DEFENCE PROCUREMENT AND CIVIL AEROSPACE

HL Deb 12 May 1971 vol 318 cc1076-122

3.20 p.m.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR DEFENCE (LORD CARRINGTON) rose to move, That this House takes note of the White PaperGovernment Organisation for Defence Procurement and Civil Aerospace (Cmnd. 4641). The noble Lord said: My Lords, it seems such a very long time since I have been in your Lordships' House and found the House not discussing the Industrial Relations Bill that I think the five other noble Lords and I myself speaking this afternoon should apologise for the unwarrantable intrusion into the interminable proceeding on that Bill. I was reflecting last night and the night before that never can so many have listened to so few talking for so long, with so much patience. Therefore, I am all the more ashamed to warn your Lordships that I shall shortly be asking for leave to speak a second time on this Motion in order only that I may answer the questions which will have been put to me by noble Lords, and certainly not to make another speech, for anything of substance that I wish to say I shall say in the remarks I am going to address to your Lordships now.

It gives me a great deal of pleasure to draw your Lordships' attention to the White Paper on the future Government Organisation for Defence Procurement and Civil Aerospace, because I believe that it represents a breakthrough in an area which, to my personal knowledge, has caused a great deal of difficulty for many years past. It is, I think essential, if one is to appreciate the advantages of the organisation which we now intend to adopt, to understand the nature of the problem which we are setting out to solve. I should like, therefore, for a few minutes to analyzes the arrangements which have applied hitherto. I do not think that there can be any of your Lordships who have been concerned with Defence procurement who will aver that things in the past twenty-five years have been entirely satisfactory.

Broadly speaking, in recent years the Army arid the Navy Departments have been responsible for the procurement of their own weapons and equipment, either by developing them in their own research establishments and producing them in their own manufacturing facilities (such as the Royal Ordnance Factories and the Royal Dockyards) or by purchasing them direct from 'the contractors. But even for those two Services there has been an exception to the pattern I have just described in the case of aircraft, most guided weapons and some electronic equipment, which have been procured for the Services by a separate Department, latterly the Ministry of Aviation Supply. In the case of the Royal Air Force, since their main interest is in equipment in these categories—aircraft, guided weapons and electronics—nearly all their warlike stores have been procured for them by the separate agent Ministry. As with so many of our institutions, there are historical reasons why this pattern developed. Ever since the Ministry of Supply was set up on the eve of the Second World War, attempts have been made to find a system which satisfactorily reconciled, on the one hand, the natural wish of the Armed Forces to handle the procurement of their own equipment, and, on the other hand, the advantages to be gained by bringing together all Defence procurement activity.

When it was the Ministry of Supply, the balance lay towards having all procurement activity in one organisation; but even then this was not the complete picture, because, with the characteristic independence of mind which the Royal Navy usually shows, they opted out. Later, after the War, when the Ministry of Supply was superseded, the balance tilted somewhat towards the Services undertaking their own procurement, since at that stage the Army as well as the Navy became largely responsible for their own procurement. However, aircraft and electronic equipment became the procurement responsibility of the Ministry of Aviation and thus the Air Force continued for the most part to obtain their weaponry through an agent Ministry. This has remained the case as the Ministry of Aviation has given way to the Ministry of Technology and, more recently, to the Ministry of Aviation Supply.

The separation of responsibility between the user and the procurement authority, which is endemic in the agency system, has had a number of unfortunate effects which have, I think, at times been all too obvious. First and most obvious, there has often been an absence of the essential close liaison between the operators in the Services and the procurement people, without which neither can be fully aware of the requirements of the other. Furthermore, to the extent that such liaison has been achieved, this has only been at the cost of very heavy duplication in staff, both Service and civilian. Moreover, since the cost of the equipment concerned has formed part of the Defence Budget—and, in the case of production, has actually been charged to Ministry of Defence Votes—the Service Departments have been obliged, in order to discharge their accounting responsibilities, to monitor the financial activity of the agent Ministry very closely—again with much duplication of staff.

Over and above these difficulties, however, there has been a further disadvantage, in that the Ministry responsible for procurement of such equipment for the Services, being a separate Ministry, has tended, and I understand why, to regard its other function of promoting the health of the industries concerned not as an adjunct to procurement but as an end in itself. I think it would be generally admitted that this arrangement has sometimes militated against the Services getting value for money. It says a great deal for the high standard of the staff in the Service Departments and in the agent Ministry, and their dedication, that despite the defects of the system they have managed to keep the work moving on a reasonably straight course. But that is no argument for neglecting to introduce sound arrangements when they are available.

This, then, was the problem. It was a problem which the present Government fully recognised when they took office; and it was then tackled with the least possible delay. Your Lordships will recall that it was one of the problem areas identified in the White Paper on the Reorganisation of Central Government which we produced last October and in which we declared that our aim was to integrate all Defence research and development and procurement activities under the responsibility of the Secretary of State for Defence, as well as to devise new arrangements for handling the Government's responsibilities for civil aircraft and aerospace activities. As that White Paper made clear, we fully recognised the size and complexity of the operation which will be necessary to bring about such a reorganisation; and we accordingly set up a special project team, under Mr. Derek Rayner, to study the whole problem. Your Lordships will remember that the Ministry of Aviation Supply was set up as an interim measure.

The Rayner study was tackled with immense thoroughness and clarity of purpose and also, I think your Lordships would agree, with the utmost despatch. Mr. Rayner was thus able to let us have his complete findings and recommendations by the end of March this year. It is very greatly to the credit of Mr. Rayner and the members of his team that they not only, as I personally firmly believe, reached the right answers, but that they reached them so quickly. I would congratulate Mr. Rayner on the quality of the Report which he has produced, and which now appears as part of the White Paper which we are discussing this afternoon. It is, I think, a splendid augury for the new organisation which will arise from that Report that Mr. Rayner has agreed to serve as the first Chief Executive for it. Certainly, as Minister in charge of the Department I greatly welcome his appointment.

Your Lordships will have read the detailed proposals in the Report. I do not therefore wish to take up a lot of time in listing them, but would like, if I may, to draw attention to two or three features, and to why I think they offer a lasting solution to our problems. An essential preliminary to any consideration of the organisation within Whitehall was the question whether this procurement field offered an opportunity for a structure with a considerable degree of independence of Whitehall itself—what is sometimes termed the agency concept. There are two main reasons why this would not be appropriate in this case. First, any significant degree of independence would separate the staff responsible for procurement too much from the customers whose needs they exist to meet. Such an arms length relationship would be wholly wrong. Secondly, a very important point in the establishment of Government agencies is the extent to which it is possible to insulate their work from political involvement.

The defence equipment area has always been very sensitive to political considerations and the trend towards collaborative projects (that is to say, international collaborative projects), where inevitably we have to work closely on the political as well as the technical levels with our partners, re-in forces this point. Given therefore that the procurement responsibilities should be carried out within Government, the questions then arise, where within Government and in what particular organisational shape.

Noble Lords will have seen from the figures in Appendix B on page 55 of the White Paper, that the bulk of the work carried out by these staffs is for the Armed Forces Even for civil aerospace projects, much of the research and development work—which in their case is the major element carried on within Government—makes use of facilities shared in common with defence projects. We therefore decided that, apart from certain important elements, the staff concerned should all be concentrated within the Ministry of Defence.

Then, within the Ministry of Defence, there were two basic choices of organisation: the staffs could be split up between the Service Departments with special provision for those areas where more than one Service was interested, or they could be concentrated within a procurement organisation. Mr. Rayner has brought out very clearly in his Report that procurement is a specialised function and that the specialised skills which are required in its many aspects—management of projects, control of research, negotiation of contracts—can all best be developed if the staffs concerned are brought together in a strong organisation large enough to offer a full career and opportunities to train middle and top managers. On the other hand, such an organisation must not become too isolated or inbred if it is to retain the confidence of its customers.

The Procurement Executive which is to be formed in the way which I have described will be an integral part of the Ministry of Defence and its relations with the other staffs in the Ministry of Defence will be so devised as to permit the maximum direct contact between the customers in the shape of the Armed Services and those concerned with developing and producing their weapons and equipment. I believe that this solution will lead to maximum efficiency and at the same time to maximum economy in staff resources.

Your Lordships will appreciate, of course, that a great deal remains to be done to work out the details of this reorganisation, but perhaps I might give one or two examples of the ways in which this close relationship will be made effective at all levels. In the first place, the Minister of State for Defence Procurement will not be responsible solely for the procurement area; that is to say, research, development and production. He will also, under my general responsibility, oversee the staff within the Ministry of Defence for the formulation of the operational requirements upon which all the work of the Procurement Executive will be based. The primary importance of the link between these two is thus recognised at the highest level.

Second, as is discussed at some length in paragraphs 72–77 of the Report, the main systems controllers who will be responsible for naval, land and air weapons will have very close links with the Service Departments who will of course be responsible for stating the initial requirement and, in due course, receiving the equipment and operating and maintaining it in service. These links will, as it were, be manifested by each controller being a member of the appropriate Service Board; while the Controller of Guided Weapons and Electronics will be available to attend Service Boards as necessary.

Third, there will be several areas where one body of staff can provide a service to the whole of the Ministry of Defence, including the Procurement Executive. Examples of such areas are the staff concerned with accounts, contracts, statistics, public relations, land matters and works services. No hard and fast rule will be applied because each area needs careful judgment on its merits. In staff management matters the Procurement Executive will have a large degree of autonomy, because of both the sheer numbers involved and the importance of being able to offer and plan a career in procurerment in order to give them greater degrees of specialised knowledge and authority to which Mr. Rayner rightly attaches so much importance.

I have already mentioned that there are certain important elements which we have decided should not be the responsibility of the Ministry of Defence. These concern the policy for the aerospace industry, for civil aerospace research, development and projects and for space policy other than in the military field. Executive as well as policy responsibility for Concorde as a project will also be transferred to the Department of Trade and Industry but the Ministry of Defence through the Procurement Executive will continue to provide support for that project in certain areas. I have seen it suggested either that we have made no provision for policy in these fields or that the arrangement to place the policy work in these areas primarily within the Department of Trade and Industry is not sensible and has been forced upon the Government simply because of their determination to concentrate too much other work within the Ministry of Defence. Both these assertions are wrong.

It will be seen from the Rayner Report published in the White Paper that very careful consideration was given to the allocation of responsibilities in these fields. It was felt that as a general principle a sharper distinction should be drawn than has been in the past between the formulation of policy and the management of the approved programmes. This is a principle which has been applied not just in those civil areas, but across the whole of the procurement field. In a way this may not be obvious at first glance, for in many of the areas concerned the policy will be a responsibility of the Ministry of Defence, but the point to be stressed is that it will be a different part of that Ministry.

It will be for the policy staffs in the Ministry of Defence to lay down the qualitative and quantitative requirements for defence equipment, and it will be for the Procurement Executive to carry them out. Similarly, it will be for the Department of Trade and Industry to lay down a policy for civil aerospace research and development projects and for the Procurement Executive to carry them out. As for the policy responsibility for the aerospace industry, here again I believe there are very sound reasons for separating this from the managerial responsibilities of the Procurement Executive.

Policy responsibility for the aerospace industry needs to be considered in the wider context of national economic and industrial policies, and it is therefore right that this responsibility should lie with the Department of Trade and Industry. It may of course be that from time to time the interests of Defence and the interests of the policy for the aerospace industry will not coincide. In that case the issues on both sides can be clearly stated and the Aerospace Board, which is described in paragraph 2 of the White Paper, will provide the forum for the determination of policy.

This is, I am sure, a better way to identify the issues and arrive at decisions than having the various interests all bundled together in one staff which is always likely to result in distortions. Similar arguments and arrangements will apply in respect of Space with the slight modification that as other Ministries have a direct interest in Space, they, too, will need to be represented on the Aerospace Board.

Lastly, I should like to say something about the approach to management within the Procurement Executive itself. I have already stressed the complexity and cost of the projects which are to be handled. It is therefore most important, as is brought out very clearly and fully in Mr. Rayner's Report, that everything possible should be done, organisationally and in the way of providing staff, to ensure that the lines of command are clear, that responsibility can be precisely identified and that the staff have got the necessary expertise and experience. This again is some thing which cannot be changed overnight and I would not want to suggest by any means that nothing has been done in recent years. There have been many important innovations, both in the Ministry of Aviation Supply and its predecessors and within the Ministry of Defence; the notably successful one of which I had personal knowledge was Polaris Executive.

What we shall now have made, however, is a coherent and comprehensive approach. The systems controllers will have identifiable tasks and will themselves be accountable managers. Under them their organisations will increasingly be shaped into project orientated groups. The staffs will be encouraged to make a career in procurement and building up a greater degree of specialisation.

My Lords, I have sketched out very briefly some of the main aspects of this Report, and have outlined the decisions which the Government have already taken to put it into effect. I am quite sure that over the years this reorganisation will not only lead to further improvements in the high quality of the equipment produced for the Armed Forces and for civil aerospace, but will at the same time enable us to have a smaller and more streamlined organisation within Government to discharge those responsibilities. I beg to move.

Moved, That this House takes note of the White Paper Government Organisation for Defence Procurement and Civil Aerospace (Cmnd. 4641). — (Lord Carrington.)

3.40 p.m.

LORD BESWICK

My Lords, we are all obliged to the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, for explaining so lucidly the pattern of the proposed new organisation for Defence Procurement and Civil Aerospace. I am sure we shall all want to study much more closely all the detail which he gave us when we read Hansard to-morrow. I should also like to take the opportunity to say again what I tried to say when we approved the Order: that we are fortunate—and I mean this —that in the formative period of the new organisation one person of considerable, if not decisive, influence will be the noble Lord himself.

My Lords, we are discussing decisions taken by Her Majesty's Government following an impressively able and thorough exercise in efficiency analysis—carried out, too, as the noble Lord says, with considerable speed. The clarity of the recommendations which followed that analysis is impeccable—until one comes to study them a little more closely! Although I am about to express doubts and criticisms, we must acknowledge at the outset that both the recommendations of the Rayner Report and the decisions of Her Majesty's Government that have followed have been well received by the industries principally concerned. Indeed, the proposals are closely in line with what the aerospace industry itself suggested, although it is fair to say that they were suggesting what they thought was acceptable rather than what they thought was the ideal solution. However, although I have an interest (which I declare) in that industry, I have my own personal doubts whether we have found the most satisfactory solution. Certainly there are pitfalls which we must carefully watch; and, moreover, we must be ready to acknowledge from the outset—and I think the noble Lord himself failed a little in this—the possible need for review.

My Lords, I have two preliminary points. One concerns the Terms of Reference. Mr. Rayner and his team were asked to make recommendations on how best to integrate all defence research and development, and procurement activities, under the Secretary of State for Defence. That seems to me very reminiscent of the sort of choice which the late Mr. Henry Ford is said to have offered his customers; namely, that they could have a car of any colour, provided it was black! Might it not have been better to have had a completely objective analysis, by this very competent and authoritative team, on the basis of Terms of Reference which would at least have given them the opportunity to say that it might well be better to go back to an improved mark of the Ministry of Aviation idea, or maybe even the Ministry of Supply? Or to have incorporated contemporary buying techniques in the set-up which existed? At any rate it would have satisfied some doubts had there been no prejudiced dismissal beforehand of this possibility. And it would have been useful, I suggest, to have had the arguments rehearsed publicly ill 'the same manner as the Government, to their credit, are enabling us to consider the arrangements they are now proposing.

My second preliminary point concerns the statement of intention by the Government: that they are proposing to rationalise the whole function of defence procurement (and I quote) "on a lasting basis". If they really feel that they have now secured an arrangement which will stand unchanged for the lifetime of more than this Government, then they are showing either an extreme sense of humour or an undignified degree of conceit. Since the war the process of what we used to call buying, but what is now dignified by the term "procurement", has undoubtedly been developed to a high degree of sophistication. Mass production, long runs of standardised articles, and consequent large-scale bulk buying, have undoubtedly led to new techniques which it seems have not been wholly applied to Governmental processes. I have no doubt that as the result of the investigation Mr. Rayner and his team have made, with the consequent changes which are proposed, and with the specialist skills to which the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, referred which will now be required from those concerned with procurement, a whole range of articles from socks and shirts to the smaller weapons and certain equipment will in future be bought as keenly and as shrewdly as is possible in this uncertain world.

I am bound to say, however, that I was unconvinced by what the noble Lord said about having secured a method now by which the user would be brought into closer touch with the contractor. If we are developing this new race of people with these new specialised skills, they are different people from the members of the Service boards, they are different people from the military users, and I cannot myself see that we have necessarily brought the user much nearer to the contractor. We will still have the specialised buying techniques in between the user and the maker.

My Lords, that is one doubt, but where we are entitled to be much more doubtful is in relation to aerospace. Here the Government are so predominant a customer that both procurement and policy-making is their concern. Here the problems are of a different scale and kind, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, was prepared to accept. The cost of research and development alone is so great as to involve very different considerations. No matter how keenly and how shrewdly the new organisation in the Ministry of Defence use their expertise in drawing up and monitoring contracts in the aerospace industry such economies as might follow from their specialised shrewdness could be lost—and more than lost—if the over-all policy does not make possible a well-balanced, well-equipped national aerospace industry. My Lords, I suggest that true economy, commonsense and national interest, all combine to support the proposition that skilled procurement, while essential, is far less important than a wise policy which ensures the existence of a national industry with a capability and of a size compatible with optimum efficiency.

My Lords, there are two aspects of these decisions which immediately cause one to doubt whether they are best designed to secure that optimum efficiency. One is the divorce of policy from execution; and the other is the apparent subordination of the civil side of the aerospace industry to the defence side. Can we first take this erudite question of policy and execution, or as the noble Lord himself said, policy and management? No doubt all of us at one time or another have argued that it is important to have clear and separate responsibility for policy making as against the execution of agreed policy. In particular, I recollect categorical statements being made in connection with local authorities, publicly-owned enterprises and co-operative organisations. But though it is essential to prevent the policy makers—especially when they are part-timers or lay persons—interfering with the executives, it is also true that the executives, with close day-to-day understanding of the details and implications of the latest developments, are in an immeasurably superior position if it comes to an argument about what policy is possible. The more highly technical the business is the more true this is, and here I see a significant disadvantage in which the Department of Trade and Industry responsible for policy will find themselves, certainly in the near future, if not immediately.

How are they to keep up-to-date? How are they to get the sense of feel and atmosphere of what is going on in those places where hardware is actually made, and where the first "gleam-in-the-eye" can be seen? Is it that industry will have to make a double approach all the time, maintaining a dual system of communication, one with the policy-makers and one with the executives? The White Paper talks of right of access for the D.T.I. policy makers to the research establishments that are now to be placed under the Ministry of Defence. At the outset, no doubt, since the personalities will remain the same, communications will be as smooth on April 1 as on March 31; but as people go and new faces and new voices come, will this right of access to the work of another Department not run the risk of friction? Access presumably will mean access to information and discussion. But supposing new lines of inquiry are suggested, or merely a different emphasis on work to be done? Have the policy makers the right to suggest a different work programme? After all, access without influence can be very frustrating.

According to paragraph 2(iii), responsibility for the aerospace industry will pass to the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry; and the noble Lord has emphasised this. Apparently he confirms that this responsibility includes defence as well as civil aerospace. Can the noble Lord explain rather more clearly what is meant by "policy" in this connection? He says that the qualitative and quantitative requirements will be laid down by the Ministry of Defence; but, for example, supposing we take the particular case of the proposed new trainer. It is surely an important issue of policy as to whether this order is placed in this country or abroad. Using that case as an example which might arise, would the noble Lord explain to what extent the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, as policy maker, comes into the decision? I am not saying that it is wrong or right. I am merely anxious to know how this thing works out.

The White Paper itself calls attention to the fact that evidence shows clearly the indivisibility of aerospace techniques between civil and military applications. It lists such examples as aerodynamic and aero-engine research, ground and airborne avionics development and deployment, as well as aerospace development teams and production units in industry. Is it reasonable to conclude from this that the D.T.I. will have overriding responsibility for ensuring that there is a proper balance as between civil and military activity in the industry? If we can ensure that the total workload for the industry is, in all the circumstances, reasonable, and that if temporarily there is a run-down on, say, the military design side, then it becomes all the more important for the policy-makers to plan ahead to ensure that there is every possibility of utilising design skills on the civil side. Similarily, it is feasible to envisage a situation in which the skill of engineers can be utilised on defence projects when the curve of production on the civil side shows a temporary fall. I ask two questions here. First, will the noble Lord tell us whether the Secretary for Trade and Industry has the necessary authority and knowledge to ensure that, in so far as these things are possible, there is an attempt to maintain a proper balance within the industry?

The noble Lord at one point in his speech spoke in terms which suggested that previous attempts to maintain the health of the industry had been treated almost as an end in itself. I wonder whether he meant that. If it was a queston of maintaining the health of the industry in order to ensure the economic efficiency of the nation, then we surely cannot quarrel with this factor being taken into consideration.

My second question relates to higher policies still. I have indicated the sort of policy I have in mind. Will the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry be working within a policy directive which provides for a civil programme? A good deal of all these new arrangements are completely worthless unless there is a civil aerospace industry in Britain. Is this higher policy, accepting always that there is a Cabinet, a matter for the Ministerial Aerospace Board?

Paragraph 2(v) lays it down that the Board will "oversee" collaboration between the D.T.I. and M.O.D. What sort of staff are they to have for this quite formidable responsibility? If they are to have staff, and if we are to have sufficient staff in the D.T.I. to ensure that they have the necessary technical know-how; and if we are to have these new people in the Ministry of Defence with the procurement expertise, is the noble Lord satisfied that we are to have what he indicated would be the case: a smaller organisation? The same sub-paragraph 2(v) speaks of the Board—that is to say, the Ministerial Aerospace Board—being the "authority" for instructions to the procurement executive on civil aerospace matters. Does this mean that they act as postmen, or do they make their own judgment as to what instructions they are to be given? If they are to use their own judgment, if they are to have the necessary advice. are we not inviting more frustration and delay and expense?

Supposing another civil project is given launching aid. To whom does the application go? Who makes the decision? The D.T.I. or the Board? And is the decision only taken on the advice of experts in the M.O.D.? Before I leave the Board, may I ask what is to become of that grand old veteran T.A.R.C.? Does it disappear? Or how does it fit in? At the moment, Government sponsorship relates to one project only; namely, Concorde. An immense project certainly, but only one. Is there to be, as a matter of Government policy, a readiness to continue launching aid on other appropriate projects.

The reference to Concorde brings me to another point. We have this new pattern of policy and procurement and yet the two biggest important projects of to-day do not fit into the pattern at all. Concorde management is to be treated quite separately. This surely is a little odd. I do not say it is wrong—far from it—butt it is a little odd. May we take it that it' there is another major sponsored project that it will be managed as an independent virtually self-contained administrative unit? Incidentally, I would offer my appreciation of the way this Concorde project has been managed. The setup appears to be sensible and those who have responsibility within it are obviously both devoted and competent. At a time, however, when every effort is being made to contain costs, I wonder whether it might not be possible to streamline some of the procedures. For example, with inspection and certification there appears to me to be an element of duplication which at this stage might well be eliminated without risk but with significant economies.

The other one-off project is the Rolls-Royce undertaking. I read in the White Paper that staff dealing with the future of Rolls-Royce are to be transferred to D.T.I. Is this not another case of separating policy responsibility from technical know-how? The National Gas Turbine Establishment goes to the M.O.D. and those who really know what will probably happen in the aero-engine world go into the M.O.D. with it. What, then, is the position of those who are responsible for Rolls-Royce who are going into another building with the D.T.I.—are any technical staff to be left with them, or transferred with them, when this new arrangement is implemented?

My Lords, I should like to ask questions about space activities but I must recognise the limitations of time. This is so intensely important that it deserves a separate discussion. It would be impossible for me to try to disentangle paragraph 120 in less than a separate speech. However, I should like to ask the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, whether he could give us hope that there is to be one authoritative Minister who will strive from now on to keep Britain in the space age. There is also the whole question of the Naval dockyards, to which no reference appears at all either in the noble Lord's speech or in the White Paper. Are they considered to have been so perfect that they are to be left as at present or, if not, to what extent are they to be brought into a different arrangement?

I fear that I have asked more than my fair share of questions. If I have sounded critical I have not sought to condemn outright. I hope, and indeed believe, that the noble Lord will accept that the information for which I have asked is relevant and that my objectives are much the same as his. It may well be that those who come to write the next Report on Defence Procurement and Aerospace will use with relish the quotation attributed to Gaius Petroneus. But in the meantime I can but offer best wishes for success to all those, from Ministers downwards, who will have the task of implementing these new arrangements.

4.3 p.m.

LORD ORR-EWING

My Lords, I hope that you will afford to me the generosity and kindness which in my short time in this House I have found that you give to newcomers. Twenty-one years ago the Commons were housed in this Chamber so that it was on this very spot 21 years ago that I made another maiden speech. I have done a little operational research and, although I have found that many emotions fade with age, nervousness is not one of them.

I apologise for speaking so soon after my introduction to your Lordships' House, but I feel that this debate is a very important one and one where I have had some experience: that is why I have sought to intervene. All my working career has been spent in the electronic industry where I did my apprenticeship, and I declare an interest to-day because I am still associated with that industry. The firms with which I have worked have been very deeply involved in Defence matters. So, wearing that hat, I have been at the receiving end. When I was a junior Minister at the Air Ministry—and under the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, at the Admiralty—I was at the transmitting end in that we were sending out orders. If there is a lesson to be learnt from both ends, it is that from the manufacturer's point of view you get much quicker and more rational decisions if there is no large "buffer state" between the customer, the Service Department and the manufacturer who is carrying out the order. Therefore, I welcome the fact that there is not to be a separate Ministry but that the procurement executive is to be set up within the Ministry of Defence. I think that will help the inter-face between the customer, the procurement executive and the manufacturer; and I hope that this will be worked on because these could quite easily become separate entities—industry, the procurement executive, the Ministry of Defence and the users. It must be a spectrum right through, with an interchange of ideas and, I hope, also of personnel.

I wanted to touch very briefly on three matters: first, on civil aviation; secondly, on the organisation of the international projects to which this country is now so deeply committed; and thirdly, on the philosophy of what I hope will be a new approach. On civil aviation there was a rumour that there would be a second report—I think that is an incorrect rumour—by Mr. Derek Rayner. If there is not to be a second report then some matters need clarification. As the noble Lord who has just spoken so clearly recognised, there may be times when the Ministry of Defence wishes to save money or time by buying overseas. This happened very obviously in his predecessor's time, when three promising British aircraft projects were cancelled, and United States aircraft bought involving an expenditure of £445 million in dollars on the Phantoms; £114 million in dollars on the Hercules, and £15 million in dollars on the F 111 and Chinouk cancellation charges.

I happen to think that that was not a right decisison, but here was a clash clearly between views of the Minister of Defence at the time, and the wellbeing of the United Kingdom aerospace industry; and no doubt the Treasury had a say on the expenditure of dollars. I hope that there will be no clash of interests as between military and civil aviation. The D.T.I. is responsible for the aerospace industry. Can we be sure that there will be co-ordination? Because clearly there will be no civil aviation industry if there is no military aviation industry. Unless we are buying some military aircraft in this country, we are not going to get any civil aircraft produced here economically or effectively.

I wonder whether the D.T.I. is not really getting rather large and a little overloaded. It seems to me that the link between the civil aviation authority (when it comes into being) and the D.T.I. was not very clearly explained: nor was there any indication in this report regarding the responsibility in civil aviation for forward thinking, for the initiating of operational requiremenis, the funding of research and development and for the necessary follow-up to procurement.

I also notice that the Airworthiness Requirement Board, from its terms of reference, seems to exclude responsibility for the ground-to-air system, and increasingly your Lordships will know that it is the ground-to-air side which is so vital in the identification control and communication with civil aircraft. I was glad to hear the noble Lord who opened the debate say that there would not be a growth in staff. I hope that this will be very carefully watched, because there will be a tendency for the civil aviation portion of the D.T.I. to want to monitor the money which it is spending and also the projects which are being undertaken on its behalf. This is a natural development and it will have to be most carefully watched. My experience is that you get your way if you have money and mouths: money to spend in one's Ministry and mouths to speak in the Cabinet. I am delighted to think that under this new organisation we shall have the Minister for Trade and Industry, and my noble friend Lord Carrington, speaking for aerospace in the Cabinet. They will need two mouths to argue against the Treasury, who are not easily downed on any issues.

My Lords, I should now like to say a word about international projects and their organisation. I recognise, as I am sure everyone here does, that no Government can "disengage" from aerospace projects of the size of Concorde or of the multi-role combat aircraft. Government have to take a big interest and you have probably to team up with another nation in order to share R. and D. costs and also the market. When I review the international projects in aerospace I cannot help feeling that we have come off second best. On the Concorde France obtained the design leadership. On the Anglo-French V.G. France obtained the design leadership. On the Jaguar France got the design leadership. On the M.R.C.A. Germany got the design leadership. Here are four considerable projects, and you would think that perhaps our industry was small and less effective than the French or German industries. That is not the case; we are three times as big and I should think, nine times as experienced as the industries in those respective countries.

My Lords, there is a nice story about a pig and a hen who decided to enter a joint project for producing ham and eggs. The contract was signed, but it occurred to the pig after a little while that this was not very fair, as he would have to be slaughtered each time and the hen would just lay the eggs. So he approached the hen and said, "This is not a very fair arrangement"; to which the hen replied, with a chuckle, "In any joint venture one side always gets slaughtered." Reflecting on what is happening, I cannot help feeling that in these international projects we are building up the competitive know-how in aerospace and avionics in both Germany and also France, which cannot be entirely to the interest of this country. Although many able, bright and trained civil servants are going to the Procurement Executive I hope that my noble friend will remember that we have to try to match the exceptional French civil servants, with their polytechnic training and the exchanges they do with industry. We have to match them in competence and scientific training, if we are to get our way and stand our corner in these important projects.

Lastly, my Lords, I turn to the whole philosophy. The Government have said that disengagement from industry is their philosophy and their approach. I entirely support this. There are two sentences in the Rayner Report which I would commend to your Lordships. They appear in paragraph 27. The second sentence in that paragraph, which is on page 24, states: But it is vain to attempt to remedy suppliers' defects by carrying out tasks which properly belong to them such as quality assurance and detailed design supervision. From the "receiving end" I wish to endorse that remark. There is one electronic company which a few years ago had no fewer than 140 resident Government inspectors; and although the total number of defence orders has been steadily reducing in recent years I could quote cases where the number of inspectors has in fact gone up against that reduction. I am afraid that here "empires" are being built, and I would ask my noble friend to look at this most carefully. Competent firms do their own inspection; competent firms do their own designs and modifications. They do not need to be supervised by an army of other people who take up the time of production and executive staff—and of course, add to the cost of the project to the Government.

The second sentence which I would commend to your Lordships is: The total price is what matters and low costs and high profits are a better national bargain than the reverse. I hope that after ten years we shall have forgotten the Ferranti discussion and debate; the "Bloodhound" one, and also the Bristol Siddeley investigation. If we are going to get value for money, we must get quick decisions; we must get a feeling of partnership between the new Procurement Executive and the industry which is to try to carry out that work. I hope that we have passed through the phase where we monitored and controlled and tried to keep down profits, because unless British industry is profitable, we are not going to get the investment which is absolutely essential if we are to keep our industry both modern and also competitive. My Lords, I read that "disengagement" in one area is that there is to be less research and development done in Government establishments and rather more in industry. I hope that this comes about.

In this country we have a different approach to the United States of America, as I saw when I was a member of the Select Committee on Science and Technology and we paid a visit there. I thought the difference in approach there was startling. I talked to the Atomic Energy Commission, and they said that their slogan was that knowledge created with public money—that is, knowledge in Government research establishments—should be made public. This seems to me a wholly healthy philosophy. Of course, my Lords, the second "public" does not mean the public at large; it means that those with experience who could cash in on the knowledge and bring it to bear on their products and their exports should have the availability of that knowledge, and I hope that this philosophy may pervade our own defence research and development establishment in future. Finally, I just wish to congratulate Derek Rayner and his team on what I thought was an able, prompt and courageous report. I thank your Lordships very much for your courtesy and your kindness, and I hope that I may contribute a service to this House for many years.

4.16 p.m.

LORD KINGS NORTON

My Lords, I am delighted that the process that determines the order in which we speak in your Lordships' House allows me to be the first to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, on his admirable speech. The noble Lord adds great strength to the relatively small band of noble Lords with scientific and technical knowledge. He is a physicist and electrical engineer, and, as he demonstrated to-day, learned in matters aerospatial. All this, together with his political and ministerial history, means that his knowledge and experience are unusual in their breadth and I hope they will often be displayed in your Lordships' House.

There is not the slightest doubt that the White Paper is a most valuable document. While I cannot but be disturbed at certain aspects of it, I think it is a most persuasive one. I believe that at the present time carrying into effect the recommendations of the Rayner Report will mean a great improvement in our supply organisation. But I would describe this improvement as uneven, and the anxieties I have relate to how the organisation evolves in the longer term. I hesitate to disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, but if I understood him correctly, he believes that this is in the nature of a final solution; I do not believe that it can be. Consequently, my Lords, in what I have to say I may appear to be a little critical of certain things in the Rayner Plan; and I should like the Government to understand that my remarks are intended to be nothing but constructive and that they relate mainly, though not exclusively, to administrative evolution. I hope that this evolution will be largely in the hands of the noble Lord. Lord Carrington.

As was indicated by the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, "procurement" is a long word. He said it means "buying"; I would put it a little broader than that. I think it means "getting". From the point of view of the Fighting Services getting what they want, the new organisation which will derive from the White Paper recommendations is absolutely splendid. Policy and procurement will be in the same department. One can imagine nothing more satisfactory, and one feels that the physical defences of this country will, for some time at least, be safer in consequence. There is not, however, the same intimacy between civil aerospace policy and the corresponding procurement. Policy and procurement will be in different Departments of State.

The noble Lord anticipated that some of us would say this, but as a connoisseur of management systems, I cannot resist the feeling that despite the proposals in the White Paper to overcome the disadvantage in which civil aviation will find itself, and which of course is recognised in the Rayner Report, even the high level Ministerial committee does not, in my view, restore the balance. I believe the balance in the short-term will be provided by people: by the two Secretaries of State of course, but also—and it is they I have particularly in mind—by the people in the industry and in the Government services who, under the less closely knit organisations of the past, have come to know one another and to understand how, and by what, the health of the industry is affected. We shall have the position in which an administrative imbalance is corrected by the skill and common sense of individuals. Front the point of view of management this is really the wrong way round. It is organisations which should be dispassionate in character, and which, by internal checks and controls, should minimise the bias of the individual. Here we have, perhaps inevitably in current circumstances, an organisation which I think has bias, and we shall be dependent upon unusually well-balanced and experienced individuals to make sure that that bias does not prove detrimental to the development of civil aviation. I have said that these individuals exist; but they are not young, they will soon disappear—I am not referring to the noble Lord; I am referring to the people who are already in the executive services—and there is no guarantee that their replacements will be from the same mould.

I am not really impressed by the solution of this difficulty, recognised by Mr. Rayner and his team, and outlined in paragraph 125. In other words, I should like to feel that, in the longer term, we depend upon a more symmetrical organisation than the one we are now going to have. The only alternative which I suppose could have been suggested was the revival of the Ministry of Supply, with the Defence interests and the civil interests standing in equal relation to it. The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, has made quite clear that, from the point of view of the Services, the defects discovered in the past in that arrangement are severe, and indeed, because that has been recognised by the Rayner Committee, they do not even mention it as a possible solution.

There is one aspect of the new organisation about which I should like to say a word, although it has already been mentioned both by the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, and the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing. I feel it is a matter of such importance that it will bear another word or two. In the first place, whereas responsibility for Defence policy and procurement rests securely on the shoulders of the Secretary of State for Defence, responsibility for the aerospace industry is (in paragraph 5 (iii) on page 4) stated to be a responsibility of the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. I do not feel, my Lords, that this tremendous responsibility is spelled out in a sufficiently categorical way. In the summary of recommendations—and I quote—"policy responsibilities for the aerospace industry" are to pass to the Department of Trade and Industry. And in the very last paragraph of the main Report, by implication, the health of the industry—and I believe this is the first time in the document that the health of the industry is mentioned—is the responsibility of the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry.

This vital word "health" concerns me. It has been made clear already this afternoon that the responsibilities of the two Secretaries of State may at times lead them into incompatible positions, and the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, has indicated here that the Ministerial Aerospace Board would resolve the incompatibilities. But I feel that it might not, and I should like to know whether it is correct to assume that the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry has the over-riding responsibility, ultimately perhaps the responsibility for sounding the alarm to the Cabinet, if he believes that the health of the industry is in danger.

We have in the past seen purchases of foreign equipment. Even when foreign equipment is clearly more advantageous militarily than what might be available at home, it might nevertheless be the incorrect national policy to make a foreign purchase, if it meant the running down or deprivation of our own industry. But am I right in assuming that it is the duty of the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry to ensure that, for the cause I have mentioned or for any other cause, the capacity of the industry to supply our civil and military needs in the foreseeable future is not endangered? I suggest, my Lords, that the Secretary of State for the Department of Trade and Industry should have this rather tremendous responsibility laid firmly on his shoulders, if indeed that is the intention. That he has it, as from May 1, can be deduced, but I regard the matter as of such importance that I think it should be the subject of a categorical statement.

Looking further ahead, I feel that the great strength of the Defence Department in controlling Defence policy and procurement will need some civil counterpart. I believe that one of the most impressive consequences of the proposals is that there will be created a most powerful permanent machine with a continuous Defence policy. There will need to be, I suggest, some powerful permanent organisation on the civil side, to do for civil aerospace development what the Service chiefs in communion will do for Service policy. We have in existence, as the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, has mentioned, the Transport Aircraft Requirements Committee, and, without denigrating the endeavours of a hardworking body which has been soldiering on for years, I suggest that we need a body of much greater power, whose recommendations will have the same weight as those on the Service side. It is a weight which would be felt most on the research and development organisations, and in the commissioning of civil prototypes. I should not like T.A.R.C., many of whose members are well-known to me, to feel that I am criticising them. My feeling is that not enough attention has been given to what they have done, and not enough action has been consequent upon their deliberations. I am asking, indeed, for a very powerful continuing policy body for civil aerospace, which is as vital to our future as military aerospace. It is difficult to avoid feeling that Governments have not, in recent years, sufficiently understood the vital importance of a strong civil section in our aviation industry. Where, indeed, are the civil prototypes to-day? The civil elements in our industry are already in peril, anal I believe the time for action is now.

I was impressed by the opening words of paragraph 16 of the White Paper; namely, Users are often dazzled by the range of possibilities of technology and realism is sometimes subordinated to desire. I was grateful for the word "sometimes". My Lords, imagination and realism can walk hand-in-hand. Let us never forget that. To-day, realism is too often a synonym for the frustration of forward-looking enterprise. It is a word accountants use to deny imaginative engineers. If ever there was a "time for all good men" of imagination "to come to the aid of the party"—in this case the Conservative Party, my Lords—this is it. We cannot prosper on stagnant technology.

But, my Lords, the reason which influences me most in asking the Government to regard these new arrangements as effectively short-term arrangements, the reason why I am anxious that a flexible outlook be maintained over the whole aerospace policy field, the reason why some further rethinking not only of our administration, our organisations and our outlook will be necessary, is that the boundary between military defence and economic defence is disappearing. Our physical safety is, admittedly, dependent upon our military defences, but we shall not be able to pay for our military defences unless our economic defences are in good heart. Furthermore, it can be argued that our comfort and safety in the future are as much dependent, if not more dependent, upon our economic progress as upon our Army, our Navy and our Air Force.

The Government's responsibilities for our well-being clearly include both our economic defences and our military defences. While the present pattern of our national organisation makes it difficult and undesirable, if not impossible, at present to deal with these two sides of our defence in the same way, more and more taxpayers' money is involved in civil as well as in military enterprises. Moreover, the instruments of both tend to be the same, certainly in the field in which I have so long been interested—that of aviation or, as we would now say, aerospace. We can expect to find the same engine used in civil and military vehicles. We can expect to see a military vehicle developed from a civil one. We have indeed seen that happen in the last few years in the development of the Nimrod. We can expect to see experience in military aviation applied in the civil field. For example, while it is unlikely that we shall see a civil Harrier, what has been developed in the way of control of a vertical take-off machine on the Harrier will certainly be applicable to passenger-carrying vertical take-off aircraft.

The boundaries between the needs of military aviation and civil aviation are already blurred, and I find it difficult to believe that the system for policy development, control and procurement adumbrated in the White Paper can persist for very long. I feel that we must now fix our eyes on the middle distance. Governments must realise that for the future health and welfare of this nation, the development of civil aviation is as important as the development of military aviation, and that, in the end, there must be a symbiosis so achieved that what is one industry will be governed by what is one policy, not the reconciliation of two policies based on different outlooks.

4.32 p.m.

THE EARL OF HALSBURY

My Lords, in following the noble Lord, Lord Kings Norton, who followed the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, whose maiden speech I listened to with great respect, I should like to add my congratulations to those of the noble Lord, Lord Kings Norton, and express the hope that we shall tear the noble Lord again on many occasions, especially on these topics where his experience and wisdom can be brought to bear so effectively.

In rising to take note of the Defence White Paper I must first declare an interest. I am a director of the Joseph Lucas Group of Companies, one of the largest accessory manufacturers in the field of defence involving vehicles generally and of aerospace components in particular. Having declared that interest, may I express my admiration for the administrative and commercial realism and good sense embodied in the White Paper, the work of Mr. Rayner and his colleagues, and further congratulate the Government on their forthright acceptance of its principal recommendations, with the straight managerial line of command down to procurement, on the one side, and the assignment of civil aerospace commercial projects to the Ministry of Trade and Industry, where they belong, on the other. As I read the Paper, I found my pencil increasingly underlining and sidelining passages clearly aligned with the doctrines I have many times preached myself and commend, so far without very much success, to a succession of those having authority over these matters. I feel that if I were to read out all that I agree with, I should almost be committed to reciting the document as a whole, a thing at which the imagination boggles.

It must inevitably transpire that in the governance of human affairs, mistakes are made from time to time. On the occasions when mistakes are made, one learns from experience that they cannot be undone and that it is useless to job backwards. Sometimes a head must roll in ritual fashion but that is all that happens, if there is one mistake. It is otherwise when an almost endless sequence of decisions is regularly and wrongly taken, so that mistake follows mistake. The individuals involved in these are just as competent and honourable as any others one might postulate by way of replacement. It follows in such a case that there must be something badly wrong with the system, and the need to rectify it cannot be evaded. This need of rectification has at least been faced.

Two challenges face the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, following the Government's acceptance of Mr. Rayner's recommendations. One is the relatively minor challenge involved in implementing the recommendations which the Government have accepted and thereby making a new beginning with a new administrative machine. But a machine is still a machine; it is an impersonal thing which has to be driven. The second and much severer challenge to the noble Lord is to use the new beginning to undo the damage of the past and restore confidence between the parties to defence procurement and the launching of civil aircraft.

One kind of damage cannot be undone, in the sense that money unwisely spent cannot be recovered. The other kind of damage, loss of confidence between the parties, can be, and I wish the noble Lord good fortune in restoring it. It is mainly to comment on this aspect of the matter that I turn accordingly.

I want to deal first with the history of many of these matters in order to defend the thesis that almost every major decision taken since, and inclusive of, the White Paper of 1957 has been wrong, the exceptions falling into a special class for a special reason which I will explain later. In the commercial sense, the decision to embark on the Concorde was almost certainly wrong. The money spent will never be recovered in its entirety at a commercial rate. However, having started it and got thus far, it would almost certainly be wrong to stop it now. Having spent so much that will be lost in any case if we wrote it off, it is the forward expenditure from now to completion that is the determinant of choice. We have to hold our course here, not because it is the right thing to do but for fear of French reaction to a default on our side.

Going back to the 1957 White Paper, one of its tragic consequences was that the variable geometry aircraft left the environment of Vickers, where Sir Barnes Wallis conceived it, and was tamely exported for development elsewhere. Years later we find ourselves playing a subordinate role in the development of the M.R.C.A., which we ought now to be selling to the world as a B.A.C. aircraft, had our know-how been allowed to accumulate here.

When the 1957 policy went into reverse, another series of mistakes was made. The 64,000 dollar question was not whether the TSR 2 was a good plane but whether such a plane was really wanted at all. If it was not, then it was wrong to start it, right to stop it and then doubly wrong to replace it with F 111s. But if it was wanted, then it was wrong to stop it when it was already flying and represented a revolutionary advance. The parallel concept that was being developed almost at the same time, the P 1154, was again the wrong project to have started. If you want a VTOL aircraft of revolutionary design, do not try to make it supersonic in the first generation. Having been stopped, the reduced subsonic version—I think it was called the P 1127—was redesigned by two brilliant and able men: Sir Sydney Camm of Hawker's and Dr. Stanley Hooker, originally of Rolls-Royce, then of Bristols, again of Rolls-Royce and now in retirement back at Rolls-Royce. And this has given us the Harrier, which bids fair to go from success to success and this brings me to my class of exceptions which I promised to recite to your Lordships.

The great planes in our aerospatial history have been those which industry knew how to make and proposed as viable projects to Government. There is a long and distinguished list of them: the Spitfire, the Hurricane, the Wellington, the Lancaster, the Mosquito, the Canberra, the Hunter, the Lightning and now the Harrier. Their development costs were in nearly all cases modest. The major mistakes have all been associated with a policy of refusing to authorise projects without operational specification. The result is to over-specify in committee what is ideally requisite and to end with something so near to the verge of the impossible that it has to be abandoned at the point where costs rise beyond what is supportable. This is what we have to get away from.

None of our commercial air-liner designs have sold well, with the honourable exception of the Viscount, again falling into the pattern of what industry knew it could make for a modest cost in development. Only 114 Comets were sold, against 266 Caravelles. Yet we were the pioneers. Of our other products in the civil and military industry, the Britannias, Tridents, Vanguards, BAC ‱11s and VC 10s, only one of them, the BAC 1‱11, sold more than 100. One reason for this is that we permanently indulge our national failing of trying to do too many things—not necessarily too much, but too many things—spreading too little butter over too much bread. It is pathetic to look at the list of planes set out in the Plowden Report of 1965 that have gone out of production or service, or both, only five years later. Twenty-five planes therein mentioned have gone out of production or service, or both, since then. Of these 18 sold less than 100 each. If you compare the British and United States aircraft industry in respect of production of planes per £1 of turnover in the industry, we have been engaged on programmes committing us to three times as many individual designs per £1 of turnover as the United States. We are permanently trying to develop too many individual designs. We are failing to effect a significant concentration.

A typical example of trying to do too many things is represented by the endless committee discussions on a maritime reconnaissance plane to replace the Shackleton. The number required could never have made it economical, on a cost effective analysis, to develop a new plane of advanced design from scratch. Well, my Lords, the mountain groaned and finally gave birth to a mouse, in the research and development sense. Retrofitted second-hand Comets were adapted to the purpose of replacing the Shackle-ton and are, I believe, proving entirely satisfactory. This is perhaps a rare example of getting the answer right.

How has this state of affairs come about? In my opinion it has arisen out of a syndrome of mutual suspicion and distrust among the parties concerned with decision: the Government, the Defence chiefs, their scientific and technical advisers, the Treasury, the industry and the airline operators. Everyone distrusts everyone else. Wrong decisions are taken in consequence, and this increases the mutual suspicion. Here I must say something, with great respect to noble Lords on the Government Front Bench. Everyone distrusts every Government, because Governments are transient epiphenomenon extruded by our Parliamentary democracy on a time-scale that is short compared to that of the time-scale involved in a major aerospace project. The Concorde started under the Government of Mr. Macmillan, continued under that of Sir Alec Douglas-Home, pursued its way under the first and second Governments of Mr. Wilson, and survives under that of Mr. Heath. When and if it goes into commercial service the electoral term of this Parliament will be at an end, and who knows who will be in charge of the project then? It has been held on an unswerving course, as I have said, only through fear of French action were we to become in breach of our contract with them.

Because everyone distrusts every government, everyone is in an unconscious conspiracy to get the Government into a corner where they must support what everyone wants but possibly nobody needs. So the Government distrusts everyone in turn, and with good reason. Its defence chiefs and scientific advisers are suspected of enthusiasm for new aircraft much as small boys are enthusiastic for railway trains and racing cars. Those of its advisers who deal with the industry are suspected of being over-involved emotionally with its welfare and prosperity. Industry is felt to be living off the taxpayer in what Mr. Davis, in another place, called "a lame duck's" paradise. Even the Treasury, with overall responsibility for Governmental solvency (the only body of men dedicated to the proposition that the Government should spend less and not more: without them we should all be ruined, because everybody else wants to see the Government spend more, not less, provided it is their pet projects) is suspected of getting the answer wrong, and saying "No" when it should be "Yes", and "Yes" when it should be "No".

The industry has unwisely, in my opinion, tried to keep itself going at a level beyond what the nation could afford by the expedient of over-selling itself to the Government, and created distrust in itself accordingly. The airline operators, being nationalised bodies, are concerned with meeting their financial targets. The Government are reluctant to take decisions out of their hands, for fear of acquiring detailed responsibility for running them if they interfere with the executive authority of those who are responsible for their prosperity. Thus do you get the sort of situation in which the Government would not provide launching air for the VC.10s. unless the airline operators would buy them; and the airline operators would not buy them except on a tight specification exclusively acceptable to themselves, but not necessarily anybody else. So that the potentiality of a great plane in the international market was spoilt thereby.

Too many cooks, my Lords, spoil the broth. Yet even so, so good a plane was it that there was always a queue for seats in a VC.10, while the Boeings and Douglasses were crossing the Atlantic with empty seats, a psychological factor which everyone underestimated. Somehow the over-all interests of Britain never succeeded in making themselves felt. Having spent a period in Japan on a mission for O.E.C.D., studying relations between government, universities and industry, I realise that in Japan they seem te secret of optimising the interests of their country as opposed to the interests of some administrative department. I am not crying "stinking fish" and saying that we do everything wrong in this country. We do great things. I am preaching the doctrine that too many cooks spoil the broth. The Trident was conceived on too small a scale. Rolls tried to sell engines to the European air-bus project on too large a scale, lost the sympathy of their associates, and took on the disastrous TriStar project with results that make us only too sad to contemplate.

How, my Lords, can the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, restore this deplorable state of affairs? First, the Government must do what no other Government have done, and face the fact that every country with an aerospace industry subsidises it by one means or another. The subsidies may be direct or concealed, or absorbed into defence procurement, but they are always there. If we are to have an aerospace industry at all the Government must be ready to compete with other Governments in order to have one. In the absence of any willingness on the Government side to compete with other governments, it is useless to preach competition with other industries on the industrial side. The kind of amiable hope expressed in the Plowden Report that there is no ground for supposing that, given suitable conditions, the aerospace industry cannot be as commercially competitive as any other industry, is just a non-starter.

Secondly, the Government must decide on what scale they will compete year in and year out, and stand no nonsense with respect to the industry being cut back to the scale which this implies. The Plowden Report recommended a cutback, but nothing happened. Something has got to happen. You only have to look at market research reports of what we will be selling in 1980, based on what we have got to sell, to realise that the industry is in a bad way. As I say, something has got to happen. The scale must be what there is a reasonable prospect of a successor Government confirming. You cannot run an industry dependent so highly on government procurement by subordinating its stability to the expansionist and contractionist policies of anything so transient as Governments.

LORD BESWICK

May I intervene at this point? I have been following with great interest what the noble Earl has said. I agree with most of his conclusions, though not with all his facts. Can he point out to me the paragraph in this White Paper that suggests that all the mistakes of the past are going to be avoided in the future?

THE EARL OF HALSBURY

I am trying to outline the challenges which the noble Lord must face in order to do that, and in order to harden him in facing those challenges. Thirdly, the level of year in, year out support must be stabilised by a willingness to place contracts for building bricks with many fewer major projects being embarked on over any given space of time, projects confined to what industry knows how to make—and this is the key to the whole thing—following maintenance over the years of a building brick policy. This again is in the Plowden Report, but it has not been vigorously implemented. The major projects when they mature will hen be economically successful.

Fourthly, we must reinforce success by concentrating on What we are good at. It is no good trying to do everything under the sun because somebody else has had a shot at it. This naturally raises one of the matters that we are best at, commonly called avionics. This is something in which the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing is concerned. One can regard it as a separate subject in its own right, or possibly classify it, with accessories, as the largest of them all. It is perhaps better to think of it in its own right.

Here Britain leads the world in advanced navigation and blind-aid landing systems. We have got to stand on our successes and go forward vigorously from where we now are. After all, radar effectively started in this country, just as jet engines did. It would therefore be entirely comformable to my philosophy to concentrate effort on these, since they are what we are good at. The same applies to the whole wide field of accessories. For many years the whole of the world's jet engines flew on British fuel systems. To specify this in more detail would take me further into the field where I have declared an interest than I would wish to go this afternoon.

My Lords, these are the challenges facing the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, at this point in time. The key to the whole complex set of them is a restoration of confidence between parties who must ultimately be regarded as buyers and sellers. I think he is fortunate in acquiring the services of Mr. Rayner, whose commercial background has been with a firm who were the pioneers in promoting trust between buyer and seller. If the noble Lord and his collaborators cannot accomplish what I have recommended, then I can think of no alternative team better able to do so. I am bereft of ideas, and we shall indeed be in a parlous way. I would therefore wish the Government, the noble Lord and his colleagues well in the very important task that lies ahead of them.

4.52 p.m.

LORD SHINWELL

My Lords, here we are again in your Lordships' House debating perhaps the most formidable and important document on the subject of defence and aerospace procurement ever submitted by any Government in this century. In the process we are concentrating not essentially on the subject to which our attention is directed in the White Paper before us, and in the characteristic speech of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, but on the subject of aerospace. There may be all the justification in the world for criticism of the White Paper in relation to the proposal it embodies on that particular aspect of the subject. I should have thought that when we were considering what I might describe as the solar plexus of our Defence organisation, administration and capability, noble Lords engaged in the debate might have given that aspect of the subject rather more attention. Moreover, we are debating this formidable document in wide open spaces. With the greatest respect, if we had been debating pornography the Benches would have been filled almost to overflowing. But this, after all, is just a matter of our Defence organisation. Indeed, some few moments before I ventured to rise and address your Lordships far fewer noble Lords were present.

When I procured the White Paper was not aware that a debate would emerge. I discovered it rather too late and therefore apologise for failing to intimate my intention to take part in this discussion. In the circumstances I will not seek to detain your Lordships at any length, more particularly because there is to be a subsequent debate on a subject perhaps less important than the one under review, but, nevertheless, of interest to the United Kingdom and, indeed, to the Continent of Europe.

This subject of Defence procurement, of research and development into the type of weapons required for the purposes of defending the United Kingdom, and perhaps the Commonwealth, against possible aggression, has baffled all senior Ministers representing Service Departments in my time, and every Minister of Defence since the first appointment was made in 1946. I wonder how many of your Lordships present or, indeed, in your Lordships' House, have been engaged in discussion at a Cabinet meeting, either as a Service Minister representing the Army or the Navy. I must transpose those terms; I must remind your Lordships that the Navy comes first—the Senior Service. It is the Navy, the Army or the Air Force. I wonder how many noble Lords have been engaged in discussion at a Cabinet meeting in such a capacity with the Chancellor of the Exchequer present when the question of additional weapons was under review and when obviously the co-related question of finance was under consideration and, indeed, could not possibly be ignored.

Have your Lordships considered, when engaged in such discussions, either in a Cabinet or in a Service Department, the vested interests which are operating? May I relate a personal experience. I made the acquaintance of this subject forty-one years ago as Parliamentary and Financial Secretary at the War Office. The Chief of the Imperial General Staff was Sir George Milne, who subsequently became Lord Milne. He occupied the office for a longer term than any other Chief of the Imperial General Staff. He made a request that a Committee should be formed to consider the cost of the repair and maintenance of mechanically propelled vehicles. This arose some years after the war. The tanks had come into review, so had armoured carriers and all kinds of vehicles of various descriptions which were located in various Army depots and Naval establishments. The Air Force at that time was not as prominent as it became later.

I was asked, as a junior Minister, to form a Committee. I replied that a Committee would be of no value, but inquiries might be instituted. My first task was to ask two of the representatives in the War Office, both lieutenant-colonels, one the Master General of the Ordnance, and the other the General responsible for the Royal Army Service Corps, to come and speak to me. They were both concerned with a great variety of vehicles and their repair and maintenance—also, obviously, their cost. They would speak to me but would hardly speak to each other. The very notion of intervention, of interference in their affairs, was resented. That has happened throughout the whole time when we have been considering the re-orientation of our Defence organization, particularly in the sphere of the research, development and procurement of the necessary weapons.

It has been suggested—the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, has suggested it, based on the White Paper that this might be a lasting solution. Indeed, that term, "a lasting solution", is used in the White Paper. With great respect, there are no lasting solutions in defence itself, in the manpower associated with defence, in the procurement of essential weapons for defence or in the policy associated with defence. They are all subject to international changes and the international atmosphere; to tension here and there—and nowadays almost everywhere. No. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, that this is not a final solution. Nevertheless, I accept it, for what it is worth, as a reasonable approach to a solution and a very necessary approach to a solution. Some criticism has occasionally been levelled (it has not been apparent in the course of this short debate) at the last Labour Government because of their defence operations, their omissions and commissions. But one thing can rightly be said: that, despite all the criticism levelled at Mr. Denis Healey, he made a valiant and gallant effort to produce a unified organisation. When I myself was Minister of Defence, many years ago, it was impossible. We had a Defence Council, the nominal Defence Council, of which the Minister of Defence was a member, and our own Defence Committee which met regularly and comprised representatives from all the Service Departments, even junior Ministers, to discuss all kinds of topics related to the three Services. There was co-operation, but no unification; no co-ordination of any sort or kind. Between 1951 and 1963 Conservative Governments had nine Ministers of Defence and had no opportunity of facing up to the problem. I venture to say to the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, and to your Lordships, that if you have Ministers of Defend—or Secretaries of State for Defence, as they are now described—who are passengers, fly-by-nights, here to-day and gone tomorrow, transferred from one Department to another either because of incompetence or because of ambition and favour, you will find not only no lasting solution but not even a temporary solution. It is very important for a Minister to be concentrating on his task and he must have the appropriate personnel to assist him.

It is not my intention, as I have remarked, to make anything in the nature of a long speech—it is too important a topic—but in parenthesis I would say this. First, I would congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, on his excellent speech. He and I were colleagues in the other place and he always made excellent speeches—with nearly all of which I disagreed. It is possible to recognise a good speech even if one finds oneself in complete disagreement with it. The noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, will recall that many times in the other place (and possibly it may have happened in your Lordships' House before I ventured to come here) it was suggested that a Select Committee on Defence should be created. Would your Lordships who have listened to this debate not agree, and would those who have perused the White Paper not agree, that this is not the kind of subject that can be discussed methodically, meticulously and with the care it demands and deserves as a result of a debate of this character? It requires Committee treatment, careful treatment. We have heard excellent speeches, if I may say so with-cut any appearance of condescension, but speeches not related to what is, after all, the main element contained in this White Paper.

My Lords, what is to be done about it? I venture, with great respect, to offer to the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, a word of advice. I congratulate him on being Secretary for Defence, but I offer him a measure of sympathy because of the task assigned to him. He will require to be even more ruthless and determined and forthright than he is sometimes alleged to be, because he will still have to contend with vested interests, despite the creation of various Controllers—some of then mentioned in the White Paper for no reason that I can understand. For example, there is to be one Controller who is a Policy Controller. I venture to say to the noble Lord that policy must be vested in the Minister, in consultation with the members of the Cabinet and with the Government as a whole. Policy cannot be left to a subordinate of the Minister himself. Policy must be concentrated, fully vested in the Minister; that is to say, the nature of defence: whether defence is required at all; whether we can afford defence; whether we ought to spend more on defence. All this is policy. It is not a matter even for the Chief Executive.

I welcome the appointment of Mr. Rayner. We were informed by the noble Lord only this afternoon about Mr. Rayner's appointment as Chief Executive. I was not aware of it—perhaps I had an earlier White Paper. I marked my Whine Paper, and I actually put clown, "Is the Chief Executive going to be a civil servant?" and I marked it in the negative. I wondered whether he was going to be one of the military gentlemen. I marked that in the negative, because I thought it advisable to have somebody with business experience, somebody who has been acquainted with industry on a large scale. But there was no reference, in the White Paper that I read, to Mr. Rayner's having been appointed Chief Executive. I am very glad that he has been appointed. Nevertheless, policy must not be vested in the Chief Executive or any of his subordinates; it must be vested primarily, fundamentally and fully in the Minister himself.

I welcome the White Paper. I was myself baffled as a Service Minister and as a Minister of Defence when we had a Ministry of Supply—and let it not be forgotten that in the last war we not only had a Ministry of Supply but had a Ministry of Aircraft Production, under Lord Beaverbrook for some time, until he transferred his affections elsewhere. Far too many Departments have been set up with innumerable civil servants cluttering up the decks. if this White Paper leads to unification, operating on perhaps a smaller scale but streamlined and with the direct objective of unification so far as that is practicable, then the White Paper, when implemented, is going to be worth while.

Finally, my Lords, I say this. I am sure the Minister will have the support of every Member of your Lordships' House who is concerned about the defence of our country, who recognises the almost desperate situation in which this country finds itself with the disparity in defence weapons as between the Soviet Union and a country like ours, and at a time when even the United States of America cannot claim superiority over the Soviet Union so far as modern weapons are concerned. This is the situation in which we find ourselves, and we must give every possible support if we believe in the need for defence. It is not so much a matter that one must have manpower, vehicles and all the rest: the essential research and development is of the highest importance, and it must be concentrated in fewer hands, with policies directed from above and with loyalty, devotion and hard work below.

5.11 p.m.

LORD CARRINGTON

My Lords, I very much share the regret expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, that there were not more of your Lordships present to listen to this debate. But it is vain to say that to those who are here. It is rather like the parson on Sunday morning who blames those who are in church for those who are not. But I think it true to say that if more of your Lordships had been here they would have found that this is not a dull subject, and they would certainly not have found the speeches this afternoon dull. In fact I do not think I have heard a better short debate in your Lordships' House for a very long time. Certainly I and my Department, and I know the Department of Trade and Industry, will look at this debate carefully in order to see what lessons there are to be learned from the speeches which your Lordships have made

Before I go on to answer some of the questions that were put to me I should like to join with other noble Lords in congratulating my noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing on his maiden speech. I am particularly glad to do so because he is a very old friend of mine. He and I were at the Admiralty together for a great many years, and I know of the expertise that he has in these particular directions and subjects. It is true that sometimes when we discussed procurement and equipment at the Admiralty he and I disagreed about things. Looking back on it, I am ashamed to say that he was more often right than I was. It will be very useful to your Lordships that he should have joined the rather small band of those who were properly educated and who understand these matters, unlike those (such as myself) who were educated in a rather different way and whose only qualification to speak about these matters is that it happens to be their job at the present time. The noble Lord will be a great asset to the Benches on which I sit, but he will also be a great asset to the whole House; and I congratulate him most warmly on his speech.

He asked me about collaborative projects and instanced one or two cases where he thought we had not had quite such a good bargain as the others with whom we were collaborating. Without wishing to comment on that, all I would say is that of course one must watch these matters carefully and see that in any collaborative projects we get our fair shares, as I hope we have done in the past. But the noble Lord will remember that there has been, in a sense—and we are talking about aircraft collaborative projects—rather a distortion of sharing because of the fact that we are the only country which has had an aeroengine industry, and therefore all the collaborative projects have necessarily had more or less to be engined by Rolls-Royce. I think this has distorted to some extent the allocation of responsibility for the airframe and the avionics; but certainly I agree with him that we must watch this situation. I was horrified at what the noble Lord had to say about quality inspectors and how the orders were getting fewer and the quality inspectors were increasing. I think it is points like this that have to be watched. I am quite certain that Mr. Rayner, who is ideally suited to inquire into this kind of thing, will bear that in mind.

Generally speaking, I think it would be true to say that your Lordships have, on the whole, blessed this reorganisation. Certainly you have blessed the defence side of it, though there have been some misgivings about the civil aviation and aerospace side. These misgivings were expressed most forcefully by the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, in his speech—and I thank him for what he said about me —but his main concern was that in the arrangements for aerospace there might be a divorce between policy and execution and a subordination of civil interests to defence interests. I think that that is what he said, putting it in a nutshell. Of course it is sometimes said—and sometimes it is true—that the only efficient business is a business which is run by one man. But the sort of business that we are talking about this afternoon is a very special, very complicated and very expensive business. I suppose we could have put civil aerospace under the Ministry of Defence. This was certainly an alternative but it would have made my job, which is already large enough, very much larger and would have produced the very subordination to defence which the noble Lord is worried about, and I think in a more acute form than he would assert it is under the proposed scheme.

Alternatively, it would have been possible at any rate to consider giving my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry the means of executing civil projects, but that would have meant that one would have had to duplicate expensive facilities. For example, it is quite out of the question to have two Royal Aircraft Establishments, one at Farnborough and one somewhere else. It would have been enormously expensive and impossible to do. I do not believe that one can carve up these establishments in that way. There is no sensible way of splitting them. I am not in any sense criticising the noble Lord in his feelings about this issue, because it is the one that has proved, on all the occasions on which we have discussed the organisation of procurement, to be the most difficult.

Taking all these difficulties into consideration I feel that we have settled for the right organisation in this case. It provides for formal consultation between the two Departments, at both Ministerial and official level. In addition, there will be the closest day-to-day contact at working level. This will be absolutely essential, and I agree with what the noble Lord has said: that it will be essential that t lose officials in the Ministry or in the Department of Trade and Industry should work closely with those in my Department who are concerned with procurement and aviation. Otherwise, I do not see how this can possibly happen.

As the noble Lord will have read in the Rayner Report, there must be a right of access by those officials in the Department of Trade and Industry to those in the Ministry of Defence. The execution of the projects will be entrusted to the new procurement organisation, but in the case of civil projects the decisions about whether or not there is going to be a new project will be made by the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. He will decide whether to give launching aid (and I think that was the question that the noble Lord asked me) to a civil project, and it is I who will decide whether a new military aircraft is to be produced; and we shall consider together whether it should be produced by the British aerospace industry or abroad.

In his interesting speech the noble Lord, Lord Kings Norton, wanted to know which of the two of us, in the case of a dispute, was the senior. The answer is, neither of us. The Aerospace Board, on which we both sit, will be there to resolve the differences between us, if differences there be; but if they are not resolved then they will, obviously, have to go to the Cabinet and be resolved by the whole Cabinet. I do not myself see that that will present much difficulty, because I do not believe there will be many occasions when defence and civilian interests are directly opposed one to the other.

LORD BESWICK

My Lords, may I just put one further point to the noble Lord? He has just answered one of my questions and has said that the Department of Trade and Industry will be responsible for deciding whether there is to be a civil project. Is he going on to reconcile that with the paragraph which says that it would be the Ministerial Aerospace Board which would be the authority for any instructions to the procurement organisation?

LORD CARRINGTON

Authority in the sense that they will, if necessary, have to supervise the project. In the context that the civil servants and officials and scientists will be Ministry of Defence people, they will be responsible to me as Secretary of State for Defence, but the project will belong to the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. If any difficulties arise, there will have to be co-ordination at the top with the Aerospace Board. It is up to the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry to make the decision whether any particular civil project will go forward, and he will do so on the advice of his officials, and the advice of those experts who work in my Department.

LORD BESWICK

My Lords, if, with all the information at his disposal, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry decides that some policy should be put into operation, does he send instructions directly to the procurement organisation in the Ministry of Defence, by-passing the Ministerial Aerospace Board?

LORD CARRINGTON

My Lords, it is up to the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry to make a decision as to whether the project is to go ahead. It is not part of my business if it is a civil project. If, in the opinion of the Ministry of Defence Procurement executive, as a result of doing that, as a result of the manufacture or the research and development necessary, this would impinge on the Defence programme, obviously the Aerospace Board would have to discuss it and decide which was to have precedence and whether or not there is a difference of opinion sufficient to go to the Cabinet. I think all this will work out far more easily than the noble Lord supposes. This is at the moment in its infancy, but this is the intention.

The noble Lord, Lord Beswick, incidentally asked me about the Transport Aircraft Requirements Committee. So I think did the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury. That now passes to the Department of Trade and Industry, but, of course, the official representation will have to include people from the Ministry of Defence. But this is obviously an opportunity to review the working of this body. At the same time, I have absolutely no doubt, in common with the two noble Lords, that some body of this kind is necessary; whether it is exactly the same body I do not know, but it seems to me obvious that some body of this kind will have to continue.

The noble Lord, Lord Beswick, asked whether the Concorde project was to be the pattern for future projects in this field. No, indeed not. The only reason why the Concorde project is removed totally from the Procurement Executive is that it has got so far down the line, as the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury so graphically put to us, that it is in a class by itself, and it would be quite impossible now to divorce it and change it from what it now is. It was thought better in that case that it should go totally to the Department of Trade and Industry. Any future project of that kind would be managed by the Procurement Executive. The Concorde decision is not meant to be a precedent. I would like to look at the question of streamlining procedures. This is an interesting suggestion, and I think there may be good scope here for making things easier. The noble Lord also asked about Rolls-Royce. Rolls-Royce now belonging, as it does, to the Government, relationships with the management are now the business of the Department of Trade and Industry and not of the procurement executive. But of course the technical expertise about engines, the technical people who will liaise with Roils-Royce, will remain in the Procurement Executive.

The noble Lord also asked about the dockyards. They do not come into this procurement organisation at all, because they are not procurement. The dockyards, broadly speaking, merely provide a service to the Royal Navy, and will come under the Fleet support organisation and not under the organisation of the Controller of the Navy. I think probably the noble Lord asked me a number of other questions, but I would like, if I may, to read his speech, and if possible answer his questions on paper, because I have not got them all down accurately. I think I have answered the main ones.

I think I have answered generally the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Kings Norton, except to say one thing, which the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, and the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell also mentioned, and that is that they rather took me to task for suggesting we had found a final solution. I do not want to imply that this is a final solution down to every last detail; of course it is not. In fact, what we have accented is the skeleton which was provided by the Rayner Report, and now Mr. Rayner, and we have got to clothe it with flesh. But I do believe that by concentrating procurement in a single organisation, in the interests of efficiency, within the Ministry of Defence, we shall prove that this is the right solution for defence procurement, and I myself have no doubt that in the time in which this Government will be in office, or I will be Secretary of State for Defence, we shall make this procurement organisation work, and shall show to your Lordships that it works; and no Government in the future will wish to upset something that is successful.

I very much hope that this is so, and I intend to make it so, because I think there has been far too much movement and, not muddle but uncertainty, in the staffs of what was once the Ministry of Supply, the Ministry of Aviation, the Ministry of Technology, the Ministry of Aviation Supply and the rest. I think it is important that these very skilled and devoted civil servants and scientists, who are now in the Ministry of Defence, should realise that so far as they are concerned this is the right solution, and we are going to make it work, and they should have some certainty about where they stand in regard to their future careers.

I would not like to swear that this is the lasting solution for civil aviation. I think it is, because I think it is the sensible one. But here again we have got to prove that it works, and I feel sure that can be clone. I was, as I think all your Lordships were, absolutely cap tivated by the speech of the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, and I felt that perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, and I were agreeing with him about the disasters which we appear to have endured over the last 20 years rather more than it was wise that we should; no doubt some are his Government's fault and some mine. But of one thing I am quite sure, that we should study that speech with great care, because it had a great deal of wisdom in it. I only had one slight hesitation about it; it was when the noble Earl said that he felt we should not worry too much—I cannot remember the exact words—about having an operational requirement for an aircraft or a niece of sophisticated equipment, because if we did it would never get right, if would be too complicated, and we would never get the opportunity of getting it; it is much better to have something you find is good. If I have paraphrased him badly I must apologise. But it did fill me with alarm, because it seemed to be a licence for large numbers of people to build all sorts of things on the off-chance that they might be useful but no prospect that they would be needed by anybody in the Services. I hope he did not mean what I interpreted him as meaning. At any rate, I shall look at the rest of his speech with great care.

I do not think I can end better than by repeating what he himself said. He said that he hoped very much that the Government would use the new beginnings, which are now possible as a result of this new organisation, to remedy some of the organisational mistakes, of the past. This is indeed what we intend to do, and I am greatly heartened by the support your Lordships have shown in this short debate for the new organisation, and by the kind things you have said and the good wishes you have given to those of us who are trying to put it into effect.

On Question, Motion agreed to.