Lords Sitting of 30 June 1965

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

SPEED LIMIT ON KINGSTON BY-PASS
2.36 p.m.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how long they propose to maintain the 40 m.p.h. speed limit on the dual three-lane carriageways now completed on the London end of the Kingston By-pass (A.3) trunk road.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT (LORD LINDGREN): My Lords, subject to the views of others concerned, my right honourable friend hopes that it may be possible to remove the speed limit towards the end of the year.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that helpful Answer. May I take it that the policy remains the same—that speed limits should be imposed in circumstances where they are seen by road users to be reasonable and, therefore, can be respected?
LORD LINDGREN: Yes, my Lords, and the only reason for the delay here is that there must be, or there are recommended to be, two footbridges across the road, and in the view of my right honourable friend it would not be fair to pedestrians to withdraw the speed limit until those footbridges are open.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that I take the point that he has made? May I ask him to impress upon his right honourable friend the urgency of this matter, because this is a speed limit which is not at all clearly seen to be reasonable by the road user, and is being violated right, left and centre, at high speeds.
LORD LINDGREN: Yes, my Lords. As the noble Lord will know, statutory consultations have to take place. We have already received replies from the Surrey County Council and the police, but we are awaiting a reply which is promised within a few days from the Royal Borough of Kingston-upon-Thames.

WATER RESOURCES ACT APPLICATION FORMS
2.40 p.m.
LORD CLITHEROE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are aware that insufficient time is available for land agents and those who manage several different estates to comply with the terms of the Regulations under the Water Resources Act, which involve numerous applications being sent in before June 30; that the forms have only become available recently and that each form contains nine foolscap pages; that the need to fill in these forms has only recently been advertised that the forms have to be completed in triplicate and that it is physically impossible for those responsible for very many applications to complete the forms, and the plans which have to be attached, before June 30.]
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF LAND AND NATURAL RESOURCES (LORD MITCHISON): My Lords, all those who abstract water have had since the beginning of April to apply for a licence, and in most areas the river authorities concerned had the forms available then. The Act itself makes clear the basis on which applicants for licences of right would have to establish their claim and this has been known since 1963. There has been publicity in the Press and by radio, at conferences, by explanatory leaflet and by letter to known abstracters, about the need to apply within the time limit. Farmers' and landowners' associations are among the organisations which have been particularly active in advising their members. Her Majesty's Government do not accept that it has been impossible for

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any abstracters to make application in the time allowed by the Act, but my right honourable friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government has asked all river authorities to use reasonable discretion in regard to defects or omissions in applications which may occur because the applicant has difficulty in obtaining the whole of the requisite information in time.
LORD CLITHEROE: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for what he has said, but I cannot accept his suggestion that this matter was brought to the notice of the general public in due time. It was advertised in my local paper on June 18 of this year. The Regulations under which this was done were laid before Parliament on March 31, and came into operation on April 1, which does not give very much time. The forms were not obtainable—
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (THE EARL OF LONGFORD): My Lords, could the noble Lord put his point in the form of a question?
LORD CLITHEROE: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that forms were not obtainable in many offices, and that it is quite impossible to obtain sufficient copies of ordnance survey maps to produce the maps in triplicate which have to be attached to the form, and that a large number of people in the country are totally unaware that this is going on? Is it appropriate, in the year in which we are celebrating Magna Carta, to deprive people of their rights because they do not fill up a form of which they have never heard, by June 30?
LORD MITCHISON: My Lords, in reply to the noble Lord's speech, I should like to observe that the information asked for by this form is required by the Act itself and by the Regulations made under it; that all possible steps have been taken to advertise what is required; that the period concerned is specified in the Act itself, and that there would have to be amending legislation if it were to be altered. The reason for this is that the boards must clearly have information as to existing users and applications for licences of right before they can deal with the question who is to get the rest of the water available. I will gladly make any specific inquiries that the noble
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Lord requires, but I really cannot accept the proposition that not enough has been done to bring this question to the attention of people, nor can I accept the proposition that the time has been insufficient for what is needed. It is perfectly true that you can bring a farmer to a form but you cannot make him read it, but none the less we have done our best.
LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, may I draw the noble Lord's attention to the opening words of his first Answer, that all who abstract water have had time to apply for a licence—I think those were more or less the words he used. But would he make it clear that there are large sections of the rural community who do not have to apply for a licence of right at all and who can go on using the water without making an application?
LORD MITCHISON: My Lords, I hoped we had made everything about this necessarily somewhat complicated Act, introduced by the last Government, and the Regulations under it, as clear as possible to everybody concerned. I think that if my reply is read in conjunction with the Question asked it will be found to be reasonably clear, although I would never be too sure about that. I can only refer people to the information that has been given, to the information that is available, to the Act and to the Regulations themselves. I should only invite further misunderstanding if I were to try to make supplementary explanations.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that despite what the Act may say and the notice that may have been given, the forms concerned have been in short supply and the maps necessary to accompany the forms in even shorter supply? Therefore the matter is not quite as easy as he has made it sound.
LORD MITCHISON: My Lords, I am not aware of that. I have been into this question and there have been one or two places where the forms and maps have been slower in arriving than others, but broadly speaking that suggestion is not true. I think it is the case that everybody who took the question seriously and started off at or about the time he was invited to start off has had plenty of time to make the application. If there

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is information required by the forms that he has been unable to get, the noble Lord will notice that I said that local authorities have been asked to use reasonable discretion.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, that is an extremely reasonable thing to say; but may I ask whether the noble Lord thinks that if he had been on the filling-in end of this application he would be quite as happy as he is to-day?
LORD MITCHISON: My Lords, this is the season for filling in income tax forms and nobody is really happy about filling in forms just now.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, is that the reason why it is known as the "silly season"?
LORD CLITHEROE: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that on one farm, for instance, there may be twenty sources of supply, springs for water troughs and so on, and it is absurd to say that three months is adequate to survey all the hill farms in England?
LORD MITCHISON: My Lords, I do not want to prolong this discussion, but the period of three months is laid down in the Act and so is the information required. It is called "the initial period" in the Act. I do not want to have to defend the previous Government to the last ditch against one of its usual supporters, but I think that in this case they were right, having regard to the existence of other people who would want to come along and claim licences afterwards—not the licences of right about which we are now talking. I hope I can pacify the noble Lord a little. If he will tell me of any particular case or give me any local information—though not now, of course—I will do my best to get it dealt with for him.
LORD CLITHEROE: My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Lord, but has he not already pointed out that he does not have power to extend the Act? Surely he could have taken care not to introduce the Regulations until due notice had been given to everybody?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, may I take the noble Lord up on his last invitation? Having had something to do with
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the introduction of this admirable piece of legislation, I, as a filler-in, have met with many of the difficulties which my noble friends have met with, and therefore I would avail myself of the noble Lord's kind offer.
LORD WISE: My Lords, may I ask a question from this side of the House? Has the noble Lord seen the form which has been issued for this purpose? If he has, may I refer him to Part C and suggest to him that it is not at all applicable to farmers and suchlike people, and if in future further forms are issued instead of this form which came from the last Government, will he make them more simple?
LORD MITCHISON: My Lords, my noble friend does not seem to be aware that the form was part of the Order. It is not something which has been issued since. The Order was not prayed against at the time, and the Order at present obliges us to use this form. Moreover, the final date is June 30, so it would be a little late now to make a second Order.

BATTERSEA BRIDGE/ CREMORNE ROAD TRAFFIC PROBLEMS
2.47 p.m.
EARL FORTESCUE: 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 are aware of the congestion caused by permanent single-line traffic on the Embankment between Battersea Bridge and Cremorne Road; and, in view of the fact that this is one of the main approach routes to the docks from North and West, whether they will consider widening the Embankment for about half a mile.]
LORD LINDGREN: My Lords, I understand that the Greater London Council, as highway authority, will be giving further consideration to plans for road improvement in this area in the light of its current investigations into a major cross-route with an interchange in the Chelsea Basin area.
EARL FORTESCUE: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his reply, but it is rather unsatisfactory, so may I ask

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whether he can let us know how soon something is likely to happen in this connection?
LORD LINDGREN: My Lords, I do not want to make the noble Lord despondent, but to be perfectly frank I cannot see any real improvement coming until the 1970s.
EARL FORTESCUE: My Lords, may I suggest that the Minister should give the Greater London Council a prod on this matter, because the situation there is acute and it appears that the only obstacle is this rather insalubrious anchorage on the edge of the Thames.
LORD LINDGREN: Yes, my Lords, but this West cross-route is part of the London "box" plan and noble Lords will have gathered from the correspondence and discussion about it that there are some objections to it. Everybody wants road improvements, but every property owner objects to any improvement taking place if his property is affected.
EARL FORTESCUE: I thank the noble Lord.

MUDGUARDS ON MOTOR VEHICLES
2.49 p.m.
EARL FORTESCUE: 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, in view of the danger caused by spray, more particularly on motorways, they will consider the desirability of compelling all manufacturers or owners to fit mudflaps of suitable size to the back wheels of all vehicles.]
LORD LINDGREN: My Lords, an investigation by the Road Research Laboratory has shown that improved mudguards and mudflaps can reduce spray behind commercial vehicles, but would be of little benefit in the case of private motor cars, particularly when travelling at speed. We do not, therefore, propose to make the use of mudflaps generally compulsory, but we are seeking the co-operation of the motor industry in securing improvements in commercial vehicles.
EARL FORTESCUE: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his reply. Is he aware that on a wet day on a motor road forward visibility is only about 50 yards, whereas natural visibility is about one mile.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, would the noble Lord accept from me the suggestion that the cure for this acute problem is not in the design of the motor vehicle? The point is—and I think he will appreciate this; I hope he will—the slowness with which surface water is drained off these highways and the increasing speed of motor vehicles. How he can overcome that is one of the headaches his Department is going to have in the future.
LORD LINDGREN: I entirely agree. Road drainage is one of the problems, as also are the tread of the tyres and the speed of the vehicle. I would also say that side spray is perhaps a greater interference to the following vehicle than spray thrown up behind.
LORD SOMERS: My Lords, in view of the fact that some mudflaps are of extraordinarily antiquated size and design, can the noble Lord say whether the Minister would consider laying down regulations as to their size and design in the future?
LORD LINDGREN: My Lords, we are in discussion with the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders. A Road Research Laboratory report was submitted to them in January and we have had an interim reply from them. Again, to be frank, they are not falling over themselves with enthusiasm, but I think we shall get their co-operation in improving the design of vehicles and guards for vehicles.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, at a suitable moment after 3.30 my noble friend the Leader of the House will be making a Statement on the Rann of Kutch.
It has been suggested that, in view of the number of speakers in to-day's two debates, I should remind the House that, as usual on Wednesdays, dinners will be available.

MANCHESTER CORPORATION BILL
Read 2a, and committed to a Select Committee.

THE ARMED FORCES
2.53 p.m.
LORD THURLOW LORD THURLOW rose to call attention to the problems of manpower, equipment and training of the Armed Forces, including the reserve forces; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. I am very grateful for the time allotted for this debate at this crowded period of the Session, but as the review of Defence requirements is still in progress some of us felt that it was important that there should be an opportunity for noble Lords on all sides of the House to offer proposals and suggestions, based on their experience in Service Ministries and in the three Services. I am afraid that I am going to talk for more than ten minutes. I shall probably get a "rocket" from the noble and gallant Viscount, but if I do it will be like old times.
We have had one Defence debate which dealt with many problems. This Motion, which is intentionally phrased to cover a very wide field, has been nicknamed by my noble Leader the "nuts and bolts" debate. I am sure that many noble Lords will have useful suggestions to make about the more detailed aspects of Defence. Though there is sometimes controversy in this House on Defence matters, this rather tends to be disagreement between the House as a whole, on the one side, and the Treasury, on the other. Defence policy, at least so far as the Regular Forces are concerned, cannot be changed overnight. It depends upon factors over which Her Majesty's Government have very little control and on the weapons available and under development which were designed on the basis of political appreciation made perhaps fifteen years before.
Our present difficulties in Defence are largely due, presumably, to advice given by the Foreign Office in the late 1940s. British strategy, tactics, training and equipment have always been bedevilled by the need to provide for three different military tasks: war against a first-class
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Power, colonial wars, and operations in aid of the civil power. After 1945 it was decided that this dispersal of effort must cease and that in future we should prepare for only one type of war. Unfortunately we chose the wrong type. For some years the tasks of the Services have been, in order or priority, the deterrence of global war, the winning of the cold war, the preparation for, and if necessary the waging of, limited war, the preparation for, and if necessary waging of, total war. And, of course, these can merge into one another.
A limited war East of Suez seems the most likely event. But having spent vast sums in what was, in its prime, a very sophisticated armament, we now find ourselves short of the sort of weapons we need for the sort of war in which we are most likely to be engaged—fighter-bomber "recce" aircraft, of moderate speed and great versatility, operating from short, ill-equipped runways; helicopters; modern weapons and wireless sets designed to be carried for long distances by men on foot; commando carriers, and a Fleet Train as a substitute for those overseas bases which may become politically untenable. In addition, we are short of men, including several categories of technicians, in all three Services.
When we blame successive Governments for failing properly to equip the Services, and the Services for constantly changing their requirements, we must remember that for years they have been trying to do one job with tools designed, on the best possible advice, for another. The main task of the Services would appear to be the preparation for, and the waging of, limited war, while still making a proper contribution to NATO and being prepared for policing jobs in any part of the globe. Experience has shown that it takes a minimum of seven years to develop a weapon, be it a gun, aircraft or wireless set, and probably about the same for a ship. If we want to change quickly, we must purchase from America, who, alone of our allies, can afford separate ranges of equipment for different forms of warfare.
I now propose to take each Service in turn, ask a few questions and make some suggestions, under the headings of manpower and equipment; and, in the case of the Army, training and the reserve

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forces as well. First of all, on the Navy and manpower, I would ask Her Majesty's Government what progress has been made to overcome the critical shortage of skilled ratings and the disappointing recruitment and re-engagement figures. Have the two schemes to encourage re-engagement, by assistance in house purchase and re-engagement grants for skilled ratings to sign on, had any beneficial effect? Have any other schemes, such as separation allowance or annual leave for married personnel serving at sea, been considered? So much for manpower.
Now I turn to naval equipment. Mr. Wilson said on September 27, 1964:
"We need a stronger and more effective Navy. The Royal Navy is not adequate for our needs in the 1960s. It has been run down to a dangerous extent.… I believe we shall need an expanded naval shipbuilding programme. How are we going to pay for it? Out of the savings made through stopping the wasteful expenditure on the politically-inspired nuclear programme."
As the nuclear programme is going ahead on four out of five of the Polaris submarines, where is the expanded naval shipbuilding programme, and where is the money coming from to pay for it? As my last point, I would ask: is it right to use modern ships, which are designed to operate with aircraft carriers, on their own in the Far East and in the Persian Gulf, as is happening at present? One or two of my noble friends have far more knowledge of the Navy than I have, so I will say no more on that subject, but turn to the Army, of which I have a little more experience.
Let me take, first of all, manpower. In the last Estimates debate we learned that some infantry battalions are 15 per cent. undermanned, junior officers are 1,000 short, and we all know that the Army is severely overstretched. The effect of this is instability which causes lack of confidence and discontent with the conditions of service. Since the best recruiter will always be the contented soldier—and for that matter sailor or airman—this situation is affecting recruiting. Time-expired soldiers are not signing on; officer material is not coming forward. Only last week I heard of four excellent potential officers who at the last moment withdrew because they had certain doubts about whether or not the Army was a worthwhile career.
These things must be corrected, or we shall never get enough officers and men. To get officers and men the serving officer or soldier, who I say is the best recruiter must, in peace time and in a period of full employment, be satisfied and contented in his career; and if he is married, that means that his wife must be contented, too. In peace time his postings should be at least alternately at good stations, from the point of view not only of family accommodation but of climate and amenities, and the tough spots where he would live a really active service life separated from his family. I think that that the Army is wrongly balanced between the British Army of the Rhine and the United Kingdom on the one hand, and overseas stations where we are so much overstretched, on the other. These overseas stations need more units to effect changes of environment.
As the noble Earl, Lord Longford, when replying to me in the last Defence debate made it quite clear that we could not afford to raise more units, the only Regular reinforcements to put the balance right would have to come from the Rhine Army, unless we give up a major commitment elsewhere, which at the moment does not seem possible. Therefore, I suggest that the Rhine Army should be reduced by one infantry brigade which should be used to reinforce the Strategic Reserve. This would give us three more infantry battalions to relieve the strain overseas. We might then be able to improve conditions by making fuller use of popular overseas stations, for example, Malta in the Mediterranean and perhaps the Malayan Highlands in the Far East, and Hong Kong. Could we not station units occasionally in Australia, in Canada, or in New Zealand, possibly on an exchange basis for a year or two at a time? All this would improve conditions of overseas service and so help recruiting and the manpower problem.
We must do other things, too, to help recruiting. I should like to see some boys' units formed, in addition to the junior leaders units, at all arms and the Army apprentice schools, which are doing a magnificent job and, so far as I know, have no difficulty in filling their vacancies. The growing fears and apprehension throughout the Forces, and indeed of all expatriates, concerning the possible effect of the Rent Bill must be removed. I was

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dismayed to see that what struck me as a most reasonable Amendment to safeguard Service house-owners serving overseas was defeated in Standing Committee at its sixth sitting. Since then I have seen a new Amendment, to be moved by Mr. Crossman, which goes some way to protect the house-owner when he wants to get his home back after service overseas. But he will still have to go to court to regain possession of his home; and, in that event, who is going to pay the legal costs?
My last comment on Army manpower is to put in a word on behalf of the Royal Malta Artillery. I am sure we must make good use of it. It is now being strangled to death by a ban on recruiting. The Royal Malta Artillery is still a corps of the British Army, the only one belonging to an independent Commonwealth country. Malta, with its surplus of manpower, ever loyal to our causes, is anxious to help to supply one unit or, better still, two units to the Regular Army for almost any rôle that they are called upon to play, provided that the personnel are treated the same as our own when overseas. There is great apprehension among the officers and the men at the moment, many of whom are doing a useful job in the Rhine Army. Some 16 captains and subalterns have recently transferred to other corps. Time-expired men are, of course, leaving all the time, and no recruits are allowed to take their place. I would ask the Government to look most sympathetically at this point.
I now want to talk about the Reserve Army, and by that I mean all the categories of reserves that we now have. There are at present nine: the Army Emergency Reserve I, IIA, IIB, III, the Regular Army Reserve, the Territorial Army, the Territorial Army Emergency Reserve (which we know as the "Ever-Readies"), and the Territorial Army Reserve. I feel that what we need is one Reserve that will produce quickly trained reinforcements for any unit engaged in limited war or policing duties, and still retain the structure of a national Reserve Army for what we hope will never happen again, a major war. As we need more "Ever-Readies", we also need a formation available to reinforce the Rhine Army quickly, and a disciplined force not so ready, not so
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highly trained, not necessarily 100 per cent. equipped, but available at once for Civil Defence and, after a period of training and equipping, capable of taking its place with the rest of the Army.
I am certain that the existing Territorial Army Association should be used as the main structure of any new plans for a Reserve Army. As regards the "Ever-Readies", I would propose that existing Territorial divisions should be encouraged to produce as many "Ever-Readies" as possible, up to one company per existing brigade, and perhaps one armoured squadron and one battery of artillery per existing division. They should, I believe, be organised and trained in sub-units—that is, batteries, squadrons and companies for the combatant arms, and in complete specialist and administrative sub-units. Combatant units should train annually in regiments and battalions with all their specialists and technicians, all with Regular units. Regular officers should be in charge of all training in and out of camp, though not necessarily in command if suitable "Ever-Ready" officers were available. Although I would have them organised in sub-units for training, this would not preclude the calling-up of individuals and groups when smaller numbers are required; it might be possible for their periods of readiness to rotate, a number of sub-units being on immediate call and in the following year others taking their place. I feel that they must be organised within the framework of the Territorial Army because it has the traditions, the parent organisation, country-wide local support and the drill halls.
It is also necessary to be able to reinforce the Rhine Army, particularly if, as I suggest, a Regular formation were removed from it. This should, of course, be done by negotiation with NATO, and I propose that a Territorial formation should be earmarked for early reinforcement of the Rhine Army and trained there for three weeks every two years. This formation would, of course, have to be well-equipped and trained. The remainder of the Reserve Army should be reorganised on the lines of the existing Territorial Army but embracing all existing Reserves. If finance does not permit, it would have less equipment than it has

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now. The Territorial Army is at present organised to fit the Civil Defence organisation of the country, and the Civil Defence rôle—which is an important one—should remain unchanged. However, many units of the Territorial Army to-day are so much below strength that they do not justify the expense of retention. There is also need for re-forming the Territorial Army associations into smaller groups, perhaps one for each divisional district with representatives from each county in the area.
With a view to improving recruiting for the Regular and Reserve Armies, I feel we should look again at the Army Cadet Force in the light of the modern youth mentality. As a district commander, I found enormous enthusiasm in the young cadet. Then, as he got older and his training continued, over and over again on the same lines, he got bored and left and did not, as one hoped, join the Territorial Army, let alone the Regular Army. We want to introduce a better training programme so that his interest is held, and so that he progresses into more advanced' fields of military training with the assistance of the Territorial Army, perhaps as a junior Territorial, so that when he is the right age he is prepared to join either the T.A. or the Regular Army, with enhanced prospects of promotion. So much for the T.A. and the Cadet Force.
I am very glad to see in their places to-day, and due to speak, noble Lords from Scotland, Northumberland and Devon with great experience of the Regular and the Territorial Armies. I look forward to hearing their contributions. I am particularly pleased that my noble friend Lord Ridley, who had the dubious privilege of serving in a Territorial Division under my Command, and who has just given up command of a great yeomanry regiment, is going to make his maiden speech to-day. Finally, whatever the Government decide to do, I hope that there will be full consultation with the Territorial and Auxiliary Forces' Association, and I hope that there will be an opportunity to have another debate on this subject when the Government have produced their plan for the Reserve Army.
I should like now to say a word about Army equipment. The Army equipment
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now coming into service was, on the whole, designed for major war. Much lighter equipment is required for the limited operations which we are now undertaking. Can we be told how the trials on the light automatic rifle (I think that it is called the American Armelite) are proceeding? What scale of issue is envisaged, and when will it come into service? Are there any new developments in regard to portable radio sets? Helicopters are playing an increasingly important part in all operations. I suggest that helicopter flights, some of which are already piloted by Army officers, should be under the command of Army unit commanders in all operations in the Far East. Also load-carrying helicopters should be piloted by Army officers and should be under the command of divisional or brigade headquarters, according to their rôle. They are, after all, only flying lorries, and the time has come for helicopter units to be integrated into the Army establishment when they are required in special parts of the world in active service. The Royal Air Force do not particularly mind this. After all, they want to go faster and faster, whereas the Army want to go slower and slower—and even, occasionally, to park on a cloud.
In regard to training, in March, 1965, the Under-Secretary of State for the Army mentioned the shortage of training land. What steps have the Government taken in eight months, and what are their plans to obtain more training areas? Most successful training of one or two units has been carried out in Canada. Can this be extended? Can more be done in Europe by agreement with our NATO Allies? Recently I was glad to hear that the 1st Duke of Edinburgh's Royal Regiment carried out a period of training in Sardinia, where they were given a very warm welcome, and derived from it a great deal of value and enjoyment. I would ask the Ministers; how much longer will the training areas in Libya be available to us? Where will the Strategic Reserve train, if we have not the facilities in Libya?
I now turn to the Royal Air Force. I had hoped to leave most of this to my noble friend Lord Gosford, but I am sorry to say that he has had to go into hospital and will be away from his place

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for some time. I am sure that we all wish him a rapid recovery.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Hear. hear!
LORD THURLOW: His contributions to our debates on air matters are always very valuable and we miss him to-day. My only point on manpower in the Royal Air Force is to ask whether recruiting is still satisfactory. Is the R.A.F. getting all the technicians it needs? As regards R.A.F. equipment—and that means mainly aircraft—I understand that the Blue Water project was cancelled solely because the TSR 2 aircraft would render it superfluous. Now that the TSR 2 has been cancelled what is to take its place?
If it is to be the F 111, one school of thought considers that, if it is to be purchased now it should be purchased complete with all the American equipment designed for it, rather than with British equipment salvaged from discarded projects. However, the American equipment for the early marks of the F 111 cannot match the British electronic fit which was designed for the TSR 2. If, therefore, we are going to buy the F 111 future Marks, we should insist on including a British electronic fit which can be fully integrated into the aircraft during the flight trial stages. This can be done if we act quickly. The advantages of such a policy are that we capitalise on the development programme already undertaken, we ensure a fit that will meet our requirements, we save dollars, and we ensure that the military "know-how" is kept alive.
There is still a requirement for the P 1154 or similar type. All the research and development for this aircraft has been completed at great cost. What are the Government's plans? As an infantryman myself, I am most interested in aircraft capable of really close support of infantry engaged in active operations to-day. What have we now, and what is planned for the future? It has been stated in the House of Commons by Mr. Jenkins, the Minister for Aviation, that the day has passed when the Royal Air Force can expect ever again to fly British-developed and British-produced combat aircraft: they are too expensive for our limited resources. We must therefore collaborate on development
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and production with other countries and share the cost.
The question is: with whom do we collaborate? If we divide the development costs on a pro rata basis, what rights shall we have in the production of the aircraft and in foreign sales? If we collaborate with the United States, we know that their security restrictions might well prevent foreign sales; and we know that the cost of production can be reduced only by overseas sales. There is also the problem of design rights in Government-sponsored developments, which in this country are vested in Her Majesty's Government but in America with the aircraft contractor. Therefore, there are enormous commercial difficulties for British sales of Anglo-American aircraft.
The danger lies in the fact that for prestige reasons we may be tempted to enter into collaborative project agreements with America on what appear to be amicable industrial terms, when the real aims of American business, though not necessarily of the United States Government, will be to run us out of business. All this makes the case for collaborating with the French extremely strong. For a start, France realises the dangers of collaboration with the United States, but she also realises the intolerable strain of "going it alone", if survival of the industry is dependent upon overseas sales in the face of United States competition.
A joint Anglo-French industrial effort, however, more nearly matches the Americans. The joint total market within France and the United Kingdom for a single project will make possible production runs which will reduce costs to a point that may well be competitive with American production unit costs. Rights are more easily negotiable with the French, and language, we already know from experience, presents no real difficulty between the design teams. Thus there is a sound commercial case for collaborative ventures with France. The last thing we should try to do is to collaborate with everybody at once. To build one aircraft with France, one with America, and possibly a third with another European Power, merely establishes a pattern of high-cost, short-run production lines, and security difficulties. This is folly.

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I apologise for darting about between the various problems of the three Services, but I hope that your Lordships will follow me in some of these, and I am sure that other noble Lords will make useful contributions to this debate. I have no doubt that it is the earnest desire of all of your Lordships that our Regular and Reserve Forces should be organised with enough men, properly trained and efficiently equipped, so that they can play their part in bringing peace and stability wherever our responsibilities lie, and wherever we can assist, and at the same time give us the shield and deterrent against aggression which they have produced in the past; and that they should be able to do so is the responsibility of the Government and Parliament. I beg to move for Papers.
3.24 p.m.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I am glad that we are having this debate this afternoon. In the first place, it is perhaps a good thing that our time this summer should not be entirely monopolised by my noble friend Lord Arran and his Bill. In any event, I am very glad that the debate has been opened by my noble friend Lord Thurlow, who speaks with such recent and intimate knowledge of the Armed Forces.
There is, of course, a difficulty of timing. I am not a natural pessimist, but I rather suspect that to some of our more pertinent questions the noble Lords who will be replying will say that this or that is under review. Well, there it is. But we avidly await the moment when Mr. Healey will bring down his tablets from Whitehall Gardens. Incidentally, can noble Lords tell us when we may expect to see the fruits of all this burning of midnight oil in the Ministry of Defence, and do the Government propose to embody the distilled fruits of their Review in a special White Paper? Nevertheless, my Lords, despite this review hazard, I think it is very useful that we should have this opportunity now of looking at some of the more terre-à-terre aspects of Defence policy. I propose to be very terre-à-terre myself and, following that, I shall come straight away to matters of equipment, indeed straight away to Army equipment.
The difficulty about the Army, of course, on which my noble friend has spoken with far more expertise than I can posibly command, is that it has two
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jobs: the rôle of Rhine Army and the world-wide rôle. But the job on which the Army is to-day most actively engaged is, of course, the world-wide job; that of containing limited pressures notably in South-East Asia, and they are doing it, as are the other two Services, superlatively well. I was lucky enough to see at first hand, in Borneo last summer, something of what the Army is up against. I incline to doubt whether most people in this country fully realise that the opponent, whom our Commonwealth Forces are confronting in that fantastically difficult terrain, is becoming increasingly numerous, increasingly well-trained and, indeed, increasingly well-equipped. Therefore, to maintain the ascendancy which Commonwealth Forces have gained in Malaysia, we need to exploit every advantage we possess, including not least, of course, the advantage of superior technology.
Quite frankly—and noble Lords will see by this admission that I am here not making. a Party point—I doubt whether we have yet fully exploited that advantage of technology in terms of simple, robust and, above all, very light equipment, or in terms of mobility. We learned from Mr. Mulley last March that the Government were pushing ahead with studies of lighter and more suitable weapons, not only for jungle conditions, but also for counter-insurgency rôles. Studies are not "much cop" for the chap in the jungle. What he needs of course is the stuff itself, the hardware, and I hope that the noble Lords who are answering my noble friend's very pertinent questions in this context will be able to offer us something rather more solid than studies.
In particular, apart from the question of the lightness of equipment, I personally should be very interested to hear what noble Lords have to say about the Government's intentions with regard to helicopters and light aircraft. No one who has been to Borneo, and who has witnessed the almost total reliance of the troops on the ground on the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy helicopter squadrons, can doubt the importance of the helicopter in counter-insurgency operations. Therefore, I should like to join my noble friend in asking the Government what their plans are, apart from improving the availability of those helicopters which we have at present—which of

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course is extremely important. Do they propose, as I think my noble friend has suggested, to expand the Army's private air force of helicopters and light aircraft? Do they propose to increase the tactical helicopter lift provided by the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy, world-wide? I hope that here the noble Lords who are replying will be able to give us something solid to bite on, and that they will not shelter behind the screen of the Defence Review.
This brings me, I suppose logically, to the question of Royal Air Force equipment, and here our point of departure—our somewhat melancholy take-off—must be the Government's decision to murder the nation's three most advanced military aircraft projects. We cannot, I fear, disinter their remains, but we can, and I will, ask noble Lords opposite to tell us rather more about the Government's intentions. In particular, we need to know—the Royal Air Force needs to know, and the nation needs to know—whether their intention is to order this year a long-range tactical strike and reconnaissance aircraft.
I remember very well, before I was smitten with 'flu, listening a couple of months ago to what the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, said about this in our Defence debate. He made out, as I thought, an absolutely clinching case, or so it seemed to me, for such an aircraft. He made out, in short, the case for the TSR 2, and only three weeks ago the Secretary of State himself confirmed this requirement. Why, therefore, are the Government hesitating about exercising their option on the American F 111? Noble Lords opposite may fob us off with talk of the Defence review and verbiage about the "precise definition of task"; but I do not think that procrastination here should really be excused by this talk of the Defence review. The Defence review did not stop the Government from putting the knife to the P 1154, the H.S. 681 or the TSR 2; nor has it inhibited them—and I am glad it has not inhibited them—from concluding a very important deal with the French for the production of two military aircraft. If the Government can embark on a joint project with the French for a plane which we are not going to need until the midlate-1970s, how is it that they are not
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able to bring themselves to a decision yet to order a plane which we need, on the noble Lord's own admission, as soon as we can possibly get it?
Of course, it may be that there are other factors at play here. Mr. Healey, the Secretary of State for Defence, although not the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, has talked of the Buccaneer in this sort of context. With the Rolls Royce Spey engine, the Buccaneer is a fine aircraft. It has still quite a lot of development potential. Do the Government in fact intend to develop it still further for the Royal Navy, for the Royal Air Force or for both? Again, there has been talk of strong French opposition to our exercising our option on the American F 111. In a way, perhaps, it would be understandable if there were such opposition.
The Anglo-French vertical geometry aircraft (as I think it is called now) is, I believe, due to come into service with the R.A.F. in the mid-late-1970s—parenthetically, I must remark how the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, would have twitted us with the use of this magic phrase had we been responsible for it—and then, as I understand it, the F 111, if we do order it, should still have quite a long life ahead of it. The French may, therefore, by a process of reasoning which I need not go through, fear that the Government may try to "do another Concord" on them. In any event, I very much hope that noble Lords opposite will take this opportunity of clearing the air in this particular respect. It is time we all knew whether it is the Government's firm intention to exercise their option on the F 111, and it is also time, I think, that we knew what British aircraft the Anglo-French project, the vertical geometry project, is due to replace.
This is the biggest cloud of equipment uncertainty which the Government have hung over the Royal Air Force, but there are a number of others. First, there is the uncertainty now surrounding the Government's choice of replacements for the murdered P 1154—the American Phantom and the British Kestrel. The Spey-engined Phantom is the best and most versatile aircraft of its kind in the world to-day, but now we hear the Minister of Aviation referring in another

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place to the "considerable difficulties associated with the time-scale and the cost of this project". This is all rather forbidding and, indeed, rather puzzling. After all, my Lords, it was on the plea of time and of cost that the Government sought to justify their murder of the P 1154. I hope that the noble Lord can dispel at least some of these doubts. I hope in particular that he can scotch the rumour which we have all heard that the mounting cost of this programme will mean a drastic reduction in the number of Phantoms which the R.A.F. and the Royal Navy will receive.
Then, my Lords, what about the Kestrel? The Government tell us it is due to enter service in the late 'sixties—again the magic, vague phrase. I would hazard the guess, however, that, by the "late 'sixties", the Government probably mean, rather optimistically, 1969. My Lords, 1969 is only a year or so ahead of the date by which the P 1154 was due; but 1969 is also only four years from now, and, so far as I know, the Government have still to place a production order for these Kestrels. When do they propose to place such an order? Do they in fact know what sort of Kestrel they really want?
The time-scale for the replacement of the veteran Shackletons also worries me. I am, less charitably, less worried about the replacement of the still youthful noble Lord opposite. A month or two, perhaps, will take care of that, despite the Prime Minister's brave words. But I should like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, whilst there is yet time, on the decision to replace the Mark II Shackletons by the Maritime Comet, the HS 801. Just for once, I think, the Government have got it right. But, here again, they have set themselves a pretty tight programme, and all that they have done so far, as I understand it, is to authorise a very limited development programme. Here again, can they tell us when full production orders will be placed; and can they also tell us what they have in mind for the Mark III Shackletons?
Finally, there is the important question of British equipment for all these American aircraft—the point which my noble friend also, and rightly, referred to. We know the Spey engine is going into the
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Phantom. Is the Tyne going into the Hercules? Is the noble Lord yet able to give us that information? Again echoing my noble friend, may I ask what British avionics (to use this horrible piece of new jargon) are going into these American purchases? And what about other, very important, ancillary equipments? What, for example, about the wheels, the tyres and the brakes which (although I do not know about the time-scale) British firms could quite easily supply in the Phantom and the Hercules?
Last, whilst I am on equipment, but very far from least, there is the equipment of the Navy. When I left the Navy Department last October I feared that all the planning, all the dedication which had been invested in our Polaris programme, and the tightest and most testing programme that the Navy and the British shipbuilders had ever undertaken, might well be squandered. On the other hand, I was pretty confident about the future of our so-called conventional Navy. For had not the Prime Minister called, with all the sincerity at his command (to use his own phraseology), "for a stronger and more effective conventional Navy"? But what, in fact, have we seen? We have seen the continuation of the much-derided Polaris programme—and I am very glad we have—but what about their programme for expanded naval shipbuilding for which Mr. Wilson pleaded in those far-off autumn days in Plymouth and in Chatham, with all the sincerity at his command?
Now, the Prime Minister, for all I know, may have laboured very hard for this during his first dynamic 200 days. He may have wrestled night and day with his next-door neighbour at No. 10, the gallant Colonel Wigg, whose love of the Navy is, I suspect, less than total. But if he has laboured, the Prime Ministerial mountain has brought forth a remarkably small naval mouse. What have we seen of that great, expanding naval programme? Nothing—in fact, less than nothing. We have seen the cancellation of one Polaris submarine, the cancellation of an ice-breaker; but of new construction, of new orders—nothing, or virtually nothing. I have forborne up to now to question the Government about these matters, but I should like now to put a number of questions to noble Lords opposite. I hope, with all the sincerity at

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my command, that they can give us satisfactory answers.
What, in the first place, about the new carrier programme? This is probably not the occasion to delve into all the "theology" of the carrier argument. All I would say is that if we are to have important military commitments East of Suez in the 'seventies, in the vast reaches of the Indian Ocean and in the network of South-East Asian archipelago, I find it hard to see how we can discharge these commitments adequately without a modern carrier force. An essential element of that force was the new carrier, CVA 01, which was due to enter service in early 1973. The CVA 01 is, of course, now stuck fast in the toils of that famous Defence review. But can the noble Lord assure us, pending the review, that the Government have in no wise jeopardised the timing of this project, that there has been no relaxation of the design effort and that orders for all the long-lead items have been placed duly and on time?
Next, the programme for the nuclear-powered hunter-killer submarines, the S.S.K.N.s, as they are called in the vernacular. These vessels are probably the most important components—from the defensive point of view, certainly—of a modern conventional Navy. They will be needed in the 'seventies against even a 2nd or 3rd XI naval Power. We gather that the Government propose to order a further hunter-killer in place of the fifth Polaris. This, too, has apparently managed in some way to slip through the erratic mesh of the Defence review. Or has it? Can the noble Lord tell us whether this order for a fourth S.S.K.N. has been placed? More important, can he give us any indication of the future submarine programme which the Government have in mind?
Then there are the escorts, the backbone of the conventional Navy. We never have enough of them. Last year the previous Government went out to tender for five—two new guided-missile ships and three Leanders. In view of the Prime Minister's call for a larger conventional Navy, I had rather guilelessly assumed that this year we should order rather more. But, so far as I know, not a single order for a single escort, over and above those included in the last Government's programme, has yet been placed by the present Government.
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I ask noble Lords opposite—and I trust they will not fob me off with talk about the Defence review—what is the Government policy for escort construction? How many new escorts will they order this year? Is the project for the successor to the D.L.G.s, the large general purpose escort, going forward? Is the surface-to-air missile, with which it would be armed, the Sea Dart—the only large British guided-missile project at the moment—going ahead? What of the possibility of introducing a new class of smaller, simpler escorts? There is much to be said, I believe, for having a ship which is fast, light and relatively unsophisticated, and, above all, not too avaricious for skilled manpower.
Finally, with a look to the maritime future, what can noble Lords tell us of the Government's intentions in two important fields: the military development of the hovercraft and the harnessing of nuclear power to naval propulsion? I should like to know how far the Ministry of Defence have taken their study of nuclear propulsion for surface vessels—a field in which we are regrettably far behind the Americans? I should also like to know about the future developments of the maritime gas turbine engine, in particular, the Olympus, for naval propulsion—a field in which we are, in fact, ahead of the Americans. By the same token, what do the Government have in mind for the hovercraft? Do they believe that it could become the coastal patrol craft of the future? How far have they taken the Minister of Defence's study of the large ocean-going anti-submarine hovership?
Those are my questions on equipment, and I will now turn briefly—because of the time and not because of its relative importance—to manpower. In the debate on the Army Estimates last March, the Minister of Defence for the Army expressed the hope that we should reach the manpower target for the Army by the end of this year, or even earlier, if we kept up the pressure. Now we find that recruiting is slipping. Worse than that, there have been hints in the newspapers—I do not know what credence to put on them—that the Government propose to slide away from the target of 181,100. Worse still, these rumours have gone un-contradicted. The noble Lords who are to reply would do a good deal to reassure us by confirming that the Government target remains unchanged; that it

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remains their intention to do their utmost to achieve it. Of course, there is one thing that can be certain, and that is that nothing will do more to render this target difficult to attain than the perpetuation of the present uncertainty.
Nowhere do the Government need more to dispel the uncertainty which they themselves have created than over the future of our Reserve Forces, a subject on which my noble friend spoke with considerable authority. Speaking from these Benches, I should like to make it clear that I do not in any way challenge the Government's decision to review the organisation of our reserves. I do not regard the present arrangements as sacrosanct or necessarily immutable. But we believe that two essential principles must underpin any successful reorganisation. First, the decisions on the size and shape of our Reserve Forces must stem from a decision on their operational rôle. They must not be the by-product of purely arbitrary economies. Second, the foundation for a successful reorganisation is, as my noble friend has said, proper consultation. On several occasions spokesmen for the Government have con-finned that they propose to consult with the Territorial Army authorities about this reorganisation. So far so good. But consultation can take many forms. It can be a monologue à la George Brown; or it can be a fruitful dialogue. Can noble Lords confirm not only that they will go through the forms of consultation with the Territorial Army authorities before they take any firm and final decision on reorganisation, but also that they will consult them in sufficient time and in such a way as to enable their views to be taken properly and fully into account?
The problems of Army manpower are fairly familiar friends, or enemies, to us all. We are less accustomed to the idea that the Navy has a similar problem. I hope very much that we shall get hopeful answers to the questions put by my noble friend about the two incentive schemes which my successor in the Navy Department has introduced. I must confess I have some doubts myself; yet I was glad he was able to wring these concessions out of the Treasury. I only wish he had been able to wring rather more; although I am not saying I could have
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done so. But the taxable re-engagement grants are pitched fairly low, and the assisted house purchase scheme, admirable though it is, has, so far as I know, yet to get under way. The scheme, I fear, will lose all its purpose and impact if it is not put into effect without further delay, and unless it is cast on generous lines. Be that as it may, I am quite certain that these two relatively cheap and modest schemes will not in themselves suffice to do the job.
I hope that the noble Lords who are replying will be able to give us further evidence of the Government's determination to lick this problem of naval manpower. I am quite certain that it can be licked. I am equally certain that it admits of no easy or single solution. It demands a big effort right across the board. To solve the problem will require consideration of the very important question of Service housing and the provision of better accommodation and amenities ashore, Improved living conditions are necessary and, above all, air conditioning in our older ships especially when East of Suez. Those entitled to married quarters abroad should be able to occupy them. I fear that in this respect procrastination at Singapore and elsewhere, on the pretext of the Defence review, may not be helping matters. It will be necessary to apply unorthodox methods. I hope, for example, that the Government will consider the introduction of a special allowance for Servicemen separated from their wives and families for unduly long periods. They should not neglect the opportunities provided by our growing air transport capacity to bring Servicemen and their families together. Above all, the solution of this problem means the steady recognition on the part of any Government that where family separation cannot be avoided its effects can and must be mitigated.
The last Government bequeathed to the present Government what I believe to be the biggest housing programme for the Forces we have ever known in this country. Whatever else the review is achieving, I hope that it is not in any way impairing or holding up that programme. There are many restrictions placed upon the entitlement of the Navy to housing, but if any can be raised I hope that they will be raised as soon as possible.

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My Lords, I have fired off a large number of questions at noble Lords opposite. I make no particular apology for that, because until now their activities in the field of Defence have posed more questions for us than they have provided answers. They have posed two great and, as yet, unanswered questions. The first is a rather ironical one to be posed by a Government who came to power semi-pledged to take us out of the nuclear sphere, and totally pledged to strengthen our conventional forces. They have retained the nuclear power, but it looks as if they may be about to weaken the conventional forces. That is the first great question they have raised in our minds. The second is whether it is strategy or the Treasury that will determine the size and shape of Mr. Healey's new model forces. Will they be tailored to our commitments or cut to a purely arbitrary financial pattern? It is the Government who have raised these great uncertainties: it is for the Government to dispel them.

THE RANN OF KUTCH
3.54 p.m.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (THE EARL OF LONGFORD): My Lords, with permission I should like to repeat a Statement which my right honourable friend the Prime Minister has just made in another place. His exact words were as follows:
"I am happy to inform the House that the Indian and Pakistan Governments have announced the signature of an Agreement for a cease-fire and the restoration of the status quo in the Rann of Kutch as at January 1, 1965, and on the arrangements for the determination and demarcation of the border in that area.
"In implementation of the agreement arrangements have been made, pending the final determination and demarcation of the border, for police patrolling by both sides in the Rann of Kutch area. These arrangements will help to avoid any risk of further clashes occurring in the area after troops on both sides have withdrawn.
"I am glad to say that both President Ayub and Mr. Shastri made it
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clear to me that, when the Agreement was completed, they would at once instruct their troops to withdraw from their present advanced positions along the Indo-Pakistan border in the confidence that this would also contribute to the reduction of the present tension between the two countries.
"The whole House will, I am sure, wish to welcome this settlement and I would like to take the opportunity to pay tribute to the wisdom and statesmanship of President Ayub and Mr. Shastri. I hope that this may prove to be the first step towards a general improvement in relations between India and Pakistan, in whose welfare and peaceful progress all of us in Britain have so close and abiding an interest."
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Earl the Lord Privy Seal for reading to us the Statement of the Prime Minister and giving us this very welcome news of the settlement. We on these Benches must sincerely endorse the tribute paid by the Prime Minister to President Ayub and Mr. Shastri for their wisdom and statesmanship.
LORD WADE: My Lords, I should like to join in welcoming the Statement made by the noble Earl, Lord Longford. In particular, may I express the hope that the agreement will prove to be a step towards a general improvement in the relations between India and Pakistan, and to a settlement of the outstanding issues. I am sure that if that were to come to pass, it would be greatly welcomed, both in this country and throughout the Commonwealth.
LORD BLYTON: My Lords, I should like to offer my congratulations on the settlement between Pakistan and India. Is this not an object lesson on what may be achieved regarding the settlement of a dispute between countries in the Commonwealth, and is it not better than denigrating the Commonwealth in favour of the Common Market?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I am grateful to all the noble Lords who spoke from their hearts from their particular points of view.

THE ARMED FORCES
3.57 p.m.
Debate resumed.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, this is the first Defence debate in your Lordships' House in which I have taken part, and I should like first to acknowledge the sense of privilege which I feel. Questions have been falling from the lips of noble Lords opposite, including the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, like autumn leaves, and I am afraid that I cannot hope to answer all the questions they have put. In the first place, there is the time factor; in the second place, there is the fact of the Defence review. Some of the questions cannot be answered until that review is completed. I am sure that noble Lords will agree that it would be better to have a correct answer rather than a quick answer. I am certain that the contributions which have been made will be carefully studied in the course of formulating the answers when that stage is reached.
I have assumed, despite the use of the "multiple murder" accusation by the noble Earl opposite, that this was the real reason for this debate. It is not an occasion for scoring Party points, but for pooling ideas. This leads me to offer my warm thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, not only for bringing forward this Motion hut for the constructive way in which he has moved it. I should like to thank him and the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, for giving me an opportunity to get in advance information on which to answer some of the questions which they intimated would be raised.
Before going into more detail, I wish to offer some general observations. The noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, mentioned manpower. He and others are quite right: there are difficulties. To-day practically every factory, office, shop, school and hospital in Britain faces similar difficulties. Every noble Lord with experience and responsibility in these matters will know that in industry, commerce and the social services there is difficulty in getting the necessary labour force; and, having got it, there is the difficulty of retaining it, which is possibly even greater. The unemployment figure of 1·2 per cent. announced the other day creates a very special problem. It would be remarkable, indeed unnatural, if the Armed Services
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alone were unaffected by this pressure of demand.
Nevertheless, the overall position in the Services is not depressing. In the main the short-fall is only marginal. In some trades, on certain ships and in some regiments the position is particularly difficult, though I think that the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, exaggerated it in some respects. There are also bright spots. For example, the applications for places at Sandhurst are running at a record level, and recruiting for R.A.F. cadetships is excellent. Similarly, the officer entry in the Royal Navy has been very promising recently, with the exception of air crew and electrical officers, and the recruitment of airwomen is most encouraging. The position with regard to junior soldiers is bright.
But there is another aspect to this tight manpower situation. The fact that there is such a wide employment opportunity open to the young men and women of this country to-day means that those who choose to enter the Services do so because they are really keen about serving. I doubt whether we have ever before had men and women serving who have been more keen or more capable than those serving at present. They are being asked to work harder and to give more; and I believe that they are giving more.
Probably your Lordships will permit me to refer to one comparatively small point, which I noticed ten days ago at the Paris Air Show. Britain did not have the most spectacular aircraft on display. There were others bigger and faster. But my eye was caught, as the noble Viscount opposite will probably confirm, because he was also there, by the polish on the Vulcan, by the absolutely superlative finish of that aircraft. I do not believe that it was all a matter of "bull"; there was real professional pride behind the polish. The spirit is there, but having said that, it is only right also to say that these men are being called upon to play their pant in some far from pleasant parts of the world and I am sure that all Members of the House would join with the words already spoken in acknowledging this fact and offering thanks to the men in the Services.
There is one sharp snag which goes with the present overstretch of manpower, already touched upon by the noble Earl,

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Lord Jellicoe—that is, it so often means separation from families. I think it is clear that the biggest obstacle to recruiting at the present time, and even more to re-engagement, is this factor of family separation. I cannot say that there is a complete answer, but I am sure that noble Lords are right in emphasising the importance of accommodation in this connection.
To turn in more detail to some of the points raised, I would deal first with naval manpower. The current shortage of skilled men is not large—a few hundreds from a total Vote A of over 100,000. But it is the highly skilled categories which represent a particular problem and the situation is aggravated by the fact that re-engagement has recently been falling. A higher re-engagement rate would be the most helpful single factor, bringing, as it would, a reduction of training costs and a welcome addition to the number of senior and skilled men. The two approved incentives which were announced in mid-March I hope will be useful, but it is too early yet to enable us to judge the response. Final details of the assisted house purchase scheme are being worked out and it is intended that an announcement will be made before the end of the present Session. We have already introduced measures to assist men serving East of Suez to have visits from their wives, and as from July 1 the rules governing occupancy of married quarters by personnel on G.S.C. are being relaxed to enable families to occupy the quarters continuously throughout the whole commission. I have a shrewd suspicion that the special interest shown by the noble Earl in this matter has been far from unhelpful.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I am very glad to hear of the relaxation of these rules about which the noble Lord has just informed us, and I am sure this will be a considerable help. I hope that it will be possible, after the naval housing, married quarters, programme gathers momentum, to relax the three-year rule by which naval families are not allowed to occupy married quarters for more than three years. Can the noble Lord hold out any hope in this matter?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, relaxation is now possible at the discretion of the Commander and I hope that, as the
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number of houses available increases, that discretion can be exercised more widely.
It would be wrong to minimise the present difficulties, particularly for the rating himself. The more clearly his problems are understood, the more likely is it that they will be solved. The proportion of the Navy in the Far East has doubled in the last five years. Many ratings spend more than half their time at sea. Some spend as little as nine months in the United Kingdom between overseas drafts. But I repeat that the Royal Navy's commitments are being met, and all credit is due to the sailors.
The noble Earl contrived to make what I thought were acid comments, although made in all sincerity, about the remarks made by my right honourable friend concerning plans for the Navy of the future. It is the fact that we inherited ambitious plans for the Navy, although I cannot say that we also inherited very careful schemes for meeting the cost of that Navy. The plans were to maintain the Navy's capability in different roles on the land and in the air, as well as on and under the sea, and in addition the five Polaris nuclear submarines. The fact is that we are risking exceeding our manpower and our material resources. This problem of getting a proper balance as between the Navy, Army and Air Force is part of our present Defence review and plans for new naval construction will largely depend upon the outcome of that review.
It would be wrong to imply that we have not reduced expenditure on the nuclear programme. We have cancelled the fifth Polaris submarine and this will save about £50 to £55 million over the next ten years. One immediate and direct result of this saving is that we have been able to advance the order for our fourth nuclear propelled hunter-killer submarine by about six months. The aim is now to make up the time lost on the hunter-killer programme by the insertion of the Polaris programme.
The noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, asked whether it was right to use modern ships on their own in the Far East and Persian Gulf. I think that it would be generally accepted that the modern escorts, like the Leanders and Tribals, are not designed solely to operate with aircraft carriers. Indeed the term "escort" as

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used at the moment is really a misnomer, because these ships are made to do all kinds of naval work.
The new ships coming into service in the current financial year include H.M.S. "Fife", our fifth guided-missile destroyer, which will have the new and more powerful version of Seaslug; H.M.S. "Fearless", the first of the two new assault ships and four more Leander class frigates. Coming along behind them are three more nuclear hunter-killer submarines, three more guided missile destroyers, the second assault ship, which will be ready early next year, and eight more Leanders, of which, the noble Earl will be pleased to hear, three were ordered this year.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, although these three were ordered this year, they were in last year's programme. It was announced that they were going to tender in July last year.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, they were in the programme last year and are actively being pursued this year. Although the question of aircraft carriers is one of the largest which will come up for consideration in the Defence review, I can give the assurance that we are going ahead with the design work and with the long delivery components for CVA 01, so that there will be no delay in the programme for this ship, if our study confirms that she should be built. Work is proceeding on the various designs of escorts covering a range of requirements, including the deployment of the new A/A and ASW systems, Seadart and Ikara. We are studying what the most cost-effective combination of these ships and systems is likely to be, so that we can move forward quickly when the present review of Defence policy is complete.
I have been asked about the next generation of naval helicopters to replace the Wessex. A Mark III is now being developed to carry a much improved dipping sonar; but this has been conceived as an interim aircraft only. We undoubtedly require in the 1970s an antisubmarine helicopter with greater endurance and pay-load, and with two engines for greater safety for operations over the sea. Studies are now under way into the best means of meeting these
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requirements, and also those of the R.A.F. If it is possible to combine the two, so much the better; but it is not easy to combine economically in one aircraft the conflicting requirements of the anti-submarine and troop-carrying roles.
Turning to the Army, I have to report that so far this year recruiting has not kept up with the very satisfactory rate achieved in 1964. Up to the end of May, we had enlisted about 8,900 men, as compared with 10,200 in the same period last year. This means that we are lagging behind the rate at which we were hoping to move to the ceiling of 181,000 all ranks, though that ceiling, I am glad to assure the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, still remains the objective. Let me emphasise, however, that the gap for other ranks is now down to about 2,400, less than 2 per cent. of the figure hoped for at the beginning of June. The hope now is that the ceiling will be reached by the second half of 1966.
The shortage of officers may take more time to put right. As already stated, applications for entry to Sandhurst are at a record level, and the prospects for Regular recruiting are quite promising, although we should like more direct entrants from universities. An assistant to the University Liaison Officer, with special responsibility for liaison with CATS, has been appointed. But there is also a real need for short-service officers. There has been some improvement in this field (we expect to grant about 270 short-service commissions this year, as compared with 200 in each of the last two years), but to make up our full complement we must double this number.
The noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, mentioned the importance of boys' units in solving the Army's manpower problems, and I agree with him about their value. By progressively reducing the length of the training courses we shall need to hold young entrants in these units for less time before they reach the age of man's service, and in this we shall be helped by the increase in school-leaving age. By this means we hope that by about 1970–71 we shall have raised the output of all the categories of junior soldiers' units from its present level of about 5,000 a year to 6,000 a year, without increasing the total numbers of boys under training. This growth, I think, should provide a useful supplement.

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The noble Lord has suggested that the force in Malta, the Royal Malta Artillery, are being strangled. I should like to take this opportunity of paying tribute myself, together with the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, to the services which are being contributed by this force; and it is not true that they are being strangled. The aim has been to keep the numbers to the point at which they could fulfil the commitments in B.A.O.R., and there has been a restriction on recruiting when that number was being exceeded. The noble Lord also suggested that there was a requirement for the R.M.A. in an anti-aircraft role in North Africa. I think that this is possible, but as a result of the Defence review, we shall be able to decide the relationship of this task to our other Defence commitments.
With regard to the T.A. and the T.A.E.R., as the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, will know, the plan introduced eighteen months ago emphasised the role of providing reinforcements for overseas, especially B.A.O.R. It is a consequence of this scheme that arrangements have been made during the 1965 T.A. camp season for some 7,000 men from a wide range of T.A. units to carry out their annual training in B.A.O.R. This scheme is now in full swing, and early reports suggest that it is a great success. Naturally, while the men are in B.A.O.R. they are using the most modern equipment; but the needs of the units in the United Kingdom have not been overlooked.
The noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, suggested, I think, that a complete T.A. formation should be offered as a reinforcing formation to SACEUR, as was the case in the 1950's.
LORD THURLOW: Earmarked, not offered.
LORD BESWICK: Earmarked. In any case, the problem remains that, while we are recruiting for the T.A. men without any previous military experience, to bring a T.A. formation to a state of training when it could be committed in operations against a modern army in North West Europe would take, not a matter of weeks but a matter of months; and unless, therefore, we are to postulate a lengthy period of tension after mobilisation, it would be pointless to earmark these divisions in this way. A prolonged period of tension forms no part of the present plan-
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ning concept, either in NATO or for any other purpose.
I know that there is a good deal of speculation about the future of the T.A., but the position remains as stated in this House by my noble friend on June 17. Basic decisions of principle are, and must be, a matter for the Government, and I can only re-state the undertaking that the Council of Territorial and Auxiliary Forces Associations will be consulted about the means by which any change of general policy, if decided, is implemented.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, does that mean that there will be no consultation with them about the general policy?
LORD BESWICK: It means that the decision of principle will be properly that of the Government, and the consultation will come later.
The noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, has suggested that there is a requirement for more "Ever-Readies". Here again I invoke the Defence review, but I must say that current planning does not call for a very much greater number of T.A.E.R. volunteers; and the need is essentially for individual reinforcements for Regular units, rather than for organised sub-units. I should remind the House that at this moment there are over 170 members of the T.A.E.R. in operational theatres overseas. I am sure your Lordships will be pleased to know that the machinery for calling up these men worked smoothly, and in Aden and the Far East they are now making an invaluable contribution, for which I am sure we should like to offer our praise.
The noble Lord has suggested that equipment now coming into service in the Army has been mainly designed for major war, and that much lighter equipment is needed for the limited operations that we are at present undertaking. I am sure that there is much in what he says. It is a fact that until quite recently Army equipment planning was dominated by the requirements of a European war. We have now accepted that the requirements for jungle conditions and counter-insurgency operations merit special measures. The Army have arranged to secure the airportable 105 mm. Italian pack howitzer. Issues of a new range of radios

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are being arranged to the Army. A new HF manpack set, incorporating the latest transistor techniques is beginning to be issued to the Far East. Other examples of recently introduced lightweight equipment are 5-gallon polythene jerricans; light-weight sleeping bags and waterproof sheets; nylon mosquito nets and collapsible 2,500 gallon water-tanks. I understand that there are many similar items in service or under development.
The noble Lord referred to the trials which are being conducted with the Armelite rifle, which, as he will know, weighs only 6½ lb., compared to the 9½ lb. of the L1A1 rifle. It has been successfully used in action, and its users are very pleased with it. It has a further saving in weight of 3 lb. on each hundred rounds of ammunition carried, which under jungle conditions is a very critical factor.
In the air, Army Aviation continues to expand. By the end of the year, a total of 34 units worldwide will have their own unit flights of helicopters, a development of particular importance in the Far East. The main types of Army helicopter currently in service continue to be the Sioux and the Scout. I am sorry that so far the Scout has been giving a good deal of trouble, meaning that we have had considerable under-utilisation of that machine. I think I also ought to mention that a considerable effort is going into the new complex family of radio known as the Hobart communications project. I mention this particularly because I found so much enthusiasm about this in the Department, and this should be available for the Army in the 1970's.
The noble Earl also asked about nuclear propulsion and the hovercraft. I think I will leave the nuclear propulsion to my noble friend, although there is not a great deal to be said about that. All I would say is that in my personal view potentially the most promising piece of equipment mentioned to-day is this air cushion vehicle, or the hovercraft. Some time ago, in another capacity, I tried to persuade the then Minister of Aviation to state a requirement for this, and impressed upon him the importance of helping the development of this principle if Britain is to remain in the forefront of this type of transport. At that time he said he had no customer, and
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I am glad to see that some progress has since been made.
Important evaluation trials jointly by the Royal Navy and the Army are being carried out in the Far East with two hovercraft. The experience gained with these vehicles, ships or aircraft—whatever one may like to call them—may have very profound implications in the years to come. They are being used primarily up and across waterways, and over such terrain as sandbanks and mud flats. Although these two particular machines were not designed for military use, they are being very successful, and a great deal has already been learned for both military and civil application. Field trials of this kind, as I am sure noble Lords would agree, carried out in the process of military operations like these, bear much the same relationship to ordinary commercial usage as motor racing does to private motoring. Intense pressure and stringent operating conditions bring out lessons of importance which may take years in ordinary civil use to learn.
If I could make another personal comment in this connection, I would say that it was absolutely essential not to make the mistake that has been committed in other fields, of seeking technical perfection and sophistication instead of making progress with a more simple piece of equipment. I think it is absolutely deplorable how our lead has gone in such matters as vertical take-off (and this is a field where immense sums of money for development are not required) in the general economic interest of the country. I thought there was a case here for noble Lords to maintain the closest interest in future development.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, the noble Lord is very interesting. Might I ask him whether he could develop the point about carrying this technical development too far? Has he some points particularly in mind? Because what he is saying is most interesting.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I think I am right in saying that the particular principle which is being developed in this country involves the initial idea which Mr. Cockerell developed. There are some less sophisticated systems available. The Americans, for example, are already going ahead with a 90-seater,

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using a more simple form of construction, and I should have thought we ought to be very careful not to commit too much of our resources in the one line of development.
I was also asked by the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, about the position regarding this principle in relation to antisubmarine vessels. Trials with the SRN 3 are going on at Londonderry at the A.S.W.E., and studies in the feasibility of a larger ocean-going hovership are now being made. I am unable to say anything more about this matter, except that I am quite certain it would be a good thing if noble Lords on both sides of the House maintained their close interest in this matter.
LORD JELLICOE: My Lords, may I reassure the noble Lord in that respect? I certainly propose to do so.
LORD BESWICK: The question of shortage of training land was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow. He is quite right when he says that the position can be eased by making as much use as possible of overseas training facilities, and a great deal has already been done. Joint Services exercises in conjunction with R.A.F. Transport Command have taken place, or are taking place, as far afield as Thailand, Norway, British Honduras, Canada and Australia, to mention only a few countries. We are grateful to the Commonwealth countries, both old and new, as well as to our allies, for the training facilities which they have allowed us There are many snags in this type of operation, transport of heavy equipment being one of them. But our awareness of the growing importance of overseas training can be simply demonstrated by quoting figures. In 1960, there were only two overseas exercises in two countries. Last year there were 75 such exercises in 15 different countries.
On the R.A.F. recruiting, I am happy to say that we continue to attract all adult recruits required for the skilled engineering trades, and the position is very satisfactory for the younger apprentice entries for craft and administration trades. The new entry for school-leavers having four "O" levels to be trained to the very high standards of technicians apprentice, started with a satisfactory
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response last autumn, although the spring entry has been disappointing. But the spring is possibly a lean season for "O" level leavers.
There are persistent shortages in some sectors of the less skilled trades which give cause for some concern. We now need rather more than 7,000 adult recruits a year, and if recent recruiting trends continue we may be short of that figure by some thousands. A special recruiting effort is being made to counter this recent decline, and if it can be brought home to suitable men that the R.A.F. continues to offer an attractive and very worthwhile life this effort could be made successful. For the General Duties (Flying) Branch, applications remain at a high rate, and although so far this year selections for entry are slightly lower than for the corresponding period last year, the indications are that we shall recruit all the pilots needed, and almost all the navigators.
Recruitment of technically qualified entrants to the Technical Branch is disappointing. The numbers of unqualified entrants are also below requirements, although it is possibly a little early as yet to make positive assessments. In the main ground branches, which include aircraft control, equipment and secretarial duties, the number of entrants is also lower than last year. Broadly speaking, the numbers entering training up to the end of May are about 33⅓ per cent. of our annual target, as against the 45 per cent. achieved in the first five months of 1964. An improvement here is certainly needed to prevent a serious shortfall. W.R.A.F. officer recruiting is also below target.
The noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, has asked about the University Air Squadrons, and I can assure him that we are well aware of the great value of these squadrons to the Royal Air Force, both as links with the universities and as a recruiting and training medium, and that we are most anxious to retain those benefits. I cannot, however, say more than that. Again, it is a matter of waiting for the review. The University Air Squadrons, of course, are not our only source of contact with the universities. In 1964, the R.A.F. appointed 80 men and 12 women graduates to commissions, excluding doctors, dentists and chaplains. A fruitful source of recruitment lies in the R.A.F. University Cadetship scheme. In 1964,

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44 cadetships were awarded and we hope to award approximately the same number this year. At present, there are some 90 cadets at university under this scheme, and although it applies primarily to the General Duties and Technical branches of the R.A.F., we are now examining it to see whether it can be extended to other branches as well.
I propose to leave most of the questions about R.A.F. equipment, and the F 111 and Phantom and their engines, to my noble friend Lord Shackleton. He has been intimately concerned with the discussions and, moreover, most of the available information has already been given in previous debates.
The noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, asked me about the close support aircraft. The P 1154 was, of course, the perfect answer to this problem—too perfect, indeed, excepting that it slipped in time and increased in cost. The answer now will be a developed Kestrel, and I cannot say at this moment just how much developed it will be. The idea is that this will operate in combination with the Phantom. Looking further ahead, the Anglo-French aircraft could provide a successor in this close support rôle.
Some rather dubious comments were made, I thought, by the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, in regard to Anglo-French cooperation. I would only say about that I think the financial facts of life, as well as the political desirability, will mean that this collaboration upon which we have embarked with the French will develop over the years. I have absolutely no doubt about that myself. I think it is as financially inevitable as it is politically desirable. My Lords, I have tried to give a faithful report of the position as I know it, and I should like to thank noble Lords for their patience in listening to me. I am sure that the contributions which have been made this afternoon have been, as those to come will continue to be, most helpful, especially at this point of time, and speaking for myself I look forward to hearing the remainder of the debate.
4.34 p.m.
VISCOUNT RIDLEY: My Lords, I should first like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, for including in the terms of his Motion the words "reserve forces" and thus giving me the opportunity to
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speak for the first time in your Lordships' House. I should like to confine my remarks to the Territorial Army, as I have served in that Army for seventeen years and had the honour to command a regiment in it for three years. During most of that time the Territorial Army has been subject to periodic speculation about its future and reviews of its functions, and it will be no surprise that it is again under the critical eye of the Government. This review has promised, as all reviews do, "consultation with all interested parties before decisions are made". I wish I could believe this. In fact, since I have been sitting in your Lordships' House I believe it even less than I did before. All too often these decisions are made before any discussions are held, and this time inspired rumours about the very existence of the Territorial Army have caused grave disquiet, not only in the ranks of the Territorial Army but also in the country at large.
The case for the retention of the Territorial Army cannot be based on any sentiment arising from its undoubted use in the last three major wars in which this country has been involved. I think we must examine the future of all Reserve Forces in the light of the Defence requirements which we can foresee, and they must fit into these requirements. We must plan for three possibilities. These are, first, an all-out nuclear war in which no army can play any serious part at all but in which all will have a Civil Defence rôle; secondly, a conventional war similar to the Second World War, in which the Territorial Army would play a vital part as a nucleus on which to base the recall of reservists and on which to organise the defence of the country; thirdly, a continuation of the cold war and "bush fire" wars which we have had since 1945, which requires the use of Regular Army units anywhere at short notice. The Reserve Forces must play their part in these conditions too.
At this moment an unduly high proportion of our Regular troops are tied up in Germany and we are suffering as a nation from this not only in our balance of payments but also in our inability to meet our other military commitments with the soldiers which we have. It has been stated that the Territorial Army's primary role is to reinforce our Army in North-West Europe, but as at present

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organised and trained it can play no real part in relieving the pressures upon the Regular Army. This it must do, and I believe that a strengthened and reorganised Territorial Army could indeed play an important part in our European and NATO commitments, I believe without even leaving this country, and certainly for limited periods, relieving the Regular Army for service anywhere in the world where the need arises.
The strongest argument against this theory is that any Reserve Forces would be inadequately trained in the event of an emergency. On the other hand, I believe we have in this country, as a result of National Service, short-term Regular service or voluntary service, a sufficient body of men who could be quickly available for any war for which the Regular Army is now trained, and I feel that this partly trained reserve should be included in our Defence plans.
If the Territorial Army is to play an effective part in the defence of this country—and it must play an effective part or we must scrap it—it will need to have several things done to it now. First, the definition of the roles of the various Reserve Forces must be simplified and the reserve army or armies reduced to a reasonable number. My limited experience of what used to be the War Office does not inspire any hope at all that it could cope with the nine types of reservist all being recalled at once in time of crisis. I believe that at the time of Suez certain men were called up to certain regiments on the basis that there were five men in a Centurion tank, yet in fact there were only four. Then the liability to mobilise the Territorial Army must be arranged preferably so that no political implications are attached to the use of Reserve Forces. I believe that the "Ever-Ready" scheme, which is a very good one, has so far been useless because it is a political move of significance to call out any large number of these Reserves; yet the idea is good and I feel their numbers should certainly be increased. This whole question is, I believe, rightly under review, and the Proclamation issue needs to be resolved.
Secondly, the Territorial Army must have better opportunities for training, which means an increased commitment for service and adequate rewards for such
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service. The whole question of the pay of the Territorial soldier would need revision. It never ceased to surprise me how many men would attend a drill period in the evenings for which they earned a small fraction of what they might have earned in industry at that hour; but at the same time unit commanders should have greater powers to pay an increased bounty for efficiency or a reduced sum for non-attendance. Better pay would improve recruiting, now so much better in the North than in the South.
Thirdly, in equipment the Territorial Army has been under-privileged for far too long, and new weapons have been very slow to come. The wireless sets with which my own regiment was equipped had been made for the Russians in 1941. How is one to explain to a soldier who was certainly not born in 1941 that the wireless set he has to use not only has not worked but also has what he assumes to be the enemy language printed on the controls? At the same time, there could be a greater simplification of the Territorial Army structure and the overall number of units reduced, which would in itself be a considerable saving. There are a lot of complicated units with complicated equipment requirements. I do not believe it is any use issuing one dummy guided missile to a whole regiment. It would be far better to give it something which is available, on which it can be trained and can use. The prime need in all armies to-day is still basically for infantry and light armour. These Territorial units should be properly equipped with the tools of their trade.
Fourthly, in accommodation and other facilities the Territorial Army must be given such help as is available. The T.A. and A.F. associations exist to serve the Territorial Army and consist of local people in all walks of life whose interest in this Army is very real and voluntary. At the moment their functions are strictly limited, but their needs should be met—subject of course to overall, but not detailed, financial control—within the priorities which they themselves think right: and, most important, this must be done on a strictly Territorial basis. Although I would not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, when he said that a reorganisation of the areas should be

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achieved, this in itself would make for large savings. There could also be further large savings in the administration of the Territorial Army—for example (and I am very sorry to say this in front of my noble friend) by reducing the enormous number of senior Army personnel who are tied up in Territorial Army posts.
A further point I would quote as an example of waste on administration is the fact that the Territorial soldier now receives his pay from Army sources but his travelling expenses through the Association channels. Finally, the Territorial Army must be equipped with proper uniforms. This may seem to be an unimportant point, but I am certain that anyone who has served in the Army would agree that no soldier is anything if he is not proud of his uniform; and the present Territorial units can be only too easily recognised, especially on training, by their obsolete Regular Army clothing.
To do all this will cost money, money which has to come from other savings in our Defence Budget. The Bow Group has published a pamphlet entitled A New Reserve Army—an Alternative to Conscription. While this may be too far-fetched, and although I do not expect this Government will agree with anything said by the Bow Group, there is some truth in this idea. I believe that it is possible, desirable and necessary to integrate the Reserve and Regular Armies in some way, to the benefit of both, and to the potential saving of much larger sums of money than would be needed to bring the Territorial Army up to the standard we desire. Any solution to our military problems which calls for conscription or an increased size of Regular Army in these days of labour shortage would be economically most unsound.
There will also be grave problems to be faced which are already implicit in any Reserve Army and which arise from the point of view of the employers of these volunteers. I have no time to go into this question, but a solution must be found and should be possible. Why, for instance, are the nationalised industries generally the most reluctant to allow their men time off for annual camp? Perhaps the Australian Defence Act provides some of the answers to this question, giving protection to the civil employment of volunteers when they are called up temporarily or permanently.
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Finally, I ask your Lordships to consider the grave consequences and loss which this country would suffer if the Territorial Army were abolished. It has become very much part of our life, and since it has existed has done immense good in all sorts of ways. I do not believe that we can afford not to use the talent which is in its ranks. And once abandoned, the Territorial Army can never be revived. At the moment, the Reserve Forces are costing us about £35 million per annum. This is about 1½ per cent. of our Defence expenditure, and about the same as we spend on egg subsidies to farmers. Cut this out and no noticeable saving to the country would result. Increase this sum to 2 per cent. and we should have a really effective Reserve Army, which would still be the cheapest Army in the world, and able to play its proper part in our Defence system. We already have a Reserve Army which is second to none in the spirit with which it serves the country and containing officers and men who are potentially the finest soldiers in the world. They are willing to accept any suggestions which would make them more useful to the nation.
4.45 p.m.
THE EARL OF GLASGOW: My Lords, like many other noble Lords, I am most grateful to my noble and gallant friend Lord Thurlow for giving us the opportunity of this debate to-day. We discus many peculiar and complex problems in your Lordships' House, and perhaps too seldom the problems of our Armed Forces, to whom at this particular moment in history we owe so much. It also falls to me to congratulate my noble friend Lord Ridley on his maiden speech. He has spoken to us with great knowledge, and some emotion, on a subject of which he has great experience, and I hope that we shall frequently hear him speak again in this House.
There are two points in the speech of my noble and gallant friend Lord Thurlow on which I should like to comment. The first is the question of the Royal Malta Artillery. This is a very fine regiment, which I know well. It is steeped in the traditions of the British Army, for which it has the most tremendous respect and pride. I was very pleased to hear from the noble Lord

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opposite that it was not their intention to strangle the regiment, but I would put in a plea that they should not allow it to die a natural death. Not only should we be gratuitously throwing away a very fine source of manpower, but we should be severing one of the last links with the Island of Malta, for whom most of us have so much affection and to whom we owe so much.
The second point on which I wanted to support the noble Lord was the question of the Rent Act. This particular Act perhaps affects the sailor more than the soldier or the airman. The sailor returns from an accomplished commission abroad and wishes to return to his own house. On returning to this country he suffers what is known in the Navy as a period of drafting turbulence. He first of all goes off and probably does a certain amount of local sea-time in some local flotilla nowhere near his own port. He is then sent on two or three courses, and before he goes abroad again he may, if he is lucky, have a few months in his own home, in his own home port. If, during that period, he cannot get back his own house without having to go to the courts, then indeed "the law is an ass."
The terms of reference of this debate are extremely wide. I know that I am being followed to-day by my noble and gallant friend the Field Marshal, whom I always regard as probably the greatest spokesman for the Navy in your Lordships' House; but as the Navy is my service I propose to confine myself, in what I say to-day, mainly to the Navy. I would draw your Lordships' attention to three main points. In the White Paper, and during the Defence debate in this House in April, much stress was laid on the fact that our Armed Forces at this moment are seriously stretched. This is an undoubted fact, as the noble Viscount, Lord Watkinson, I must say under heavy pressure, admitted in that debate.
He went on to say:
"That is what they are there for. It is the duty of highly-professional Regular forces to be seriously stretched. If they are not, it means that you have too many and you cannot afford them."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 265 (No. 62) col. 122, April 7, 1965.]
With the greatest respect to a former Minister of Defence (and I have told him that I proposed to say this) I must
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profoundly disagree with that statement. Short periods of intense activity are admirable, because they teach the Services what will be required of them in war. But an indefinitely prolonged period of being seriously overstretched in so-called peace time is bad for training and bad for morale; and in the Royal Navy, at least, it has a very adverse effect on recruiting and on the re-engagement rates, about which we are particularly concerned at this moment. When I was a young officer in the early and middle 'thirties, in the Mediterranean and China Fleets the Navy was fun, both for officers and ratings. I believe that to a large extent it still is. But I think I should remind your Lordships that no amount of improved allowances, assistance in buying houses, improved married quarters or grants for re-engagements can ever be a substitute for that.
In those days we worked hard, but we also played hard, and there was time for everything. There was time for day and night exercises at sea. There was also time to get to know your men, not only in their work on board but also ashore—on the cricket field, on the football ground and even in the snipe marsh. There was time to learn your job in reasonably slow time; and there was time and opportunity to get to know your opposite numbers on the other ships of the squadron or flotilla. Between exercises and official visits, Admirals of squadrons and captains of destroyer flotillas, could in those days be certain of being able to get away with their own squadron or flotilla to some comparatively quiet place and there indulge in an orgy of competitive sport and somewhat more frivolous harbour exercises, much enjoyed by the sailors. More important still, it provided the opportunity for the men to get to know their commanding officers and for the commanding officers to get to know each other. At least twice a year the entire Fleet would assemble, and the good work would be carried on, to the great advantage of efficiency and contentment.
Eight years ago I was appointed Captain of the Fleet in the Home Fleet, and as personnel and administrative adviser to my Commander-in-Chief these particular problems were my concern. Only rarely did commanding officers of squadrons meet their commanding officers, and very rarely indeed together. The tempo was

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already impossibly high. What with national and NATO exercises, the Iceland Patrol, which was then in force, and important official visits, little opportunity was allowed for squadrons, or even the Fleet, to get together. If I could get more than half the Fleet assembled in one place for inside of a week, or for a long weekend, in which to indulge in what I believe to be an important part of Naval training, I regarded myself as extremely lucky.
I think I can best illustrate the seriousness of this problem with the following figures. Thirty years ago, for every day at sea the average escort vessel spent eight days in harbour. Ten years ago, the ratio had halved, and for every day at sea an escort vessel spent four days in harbour. To-day, for every day at sea an escort vessel spends 1·5 days in harbour. This kind of strain is affecting not only the efficiency and the contentment of the Fleet, but also the ships themselves, and those whose business it is to keep them steaming and to service and maintain the extremely complicated equipment with which they are now fitted.
It is one thing to pose a question; it is more difficult perhaps to find a solution. To cut our commitments would, I believe, be extremely difficult. To have a larger Navy is, I believe, impracticable, although it is highly desirable. There is just one possible third alternative which has already been mentioned to-day by one noble Lord: that we should lay down a large number of smaller, cheaper and less sophisticated ships requiring the minimum complement. I believe that such ships would be quite capable of performing the rôle to which the Navy is now committed in the Far East and the sort of rôle to which we are likely to be committed for the next twenty years. The sort of ship I have in mind is something about the size of an inshore minesweeper, but with much greater speed, or possibly some development of the hovercraft of which one noble Lord has already spoken this evening. I should like to leave your Lordships with this thought to-day, and in the hope that the Admiralty Board, who I know have already considered this problem, may perhaps reconsider it.
I should now like to turn to a separate question—namely, the entry and training of seamen officers into the Navy. About two years before I left the Ser
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vice it was decided to raise the educational standard for entry into Dartmouth, particularly in the mathematical and scientific sides. I was doubtful at the time whether this was a wise policy, but I was assured by its sponsors that we now lived in the technical age, and that there were plenty of young men in the country who possessed not only the academic ability but also those necessary qualities of leadership required of an officer.
This hope has not been entirely fulfilled. There are a few who are indeed capable of doing both. For those I feel that the future is assured. But the duties of a seaman officer in the Navy are, first of all, to lead his men, and secondly, to steam and command his ship, and to be able to use the extremely complicated equipment with which he is provided. He must also have an ability to write English. But I do not believe that it is essential for every seaman officer to understand in detail what goes on inside the magic boxes. For this purpose he has his technical officers, who are always available to him to give advice and assistance.
In this highly technical age I feel there is a grave danger of forgetting that the old-fashioned virtues of courage, resource and leadership in its widest sense have never been more needed than they are to-day, when the officer is commanding a far more intelligent and highly educated rating than ever did his forbears. My fear is that we may lose a potential Nelson or Drake because he cannot get an "A" level in mathematics. I believe there is a solution to this problem which I should like briefly to commend to your Lordships to-day. For many years there has been a short-service officer entry into the Royal Navy on to what is called the Supplementary List which does not require such a high educational qualification. It is from this List that we have obtained the large majority of our young officers of the Fleet Air Arm. This scheme has recently been extended to include seamen officers.
There is also a method by which a small number of the best of these young men can transfer to the General List, provided that they volunteer to do so and that they are acceptable. Some of these young men are of extremely high quality, and I should like to recommend to the

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Admiralty Board that this system of transferring be greatly extended, that the best of those on the Supplementary List be offered commissions on the General List, and that they be offered them early enough in their careers to be able to catch up with their professional training and be of the right age to compete with the officers of the General List when they are turned over. I believe that this would have a dual purpose. It would make up for the shortfall in the Dartmouth entry—and there has been a shortfall for a number of years. Furthermore, it would allow a young man—possibly a young man with a naval background and a deep love of the sea, but a young man who has not a technical bent or who is perhaps unable to pass exams—to pursue the career of his choice for which he is in every other way probably extremely suitable.
This leads me to my third point. Much has been said already in this debate in and around this subject, but I should like to approach it from a slightly different angle. It is becoming increasingly difficult to persuade the parents of very suitable young men, or even the young men themselves, that there is a great future for a young man in the Armed Forces. The posters and the recruiting advertisements paint in glowing terms the splendid future for a young man in the Armed Forces, but the pronouncements of Her Majesty's Government have not supported this view. We have heard already of a statement made last September by the now Prime Minister on an expanding Navy. Nothing, so far as I know, has happened. It was an admirable plan, but nothing is being done. The confidence of the officers and men in the Royal Air Force in the future of their Service cannot have been greatly encouraged by the cancellation of the TSR 2 the P 1154 and the HS 681, with no firm decision on replacements. Prevarication, which has been going on for months, over the aircraft carrier programme, vital to the future of the Navy, has caused the same depression among the officers and men of the Fleet.
I was very glad to hear from the noble Lord opposite that although no decision has yet been reached design and planning are continuing. For that I am very grateful. This is a very difficult prob-
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lem, and, speaking as a sailor who has only recently retired, I assure your Lordships that, although in this speech to-day I have been pointing out the difficulties and the problems, the morale of the Navy remains high. But some form of encouragement from above is required to sustain it. I should like to hear a clarion call from the Government to the effect that the Armed Forces will be required by the country in roughly the same size and shape as they are now for as far into the future as we can see, and that they offer an honourable and full career to the best of our young men. I believe that if as much public attention were given to the officers and men as is given to the money and to the material, it is not impossible that the very difficult problems of recruitment and re-engagement which all three Services now face might well be solved.
5.4 p.m.
VISCOUNT MONTGOMERY OF ALAMEIN: My Lords, the previous speaker said that the scope of this Motion is very wide. That is certainly very true. Listening to it so far, I feel that there is a danger that we may be led away from the main issues. For instance, I would suggest that the manpower and training of the Armed Forces is best left to Service Ministers and their professional advisers, the Service Chiefs. I should prefer to draw the attention of your Lordships to the Reserve Forces of the Army—and I am not dealing with the Navy to-day—
A NOBLE LORD: More's the pity.
VISCOUNT MONTGOMERY OF ALAMEIN: Next time perhaps. Their organisation calls for the most serious consideration, for reasons which I will explain. There are too many categories of reserve, each with different liabilities. The liabilities are, in most cases, too restrictive, and the main concept on which our reserves are based is out of date. Why is this? The reasons stem partly from the devolpment of strategy in a nuclear age, partly from the switch from National Service to Regular Forces, and partly from the promise given to the Territorial Army in 1961 that there would be no further major reorganisation for a period of ten years. I think that those are the main reasons. Complementary to the review of Civil Defence, on which I

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will say something in a moment, the role of the T.A. needs to be examined in order to bring that Force into line with our requirements. In my view, that would be acceptable to serving T.A. officers and men, provided that it is put across sensibly and properly. It would not necessarily be acceptable to senior retired officers.
First, as to the need for reserves, I assume that the general situation in the foreseeable future will follow the same pattern as that which has characterised the years since 1945: that is to say, that for political reasons we shall have to continue to maintain forces in Germany. There will be a continued need to help to preserve peace world-wide, and we must be ready to meet the unforeseen. The great majority of the emergencies, large or small, which have faced us since 1945 have been unforeseen and have arisen at very short notice. For example, the need to deploy considerable forces in Borneo was not foreseen, nor was the emergency in 1964 which led to a heavy reinforcement in Cyprus. It is certain that any review of strategy which is now being carried out can be but a guide and cannot be expected accurately to foresee the future.
For this reason I would suggest that we cannot afford to tailor-make our Regular and Reserve Forces for the future, but must so shape them that we are able to deal with whatever emergency may arise at short notice. My experience in war is that only one thing is certain, and that is that everything will be uncertain. That is what I have learned. To-day, as indeed over the past eighteen months, our Regular Forces are very stretched, and we have had to call up a small number of Territorial Emergency Reserve men, alias the "Ever-Readies". But there has been no serious fighting during the last few years, casualties have been of the order of half a dozen as opposed to hundreds. There is, however, no certainty that this situation will continue.
It is possible that at any moment some very sizeable emergency may arise in. say, the Far East, in South Arabia or in Africa. If there were a major flare-up of fighting in present theatres, or a sizeable new commitment, we could meet the situation only by a substantial withdrawal from Germany or by calling up Reserves—in no other way. It might
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be politically difficult to make withdrawals from Germany at the time needed. On the other hand, it would be difficult under their present liabilities to call up exactly the right type of reservist we need; and, indeed, they are generally not trained, manned or equipped to meet the requirement for which they may be needed. I suggest it is vital that our small Regular Army should have adequate Reserves properly equipped for its needs.
It might help if I were to outline briefly the organisation of the Army Reserves. The man who enlists in the Army for six years—a six-year Regular—does six years with the Colours, two years in Section A of the Army Reserve and four years in Section B. The difference, of course. is entirely in connection with the call-up liability. Section A can be called up by the Secretary of State without Proclamation; Section B only by Proclamation. There is no annual training. Section A men are earmarked to reinforce Regular units in a limited war, and Section B men are earmarked to reinforce the Rhine Army.
Then there is the Army Emergency Reserve; that is the A.E.R. That, like the Territorial Army, consists of volunteers and is divided into two categories. Category 1 consists of units needed to fill up the tail of a limited war force. Its ceiling is 10,000 and it is fully recruited. The men have a pre-Proclamation liability. They receive an annual bounty of £60 and, of course, get paid whilst in camp, and they are quite good. Category 2 consists of administrative units needed to fill gaps in the tail of the Rhine Army on mobilisation. It has a post-Proclamation liability; hence only a very small bounty, and hence it is very poorly recruited.
Then there are the Territorial Army Emergency Reserve; that is, the "Ever-Readies". There are between 7,000 and 8,000 of those to-day, and 175 have recently been called up for service in Aden, Cyprus and the Far East. We shall get more experience of the usefulness of this Reserve after we have discovered how things go with the present 175. But there are a number of difficulties including the reluctance of employers, especially in a small firm, to let good men go for six months, because they have to reinstate them. The other point which

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needs to be noted is that, when called up, they are very unfit physically. That, of course, can be got over.
Then there is the Army General Reserve which is 200,000 strong and consists of ex-National Servicemen. Individuals are earmarked to reinforce Regular and T.A. units. They do no training and the call-up is only by Proclamation. I think that is enough to show how difficult it is at present to call up the type of Reserves the Army may need at any given time. Reorganisation and simplification are needed, which has been pointed out already.
Now I should like to say a word about Civil Defence. I should like to suggest that that is a very bad name for it, and I think a much better name would be Home Defence. It is quite clear that the civil authorities could not maintain law and order and essential services in post-nuclear bombardment, without very considerable help from the Armed Forces and notably from the Reserve Army. If it is decided—and I would emphasise the word "if"—that we must maintain some guard against the remote possibility of nuclear war, then the first requirement will be to preserve law and order. That includes the prevention of panic and looting, looking after refugees, putting them into camps and feeding them, providing medical aid, water, sanitation and so on.
The police by themselves could not preserve law and order. They would need the help of a large number of bodies of disciplined and organised men, and only the Territorial Army could provide that help. But to do that it would not need to be organised as a balanced fighting force of all arms; that is to say, a fighting force containing tanks, artillery, heavy equipment and so on. Some might say that static establishments and schools could be used, but they would be inadequate and not suitable. What is required is a large number of bodies of organised and disciplined men, mobile, equipped with small arms and, very important, provided with wireless communications. In short, if we are going to maintain our guard over Home Defence against this remote possibility of nuclear attack, everything would become absolutely hopeless unless we could maintain law and order,
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and large-scale military support to this end is necessary, but not from units with tanks, artillery and heavy equipment. The present cost of Civil Defence, which I call Home Defence, is about £25 million annually, and there are great possibilities for saving money here.
Now the Territorial Army. The Territorial Army to-day is organised in ten divisions on the normal Regular Army basis. It is neither manned, trained nor equipped to enable it to fight against a first-class enemy on such a basis, and it would be impossible financially to equip it to do it; nor do we need to. On no account does the Territorial Army want to be abolished, but it is right and proper that it should be completely reshaped to meet the needs of to-day. What are those needs? I hold the view that we require at least two things from the Territorial Army, and I would put them in what I call two tiers. We want a first tier of "teeth-armed" units—units, not divisions—manned, equipped and trained so that they could join the Regular Army overseas if current operations were to grow in fury or in magnitude, or if we were faced with new commitments. These units should be raised on the same terms as administrative units are raised from the Army Emergency Reserve, category I—that is, able to be called out without Proclamation.
Subject to very detailed study in the Ministry of Defence, which I would hope would go on, I would suggest that this first tier of the Territorial Army might consist of the following units: say, up to ten squadrons, Royal Engineers; one or two light air-defence regiments; a reconnaissance regiment, Royal Armoured Corps; a light regiment, Royal Artillery, or maybe two; and, say, fifteen or twenty infantry battalions. To be effective, those units must be recruited and manned to 100 per cent. establishment; they should be raised territorially; they should be strengthened by the inclusion of Section B Reservists; they should be officered by Regular officers down to subunits—that is to say, company, battery and so on—and have a good strength of Regular N.C.O.s; and they should be adequately equipped. And what is the object? The object is to put them into the field as units with about four weeks' training after call-up—and it would take only a small proportion of the present Territorial Army.

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Then I think we want a second tier, which should not be armed or trained on the present divisional basis but should comprise the balance of the present units. They should be provided with jeeps, wireless sets and small arms. This tier would not need to be manned to more than about 50 per cent., and it would provide the framework for organised bodies of trained men to aid the civil power in the event of disaster, plus the framework for the vital communication network. This tier would also form the basis for further divisions should we become involved in large-scale and long-drawn-out operations—for instance, in Africa. The present annual cost of the Territorial Army is about £35 million, and very great possibilities exist for saving money here on lines of the kind I have suggested.
A very big question is: what should be done about the reinforcement of the British Army of the Rhine on mobilisation, which would require a large number of units, mainly administrative, and a large number of individual officers and men? In fact, to-day we should have to double the strength of the Rhine Army on mobilisation—another 50,000 men. I hold the view that we should send no more men into Germany, and I also hold the view that we should opt out of our commitments to reinforce the Rhine Army on mobilisation. Within the context of a nuclear war the reinforcement of the Rhine Army is completely irrelevant.
I would put four conclusions to your Lordships. First, the organisation of the Reserves in the Army needs to be simplified and brought into line with our requirements. Secondly, the future of Home Defence needs to be determined. The money spent on it at present is very largely wasted. Thirdly, the Territorial Army needs to be drastically reshaped, and it should accept the definite home defence commitments on the lines I have suggested. Lastly, we should reduce our expenditure on defence in a way which will bring increased efficiency. So often a reduction in finance on defence means a loss of efficiency. We must do it in a way which will increase efficiency, and I suggest that that is possible on the lines I have indicated.
5.26 p.m.
LORD MOTTISTONE: My Lords, I must first of all ask for your Lordships' indulgence, as this is the first time I have addressed your Lordships' House, although it does not say so on the list which we have, and apologise for not having spoken before owing to a recurrent illness. I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, for raising this subject and debate, because it gives me an opportunity to say a few words on the Territorial Army, about which I feel very deeply—and for one reason in particular. My late father was the vice-chairman of a committee set up by Mr. Haldane (as he then was) for the purpose of forming the Territorial Army from the Yeomanry and Volunteers.
Incidentally, one of the committee's advisers—there were many if them, including Major-General Sir Douglas Haig—was my grandfather, Sir Harry Crichton, who commanded the Hampshire Volunteer Brigade. The result of these efforts was the Territorial and Reserve Forces Act, 1907, passed when the Government of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman were in office; and the T.A. was founded on a county basis. I know the great interest that my father always took in the T.A., in their affairs and in the welfare of their officers and men. As Lord Lieutenant of Hampshire, he used to visit every camp in the area of which he was President, and this knowledge emboldens me to speak to your Lordships to-day.
There is one point in my own experience to which I want to draw your Lordships' attention, although I am afraid I am very out-of-date, because I left the active list of the Territorial Army in 1949. As your Lordships will know, in 1945 the old Territorial Army stood down, and in 1947 it was reconstituted. There was thus a gap of two years. I rejoined then; and I felt, as I think many of us felt, that, had that gap not taken place, had the Territorial Army continued straight through and the drill halls been kept for people to go to, recruiting on the volunteer basis would have been very much easier.
In the area in which I was then living and working, I was offered and accepted command of an artillery T.A. Regiment. We hoped to recruit from a pre-war Territorial Regiment which had been formed in that area before the war, and which

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had served—although I did not serve with them, I know their history—with great gallantry throughout the war. Very few of them rejoined, but I feel that the situation might have been better and more might have rejoined had there not been that gap of two years before the Territorial Army was formed up again after the war. I know there were other difficulties involved. There was a necessary conversion from field artillery to anti-aircraft; but that, again, I do not think would have been so difficult (I know, because I experienced it myself before the war) with a regiment in being. This is less difficult than asking people to come into a regiment equipped with a type of gun with which they are unfamiliar.
My Lords, that about carries me to the limit of my experience, but, for the reasons that I have given, I hope Her Majesty's Government will endeavour to keep the Territorial Army going and that there will be full consultations with the Territorial and Auxiliary Forces' Association in any, decisions which they have to make. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, has said that those consultations would take place, and I hope the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, will reassure us at the end of the debate that that will be so.
5.31 p.m.
LORD HAIRE OF WHITEABBEY: My Lords, I, too, should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, for introducing the discussion to-day and for giving us Back-Benchers our annual chance of releasing our pent-up feelings about the Forces. In his wide-ranging speech, which I found most interesting, the noble Lord produced a number of pegs on which we could hang our hats with great ease. It is interesting to note that most of the hats which were hung up on the opposite side of the House were of Navy blue or brown, whereas on this side they are likely to be of light blue. But he did not produce the particular peg that I was looking for. It fell to the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, to produce the peg of Coastal Command; and in a few moments I will say a few words about that.
Before doing so I should like to thank and congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, upon his maiden speech. As one who has himself come so recently to
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your Lordships' House, and who is, indeed, as yet very much a child of this House, it is somewhat unusual for me to find myself in the position of welcoming a maiden speaker. But perhaps I am all the more able to do this, since I have so recently made my own maiden speech. Therefore, I appreciate the trepidation with which the noble Lord approached this speech, and I recognise that, as he comes from a famous family with long Parliamentary traditions, his speech to-day, which was uncontroversial, gives us promise that he will be more controversial in the future. We look forward to hearing from him again.
Now, my Lords, to return to the subject which must be very near and dear to my noble friend Lord Shackleton, since he and I were for a number of years in Coastal Command. He is going to reply to-night, and I am hoping that I may be able, along with the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, to extract some answers from him. I do this because in these Defence debates we are not playing at Party politics but seeking information with regard to Defence. Personally, I feel that Coastal Command, which played an unspectacular but important rôle in the last war, is to some extent treated as the Cinderella of the Forces. It was almost as important as Fighter Command in the rôle it played in the Battle of Britain; because if Coastal Command, with the co-operation of the Navy, had not protected our shores and ports, we might well have been starved to death in the last war.
The rôle of Coastal Command was the protection of our Merchant fleets and convoys. This involved long weary, antisubmarine patrols, with their long endurance so tiring for our pilots. These were certainly unspectacular, and there was not much headline stuff there. It is true that in the last twenty years there has been very little headline stuff come out from the Air Ministry and from the country with regard to the rôle of Coastal Command. One has heard so little publicly with regard to Coastal Command that one is inclined to think that it has almost "stayed put". Yet though the rôle remains the same, the task is immensely more difficult.
Like other countries, we have entered into a period of development of nuclear

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submarines, with their long underwater endurance which makes detection much more difficult. The development of the Polaris-type submarine, with its rocket potential and underwater firepower, makes undersea warfare much more potentially dangerous in my view than, say, space warfare. Yet, how little we have heard of it; and how much more important will the rôle of Coastal Command or the Royal Air Force be in such a nuclear war should it ever happen in the future! So, if my noble friend Lord Shackleton can to-night venture into these troubled waters without danger to himself, we shall be glad to hear something about the Defence strategy, the new equipment and materials which will affect this underwater war.
But the question I have to ask is something much simpler than those that have already been hurled at both Ministers today. The noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, was very prolific in these; and I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, making his first contribution to a Defence debate, stood out manfully through these questions. So, while I am offering congratulations, I will also offer him my congratulations for the very notable Front-Bench speech that he made to-day. The simple question that I have to address to the noble Lord has really been stolen by the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe. The noble Lord. Lord Shackleton, has an honoured name; it is the name of a famous aircraft which has done long service in Coastal Command since the war—the Shackleton. No one should be more keen or more proud to give us an answer to the question: What is happening to the Shackleton's successor? Is this aircraft, which the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, spoke about, ready to be launched? Are we, in fact, to have some information in regard to the Mark III Shackleton?
Both the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, and I were closely associated with antisubmarine warfare during the war, and until a few years ago both he and I did our annual training and continued our interests; and we were allowed to continue our interests until our hair grew too grey for us to be called up for annual training. This is what gives me a keen interest in the Joint Anti-Submarine School in Londonderry, Northern Ireland—and reference has been made to-day to the work being done there in the hover-
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craft field. This Joint Anti-Submarine School is under threat of transfer or closure, and this is causing great alarm and despondency in the old city of Londonderry, which has a famous history and a long association with our Naval Forces. So controversial has the subject become that the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland has in fact visited my right honourable friend the Prime Minister; indeed, a deputation had a meeting with my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Defence and discussed it with him. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State bears a very honoured Irish name—Healey—and so he should have been among friends. They are anxious to know what will be the result of the Defence review, which presumably contains the answers to their questions.
It is not only my own interest in the Joint Anti-Submarine School that prompts me to refer to this matter. I am an Ulsterman, and I know Londonderry well. That gives me an added interest in what is to happen there, so I hope that my noble friend will have some encouraging news to give us. Since July, 1964, and more recently as a result of the Defence review undertaken by the present Government, these rumours of the transfer of this school to the English Channel, presumably to Plymouth, Southampton or Portsmouth, have been growing apace. I presume that if, in fact, a transfer is contemplated, it is in the interests of economy. I can think of no other reason. These proposals have not been verified by the Government, but there is no doubt that in Londonderry they are causing great concern.
The arguments against such a move may be summarised in the following way. First, there are the strategic arguments. I am told—and I believe it to be true—that Londonderry is much nearer deep water than, say, Plymouth. It is 90 miles from Londonderry to the exercise grounds, compared with 180 miles from Plymouth. As noble Lords will know, Londonderry provided very suitable cover for the ports of Mersey and the Clyde during the war. Those ports were kept open, and we should not readily close a base which has done such useful service, and may be called on again.
The waters around Londonderry are much less populated. I should have

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thought, than the rather busier waters of the English Channel, so that when detachments of NATO forces arrive there is much more room to exercise in the Londonderry area. The only gain which I can see would be the small economy which could be effected in the cost of moving the units of our Fleet from their naval bases to Londonderry. If that be the only economy, I submit that the money saved would easily be spent in handing out unemployment benefit and National Assistance to those who would be put out of work.
There are also the economic arguments. Londonderry depends on her Naval Base to keep alive. Out of a population of 56,000 there is an unemployment rate at the unbelievable height of 11.8 per cent. at this time. Noble Lords will know that in Northern Ireland there has been a continuous period of high-level unemployment, unlike anything we have experienced for many years in other parts of the United Kingdom. If the Naval Base is taken from Londonderry, the unemployment rate there will rise to 15.7 per cent., which will put the town out of action. In addition to naval personnel and established civil servants, about 450 civilians have been fully employed at the Base. If 300 men are added to the present hard core of unemployment in the city (most of them are over 50 years of age and have had a long association with the Naval Base) one can understand what a tragedy would result. The loss of wages and salaries would reduce the spending power in the city by between£750,000and£1 million, and the local tradesmen would lose the benefit of the visits to Londonderry—irregular though they may be—of other Naval units. The port would be affected. In 1964, one million tons of shipping used Londonderry Port, of which 210,000 tons was represented by Admiralty vessels.
There are also the social arguments, and it is only natural that, speaking from these Benches, I should stress these arguments. There can be no doubt that a depressed area could be created by this single decision. It would surely be contrary to everything that we on this side of the House stand for if we were to make a "Jarrow" of Londonderry and kill a town. What will be the gain if we save a few pounds a year by siting the
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Joint Anti-Submarine School elsewhere and, as I said earlier, spend more in unemployment benefit and National Assistance? In addition there would be the cost of removing the Base.
Since July, 1964 the shadows have been deepening over Derry, and anything that hurts Derry hurts every Ulsterman. Ulster is a proud province and hates to lose its association with any of the Forces of Her Majesty. I beg my noble friend to sit down with my right honourable friend the Secretary of State and look at this problem de novo;and, with his own experience of anti-submarine warfare, to try to convince my right honourable friend, and the senior officers and civil servants concerned, that they have much to lose and little to gain by this proposed move of the Joint Anti-Submarine School from Londonderry. My Lords, I apologise for introducing into this debate what may appear to be a local problem, but it is not just the fate of Londonderry which is at stake; it is an important part of our anti-submarine training in which I happen to be keenly interested.
5.47 p.m.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Haire of Whiteabbey, will not claim that the "light blue" is only on the other side of the House. I will not follow all his arguments, but I will say that I concur thoroughly with the arguments he has made about Londonderry and the Joint Anti-Submarine Base. This school has always been spoken of well, and not least by American friends who have had the pleasure of going there. I should find it difficult to believe that it was being closed for any other reasons than those of finance.
This is, in a way, a new type of debate. When we have discussed Defence through the three Services on previous occasions the debate has generally been dominated by some great strategic issue which has prevented us from talking about the lesser things or raising important points concerning equipment. For that reason we should be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, for setting what is perhaps a new fashion for debates on Defence in this House. I propose to raise two or three points in an attempt to follow the noble Lord. They may be slightly disconnected.

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Before doing so, may I ask the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, whether he can tell us what exactly is his view on the statement by Mr. McNamara about a "Common Market" in war materials'? The implication of those words was not clear to me, but they appear to be among the most potentially important words which we have heard spoken recently. I have always felt that the extension of the purchase of war materials between Europe and America could lead to our NATO Alliance having a very different appearance. We have had a reference to-day to the Armalite rifle, the CR 15, as I believe it is called. I shall be surprised if that rifle does not replace the FN rifle, even though it would not be a cheap weapon. None of us objects to using American equipment—we have been glad to do so—provided that some of our equipment is used and sold in America.
I wish to refer to some equipment and ask what we have which could be sold in America. Because there is not a great deal of certainty about it, may I ask what is the position in the Transport Command of the Royal Air Force? In a Written Answer in another place on May 25 some information was given. One is always glad of information which is put out in a simplified form, but I am wondering whether that Answer was not almost as misleading as it was informing. To take medium-range aircraft—I am leaving out the Argosy because it is recent equipment—I see that the Hastings and the Beverley will be replaced by the C 130 or C 130E. Again, there are our dear old friends the Valettas, with a design dated, I suppose, somewhere about 1945. When we come to the Valetta, we see no current plans for replacement. Could I be told what that really means? It cannot mean that the Valetta is not out of date; nor can it mean that its purposes are not useful. I am certain that these aeroplanes have a very useful place in transport and training. Then we come to the Andover. Is that replacing an aircraft or is the Andover a net gain to transport?
May I venture now to turn to the strategic transports? Here we have the Britannia and the Comet. No decision has been taken on the replacement of the Britannia and the Comet, but we know that in the course of the next year or so about a score of Belfast and VC10's
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will come into service. I think that this is important. It is important because it has taken the Air Force a long time to appreciate the vital nature of its transport rôle. I hope that it is being appreciated more deeply in the higher planning circles of the Royal Air Force that this is a long-term rôle of the utmost importance.
I should like to turn now to the Royal Navy. I was glad to hear the remarks of my noble friend Lord Glasgow. I knew him when he was a Captain in the Home Fleet, a position he filled with great distinction. If I may say so, when I was associated with the Navy my experience was that officers did not use the technical ability of their non-commissioned officers as freely and, I believe, as usefully as they did in the R.A.F. I do not say that the flight sergeants were more competent than the petty officers, but I believe that the officers in the R.A.F. relied more on their judgment; and in my opinion they were right in doing so.
There has been a certain amount of talk to-day about cheaper and less sophisticated ships. The difficulty about this is that the Navy has to fulfil a world rôle. But I still think that the point advanced by my noble friends Lord Jellicoe and Lord Glasgow is valid, and I hope careful consideration will be given to it. When I was in South-East Asia, we had the rather undignified picture of an escort, or even of a destroyer, trying to chase a pirate with two big Johnson outboard motors, which they could not catch. I feel that this is an absurd position and there is really no reason why we should not have the kind of ships which could reasonably fulfil such duties.
I was extremely interested in what the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, said about hovercraft, and grateful to him for the amount of information he was able to give us. I am not unaware of how difficult it is for the Government to give all the information sometimes asked for, and my noble friend Lord Jellicoe asked, very properly, many questions. I was interested to hear that the hovercraft was now being used in Borneo and I hope we shall be informed of how it succeeds. The great rivers of Borneo are ideally suited for this craft. Not only do they have mud flats, as the noble Lord said, but they have dangerous rapids which

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change quickly with a rise and fall of twenty to forty feet of water. I hope that the hovercrafts can be used more widely, and it would be particularly interesting if they could be used at sea where conditions might well be difficult. Perhaps the noble Lord could give us some information about this, if not to-day, perhaps at a later time.
May I raise one other point about the Army? I am astonished that we should be 1,000 officers short in the Army. I do not believe that we have ever had finer and better educated young people than in this country to-day. Why is it that we cannot draw them into the Armed Forces, which, we should frankly recognise are fulfilling a big rôle in maintaining stability, and hence peace, in the world to-day? Is it something in the way we approach them? May I put it another way: are our methods of recruiting wrong? We have been doing a great deal in the scientific examination of candidates since the war. Many of your Lordships, as I have, have seen this conducted. I think it is very clever and good and I am pretty sure it can tell the crackerjacks, the chaps at the top and maybe the chaps at the bottom. But I should like to ask the Government: are these examinations not too rigid for the big area in the middle? They have set out certain standards which they have no doubt thought out carefully, but are they quite certain that these are the right standards for the young men of to-day? I am convinced that the young men of to-day are full of idealism and if they realise the great task that the Army is fulfilling, they will be only too willing to play their part in it.
5.55 p.m.
LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH: My Lords, when I was first commissioned my first sergeant pointed out to me that the lowest form of animal life was the second lieutenant. When I looked around at the galaxy of Field Marshals and Admirals who at any rate earlier in the debate were present in your Lordships' House, I realised that everything in this world is relative and that as a mere colonel part-time I am still in square 1. In my own defence, and by way of declaring my interest, I should like to say that so long as I have the honour to be a Territorial Army aide-de-camp to Her Majesty the Queen, so long shall I con-
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sider myself to be still serving and so long shall I continue to sit on these Benches.
This gives me the lead in, to say that to-day I am a very cross Cross-Bencher. I consider that the way the Territorial Army has been treated in the last six months is criminally scandalous, and if I could think of anything worse and more abusive to say, I would say it. I am unable to think of a more refined form of torture than the threat of slow strangulation of what I consider to be the finest, most self-sacrificing, patriotic and non-political section of our population. I think that the public relations aspect of this business is wrong. I feel that so soon as the first rumour appeared in the Press the Government should have straight away denied or confirmed this rumour. After all, we treat wounded animals better. I am sure that your Lordships have heard most of these rumours about the Territorial Army, rumours which are most disquieting to the people who are associated with it.
First of all, it is said that it is a canard put out by the Government just to see what public reaction would be. I do not believe that.
LORD PEDDIE: My Lords, is the noble Lord suggesting that the Government have deliberately circulated such a rumour?
LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH: My Lords, I am just saying what the rumour is and I followed that by saying that I did not believe it. The other rumour that is going around is that there is some eminence grise with an oversized chip on his shoulder and an undersized C.N.D. badge in his lapel advising the Government on the subject. I am just telling your Lordships these things because that is what is going around in the Territorial Army to-day. Not so long ago the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, asked a Question and an Answer came back, as we are getting again to-day, about the Defence review.
All my life I have been some sort of soldier—Regular, irregular, part-time. I have always considered it to be a part of the job of our rulers to have regular Defence reviews. Why so much should be hidden behind this particular fence, I fail to see. The volunteer system is deep in our history, right from the train bands,

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the militia, the yeomanry and volunteers of the 18th century. In my part of the world there were 27 units of battalion strength in 1807; and the Territorial Army infantry battalions to-day are descended from the 1st Rifle Volunteers, raised in Exeter in 1852. I had the honour to command the battalion which still carries that flash. In the Boer War, over one-third of the volunteers of yeomanry volunteered to serve with their affiliated Regular units. There were 15 Territorial divisions overseas by the end of 1915. And the Hitler war is sufficiently recent for your Lordships to know what contribution the Territorial Army made then.
Why, then, have these damaging rumours been allowed to go on? That is what so riles me, and a lot of other people. They are not damaging to the Territorial Army soldier, but they are damaging to the permanent employees, who are wondering what will happen to their jobs; and they are even more damaging to the Territorial Army, in that the employers are using these rumours as an excuse to stop the chaps from going to camp, particularly this year. When I think of the amount of time and money I have spent wining and dining and soft-soaping these self-same employers—it made my pocket bleed then, and it makes my heart bleed now.
Last month we had a debate in your Lordships' House on Commonwealth Relations. I do not know whether your Lordships have even considered this aspect of it. Last week we read in the Press of the representatives of the London Scottish (I think it was) flying over to anniversary celebrations of the Toronto Scottish. I do not suppose many of your Lordships here have, like me, served in a Commonwealth country equivalent of a Territorial Army unit. I can assure your Lordships that these affiliations have great binding effect; and, again, I think it would be an absolute scandal if by wholesale abolishing of Territorial Army units we also cut off those links.
I feel that what we must do for the Territorial Army is to rely on and build up local patriotism. It is the local patriotism, and units with hard-won traditions, that are the great stand-by in time of need. Once you abolish them, as I know, it is the hardest thing on earth to raise them again. The strongest battalion in the Territorial Army before the war was the 6th Devons. They had their Old Com-
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rades' Association and everything behind them. If anyone had carried out the old military principle of reinforcing success, they would have built on and got that unit going. But what did they do? The powers-that-be, probably started by some G2 just out of staff college, who knew what was going on in Caithness but had never heard of the West of England, had the unit turned into an anti-aircraft unit, which in itself is an insult to a self-respecting infantryman; and secondly, they abolished it, and a whole section of the countryside was insulted. A year later I tried to build up just a company in this area, and one continually came up against: "Why did they do that?" That is one of the things which I should like the Government to bear in mind when they are dealing with Territorial Army units in their Defence review.
The second point that I should like to mention is the question of Civil Defence training. Civil Defence training is truly part and parcel of the training of all arms and services in this country—Regular, part-time, Navy, Air Force and all others. If you once give the impression to the Territorial Army that they are nothing more than a glorified Civil Defence unit you will knock the spirit out of them straight away. By the same count, all those of your Lordships who have been on Civil Defence exercises, as I have, will know that Civil Defence, as we understand it to-day, cannot function without the Territorial Army.
While we are on exercises, I am sure that many of your Lordships have been on mobilisation exercises. I cannot for the life of me see how the Regular Army could cope with a general mobilisation if you abolished the Territorial Army. So if you are going to make any changes—this is my plea—try to make them within the units which have these traditions and this firm implantation in their local parts of the country.
Then there is another important matter—it has been skimmed around already by some noble Lords—and that is the question of propaganda. I feel that the Government, whichever Government it is, should protect to as great a degree as possible these people like Territorial Army soldiers from the propaganda of people who arc discouraging their recruiting. Take, for example, what went

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on in the middle 'thirties. I remember when I was at Oxford being attacked by various members of the (I think it was) Peace Pledge Union on my way to the senior division of the O.T.C. They were saying: "What is the use of training? What is the use of joining this? What is the use of doing that? Gas is powerful, but in a couple of days everything will be over." Look what happened! There is some resemblance in that to much of the propaganda going on to-day, and I think there is a certain amount which could be done to reinforce or support the recruiting propaganda as a counteracting propaganda to those who are against the country defending itself.
Lastly, on this subject—and here I clash with the noble and gallant Viscount, Lord Montgomery of Alamein—of the Regular Army and the Territorial Army, most of the people sent to train and command the Territorial Army are first-rate chaps. They are all chaps who enter into the spirit of the units in the locality where they are. But from time to time the Territorial Army gets sent the wrong type, and he does irreparable damage. I was fifteen years a Regular, and I have been on both sides of the counter. If your Lordships will permit me, I should like to tell a story which came from a sergeants' mess, and which I think illustrates what I mean. It is a story of four gentlemen in a railway carriage. Two of them got talking together, and they found, first of all, that they were both married and they had three sons—one was in this, one in that, and one in something else. And then they found that they were both brigadiers. The next thing was that the third member in the carriage could control himself no longer, and he said: "This is a most peculiar coincidence. I am married, and I have three sons, one in the Navy, one in the Church and one in Law. And I am a brigadier." Then they all turned their attention to the fourth member in the carriage. He looked up and said: "I am no use to you. I am a sergeant. I am not married. I have three sons. They are all brigadiers." So choose the chaps you send to the Territorial Army with a certain amount of care, and then we can get on to this one-Army basis.
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Just two stories to end with. Six years ago I was coming back late one night; it was raining, and I was going up a hill in my car. I had been to a drill hall a long way away, and I saw a man trundling up the road. I picked him up and gave him a lift. He was one of my battalion. He lived in a village to which, in the winter months, the local bus company did not run after the end of his drill night. Regularly through those months this man was walking 5½ to 6 miles home in the winter. I dropped him at his council house on the edge of this village, and as I turned my car to home I felt very humble. I said to myself: "Well, I will not grumble any more about the hours I am away. So long as there are chaps like that around, then it is an honour to serve." I do not think we ought, in the words of The Times article the other day, to throw that sort of thing out of the window.
Last night I had a most frightful nightmare concerning events in about seven months' time. I dreamt that the Regular Forces had been cut down to the numbers required East of Suez or in defending Germany. The police were very hard pushed, with one or two farmers protesting, and one or two incipient race riots. Suddenly, the recently disbanded Territorial Army decided to invade the Palace of Westminster. I was suffocated to death under the Leader of the House and a couple of Bishops in full canonicals, and the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow. It was an awful death. The Government had left themselves nothing to fall back on.
6.13 p.m.
THE EARL OF CROMARTIE: My Lords, we are all grateful to my noble friend and brother officer, Lord Thurlow, for introducing this debate in such a masterful way. I intend to confine my remarks solely to the Territorial Army. There have been many distinguished speakers who have gone (and others still to come will go) more deeply into the many questions connected with the thorny subject of Defence generally.
Having served both as a Regular and as a Territorial soldier, and having also been over the years a member of a Highland and Territorial Auxiliary Forces Association, I wish to put a few considerations before your Lordships. As

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we have already been told, we must start by getting it absolutely clear what we want the Territorial Army to do. I suggest that if we want to keep this splendid volunteer force of part-time citizen soldiers in existence, it must retain its territorial affiliations, its regimental connections and organisation. Once this is destroyed it will destroy the whole spirit and worth of the Territorial Army.
It has been said that in modern all-out war there will be no time for Proclamations for embodiment and for intensive training, as in previous wars. This is undoubtedly true. But do your Lordships believe that this kind of war is likely? Personally, I do not. We might be faced with a non-nuclear war of some size, in which case the function of the Territorial Army would be much as before. More likely are the bush-fire wars which are always with us, and are likely to be for some time. The reinforcement of these trouble points presents great difficulty, in part due to the fact that so much—and, in the opinion of many, far too much—of the Regular Army is tied up in Germany. At present, so far as the Territorial Army is concerned we rely on the "Ever-Readies"—a splendid conception, though not enough to fill all the needs.
What about the Territorial Army for this? My answer is a most emphatic, "No". Let me take a possible example. In my area, the Territorial personnel consists of farm workers and men in small industries, such as distilleries and the like, located over a very wide area—in fact, over four counties. For the sake of argument, let us say that an infantry company of a local battalion is earmarked to reinforce either its own Regular unit or some other Regular unit in some other part of the world. This company, widely scattered, will need longer and more concentrated training in order to be instantly ready to go overseas. How will employers react to this? Remember that the firms and businesses, unlike those in an industrial area, employing hundreds of men, where the replacement of key workers and hands generally may not be quite such a problem, are small.
The company I have taken as an example will have the best men in the battalion. In all probability they will be the key men on the farm and in the small business. Indeed, when the total
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number of men employed is small, the total labour force could disappear for long periods for special training, or even, in the event of active service, disappear altogether. Therefore, some other means must be found to fill this requirement—possibly a large expansion of the "Ever-Readies", to whom could be added some of the numerous classes of reservists, whose duties so often seem in any case to overlap.
Turning, finally, to Civil Defence, the idea that the Territorial Army should take over Civil Defence altogether is impracticable. The Territorial organisation is not suited for this. But there is no doubt whatever that the Territorial Army could be an invaluable support for Civil Defence, by being made responsible, as the noble and gallant Viscount told us, for the maintenance of law and order in the stricken area, as well as supplementing the resources of the Civil Defence for communications which, in an atomic war, will be utterly destroyed. It has happened before in history that we have tried to get defence on the cheap; and it does not pay. You cannot starve, on the one hand, your well-tried protection, yet spend countless millions of pounds on planes that never leave the ground and rockets that never leave the drawing board. Changes there must be, and I think that every Territorial officer and man is perfectly prepared to co-operate in any necessary change. But any Government will be well advised to think very carefully before they scrap the finest volunteer force in the world, and one without which our country would have been in a sorry state in the last two wars.
6.19 p.m.
LORD SUFFIELD: My Lords, I should like to join with other noble Lords in welcoming the opportunity which the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, has given us to discuss the problems of manpower and training in the Army to-day. I should like to confine my remarks to the Army and certain matters which I believe affect the efficiency and morale of the ordinary regimental soldier. I am glad to hear that some of the new range of weapons introduced by the late Government are coming into service. They will be most welcome. But I should like to make one proviso: that there must be sufficient ammunition to permit the training not

923
only of their normal operators, but of those others who may have to man them in an emergency. If this is not available these weapons are of little use.
I feel sure your Lordships will agree that, whatever the Army is called upon to do, it is the infantry soldier who finally has to carry out the task, normally in conditions of acute discomfort. Among the other qualities which he must possess are the ability to hear and not be heard, and to see and not be seen. In short, the equipment which a soldier carries must help him to achieve this aim. There has been progress in design, but I believe that there is still room for improvement; and what may appear unimportant and trivial to those responsible for design can mean the difference between life and death to a soldier operating in the jungle. We have a tendency to be too "Rolls-Royce" minded in designing equipment, when it is unnecessary and uneconomical; and quite often equipment is made to last a long time, which adds considerably to its weight. It also tends to discourage replacement of that equipment because of the large unused stocks held in ordnance depôts. In these days of high labour costs in production and in storage might it not be more economical, where it is feasible, to make better use of local purchase of civilian equipment? I suspect that the Treasury would object to this course, as they cannot believe that anyone other than themselves can exercise any financial discretion. It always seems strange to me that one can buy a pair of army socks more cheaply on the civilian market than through Army channels.
Let me quote some examples of the equipment I have in mind. First, binoculars. The present binoculars have been in existence since certainly as long ago as the last war. They are solid and heavy, although of adequate performance; but do they compare in price, weight and performance with, say, Japanese binoculars or continental types? Or perhaps it would be possible to get some from Hong Kong—I do not know, Another piece of equipment which is excellent in design but, I think, unnecessary, is the Army torch. This is about 8 inches long, with a clip designed to fit on a soldier's belt. Anyone who crawls
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on the ground will invariably lose the torch. Would it not be possible to buy a simple, cheap torch which can be carried in one's pocket, and which could be bought in most parts of the world in Woolworth's, or its equivalent, but would be perfectly adequate and, I believe, cheaper than the present torch? What is more, when it wears out it could be thrown away without any great financial sacrifice.
Another item which again seems trifling is the Army water-bottle top, which is made of metal. If you unscrew an Army water-bottle top is invariably squeaks. If it were made of plastic it would not; it would also be lighter. If a man is caught in an ambush, or in some similar situation, such noises can make the most tremendous difference whether or not he survives. The wireless sets which have been introduced have one disadvantage. The C42 set used by the infantry battalion cannot communicate with aircraft, so the infantry have to carry an additional set for this purpose. This seems to me to be rather hard on the infantry. Is there no possibility of adapting the C42 with a flick frequency, such as I believe the old set had, thus enabling one to speak to aircraft? This would save an additional set being issued.
Next I would mention certain items of clothing which are important from the point of view of the concealment of a soldier when he is on operations. There used to be a green towel and a green vest issued. The ordinary white variety showed up for miles away. The green ones, I understand, were withdrawn because the dye caused a skin disease. It seems to me that it should have been possible by now to discover a dye which did not cause skin disease. Again, some years ago the Army was issued with a dark blue beret. It always seemed strange to me that it was not a khaki beret, but the beret is often the only alternative to the steel helmet, as I understand that the combat hat is not always available. Again, a dark blue beret shows up for miles. I have also been told that our combat clothing tends to shine. This, I must say, is relatively speaking, but any infantry soldier will know what I mean. In this respect the clothing does not compare well with that issued, for instance, to the French Army.

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I should now like to mention briefly some administrative causes of dissatisfaction. The first is the policy of the Ministry of Public Building and Works when designing married quarters. These are being built in an ultra-modern style, with large areas of glass. They are also situated in a new married-quarters estate. There are complaints that these houses are extremely expensive to heat and also lack privacy. It seems to me to be rather pandering to the whim of the architects and not giving the soldier what he wants.
Secondly, the current policy of sending men overseas unaccompanied for one year tours is posing a problem for the wives in regard to the maintenance and upkeep of the house and garden. I think the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, mentioned the desirability of a separation allowance, and this is one of the ways in which it could be used. It is considered unfair to expect wives to look after the children, the house, and to do the heavy work of the garden, such as mowing the lawn, without help. If the wife is moved to another quarter and she hands over her existing quarter and garden in bad order, her husband, who may be serving in Aden, suffers stoppages of pay. I will leave his reactions to the imagination of your Lordships.
My last point concerns the policy, again of the Ministry of Public Building and Works, when planning new barracks, of trying to centralise and standardise everything in those barracks. It is intended that such barracks may hold two or three battalions. In the interests of economy, the necessity for maintaining the units' identity, traditions and independence is ignored. For example, it is proposed that one cookhouse should supply the other ranks, the sergeants' and officers' messes of all the units in these barracks. In addition, such things as transport would be centralised: This policy would prevent commanding officers from training their own senior or master cooks and transport sergeants, because these duties would be carried out by some permanent organisation, probably civilians. Yet at any moment one of these battalions could find itself sent at short notice to any part of the world and expected to operate as an independent unit, although untrained to do so.
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I submit that efficiency cannot be sacrificed in the interests of economy.
Those are the only points I wish to bring to your Lordships' attention, but I would ask that the views of the regimental soldier be considered and that the Government ensure that those views reach them, because unless the efficiency and morale of the regiments are maintained the effectiveness of the Army as a whole will deteriorate.
6.32 p.m.
LORD BALERNO: My Lords, I am sure we are all much moved by the tribute of the noble Lord, Lord Suffield, to the infantry soldier, and it must warm the cockles of the heart of every infantry soldier here to-day to listen to an infantry officer who was so skilled in man management and so devoted to his job. We must be very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, for initiating this debate to-day. I should like to take up particularly and to develop what he said about the Territorial Army, my justification for doing so being that I reckon that I served in it for 35 years of which for 14 I was in command of a unit and also for four years I was chairman of one of the larger T.A. associations.
The noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, reminded us of the work that his father did in succession to Lord Haldane as Secretary of State for War. I am sure that Lord Haldane would have been the first to say that after sixty years it was time that the Territorial Army that he devised and which had stood through two world wars more or less intact and unchanged had critical examination. Indeed, I am sure that Lord Haldane would have been surprised that the Territorial Army that he devised, and he devised importantly with the help of Lord Douglas Haig, who was a university graduate, should have stood for those sixty years.
I should like to remind your Lordships that when the Territorial Army plans were put out there was major opposition to them, led by Field Marshal Lord Roberts and others of the old guard of the Army at that time. They tried to persuade King Edward VII to veto the Haldane proposals, on the ground chiefly that you could not train a part-time soldier to handle the then exceedingly complicated

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artillery. But 1915 proved that the part-time soldier could easily be trained to handle the artillery, and 1940–45 proved that he could be trained to handle much more complicated weapons than were ever thought of at the time the Territorial Army was formed. But it also showed that only a small proportion of the total enlistment could be so trained for the more complicated jobs that the Army had to undertake. And this applies to the training which is now getting even more complicated. The conclusion that must be drawn from that is that the efficient T.A. must be a smaller T.A. in the future, and in this connection I would fully support—and congratulate at the same time—the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, on his contribution to the debate. I think this is very much in line with what the noble and gallant Viscount also stated.
Of course, if you have a smaller Territorial Army it must have greater demands as well as greater rewards. The prime rôle, as I see it, would be for such an Army to reinforce the Regular units. I cannot understand why we have continued with this cumbersome military hierarchy which we have in the Territorial Army. Pretending that we have a division does not deceive any of the enemy; it only deceives ourselves and perhaps gives jobs to senior officers who might otherwise have to be pensioned. We are, I submit, in the Territorial Army wrongly organised, and I am quite sure that the T.A. bill of£20 million, or whatever it is, could be drastically reduced by a drastic pruning of the Regular senior officers who are engaged in the training and supervision of the T.A. There could, of course, also be some economies effected in the streamlining of the work of the Territorial Army associations; much of the work, particularly as regards housing and buildings, is, duplicated with the Army and this should be looked into and set right.
I would like particularly this afternoon to speak about the universities and the Services. Lord Haldane, at the same time as he introduced the Territorial Army, introduced the Officers' Training Corps, and with the Officers' Training Corps he set up the organisation of military education committees in the universities. At that time, the main object was the provision of officers for the Reserve and for
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temporary commissions. And this was extremely well done as regards the Army in the 1914 war. The Certificate B officers were in France and fighting by October of 1914—trained and fighting. Whereas that situation could not be as quickly reproduced in 1939, there were fully trained officers in the field straight from the universities by January and February, 1940. The university commissions in those days were a secondary consideration but they were an important consideration, and I would ask the noble and gallant Viscount to cast his mind back to how many of the Major-Generals who served under him or of whom he knew during the last war had obtained university commissions. He would probably find that the number was an unduly large proportion. I must admit that as a general rule, and with but a few exceptions, those with university commissions did not get to the higher ranks of full General and above; but there were many Major-Generals and a few Lieutenant-Generals.
The universities are aware of the valuable contribution that they can make to the Services by reason of this training. From 1950 onwards the universities have been trying to place the major emphasis of their training of undergraduates for the Services on regular or permanent conditions, and this has been especially the case since the end of National Service. There is a corollary to this: there must be more awareness on the part of the Services of the fact that the universities are every year taking a bigger share of young men of intelligence, and are leaving a smaller number available for selection for direct entry through Sandhurst, Cranwell and Dartmouth.
The R.A.F. has always been alert to this point. The officers whom they have posted to the university air squadrons have been of the highest calibre. One can compare them to the calibre of officer the Army used to post to the O.T.C.s in the inter-war years, though they do not post officers of that calibre to the O.T.C.s at the present time. But the R.A.F. has been on to this point, and, in consequence, they have a steady stream the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, gave us the figures; I think he said that something of the order of 90 R.A.F. cadets are at present training. I know that in my own University of Edinburgh those put forward for this cadet scheme have been averaging

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over the past few years about four per annum (in some years we have gone up to as many as six) for regular commissions to Cranwell. These university graduates going up to the R.A.F. for training cost, in actual training time, about half what it costs to train a lad going straight into Cranwell.
The Army is now recognising far more the value of the O.T.C.s, and they are doing far more than was the case a few years ago. I had the privilege on Monday of visiting my own O.T.C. in Southern Command, and I was tremendously impressed by what Southern Command had laid on for a whole week in taking 100 cadets around different military establishments and showing them the Army. They are doing this for a whole week. These 100 cadets are going round and seeing the Army in Southern Command. They will follow this up by one week of actual military training. Unfortunately, the Navy is lagging behind in this respect. It has not been easy, although some of the universities have kept contact with the old naval sections of war time by linking up with the nearest R.N.R. division. I would point out to the Navy that if they want engineer officers in the future they will be able to get them only from the universities and from the technical colleges which are now becoming universities. We are making more and more of a corner, as it were, in these young men.
We welcome the medical cadetships, which was the first sign that the Services recognised the draw of young men to the universities—the increase in the proportion of suitable young men coming up to the universities. The medical cadetships were the first sign, arising from the sheer pressure of the failure to get enough doctors following the end of National Service. The medical cadetships have been variously operated by the three Services. Under a medical cadetship, the undergraduate is treated as a junior officer. He draws his pay as a junior officer, and he gets his fees paid. So this is something quite attractive, particularly to the sons of professional men who do not get a large subsidy from the State while they are at university. In the case of the R.A.F., medical cadets have to report to the university air squadron, where they are there looked after. They have to turn up on guest nights and on mess nights, and they are seen once or twice a month,
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and kept in touch. Much the same applies to the R.N. cadetships.
Unfortunately, because as regards medicals, there is a private army within the Army—the Royal Army Medical Corps—the medical cadets are in no way associated with the O.T.C. Their names are not sent to the O.T.C. The O.T.C., having discovered who they are, asks them to come down. The O.T.C. can do no more, and the cadets do not come. Some of these young men are wasting the money of the Services. Some of them are taking the money only in order to have pocket money while at university. I suggest that there ought to be some supervision of these Army medical cadets. The "general duties" cadetship which has now been introduced consequent upon the success of the medical cadetship scheme, does have this condition attached to it. I think this means that the Service organisations within the universities (and the military education committee established by Lord Haldane is still in existence to look after the interests of the Services) should also exercise a degree of supervision in regard to these cadets, to see that they become qualified as doctors or take their degree.
Any undergraduate going for a permanent commission or being persuaded into a permanent commission requires some nursing along. There is intense competition coming from other quarters. A senior officer can commit some most awful gaffes. I will give your Lordships an instance of what happened to one of our cadets who was applying for a permanent commission in the Army. He was interviewed by a senior officer who meant extremely well—his intentions could not have been better; but one of his early remarks, when he was interviewing the cadet and asking about his education, was this, "I suppose that's a day school?" A little later on, in the same interview (the youngster was applying for an infantry commission) these words were interjected: "You do realise, don't you, that some of your fellow officers will have private means?" I thought that this sort of thing had gone at least twenty years ago. One can hardly credit that it is still going on. I believe that the Army is the only one of the three Services in which this could have happened: it certainly would not have happened in one of the technical arms of the Army. And, in consequence, at least one potential

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Regular officer has been lost, and, as he talks to his fellow students, possibly more.
What the Services must remember is that there is a small proportion of suitable graduates coming out of the university with the qualifications and the talent for the Services. That group is precisely the same group for which industry is looking. All the big firms, I.C.I., Dunlop and others, go to the universities, interview the young men, talk to them, take them out. This is what the Services have to compete with; and the competition will become keener as time goes on. Now that the State grants cover most of the cost of university education, a prudent parent will advise his son to enter the university so that he may graduate and have behind him a qualification. Then if later he comes out of the Services at age 40 he will have his university qualification, and can be certain of a job.
In conclusion, my Lords, I would emphasise that one should not regard the universities solely from the point of view of providing candidates for Regular commissions. Officers for the Reserve are of almost equal importance. I would put on an equal basis the fact that in the university one has Service units which produce a proportion of graduates with an understanding and an appreciation of one of the Services. If the time of emergency comes and the Serviceman is in contact with the industrialist, with the civil servant or whoever it may be, there can be a meeting of minds. Much can be done for the welfare and the future of the Services by having a proportion of graduates with an understanding of, and indeed with a love for, one particular Service. I would conclude by assuring the Ministry of Defence that they can count on university co-operation. The universities are willing to consider any new proposals which are put forward to bring our methods up to date.
6.53 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF AILSA: My Lords, I, too, should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, for putting this Motion on the Order Paper. I am a serving Territorial Army officer, so I have a slight interest to declare in the matter. I am slightly disappointed by the fact that we have not yet had anything from the Government tending to
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scotch the reports which have been appearing in the Press concerning the future of the T.A. Until the review has taken place and an official pronouncement is made as to our future, we have to carry on. We are in being, and we have to carry on doing our duty. However, under present conditions I do not think we are getting the support from the top to which we are entitled. We have no lead, but must go on and keep our units going. I was also perturbed by the impression given by the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, as to our state of readiness. Certainly the impression given by our own generals and people above us is that it is a closer state than the impression which was given to-day by Lord Beswick.
THE MINISTER OF DEFENCE FOR THE ROYAL AIR FORCE (LORD SHACKLETON): My Lords, is the noble Lord talking about the state of readiness of the Territorial Army, or about the general state of readiness, the capacity to go immediately into action, or what?
THE MARQUESS OF AILSA: The question came up in connection with the T.A. Emergency Reserve. It was said that it would take a considerable time to get them ready to take part in B.A.O.R. reinforcements.
VISCOUNT MONTGOMERY OF ALAMEIN: My Lords, what happened was that the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, said that one could not take a T.A. Division and send it to fight in Europe without a long period of training. With that I would entirely agree.
THE MARQUESS OF AILSA: It is very difficult, because our own commanding generals have taken us to task when we put that sort of timing on it. They say, "You are wrong".
VISCOUNT MONTGOMERY OF ALAMEIN: I think the generals want a bit of talking to.
THE MARQUESS OF AILSA: If I may continue, I was very interested in what the noble and gallant Viscount had to say on the future of the Territorial Army. His suggestions would certainly be acceptable to the serving members. They would need careful application on the ground, but it is a necessary task which

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they can fulfil. I would also add that I have been informed that the phrase "Civil Defence" is now "non-U". It is now known as Home Defence. I have quite recently been taken to task several times on that matter.
I should like to refer to the subject of recruiting. Basically, of course, I am interested in the recruiting of Territorial personnel, but practically everything I am going to say applies also to other arms of the Forces. One cannot get away from the fact that recruiting has to be done "on the ground". It is the satisfied soldier who brings in another soldier. That is the way to get the men to sign on the dotted line. However, the battle starts a long time before that. It is difficult to find the right words, but I believe that one must impose the right image. There are men who wish to serve, and one must give them the feeling that they are going to do a job that needs to be done. We almost need an approach like the old Kitchener cartoon—"Your Country Needs You". If people see that a real job needs to be done, then they will come forward to do it. When a little time ago some Territorial forces were sent to help out in Aden, our recruiting figures jumped up—in fact the influence was felt the very next week.
Where we slip us is that the image of the Armed Forces generally is not properly portrayed at all levels. I do not say that the Armed Forces are not either well paid or well looked after, but unfortunately, they are looked on as something that is not quite "U". This point is hard to put into words, but really it boils down to the fact that one must whet the appetite, and whet it all the time. Then, when you get your satisfied soldier, he will tell the good news to his companions and will say, "Why don't you join us?", and then they will come along. If this sort of approach is not adopted, the man has the impression that he is just hanging about, with no proper job to do, and we shall not get anywhere. This is the problem. Then having got him, the difficulty is to keep him, and this sometimes may be the harder job of the two. Of course, where there is a good worth-while job to be done there is no problem. It is when the job ceases and the man has to hang about, or when he is over-used, due to lack of proper reserves,
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that he loses heart and interest and wants to go. If we want to keep the people coming in, it is all a matter of presenting the right image; and we must try to get the balance right.
A recent survey on the T.A. showed that the number who sign on again decreased to 40 per cent., and we cannot raise that figure. I have taken note of the reasons for this. Some of them do not want to stay because of difficulties with their wives or girl friends. Some from the T.A. forces go to the Regular Army, so there is in fact no actual loss there. But you find that a number go because it is not giving them what they expect; and this, again, applies right through the Service, and in any service.
There are slight improvements within the Territorial Army. I think we have become conditioned to having the Regular Army's cast-off equipment. One is used to that, and we fully understand the reasons why, because obviously they come first and we have to take second place; one accepts that. But there are these ridiculously silly little points, which drive you "up the wall". For instance, I have had to send about 100 men overseas and we were told to have them inoculated as per War Office Regulations. We were told to get a civilian doctor to do it; but then we were told, "No, you cannot pay that doctor." We have had a wonderful wireless issued to us; the power of the batteries is too great for the wireless. There is a little instrument which will reduce it to the right voltage, but now somebody is trying to decide whether it can be issued to the Territorial Army. These things are just maddening. Life could be a lot simpler; it does not have to be as tiresome as that.
My last point is about something which has gone on in the Regular Forces. One constantly hears of young men who, while on sentry "go", have shot and killed somebody who has failed to halt. From the publicity it always looks as if the poor man has been trying to do his job, has been trying to guard his post and has killed his attacker, but he is then accused of either manslaughter or murder. I feel very strongly about this, because I was very close to where one incident happened. The young man concerned challenged three oncoming people; they

935
did not stop; he fired and killed one, and was tried and found guilty of murder. The grounds for charging him with murder and not saying that he was doing his duty were that he was out of bounds at the time he challenged the person. If he had been in your Lordships' Chamber, he would in fact have been out below the Bar. That was the distance by which he was out of bounds. The people whom he challenged had no right to be where they were, and he still had every right to challenge them. We have seen one or two similar cases recently. I do not doubt that the findings were correct, but I think there should be better publicity if a soldier is in the wrong, to make it quite clear that everybody knows why he is in the wrong. Otherwise, the impression is given that the man was only doing his duty.
7.3 p.m.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, at the end of a very detailed, thoughtful and valuable debate, I should like first to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, and the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, on their maiden speeches. Lord Mottistone contributed an account of the origins and growth of the Territorial Army from its very early days; and, quite clearly, many Members of your Lordships' House feel some anxiety about the future of that Army. My noble friend Lord Ridley, on the same subject, managed to be extremely positive while still being uncontroversial, and that is no mean task to set oneself. I know that all noble Lords will be with me in wishing to hear them many times again.
The main subject matter of their speeches introduces the anxiety which, as I have said, is felt in many parts of the House as to the Territorial Army. Both of those noble Lords and others asked that if changes were to be made in the Territorial Army—no noble Lord to whom I listened suggested that it should be left exactly as it is—full consultation should take place. I think there is no doubt that in the closing words of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Beswick—and this is certainly the only slightly dubious thing I am going to say about his speech to-day; and I would not wound his feelings for anything—both my noble friend Lord Jellicoe and I, and, I
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gather, other noble Lords as well, were left with the impression, an impression which disturbed us considerably, that when this part of the Defence review was carried out, when this New Look at the Territorial Army was taken, decisions will be taken and presented to the Council as a fait accompli.
We may all have misheard the noble Lord, but I feel that as so many of us were of the same opinion I ought to say to him, and to the noble Lord who is going to wind up, that this would disturb us very much. What we should like to see is that, when this New Look has been taken, the conclusions will be shown to the Council and they will be given an opportunity of giving their opinions, and that whether or not those opinions carry the day their opinions will be taken seriously, and the Council will be taken into close consultation before an absolutely final decision is taken.
Having said that, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, for his informative and forthcoming speech. My noble friend sitting beside me on the Front Bench has particularly asked to be associated with that, and I gather that my noble friend Lord Selkirk also made the same point. I wish I could remember a speech in which I had given so much information from that Dispatch Box. I had expected the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, to speak victoriously about the agreement reached in Bonn yesterday, on support costs for the B.A.O.R. I had expected that "Diamond is the Forces best friend" would be the burden of his song, and it may well be the burden, or part of the burden, of the song of the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton. This would be reasonably appropriate, in view of the fact that the last time we faced each other across this Table I called him "a bird in a gilded cage". So in anticipation of what the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, may be saying, and the triumph he may be claiming, I think I should say in advance that I fancy the authorship of this agreement is not quite so clear as he may describe, or if he echoes the triumphant tones of the First Secretary—
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, it may help the noble Lord to know that I was not intending to refer to it at all, so I shall not be echoing any tones.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, I thought it was probably more than he could resist. Certainly the tones were very triumphant as reported in the Press to-day, but perhaps the noble Lord does not feel so enthusiastic.
We have covered an enormous amount of ground to-day, and I certainly shall not attempt to deal with more than a very few of the points which have been raised and to raise one or two of my own, not entirely at random but not necessarily connecting very neatly one with another. My former newspaperman's soul is always attracted by something immediately topical, and I hope noble Lords will not think I am giving undue importance to one item of equipment which has been in the news this week and which was mentioned in passing, among everything else he mentioned, by the noble Lord, Lord Beswick.
The Plessey Company is at present making an export drive, with a lively expectation of success, to sell the A.13 manpack radio station to the United States Army. From what I hear, the United States Government would be wise to buy it and United States infantrymen will be fortunate to be so equipped. This equipment was initially sponsored by the Ministry of Aviation and our own infantry are now receiving it, I believe, in increasing quantities. What will clearly attract the American Army is its suitability for jungle warfare; and it is serving in that capacity at the moment among our own troops. It is the first fully-transistorised H.F. manpack radio in full production anywhere in the world. The transmitter-receiver weighs 16 lb., and the batteries 3 lb. I mention that because I read this initially with some incredulity, casting my mind back to the sets which I had to use behind the enemy lines in the Balkans and in South-East Asia: the 19 set weighing a hundredweight and a half and the 62 set weighing nearly 82 lb. with its batteries. Indeed, my back aches when I recall the way Sergeant "Spider" Lawson and I lugged our station through the Indo-China jungle nearly twenty years ago, our language occasionally comparing with that used by your Lordships in discussing the Bill of my noble friend Lord Arran—but always, I may say, contrastingly, in a non-functional sense.
My Lords, in the fast-moving warfare of to-day, efficient communications are
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of the essence. Only if this efficiency is achieved can all the arms involved in a campaign act in smooth, swift unison. In the matter of equipment, Conservative Ministers set an effectively coherent pattern, and I will mention two examples, one of which has been retained by the present Government and the other of which has been, in our view most lamentably and disastrously, sacrificed.
It was recognised some years ago that the key to military success was battlefield mobility. To establish this, it was essential that all the elements of the Royal Armoured Corps, the Royal Artillery and infantry, forming the battle groups, should be equally mobile—that there should be no slowcoach to hold back the other elements. To this effect, the magnificent Chieftain tank was evolved, and the Abbot self-propelled gun was designed to match it in cross-country performance, together with the tracked armoured personnel carrier. In view of the fact that we in this House are always—or most of the time—polite to each other, I should like to say that when I went to war in Korea, despatched by the Labour Government in 1950, the tank in which we then went was, I think, the best tank in the world, and I am happy to think that, to-day, the Chieftain tank is probably the best tank of its weight possessed by any Army.
This "family" of vehicles that we now have could not operate successfully without supply vehicles of the same standard of performance. For this reason, the 5-ton high mobility load carrier, the Stalwart, was brought in, with other battlefield recovery and repair vehicles to ensure the fighting mobility needed on the battlefield. One of the things which the support vehicles have to bring up is food, and there is one very small question that I should like to ask, but to which I do not expect the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, to have an answer to-day. I understand that, in the important matter of food, in jungle warfare, for instance, experiments are being carried out—with the factors of nourishment and weight being taken into account. Since an Army, as we know, fights on its stomach, this is a very important element, and I should like to know from the noble Lord at some time how successful these experiments have been. I remember only too well the unrepeatable contempt of

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the British soldiers in Korea when they were presented with American "K" rations on which to fight, and they discovered that there was nothing in a "K" ration that you could eat without the plastic teaspoon provided with the pack.
To the best of my belief this principle of mobility and what goes with it has been accepted by the present Government, and those vehicles which I have described continue to reach the units requiring them. The assurance I should like from the noble Lord, Lord Shackle-ton, is that the supply of these vehicles has suffered no slowing down as a result of the Defence review. I hope—and I imagine that he can say—that there has been no slowing down and no cancellation.
I wish he could say the same, and I imagine that he also wishes he could say the same, of the advantages which we planned for the Royal Air Force. Here, the carefully thought-out coherency of V and STOL aircraft has been completely abandoned, without waiting for the Defence review. In fact, it is difficult to see what scope there is for the review when it comes to consider the needs of the Royal Air Force. Major and crippling decisions have been taken many months in advance of any findings. However, I shall have more to say on this in a moment or two.
I have said that, for the Army, mobility is of the essence. For the Air Force—and I think the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, will agree—it is mobility and dispersal. Airfields with a 2,000-yard or even a 3,000-yard runway are a liability to-day, and they will be even more of a liability as time goes on and our potential or actual enemies acquire ever more sophisticated weapons. If this is so, then the whole operational value of aircraft restricted to such airfields dwindles. Aircraft, if they are to survive on the ground, must be hidden away in small, precious packets. For this, a vertical or short take-off capability is essential. In recognition of this, we had designed a "family" of aircraft all possessing this vital capability.
This, my Lords, is the "lost generation" of aircraft without which our Forces will somehow have to survive until the mid-70s. We shall then have, presumably, the Anglo-French VG air
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craft, and no doubt when it arrives this will be very welcome. More or less in parenthesis, I should like to ask the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, what this aircraft will be intended to do. We have not yet been told. It looks at the moment like an extraordinary reversal of the normal process. The normal process, in my understanding, is, or has always been, to foresee, to calculate, a requirement and then to evolve a weapons system to meet that requirement. In this instance, the Government appear to have designed a cart in front of a still ethereal horse.
I am offering the noble Lord an opportunity to contradict me, for the good of his colleagues and for the general morale of the Forces. Until he does so, in the eyes of many people what appears to have happened is this. The Government's efforts, thwarted by General de Gaulle. to scupper the Concord project caused such embarrassment that something rather extravagant had to be done to save our face. This was not very difficult, since agreement had already been reached by the previous Government on the principle of Anglo-French cooperation in aircraft construction. We now have two projects of this nature—the Strike Trainer, the ECAT, in which by far the greater part of the work, I am told, will go to France: and the VG aircraft, for which a rôle will presumably be found later. Some months ago Ministers were referring disdainfully to the Concord as a "prestige" project, but at the moment a highly-sophisticated aircraft ten or twelve years beyond our sight without a rôle yet determined seems to me the very epitome of a "prestige" project in this narrow sense.
My Lords, we discussed the whole question of the TSR 2 comparison with the F 111A Mark II at great length in our debate some months ago, and I do not want to go into it again in great detail. But I must say that I was astounded at the time by one statement of the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, and, on re-reading it, I remain equally astounded. He said that the cancellation of the TSR 2 would make Anglo-French co-operation far easier. I forget his actual words, but I do not think I am unfairly paraphrasing him. This may be so, if he means that it will make it easier for the French industry to swallow what is

941
left of the British industry. We have contracted out of three projects in which we were leading the world and which, I suggest, would inevitably have obtained for us a major share of future work in cooperation with the French. Conversely, cancellation has left us with a minor part. If the noble Lord is able to contradict me convincingly, I, for one, shall be happier than I am at the moment.
I have two more questions to ask to-day about the F 111A, the answers to which the noble Lord will no doubt carry in his head. Ministers have stated that there were two main factors which persuaded, them so reluctantly to abandon the TSR 2 in favour of the unbuilt and unflown American embryo. One was the cost, and the other was the timing. But in their assessment of timing they spoke as if all was now bound to be for the best in the best of all Socialist worlds. But in some instances their efforts to save something from the massacre of an industry may, I feel, impede even the course they have set themselves. I am not trying to interfere with this. I am asking a question on it. They are going to try to introduce British components into this American airframe. When they try, I have no doubt that they will succeed. This is a situation we are bound to approve of, in so far as it represents some mitigation of the sentence passed on the 1,000 firms once working on the TSR 2 project. But will the noble Lord say to what extent it will affect the time scale, the bringing into operation of the F 111A? in this context, it seems to us remarkable that full use is not being made of the three prototype TSR 2s, which are there to be used. Noble Lords and their colleagues, when in Opposition, were voluble in their charges of waste; but here, it seems to me, is an instance of purely gratuitous waste.
Above all, we must be reassured—and I know that the noble Lord will be anxious to reassure us—that the F 111 will have, without any doubt, reconnaissance capabilities. But has he any more idea than last time of how this will be done? He made it sound easy on the last occasion when he said that it was "just a few black boxes". I am paraphasing him, but not, I think, unfairly. We should like to know to what extent the equipment which would have gone into the TSR 2 would be adaptable and would be adapted to the F 111. Those of us
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who have served in the Army were taught early in our indoctrination that "time spent in reconnaissance is seldom wasted". We have seen that, in the political and diplomatic context, the Prime Minister has little patience with this theory. This, I hope, does not mean that the Armed Forces will be deprived of this important element in a military sense.
I have in front of me a photostat copy of the Hansard of another place in which, in reply to a question from one of my honourable friends, the Secretary of State provided a kind of table of existing aircraft which were growing old and of the plans to replace them. It is rather depressing to read both the table headed "Date for Replacements by more advanced type" and the table headed "Remarks". I find, in fact, that of a column of 16 existing aircraft, some 14 are labelled either as "Not yet decided" or "No current plans for replacement" and one of the remaining two is labelled "Replacement type not yet decided". It hardly seems to me descriptive of dynamic Government.
The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, on the last occasion, felt it necessary to apologise for what he described as a lecture on air power. I saw, and see, no need for the apology for that lecture, either in itself or in its form, especially since he emphasised the absolute need for a replacement of the TSR 2, a rôle in which he was rather less convincingly satisfied by the F 111 Mark II. What we all find hard to understand is why this option has not been taken up so far. What are we waiting for? If the need is as clear to the noble Lord's colleagues as it is to him, then let us have an end to the present anxiety. If the Government feel certain enough to cancel a whole range of aircraft in advance of the Defence review, surely they can feel certain enough to confirm the aircraft to meet these inescapable requirements.
It is impossible at this juncture to omit any reference to a lecture delivered this very evening to the Royal Aeronautical Society by Mr. Richard Worcester. I do not think the noble Lord would have expected me to omit it. We have already had a foretaste in the Press of what it contains; and there will undoubtedly be a banquet in tomorrow's papers. I am speaking sincerely

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when I say that I think I ought to give the noble Lord the opportunity (which I hope will be given as much publicity as Mr. Worcester will receive) of contradicting the picture that it paints. A copy of his remarks must have reached the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, well before it reached me and he will be well aware of the explosive nature of the contents.
For reasons which everyone will understand, one is most reluctant to read Mr. Worcester's chronicle as gospel. If it were gospel, it would mean that the present Government had decided, four months before the Election and ten months before the cancellation of the TSR 2, that the HS 681, the P 1154 and the TSR 2 should be cancelled. Mr. Worcester attributes this directly to his own influence and, in fact, he speaks in the tones of a triumphant campaigner. He thinks, and here I quote, that:
"the reorientation of one of the biggest and most complex industries in a few months must rank as a feat without parallel in British legislative history."
It would be interesting to see whether "reorientation" is now to be introduced into the Government's language in this context. It was not in use in the previous debate; and some of us can find a pithier phrase, I do not doubt.
Mr. Worcester refers to a session in Westminster which he attended on June 20 last year with members of the Labour leadership. The "discussions by them"—and again I quote Mr. Worcester:
"were not so much around basic conclusions but on the manner of implementation, and the very rapid executive action which seemed to me essential. The report stressed that Ministers should act at the outset as they mean to continue by the exercise of drastic leadership …"
The basic conclusions were that this was the end of the road for all-British manned military aircraft. He described his work as "a labour of love superimposed on an everyday livelihood", and his policy as "relevant, articulate, comprehensive, durable, timely and consistent."
Now it is evident that his claims, until they are rebutted, place particular Ministers in a most invidious position. The particular leaders attending that session are not named; but it is stated, rather than implied, that the policy was adopted
944
by the future Government at that moment, in June last year. This would mean that all the tears shed by the Ministers over the cancellation of the TSR 2 were, in fact, crocodile tears. I should like to say, here and now, as the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, would expect me to say, that it is inconceivable to me that he could have been privy to such a discussion or decision and subsequently to have spoken as he did. It would never cross my mind that the two things could go together. But, without any question, a direct rebuttal of Mr. Worcester's claims is required, if the Government are ever to be believed again.
I find that what is presaged is even more serious than what has happened, so Mr. Worcester claims, as a result of his advise. If it is true that the present Government accept his view, then they accept "a total world U.S. military hegemony". If his "plan" is the Government's Bible, then the F 111, if bought, together with Phantoms, will fill the United Kingdom defence requirements until 1980; so that even the Anglo-French projects begin to look shaky. This anxiety is sharpened by the fact that in Mr. Worcester's news-sheet Aviation Studies last week he referred to ECAT as "a political exercise".
I am not ignoring the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, gave a very strong reassurance. He gave a powerful counter-assurance, and I certainly did not leave that out of account. I believe a direct rebuttal by the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, is called for. It will certainly be encouraging to be told that this particular adviser has not been cast as the principal author of the Defence review. We should prefer to be told that the Prime Minister's appetite for "Worcester with everything" is confined to the sauce bottle.
It was predictable that this Defence review, for which we must wait for a so-far-undeclared period, would be used as a kind of fire-proof curtain during this long intermezzo between ministerial decisions or at least their announcement. It is fair to ask the Government why, in fact, it need be quite so long. There is no particular mystique about a Defence review. The noble Lord is welcome to question this assertion if he sees fit. A Defence review is concerned with rôles.

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We know what the rôles are to-day, and we have known what they are likely to be, I think, for several years. So far as we understand, the present Government accept these rôles, judging from their own statements.
If a Government intends to cut expenses without cutting commitments, it can do so only by reducing manpower or accepting cheaper weapons. This would require the Armed Forces to meet the demands which they are meeting to-day with fewer men and less adequate weapons. I cannot see the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, making a demand of that kind of the Servicemen, but there have been some quite remarkable contradictions in ministerial utterances and policy publications over the past months. For example, we find the Labour Party Manifesto promising:
"Our stress will be on the strengthening of our conventional regular forces …"
Yet on March 3 we find Mr. Healey saying:
"… in the long run the surest way of achieving major reductions in our defence budget and then keeping the budget constant is to reduce the number of men and women in the forces, because then both manpower and equipment expenditure will fall proportionately."
He rammed home this argument by continuing:
"… it is no good simply closing various bases unless the men who serve in them are demobilised, because otherwise the overall defence expenditure will have to be increased in order to provide new accommodation and facilities for them somewhere else."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 707 (No. 69). col. 1342–3.]
The mathematics of the latter argument are unassailable, but they directly contradict the mathematics of the Manifesto.
The Government will say, as they have said before, that they made an important saving on the TSR 2. They have paraded the figures favourably for themselves, and no blame attaches to that; but the implication is that, whereas the costs of British aircraft in embryo escalate, the corresponding costs in American aircraft remain dependably constant and unexpanding. I do not believe that the comparable figures bear this out. A week ago the Secretary of State divulged, in answer to a question from one of my honourable friends, that the costs of the Phantom have gone up already since the order was placed; and the Phantom is a far simpler aeroplane than the F 111.
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The Secretary of State had earlier asserted about the F 111A in another place:
"There are firmer guarantees of the costs of this aircraft than we were able to obtain for the TSR 2."
He was, I hope—and on this I should like confirmation—referring to the F 111A Mark 2. This brings into play the elastic comparative, and there is a good deal of elastic in most ministerial statements to-day. Mr. Healey was very careful not to say that we have had a firm offer for the F 111A—only a firmer offer than for the TSR 2. How firm that offer turns out to be we shall one day know but obviously not to-day.
What strikes anyone, and what must strike noble Lords opposite just as forcibly as ourselves, is that the Americans are businessmen and the American aircraft industry is certainly no less businesslike than others. If, in this deal, they are making sonic sort of sacrifice, then it is a sacrifice with a purpose. As many have been swift to point out, that purpose may he the emasculation of the British aircraft industry. But one is bound to wonder how firm the price can he for an aircraft which, to the best of my knowledge, has not yet definitely been taken up in terms of firm orders, by the U.S. Air Force. The noble Lord will no doubt be able to tell me whether I am out of date in believing this. Has the F 111A Mark 2 in fact yet been funded in the United States?
The whole matter of the option—to opt or not to opt—is still hidden behind the fireproof curtain. Why is this necessary? Here again we have to pick our way between bewildering and contradictory statements from which I will not quote at this hour. I think that we all want to know what is different about this review. That is what we are waiting for. What will it provide that is not already known? It has been described as "searching"; it has been described as "far-reaching". One has the impression that what is promised is a kind of "bumper" review. It certainly seems to require a great deal of time to compile. But at the end of it all what shall we get; and, in particular, what shall we get that was not known before?
Throughout the past thirteen years, and before, Defence reviews have been prepared as a matter of course—continuous

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and comprehensive reviews. I have traced them through many ministerial speeches by Secretaries of State and Ministers of Defence, and from a number of White Papers. A great body of knowledge has been built up over the years, all of which was available to the Ministers of the new Government when they took office, and it is still available. I suppose that it will be added to by the present inquiries, but what would the noble Lord opposite suppose had changed so dramatically in the conditions of warfare between October 16 and March of this year when this new review was announced? To what extent and in what radical manner have the requirements facing this country changed?
It seems certain to me that when the conclusions of the Defence Ministers are finally drawn from this Review they will be drawn mainly from this great legacy of knowledge left to them by their predecessors. I will affirm here and now (the noble Lord who replies is welcome to contradict me in advance if he wishes) that the only way in which this review is likely to differ in character or in scope from its forerunners is in the volume and thrust and flamboyance of the publicity which it has been given. I think it will be rather hard to live up to that publicity.
It could be that I am wrong. Because there is a dread suspicion in the minds of many people in this country—it was referred to by my noble friend, Lord Jellicoe, but I make no apology for referring to it again: I am offering the noble Lord a target which I should be happy to see him demolish. The suspicion is that the terms of reference of this review differ, in fact, intrinsically from others. Up to date, the problems, of Defence have been concerned with taking the range of our commitments and seeing how best they could be met effectively at a cost endurable to the economy. What if the composers of this review were given a quite different task? What if they were given an arbitrary ceiling of expenditure and instructed to cut our commitments, or make proposals for cutting our commitments, to be accommodated under a lower ceiling?
It does not seem impossible that this is the approach: that the Armed Forces will, as an outcome of a constricting review, be required to bend, to crouch,
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to stoop into the more cramped dimensions of what the Ministers of to-day consider to be our national responsibility in the world at large. It would be a sad thing for many of us, for purely personal reasons, apart from anything else, to see the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, in six months' time—if he is still in his present office—doing a kind of Parliamentary limbo act, and contorting himself to pass under a lower bar than he would ever wish to negotiate, to the strains of a most unstimulating dirge, totally unrelated to those calypso rhymes more in keeping with his character.
I end with another remark about the review. As my noble friend Lord Jellicoe said, there may be barely time for the noble Lord to speak to us upon it, at least from that Dispatch Box. I am prepared to take more seriously than my noble friend the Prime Minister's plucky but nationally dispiriting determination to drag on into 1966. I can understand that after thirteen years in the wilderness it would look better on paper for his Party to have been able to stay in for more than thirteen months. But the Government have found themselves a new theme song which must be 'throbbing naggingly, not to say neurotically, through the minds of every individual Minister in the present Administration:
"For its a long, long while from May to December,
And the days grow short, when you reach September.
The autum weather turns the leaves to flame,
And I haven't got time for the waiting game."
7.40 p.m.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald, was in his usual brilliant form. At the end, I was not quite sure whether he was in order. I thought he was beginning to burst into song, but he was only intoning. Certainly his speech, to use a phrase of his own, had volume, thrust and flamboyance. I thought, indeed, that as a Party political performance it was rather more convincing than that of the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, who tries manfully to be a good Party man but never quite succeeds, whereas there never has been any doubt where the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald, is concerned.
I am not sure whether I shall be able to answer more than a few of the points

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made, because I am hoping not to take long, but the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, can be well satisfied with the range of this debate and, if I may say so, with his own contribution to it. The fact that in certain respects his speech, like those of many other noble Lords, was a damning indictment of the previous Government did not diminish the fact that he, unlike the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald, was anxious to discuss this whole difficult question in a non-partisan way. For my own part, though I can never entirely resist the temptation that the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald, puts in my way, I shall try to keep on that line.
The noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, was good enough to let us have in advance notice of a number of the points he was going to raise, and this enabled my noble friend Lord Beswick to answer most of them. But there are certain big issues that he raised and that have been very much the theme of to-day's debate. First of all, I should like to make a few remarks on the Defence review. Perhaps I may be forgiven for being slightly Party political here. The noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald, suggested that there was always either one Defence review or a series of Defence reviews going on. The fact is that practically no Minister in the previous Government remained in office long enough to complete a Defence review. They changed, if not monthly, at least nearly yearly.
I am sure that your Lordships accept that there is a need for a fundamental examination of our Defence expenditure. I would argue strongly that the object of this present study is to achieve a reduction in expenditure in a way, to use the words of the noble and gallant Viscount, Lord Montgomery of Alamein, that will increase efficiency. In other words, it is an attempt to give value for money. And I am sure that the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, as a former Defence Minister, will be bound to agree that there is always scope for greater efficiency and greater economy.
I do not propose to argue at length the case for reducing Defence expenditure to the level we hope to achieve in 1970. In the short run, it is exceedingly difficult to reduce Defence expenditure at all. Any Government are inevitably committed by their predecessors, as future Governments will be by the decision we make now. We
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are very conscious of the fact that we are not just legislating for the short term but in terms of long-term costings going forward for ten years. It is against this background that the review is being carried out.
I state again that we could not have allowed to continue the uneven and erratic curve we found in the long-term costings in the Defence field which we inherited, and the Government are determined to do this job thoroughly. This means that we must look at every aspect of Defence. The purpose of Defence is to serve the national interest, and it is in this context that a thorough examination is taking place. Frankly, if there was not such an urgency in making decisions, an examination of this kind ought to be spread over a long period. The techniques that exist to-day in the way of cost effectiveness studies, operational analysis and war games do not readily yield quick results, and if there is a criticism that could be made—and I offer this to the Opposition—it is that we are doing it too quickly. But it is necessary to take certain decisions.
After these preliminary remarks. I should like to turn to the question of recruiting. The noble Lords, Lord Thurlow and Lord Selkirk, particularly referred to the recruiting of officers. Clearly there is not time to go into this now and I might agree with the noble and gallant Viscount. Lord Montgomery of Alamein, on restricting the form of these debates. In future years, we may prefer to divide the subject so that we should not have to range from manpower to equipment. As a general comment, let me say that though there are certain shortages of officers in the Army, officer recruiting is coming along pretty well on the whole.
I think there is a good deal in what the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, said in relation to the R.A.F. There is a danger of being too restrictive in recruiting, but recruiting has reached such a fine art now that the figures of failures in training are going down all the time. The noble Earl will be aware that the number of failures in the training of air crews has been alarming, something over 50 per cent., but there is a steadily diminishing curve. Greater efforts are being made to get people through their training. I am inclined to think that in the past we have

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lost men unnecessarily, but all the Services have to maintain their high standards in officer material. But there is a range of options. They are not all men with several "A" levels and university graduates.
In connection with the recruiting of graduates, I think we were all impressed by the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Balerno. It is surprising the way geneticists seem to be good at operational questions. I remember during the last war there was an expert on the banana fly who was responsible for replanning our Supply and Maintenance in Coastal Command. The noble Lord will know whom I mean. I agree with him on the importance of recruiting graduates. I do not know whether he is aware how far this has gone, not only in the R.A.F. but even in the Army. The present Deputy Chief of the General Staff and I were both in the Oxford University Cavalry and to-day most of the Air Force Board are university graduates. This is not to suggest that the training that is obtained at the Defence colleges is other than first class, but there is a great deal to be said—and the Air Force certainly believe in it—for optimising (if I may be forgiven that word), for increasing, the number of recruits from graduates in the universities.
This leads me on to a point also mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Balerno, when he said that we needed a Haldane to-day to look at the Territorial Army. Of course, we have a Healey and a Mulley and a lot of people; and I would pay tribute to the ability of the Staff Officers in the Ministry of Defence who are taking the sort of look that in an earlier age would have been taken by some distinguished man like Lord Haldane. No one who knows Lord Haldane's work and the value of his achievements for the Army can do other than hope that we may obtain in this age the sort of advice that he was able to give.
But on this I think your Lordships' House is a little divided. On the one hand, there is the noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, who was sitting on the Cross-Benches, but I think perhaps was unable to stand the strain any longer of the slow slaughter, as he called it, of the Territorial Army—I am not sure if he would have preferred a quick slaughter—and those who see in the
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Territorial Army an instrument of such splendid quality, and of such social value, in the national sense, that we are not to consider even whether its rôle is suited to the present age. I think there is no difference between any of us as to the value of the Territorial Army or the importance of its contributions in the past. I put this value extremely high in non-military as well as in military fields. But, on the other hand, there are those like the noble and gallant Viscount, Lord Montgomery of Alamein, who recommend—and indeed the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, who, like the noble Viscount, had some interesting remarks to make about this—the reorganisation of our Reserves.
I agree with my noble friend Lord Beswick that the purpose of this debate is, as much as anything, to allow the Government to hear the views of those noble Lords who have wide experience in these fields. I can assure noble Lords who have spoken on this matter that this is not a subject that is considered at all lightly. It is clear that I cannot say what the answer will be; and it would be wrong to do so. Studies are going on. I might go so far as to say that I should be very surprised if there is not a continuing need for reserves of various kinds, and reserves of the volunteer kind—and reference has been made to the Territorial Army Emergency Reserve. I am sure your Lordships must accept—and I believe that the majority of your Lordships do—that we must take a very hard, cold look at this and arrive at a decision which is suited to the strategy which our advisers decide is the strategy that we must follow.
In this respect, it must be the responsibility of the Government. It is not for us to fob off to the Territorial Army Associations, admirable as they are, responsibilities which rightly rest on the Government of the day and for which the Government are responsible to Parliament. I can give a categorical assurance that there will be the fullest consultation that is possible and appropriate. I am not trying to dodge what the noble Lord Lord St. Oswald, said. Nobody in the Ministry of Defence can fail to be conscious of the value of these voluntary bodies and of the contribution that they can make. It is in the interests of everybody, if we are confronted with difficult

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decisions—and I repeat that decisions have not been taken in this matter—that we carry the country along with us.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, I am sure I am right in taking this to mean that full consultation will take place before the decision has actually been arrived at, so that it can be fed into the deliberations of Ministers in making their decision.
LORD SHACKLETON: I do not know that that is inconsistent with what I said. I think we are getting on to dangerous semantic ground, because there are a number of decisions involved. The decision as to the rôle of our Armed Forces, whether it be the Navy, Army, Air Force or the Territorial Army, must be taken by the Government on the basis of the advice which they receive, and as a result of the studies. Clearly, the rôle and purpose of our Armed Forces must be decided by the Government. I think I have gone as far as I can, though I would say that the Government are anxious to achieve the maximum consultation that is consistent with recognising that they must carry out their responsibilities.
Here, of course, there are certain important questions which can really only be decided by those who are responsible for establishing our strategy. On the question of increasing the number of pre-Proclamation reserves, and that of the rôle of the post-Proclamation reserves, I do not doubt that there are a lot of able officers, including Regular officers in the Territorial Army, who are in a position to give advice on this, and I should be surprised if the Army Board are not directly receiving that advice from those who are most concerned. I do not want to detain your Lordships for too long, but I wanted to deal with this particular point as fully as possible, recognising, none the less, that I am unable to say more than I have said.
I was interested in the speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone—and we are glad that, with his experience, he decided to join in the debate and the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley. I think the noble Viscount kept well within the rules of non-controversy, although he did make one remark which rather surprised me. He referred to the recommendations of the Bow Group, which he said the present Government would be less likely
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to listen to. I always thought it was the last Government who were unwilling to listen to the Bow Group. I should have thought that, on the whole, the Bow Group is more appreciated in the Labour Party, as a sort of pale Fabian Society, than in the Conservative Party. None the less, we were interested to hear what the noble Viscount said.
There has been a number of distinguished ex-officers who have spoken—the noble Marquess, Lord Ailsa, the noble Earl, Lord Cromartie, and others—who all gave us the benefit of their advice. This will be noted. I should like to say, again, to the noble and gallant Viscount, Lord Montgomery of Alamein, how sorry I am that, owing to a sudden urgent meeting, I did not hear the whole of his speech. But, as he knows, his views have already been taken into account; and it was most valuable to have them to-day.
I should like now to turn to the question of equipment, and I am afraid that here I shall certainly fail to deal with most of the points made. The noble Lord, Lord Suffield, brought us back on to a very practical level by talking about the difficulty of crawling over the ground with an eight inch torch strapped on to your thigh. There are a number of points here in regard to equipment, some of which have a direct relevance to the Defence review. The noble Lord, Lord Balerno, made some reference to the question as to whether the Services ought to be overstretched in peace time. I agree very much with the noble Lord that there is a danger of overstretching, and this is reflected, and has been reflected in recent years, by certain short-falls and failures in equipment. If we could achieve major economies (I know this sounds rather like looking for the philosopher's stone) so that for those particular rôles that are essential we could approve the equipment—and not only the major but the minor equipment—and could have a little bit of reserve in our hands, then it would be easier to mop up some of these problems, to which there seems to be no solution other than the general feeling of hopelessness in the Army and Air Force that they will never get some small piece of modern equipment or even improved uniforms—and it is not only the Territorial Army whose uniform needs to be

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improved. If any noble Lords have seen the tropical dress of some of the Services, the old fashioned drill, they will know that there is need for improvement there also.
I was, of course, interested in what the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald, had to say about the Chieftain. His own distinguished and gallant career in Centurions in Korea—and I know a great deal about the career of the noble Lord, as he knows—lends authority to his support for some of the modern weapons coming along. The Chieftain and Stalwart are weapons I agree with those noble Lords who have paid tribute to them—of the very first quality.
I should like to refer briefly (because my noble friend Lord Haire of White-abbey, who is an old friend of mine from Coastal Command days, referred to it) to this obsolescent joke about the obsolescent Shackleton. It has been going on a very long time, and I can hardly wait for the name of the Shackleton replacement, whatever it may be. But I assure the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, that the studies and the preliminary work on the Comet are going ahead, and that the companies have sufficient authority, so there is no hold-up at all. The Comet will, of course, be coming in just, and only just, within the time scale we want, because the previous Government had some difficulty in deciding which particular aircraft they wanted—and I make no reflection on that.
My noble friend Lord Haire of White-abbey also referred to the Joint Antisubmarine School at Londonderry. It is an institution which has certainly played a decisive part in our history, and I am sure the noble Earl, Lord Glasgow, will remember it when it was at Maydown. I remember that I helped to supply Naval intelligence to it through the R.A.F., because the Navy seemed unable to get it to them, although it was a predominantly Naval station. I cannot give the noble Lord any assurance beyond the fact that what he has said will be taken very fully into account. I can assure him that there are no proposals to reduce the size of the R.A.F. in Northern Ireland. Whatever may happen at Londonderry, the R.A.F. at Ballykelly is likely to continue to be fully used for years. If a decision is to be taken, it will not be taken purely,
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as has been suggested, on grounds of cost, but on the operational needs. I will not go into the details now, but there are factors with regard to deployment which point in the direction of a possible move. As I say, no decision has been taken and all these matters will be taken into account. Incidentally, I was also asked by the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald, when talking about the Abbott and the Chieftain, whether their progress had been affected by the Defence review or held up in any way. I assure him that the answer is, "Definitely not", and that this particular development is going ahead.
There were other points on nuclear propulsion, and other matters, which I have not time to go into now, but I think I must have yet another "go" at this subject of debate and discussion which we have already flogged pretty thoroughly—namely, the new aircraft types and equipment for the Royal Air Force. Let me say straight away to those noble Lords who go around saying that we should be denigrating the British, that when we were in Opposition I know we criticised the Government, and they always said that we were unpatriotic. I do not accuse noble Lords opposite of being unpatriotic, although I cannot regard some of their remarks as entirely helpful to the British national interest. Nevertheless, it is fair that they should make criticisms. But let us kill once and for all the idea that the British aircraft industry has been destroyed. We have had the word "murdered" from them. The noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, talked about the "murdered" P 1154. If I may say so, it was hardly conceived. It certainly had not been born, and although there may be some theological arguments involved in this matter, I can tell him (and I think another noble Lord referred to the fact that the research and development had been completed) that it had hardly begun. There is a further point that the P 1154 was not going to arrive in time. The noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald, spoke about this smooth, happy, family arriving on a basis of planning. I can only say the previous Government's family planning had got very badly out of place. The P 1154 would not have come in in time for us to replace the last of the Hunters—the poor old Hunters—before 1975.

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This particular problem has been solved by a decision to order the Phantom and the P 1127. I ask noble Lords opposite to accept that these are decisions--and it is not for me to interpret the views of the R.A.F. or the staff in this matter—which, I am absolutely convinced, are the right ones. It is a sad thing to see certain projects killed, but I am quite sure that the last Government, if by some misfortune they had continued in office. would themselves have had to undertake some of these cancellations.
There were a number of interesting points made by the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, and the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, as well as the two noble Lords who spoke from the Front Bench opposite, about the development of these aircraft—the problem, in particular, of putting British equipment into American aircraft. This is not a simple thing, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, appreciates. There are complications, and there is a possibility of a certain increase in cost if it is carried too far. But the test that is being applied is that this equipment must meet the time-scale, and must be broadly competitive in cost. This seems to me to be absolutely right. At the same time, I think we are more hopeful that quite a lot of British equipment is going into these aircraft, both the Phantom and the C 130.
I think that deals, so far as I have the time to do so, with the points that were made by the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, on this matter. On the question of the F 111 and what these aircraft are to replace—and here I refer also to the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk—we have now a new family of aircraft, ones that are arriving with much better prospects at the time they were expected. There were certain points that the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, asked as to which aircraft matched which. He asked—I thought it had a sentimental ring about it—what was replacing the Valetta. I am surprised that he did not ask what was replacing the Anson, because there are still Ansons flying in the Air Force to-day. Here, of course, in the transport field we are not only making replacements, but are doing something which I think is more important and which I must freely admit was planned by the previous Government. We are greatly
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increasing the capacity of Transport Command. There is no doubt that the mobility of the Air Force and, therefore, of the Army—and this is what is so important—is going to be increased by these new aircraft, the VC 10, the Belfast, the Andover and the C 130. Having recently done a fourteen hour flight in a C 130 through Arctic Canada, I can speak most enthusiastically about an aircraft which seemed to be able to hop down in the middle of the narrowest of strips and which had one great quality of American aircraft: it had what I believe they call "shirt-sleeve comfort" on the flight deck. I am quite sure this combination of aircraft will meet our needs.
THE EARL or SELKIRK: My Lords, may I just get this clear? The number of transport aircraft is positively being increased? This was not clear from the document from which I quoted.
LORD SHACKLETON: The capacity of Transport Command is being increased, although I think probably the number is being decreased.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, the noble Lord has not said what is replacing the Valetta.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, in a sense the Valetta is like the DC 3. The Andover is the nearest equivalent to it. The Valetta is slightly larger, but its range is no greater, and it will be a different mixture of aircraft which will in fact fulfil these particular rôles. The C 130 in the tactical rôle will be an important addition to our forces.
The noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, also asked me a question about Mr. McNamara's Common Defence Market. It is early days for me to make—or indeed for the Government to make—any very firm assessment of this initiative, beyond saying that we welcome it very much, and I should like to make clear to the House that we are taking seriously the suggestions which have emanated from the United States of America and many of which have been fully canvassed in the Press lately. Where in the past there has been a certain lack of success—and again I am being non-partisan and I am not trying to blame the previous Government—we hope the new initiative will provide us with opportunities for a more

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equal relationship than has existed hitherto.
The problem of collaborating "R" and "D", to which the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, referred, is a complicated one, but there are certain advantages in the fall-out of technical knowledge. In the last resort, of course, it must pay off, and particularly careful consideration is being given to this matter, which falls across the board responsibilities in the Ministry of Defence into my province.
I may not have answered all the points. I am quite sure I did not answer everything that the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, asked. He asked whether we proposed to increase the number of helicopters. The answer is, "Yes". He asked how we were progressing with buying the F 111. We are not ready to order it, but the intention is that when the Defence review is complete—and this is not intended to be an alibi—there are certain decisions which can be taken and there are certain ones which can be settled, but important studies are going on at the moment into the use and deployment of air power. There are issues affecting both land-based and sea-based aircraft which clearly have to be thrashed out properly, and while I have made my own position clear with regard to the F 111 I think it is only right and prudent to wait until the review, which is being pressed forward as fast as possible, is completed.
I was asked by the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald, to confirm whether the decision to cancel the TSR 2 was taken before the present Government came into office. Apart from my own objections to following a course which I can only describe as one of hubris, I can only repeat that the decision to cancel the TSR 2 was taken at the beginning of April. It was not taken before. A number of people had views, but the final decision was taken at that date, and I do not think it would help us forward if I were to comment on some of the quotations made by the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald. He gave them with such vigour that at one time I was not sure whether Mr. Worcester's views were not his own. I had difficulty in interpreting what were the views of that gentleman and what were Lord St. Oswald's views.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, since the noble Lord does know me as well as
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he said earlier that he did, he must know that the views were not mine.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I have always thought that the noble Lord was a man of infinite flexibility, but not quite as flexible as that.
I will not detain your Lordships any longer. I am sorry to have gone as far as I have and to have dealt with so few points.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I wonder whether I could interrupt the noble Lord just before he concludes his remarks. He has been very patient and it is getting late, but there is one question in particular to which I was anxious to obtain an answer because I thought probably he could give an answer that was reassuring. I referred to the rumours that the mounting cost of the Phantom programme might lead to a drastic reduction in the number of Phantoms which it was contemplated were to be purchased for the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy, and I wonder whether he is able to scotch those rumours.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I do not think we ought even to accept that the costs are mounting so excessively at the moment. Certainly there are difficulties in producing compatible aircraft to go on land and on carriers. No one knows that better than the noble Earl. I have not had an opportunity of taking advice on this point, but personally I do not foresee any increase in cost of a kind which will affect the numbers ultimately to be decided upon by the Defence review.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I am glad to hear that, because I was quoting the actual words of the noble Lord's colleague, the Minister of Aviation, who referred' to the considerable difficulty associated with the time-scale and cost of this project.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, there are considerable difficulties, but not such as seriously to affect its viability or its prospects. I should be perfectly prepared to consider this further and try to give the noble Earl a more detailed answer. At this stage we are only coming up to the point of signing the implementing arrangements, and the final numbers are yet to be decided. The nature of the arrangement that we have negotiated

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with the United States of America provides a large measure of protection, and we shall have to look carefully at the cost of any British equivalent if we are not to end up with the worst of both worlds. I think I have taken Lord Jellicoe's point as far as I can on this matter.
I should like to end on one final point, referring to the remarks made by the noble and gallant Earl, Lord Glasgow, who asked how we could give confidence to young men who wanted to join the Services. This is a problem which has confronted every Government. It is one which certainly does not exist at the present moment but existed very much between the wars and before the First World War. There have been times when I think this country has failed to appreciate the value of the contribution of the men who come into our Armed Forces. I can only say that I and my colleagues in the Ministry of Defence and the Government recognise the high importance of the work that is done.
Of course every organisation at one time or another is liable to be at risk in the light of technological change and we cannot insulate the Services wholly from this, any more than any other aspect of national life. From what I have seen since I became Minister of Defence for the Royal Air Force, there is a first-class career and it is attracting first-rate men, and I am sure this is true of the other Services. There are certain problems. But I hope noble Lords will play their own part, as I am sure they will, in pointing to the value of the work of the Services and the value to the individual of a career which so many people have found rewarding, and I believe will find rewarding in the future.
LORD THURLOW: My Lords, it only remains for me to thank the noble Lord. Lord Beswick, and the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, for taking a lot of trouble to look up the answers to lots of "nuts and bolts" we have flung at them from all sides of the House. I hope they will get some value out of this debate, which I have certainly enjoyed. I should like to thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate and add my congratulations to those already given to the noble Lords, Lord Mottistone, and my noble friend Lord Ridley on their maiden
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speeches. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

VIETNAM
8.22 p.m.
LORD BROCKWAY LORD BROCKWAY rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what action has been taken to initiate negotiations to end the war in Vietnam. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I rise to put the Question which is on the Order Paper in my name. I regret that at this comparatively late hour I am initiating another debate. The House has for a considerable period been discussing the subject of Defence. We are now passing to a subject very closely related to peace; and peace in the world will determine whether that Defence will be necessary. I think all Members of this House will hope that we shall move towards increasing security of peace so that the preparations for Defence will never be called upon.
In any approach to the problem of Vietnam I must begin by referring to the Geneva Conference eleven years ago. That Conference was concentrated on the problem of Indo-China, including Vietnam, but it also became a great occasion for peace in the world. Already in this House I have paid my tribute to the influence which the noble Earl, Lord Avon, contributed as a Chairman of that Conference. We were then full of hope; we spoke of the spirit of Geneva as promising peace to the world. It is a little tragic that the subject of Indo-China, to which we believed the Geneva Conference had contributed a settlement, should now be not only a problem in itself but a danger to the peace of the world. There has been that complete reversal in cause and effect since the Geneva Conference of eleven years ago.
The agreement which was reached at Geneva was accepted by the United Kingdom, by Russia, by China and by nine other Governments, by 12 of the 14 Powers whose representatives met there. It was not accepted by the Government of the United States of America or the Government of Saigon. I think I can fairly summarise the decisions of the Geneva Conference in this way: first, Vietnam was recognised as a sovereign

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state; the military demarcation line on the Seventeenth Parallel was not to constitute a political boundary, and the establishment of a Government for a reunified Vietnam was to be permitted by a general election, under international supervision in July, 1956; that was, two years later. Secondly, there were to be no military bases in Vietnam, and no military alliances with other countries, and the prohibition of the introduction of foreign troops or war materials.
Those two principles are still to-day the principles on which the problem of Vietnam must be settled. We should take very great hope from the fact that this is now recognised by all the Governments and all the parties which are involved in the war in Vietnam. It is accepted not only by the Government of North Vietnam, by the National Liberation Front, the Viet Cong in South Vietnam: it is accepted by China; it is accepted by Russia. A further development, of great promise, is that although the Government of the United States declined to accept the principle eleven years ago, that Government also now accepts these conditions for a political settlement. President Johnson on March 25 used these words:
"We seek no more than a return to the essentials of the agreements of 1954, a reliable arrangement guaranteeing the independence and security of all in South-East Asia".
Therefore, looking at the problem of peace in Vietnam, we can now begin with at least the hope that all the Governments and parties concerned accept the agreement that was reached at Geneva.
U Thant, the Secretary-General of the United Nations on April 15 indicated the promise that was in this fact. He used these words:
"There appears to be a consensus at least on the need to return to the essentials of the 1954 Geneva Agreement. President Johnson on March 25 stated his willingness, and Premier Pham Van Dong"—
that is the Prime Minister of North Vietnam—
"indicated on April 14 that his Government would be in favour of this procedure."
U Thant said:
"I think this is a clue to the settlement of the Vietnam problem."
It is a sad thing that U Thant, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, is not now able to contribute to peace, as we should all desire, because China has
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been excluded from the United Nations. If China were in the United Nations, and if the agreement at Geneva had been carried out from 1954 onwards, there would be no war in Vietnam now.
My Question, however, is directed mainly to our own Government, and I should like to emphasise that they, too, have laid down terms for a political settlement which holds out the possibility of agreement. I do not think that the words of our Foreign Secretary, Mr. Michael Stewart in another place on June 3, which were repeated at the Oxford University "teach-in", have received sufficient notice, either in this country or from the Governments involved in the conflict in Vietnam. I will read what he said:
"There is no reason, in common sense or in humanity, why the following sequence of events should not occur. First, a conference under whatever auspices can be agreed; a cease-fire could either precede such a conference or be achieved at the conference. Next, a settlement which would assure South Vietnam against any form of aggression. Once so assured, South Vietnam would be a country in which there were no foreign troops or bases, and which was tied to no military alliance. Her citizens would then have the opportunity to repair the ravages of war and to determine, freely and in peace, their form of Government.
"The future relationship between North and South Vietnam should be a matter for free decisions by the peoples of both countries."—[OFFICIAL REPORT (Commons), Vol. 713 (No. 129) col. 1967, Thursday. June 3, 1965.]
I wish those words could reach all the Governments concerned. It seems to me that that declaration of intention for a settlement would lead to a solution of that problem which would be just to the people of Vietnam and would bring the promise of peace.
Why is it, when there is all this basis of agreement, that agreement is not reached? It is held up by some obstruction on both sides, both on the American side and on the Chinese and North Vietnam side. The obstruction on the American side is, first, the insistence on the independence of South Vietnam. The President is stated to have made an offer of unconditional discussions. One has only to look at his declaration on that occasion to see that he insisted that the independence of South Vietnam must be maintained.
My Lords, in my view, this problem is, nevertheless, negotiable. Both the Government of North Vietnam and the

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National Liberation Front in South Vietnam have said that for a considerable period they are prepared to accept two Governments for North and South Vietnam during the period of re-settlement, during a period of reconciliation; and various terms, varying from five to twelve years, have been suggested as appropriate for that period. Our Foreign Secretary has indicated that after a period those two peoples should be allowed freely to decide their relationship. The Geneva Agreement laid down that within two years from the Agreement they should have that opportunity; it insisted that South and North Vietnam are one nation. If the American Government stands by its view that there can be no settlement unless the independence of South Vietnam is maintained, despite what President Johnson has said, it is not keeping to the essentials of the Geneva Agreement.
The second obstruction which the American Government is putting in the way of negotiations is that it is not prepared to negotiate with the National Liberation Front, which it has termed "Viet Cong". It has indicated—and I want to pay tribute to the influence which I am sure our Government have exerted in bringing it to this position—that if there were members of a delegation of the North Vietnamese Government, then they would accept them. I am quite sure, however, that the National Liberation Front will ask that their representatives shall be directly in any discussions. They now control two-thirds of the territory of South Vietnam. I doubt whether anyone with knowledge of that territory would deny that they are more representative than the series of Governments which we have had in Saigon.
Whether that is an accurate picture of South Vietnam or not, it is unrealistic to think that it is possible to have any solution of the problem in Vietnam without negotiating directly with the representatives of the National Liberation Front. There are precedents which will be in our minds. A number of Members of this House are old enough, as I am, to have been engaged in political activities at the time of the Sinn Fein revolution in Ireland. Mr. Lloyd George had to negotiate with General Collins. It is true that General Collins was not a direct representative of the Sinn Fein Move-
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ment, but he spoke for them; he acted for them. There would have been no solution of that problem unless Mr. Lloyd George had negotiated with one of the leaders of those who were then termed "rebels".
But there is a much closer precedent, the case of General de Gaulle and Algeria. There would have been no solution to the problem in Algeria if General de Gaulle had not agreed to negotiate with the representatives of the F.L.N. I appreciate that when I am urging this upon America I do not have to convert our own Government. I believe that it is clear now that they understand the necessity to negotiate with the National Liberation Front.
Those are the two obstacles by America to peaceful negotiation. There are also obstacles on the side of China, North Vietnam and the National Liberation Front. They are asking, first, that there shall be a complete withdrawal of the United States forces from Vietnam territory. They may ask for that on the basis of the Geneva Agreement, but again I do not think that it is immediately realistic. I believe that they have the right to ask that bombing shall cease upon North Vietnam—and here, too, I do not think that I have to urge this upon our Government. If my information is correct, the Government, as a result of discussions with the African and Caribbean representatives of the Commonwealth Mission, have themselves urged this course upon America.
I should like to see that proposal go a little further, in order to secure the psychological conditions under which a cease-fire could take place. I think that it would be reasonable to ask, as a condition of the cease-fire, that American jets and the American warships which have been firing from the coast should be withdrawn from North Vietnam territory and waters. From the point of view of military preparations it would not be a very great demand to make, but it would have a very considerable effect on the psychology and preparation towards a cease-fire. If a cease-fire could be obtained by a change of psychology through actions of that kind, one could make as an essential part of that ceasefire a condition that North Vietnam, should stop its aid to the National Liberation Front in South Vietnam. I very

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much hope that the British Government not only will continue to press America, as it has done, in the case of the bombing of North Vietnam, but will extend that proposal in order to prepare the conditions for a cease-fire.
The second reason why China, North Vietnam and the National Liberation Front are not prepared to enter into negotiations immediately is that they are in a strong military position and are likely to become in a stronger military position. It is the period of the monsoon in Vietnam, when the advantages will all be with guerrilla fighting. I think all of us would wish to reject the view that peace should be postponed because of military advantages of that character. But we must be fair. If North Vietnam and the National Liberation Front are now tending to resist negotiations, one must remember that it was only a few months ago when the American Government commenced its bombing of North Vietnam and equally resisted negotiations at that period. The American Government took the view then that the Vietnamese must be brought to agree to negotiations as a result of the effects of American bombing of North Vietnam.
I should like to make an appeal to China, to North Vietnam and to the National Liberation Front, as I would make an appeal to the American Government. There can be no military solution of the problem in Vietnam. The guerrillas of North Vietnam may advance during the period of the monsoon, but American prestige is at stake. America has made it clear that she will be prepared, if necessary, to continue that war for five years, pouring in her ground troops to meet the guerrillas. At the end of all that, there will be destruction, devastation and the bitterness upon which no future of Vietnam can be built. To that appeal I add this rational argument: why continue the fighting for one day if peace is now possible on the basis of the Geneva Agreement, which all the Governments and parties have accepted, and on the basis of the British proposals, which would give North Vietnam and the National Liberation Front the opportunity to reunify after a period of resettlement, which they themselves are prepared to accept?
It is necessary to refer to the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Mission of Peace. I welcomed it. It was a great imaginative idea. It has changed the whole political picture, so that we are now thinking in terms of ways of finding peace in Vietnam. But I should not be honest with myself if I did not say that I think that the Mission has been gravely prejudiced by the support which the British Government have given to the United States in the past, and by the fact that Australian troops are there, though I am glad that the Prime Minister of New Zealand has postponed the sending of troops in order to give the Mission an opportunity. I must say, quite frankly, that many of us have been disturbed to the depths by the support which the British Government have been giving to the United States throughout all this period. It has apparently been based on the view that North Vietnam has been guilty of aggression on South Vietnam.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: They have.
LORD BROCKWAY: But the Geneva Agreement recognised the unity of North Vietnam and South Vietnam. It was the United States Government which, after refusing to accept that Agreement, by the presence of its military commission in South Vietnam and other acts, sabotaged over the years the hope of the union of North and South Vietnam. Furthermore, the Government of Saigon has not a shred of representative or democratic authority. It changes nearly every month. It is a Government of intriguing generals, a Government of their hangers-on, a Government of rich barons of the land who have grown wealthy by the exploitation of the peasants of Vietnam, a Government which has never been elected, a Government which is changed overnight by palace intrigues. How can you possibly say that the aggression is being committed against another Government which we should recognise when no one who knows South Vietnam doubts now that the National Liberation Front has far greater support among the people than this little clique which jumps into office in Saigon?
Having said that—and I should not have been true to my own conscience if I had not said it; and it is not just I who feel these things, for the Government know how deep and wide the feeling is

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throughout the whole of our Labour movement—I want to welcome the Prime Minister's statement that the Commonwealth Peace Mission will be unaligned and that, as Chairman, he would act in that unaligned capacity. The newspapers this afternoon take a pessimistic view regarding the future of the Mission. I do not think that it should be written off. There are already illustrations of its success in influencing the American Government. The phrase "urging military restraint" undoubtedly means that bombing of North Vietnam should cease. The phrase "discussion with all parties" indicates that our Government are in favour of negotiations with the National Liberation Front.
I should just like to ask the Minister whether he could give us the latest information regarding the attitude of North Vietnam, the National Liberation Front and Russia. I do not take the view, whatever they may be saying at the moment, that as time passes it may not be possible to get their readiness to consult with the Commonwealth Mission. I want to make four suggestions which perhaps would help towards that. I should like to see the British Government demonstrating their desire to act as an impartial mediator by the withdrawal of the British police who have been placed at the disposal of the Saigon Government. I should also like to see the British Government end the training of Saigon troops by British officers in Malaya.
Thirdly, I should like to suggest that as the Commonwealth Mission begins its work it should use its members in those countries, and with those Governments, where they would be most influential. Mr. Harold Wilson would obviously be of influence with America. Dr. Eric Williams, the Prime Minister of a Caribbean country, would also be of influence with America. Dr. Nkrumah and the Prime Minister of Nigeria would be of influence with North Vietnam and with China and with the National Liberation Front. I appreciate that they are one Mission and that they must act together, but I quite seriously make the suggestion that in the initial stages members of that Mission should approach those Governments who are most likely to respond to their appeal. The fourth suggestion I want to make is this. Why does our
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Government not recognise the Government in North Vietnam? We recognise these utterly unrepresentative Governments which jump up and down in Saigon. The Government in North Vietnam is a de facto Government of stability, and to give some recognition to it would greatly help us in an approach.
I apologise to the House for raising a further point, hut this subject is serious and I just want to end by asking our Government to give support to other approaches to peace which may be made. Owing to the lamentable events in Algiers, the Afro-Asian Conference has been postponed until November. China, North Vietnam and the National Liberation Front would have been represented there, and it would have been a great opportunity for the non-aligned nations to negotiate with them. It will be meeting on November 5, but I hope that steps towards peace by the non-aligned Governments will not be postponed until that date. Indeed, I think one can say positively that they will be taking place, and I hope our Government will give them support.
The other possibility of peace is one which I believe will in the next few weeks, and certainly in the next few months, become more and more important. I am increasingly doubtful whether America, with all its military power, will be able to maintain in Saigon the unrepresentative Governments which are being selected and rejected almost week by week. Dr. Quoit, who was the last Prime Minister of the Government of Saigon, was dismissed because he was in favour of negotiations for peace with the National Liberation Front; he wanted to go to the Afro-Asian Conference. As soon as those views were known, Dr. Quoit was out of the Government. There will be other Dr. Quoits. He may return. We shall find before long in South Vietnam that America will be unable to maintain those entirely artificial Governments which we recognise and which now speak for South Vietnam, but which have no representative authority at all. In the end it may well be the Vietnamese people themselves who will make peace in Vietnam, and that may be the best peace. I hope that as then situations develop our Government will

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be prepared to take action independent of America.
We are at the crossroads. We are reaching the decisive point. Either there is to be peace and a settlement in Vietnam, or America will proceed with the intensification not only of its bombing, not only of its modern weapons and its napalm, but with the extension of its ground forces—70,000 now, 90,000 by August, mounting and mounting and mounting. As that situation develops, does anyone in this House believe that we are going to avoid world war as a result?
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Yes.
LORD BROCKWAY: I do not think those who say "Yes" have a real reading of the situation. I think, inevitably, that if that situation develops China will become involved and Russia will become involved. I shall not put it higher than this: there will be very great danger of war, and my appeal to the Government is to follow up the initiative they have taken, by devoting every influence and every activity towards a solution of the Vietnam problem, not only for the Vietnamese but for the peace of the world.
8.57 p.m.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, many of your Lordships have known the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, for as long as forty or even forty-five years in another place and here. We have always respected and liked the noble Lord as a man of great kindness and good will, and we all realise that his desire for peace is both deep and sincere. I was so glad that the noble Lord in the speech which he has just made quoted part of the most admirable address by the Foreign Secretary, Mr. Stewart, at Oxford a week or two ago, in which Mr. Stewart rightly said that there was no reason in common sense why the 1954 Geneva Agreement should not be carried out, and why peace should not be immediately restored and established to-morrow.
If the noble Lord had gone on to quote some more of the speech of Mr. Stewart, which I wish he had done, he would have been able to show your Lordships, as the Foreign Secretary said, that there is one reason—not a reason of common
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sense but, unfortunately, an active reason—why this thing cannot happen which we all desire to happen; and that is the inexorable determination of Chinese and Asiatic Communism, by ruthless aggression and terrorism, to conquer and destroy liberty not only in South Vietnam but in the whole of South-East Asia. That is the problem which we, and I hope the Government, should be considering in relation to this matter. The noble Lord is fully entitled to express his opinions. I am also entitled to express mine; and the great respect which I have for him personally I cannot equally extend to that body of opinion in this country with some of whose views, although I hope not with all, the noble Lord sometimes appears to agree—if, indeed, the phrase "body of opinion" can be applied to such an amorphous, flabby, moist mess of gullibility.
We have been accustomed to it for so long in this country now—thirty or forty years: the processions of long-haired, cocksure, ignorant silliness; the odd, the curiously odd, psychosis which runs through quite a number of people's minds that any kind of atrocity, of aggression, of terrorism, provided it is committed by a Communist or at least a very Left-wing Government abroad, a long way from us, has always got some good high moral foundation, and that we are wrong and failing in understanding if we oppose and condemn it. We are accustomed by now to reconcile ourselves to thinking that this psychosis can exist in an educated democracy; and I hope, my Lords, that the angels, who are wiser than we are. think so too. But it makes me think of the proud man in Measure for Measure:
"Most ignorant of what he's most assured,
His glassy essence like an angry ape,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As make the angels weep.
Who with our spleens, would all themselves laugh mortal".
As for the academic flapdoodle now going on here and in the United States, it makes us see, I think, that in some academic circles an egghead and a bonehead are very much the same thing—stubborn, perverse, purblind. How gullible; and how easily and constantly they are taken advantage of and used by the Communist propaganda machine, which is so ready to take advantage of

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that kind of gullibility all over the world, and with such very good effect and with so much encouragement and comfort to those who are perpetrating acts of aggression in so many parts of the world ! As one American newspaper put it:
"Professors ought to be leading their students in the paths of truth instead of through the back-alleys of propaganda.",
which is exactly what they are doing.
The noble Lord, Lord Brockway, referred with some approval to the Prime Minister's recent attempt to get a Commonwealth delegation accepted as mediators in this affair. We know, of course, that there are some people who thought that this move on the part of the Prime Minister may have been tactically misconceived; that it ought to have been more carefully prepared and thought out beforehand; and that perhaps more use should have been made of the existing machinery surviving from Geneva. But, my Lords, I am not going to pursue that. The only thing I want to say about this move made a week ago by the Prime Minister is this: that the very next day it was immediately and cordially accepted by the United States Administration and by the Government of Saigon. It was contemptuously, rudely, rejected by all the Communist Governments and authorities concerned.
My Lords, we will never give up hope, but I am afraid that this confirms the bitter lesson which some people will never learn but which most of us have been compelled to learn over the last thirty or forty years: that this type of totalitarian aggressor, particularly the Communist aggressor, will negotiate if a condition of negotiation is the complete surrender of his antagonists and the delivery to him of the victims, whom he can get more cheaply by surrender than by conquest, but that he will negotiate only if and when he finds that he is not going to win by aggression. That has been the lesson, surely, that all men who have got realistic minds have learnt by now—and that is the truth about what is happening now in Vietnam. If the Americans were to agree to withdraw their military support—and that is what is implied, I must tell the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, in the suggestions which he has made—as a pre-condition of negotiations, that would immediately mean the triumph of
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aggression, the conquest of South Vietnam, and would be followed by similar aggression and, if not resisted by other help, similar conquest in every other free country in South-East Asia. My Lords, that is not the way to peace: it is the way to ensure that there will be no peace, either in South-East Asia or, perhaps, in the rest of the world, for the remainder of our time.
9.7 p.m.
LORD GLADWYN: My Lords, I am sure you will all agree that, on Vietnam, we must all try to be as objective as possible; and this is remarkably difficult when passions are roused by such a war as has now been let loose. But we should make the effort. Sometimes I think that we in this country seem to be divided by emotion rather than by reason. What are the two schools of thought which now, unhappily, seem to divide us? On the one hand, there is the feeling, which is obviously shared by the noble Earl, Lord Dundee but not by the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, that, whatever their mistakes may have been in the past—and there have no doubt been many; I myself think it was probably a mistake (and here I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Brockway) not to have accepted the agreement of 1954—if the Americans are forced to evacuate South Vietnam in anything like humiliating circumstances, some kind of Communism (call it that, if you like) will take over not only the whole of Vietnam but also the neighbouring countries.
That is a fear which is generally shared. It is sometimes associated with the idea that such a Communist movement will be directly controlled by China and therefore it will, in fact, be China who will take over the whole of South-East Asia in the circumstances contemplated, and no doubt would make some kind of special arrangement with Japan as well. In other words, Japan would then move out of the orbit of America and into the orbit of China. It cannot be denied that this is a possibility.
It is true that the Chinese are, generally speaking, unpopular in South-East Asia; but it must be admitted also that they have important and rich colonies in most of the countries concerned and particularly in Malaysia which, incidentally, can hardly be successfully defended in the

975
circumstances we are contemplating—and all Parties think that Malaysia should be defended. They have these important colonies in Malaysia and elsewhere; and there is no reason why the Peking Government should not be regarded as a kind of "Big Brother" by any Left-wing Government that might come into power in any of these countries, as they probably would after a short delay. At the very least, nobody could put his hand on his heart and say that all this was not a possibility if a Communist Government representing the whole of Vietnam were firmly established in Saigon. Realistically considered, it is very probable.
There are those who see such a development as this to be the logic of history. They consider that the West would eventually be able to come to term with Communist regimes in South-East Asia in the same way as we have come to terms with the Communist Government in Yugoslavia. That is the optimistic view. Indeed, it may happen in the long run. But I suggest that it is an illusion to think that the West could get on easily, if at all, with the kind of Government or régimes that would come into power, in Siam, Malaysia and Indonesia, if the Americans now withdrew unconditionally from South Vietnam. Such régimes, in the nature of things, would be likely to be violently anti-Western in tendency and would leave Japan sided with a South-East Asia that had fallen under Chinese influence. The effect on India, too, could well be disastrous. We might well be on the way to some kind of general racial conflict which could tear the whole world apart. It is a solemn thought.
With all respect to the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, there surely would not be, in the long run, a tendency to encourage peace. It would be very much the reverse. So one thing must be prevented—and here this I think most of us could agree—and that is that America should withdraw from South Vietnam in anything approaching humiliating circumstances. If they are to withdraw, as one day they will withdraw, it can, therefore, be only as a result of some negotiation—and we should all agree on that—which would provide for the neutralisation of the whole new
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united Vietnam, whose Government would then be established by free elections, perhaps internationally supervised, or perhaps—and this is a new thought, but I throw it in—after some kind of plebiscite in South Vietnam, also internationally controlled and supervised, after the removal of the present Viet Cong reign of terror in the villages, to decide on whether the country wishes to join up with the North or would prefer to remain a separate entity in the South.
All this may seem unlikely now. I dare say it is. But the war now raging in Vietnam, which is, perhaps, no more and no less horrible than civil wars in history always have been, is also a trial of strength between the United States and China. In this trial of strength we should in no way underestimate the essential weakness not only of the South, which is obvious, but also of the North Vietnam position, for the following reasons.
Cut off from the South, which usually supplies a great deal of their food, the North Vietnamese are suffering from a severe food shortage. This is increased by the usual Communist inability to increase agricultural production, at all events sufficiently to catch up with the frightful increase in the population, which is advancing, perhaps, at the rate of 3·4 per cent. per annum.
The North Vietnamese industry is small and inefficient and hampered by a lack of raw material and the inability of the Chinese to supply the necessary technical aid. The break with the Russians has in this respect been pretty disastrous from the point of view of the North Vietnamese. As we all know, faced with the choice of either signing or not signing the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, Ho Chi-minh, the ruler of North Vietnam, after long hesitation, eventually took the Chinese point of view, and all aid from the Soviet Union and the Soviet satellites was promptly discontinued.
On top of all that, it seems that pilfering, sabotage and black market operations prevail. I got this information from a book published recently by a man who has been recently in North Vietnam and talked with people and should know what he is talking about. The bulk of the

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people, he says, seemed to be in a state of sullen despair and would be quite prepared to revolt against their Communist masters, were it not that they believe that if they did the Chinese would simply walk in and the West would do nothing about it, as happened in the case of Hungary.
In these circumstances a victory, and a fairly early victory, in South Vietnam is almost essential for the survival of the North Vietnam régime. Apart from anything else, it would give the necessary food and outlet for their surplus population, and they would also have a great, though perhaps rather undeserved, Nationalist triumph. No one denies that many of the North Vietnamese guerrilla leaders who have been sent to South Vietnam are brave and devoted men. Of course they are. Equally, nobody would deny that the Viet Cong has imposed itself on the population of South Vietnam in the villages by sheer terror.
I think there is no doubt that once this r égime of terror is broken, if it can be broken, the South Vietnamese would probably settle down happily, whatever the exact nature of their Government, even if there were no strong Government in Saigon. Hence, though the position in South Vietnam may be quite lamentable politically, the position in North Vietnam is probably little stronger. Revisionism in Hanoi is now a positive force. If it is the Chinese rather than the Americans who in the popular imagination may become paper tigers, this kind of revisionism may quite likely get the upper hand. That is why the whole present trial of strength is absolutely crucial.
The object of American bombing of bridges, arms dumps and, I believe, certain isolated factories, and so on, is obviously to increase this weakness, this weak tendency in North Vietnam, if it is humanly possible, and thus produce a situation in which the unpopular North Vietnamese régime may practically cease to operate. That is their declared intention and they may be able to do it. This may, or may not, be a desirable policy. It may be criticised for various reasons, but at least from the point of view of the struggle for power it is entirely comprehensible. I think it is difficult to see how it can be criticised, except, of course,
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by those who think the Americans, on moral or on general grounds, ought to clear out in order to allow what is often regarded in this country—perhaps even the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, regards it so—as "the wave of the future".
I seem to remember that we heard much the same argument during the horrible civil war which raged twenty years ago in Greece. I remember distinctly that Mr. Churchill was urged by many of those who even now are violently attacking American policy in South Vietnam to consent to the triumph in Athens of what even then were described as the "popular emergent forces".
It remains to consider how this lamentable situation, because of course everyone agrees that it is lamentable, is likely to work out and what are the dangers of its spreading into wider or even into a global war. Here there is no need to be pessimistic. The position is that whatever noises they may make off-stage and in public, the Russians have now very largely disengaged themselves from Vietnam, and if the forward policy of the Chinese, which is the basic reason for the recent rift between China and the Soviet Union, is changed or is indeed reversed, no one would be happier than the Russians to be able to say with justice to Mao Tse-tung, "I told you so".
As for China itself, and here again I am trying to be entirely objective, it is arguable that the recent Chinese success in exploding a nuclear device or two may make them think far harder than they have before about the desirability of any physical invasion of North Vietnam. Pouring Chinese Armies through the passes into the North would be unlikely to achieve anything except further ruination of the North Vietnamese economy. Such a Chinese invasion would not necessarily stop the bombing of industrial and strategic targets in North Vietnam, and if the Chinese forces themselves come into contact with the American troops on the Seventeenth Parallel a situation would be produced in which it would be highly unlikely that the Chinese, with their long military communications extending right down the peninsula and subject to intensive American air attack, would he victorious. The Chinese are perfectly reasonable people and no doubt this has already occurred to them. More than that, if there was a

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state of war existing between the United States and China, it is at least possible that the Chinese might fear an American attack on their great nuclear establishments and atomic diffusion plant at Lan Chow and therefore the end of Chinese nuclear hopes, at any rate for a great number of years.
All this suggests to my mind that the Americans probably still have a number of cards in their hands, though in order to play them they would need to have the will, if necessary, to send a much larger army to South Vietnam, even during an interim period, and if the worst happens, virtually to take over the administration of this unfortunate country. Additionally or alternatively, they must discover, if they can, some Vietnamese with administrative talent and give him a free hand, even if this may be taking a very considerable risk. Whether they will do all this remains to be seen. Whether they have the will is quite open to doubt. It would be highly unpopular in America, but of course it cannot be ruled out.
What is probably now wanted, as Senator Fulbright says in a recent article, is a holding operation and a determination to seek negotiations again after the situation has been held for a definite period. The chances of this whole deplorable conflict "escalating" (as the appalling modern jargon has it) are not great and certainly not so great as sometimes represented. Yet, if some peaceful solution for the war in South Vietnam is nevertheless to be found, some negotiations with the adversary, which I think must be defined as the North Vietnamese Government and their agents in South Vietnam, including the leaders of the Viet Cong, must come about by some means or another. Whether the Americans should actually negotiate with the so-called National Liberation Front is open to doubt. It is very difficult to disentangle the National Liberation Front, so-called, from the considerable number of agents who have come in from the North. They are all Vietnamese and members of the Vietnam Communist Party—that is what it comes down to. If they are to negotiate with the North Vietnamese, they will be negotiating with the Vietnam Communist Party, which is a solid body able to make itself felt in
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negotiations. I think that it is a false distinction to say that they must also negotiate with the National Liberation Front as such.
Negotiations would, of course, come about only if there was first of all some agreed truce in South Vietnam, coupled necessarily with the cessation of American bombing in the North plus agreement on the introduction, it is hoped under the auspices of the United Nations, of impartial agents into all the provinces and villages of South Vietnam, who would arrange evacuation—this is essential—to the North of all non-South Vietnamese armed elements and the subsequent organisation of some kind of plebiscite or elections. On all these points the Leader of the Liberal Party in another place is going to table an Early Day Motion, which I trust will give rise to a profitable debate. Until this situation comes about—and, with the best will in the world, I can hardly see it come about just yet—it is not evident how the war can be ended except as the result of some total American defeat or surrender. That, as I have already tried to establish, would, I think, be disastrous, not only for South-East Asia as a whole, but also in years to come for all those people in Western Europe who wish to have good relations with South-East Asia as a whole.
So it remains to consider how we in this country could help to produce such a situation. I should have thought that we might at least have said—possibly, for all I know, we have already done so—that, in our view, an internationally inspected plebiscite to gauge the feelings of the South Vietnamese, pending free elections in the whole of Vietnam, might well be the declared object of American policy, once a truce had been declared and once the invaders of South Vietnam—and, of course, they are invaders—have retired north of the Seventeenth Parallel.
Further than that, I doubt if we can profitably go at the present time. It seems to me to be little use for us to send missions round the world consisting of at least some persons who greatly prefer the Chinese to the American thesis. In any case, it is fairly obvious that neither North Vietnam nor China—or, for that matter, Russia—is at present

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in a mood to think about negotiating at all. Should Mr. Wilson or his colleagues get to Peking, or even to Hanoi, there would then be hope, I think, because that would show Ho Chi Minh that the present game was up and that the only thing left for him was to negotiate his way out of the present mess, in spite of the well-known views of China.
It is possible (here I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Brockway) that the political situation in South Vietnam is becoming so bad that some local government might on its own attempt to negotiate directly with the North Vietnamese, over the heads of the Americans. But if this happened, and if the negotiations were successful, it could be only on the assumption, I fear, that the North Vietnamese objectives have already been practically attained and that the American position was impossible. Unless, therefore, we take the view that the North Vietnamese are morally right, and that the Viet Cong are simple nationalists with but one idea, that of liberating their country and nothing else, we have no option but to support the Americans in their struggle in a general way, but always emphasising that they should make it clear that, whatever the consequences, a free plebiscite will be held in South Vietnam, at any rate as soon as the necessary conditions are present in which it might conceivably be organised.
In saying all this, I assume—and I hope that it is a correct assumption—that the bombing of North Vietnam will be limited to economic and strategic objectives, designed to weaken the general position of the North Vietnamese Government, and will never include the bombing of populated places. I think, also, that the Americans might do well to offer to stop the bombing for a period, as they have before, pending the possible achievement of negotiations. If it is not clear at present that it is not their intention to bomb large towns or populated places, then I think it should be made clear; and our advice to the Americans should be to that effect. Any advice that we give to the Americans should surely include the desirability of their stating that, whatever happens, they will not go further than they have done already in the way of bombing in the North, and notably that they will not enlarge the scope of such bombing by
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making what could only then be represented, I think, as the equivalent of terrorist attacks on towns. Such a policy, I think we shall all agree, would be self-defeating.
My Lords, that is all I have to say. Beyond giving this general advice which I have suggested, I do not see what we in this country can profitably do. The situation is one which we can in no way control. We wish that this horrible war should stop. We should do everything we can to see that it at least ends without a victory for a cause which is, after all, hostile to all that we stand for. But we should not despair if this cannot immediately be achieved; and we must be reconciled, I am afraid, to the fact that the struggle will probably be a long one but will eventually, with luck, end in a draw, which will enable a stable peace to be negotiated, not only in South Vietnam but also in the whole of South-East Asia.
9.31 p.m.
LORD MILFORD: My Lords, it was with great pleasure that I listened to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Brockway—such a statesmanlike speech, a speech based on a tremendous desire for peace. If we had more people in the Government who based themselves firmly on peace above all else, the world would be a very different place to-day. I should like to say about the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, exactly the opposite. I am very grateful that he and his Party are not in power, because if the remarks that he put forward were the policy of the British Government I think that by now we should be in a world nuclear war.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, does not the noble Lord think that the world might be a better place if there were a few Communists who tried to talk peace?
LORD MILFORD: The last time we debated Vietnam in this House Lord Carrington, speaking for the Opposition, exhorted us to say nothing to upset the Americans, and asked us to support what they were doing in Vietnam. Mr. Stewart, the Foreign Secretary, has also asked us not to say anything in haste to impair our friendship. It is a terrible blow to our political honesty to-day if we cannot criticise an Ally when we believe them to be in the wrong.

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Moreover, I am afraid that by "America" some people are thinking only of the White House and the Pentagon. But America is not just the President and the militarists, or the armament industry: it covers also millions of ordinary, decent men and women who want peace and friendship, and want the world to respect them for their peaceful achievements. According to the Gallup Poll, the majority of the population in America are against the bombing of North Vietnam; are horrified at what their Government is doing in their name. Leading this demand for peace, reason and justice, are the youth, the students; and that is very largely true in this country to-day. I think that the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, was patronising when he labelled all those people who came to London from all over the British Isles to-day to show their horror at what is being perpetrated in Vietnam as just an amorphous mass.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: I said "mess", not "mass".
LORD MILFORD: The great hope of humanity for to-day and the future is in these boys and girls.
There comes a time when one has to speak frankly from one's conscience and disregard the opportunism of personal or Chauvinistic considerations, and judge a situation by the way it affects humanity, families, women, children and homes. To-day is such a time. What man is doing to man is so horrifying, and the danger of a total catastrophe to the whole human race is now so acute, that expediency about the pound, the need for loans—if such opportunist reasons could dictate policy and blind our judgments—stands for nothing. An uprising against a totally corrupt Government imposed from without has developed into a full-scale war, with open outside participation by one of the most powerful military forces in the history of mankind. Thousands of helpless, hard-working peasant families are being blasted with napalm, "lazy dog" and every conceivable modern horror weapon short of, as yet, nuclear bombs. How long have we to wait for that, as the war escalates?
Why, and for what, is all this happening? Since the Prime Minister and his Foreign Secretary have again and again categorically stated that the Government unreservedly support the policy of Ameri-
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can interference with all these horror weapons they must answer "Why?" clearly, and back it with a really convincing moral argument, and to date I do not think they have. There is a big revolt up and down the country, and in Parliament itself, against the present policy of condoning this ghastly war, and the people want to know "Why?"
Mr. Stewart went to the Oxford "teach-in", but he did not answer straightforwardly. He twisted and evaded, as much of our Press remarked the next day. Openly the American Government calls it a war against Communist aggression, to prevent the spread of Communism; but the New York Herald Tribune says it is not a war of the Communist North Vietnam against South Vietnam, but an American war against an Asiatic nation fighting for liberation. If our policy is to follow the Pentagon whatever they may do, is it also British policy to say that any movement of a backward country anywhere in the world to get rid of colonialism, feudalism, to overthrow a completely unwanted, corrupt Government, to get rid of foreign domination, comes under the heading of "Communist aggression" and must be blasted out of existence by every modern powerful weapon?
We have recently seen the British Government acquiescing in a similar situation in the Caribbean, where again people rose to get rid of the corrupt, undemocratic government. My Lords, for two hundred years the people of Indo-China have been struggling to throw off foreign oppression which has bled their country—one of the richest in the world in minerals—to the status of one of the poorest.
I should like to put the question squarely to the Minister who is going to reply to this debate. Is it the policy of the British Government, for one reason or another, to tag along behind the American Government and the Pentagon policy of confronting the liberation movement with a modern, powerful, armed force in the name of combating Communist threats and Communist aggression? If it is, I am sure it will not pay off. In the end the whole of humanity will rise against it and it will end in disaster, and Britain's name will be smeared with hatred.
Why is our Government so eager to acquiesce in the undoing of all that Britain succeeded in achieving by getting the

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Geneva Agreement through in 1954? As the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, said, that Agreement laid it down that the foreign troops must be out of the whole of Vietnam and all bases dismantled, and the temporary division of Vietnam into North and South should last for only two years, after which there should be a general election to unite and I repeat, to unite—the whole country under one Government—that was paragraph 7 of the Geneva Agreement. We in Britain guaranteed this Agreement. Is our guarantee worthless? Do we tear it up? Why do we not stand by it to-day? Why should the Foreign Secretary distort and speak in half truths, and allow them to be repeated again and again on radio and television? For instance, why did he quote only the International Control Commission's Report as accusing the North of breaking the Geneva Agreement, when in fact that Commission accused the South and America as well? Why did he say that the trouble started in 1959 when the North decided to intervene, when in fact the rebellion started in 1957 after an election had been refused and a bloody repression started by Diem's Government—Diem who was imposed on them by the Americans; Diem the collaborator with the Japanese?
On the question of the general election which never took place, our Foreign Secretary dismissed it in his Oxford speech by saying that the country "was not settled enough to hold one". It is well known that Dulles refused to sign the Geneva Agreement, making it clear that he could not accept the right of the people of Vietnam to choose to unify by free elections because in that case the Communists would win. President Eisenhower said in his Mandate for Change, The White House Years, at page 372:
"I have never talked or corresponded with a person knowledgeable in Indo-Chinese affairs who did not agree that had an election been held as of the time of fighting possibly 80 per cent. of the population would have voted for the Communist Ho Chi Minh."
On April 21, 1956, the United Press News Agency quoted Diem's Minister of Information as saying at a conference:
"General elections will not take place. We have triumphed."
On December 17, 1954, the year of the Agreement, Stassen, the President of the
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Commission for Aid to Foreign Countries said:
"It is unlikely that there will be free general elections in Vietnam."
Mr. Stewart's performance in evading all this does not give confidence to anyone who likes to study foreign policy. If the people had voted, why would the majority have voted for the Communists? Because the Communists were creating in practice a real land reform, building schools and hospitals, while 90 per cent. of the money America was pouring into the South was being spent for arms and paying the colossal army.
What are the prospects of a united independent Vietnam, North and South united, as called for by the Geneva Agreement? Paragraph 12 of the Geneva Agreement says:
"To respect the sovereignty, the independence, the unity and the territorial integrity of Vietnam and to refrain from any interference in its internal affairs."
And Britain, under Sir Anthony Eden (as he was then), was the chief architect of this Agreement. Can the Minister, in his reply, tell us whether it is now British policy to build a divided Vietnam? For President Johnson has recently said, concerning his unconditional discussions:
"We will finally settle for no less than an independent South Vietnam."
Does our appeasement policy, or our hatred of the struggle of backward countries to throw off colonialism lead us to following the White House on this point, too? What a glorious picture we are already getting of this new sixth democratic free Government of South Vietnam in whose interest we are aligned with the Pentagon and the White House, and for which some Commonwealth countries are sending troops actually to fight, shoot, and kill Vietnamese people—I think Australia is already doing so. A hundred Pressmen walked out in disgust at this Government's first Press conference—a Government which has no basis whatever except American bombs and American troops.
Meanwhile, what does the South Vietnam National Liberation Front—nicknamed "Viet Cong" by the Americans, to make it sound more sinister—consist of? Lord Gladwyn referred to it as "this so-called National Liberation Front". It comprises a broad alliance of parties and organisations

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which came together in 1960 to lead and co-ordinate the opposition to the Diem dictatorship. At its first Congress delegates were present from the Radical Socialist Party, the South Vietnam Democratic Party, the Vietnamese Revolutionary Party, the Students' and Pupils' Union for Liberation, The Women's Union for Liberation, the Labour Union for Liberation, the Peasants' Union for Liberation, the Youth Union for Liberation, and many more other such bodies, including the Writers' and Artists' Association. Who are we to sneer at this National Liberation Front and call it the "so-called" this that and the other?
Among the members of its executive committee are lawyers, teachers, chief Buddhists and other religious sects, and many professional men. In their programme is "No participation in any military bloc". These people have liberated 80 per cent. of the territory, yet the Americans refuse to negotiate with them. In fact, they can be likened to the Resistance Movement against the Nazi occupation of France in World War II. And it is a little ironic that the only other major Power that supports the White House and us in our policy is Western Germany.
Now, because of the terrific pressure of the British people (this amorphous mass, according to Lord Dundee) and the anger of at least a hundred Labour M.P.s, the Prime Minister has produced the Commonwealth Mission. He has had to convince the British people that at last the Government are making an effort for peace. He has also had to placate strong pressure from the Commonwealth Prime Ministers. But he has done nothing to show that he has altered his complete subservience to the White House. And Mr. Stewart still unequivocally supports all its policies and actions. He has denied nothing. So how can the suggested Commonwealth Mission, led by Mr. Wilson, be welcomed by the Liberation Movement in the South, or, for that matter, by their friends in the North, of whom the bombing with napalm Messrs. Wilson and Stewart condone?
In the present dangerous situation any step in the search for peace is extremely welcome. But is the proposed Mission,
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as it now stands, going to achieve it? I am afraid that I do not think so. Ho Chi Minh said in an interview on June 26 that Mr. Wilson cannot engage in peace negotiations since he has himself supported the American policy of aggression and expansion of the Vietnamese war. He said that:
"Mr. Wilson has not correctly carried out his obligations as co-Chairman of the 1954 Geneva Conference on Vietnam."
The Russians have also answered that they cannot discuss with the proposed Wilson Mission, since no one has given them any right to negotiate. This puts the Vietnam position in its proper perspective. The British Government's propaganda tries to make the situation a struggle between two power blocs and their satellites, with the Vietnamese as stooges of one side or the other. The struggle should be settled by the Vietnamese themselves. Everybody else should get out.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Oh!
LORD MILFORD: Well, it is their country. They want to unify, and should settle the matter themselves.
Britain itself has a direct responsibility for the war in Vietnam, and so to bring it to an end. But before she can hold her head up as a determined peacemaker and regain the trust of Asians, Africans and South Americans, she must denounce American bombing, must demand that it be stopped, along with all further escalation of the war, and that the National Liberation Front must be invited to go to any peace talks. Peace can be established only by the withdrawal of the American troops from South Vietnam. Let the Vietnamese determine their own future, without the presence of any foreign armies on their soil, which was one of the central points of the Geneva Agreement.
I hope that as at present the peace talks are in abeyance the Minister will not ask who now is responsible for the continuation of the shooting, as I think he did in Southampton, for the answer is still squarely: the Americans. To have expected a Mission based on American policy and approval to be accepted is naïve, and no politician could possibly accept his assumption if he still stands by it. "Back to the full implementation of the Geneva Agreement" should be

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the starting point of any attempt to reach a peaceful settlement.
I hope Mr. Wilson will take another look behind him to-day and realise that that is what the British people want him to do. The elected Members of Parliament are clearly being shown that this is the will of the vast majority of the people in Britain, by the lobby which has been going on. Coaches from every industrial centre are bringing delegates from trade councils, shop stewards; cars are coming with professional people, women's organisation, church organisations, peace organisations and a vast representation of the youth of this country. They are fed up with the degrading of Britain's foreign policy, and its subservience to America's militarists—and I say militarists, not the American people.
I am very proud indeed to be associated in any way with Lord Brockway's tremendous initiative in organising and assembling this public voice of protest. For it is a voice of sanity. Before it is too late, let our Labour Government link up with all those in America who voted for President Johnson against the threat of a Goldwater foreign policy, but who, to their dismay, now find themselves smeared by that very policy. Apart from humane reasons and dictates of justice, any thinking person must realise the acute danger of the present situation. The American Air Force is now bombing close to the Chinese frontier. Where will the mad Pentagon and Chinese lobby stop? The appalling danger of a nuclear war is getting very near indeed. By supporting those who are promoting this danger, and who have no moral right on their side to do so, Mr. Stewart and our Prime Minister are betraying the security of all of us in this country, risking the lives of our children and our grandchildren.
I urge our Government to reverse their policy, which is the continuation of that of the Tories. Demand the return to the full implementation of the Geneva Agreement; stop supporting, and instead condemn, American interference in a Vietnamese civil war, and demand that America withdraws her troops from South Vietnam. Let the Vietnamese choose any Government they want, by democratic elections supervised by Britain or anybody else. Then Britain will really contribute towards the peace of the world
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and, I believe, gain high moral standing among all the nations and save mankind from, perhaps, the acute danger of world nuclear war.
9.56 p.m.
BARONESS GAITSKELL: My Lords, I was most interested in the speech of my noble friend Lord Brockway. In the first part of it he gave me much with which to agree, and then he took it all back again at the end. As for the noble Lord, Lord Milford, I want to mention only one point: his insistence that youth is always right. Young people are sometimes right, but they are certainly not al-way right politically, and I should like to remind him of the Hitler Youth, that organisation which was in the forefront of the last war.
LORD MILFORD: May I interrupt?
BARONESS GAITSKELL: No, I shall not give way. The noble Lord has spoken long enough. I want to get back to the wording of Lord Brockway's Question. He said that he wanted to know what action Her Majesty's Government were going to take, particularly to initiate negotiations. The conflict in Vietnam has been going on for some time and Her Majesty's Government have been very concerned about it. There are always some people who use the word "initiate" as if it had a magic quality; as if by speaking the words "to initiate negotiations" this carried with it a solution to a problem and a guarantee of its success. Anyone with experience of foreign affairs—and my noble friend Lord Brockway, who I am sorry to say is not here, has had a great experience of foreign affairs—knows that where there is a military struggle the situation is not usually resolved by a conjurer's act accompanied by magic words. It is achieved by years of patient negotiation.
There are many examples of this, but the partial Test Ban Treaty is one of the best. We became very familiar during those negotiations with the Russian word for, "No". That is not to say that no one ever tries a fresh and original approach, such as we have now from the Prime Minister in the Commonwealth Peace Mission, to which point I shall return later. Implicit in Lord Brock-way's Question is the idea that Her Majesty's Government have been dilatory

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about trying to get the Governments engaged in the conflict to negotiate. So, first, we should ask ourselves what exactly the British Government have the power to do in present circumstances.
Britain has never had the power to impose any policy on Vietnam, but this is not to say that we have not continued to urge all those concerned in the struggle to stop the fighting and to start negotiating. The Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary tried to persuade Mr. Gromyko to use his influence in March, but with no success. He refused again when approached as co-Chairman of the Geneva Conference. The Foreign Secretary then approached the other Governments who had taken part in the Geneva Conference. Few of them replied and the Chinese answer was an adamant, "No".
After that came Mr. Gordon Walker's fact-finding tour of the area. The Chinese and the North Vietnamese boycotted him—no credit to any Power which seeks peace urgently. But, my Lords, I see from a piece in the Press last night that, with the knowledge that Mr. Gordon Walker acquired on this tour, he has been able to state bluntly in America recently why the Americans should negotiate with the Viet Cong. I myself felt that it was rather sad that, after a short cessation of hostilities, and after President Johnson had gone so far as to announce that the United States Government were ready for unconditional discussions, he did not go just one step further and say that he was ready to include the Viet Cong. But I hear no criticism from anti-Americans like Lord Milford by way of blame on the Viet Cong for not grasping this initiative and starting bargaining with the Americans.
A concession made by one side can easily be widened when the other side accepts it prior to talking. But the Chinese have at every stage said, "No". In fact, the Communist Powers have all along refused to negotiate; and they have given the "brush-off" to France, to the Secretary General of the U.N. and to many uncommitted countries. Is it not better, when the phrase "unconditional discussions" is used, to take it at its
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face value, instead of branding it as—and I quote
"A worn-out trick of deceit, and a threat"?
After such a reception, how can we even counsel our friends to surrender, as some people urge?
These same people advise us to proclaim our differences, our anxieties, and to speak up when we have doubts. They say that the Americans were forthright when they disagreed with us over Suez. But we cannot compare Suez with Vietnam. What is not universally realised is that the Americans were invited into South Vietnam to help them. Whatever our views about the Government there and the Government in the North, this is a fact that we should remember. We do not have the same view as the Americans over Chinese entry into the United Nations, or over the recognition of China. We have our differences. When we have anxieties about our American friends, we talk to them privately and frankly. I have not noticed that such diplomatic exchanges are advertised in running lights over Piccadilly or over Times Square in New York. These discussions are conducted privately and frankly, but it is a thankless task because they do not get into the Press.
Now I come to the last big initiative, the Commonwealth Peace Mission. I notice that Lord Milford has rejected it. He said, "It will not succeed; it is no good; we need not try". So far, every Western initiative has been brushed aside by the Communist Powers as a swindle and as a threat: unconditional withdrawal and surrender are demanded as a condition for a conference. We have to see what this imaginative proposal from the Commonwealth, the Commonwealth peace proposal, can achieve. The Communist Powers cannot accuse it of being biased towards America. I will just go through the document, which has been published, and copies of which could be obtained though Lord Milford does not appear to have read it. A quick glance at the principles which are set up to guide the Mission dispels this idea entirely.
This document says there are doubts about an early or final military solution to the conflict; it asks for a comprehensive cease-fire as a pre-condition for a conference; it ask for a suspension of

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all United States air attacks on North Vietnam and for the North Vietnamese to stop their military incursions into South Vietnam. It desires a total ceasefire on all sides to enable a conference to be convened. And the objectives of the conference to end the war are: the withdrawal of all foreign troops from the territories; the neutralisation of the area; the establishment of an international police force; the eventual unification of the country through free and internationally supervised elections.
My Lords, any country that refuses entry to this Mission stands condemned as one which seeks only the military solution to this very complicated and tragic conflict. One can only pray that out of this last initiative of Her Majesty's Government there will be an end to aggression on all sides.
10.7 p.m.
LORD ROYLE: My Lords, many of the things I had intended to say have been said already this evening by my noble friend Lady Gaitskell. Perhaps I am not prepared to go quite as full-bloodedly in support of the United States position as she is and, at the same time, I am a bit concerned tonight by—if your Lordships will allow me to say so—the oversimplification of the situation by the noble Earl, Lord Dundee. This applies, on the other side, in much greater degree to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Milford. But I do not share the utter pessimism of the latter or the semi-pessimism of the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, so far as the Commonwealth effort is concerned.
I speak with some inhibitions at this late hour, but it seems to me that it is important that your Lordships' House should have the opportunity of discussing the present situation so that it might be known in the country how some of us feel. I feel that it is the duty of anyone taking part in a debate of this character to try to strike a balance in their thoughts on the contending forces and to try to see the points of view of both the United States and the Communist countries. At the same time, with all the enthusiasm that one can muster, one should express appreciation of our own Prime Minister and the Commonwealth Prime Ministers in their courageous initiative in establishing the mission which we are hearing
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about. I will come back to that latter aspect later on.
I should be boring noble Lords by going over the whole history of the unhappy country we are considering. My noble friend Lord Brockway to some extent went over that history in the course of his speech: the history from the time of the Japanese invasion of Vietnam in the World War—a period which discouraged and discredited everybody, thinking in terms of the French Colonial authorities—right down to the present time. Your Lordships know that history. It is sufficient to remind you that Vietnam has not known peace for at least twenty-five years.
In addition, I must remind your Lordships that it was the Communist Vietnam who first fought the Japanese invasion, although later on it became a national cause. Because of the Chinese Nationalist support against Japan it was natural that there was greater activity in the North of the country, and it was there, when the Chinese Communist revolution came about, that Communism prospered. So, my Lords, it has become with the use of the Vietnamese forces opposing, an ideological conflict, as was rightly said by the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, between China and the United States, with all the resulting bloodshed and misery and the threat to world peace.
Eleven years ago and immediately after the Geneva Agreement I had the opportunity to spend five or six weeks in Communist China. During that visit our party had the opportunity of a session with Chou En-lai. The other day I was looking at my diary for that period, to recall my impressions of the man, the times and the circumstances. The impression with which I came away was of a deep respect shown by him for the British people and his terrible hatred of the United States. At that time, in 1954, he was ready to accept an invitation to join the United Nations; but the attitude of the United States on the question of the off-shore Islands and Formosa, plus its insistence that Nationalist China should be the China of the United Nations, trade Chinese leaders the haters of the United States. I shall always believe, with my noble friend Lord Brockway, that if China had been admitted to the United Nations at that time, or even later, the present situation in South-East Asia

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would never had arisen. That, as I see it, is the Chinese position. I would sum it up by saying that the Chinese are afraid of what they call American imperialism in Asia.
On the other hand, to hold the balance, I know that the United States is in constant fear of the geographical and ideological spread of Communism. They have justification, arising from the signs and actions of the Communist countries since the end of the Second World War. So we are faced with a position that the hatreds and suspicions of two opposing ideologies bring about the deaths of thousands of innocent people in Vietnam. We have seen in the Press the horrible photographs taken over past weeks. What a crazy world it is in which we live! We face to-night the existing position that, for her own reasons, Russia refuses to accept responsibility for the co-Chairmanship of the Geneva Conference. Because China is not a member, the United Nations Organisation is powerless to act. Therefore it is necessary that at this stage a new, powerful unit, a peace-making force, should come into being. Surely your Lordships' House believes that there can be no better unit than the Commonwealth, with its mixture of Asia, Africa, the Antipodes, North and Central America and, in our own case, Europe, differing loyalties and ideals and differing outlooks towards Communism and capitalism.
On June 24, my right honourable friend the Prime Minister said this in another place:
"The reason why the Commonwealth had to take action is that we are not only very representative of the world in general but we have so many different views amongst ourselves…"
And he continued, after an interruption:
"So far from being a weakness, this is a strength because a mission undertaken on behalf of the whole Commonwealth, aligned to no particular interpretation of the fighting in Vietnam, can be a very powerful force for securing mediation, particularly at a time when tragically it is not possible for the United Nations itself to intervene."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 714 (No. 139), col. 1943, June 24, 1965.]
I had intended at this point of my speech to quote the document which has just been quoted by my noble friend
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Lady Gaitskell, the Statement of Guidance for the Commonwealth Mission, issued by the Commonwealth Prime Ministers. In view of the fact that she quoted some of the details of that document, I will not weary your Lordships by repeating them. But it is of the utmost possible importance that those things were said and the position of the Commonwealth Prime Ministers made perfectly clear as to what the approach should be. I cannot hide—and it has not been said in perhaps such strong terms to-night—my unqualified joy that it was a Labour Prime Minister of the United Kingdom who initiated that move. He has never stood so high in my estimation as he stands in this matter; and I assure your Lordships that that is saying a great deal. The very mention of the Commonwealth Mission has an impact, I believe, in that it has shown the united determination of the Commonwealth that this problem must be settled by negotiation. It cannot be settled in any other way. At last there has emerged a force, the British Commonwealth of Nations—are we not proud of the term?—which is determined, not only that the conflict shall not continue or escalate, but also that something must be done to make it realised that here is a serious poisoning of the world atmosphere which is preventing progress towards the easing of East—West tensions. I hope that no Member of your Lordships' House fails to welcome that great initiative. Whatever reservations I have about the faults lying with one side or another, or with both, I see in this move the only hope that the world possesses at this moment for settling this terrible conflict.
In spite of the events of this week, with all their horror, my prayer is that in the very near future the Mission initiated by my right honourable friend may be heard and that its efforts will ultimately succeed. I do not feel that I want to say anything more at this hour of the night. I feel very strongly, and with every other Member of your Lordships' House I am terribly worried, about this situation. Our voices must be joined with the voices of the Commonwealth Prime Ministers in their great endeavour to do something, at all events, towards settling this conflict.
10.20 p.m.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, it has been a remarkable debate, in that something has happened which does not often happen in your Lordships' House, and that is that we have heard two speeches which, in my opinion, were perfectly disgraceful. I hope that those two speeches will not be taken up by the Press, because if they are, I fear it will do harm to the reputation of your Lordships' House in the country. I refer to the speeches made by the noble Lord, Lord Milford, and the noble Earl, Lord Dundee. Lord Milford's speech, it seemed to me, was one of ignorance and bigoted partisanship. I apologise for my strong words. I will not dwell further on it, because I think that many of your Lordships may well agree with that estimate. Let me take him up on just one point. I was at the Oxford "teach-in", where I did not see him, and I did not share his impression that Mr. Stewart had twisted and evaded at that meeting: nor do I believe anybody else who was present shared that impression. Certainly he did not carry the majority of his audience with him, but I think that all his audience would endorse what I am about to say, which is that his performance was one of high intelligence and obvious integrity.
Let me now turn to the speech of the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, which is another matter altogether, since he held office in the previous Government. This, it seemed to me, was not a matter of bigoted partisanship, but it was a speech of enraged Philistinism. If he had been at the London and Oxford "teach-ins", as I was privileged to be—and I say "privileged" advisedly, because they sought my advice in organising them, and I am proud of this—it may be that he would have seen an amorphous, flabby, moist mass of gullibility; that he would have called it "academic flapdoodle", and that he would have maintained his judgment that an egghead is a bonehead. It strikes me as familiar language. Where do we hear this railing at universities; where do we hear attacks levelled at the structure of education; where do we hear protests against the attempts of university teachers and university students to understand the world?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether he is
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suggesting that this is applicable to everybody at universities? I never suggested that it was.
LORD KENNET: I am suggesting that the audiences at these two "teach-ins" were a pretty typical cross-section of that portion of the student population which is interested in international affairs. There were audiences of about 1,000 at each of these "teach-ins". As the noble Earl will know, the meetings are open to any student who wishes to come, and to any university teacher who wishes to come, and many students and teachers of all political colours, holding all sorts of beliefs on the question of Vietnam, did come, did speak, were questioned and did engage in a free and full discussion, which I venture to assert is one of the most beneficial traditions of this country, and I deeply regret seeing it attacked in this House.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, I did not suggest that everybody who attended these university conferences took the same view.
LORD KENNET: I thought I detected a note of regret in what the noble Earl said, that these meetings should have taken place. "Flapdoodling" is a fairly strong word to use in describing them.
Now to turn to the Question on the Order Paper, I should like to ask my noble friend Lord Walston, when he comes to reply, whether he could give us some information about the reception which has so far greeted the Commonwealth initiative. Many speakers have agreed that this was a most important thing. I agree with that judgment. For a long time it seemed to me and many people like me that our Government were depriving themselves of the opportunity of taking a beneficial initiative in the Vietnam war by their determination, continued over many months, not to dissociate themselves from American action there. It may be that American action was right; but a Government which hopes to play the role of peace-maker cannot continue without exception to back one side in the dispute and condemn the other side. A certain element of dissociation has to be introduced before any Government in the world can hope to mediate in a war.

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That element has been introduced. In two respects the Commonwealth Statement is a change in former British Government policy, and in two respects it shows a degree of dissociation from American policy. These respects are both set out in the Annex to the Commonwealth Statement which has been mentioned many times. First is the stated intention to meet with all the parties concerned, and at an earlier date the Mission declared its wish to meet with all the Governments concerned. This distinction was introduced partly to include the National Liberation Front in South Vietnam. The second element of distinction is that the first of the four preliminary conditions which the plenary meeting of Commonwealth Prime Ministers laid down for their Mission was the cessation of American bombing (that is paragraph 3a of that Annex) and the second is the cessation of North Vietnamese armed supplies for the rebels. This is a significant and, in my view, profoundly hopeful and welcome change in Government policy.
Those of us who, like me, spend many hours every day trying to find out what is going on in Asia have been reading very carefully the public pronouncements of the relevant political organisms out there, the Viet Cong, the North Vietnamese Government, the Chinese Government and, to a lesser extent, the Soviet Government. It is very hard to assess what they are saying. Their statements are voluminous, and they are abusive towards this country, but they do not—or not all of them do—make clear statements that they will not receive this Mission and do not think the Mission can do anything.
Only today there became available a broadcast from the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Political Committee of the South Vietnamese Liberation Front. This is not Hanoi. This is what is called Liberation Radio in the South Vietnamese jungle, which once again was abusive. But if you read it carefully you find that the one thing it did not say was that the Viet Cong will not agree to discuss with this Mission. It seems that the reaction time of the rebels in South Vietnam—and this is extremely important—is very slow. It takes them
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a long time to get news, to discuss news, and to decide what they are going to do about it. Even now they have not got the Commonwealth initiative straight. They used the words in their broadcast yesterday that the Commonwealth initiative is consistent with the United States' imperialist plot. If, as one may assume, in what they call the United States imperialist plot they include the bombing, then they are of course in error, because the Commonwealth initiative is not consistent with the continuation of American bombing. It may be that they have not read our text carefully enough. At any rate, we read their text clearly, and what I should like to ask my noble friend to do would be, if he has time—it is terribly late—to give us an account of what he holds to be the governing words in the Statements from the Viet Cong, and from Hanoi, about their views of the Commonwealth Mission. Have they slammed the door on it? If they have not slammed the door, what indications have they given of their attitude over future weeks and months?—because I think that one of the most rightly conceived elements of this whole initiative is that, even if the Mission does not get away in that chartered aircraft in a couple of weeks. as was at first hoped, yet it will remain in being as an international phenomenon. and will be able to pick up the slightest chink of agreement to meet and discuss from the Communist side in South-East Asia.
10.28 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (LORD WALSTON): My Lords, it is late, but I am afraid I am going to keep you later. We have listened to many speeches, some long, some short. We have listened to some fine and moving expressions. We have listened to some wise and well-meaning suggestions. We have listened to some arrant nonsense. But all that we have heard, or almost all, has been inspired, I hope, by a genuine wish to bring this fighting to an end. It has been inspired, I believe, because noble Lords here, and most people outside—though not, I am afraid, all—realise that we are dealing here with a question of ordinary human beings who are being terrorised and, in many cases, killed without themselves

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having stirred a finger to bring such a fate upon themselves; and who are being denied the sort of life, the sort of freedoms that we in this country cherish and want to see spread throughout the world. It is because of our concern for those human beings that we are primarily moved to bring this ghastly tragedy to an end.
I am glad that tonight so little time has been spent in recriminations about the past; about whose fault it was, and who started what; because although it has some relevance it is not the primary concern at the present time. I am certainly not going back into the past—the history of the Geneva Convention, and all the rest of it. All I would say about the past is that there is no doubt whatsoever in my mind, and I think there can be little doubt in the minds of any objective students of this problem, that, had it not been for the United States' coming to the aid of South Vietnam, South Vietnam itself would now be a country, as is North Vietnam, with a one-party system of government and with no chance of free elections or of changing that Government, or having any say in their future whatsoever.
I freely admit that today in South Vietnam there is no opportunity of free elections, that the Government in Saigon cannot represent itself as being the true voice of the people of South Vietnam, and I am not saying that that is so; though by the same token I would remind your Lordships that it cannot he asserted that the National Liberation Front has any more right to speak for the people than has the Government in Saigon. But what I do say is that the objectives of the Americans, and also of ourselves, are to see that there should be restored as quickly as possible, at least to South Vietnam, and we hope to North Vietnam also, the opportunities of having these free and democratic elections.
The specific Question asked by my noble friend Lord Brockway is
"What action has been taken to initiate negotiations to end the war in Vietnam?"
That question has already, to a large extent, been answered, in a very able manner, by my noble friend Lady Gaitskell. I am sorry that my noble friend Lord Brockway was not here to
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listen to her admirable speech, and other speeches which we have had. I will not waste your Lordships' time by going over in any detail the ground covered by my noble friend Lady Gaitskell. I will repeat, mainly for the benefit of my noble friend Lord Brockway, the fact that Her Majesty's Government—or, rather, my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary—recognising his responsibility as co-Chairman of the Geneva Conference, asked his fellow co-Chairman in the Soviet Union (this was in March) to join with him in issuing an invitation to a further Geneva Convention. The Russian co-Chairman refused to do so.
That was the first main public initiative—there had previously been many private and quiet initiatives—taken by Her Majesty's Government. When that effort failed as a result of the refusal of Mr. Gromyko, my right honourable friend acted on his own. He approached the members of the 1954 Geneva Conference and, in addition, the three members of the International Control Commission—Poland, India and Canada—and, as my noble friend Lady Gaitskell said, met with a refusal. There have been other initiatives: the support of the appeal by the seventeen unaligned countries, led by President Tito; the support of the appeal initiated by the President of India; the sending of Mr. Gordon Walker. So, during the time from March until the middle of June, there has been constant activity and several initiatives, of one kind or another, have been taken.
We then come to the present initiative, the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' appeal. In passing, I would answer one specific question—perhaps I should have done it before—from the noble Lord, Lord Milford. He asked; it is the policy of Her Majesty's Government to tag along behind the United States? The answer to that is, very clearly and very definitely, No; it is not. It is the policy of Her Majesty's Government to stand with her Allies in the fight for freedom and in the preservation of the Free World, and not simply to enjoy these things selfishly ourselves. The privilege of belonging to a minority party and of speaking in public whenever one wishes is an important privilege which we in this country enjoy, and one that we hope other countries also will enjoy, even

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South Vietnam, North Vietnam and China. It is Her Majesty's Government's policy, in so far as it is within our ability to do so, to see that these privileges are enjoyed elsewhere and not only selfishly at home.
Let me come back to the Commonwealth Prime Minister's Conference. These proposals have been criticised on many grounds. The noble Earl, Lord Dundee, mentioned some criticisms, without necessarily associating himself with them. I hope that he may dissociate himself from them. Some people have said that it was done too quickly, and some of those people who say that have criticised us for going too slowly in the past. Some people have said that it was purely a "gimmick", done in order to bring more kudos to the Prime Minister; others have said that it was to bring more kudos to the Labour Party, or to pacify Labour Back-Benchers. All sorts of reasons have been given. I wonder whether people who put forward these denigrations realise that not only are they throwing a little mud at our Prime Minister, as a politician in this country (that is fair enough), or at the Labour Party—and that also is fair enough—but they are also throwing a good deal of mud at the Prime Ministers of the Commonwealth, suggesting that they are no more than stooges of the British Prime Minister and prepared to go along, without really wishing to do so, simply because they have been bamboozled into it. I do not think that people really mean that.
Therefore I would state very clearly that this initiative, although started by the Prime Minister of this country—and of that I, like Lord Royle, am proud; and I hope that many people, of all Parties, are proud of that—is an initiative of the Commonwealth. It is a Commonwealth decision and not solely a decision of one member country. Let us remember that the Commonwealth, as such, is uncommitted in this struggle. Various of its members have already expressed where there allegiances lie. There is no doubt at all how we stand with regard to the United States and the Government of South Vietnam. We know that Australia has already a contingent in South Vietnam. We know that New Zealand
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was about to send one, but that in the interest of Commonwealth unity, in the interest of giving this proposal a good start, she agreed to withhold the despatch of those troops at the present time—a very fine gesture. These are what I might call some of the committed members of the Commonwealth. There are also members of the Commonwealth who, while perhaps not being so closely committed to the other side, are able to speak freely with Peking. Pakistan, for example, can speak freely with Peking; and Ghana can speak freely with Peking. They are members of the Commonwealth who have supported this initiative. And in between there is a whole range of Commonwealth countries who are genuinely uncommitted. Therefore, my Lords, I think that anybody who says that this Commonwealth proposal is doomed to failure because it is sponsored by a committed Government is misreading the whole concept of the Commonwealth and the whole concept of this new approach.
The terms of this approach have been read out to your Lordships. I will repeat only one of them, because it relates to a question raised, I think, by my noble friend Lord Brockway, and he was not here to hear the answer given by my noble friend Lady Gaitskell. It was a question of what we felt about the eventual unification of Vietnam—whether we adhered to the Geneva Conference or whether we believed that North and South Vietnam should be separate countries. One of the ultimate objectives laid down by the Commonwealth Prime Ministers was that there should be established principles for the eventual unification of the country through free and internationally supervised elections.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, may I interrupt for one moment? I do not think I raised that question at all so far as the Government are concerned. I quoted the Foreign Secretary as saying that he accepted that.
LORD WALSTON: I beg my noble friend's pardon.
LORD MILFORD: I raised it.
LORD WALSTON: It was the noble Lord, Lord Milford. It was my writing that I was unable to read. I am sorry about that. However, I hope that I have

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answered the noble Lord's question adequately. But I think my noble friend Lord Brockway did raise a question (I may come back to it later, but I will deal with it now) concerning the United States, and whether President Johnson accepted this objective. What I can say to my noble friend is that these terms are well known to the American Government. They have been published; they have been read; the American Government has welcomed the initiative, and is prepared to negotiate and to receive the Commonwealth Prime Ministers. There is, therefore, every reason to think that it is prepared to endorse the whole of the proposals put here, or at least to discuss them. It is not turning them down out of hand; it has not said, "No" to them. That, I think, is an important step forward.
LORD BROCKWAY: It was the word "endorsed" that I queried.
LORD WALSTON: We hope that that will come. I do not think there can be many noble Lords present who would criticise any of these proposals that have been put forward. I have not heard a word of criticism of them this evening. So it is interesting now to look and see what response we have actually had to these proposals. My noble friend Lord Kennet specifically asked what response we had had. Well, as your Lordships will know, we had a quick and favourable answer from Washington and from Saigon. They both said that they were willing to receive this delegation at any time—two positive responses. And, of course—we must not forget this—the United Nations Secretary-General has also said the same; so that there are three positive responses.
Moscow took rather longer to reply, and the answer was not a categorical "No". It was a firm "No", but I think one can detect a slight hesitation in it. The reason given for the "No" was that it was no concern of theirs and that we should address ourselves to Hanoi—in other words, washing their hands of this whole matter. From Peking we got a categorical "No"—no doubt about it at all; they would have nothing whatsoever to do with it. From Hanoi we are still awaiting an answer. Our Consul-General in Hanoi had a conversation with the Director of the Foreign
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Affairs Bureau on June 28, three days ago, when he was given an acknowledgement of our proposals, but was not given any final reply. In other words, contact has been made; there has been no refusal and there has been no acceptance. That is the position at present. At the risk of upsetting the noble Lord, Lord Milford—
LORD KENNET: My Lords, before the noble Lord leaves that point, could he say anything about the response from the Viet Cong as opposed to Hanoi?
LORD WALSTON: There has been no response from the Viet Cong other than what comes over the radio, to which the noble Lord has already referred.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: Has the noble Lord addressed himself to the Viet Cong directly?
LORD WALSTON: Not directly, but through Hanoi. They are not very easy people to get at. I ask your Lordships—although Lord Milford may object to this—to ask yourselves: who is to blame now if this conference does not get off the ground? Is it Washington? Is it the United Nations? Is it Saigon?—all of whom have said Yes. Is it Moscow, who have said No? Is it Peking, who have said No? Is it Hanoi, who have not yet answered? In the interests of accuracy, I would point out to Lord Milford that I have not been in Southampton for some seventeen years or more. Possibly that gives an indication of the accuracy of some of the other information with which the noble Lord regaled your Lordships this evening.
Lord Brockway stated in his remarks, very honestly and very fairly, that it might well be—I do not want to misrepresent him in this—that because North Vietnam and the Viet Cong are having success in the fighting at present they will not enter into negotiations because they think they can win without any talk at all. It is perfectly natural if people think they can win. It is not very estimable for people who are peace-lovers, or who profess to be peace-lovers, if they are prepared to talk peace when they are losing but are prepared to go on fighting when they think they are winning.
LORD BROCKWAY: The noble Lord has stated accurately the point I took.

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What he omitted was that when America thought it was in a strong position and when it thought that by bombing North Vietnam it would make the Vietnamese surrender, it also was opposed to negotiations on peace at that point.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: No.
LORD WALSTON: I do not recall any offer from North Vietnam, Peking or Moscow at that time asking the Americans to talk. Therefore, they were unable to say, "No" Whether they would have said "No" to a suggestion of peace is a hypothetical question. But they did not reply to offers of peace talks because no offers were made at that time.
I want it to be very clear to noble Lords within this Chamber, and outside, that the choice today for the North Vietnamese and the National Liberation Front is not a choice between either talking or having victory. It is rather a choice between having talks or a continuation of, which may well mean an escalation of, the war. That is the choice which is before them. It is up to any of us who are sincere in our desire for peace in Vietnam and who have any influence at all, which I regretfully have not, with China or North Vietnam or the Viet Cong to make them fully aware of that; in other words, that they are not going to win an easy or even a difficult victory, even while the monsoon is on. The war will continue stubbornly and brutally. We know that from what others have said. It is not of our making or desire, but that is the choice that they are faced with and that we are faced with. They can either have a continuation of the war or have talks, which have been offered to them.
May I turn briefly to some of the questions which Lord Brockway asked me? One I have already dealt with—the question of the independence of South Vietnam. At the moment, of course, there is a desire on the part of the Americans that there should be independence in South Vietnam, but it is not eternal. The Commonwealth Prime Ministers have said the same thing, but say it should lead to eventual reunification if the people of both sides so desire it.
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The other question which Lord Brockway asked (I did not, I am afraid, write it down very cleary) was: With whom were the Americans prepared to negotiate? It is difficult to know with whom to negotiate. Russia says they should negotiate with Hanoi. Hanoi is still, as I have told your Lordships, pondering its answer. The noble Lord, Lord Brockway, says that they should negotiate with the National Liberation Front. The Commonwealth Prime Ministers say that we should negotiate with the parties principally concerned; and that view has, as I say, been welcomed by the United States. Although the National Liberation Front may be involved in these talks, do not let us run away with the idea that it is the constitutionally elected Government of South Vietnam, or, indeed, that it has given any proof whatsoever that it is representative of the majority of the people of South Vietnam. It may control the major part of the country, but if it does do that it controls that area not because of the free will of the people who have invited them in, but because of terrorism and the force of arms. I myself have been to a village some 70 miles from Saigon which by day was a model village, a New Life hamlet showing how good things were there. By night it was controlled by the Viet Cong. The people did not change their minds by day or night, so that they wanted one at one time and the other at another. In both cases it was force of arms which controlled that village, and that is the only rule, unfortunately, which obtains today in the whole of South Vietnam and, I suspect, in the whole of North Vietnam.
The noble Lord, Lord Brockway, finished by putting forward three proposals and I think he asked me specifically for my views on those. He asked that we should withdraw the people who train the police in South Vietnam, though I would remind him that those are civilians, and the police are used for maintaining law and order and security and in military operations; and, also, that we should forgo training facilities in Malaysia. That was his first request. The second was that the Commonwealth Mission should visit those countries according to where each member has most influence; in other words, they should split up into two and those who have influence with China should go

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there and those who have influence with Washington should go there. Thirdly, he asked that we should recognise the North Vietnamese Government. I cannot hold out very much hope that we can do any of these things.
I hope that as the discussions progress there will be a great relaxation of many of the things which go on, but at this present stage it would be, I believe, wrong and unwise for us to make these unilateral concessions. The recognition, after all, of North Vietnam, for which he asks, would be a recognition that there are two countries, which is just what he does not ask for. In the early part of his speech he said that there is only one Vietnam. At the end of his speech he said, "Recognise North Vietnam as a separate Government." That I consider somewhat inconsistent, and at the present stage of negotiations it would be, in my view. unhelpful.
LORD BROCKWAY: I do not suggest—
LORD WALSTON: May I continue? It is getting late now and there is little more that I have to say. I think it would be wrong, also, for us to withdraw the very small but valuable police training facilities which we offer, and also the training facilities in Malaysia, which are offered, of course, to other countries in South-East Asia also.
When it comes to the Commonwealth Mission and to whether they should visit separately, that I suggest is something for the Commonwealth Prime Ministers themselves to decide; it is not for us to decide that. It is a Mission of four which has been set up by the Commonwealth Prime Ministers, to go together, hand in hand, to all the capitals concerned to talk to all the people concerned. If they had thought collectively that they had more chance of success by separating
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the Mission they would doubtless have said so. They did not at the time, and at this stage nothing has happened, so far as I know, to make them change their minds.
My Lords, as I said at the beginning, we all want peace in Vietnam. But what we also want is a just peace. Peace at any price is not what we want out there; it must be a peace that will conform to our ideas of justice and a peace that will allow the people of that country to choose their own Government, their own way of life. I believe that we are more likely to achieve this by bringing such pressure as can be brought upon Peking and Hanoi—the two areas or two capitals, if you want to use that word of them, which have either refused or are still hesitating—rather than by trying to bring pressure on us at home to do something different from what we are doing. I believe that the initiatives which Her Majesty's Government have taken over the months that we have been in office have been the right initiatives. So far they have borne no fruit, or no visible fruit; but I believe that this present initiative, taken in conjunction with the Commonwealth, is more likely than anything so far proposed to bear fruit; and I hope that we all wish it well.

BIRMINGHAM CORPORATION BILL
Returned from the Commons, with the Amendments agreed to.

PROCEDURE OF THE HOUSE
Fourth Report from the Committee: made, and to be printed.
House adjourned at four minutes before eleven o'clock.