§ 3.22 p.m.
§ VISCOUNT YOUNGER OF LECKIE rose to call attention to the organisation of Civil Defence; and to move for Papers. The noble Viscount said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name, and in doing so I would remind the House that so far as my researches go it is almost exactly five years since the last debate took place in your Lordships' House on Civil Defence. That debate was introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, on April 5, 1962. Unfortunately, Lord Lindgren is abroad and cannot be with us to-day. But I have read the debate, and what Lord Lindgren said at that time is as true now as it was five years ago. I think he would agree that the main point which he made was to call for greater effort to make general information about Civil Defence available to the public. It is a great pity that successive Governments have failed to take his advice. The result is that there is still widespread ignorance on the whole subject, and unlimited scope for misrepresentation. It is for this reason, among others, that my noble friend Lady Swanborough and I thought it time that we had another debate on it. With that view the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, has agreed.
§ May I say here how pleased we are that Lord Stonham is sufficiently recovered to take part in this debate on a subject on which he is an acknowledged expert. I hope that he will give us a re-statement in unmistakable terms of Government thinking on Civil Defence and on the tasks which the Government wish the organisation to fulfil. He can perhaps also tell us something of the higher level of Civil Defence, with which I myself shall not be dealing, and of any new developments of importance which have taken place since we last debated the subject.
§ My own interest is at a much lower level. For the last five years I have been a volunteer and a controller-designate, as they call it, at county level. I make no apology for the fact that most of my remarks will be made from that point of view; particularly because the principal changes which are proposed by Her Majesty's Government are almost entirely effective at local authority level. The 756 instructions for implementing these proposals have been issued in Home Office Circular No. 1 of 1967 and its Scottish counterpart, which were published on January 31 of this year.
§ It would, I suppose, be justifiable for me to complain of the extraordinary time that has elapsed since the cuts were first foreshadowed in this House, as long ago as July, 1965. We realise, however, that behind the scenes a fierce battle has no doubt been going on with the Treasury, and possibly even at Cabinet level. Therefore I think it is sufficient if I simply say that by the time the new arrangements come into force, which will be at the end of next September, the whole Civil Defence organisation will have been in a state of suspended animation for well over two years, with local authorities unable to plan, paid staff uncertain about their jobs and volunteers in doubt about their role. This, needless to say, has led to great uncertainty for the local authorities, for whom, it seems to me, Civil Defence means often just one more responsibility to add to their already long list of priorities.
§ I think it is the general experience that in most authorities Civil Defence is kept going by a mere handful of elected members and officials; and great credit, I think, is due to them for the extra trouble they take on this rather unpopular subject. Certainly, without their support the Civil Defence Corps could get absolutely nowhere. The full-time Civil Defence officers of the local authorities, on the whole, do a very good job, not only with confidence but with enthusiasm—and frequently for somewhat modest remuneration, considering that much of their work takes place at weekends and in the evenings.
§ In Scotland we have a very special reason which does not apply in England and Wales, to be grateful to the police, because in Scotland they have up to now been responsible for the recruitment and training of our wardens. I do not know whether they have made a better job of it than is made in England and Wales. I think it is possible. Certainly I have been greatly impressed with the quality of the instructors they provide. We are particularly grateful to them and very sorry that our official connection with them is now to be terminated, although I am sure that we shall still have their 757 help. But, my Lords, in spite of these good points, the weak point at the local authority level has always been the same: the tremendous variation between the effectiveness of one local authority and another. I do not think that is surprising in an organisation which covers the whole country; but if we could get the standard of all authorities up to the standard of the best, or even to the standard of the average, we should have little to worry about.
§ As regards the proposed economies, I have asked the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, to give us a detailed breakdown of the Civil Defence expenditure as of now, and to indicate, so far as he can, where the proposed economies are expected to be made. The need for economy must of course be accepted by us. I gather from the local authorities that they are confident that they can meet the Government requirements in one way or another. Nevertheless, I hope the Government will remember that this is a service which has never enjoyed a very high priority, and therefore a good deal of ingenuity is going to be needed in effecting these economies. It is important, I think, that Her Majesty's Government should leave a good amount of latitude for individual local authorities to effect these economies in the detailed ways which suit their particular circumstances.
§ My Lords, some of the proposals in the Home Office circular can be welcomed unreservedly. The intention seems to be to call for increased training of local authority staffs. That is something for which we have been asking for many years. There are also proposals for more thorough and more frequent inspections of the emergency plans of local authorities, and this too is to be welcomed, because it is probably the best way to bring the weaker authorities up to the level of the better ones. Incidentally, I note with some regret that there is no mention of this inspection in the Scottish circular.
§ A third point which I believe might escape notice in a casual reading is the proposal to build up a substantial reserve of people who have passed through their active Civil Defence training. I think this a most important provision. These people are going to keep their uniforms; they are fully trained; many of them 758 will have been in the Corps for many years. I think that if local authorities use their initiative they will be able to keep in touch with these people and give them the opportunity of an occasional participation in training; and particularly to have in their mobilisation schemes provision whereby these people can be called upon in an emergency not simply as a few isolated individuals but perhaps in some organised detachment.
§ Regarding the proposals to make further use of local authority staffs, I hove told the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, that I am not entirely happy that the implications of this have yet been thoroughly worked out. I have no intention of pressing the noble Lord to-day for detailed facts and figures about that, but I hope he will be able to tell us that he will have further talks on the subject with local authorities to see how this is going to work out.
§ It may be helpful if I call attention to one or two aspects of this matter. The staffs are not obliged by their conditions of service to undertake Civil Defence training. Therefore we have to rely on volunteers, the supply of which, as is the case everywhere, is limited. In fact, we probably have already a large proportion of local authority staffs who are prepared to volunteer. It is therefore important, I think, that the Government should get their priorities right. I wish only to submit that the overriding priority, in my opinion, for local authorities is to have sufficient people on their own staff trained in dealing with problems of Civil Defence in their own departments as these would arise after a nuclear attack.
§ This is particularly so of the three key departments—health, welfare and roads—which would be absolutely overwhelmed with work and would have to operate on a 24-hour day basis. I believe they require not only their own emergency trained staffs but also a substantial number of people from other departments not so directly involved, who would be available to be drafted in to help through the emergency period. My Lords, until these priorities are met, I suggest to the Government that it is surely unwise to contemplate taking local authority staff to learn the unfamiliar techniques of an operations room and signals office, which has no bearing on their normal local authority training and is a service which 759 the Civil Defence Corps is fully trained to give.
§ That is all I want to say on the detail of these proposals, and now I should like to turn to the wider issues which are really of greater importance. A decision has been taken that if drastic economy is necessary, the one thing we must retain is a system of control and communications. This is clearly right, because no matter whether the resources available are large or small, they cannot be efficiently deployed without an effective communications system. Nevertheless, this decision has implications which are of great importance, but I cannot find much evidence that it is fully appreciated by the Government; I am sure that it is not fully appreciated by the public. I think that the public tend to identify Civil Defence almost entirely with rescue work, because that is what they see in peace-time emergencies such as Aberfan. The public may therefore be somewhat shocked, I think, to learn that the whole of the rescue forces—that is to say, the rescue, first-aid and welfare sections—of the Civil Defence Corps are to disappear completely.
§ I am not going to refer in detail to the first-aid and welfare functions, as the two noble Baronesses who are on the list of speakers, the noble Marchioness, Lady Reading, and Lady Hylton-Foster, will, I hope, give us expert advice on how far the voluntary societies can help out the Government with these functions. I would only say that in my opinion it is most public-spirited of these voluntary societies to offer their help to the Government in this way when already they have so many peace-time commitments. I can assure them that the Civil Defence Corps will co-operate with them in every possible way.
§
The position of the rescue function is not so happy, and it is far from clear, at any rate to me, that any adequate substitute is available for the rescue section of the Corps. It is said in paragraph 10 of Appendix B that:
rescue operations could make only a limited contribution to the saving of life after a nuclear attack.
This may be true if one regards the saving of lives, possibly in thousands, over the country as a "limited contribution". Perhaps it is in comparison with the
760
millions which we hope to save in other ways. Nevertheless, this decision to scrap the rescue section is one which we can receive only with great regret. Here is one more public-spirited activity which appeals to young, strong, fit men, and it is going to be lost. I think it a very great loss.
§ This brings me to the whole question of life saving, which is of course the all-important means to our objective of national survival. I doubt whether it is generally understood that the major contribution to life saving is likely to be made not by rescue work but by the prevention of deaths from the secondary effects of attack. We must get the public to understand this, because they have a major part to play in it. I expect that most of us are familiar with the danger, after any bombing attack, of death from hunger, from disease or from lack of medical attention. But nuclear weapons have introduced the new danger from radioactive fall-out, which is not only a lethal danger in itself, but of course complicates and enormously restricts the measures which would normally be taken to deal with the more familiar dangers. Fortunately, on the other side of the picture there are features about fall-out which make measures to protect the public possible. Once the bombs have fallen, fall-out is both predictable and measurable, and after a certain time it decays with very great rapidity. Civil Defence has the scientific staff, the instruments and the trained personnel to take advantage of these features. But it is a colossal task, a task for which first-class communications with the public, and indeed willing co-operation by the public, are absolutely indispensable.
§ Hitherto, we have placed much reliance on the wardens' service as our link with the public and to some extent, also, on the considerable number of uniformed Civil Defence workers who would be in touch with the public on the ground. The present proposals greatly weaken these links with the public and also the communications between the control system and whatever rescue workers may happen to be available. I would ask the Government: how do they see these links being strengthened? For instance, what plans, if any, have they for local broadcasting? Are these only paper plans, or are they in a reasonable state of readiness, so that 761 they could be called upon at short notice? For the same reasons, a much greater load than we had hoped in controlling the public under fall-out will fall on the police. Can the Government say, for instance, whether special constables are receiving Civil Defence training? On this question one could also speak of military assistance, but I intend to leave that to subsequent speakers.
§ If we fail in this task of controlling the public under fall-out, we face the possibility of a large number of unnecessary, avoidable casualties from radiation, not only among members of the public but also among members of the rescue forces. However well planned our measures may be, I do not believe that they will achieve their object unless the public have been prepared beforehand—and by beforehand I mean in peace time—to understand the simple, basic facts about fall-out. Almost everything we shall ask the public to do to protect themselves against fall-out will be either difficult or unpleasant, or both. It will often involve real hardship, discomfort and squalor; and it will certainly call for a high degree of readiness to help one's neighbours. To make this task even more difficult, as your Lordships will be aware, fall-out cannot be felt, seen or smelt, and my fear is that people will simply not believe in it unless to some small extent they have been familiarised with it beforehand.
§ I would ask that the Government make a break with the past about this. The first essential, in my view, is that Governments should be more forthright in their statements on Civil Defence policy. I think, too, that they must be prepared to contradict misrepresentations when they are made by responsible persons in Parliament, on T.V. or on other public platforms. But they could do more than that. It had not been my intention to say anything about the so-called one-in-five scheme, which some noble Lords may know about, and which my noble friend Lady Reading has asked me at least to introduce—and I hope that she will fill in some of the details when she comes to speak. I believe that this scheme was, in fact, her brainchild. At birth the wretched infant was not looked upon entirely with favour by the powers-that-be, but it has since grown up, under my noble friend's tutelage.
762§ The scheme amounts roughly to this: that the W.R.V.S. have appointed selected speakers, trained to give brief talks, the contents of which have been approved by authority, to voluntary audiences of women. The objective has been to bring this message to one woman in five of the adult population. Believe it or not, my Lords, the target has been reached in a great many parts of the country. The talks have been remarkably successful, so far as I have heard, and I should imagine have cost virtually nothing. I strongly urge the Government to consider whether they could not initiate and give their approval and support to local authorities in introducing a system of this sort to a wider range of voluntary audiences. I know that this is being done here and there. Many societies like to have talks on rather abstruse subjects such as Civil Defence, and a great deal can be done in this way; but unless any effort of this kind has Government approval and support, it will not be thoroughly widespread. I submit that this is a worthy cause.
§ I have tried to introduce this debate in a matter-of-fact and undramatic manner because I think that this is the way in which the Civil Defence forces have to approach their formidable task. But, of course, the very idea of a nuclear attack on a heavily populated country like ours is a horrible and dreadful one; and no one knows this better than we do in Civil Defence. We know that we cannot hope in peace time to simulate the appalling conditions under which we should have to work in war, but there is something we can do: we should set our standard of training sufficiently high to stand up to the strain of war. And that strain will be a severe one—the strain of exhaustion, of hunger, of fear; and also, I have little doubt, of great personal anxiety and tragedy. To my mind, there is only one way to meet that—by high morale based on confidence in one's training and confidence in one's colleagues. If we can get that, then we have some chance of maintaining the morale of the public, without which, I am afraid, all our plans for national survival will be doomed to failure. If Governments and the public will give us their support in peace, I believe that they will get their reward in war. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.