although I mean to do so in a few moments' time. Before I do that, however, may I turn to what is, perhaps, one of the main subjects of to-day's debate? That, I think, is this: that, notwithstanding what noble Lords opposite have said, I feel that this subject is, in the main, a bipartisan subject—or, with the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, there, a tripartisan subject—if there ever was one. The criticisms which have been uttered by noble Lords opposite have been not

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so much against the principle of making a further advance in the centralisation of Defence as to the way in which it has been done, and certain fears as to whether the thing is going to work out as we all hope and as my noble friends here intend. But historically, my Lords, this is a non-Party subject. After all, the root cause of the White Paper of 1946 lay in the experiences of the war; and that White Paper was (very rightly, as I think) brought in by the then Government in order to prevent the organisation operated by Lord Ismay, which was set up by the Coalition Government under Sir Winston Churchill, from being broken up.
When I looked at the debate in 1946 I saw that my noble friend Lord Swinton supported that White Paper in principle, and we have supported that principle from that day to this. In fact, everything that has happened from that day to this has made to-day's step more and more irresistible. It is not merely that it was planned, I think, originally, that the 1946 White Paper should be only a first step, but that everything has happened to lead us on to further steps like the present one as the years have gone on. After all, the development of nuclear weapons has come about very largely since 1946 and has contributed vastly to the argument for doing what we have done now. Outside the Services, in civil life, the arguments for integration of businesses and for larger units have become more and more powerful. So I think it is fair to say that if there are criticisms of the actions of the Government in this matter, they are perhaps that we have been unduly held back by certain loyalties and by the need to take the Services step by step towards progressive integration without destroying those loyalties and that spirit of service without which no integration would be of use.
But, my Lords, we have paid quite dearly in the process. We have paid for quite a number of operational muddles, from Suez downwards or upwards, or whichever way you like to go. Therefore, we are perfectly right in saying, in the White Paper, that the references to the 1958 White Paper are fully justified and that the thing has not worked out. You can sum it up by saying that no one in his senses who had any experience in any of the Services could possibly imagine any operation of any size being conducted
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except as an inter-Service operation. If you take the Army, which I know more about than the other two, Services, it is inconceivable that there should be an operation for a brigade group without certainly the Air Force coming in; and so you cannot in fact deal with operations or intelligence, or, to a large extent, training, on anything but an inter-Service basis.
This point has brought up in the debate a number of thoughts which have been expressed much better than I could express them by noble Lords who have spoken already, so I shall be very short in what I say about them; but I think that one very important point indeed is to ask ourselves whether the present system of selection, initial education and further training for Service officers is going to lead us to produce the type of officer with the background, the experience and everything else, that we want to fill these high positions in the Ministry of Defence as reorganised, from the Chief of Staff downwards. My noble and gallant friend Lord Montgomery of Alamein says that the Minister has to be "a pretty good guy"—I think those were his words. Believe me, my Lords, the Chief of the Defence Staff has to be "a pretty good guy", too.
We are coming to the period when we shall no longer be able to rely, as we have done since the end of the Second World War, on choosing people not so much on their paper qualifications but on the grounds of their practical experience and achievements in command or on the Staff in actual operations; and unless we have our third world war (I think my noble and gallant friend Lord Montgomery of Alamein was going to make certain progress in this integration after the next world war: I am being a little more optimistic and am saying "unless we have our third world war") we shall have to rely entirely on something much more like paper selection for our Chiefs of Staff, and we shall be pitting them against senior civil servants and senior scientists who, under present arrangements, will have much more continuity of tenure of office. That is something which, if we want this new system to work, we shall have to think about very seriously; because, as my noble and gallant friend said (or I think he said something like this), it cannot

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be taken for granted that Dartmouth, Sandhurst or Cranwell, or our present staff college training, will produce the right answer or the right man.
But I agree wholeheartedly with my noble friend Lord Carrington that we could not at the moment have gone any further in the integration of the Services than is envisaged in this White Paper. While I say this, I feel very strongly that this is only a stage and that further stages of integration are bound to take place as and when the time comes and common sense dictates that they should be undertaken. And, of course, each year that goes by removes certain personal problems. Personal problems have been present in this question of reorganisation of the Defence Services, and each year that goes by sets those personal problems back and makes the problem easier for those who have charge of it.
There is one personal problem, however, which will never disappear, and that is the power held in any Cabinet by any Minister of Defence who is worth his place and is fit for the task. There is no way out of that. All one could possibly say would be that, in times of war or the threat of war, the system must be adopted that was adopted in the last war—namely, that the only person who could be Minister of Defence under those conditions must be also the Prime Minister. But I think it would be a great mistake if we were to accept the converse and to say that because there is danger of too much concentration of power in one hand we must deliberately leave the Ministry of Defence and the Minister less efficient and with less power than he should have.
So may I look at one or two of the points which were mentioned by other noble Lords, particularly by my noble friends, Lord Robertson of Oakridge and Lord Swinton? The first one is the question of Treasury control. There is nothing in the White Paper to show whether the Treasury are, in fact, going to exercise the same measure of control over what are now the three Service Votes, or whether they are going to control the main Vote and leave the detailed control to the Minister and his advisers in the Ministry. That is why I think the point made by my noble friend, Lord Swinton, was very important. His point was that the financial
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control exercised by the Minister must be equal to the task of dispensing with interference—and I use the word deliberately—by the Treasury. Otherwise a lot of brave new words in those paragraphs which deal with the matter will not be fulfilled.
Those brave new words do, I fear, include rather more clichés to the square inch than one would like to see. I do not want to set myself up as a literary critic; but one looks at paragraph 47 which says:
"Judgment will play a major part, and for this reason it is essential to call upon the best advice from whatever source."
This rather makes one wonder whether this Grandmother of Parliaments is being properly taught to suck her eggs which we are sucking this afternoon. A good many noble Lords have said that unless there is real control and cutting-down of staffs, and if Parkinson's Law is allowed to operate, we shall not get full value for money. We are reaching a point where, instead of talking about the unwisdom of having too big a tail and too few teeth, we are coming to the point of saying that we are getting too big a brain and too few teeth. I do not think that would be a good thing; because, at best, it would be a great waste of national brain power.
Now I come to the other matter mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Oakridge, on the relationship with the Ministry of Aviation. I will not deal with that at length, because it has been covered by the other noble Lords; but the crucial point is, who has the last word? Those who know the story of why we had no combat tanks in 1939, and those who know of the drunkard's course steered over the production of guided missiles since the war—and I am sorry that my noble friend, Lord Caldecote, is not here—will know that these matters will never be right when two Ministries have a share in any undertaking of this sort unless it is clearly laid down who has the last word and settles when to go into production. So I will say no more on that because the hour is late.
May I just come back to what my noble friend Lord Saye and Sele said—and I knew he was going to say it—about Civil Defence? I agree with every word he said. Everybody knows that

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Civil Defence and its relationships with the civilian Ministries form a great and increasing part of our Defence undertaking. You cannot shirk the problems of the relationship of this strengthened Ministry of Defence with the civilian Departments, particularly the Home Office, by failing to say one word about it in the White Paper. Those problems are with us; and, whether they are written about or not, they will come back like the blood on Bluebeard's key; and, whether they are in the White Paper or not, the newly-reorganised Ministry will have to get down to them.
5.35 p.m.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I should in any case count it a privilege to take part in a debate on Defence initiated by my noble Leader, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, who has done as much as any man for the defence of this country, both in the dark days of the war and in the hardly less difficult times of peace; but otherwise I should be as diffident as the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, about taking part—and with much more reason; for he has seen gallant service in the war. We have listened to Field Marshals, ex-Prime Ministers and other great heroes of the conflagration. I myself began the war as a private in the infantry, and finished it as a private in the Home Guard. I doubt whether any Member of your Lordships' House can improve on that record—in its own way, of course.
I am emboldened, however, when I think of something that was once said to the noble and gallant Viscount, Lord Montgomery of Alamein, by Sir Winston Churchill in my hearing—and I say at once that I shared the view of the noble and gallant Viscount expressed in a review of his book in the New Statesman by a well-known writer who said that, however controversial his utterances, nothing would ever diminish the gratitude we owe him for his services to the nation or the respect we feel for him as a man. But at the same time (I am sure the noble and gallant Viscount does not mind a lighter note), I can recall something said to him by Sir Winston Churchill in my presence. The noble and gallant Viscount pointed to me, as Sir Winston Churchill approached us, and alluded to the
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fact that, though I had no hair on top there was an unmilitary cut in other places. Pointing to me he said, "Do you not think his hair needs cutting, Prime Minister?" Sir Winston Churchill replied, impromptu, "Your head, my dear Field Marshal, requires to be compressed under a military cap. He needs his for speaking in the House of Lords." I am sure that the noble and gallant Viscount remembers that great saying. But now that the noble and gallant Viscount has become a politician, we are all equal and can take part in debates on a level footing.
I have some qualifications, because I have occupied these curious positions not perhaps held by everyone in your Lordships' House. I was Under-Secretary for War; I had the status of a Minister of State with special responsibilities when I was Minister for Germany; I was Minister for Civil Aviation outside the Cabinet and First Lord of the Admiralty for a few months and a member of the Defence Committee, still outside the Cabinet. So when we are talking about the fine shades of atmosphere between different levels, I have experienced them all and understand the nuances as well as any man. When I was speaking on this subject in March last I suggested that there was an inherent difficulty in finding the right organisation for defence, because defence, we all agree, ought, if possible, to be unified; and yet, if we unify it, we finish up by placing greater responsibility on one man—the Minister—in theory, and on the Chief officer in practice. Inevitably we are tempted to place on one man, politically, more responsibility than one human being is likely to be able to sustain. That is inherent in the problem.
There is another inherent snag that I did not mention then, and it has come out to-day: that we are trying to unify in one sense or other three Services while retaining their separate identities. That means putting on top of them a co-ordinating machinery which may, in fact, use a great deal of manpower. The question arises whether, if we retain separate Services, as is proposed, it is possible to co-ordinate them in this way without adding to the total manpower. Most of us feel that in the foreseeable future these proposals in the White Paper are likely to increase rather than diminish the number of men and women

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employed. That is certainly the view of the noble and gallant Viscount, Lord Montgomery of Alamein, who said quite definitely that he thought the total civilian manpower would be increased. And the same point has been made by various speakers, including my noble friend Lord Alexander of Hillsborough. I would ask the noble Earl, Lord Home, if he can throw any light at all on how the Government propose to reduce instead of increase manpower. There is no indication of it, I think it is fair to say, in the White Paper. I do not think that anyone can extract any clues from the White Paper as to how manpower is to be reduced. Most of us have formed the opinion that it is to be increased. I would ask the noble Earl whether he can give us any help at all in our anxieties about the increase of total manpower that seems certain to result.
The other great problem is the over-loading of the central Minister. It seems to me that there are two difficulties here, but for want of time I will treat them as though they were one. On the one hand it seems to me almost certain that this Minister will have more decisions to make than he can make efficiently if he is not to have any Ministers of rank superior to that of Minister of State to help him. That would be quite apart from the problem of the civilian control of the military; but the problem is greatly added to when we agree, as we all seem to, that in the last resort civilians must be placed in a position where they can effectively control the military. It was noticeable that to-day the noble and gallant Viscount, Lord Montgomery of Alamein, insisted rather more strongly than on previous occasions that this problem must be tackled; and I share his view that this problem of the civilian control of the military is not adequately dealt with in the White Paper.
VISCOUNT MONTGOMERY OF ALAMEIN: My Lords, I hope that I did not give a false impression. What I meant to say was that there is a danger there, and I think that it must be watched.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I do not think that I disagree with that; but I would say that the danger must not only be watched but be dealt with. So I go a little further than the noble Viscount.
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I may be asked what difference does it make whether the Secretary of State of War, or at any rate the civilian who is the temporary head of the Army, is called a Minister of State or a Secretary of State, bearing in mind that in any case and for some years he has been outside the Cabinet. This is the area, so to speak, in which I have lived; where my ambitions and all the rest of it have been reflected at every stage of progress. I understand all these little shades as well as anybody. The real point is that the Minister of State has no independent authority of his own. He is simply a representative of the top Minister. As my noble friend Lord Attlee said, he is simply a glorified Under-Secretary. I do not think that there is a great deal of difference.
I turn for a moment to the tasks which he has to perform. I am going to deal only with one or two of them. We shall have these Boards responsible for the routine management of the Navy, Army and Air Force respectively. The Secretary of State for Defence will nominally be the head of every Board but he will normally ask the appropriate Minister of State to act for him as chairman of each Board, and therefore we shall have a Board, which will not be wildly unlike the present Army Council or Board of Admiralty, presided over by somebody who has no independent authority of his own at all. That is the essential point, whether we like it or not.
I presided over the Army Council when I deputised for the Secretary of State for War at the time I was Under-Secretary. But one had no great status in that capacity, and, of course, as First Lord of the Admiralty I presided over the Board of Admiralty and a very different thing that is, if you are the First Lord, even if you are not a member of the Cabinet. I would submit that it will be very difficult, unless some steps are taken to enhance the authority of these Ministers of State (or whatever you like to call them) to perform these tasks appropriately. I should like to put another question which I am sure that the noble Earl will be able to answer, one way or the other, when he replies. What is going to happen to the promotion of the senior staff officers of the three Services? Who will appoint these officers? When I was

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First Lord these names would come up before me—and in the highest cases I would go to the Prime Minister. But who will now be responsible for making all these appointments, which ordinarily come to the Service Ministers? I hope that the noble Earl has made a note of this point. No doubt there is an answer available; it is a point of great importance. These are certain aspects of the problem.
I might be told, on the other side—and I recognise the force of this—if we are to unify the departmental side of the Services, and therefore abolish the War Office, the Admiralty and the Air Ministry as separate bodies, we cannot continue to make use of the three Service Ministers; because if we do, each Service will retain its own champion and many of the virtues of integration would be lost. That is really, I think, the main reason for down-grading the Ministers: the Government want to deprive the Services of their strong ministerial champions. That may or may not be the reason. But if that is so, may I suggest that there is something at least to be done, even if the Service Ministers cannot retain their existing status, to strengthen them beyond what is proposed in the White Paper?
The suggestion is that they should be called Secretaries, and get more pay than other Ministers of State. I do not know whether pay is essential, but in Whitehall pay seems to carry more prestige than it should. They should be seen to be different from the ordinary Ministers of State, who are regarded as glorified Under-Secretaries, and be clearly identified with the work they are being asked to do. I was a Minister for State and co-operated in that capacity when I was Minister responsible for Germany, but I had perhaps rather more status than the average Ministers of State because I was called Chancellor of the Duchy and a large staff regarded me, for good or ill, as in some way specially connected with them. I was essentially an agent of the Secretary of State—I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Oakridge, would agree—but we can give the Minister of State that bit of extra authority if we call him by a title other than Minister of State and link him closely on paper with certain responsibilities
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for which he will be expected to answer to Parliament. This is clearly an essential point.
We were told by the First Lord that it was going to be essential to make sure that the Secretary of State for Defence was not himself bogged down with administrative detail. If that is so, the question at once arises: how he is going to avoid this administrative detail unless he can find somebody else from whom Parliament will accept an answer? So it is vital to make sure that these Ministers are gentlemen from whom Parliament will accept an answer, and in that sense exercise an authority far different from that exercised by the present Ministers of State. I end, because I know that there is a Royal Commission to come in a moment and many speakers afterwards. I was very much interested—I must read Hansard more carefully—by something the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, said at the end of his speech. I think that he was envisaging an additional Minister who would help the Minister of Defence on the financial side.
THE EARL OF SWINTON: My Lords, he would be exactly like the First Financial Secretary in the Treasury.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, without wishing to tie myself—let alone my Party, which may have other ideas—to that particular solution, I do see that a solution on that line is possible and, on the other hand, that we could have more than one Minister, not necessarily in the Cabinet but with a status comparable to that of the present Service Ministers, who could assist him on a functional line. In other words, there are ways in which it would be possible to disperse a little this over-heavy responsibility which is likely to fall on the Secretary of State for Defence. I am not at all dogmatic; I think it could be done in various ways. I agree with all those noble Lords, and particularly my noble friends on this side of the House, who say that at present this does not provide adequate Parliamentary and political control over defence arrangements. I welcome the move towards integration, but it is not, in my opinion, a complete document, and I would say that before it can be fully acceptable to the nation it must be strengthened in the ways I have indicated.
House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.

ROYAL COMMISSION
6.0 p.m.
The following Bills and Measures received the Royal Assent:

Finance,

Appropriation,

Oaths and Evidence (Overseas Authorities and Countries),

Oil in Navigable Waters,

Local Authorities (Land),

Statute Law Revision,

Weights and Measures,

Public Lavatories (Turnstiles),

London Government,

Rhodesia and Nyasaland,

Malaysia,

Deer,

Children and Young Persons,

Water Resources,

Criminal Justice (Scotland),

Commonwealth Development,

Offices, Shops and Railway Premises,

Dog Racing (Betting Days),

Animal Boarding Establishments,

Wills,

Matrimonial Causes,

Local Government (Financial Provisions),

Limitation,

Peerage,

Contracts of Employment,

Television,

Land Compensation (Scotland),

Public Order,

Performers' Protection,

Loch Turret Water Board (Hydro-Electric Development) Order Confirmation,

Ministry of Housing and Local Government Provisional Order Confirmation (Leeds),

Pier and Harbour Order (Gloucester Harbour) Confirmation,

Pier and Harbour Order (Yarmouth (Isle of Wight)) Confirmation,

Pier and Harbour Order (Bembridge Harbour) Confirmation,

London Transport,

Medway Conservancy,

Great Yarmouth Port and Haven,

Port of London,

Factory Lane, Warrington (Level Crossing),

Dover Harbour,

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London County Council (Money),

Clywedog Reservoir Joint Authority,

Salvation Army,

Killingholme Jetty,

City of London (Various Powers),

London County Council (Improvements),

Felixstowe Dock and Railway,

Durham County Council,

Bath Corporation,

Lucas Estate,

Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Measure,

Cathedrals Measure.

House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.

DEFENCE REORGANISATION
6.20 p.m.
Debate resumed.
LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, I should like to add a few words of welcome to this important and far-reaching proposal, and congratulate the Government on having at last had the courage to grasp this particularly spikey nettle. I think it was the American author Bret Harte who said that the saddest words in the English language were, "what might have been". If that is so, the happiest words are undoubtedly, "I told you so". I am happy to recall that in my maiden speech on Defence, in your Lordships' House over fifteen years ago, I proposed a scheme almost identical with the one we are discussing this afternoon. It has taken some time to move towards it, and it has not been an entirely smooth movement, but we have at least achieved it. I do not, like some speakers, regard this proposal as a compromise. I regard it, on the other hand, as getting the best of both worlds. We have here in this plan realistic control at the centre, and yet we preserve the value of Service loyalty at the perimeter, and I have been very happy to hear this afternoon with what vehemence your Lordships have subscribed to this view and deplored any attempt to tamper with Service loyalties. Those who are closest to this problem know exactly how valuable these loyalties are. Outside the circle of those with practical experience they tend, I think, to be undervalued.
I should have said that over the last ten years we have achieved a great deal

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more integration than is commonly realised. There has been integration of the three Services overseas to a marked degree; there has been integration to a marked degree in Supplies and Services and, lastly, in staff training. Here I would endorse the remarks of the noble and gallant Field Marshal, Lord Montgomery of Alamein, when he stressed the need for integration of training at even the lowest levels; and I would go further and say that should be common throughout the entire Service at low and high levels, too.
We have heard mention to-day of Parkinson's Law. I am afraid that for a short time, until this scheme gets into its stride, we are bound to have a proliferation of staff appointments at high levels, and I do not think we shall be able to look for much economy for some time. We have heard talk this afternoon of bottlenecks. In my experience of bottles the neck is usually at the top. This is where I think we shall find the bottlenecks in the new Ministry of Defence. But we have at least got some savings already. In 1953 there were ten politicians in the Ministry of Defence and the three Service Departments; now we are reduced to seven. So at least there is a saving there to start off with.
The noble Earl, Lord Longford, in his interesting speech made reference to the fact that the new Secretary of State, the Minister of Defence as was, now has no Parliamentary assistant, as his Parliamentary Secretary has vanished from the graph. It was always said that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Defence, being an assistant to what was essentially a planning Minister, was not really of much use as little responsibility was given him. Exactly how useless an animal he was was pointed out by your Lordships, firmly but kindly, when I myself was posted to the job in 1957. We, of course, regret some of the changes.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord? I am sorry if I did not make myself plain. I was really raising the question of how the Parliamentary Questions which are now answered by Service Ministers would be dealt with when they no longer had the standing which, on the
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face of it, would enable them to give the answers.
LORD MANCROFT: I took that point, and I should like to deal with it later on. I was saying we of course regret some of the changes that have taken place. I do not regret the departure of the Secretary of State for War, which I always thought too bellicose a title. But I share the universal regret at the departure of the First Lord of the Admiralty, particularly as on this occasion it involves one of the best and best liked Ministers the Service has had for a very long time. To turn to the noble Earl, Lord Longford's, particular point. Constitutionally we are not allowed in this House to ask questions about the late running of the 8.20 from Norwich, because that is part of the day-to-day administration of the railways and comes within the purview of a statutory body appointed for that job. But we are entitled to ask questions about Gunner Buggin's pension, because it is the job of the Secretary of State for War constitutionally to answer. I should like to know, if my noble friend the Secretary of State can tell me, whether that is still going to exist and where the line is going to be drawn; how important a question concerning Army affairs is going to be left to the Minister of State for War and when will it go to the Secretary of State for Defence.
That this is going to be an immensely important new Ministry there can be no doubt—£2,000 million and 800,000 bodies. It is therefore essential that the Secretary of State himself, his advisers, Civil Service scientific advisers, and Service advisers, be of the highest calibre. If I make no other point to your Lordships this evening save this, it is that it is essential that this Ministry should be held in the highest regard, not only in Whitehall but here in Westminster, abroad, among our friends and Allies, and by the man in the street. It should be a Ministry of great efficiency, great power and great prestige. It is therefore essential, to my way of thinking, that the relationships between politicians, civil servants, industry and science, all of whom are embroiled in this Ministry, should be as good as possible. One thing I have learned in the last two or three years is that most politicians and civil servants are much more knowledgeable of and sympathetic

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to the problems of commerce than businessmen are knowledgeable of and sympathetic to the problems of politicians and civil servants. I should therefore like to see the inter-staff training to which the noble and gallant Field Marshal, Lord Montgomery of Alamein, referred, extended to include those engineers and industrialists who will have to work closely with the Ministry of Defence. We must make certain that they are all thinking sympathetically of each other's problems.
Of the importance of the Secretary of State himself there can of course be no doubt. Noble Lords have criticised the changes that have occurred so often—too often—in the last ten years. Of course they are understandable, though nevertheless regettable. We never quite reached the speed of change among senior politicians that the French used to achieve before the days of General de Gaulle. There was, I believe, one drowsy afternoon in the Chamber of Deputies when a senior French politician nodded off and woke up to find he had been Prime Minister twice. We have fortunately not quite reached that stage. But let us in the future have at least greater stability than in the past.
Let it be an understood thing that the Secretary of State for Defence should frequently find himself on the Front Bench in the House of Lords—and, naturally, I would say on the Front Bench on this side. We have seen for ourselves in the presence of our present Foreign Secretary what a blessing it is to have a very senior Secretary of State untrammelled by day-to-day political and constituency matters. It is quite untrue to say that a senior Minister cannot be examined and cross-examined in this House. Of course he can. Technically he can be asked twenty Questions in any one Parliamentary week. And they can be addressed to a Secretary of State for Defence from a most informed body of questioners, unhampered by any rules about the number of supplementaries they can ask, or by any strict addiction to Order so far as the nature of those supplementaries is concerned. So much for the Secretary of State.
With regard to the Civil Service, there is, I believe, some hierarchy, whether written or merely conventional, about
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the Departments: certain Ministries are more favourably looked on by the young entrant to the Civil Service. The Treasury and the Foreign Office, of course, come very high, and wild horses on bended knees would not drag from me the Ministry that I think should come bottom. I very much hope that the Ministry of Defence will rank very high and that it will be an honour for civil servants to be posted to that Ministry. So, equally, Service officers—and we are fortunate in having about as high a standard of senior staff officers in the country to-day as we have ever had—should regard it as an honourable stage in their career, to be posted to serve at the Ministry of Defence.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: May I ask the noble Lord a question? It does not invalidate his argument; it rather supports it. Is he aware that, out of 21 members of the Cabinet listed in Whitaker, the present Minister of Defence is listed No. 19?
LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, if you talk long enough, by the natural taws of statistical progression you will eventually say something sensible. That has just happened to the noble Earl, Lord Longford: he has made my point for me. That is exactly what I am trying to say. If I may, I should also like to voice some small doubts. I hope that those who have given so much thought and care to this matter have looked across the Atlantic to the Pentagon and profited a little by some of the mistakes, some of the teething troubles which they had. I myself at first would have liked to have the Ministry of Aviation within this Ministry, but I realise that it would place an intolerable burden on the Secretary of State, and I think at this moment it is as well to keep it out. Like the noble Viscount, Lord Montgomery of Alamein, I have some apprehension at the right, still maintained, of the Chiefs of Staff to have direct access to the Prime Minister. I have always disliked that. I cannot see how any business, any organisation or any Ministry can hope to run smoothly when the technical advisers can go behind their Chief's back to a superior authority. With the best will in the world, it leads to difficulties and to lobbying. Until you have seen a couple of Admirals with their daggers drawn you do not know what lobbying means.

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My next doubt centres on paragraph 35 of the White Paper. This Ministry is going to become an operational headquarters. Hitherto, the three Service Ministries have all been operational headquarters, and could come into action almost as field headquarters if there were trouble in Ruritania or some "bush tire" blew up. It states clearly in paragraph 35 that that rôle now devolves upon the Ministry of Defence. Again, I share the apprehension of many of your Lordships at the number of committees. You really cannot control operations through committees. If Moses had been a committee, the children of Israel would still be in Egypt. I am unhappy about this plan for operational command, and although the paragraph is full of pious hopes I do not think that this will work if anything were to go seriously wrong.
The noble Lord, Lord Saye and Sele, mentioned, in another respect, the three-star officer. This is the first time that I have seen the use of three-star rank in an official Paper. I think it leads to the next observation that I want to make—namely, the clumsiness of our nomenclature and the need for a tidying up all round. It will take a lot of time to do this, to get clarity so that we are not always translating our defence language from our own Service into the other two. Supposing, for instance, the Secretary of State wished to seek advice on supply, he would send for the Controller of the Navy, the Quarter-Master General and the Air member for Supply and Organisation. Old King Cole sent for his fiddlers three. That is nearly what is happening here. I wish there were more clarity in language and nomenclature generally in the graph at the end of this White Paper.
That is all I wish to say to your Lordships, except once again to welcome this scheme, to hope that this Ministry of Defence will rapidly become as efficient and as respected throughout the country as possible. I have one more point to make, to the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, who mentioned the "change of scenery". He was describing what will happen in Whitehall when the Ministry of Defence moves into the Board of Trade, and the Board of Trade move out and half the Air Ministry and the Navy move along. I can tell him what will
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happen—chaos! Some wag in Whitehall has decreed that this is going to start happening on All Fool's Day, 1964.
The chaos will be unequalled by anything that has happened in this country for the last nine years—I refer to September 12, 1954, at 2.30 p.m. At that precise moment I was changing a tyre in the centre of the cathedral City of Salisbury. Slightly to my surprise, Mr. Bertram Mills's circus entered the city from the north-west. Even more greatly to my surprise, two minutes later Mr. Chipper-field's circus entered the city from the south-east. The resulting chaos was indescribable. There was a summit meeting of baby elephants outside the Deanery, which is still the subject of lively recollection in the police and sanitation departments of the City of Salisbury. But that scene will be nothing to the scene which will occur in Whitehall on April 1, 1964. The last question I should like to ask of my noble friend the Secretary of State is, can he tell us exactly what time the move will start?—because I should very much like to be there.
6.35 p.m.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, in considering whether this reform is a well conceived one, we should surely glance for a moment at what has gone wrong. Clearly, things have gone wrong, or the Government would not have been tempted in the first place to turn the defence house upside down as they are doing. I think things have gone wrong in two fields; first, in research and development. There have been so many rockets called "Blue" this and "Blue" that which have been cancelled, that one even forgets their names. The Americans can perhaps afford this kind of trial and error, partly because they are richer, anyhow, but more particularly because they are pushing at the frontiers of technology. What they do is new. We are not so rich, and in general we are not making absolutely new things. This is not to deny merit to British weapons designers; only to say that it is on the huge economic base that you get the spectacular advances, and can afford multiple cancellations of weapons projects, not on medium sized economic bases like ours.
The failure of "Blue" after "Blue" was a piece of living beyond our means. On top of this came the spectacular failure of Skybolt, where the central staff

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of the Ministry of Defence had known for months that the Americans would probably cancel it, and yet the Air Ministry was allowed to swing Government policy behind its totally mistaken impression all that time: Skybolt, leading to Nassau, leading to de Gaulle's veto on Britain's entry into E.E.C., leading to the abortive multilateral force—in other words, to the failure of President Kennedy's so-called "Grand design". These things are obviously best prevented from recurring by inter-Service integration, and even more perhaps by the integration of weapons planning, and research and development.
The second great way in which our defence policies have gone wrong since the war is exemplified by the Suez operation. The defence planners were not then, and still are not, getting a clear lead from foreign policy planners about what Britain is for at all. That operation was a Palmerstonian gunboat operation; it was a hundred years out of date as a piece of realpolitik. Is Britain a country in the last resort apt for castigating uppish Arabs; or is she a decent and law-abiding member of her alliances; or is she a pacemaker for detente and disarmament? We can hardly be all three; yet at times the Government have tried to be all three. This shows a sad lack of basic thought about our position in the world, and it shows also a sad lack of co-ordination between the Forein Office and the Defence Ministry.
I think we all know how it came about. Sir Winston Churchill was Defence Minister as well as Prime Minister; the rôle of Defence Minister was therefore able to be exercised in the only proper way, from the centre of power, in full knowledge of everything that went on and was planned, and as an integral part of the basic policy of the very identity of this nation. But then we found that having an animal called a Minister of Defence, we might as well give him an existence of his own, and so the poor creature—I am not speaking of individuals; there have been good Ministers and bad ones; I am speaking of the office—this poor creature of an office was sent into the wilderness to exist on its own, out of touch, insufficiently supplied with power, with planning machinery, and with liaison with other Departments
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of State. The result has been that to take this office has proved political suicide for more unfortunate Ministers than one can remember. When you see a yearly turnover of Ministers in charge of a Department, you surely know that reform is due.
Another reason why we should have this integration is that the Americans have it. I am, as I think the House knows, no partisan of slavish imitation when it comes to Washington. But it is difficult enough, anyhow, to co-ordinate our policies and actions with those of an ally so vastly our superior in strength, and in the resources of planning and buying. We have been hard put to it to keep in touch, to keep in sensible step, and we shall be yet harder put to it if we allow the central control of Defence in this country to be any weaker than it might be. No dog can run easily beside an elephant; if it suffers from voluntary locomotor ataxy, it has no right to complain if it gets forgotten, or even trodden on.
So I, for one, welcome this change. I contend that it does not go quite far enough in integration—not so much in integration of the three separate forces, the three super-fortresses as they have been called, as in the integration of Defence as a whole with the body politic itself. It seems to me that Defence is still too much of a specialist excrescence in our national planning. For instance, take the new Committee of the Cabinet for Defence and Overseas Policy. This is the key to the whole thing. It expresses, to the insufficient measure of the Government's intention, the new integration of Defence into general policy.
This Committee has no real staff to call on. It has only, to quote the White Paper, "A committee of senior officials to back it." Is this enough? Why cannot the Secretary of the Committee, like Lord Hankey in the old days on the Imperial Defence Committee, be entitled to a large and qualified staff who can prepare proper planning papers, and provide Ministers with clear alternatives saying, "You can make Britain this, that or the other thing, but you cannot make her all three"? Who will be responsible—and I ask the Government this, not rhetorically, but in the hope of an answer—when the new system comes into force, for long-term

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studies of national security? For relating traditional Defence with new concepts of Defence by arms control? For laying out the various alternatives between which the politicians have to choose? It used to be done under the system which is now being reformed, after a fashion, and with insufficient resources. But who is to do it now? This is not clear in the White Paper. I do not mean the sort of thing the Joint Planners do, but looking far ahead, forecasting the state of the world, its ideologies, and its balance of power between nations so that Britain may define herself in a realistic way.
Again, in regard to intelligence the White Paper mentions a Defence Intelligence Staff, which will go some way to reducing the three separate fortresses in this field. But in intelligence there have unfortunately been at least four separate fortresses. Besides military intelligence proper there has been the flow of intelligence directed by and absorbed into the Foreign Office. We have a Cabinet Committee that groups the Minister of Defence and the Foreign Office—and a good thing too. But, unless the senior officials are to be called upon to work for 24 hours a day, we have no co-ordinating body worth the name which can relate the two sides of positive intelligence.
The Joint Intelligence Bureau, as I understand it, is more of a clearinghouse than a true joint estimating agency. I foresee that, as hitherto, it may be easier for Ministers to find out what weapons systems the Chinese and Russians have than to be realistically informed of what they plan to do with them. I was recently told during a briefing at a certain N.A.T.O. headquarters that the most likely form of Soviet attack was held by the Intelligence Staff of that headquarters to be an all-out thermonuclear assault on the West as a whole. If anybody thinks that the Russians could do that with their inferior nuclear arsenal, I say that intelligence assessments of the adversary's probable intention are no more than crude and stupid horror stories. Can this not be remedied during the general turmoil by the setting up of a truly integrated and truly independent intelligence assessment agency, quite divorced from the
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control of any policy-making Department?
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, may I interrupt my noble friend, because I am interested in the discussion on this point? The intelligence staffs will be mainly concerned with appreciation. They will not be primarily intelligence collectors, except in a field which it is not really open to us to discuss. I do not quite see how the appreciation can be made except within Services which are closely familiar with the weapons and their operational use. Is the noble Lord proposing that this might be taken entirely outside the Services? It is quite an interesting concept.
LORD KENNET: I thank the noble Lord for his intervention. It is an intensely complicated field, and one with which none of us, by definition, can be familiar. I have the impression, though, that the collecting of positive intelligence (I do not mean only secret intelligence, but overt matters, too) in this country is done very well. But when the data arrive they are too often assessed and interpreted, and forced into a pattern maybe, by a Department which has an interest in pursuing its own policy. What I hoped one might see developed in time was a complete intelligence agency, which did not collect the intelligence but which saw it all; which was responsible to no one Department more than to any other, and which could not be advised or swayed by any executive organ of the Government. In other words, something that was completely independent, and on which there might be outside help, perhaps from the universities.
May I turn now, to the Chief Scientific Adviser? I am glad that the present colourful holder of that office has been given a "leg up", for he has a more realistic idea of what nuclear weapons can and cannot do than some of the "popgun soldiers" who are still, unfortunately, to be found around Whitehall. Is it a long enough "leg up"? I understand from the White Paper that if the Secretary of State wishes to take technical advisers with him to the Cabinet, he has the right to go surrounded by no fewer than four Chiefs of Staff, yet he has not the right to take even one little scientist with him. May this not be a mistake? It is surely high time that the scientist

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in general was redeemed from the status of an oily-handed, forelock-pulling mechanic, where there is still too much tendency to keep him in the Civil Service, and admitted to executive responsibility as automatically as any Hellenic humanist of a Permanent Under Secretary. That word "adviser" is a sad anachronism, is it not? We do not think of calling the Permanent Secretary the "administrative adviser to the Minister".
There are separate paragraphs in the White Paper devoted to the Meteorological Office and to the Public Relations Staff. This is very good. Everything should be thought of. But there is no mention of disarmament. Is this less important than the correct administration of weather forecasting? Is it less important than the job of the charming officer who will provide you with a sundowner and let his hair down in such an affable but fundamentally uncommunicative manner to the worried Defence correspondent? It seems so. It appears that in the White Paper the Government hold that this is less important.
I think the worst that can be said of this White Paper is that it shows that the Government have still not grasped the basic fact of this age: that though the responsibility of the Defence establishment is still what it always was—namely, to keep the people of this country alive and free—this responsibility cannot any longer be exercised by the former expedient of engaging in an arms race with the probable adversary. Security—national security—is now a two-faced thing: defence and disarmament; arms and arms control; deterrence and detente. We are in transition; we must relate these two faces rightly to each other. The White Paper shows a sublime insouciance about this. Disarmament is still to be left to the spirit of Metternich and Curzon, in a Foreign Office without one single scentist to call its own. Surely now—at the time of a great and, I do not doubt, painful upheaval—would have been the time for the Government to take this new world seriously, and to emerge from the dreams of Britannia invincible, of Albion booted and spurred, into the graver, less boyish realities of a complex world.
But that can be put right later. So, too, perhaps, can another matter—and this will be my last complaint. The Service Ministers have been demoted;
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and, sad as that is, it is right. But the new Secretary of State for Defence is thereby left, as many noble Lords have already remarked, in rather a forbidding and lonely eminence. One may doubt whether any one man can efficiently control so vast a machine and at the same time keep alive and supple in Parliament. May he not need help?—I mean functional help, not departmental help on the vertical pattern given him by his Ministers of State.
The American precedent may help us here, also. Although they often, as it seems to me, get the wrong answer, their machinery in this field is very good. The American Secretary of Defence is flanked by two powerful assistants. The present incumbents are Charles Hitch and Paul Nitze. Both have devoted many past years to the study of the matters they are now called upon to administer. Dr. Hitch is the Comptroller of the Defence Department. He is responsible, under Mr. Macnamara, for the defence budget, and for the general economic effects of the vast American arms industry. Mr. Nitze is responsible for international security affairs. He, under Mr. Macnamara, handles relations with allies, with adversaries and with neutrals, in so far as those relations have a military content; he handles liaison with the State Department, and he is responsible for disarmament within the Pentagon. For this last he has a full-time deputy, who is also a political appointment. This system works well.
I repeat that the policy decisions which come out of it often seem to me mistaken, but there is no doubt that they do come out of it; and they are adhered to and they are consistent, which is more than can be said of the present British practice in the defence field. There is control and effective control. Might not our own new Secretary of State for Defence benefit from some such system of assistance as this? One might even, perhaps, also consider an Assistant Secretary for Research and Development to keep an eye on the scientists, and to foster, when necessary, their particular way of looking at things. But that is more questionable.
My Lords, I think that we should welcome this reform and blame only certain shortcomings, which no doubt are more due to the difficulty of changing the

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ingrained habits of Conservative hierarchies than to basic misconception. I hope that the new system works, and that things will be carried further forward, either by this Government or by another.
6.52 p.m.
LORD AMPTHILL: My Lords, I rise to give, as briefly as I can, my general support to the Central Organisation for Defence proposed by the Government in the White Paper, Cmnd. 2097. I think this is a step, and a very long step, in the right direction. I said "general support" just now, because I have certain fears and certain criticisms, but these have been so well expressed by noble Lords on both sides of the House that I will not delay your Lordships by repeating them here.
My noble friend Lord Teynham referred to the danger of Parkinson's Law operating here, and I must say that I agree. Other noble Lords have spoken about the tremendous responsibilities and the great burden of work which will fall on the Secretary of State for Defence in this new set-up, and on his Secretary. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Oakridge, who referred to the weakness in the research and development organisation, and I must say that I am very much with him in the remarks he made there. I also have a great deal of sympathy with the remarks made by the noble Earl, Lord Longford, on the question of the position of the Ministers of State. I listened to his remarks on that with the greatest possible interest, and I hope that noble Earl, Lord Home, will be able to tell us who will approve the promotion of senior officers.
My noble friend Lord Mancroft and the noble and gallant Field-Marshal both mentioned the vital need for inter-Service training for junior officers, and with that I heartily agree. That is in fact a matter to which I drew attention in the Defence debate three or four years ago, and I really think we must get down to it. Of course, I dislike a great many of the proposals in this White Paper, but I regard them as a necessity. But whatever feelings of nostalgia I may have at the disappearance of so many historic offices, particularly at the Admiralty—and I have plenty—I expressed these when I
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spoke in the Defence debate last March, and I do not propose to weary your Lordships by repeating them now. However, I must just refer to the disappearance of the post of the First Lord of the Admiralty. I am sorry that the First Lord had to leave us for an important appointment at Portsmouth (which I am sure he will find very pleasant) because I was just going to say some rather nice things about him. Tradition apart, I fear that with the disappearance of the First Lord the Navy will lose the services of the present occupant of the post, my noble and gallant friend Lord Carrington. He has endeared himself to serving and retired officers alike, and I know of no one in naval circles who does not regard him with the greatest affection and esteem.
The first First Lord with whom I ever had contact in my naval career was Sir Winston Churchill, then Mr. Winston Churchill, when he arrived at Dartmouth in that lovely yacht the "Enchantress" and came up to the college to inspect us cadets. He came into the classroom where my fellow cadets and I were studying the differential calculus, under a character well known to generations of naval officers as "P.T.H.". I do not suppose the then First Lord had any more clue about the differential calculus than I had then or have now, but as he progressed round the classroom looking at each boy's work he came to my desk, which was in the corner, and said, "Out of my way, boy." They are the only words that great man has ever addressed to me. The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, has never said, "Out of my way, boy", and I do not suppose he will, but I shall be quite prepared to say, "Out of his way" to quite a number of people, if there is any chance of his becoming our Minister of Defence.
I must turn now for a very short time to the White Paper. Like my noble friend Lord Mancroft, I immediately noticed that the inception of this great reorganisation was going to take place on All Fools' Day, 1964. Whilst I cannot recount to your Lordships an amusing story of circuses on a collision course in Salisbury, as the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, did, I must say that I was reminded of a new submarine to which I had been appointed. Soon after I arrived I found that the shipyard proposed to launch this ship on a Friday,

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and the 13th of the month to boot! My captain and I, knowing our sailors' susceptibilities in this sort of matter, went to the shipyard people and said, "Tides or no tides, this date has got to be altered"; and it was altered. I would recommend someone in the Government to go to the organisers of this great move and shift the date from April 1 to April 5, which, after all, is the beginning and ending of the Government year.
I also rather dislike the very clumsy title selected for the so-called Second Permanent Under Secretary of State. I suppose these titles all stem from the Civil Service ranking, pay and emoluments—including the size of desk, of course, and carpet, if any. I suggest that if the Permanent Under Secretary of State to the Defence Board were called merely "Secretary to the Defence Board", then we could have Assistant Secretaries and Deputy Secretaries of the Navy, Army and Air Force Secretariat and so forth, which, for one thing, would considerably simplify paper work. After all we have had a Secretary to the Admiralty for hundreds of years—since the days of Pepys, in fact, the real founder not only of our Admiralty organisation but of our Civil Service. For pay, emoluments and so forth, I have always imagined that the Secretary to the Admiralty has ranked with a Permanent Under Secretary of State.
My Lords, with other noble Lords, I am not at all happy about the decision to leave the Ministry of Aviation, or at any rate its defence responsibilities, outside the Defence Ministry organisation. I can quite see the difficulty of carving the Ministry of Aviation about and putting its civil responsibilities somewhere else (I do not wish to go into any details in this debate), but, with the ever-growing interdependence of our fighting Services, it is not only the Royal Air Force which is closely concerned with aircraft development for military purposes, but all the other Services. In particular, the Navy, in its pursuit of the maritime strategy so vital to this country, must rely more and more on suitable aircraft being available. The announcement last night, which I particularly welcome, of the decision to build a new aircraft carrier adds point to what I have just said.
I believe it is essential to keep this question of the Ministry of Aviation under review, and I will repeat here a
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suggestion that I made in the recent Defence Debate. That is, that the Royal Air Force should have—really needs—a Royal Corps of Aircraft Constructors on the pattern of the Royal Corps of Naval Constructors which has served the Navy so well and for so long. Perhaps when the position of the Ministry of Aviation comes under review, as I am sure it will, that suggestion may be given at any rate some thought.
Finally, my Lords, I have a small point on paragraph 68 on page 11, which discusses the organisation of the principal administrative officers and the principal personnel officers. Personally, I dislike the reference to an officer "of three star rank". There is no such rank in any of our official Navy, Army or Air Force lists, and I think that this is an Americanism which could well be omitted. The real criterion is ability, not rank. I had the honour to serve on the staffs of three great Naval Commanders-in-Chief in the last war—Andrew Cunningham of Hyndhope, John D. Cunningham and Bertie Ramsay. They all held very strong views on this subject. I will not repeat exactly what they said, for some of their views, if repeated verbatim, would be too strong meat for your Lordships' House; but they were all very insistent that ability and suitability were the sole criteria, and not rank. Andrew Cunningham in fact held the view that if a naval commander could not represent him satisfactorily at a committee, of whatever exalted rank, then the individual in question was not worthy to wear three stripes on his arm.
If this new organisation is to work satisfactorily—and, what is more, is to get into top gear quickly—ruthless selection of the right men for the right places, irrespective of rank or service, will be necessary. There is no time for a policy of, "It is Buggins's turn now", or for putting square pegs into round holes. My Lords, I wish the new organisation all success, and I think this will be assured if it starts on April 5, and not on April 1.
7.2 p.m.
LORD NATHAN: My Lords, I think it would be fair to say that it has been made clear by the course of the debate to-day that the House as a whole approaches the problems presented by this White Paper in a spirit of bipartisanship. We may have—we have—differences of opinion on this point or

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that, but they are differences of opinion which are capable of being resolved with a view to making the scheme work better than at first sight it looks as if it might.
With your Lordships' permission, I shall begin with something which will, I believe, meet with the approval of the whole House. Reference has been made to the First Lord of the Admiralty, and to the high regard in which he is held, which view, of course, I share with all your Lordships. He has asked me to apologise for the fact that he is not here for the conclusion of the debate. He has just recently left to proceed by helicopter to Portsmouth to attend a dinner there on H.M.S. "Victory" at the dining out of Admiral Sir Caspar John on his retirement. I told him—I hope with the approval of your Lordships—that he might tell the Admiral on behalf of your Lordships' House that we all salute him and wish him well at the conclusion of his long and distinguished service.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear!
LORD NATHAN: My Lords, to come more closely to this White Paper, as has been said in this discussion earlier, I think it bears some fairly close relationship—not too close, but some fairly close relationship—to the American organisation. And I do not think it is any the worse for that so long as we keep our eyes carefully open to those points where the American organisation does not seem to fit in with the requirements of us here in this country and with our responsibilities. The fact that the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs is to close this debate on behalf of the Government shows that, as is made clear by the White Paper, there is a close relationship, now openly recognised and made clear to all, between defence and foreign policy, and that foreign affairs will have a due place in the consideration of our responsibilities in the Defence Council and on the Defence Committee.
I am glad that the principle of the Chiefs of Staff organisation is being maintained, though with one questionable change to which I will refer in a moment; that the Chief of Staff will be the senior officer of his own branch of the Services; and that there will be access by the Chiefs of Staff, in the event of differences of opinion, to the Defence Committee and to the Prime Minister
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But there is one new aspect of affairs in connection with that organisation to which I think full attention is due, and that is the position of the Chief of the Defence Staff. That is a position of high authority, and it is a position in which there is one person who has direct access to the Secretary of State, by whom differences of opinion among the Chiefs of Staff will be resolved. Then there is the rather curious statement in the White Paper that, having referred those differences, and expressed his opinion upon them, to the Secretary of State, he will then give his own advice. I was under the impression that, when differences of opinion are expressed to a Minister, it was for the Minister to form his opinion about those differences and to make his decision: but here it looks as if it is going to be the Chief of the Defence Staff. I think that may be open to objection, and may present difficulties, not only between the three Service Chiefs of Staff (if I may use the old nomenclature) and the Chief of Defence Staff, but also in relation to the Secretary of State.
We are in the rather odd position, which is unique in the nature of the case at the moment, that, by some strange alchemy of fortune, we have as the Chief of the Defence Staff one who has himself, as your Lordships will remember, served as a Supreme Commander-in-Chief of a great command in time of war, the South-East Asia Command. That carries manifest advantages in respect of the one who happens to have that qualification and, at the same time, to be Chief of Defence Staff. That is not a situation which can recur in the nature of the case; and it is, I think, a question that deserves full consideration as to whether there is likely to be in the Ministry of Defence anyone who carries the same unusual qualifications and is competent to present an opinion to the Secretary of State where differences arise between the Chiefs of Staff. He will be chief professional adviser to the Secretary—and that goes without saying by reason of the office he holds. But, when there are differences of opinion, I wonder whether the Ministry will be producing men who are capable of exercising the authorities suggested in the White Paper in the same way as is the case with the present incumbent of that

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office. I think this question is worth consideration; and also whether the old system did not work sufficiently well for us to avoid all the differences of opinion and discussions that may arise among the Chiefs of Staff by puting one head over them. I put that to your Lordships because when we have to deal with the legislation this is a subject that may be one for our consideration.
The position of the Chief of Defence Staff is, in one sense, very different from the position of the Permanent Under-Secretary of State and the Chief Scientific Adviser. The Chief of Defence Staff is there for only a term of years—short or long. I suppose usually it will be for from three to five years. In the case of the present incumbent there is now an extension to 1965, but the situation is unusual and I doubt whether a future incumbent will be given the same length of service. In the case of a Permanent Under-Secretary and the Chief Scientific Adviser, there is normally no term of office except, of course, anno domini, which, no doubt, will apply in their case as in the case of others in the Civil Service. Those who are there permanently, when the Minister, the Chief of Defence Staff and the Chiefs of Staff of the various Services are all birds of passage, come to occupy a position of the greatest possible responsibility and authority. The question is whether, in an office so complex as this and covering so wide a range of responsibilities, that is altogether a sound and safe position.
Secretaries of State will come and go—but I hope they will not come and go too often. Here you have a Secretary of State who will be dealing, so far as finance is concerned, with almost the whole of the proceeds of income tax gathered by revenue—£2,000 million a year—and within whose jurisdiction are 450,000 Service personnel and 450,000 civilian personnel. He will have responsibilities so wide, so complex and so important that, in the nature of the case, notwithstanding the long history and tradition attached to many offices, he is bound to be the most important Minister in the Government. He carries great responsibility; he spends more of the national income than any other Minister; and he has the responsibility of the defence of the nation. Having regard to all that, I believe it is no
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exaggeration to say that he will become the most important Minister.
Is it right that such a Minister should hold office for only a short period of time and be subject to all the changes of opinion that may exist? In the first year he will be learning his job; it is difficult enough, I and many of your Lordships, know from experience, for any Minister of a Department to learn his job; and it takes a year or so to do it. Here you have the head of a great organisation of the utmost complexity. It is not one job; it is indeed many jobs all rolled into one. It is like being the head of one of the greatest business organisations we have in this country and carrying enormous responsibility. I wonder whether it is right that such a one, being a relatively temporary incumbent of office, should have to rely very much upon a civil servant and a scientific adviser who, in contrast to himself and the Chief of Defence Staff, are permanent and with a very high remuneration—and I do not begrudge them that—and who are full of the learning of the Department and the experience and tradition that has grown up during the past. It is difficult for any Minister, however well-intentioned, however skilful, to stand up against those who have been there all the time and have all the knowledge and know-how. I think that is a matter that requires enormous consideration in a Ministry of this vast size and importance which is, if not designed, calculated to be the most important in the State, subject only to the Prime Minister himself.
I should now like to deal with some relatively minor points, but not so minor in importance. Under the terms of the White Paper manpower plans are to be drawn up on a defence basis. I should like to know what that means. Recruiting for the Army, as we know (and as the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, mentioned earlier this evening) has gone down to about 50 per cent. of what it was this time last year. Who is to decide, and by what criteria is it to be decided, for whom recruiting is to be undertaken? I should like to know the answer to that question. The Army certainly needs powerful reinforcements in the way of recruiting.
There is also the question of promotion. Is there to be a single Ministry

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of Defence list or are there to be separate lists for each Service, or are there to be four lists altogether, one for the Ministry of Defence and one for each of the Services? That is important, for what is the hierarchy to be by which relative entitlement to promotion or high office in any branch of the Ministry may be gauged? We want to know something about that and also by whom selection is to be made, which was a point to which my noble friend Lord Longford referred. Who is to make the appointment and with whom will the actual decision rest? I gather from the White Paper that for all appointments over major-general and equivalent ranks a decision will be made by the Secretary of State. That will be on some recommendation made to him; and I do not know by whom; and I do not know whether it is on the list of the Defence Ministry or on the list of each of the individual Services. I think we want to know a good deal more about that.
I do not want to weary your Lordships or detain you after this long debate. I do not think that I have a great deal more to say. There has been a good deal of reference to-day to Parkinson. I believe that we shall hear a good deal about Parkinson in this whole outfit. That troubles me a good deal. This White Paper provides for a veritable proliferation of committees; and every committee will throw off a sub-committee. I wonder whether anybody has sat down and worked out a timetable—how many committees there are; how many times they are going to meet, and how these committees will be planned so that nobody is required to attend more than one committee at the same time. My guess is that we shall be surprised. We shall find that the whole of the working day, five days a week, fifty weeks a year, will be occupied by people attending committees and unable to get on with the job. I think that it is very important to exercise a firm hand on this growth of committees. It is easy to say, "We cannot decide now, because there is a slight difference of opinion; so let us refer it to a committee"; whereas, if somebody were to take a strong line and say, "Yes", or "No", the other people concerned would accept it.
I would add that my impression is that this new organisation is going to cost more. There will be no economy
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at all events in the early stages. Noble Lords, like the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, who have experience of business on a great scale, know, as I do, that when there are great amalgamations, whatever the hopes held out for economy, at the beginning, at least until the new organisation shakes down, it is always more and not less expensive. Here we have few of those inducements that apply to the uniting of great industries, and I suspect that it will be found, at least for some years, until the whole thing shakes down to a reasonable size, that the expense will be much more than that prevailing at the present time. It is only fair to say—and I say it openly—that I do not read the White Paper as holding out any hopes of immediate economy. I am not suggesting that it is in any way misleading: I am merely expressing my opinion, that there will be a larger and not a smaller expense.
I believe that there is something to be said for this great orgnisation having a properly set up public relations office. I think that the public relations of the Services leave a great deal to be desired and need to be looked at. Such large and important Ministries, touching so many points of national life, should be in a position to get the very best service in this regard, and to make a proper impact upon the public mind. I agree also with my noble friend Lord Kennet, who said just now that there is room for a Central Intelligence Office, including, I should hope, first-class intelligence from the Foreign Office. I am not speaking here of security: I put intelligence and security in entirely different positions. So far as intelligence is concerned, I think that a Central Intelligence Office—not a Ministry, but an office, a special department of the Ministry—might be all to the good.
So far as the contents of this White Paper are concerned, that is almost all I have to say, and I am grateful to your Lordships for having listened to me with such patience. There will be opportunities after the Recess to discuss some of these matters in greater detail, either on legislation being presented or on some Motion being brought forward for the purpose. I should like to say a final word about the position of the Labour Party, on whose behalf I speak here at this Box to-day, in connection

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with the whole question of Defence. I think that there is often, perhaps among your Lordships, but certainly in the public outside, some misunderstanding about how the Labour Party stand in regard to Defence. There is a sort of suggestion, here and there—perhaps not only here and there—that the Labour Party are uninterested in defence; that they are opposed to it, rather than in favour of it.
My Lords, I think that I personally am in a pretty good position to speak on this question, because I have spent a great deal of my time and interest in connection with it, in a very minor way, it is true; but one cannot do more than give one's interest and activities to the matter which interests one. I think that it is worth noting that when my noble friend Lord Attlee was Prime Minister, it was he who produced, for the first time in peace time, a Minister of Defence—the Minister being, in fact, my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough. I think it is worth quoting that, when I was at the War Office, I presented to your Lordships' House, from the Box opposite, the National Service Bill. And I think that it is worth noting that when there was a question of intervening in the difficulty in Korea, we were ready, because of the arrangements which had been made by the Government under the Premiership of my noble friend Lord Attlee and when my noble friend Lord Alexander of Hillsborough was Minister of Defence. I think that in all this post-war period the Labour Party have a record which is entitled to respect. They have in every way played their part in seeking to secure the defence of the country in all the ways that were open to them. And I may say, on behalf of my noble friends, that we hold the defence and the honour of the country as high and as warmly as do any Members of your Lordships' House.
7.27 p.m.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE EARL OF HOME): My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl the Leader of the Opposition and the noble Lord, Lord Nathan, for the way one opened the debate and the way in which the other has concluded it, from their side of the House.
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Let me say at once that of course I accept that the Labour Party have played their full part in giving security to our country. From time to time we shall no doubt differ on various issues of policy—for example, it may be on the organisation of nuclear defence—but I hope that one Party will never accuse the other of in any way neglecting the defence of the country. Certainly, so long as I am at this Box I shall try to conduct foreign policy and defence policy, because the Foreign Secretary has an important influence on defence, which is the broad concern of both Parties and, I hope, the majority of the nation. I join in the generous and well-deserved tribute the noble Lord paid to Admiral Sir Caspar John. All of us who have worked with him are very sorry to lose him from our company. I hope that he and my noble friend the First Lord will have a very happy evening, as no doubt they will.
There is one principle which I think should be enunciated at the beginning of every Defence debate in Parliament, and repeated at the end. The noble Lord, Lord Nathan, expressed it this way: that there must be a recognition of the relationship between Defence and foreign policy. I would put it, I think, that defence is the means to political ends, and that political considerations and aims must always dictate the basis of defence structure, and not the other way round. Not unnaturally, therefore, a number of noble Lords have taken a very close look during this debate at those sections of the White Paper which deal with political direction and control.
The White Paper makes it absolutely clear that the responsibility for making sure that the Defence forces and the weapons systems are geared to political requirements falls firmly on the shoulders of the Prime Minister and the Defence and Overseas Policy Committee of the Cabinet. If anything were needed to emphasise that, it is the change of name from that of the Defence Committee to the Defence and Overseas Policy Committee of the Cabinet. This clearly indicates that the Government fully accept the relationship, as the noble Lord put it, between foreign policy and Defence.
In these days, of course, the Committee almost chooses itself, and overseas political Ministers—the Foreign Secretary and the Commonwealth and Colonial

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Secretaries—must be members. They have the unenviable task of gazing into the crystal ball and trying to indicate to the Cabinet (because decisions depend on this) what British interests will be ten and twenty years from now; what obligations we should expect, and what weapons systems and forces may be necessary to fulfil the political interests of Britain at that time. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has the still more unenviable and thankless task of estimating costs, perhaps ten or even twenty years ahead, so as to keep the Defence Budget within bounds. The Minister of Aviation is responsible for weaponry, and the Home Secretary for the security of the home country. If the noble Lord, Lord Saye and Sele, had been here, I should have told him that the reason, good or bad, for not mentioning Civil Defence in this particular White Paper is that the present organisation is not affected at all.
I have a good deal of sympathy with the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, when he says he wants simplicity in Defence organisation. But I do not see how one can simplify this part of the machinery, or how the Defence Committee of the Cabinet could be simplified. There is no one Minister, either the Secretary of State, or indeed the Prime Minister, who could possibly keep in his mind all the varied considerations which have to be taken into account when you are determining long-term strategy and the weapons systems needed to sustain that strategy. I remember that in a previous debate one noble Lord (possibly it was the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, or the noble Earl, Lord Longford; but I cannot remember which) suggested that it would be valuable if, parallel to the Ministerial Committee, the Defence and Overseas Policy Committee, there was an official committee under-pinning the Ministers. That idea is adopted and included as part of this White Paper, and I think it will be most valuable. It will preserve continuity and it will do a good deal of lone-term planning, which I think was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Kennet. That is part of the plan.
The Cabinet structure at the top is, then, absolutely of the first importance. The noble Lord, Lord Kennet, is quite right in saying that it is the key to everything that goes on below that level. Within the main principle, and the political
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structure, therefore, stemming from it, the theme of the White Paper—and, naturally enough, the theme of this debate—has been the interdependence of the Forces. Every experience in actual military operations (and the House may be interested to know that there have been 46 occasions on which the Armed Forces have had to go overseas since the war) has underlined the fact that to-day the Services are absolutely dependent one on another. One must agree with the noble and gallant Field-Marshal when he says that as a result of our operational experience anything which aims to knit the Services together must be right. So the object, as the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, rightly said, is not in dispute. It is how to achieve the maximum benefit of central direction under a Secretary of State for Defence without sacrificing the loyalty and pride of each Service, which must be preserved if the nation is to have a Fighting Force of the first quality and the first efficiency.
The debate has revealed, I think, a dilemma in which we are bound to find ourselves when we are searching for a solution of this kind. A number of noble Lords have said that they are afraid that the solution adopted in the White Paper would reduce the political influence of the Defence Services and the Defence set-up as a whole in the councils of the Government. We could have retained three Secretaries of State, as there are to-day: Ministers of Cabinet rank; Ministers, let us remember, in present circumstances all competing for short supplies; and Ministers, as anybody knows who has sat with them in Cabinet, who have considerable forensic ability and make their cases extremely well. There is no doubt that that gives considerable political influence, and it could be said that if we had adopted this setup the Services would have more political influence. On the other hand, I think that our experience has shown beyond doubt that the existence of three major autonomous Departments of State militates against the integration of Defence policy, which is, of course, our agreed aim and which the great majority of your Lordships have supported in the House to-day.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Earl? Has he finished with the question of political influence?
THE EARL OF HOME: No. I was coming later on to some of the points the noble Earl raised. As in every human institution, of course, it depends very much (I think the noble Earl, Lord Longford, said this) on what the Secretary of State's method of working will be. If he is wise, he will devolve a great deal on the Ministers of State. Indeed, it is absolutely essential that he should do so, since he must give himself time to grasp the larger issues of policy and to give decisions on them, because he must be, as I think the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, described him, the author of policy. The Ministers of State must obviously be given a Defence rôle in addition to their primary responsibility as members of the Service Boards.
One of the great problems of Government—and the noble Earl, Lord Longford, put his finger on this—is how to achieve decentralisation while keeping a proper overall control. One of the problems of Government, as I have seen it in the last few years, is that, however exalted the deputies given to a senior Minister, the tendency is for the clients to want to deal always with the top man. Yet, if the wheels of Government are not to be hopelessly clogged, two things must happen: a senior Minister must decant work and responsibility, and, what is more, the clients must accept that position. When the noble Earl, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, talks about "merely a Minister of State", I rather wish he would not do so, because I think that the answer must be to give Ministers of State a status which will enable them to command respect, attention and authority, both in the individual Services and in Parliament. I have had quite a lot of experience of this in the Foreign Office. For instance, one of my Ministers of State practically takes charge of disarmament. It really is wrong to think that Ministers of State cannot be given very wide responsibilities under the supervision of a senior Minister; in fact, it is right that this should be so.
My feeling is, therefore, that on balance—and I think that probably this view is shared by the majority of your Lordships, although there are legitimate doubts on this question of how much political influence the Services and the Defence set-up should acquire—we have probably achieved a fairly correct
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balance between central control and direction and practical and decentralised management. I think we have it about right; but the noble and gallant Viscount the Field Marshal was absolutely right. We cannot at this moment tell how it is going to work, and, therefore, it must be kept under the closest watch and must be adapted if defects are shown. We can really only tell by experiment.
If the Secretary of State is to come to right conclusions, I think there must be no danger that he is ignorant of the points of view of the individual Services. Quite a number of your Lordships concentrated on this point. The noble Lord, Lord Nathan, in particular drew attention to it. This is secured by each Chief of Staff being the professional head of his own Service; by the Secretary of State having direct access to experts of all three Services as he requires any information; and by the collective responsibility of the Chiefs of Staff to the Defence Committee through the mouthpiece of the Chief of Staff himself; and by the Service Chief in the last resort having the right to be heard by the Prime Minister. It has been questioned whether this was wise. This would happen only if there were a difference of opinion and a dispute within the Chiefs of Staff Committee of such a kind that it simply could not be settled, either by them or the Chief of the Defence Staff or, indeed, after consultation with the Secretary of State. If you get that kind of difference between the heads of the Services and the Chief of the Defence Staff and the Secretary of State, then it is much better to have it out in the open and not try to hide it. I think there is, therefore, a case for the Chiefs of Staff being able to go direct to the Prime Minister.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Earl to ask what he does when there is a dispute between the Assistant Under Secretary of State and the Foreign Office? Is it not parallel?
THE EARL OF HOME: I win the argument, my Lords. But, of course, if there is a dispute which I cannot resolve, I take it to the appropriate Committee of the Cabinet and, if necessary, to the Prime Minister. So I think there is a case here, if disputes

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of this sort arise, for them to go to the highest fountain head of wisdom. But it must be hoped that not many disputes of such a serious character will arise that under this set-up, with the co-ordinating powers of the Secretary of State, there should be fewer even than there have been in the past.
There is one other considerable matter of organisation which claimed your Lordships' attention: that is, whether the Ministry of Aviation should be included and put under the authority of the Secretary of State for Defence. I think it was broadly accepted that, while this Department should be under one roof in the Ministry of Defence, it could not be transferred to his authority, at any rate at the present time. With his responsibility for civil aviation research and development, and for the sponsorship of the aircraft industry, the Minister of Aviation has a lot to do. I think a number of your Lordships said that to put this additional burden on the Secretary of State for Defence would be questionable at any time, and at the present time really right out of the question. The main attention of your Lordships this afternoon has been concentrated on problems of organisation and administration, and very formidable they are. I think the noble Earl very fairly asked some questions earlier to-day and raised some points, because this new Minister is going to have authority over some 800,000 personnel, civilian and military. There are going to be some 3,000 persons in the main building, and an operational headquarters has to be created which will have to work round the clock.
It is here that your Lordships have presented to me to-day the longest catalogues of anxieties—and perfectly properly. The noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, did not ask a question so much as pose to us the problem as to how, in modern conditions, you get the officers of the highest quality and experience, which undoubtedly will be required in the Services. The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, asked about the Defence Operations Executive. Perhaps I might say a word about that. Within each of the existing Service Departments the senior officers who are listed in paragraph 36 of the White Paper, are senior executives in an emergency of the Chiefs of Staff and the
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Vice-Chiefs of Staff. The Defence Operations Executive has been set up to give formal expression to the growing interdependence of the Services by establishing in Whitehall a regular body of responsible officers for the better co-ordination of the Services in action. These officers will be able to function more efficiently than under present arrangements, because they will be provided with fully up-to-date facilities in the shape of the new Defence Operations Centre, and the facilities described in the White Paper: and, of course, they will be acting in accordance with well-established procedures. That, at any rate, is an interim answer to one question which the noble Lord asked. He then asked about the procurement of weapons and machines. This is more complicated, and I think I will ask my noble friend to reply to him by letter.
My noble friend Lord Swinton, and the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Oakridge, raised matters of accounting and economy. One particular proposal which was made by my noble friend Lord Swinton and which certainly I will have considered is that there might be established what he called a second Financial Secretary, a Financial Secretary for Defence. To anybody who runs a spending Department even of the kind I run, which is a modest one, the thought of two Financial Secretaries is daunting and rather terrifying. How a Financial Secretary for Defence would work in with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury who has an overall supervision in matters of finance, I am not so sure, but certainly we will examine this question.
My noble friend Lord Mancroft asked how Parliamentary Questions would be asked and who would take them, the Secretary of State for Defence or Ministers of State. I must not lay down rules for either House, but if I may take the analogy of the Foreign Office I would say that the Secretary of State by and large tries to keep himself for the broader matters of policy and answers questions on them, and the Ministers of State and Parliamentary Secretaries take the other matters.
The noble Earl, Lord Longford, and a number of noble Lords asked who would be responsible for the higher appointments in each Service. I take it that the Secretary of State for Defence would make the appointments on the

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recommendation of the individual Chief of Staff of the Service concerned. I have not been able to consult my right honourable friend, as noble Lords will understand, and if the question is asked whether he will also consult the Minister of State connected with the Service—Army, Navy or Air Force—I feel sure that he would be consulted. But I should have to confirm that before I could give an absolutely firm answer to noble Lords.
LORD NATHAN: My Lords, may I ask the Minister whether he can say anything with regard to a Defence Ministry list, and how the hierarchy will be arranged between the Defence Ministry and the Services to look after seniority—in other words, whence the future officers of the Defence Ministry will be selected?
THE EARL OF HOME: I think I will get my noble friend to communicate with the noble Lord by letter on that matter. It is fairly complicated, and I should like to get it correct if I am going to answer him at all. It is impossible to answer a good many of the questions asked to-day, but I will ask my noble friend Lord Carrington or my right honourable friend to deal with any points I am not able myself to answer this afternoon. Having heard the whole debate, and all the questions that have been asked, I come to the conclusion that we have probably been right not to try anything more ambitious in the way of reorganization; that really we have already bitten off just as much as we can chew.
On the question of economies, the noble Lord, Lord Nathan, and others have put the point very fairly. I think he was very fair when he said, in effect, that economy is not the object of this exercise; the object of the exercise is to get the best possible defence structure and service for the nation. Certain new posts have to be created and certain new staffs have to be built up—for instance, the staff of the control of the defence budget—and I agree that it is difficult to see economies in the early stages of the transition. But noble Lords have been perfectly right, if I may say so, to remind us of Parkinson and of what the noble and gallant Field Marshal, Lord Montgomery of Alamein, said, that the Minister of Defence ought to acquire some weed-killer. I was more apprehensive about
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that as I was not quite sure who, in the mind of the noble and gallant Field Marshal, were the weeds. At any rate, I think I would put it this way: while we cannot anticipate any substantial economies in the early years, nevertheless the object of the whole exercise is efficiency and, with efficiency, economy.
What then are the hopes of this new plan? The hope is that the new planning machinery, the Defence and Overseas Policy Committee, and the Cabinet will lay down the policy requirements with clarity; that the Secretary of State for Defence—and the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Oakridge, made this point—will be able to exercise authority and oversight which is effective, because this is a job which essentially can be done by only one man, which is what I think he said, and which I think is true, and, as a result of his oversight, authority and foresight, he will be able to propose to the Cabinet the shape of the Forces and the weapons systems which the political strategy requires.
The noble Lord, Lord Nathan, raised a number of other points about planning which would bring me back rather to the number of operations which have been conducted overseas. The contingency planning which has to run all the time and which was mentioned, too, by the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, is very important, perhaps more important than ever to keep it absolutely up to date when speed in military movement is absolutely the essence of success of any operation. I should think that our planning machine is certainly capable of planning for military operations, taking into account, as one noble Lord asked us to, the problems of the Commonwealth, of Europe and the problems of limited war in any other part of the world. Our Forces must be made interdependent, but it has also to be realised that all strategy and tactics everywhere are inter-related, and I think we should want, therefore, planning staff for them all. I do not intend to say anything on security, except that I hope we shall always be preserved from a Ministry of Security. I do not like that idea at all and, mercifully, it has not featured in this debate of your Lordships.
All in all, while we should never be complacent, I think that the Government may be reasonably satisfied with the reception of the proposals we have put

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forward. If I can judge from the tone of the debate as a whole, while many noble Lords want many of the problems to be considered, yet, with the principle, I think there is no quarrel. The noble and gallant Field Marshal rather suggested that we should never see unification of the Forces until there was a third world war. I can assure the noble and gallant Field Marshal that it is my job to stop that, and I shall try to do it so that when we come to the next stage of unification we may do so in peace. I am very grateful to your Lordships for the trouble that you have taken to help my right honourable friend in the consideration of these very complex matters, and I think we have had a most useful debate.
7.55 p.m.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, first of all I desire to thank all the Members of your Lordships' House who have assisted in this debate to-day. It is a vastly important subject; it is projected in a White Paper which, obviously from the debate which has taken place, is unable to give us all the information that we require in order to form a final judgment, but we are told that we shall be having legislation submitted in the autumn. I hope, from the tone of the speech that the Foreign Secretary has just made, that the points made in the debate will be very carefully examined before there is anything like final drafting of legislation.
What also concerns me a great deal is this. I may be regarded by some people as wrong, but, with the enormous growth of the Budget to the present figure of £1,838 million, and estimated now to go up nearer to £2,000 million, we are yet fundamentally at the present moment so far behind in getting the modernised equipment that is really required in present circumstances; and if there is going to be any considerable delay in, say, putting the kind of plan which the Government think is the best into operation, and it requires legislation, that will be a very great pity. Decisions have to be taken pretty quickly about some of these things. We shall already wait until 1968 for a Polaris. We have had tremendous disappointments with missiles and rockets and are now holding back on
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questions connected with them. We are not in the position which we ought to be in at this moment, and if there is going to be any considerable delay in getting this thing going, that would be a great pity. If we could obtain an assurance, perhaps before the other place rises, that there is going to be steady, hard work now in the Ministry of Defence to get these other things on the way, then we should be more happy.
Another thing I should like to say is this. I have seen a little of big business myself, and I have seen organisations which have succeeded and some which have failed, and I am bound to say that when you have formed a big top structure to an organisation with a great increase in expense and cost you do not necessarily bring greater success to the operation as a whole. What really is needed is the growth of the spirit within the Services themselves really to co-operate as they have done over and over again. The Foreign Secretary mentioned in his reply to-night about the co-operation of the Services, and I had the thought running through my mind when the noble and gallant Field Marshal said, "All will be one eventually". I have seen no real difficulties in the military command, and I am quite sure from what he said about the African campaign and other things that he must feel the same: that a military commander has never had any real difficulty when operations are on in absorbing a naval brigade into his joint force. This was so even as far back as Ladysmith.
There has never been any difficulty in getting co-operation as is going on now in the Federation of South Arabia, of having Royal Marine Commandos working side by side with Army Commandos under an Army commander. Really, it is just fulfilling the proper spirit of co-operation that needs to be pressed, and I still think there is a great deal in what my noble, and very experienced, friend Lord Attlee said: "You can have a fault in more harness than horse". I hope that will always be remembered. I have great pleasure in saying again that I am much obliged to all Members of your Lordships' House who have taken part and those who have replied for the Government, and I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.