Sitting of 6 November 1940

Preamble
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.

  EGYPT AND ITALY.
  Mr. Manderasked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he is now able to state whether, in view of the invasion of our Ally Egypt by Italy, the Egyptian Government intend to declare war on Italy?
  The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Butler): My Noble Friend cannot undertake to make an official statement of the intentions of another Government. I can, however, say that relations between His Majesty's Government and the Egyptian Government are of the friendliest character, as is natural in view of the Treaty of Alliance, which the Egyptian Government are fulfilling in all respects.
  Mr. Mander: Are not the Egyptian Government taking a long time to carry out their obligation to resist aggression?
  Mr. Butler: I can only say that the Egyptian Government are carrying out their treaty of alliance in every respect.

  RUSSIA (TRADE DISCUSSIONS).
  Mr. Dobbieasked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any satisfactory progress is being made in regard to trade agreements between the British Ambassador at Moscow and the representatives of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics?
  Mr. Priceasked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can now make any statement about the prospects of an agreement between this country and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on commercial and other outstanding matters?
  Mr. Butler: Trade discussions between His Majesty's Government and the Soviet
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  Government are still in progress. I am not, however, in a position to make a more detailed statement than this at the present stage.

  BALTIC STATES (SHIPPING).
  Mr. Manderasked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is now able to state the position with regard to the settlement of the outstanding differences between the British and Soviet Governments concerning the Baltic States and the release of gold and shipping?
  Mr. Wedgwoodasked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he was consulted by the Ministry of Shipping before 13 more ships of the Baltic States were recently requisitioned, in view of the reaction on the Russian Government?
  Mr. Gallacherasked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs how many ships of Latvian, Estonian and Lithuanian nationality have been commandeered for service by His Majesty's Government since those countries became incorporated in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; and whether any decision has yet been taken to release them and all other ships of similar nationality preliminary to handing them over to the Soviet authorities?
  Mr. Butler: Altogether 24 ships of Latvian, Estonian and Lithuanian nationality have been formally requisitioned by His Majesty's Government. This measure was taken after due consultation between the Departments concerned. The question of the ships, and other questions arising out of the Soviet occupation of the Baltic States, are at present under discussion between His Majesty's Government and the Soviet Government, and it is not possible to make a more detailed statement at this stage.
  Mr. Mander: Were the Russian Ambassador and the Russian Government informed during the negotiations that it was intended to requisition some of these ships?
  Mr. Butler: Oh, yes; His Majesty's Ambassador in Moscow indicated to the Soviet Government that this action would be taken, and the matter is under discus-

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  sion between His Majesty's Ambassador and the Soviet Government.
  Mr. Mander: They were notified before it was done?
  Mr. Butler: Yes, Sir.
  Mr. Wedgwood: Is this sort of requisitioning intended to improve our relations with the Soviet Government?
  Mr. Butler: The matter is a complicated and technical one. I hope we shall be able to reach some agreement with the Soviet Government on this matter.
  Mr. Gallacher: Is not the Under-Secretary misleading this House when he talks about the Soviet Government taking over the Baltic States? Is it not the case that the Baltic States went over quite voluntarily?
  Mr. Butler: That has nothing to do with the agreement.

  SOUTH AMERICA (BRITISH MISSION).
  Sir Malcolm Robertsonasked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what general and particular instructions have been issued to the mission to South American countries headed by the Marquess of Willingdon; by which Departments of His Majesty's Government those instructions have been issued; whether the mission will proceed to Central as well as to South America; and whether he can describe the qualifications of the members of the mission?
  Mr. Butler: The purpose of the mission headed by Lord Willingdon will be to study at first hand the maintenance and improvement of mutual exchanges of trade under the difficult conditions of war. The mission has been instructed to explain British economic and contraband control policy in the countries which it visits. In order to counteract the unscrupulous efforts of Axis propaganda it will show that we have been able to maintain our export trade under war conditions, and it will explain the fundamental necessities underlying our treatment of the problem of purchases and payments. The mission will be armed with instructions on the foregoing lines which have been prepared by all the De-
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  partments concerned. Visits will be paid to all the countries of South America, with one exception, but Central America will not be visited. I am circulating in the OFFICIAL REPORT the names and qualifications of members of the mission. The representatives of trade and industry who accompany the mission were selected by those whose interests they are to represent.
  Sir Frank Sanderson: Is my right hon. Friend aware that my right hon Friend who asked this Question was not only Ambassador in the Argentine for a great number of years, but that he was regarded as an ambassador of industry, and, in view of his unique experience, was he consulted in regard to this mission?
  Mr. Butler: I am not sure whether the right hon. Member was consulted, but I do know that his experience is appreciated, and no doubt we shall have the value of that experience in the House, where he will doubtless show as much zeal as he has shown in the past.
  Sir Percy Harris: Can the Under-Secretary say who was consulted? What were the organisations, what sections of industry? Were they chambers of commerce, or what?
  Mr. Butler: All the organisations sending representatives to South America were consulted. We have endless opportunities of consulting business interests, and all those opportunities were taken, and we also had the assistance of those who have long experience of South American countries.
  Mr. Bellenger: The right hon. Member spoke of "representatives representing interests in this country." Surely this is not the time for that sort of procedure. Should they not represent one interest and one interest only, the national interest?
  Mr. Butler: I am confident that they will do so.
  Captain Plugge: Since the right hon. Member who put the original Question is in the House, could he say whether he was consulted?
  Mr. Mander: Which is the country which is not to be visited?
  Mr. Butler: Paraguay.

  OIL EXPORTS TO JAPAN.
  Mr. Noel-Bakerasked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, whether he can make a statement concerning the progress of the negotiations for the sale of oil to the Government of Japan now being conducted by British, Dutch and American companies?
  Mr. Butler: According to the information furnished to my noble Friend, progress has been made with the negotiations, but I am not in a position to make any further statement.
  Mr. Noel-Baker: Are we to understand that as things stand at present the Japanese are permitted to purchase crude oil and partially refined oil from American companies?
  Mr. Butler: Yes, Sir, the American embargo applies only to the higher octane spirit.
  Mr. Noel-Baker: Will the Government endeavour to ensure that British companies at least shall confine their sales to meeting the needs of this country and to those who are resisting aggression?
  Mr. Butler: Naturally our own needs come first.
  Mr. Noel-Bakerasked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether His Majesty's Ambassador to Mexico has made any report concerning the action of the Mexican Government in cancelling oil concessions which had been granted to the Government of Japan and in laying an embargo on the export of petrol, mercury and other war requirements to Japan?
  Mr. Butler: According to information received by my Noble Friend from His Majesty's Consul-General at Mexico, the Mexican Government do not propose to enforce the embargo on the export of certain materials to Japan.
  Mr. Thorne: Does not the right hon. Member agree that the Government blundered in not making an arrangement with the Mexican Government months ago?
  Mr. Butler: Oh no, the Government were very wise.

  ROYAL AIR FORCE.

    ALIENS (ENLISTMENT).
    Miss Rathboneasked the Secretary of State for Air whether there is any general rule excluding from all branches of the Royal Air Force men who, though British-born or naturalised citizens, are sons of aliens; and, if not, what is the regulation applying to such men?
    The Under-Secretary of State for Air (Captain Harold Balfour): No, Sir. British subjects of alien parentage may be commissioned or enlisted in the Royal Air Force if they are found to be suitable in all respects.
    Miss Rathbone: Is my hon. and gallant Friend aware that some offices have been giving information to the contrary effect to persons in the category named?
    Captain Balfour: No. Sir, I am not aware of that. The statutory peace-time disqualification was removed by Order-in-Council on 28th September last, and if the hon. Lady can give me particulars of any recruiting offices where this is not known, I will take the necessary steps to have attention drawn to it.
    Miss Rathboneasked the Secretary of State for Air whether he is aware that there is considerable uncertainty as to the extent and conditions under which it is possible for aliens, whether belonging to Allied States or neutral countries, or friendly aliens of enemy origin, to join the Royal Air Force or any body auxiliary to it; and under what conditions such aliens can apply at recruiting offices with the hope that, if personally suitable, they will be accepted for enlistment, distinguishing, if necessary, between the three groups indicated?
    Captain Balfour: Full information on the matters raised by the hon. Lady can be obtained at the combined recruiting centres. Any person of neutral origin, or a friendly alien of enemy origin, may present himself at a combined recruiting centre, and, provided that his bona fides can be established and he is in all other respects suitable, he may be accepted for service in the Royal Air Force for the duration of the war. Nationals of an Allied Power or of a country whose forces are serving in association with His Majesty's Forces are similarly eligible for entry in the Royal Air Force. These con-

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    ditions also apply to recruitment to the Women's Auxiliary Air Force.

    BILLETING.
    Mr. Dobbieasked the Secretary of State for Air the number of meals a householder is expected to provide when an airman is billeted on a house and the payment is 10d. per night?
    Captain Balfour: The rate of payment referred to by the hon. Member covers only lodging and attendance. If a householder is required to provide means, addiditional payment is made at prescribed rates.

    GROUND DEFENCE DUTIES (VOLUNTEERS).
    Mr. Robert Gibsonasked the Secretary of State for Air whether he will give an option to, and encourage, men recruited for training as wireless-observers or air-gnners, but whose calling-up is delayed, to volunteer for service on the ground staff of the Royal Air Force during their period of waiting?
    Captain Balfour: It is already the practice to inform attested candidates for training as pilot, air observer or wireless operator/air gunner, who cannot be accepted immediately for air crew training, that they may volunteer for employment on ground defence duties in the R.A.F. until such time as their training for air crew duties commences. The majority of candidates do in fact volunteer.
    Mr. Gibson: If I give the Minister particulars of a case in which difficulties have been found, will he take action to facilitate the matter?
    Captain Balfour: Certainly, Sir. I shall be glad to receive particulars of any case which the hon. and learned Gentleman wishes to bring to my notice.

    PRINCE VON STARHEMBERG.
    Mr. Wedgwoodasked the Secretary of State for Air where Prince von Starhemberg is serving at present; and what hours of flying service he had in France before seeking refuge in this country?
    Captain Balfour: On grounds of security, it would not be in the public interest to disclose the location of any
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    particular unit of the Allied Forces or the technical qualifications and experience of personnel serving therein at home or overseas. In view, however, of the interest which has been displayed in this particular case I would tell the House that the Free French Headquarters have informed my Department that this officer is now under orders for posting to a Free French overseas unit at an early date.
    Mr. Wedgwood: Are we to understand from that answer that he is no longer at the bar of the Ritz?
    Sir Henry Morris-Jones: Is it consonant with the spirit of tolerance and fair play for the right hon. Gentleman to put questions like this?
    Mr. Wedgwoodasked the Secretary of State for Air whether, in view of the danger to this country arising from the fact that Prince von Starhemberg was a member of the Oberland Association, and is dependent financially upon his mother who is still in Austria, he will reconsider the pay and allowances made to him?
    Captain Balfour: The pay and allowances of the officer referred to are those appropriate to his rank in the Free French Air Force, and I am not in a position to adopt the right hon. Gentleman's suggestion.
    Mr. Wedgwood: Is there not just the risk that if he gets up in an aeroplane, he will be taken over by Mussolini?

  MINISTRY OF INFORMATION.

    WAR AIMS.
    Mr. Cecil Wilsonasked the Minister of Information whether he is aware that the chairman of the committee set up in Oxford in connection with the work of the Department has complained that no details are available of the Minister's proposed campaign in favour of the publication of the Empire's war aims; and when is it proposed to issue any further information which would help those committees in carrying out the Minister's object?
    The Minister of Information (Mr. Duff Cooper): I have proposed no such campaign as that referred to in the Question The subject of war aims was dealt with in the Prime Minister's reply to the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Sit-

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    verman) on 15th October, and in the Debate which took place on the Adjournment on the same day.
    Mr. Mander: Has not the Minister any further information with regard to the statement on war aims which, he said the other day, the Government were considering?
    Mr. Cooper: No, Sir.
    Mr. Mander: When will you have?

    BROADCASTING.
    Sir F. Sandersonasked the Minister of Information whether he is aware that at the present time, this country uses only five wavelengths for Broadcasting, whereas Germany had 40 stations which, including the countries which she now occupies, has increased to over 100 stations, a great number of which are far more powerful than any of the British broadcasting stations; and as it is easier for people in England to tune-in to a German broadcasting station than to a British, will he give urgent and immediate consideration to the whole question of broadcasting?
    Mr. Cooper: The hon Member's comparisons between our own broadcasting resources and those under enemy control do not give an accurate statement of the position, but it is the case that Germans have a large preponderance of wavelengths at their command. The present system of transmission in this country has been designed to give the best possible service without at the same time affording valuable navigational aid to enemy aircraft. The fullest use and development of our wavelengths and stations, within the limitations imposed, is under constant review by the Ministry of Information, in consultation with the Air Ministry and the B.B.C., and we are all aware that there is scope for improvement. The German transmission is faced with similar problems and is frequently completely closed down.
    Sir F. Sanderson: Is the Minister aware that Greece is already complaining that all the wireless propaganda emanates from Germany and Italy; is it not also the fact that the B.B.C. services cannot reach Albania and Greece on the present broadcasting wavelength?
    Mr. Cooper: No, Sir, the last point is not the case. The B.B.C. can reach Albania and Greece; but it must be obvious to everybody that the Germans and Italians are in a very much better position to do so than is Great Britain, and that they have an opportunity of jamming our broadcasts. An attempt is made to reach the Near East from other stations.
    Captain Plugge: Is not the Minister aware that the constitution of the B.B.C. precludes it from carrying out propaganda abroad and that, for the last 10 years, at international conferences it has urged that broadcasting should be for internal use only; therefore, that neither its machinery nor its equipment is satisfactory to carry out this type of work; and may I ask my right hon. Friend whether it will—
    Mr. Speaker—
    Mr. Noel-Baker: Will the Government make every effort in their power to increase our transmissions for foreign work, and in particular to Germany and the Baltic countries?
    Captain Plugge: On a point of Order. May I not challenge a Minister upon his reply regarding the audibility of our broadcasting stations in Greece? The broadcasting hand channels at present used by the B.B.C. are not audible in the daylight in either Greece or Albania and at night can only be received on the most powerful sets situated in the most favourable positions.
    Mr. Speaker: The hon. and gallant Member can do so in a Supplementary Question, but he appeared to be making a statement and developing an argument, which can be done only in the course of debate.
    Mr. Cooper: I can assure the hon. Member for Derby (Mr. Noel-Baker) that we are fully aware of the importance of increasing our transmissions, and that every step is being taken to that end.
    Mr. R. Gibson: Is the Minister aware that the Home Service programme is inaudible in Scotland?
    Sir F. Sandersonasked the Minister of Information whether he is aware that British broadcasts suffer from jamming and that not only people at home, but

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    many countries on the Continent, particularly including ordinary French radio sets, are unable to pick up our programmes; and will he take steps to remedy this state of affairs?
    Mr. Cooper: I am aware that the enemy attempts to jam certain of our broadcasts in foreign languages. There is evidence that these attempts are not wholly successful. Advice is frequently given to listeners in the countries affected, with the object of helping them to get the best possible reception of our programmes.
    Sir F. Sandersonasked the Minister of Information whether he is aware that there is a growing feeling among the people of this country and in France that the British Government should take greater advantage of the possibilities of broadcasting by considerably increasing the broadcasting facilities for talks and information, in view of the fact that throughout unoccupied France the great majority of the people are ignorant of what is, in fact, happening outside France; and will he consider instituting a more concentrated propaganda?
    Mr. Cooper: The possibilities of broadcasting are limited by the number of transmitters available, and, despite the obvious importance of our broadcasts in France, more time cannot at present be given to them without damaging other essential services. In fact, seven quarter-hour news bulletins are broadcast daily to France and French overseas posses-while three further periods, amounting to one hour and a quarter, are devoted to talks and other material. Evidence is accumulating that these full and informative broadcasts are heard by a large number of people throughout the whole of France, despite the attempts of the enemy o make reception impossible. The broadcasting facilities at the disposal of the B.B.C. are being increased, so that in due course more will be possible.
    Sir F. Sanderson: Is the Minister aware that I am receiving a large number of letters from all over the country complaining bitterly about our broadcasting, and will he give an assurance to the House that he will do all he can to improve it?
    Mr. Cooper: Yes, Sir.
    Captain Plugge: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the wavelength power at the disposal of the Germans in France is
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    equivalent to five times the amount of the broadcasting B.B.C. transmissions in their entirety, and, in view of the fact that our transmissions to France represent only 2 per cent. of the time of the B.B.C. transmission, will he tell the House why this safe-saving method of warfare is denied to our Fighting Services and our civilian population?
    Mr. Cooper: I cannot guarantee the accuracy of the figures given by my hon. and gallant Friend. The House is, of course, aware that the Germans have at their disposal not only their own equipment but that of Belgium, Holland and France. Therefore, we are suffering at the present moment from a preponderance which it will take a long time to make good, but I can assure the House that everything is being done to increase the equipment at our disposal.
    Sir P. Harris: Will the Minister consider appointing a committee to inquire into methods of improving the wavelength available for broadcasting, or the appointment of a special technical committee of experts to survey the whole problem?
    Mr. Cooper: I will consider that possibility, but the matter is under continual survey by the best engineers in the country.
    Sir Irving Albery: In view of the evident anxiety in this House over this important question of broadcasting, will the Minister welcome the opportunity at an early date of debating the whole question?
    Mr. Cooper: Yes, Sir, I have no objection.
    Mr. Gallacher: Is not the Minister aware that quality is the essential factor, and in order to get that factor, will he introduce some Marxian propaganda?
    Mr. Vernon Bartlettasked the Minister of Information what steps are being taken to build new broadcasting transmitters to counteract the propaganda from transmitting stations that have come under Nazi rule?
    Mr. Cooper: I would refer the hon. Member to the answer given yesterday by my hon. Friend to the hon. Member for Gravesend (Sir I. Albery).

    PENGUIN BOOKS.
    Mr. Sorensenasked the Minister of Information why the Penguin books, Dr. Shelrankar's "Problem of India" and "Extracts from Hansard," although allowed to circulate in this country, were not allowed to be sent to New York but returned to the sender?
    Mr. Cooper: A postal packet containing the two particular publications to which the hon. Member refers was stopped by the Postal and Telegraph Censorship, in the interest of national security, and in pursuance of their Standing Regulations. "Extracts from Hansard" is not subject to any stop, but any postal packet stopped for other reasons is returned to the sender entire.
    Mr. Sorensen: Why is it assumed in the case of the extract from Hansard that what is not subversive here might be dangerous in America? Are we to assume that "Extracts from Hansard" should not be circulated?
    Mr. Cooper: I have endeavoured to explain in my answer that there is no opposition in regard to "Extracts from Hansard." When a postal packet is stopped, it is returned to the sender entire, and no part is taken out and sent on, but that is the only reason why an "Extracts from Hansard" was sent back.
    Mr. Sorensen: Do I understand from that answer that the book "Problem of India" was held to be subversive?
    Mr. Cooper: Yes, Sir.
    Mr. Sorensen: Why may it be circulated here and not in America? Might this not have a very bad effect in America?
    Mr. Cooper: I think it is undesirable that this book should be sent out of the country and that it should reach India. The publisher undertook that he would not export the book, and therefore it is obviously right that we should prevent its being exported by other people.

    "R. P. WITNESS" (NORTHERN IRELAND).
    Dr. Littleasked the Minister of Information whether he is aware that parcels addressed to Congregational agents in Northern Ireland of the
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    "R.P. Witness," a religious monthly published in Scotland, have been held up by the censorship for some months past; and whether he will give orders that these parcels be delivered forthwith, as the subscribers feel that they are being deprived of the magazine which is pro-British, without any reasonable cause?
    Mr. Cooper: Printed matter can be exported to Northern Ireland only by the holder of a permit under Control of Communications Order (No. 5), 1940. It would appear that the persons interested in the "R.P. Witness" have not made the usual arrangement with their publisher for this purpose. If they will arrange with the publisher for the despatch of their copies under the permit which the publisher in fact holds, no difficulty should arise.
    Dr. Little: If the publisher of the "R.P. Witness" makes that arrangement, will the parcels of this magazine be forwarded to Northern Ireland as many of my constituents are disappointed at the non-delivery of the magazine?
    Mr. Cooper: Yes, they will be.

    CRYSTAL PALACE.
    Mr. Ammonasked the Minister of Information why a negative reply to a request submitted on 16th October by the Crystal Palace trustees for permission to issue a statement to the Press was not given until 23rd October?
    Mr. Cooper: The inquiry did not reach the Ministry until 18th October. Another Department had to be consulted and was not able to give a decision immediately. Telephonic communication was interrupted at the time, and thus attempts to reach the author of the inquiry by telephone, as he had requested, were not immediately successful.

    LOSS OF STEAMSHIP "EMPRESS OF BRITAIN."
    Mr. Ammonasked the Minister of Information the reason for the delay in publishing the news of the disaster to the "Empress of Britain"?
    Mr. Cooper: The "Empress of Britain" was bombed by enemy aircraft and set on fire about 8.30 a.m. on 26th October. She was taken in tow but was

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    torpedoed by a U-boat in the early morning of 28th October. She sank soon afterwards, and the sinking was announced by the Admiralty and War Office about 2 p.m. on the same day, as soon as the position regarding survivors was clear.
    Mr. Ammon: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that the reply to the announcement made by the Admiralty to the German broadcast was tantamount to a denial of the sinking?
    Mr. Cooper: I think the original announcement on the German wireless was inaccurate. They said they had sunk the ship when she was in fact on fire, and therefore the Admiralty had to wait until they knew all the facts before they could make a statement.

    BOMBING OF NON-MILITARY OBJECTIVES, LONDON.
    Major Milnerasked the Minister of Information whether he will now publish for the information of world opinion, a list or catalogue of non-military objectives bombed in London up to the latest date considered desirable?
    Mr. Cooper: No, Sir. It is intended at the present stage to adhere to the policy of releasing for publication only the more notorious non-military objectives of importance which have been damaged or destroyed. The publication of a detailed list as suggested might well convey information useful to the enemy.
    Major Milner: Could we not have a complete list up to whatever date is considered desirable of these notorious nonmilitary objectives? At the moment they are published in driblets, and would they not be more impressive if published in bulk?
    Mr. Cooper: The question of security must take precedence. I can assure the House that if Germany published a list of objectives, it would be of the greatest value to us.
    Major Milner: Would the right hon. Gentleman publish a complete list of those non-military objectives of which particulars have already been given? That would be very valuable.
    Mr. Cooper: It would be very valuable to the enemy.
    Major Milner: The right hon. Gentleman is misunderstanding me. Would he collate and publish particulars of all those non-military objectives which have already been published?
    Mr. Cooper: That I will certainly do.
    Mr. Sorensen: Would the right hon. Gentleman do that regarding Berlin as well?

  POST OFFICE.

    AIR RAIDS (TELEPHONE SERVICE).
    Mr. De la Bèreasked the Postmaster-General whether, in view of the difficulty experienced in telephonic communication throughout the country during the period of air-raids with vitally important food depôts and other depots connected with Government service, he will consider and confer with the Secretary of State for War with a view to the utilisation of personnel from the Royal Corps of Signals to take the place of, or supplement, the normal telephone operators, with a view to maintaining efficiency for the successful prosecution of the war?
    The Postmaster-General (Mr. W. S. Morrison): Arrangements have already been made with the War Office on the lines suggested by my hon. Friend.
    Mr. De la Bère: Would the right hon. Gentleman also consider the utilisation of engineers and technicians who have been called up and whose services would be of great benefit to his Department at the present time?
    Mr. Morrison: Yes, Sir; that matter has already been considered, and the arrangements are now in operation.

    SUNDAY POSTAL FACILITIES, LONDON.
    Mr. Keelingasked the Postmaster-General whether letters posted in London in time for the Sunday afternoon collections are despatched on the same evening or the following morning?
    Mr. W. S. Morrison: In general letters posted in London on Sundays for the collection made about 5.30 p.m. are despatched early next morning. There is, however, a collection between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. from at least one box in each sub-district for despatch the same night.
    Mr. Keeling: Does that reply mean that a letter posted after 5.30 on Saturday would not reach the provinces until Tuesday morning, and is it not misleading to have notices saying that the collection is at 5.30 on Sunday when in fact it is not dealt with until the following morning?
    Mr. Morrison: If a letter is put into one of the prescribed boxes particulars of which appear in the London Post Office Guide, it will be taken the same night, but in the other case if it is posted later than 5.30 it will not be dealt with until next morning. The question of when it will reach its destination depends upon where the destination is.
    Mr. Keeling: But my right hon. Friend implied that a letter posted after 5.30 on Saturday would not be dealt with until Monday.
    Mr. Morrison: It would not be dealt with until Monday unless it was in one of those boxes.

  ROYAL NAVY.

    ALIENS (ENLISTMENT).
    Miss Rathboneasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he is aware that there is considerable uncertainty as to the extent and conditions under which it is possible for aliens, whether belonging to Allied countries, neutral countries or friendly aliens of enemy origin, to join the Navy or any force auxiliary to it; and under what conditions can such aliens apply at recruiting offices with the hope that, if personally suitable, they will be accepted for enlistment distinguishing, if necessary, between the three groups indicated?
    The First Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. A. V. Alexander): Full information on all the points raised by my hon. Friend can be obtained at any Combined Recruiting Centre. I am glad to say that the number of applications for entry into the Royal Navy greatly exceeds the requirements of the Service, except in a limited number of special categories. This means that every alien entered for the general branches excludes a British candidate. Only aliens with special qualifications are, therefore, accepted either as ratings or as candidates for temporary commissions. No aliens of enemy origin are entered. Polish, Norwegian, Dutch and French
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    nationals can apply for entry to their Naval Services operating with us.
    Miss Rathbone: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether that answer applies to the Women's Auxiliary to the Navy, or whether they can apply, as we have just been told they can in a similar branch of the other Services?
    Mr. Alexander: I have not looked into that point, but I understand that as a general rule it would apply.

    H.M.S. "GLORIOUS" (RAFTS).
    Mr. Ammonasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether the rafts of H.M.S. "Glorious" were equipped with automatic raft lights to enable them to be seen in the hours of darkness?
    Mr. Alexander: A satisfactory automatic raft light had not been developed when H.M.S. "Glorious" was lost, but all ships had been directed to fit flares on their rafts. Supplies of automatic lights are now being made available for general issue.
    Mr. Ammon: Does not my right hon. Friend know that an automatic light has been approved by the Ministry of Shipping and a Regulation issued?
    Mr. Alexander: There is a further Question later on, and perhaps the hon. Gentleman would wait for the answer to that.
    Captain Plugge: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there exists on the market a type of lifebelt with an automatic light which operates when a man wearing it falls into the water, and would he consider equipping every man in the Royal Navy with this device?
    Mr. Alexander: All those points have been fully considered during the past 12 months by a special Departmental Committee.
    Miss Rathbone: Is it not the case that six months ago we were promised that automatic lights would be attached to all rafts and lifeboats, and were not the Ministry considering the question of attaching them to lifebelts? Are they not rather slow in providing this necessary equipment?
    Mr. Alexander: I think that point arises on Question No. 37.

    LIFE SAVING AT SEA COMMITTEE,
    Mr. Adamsonasked the First Lord of the Admiralty (1) the composition of the Life Saving at Sea Committee, which is responsible for advising his Department on life-saving appliances; the general qualifications of its members for this duty; and whether it is a Departmental or representative committee;
    (2) whether any consultations have taken place between the Life Saving at Sea Committee of his Department and the Ministry of Shipping with reference to approved types of automatic raft lights, so that additional safety at sea may be assured for the personnel of the Navy, especially during the long nights in winter months;
    (3) The number of meetings held by the Life Saving at Sea Committee within the last three months; and whether he can take steps to facilitate their decisions on matters submitted to them for decision?
    Mr. Alexander: The Life Saving at Sea Committee was a Departmental body appointed by the Board of Admiralty at the end of last year, under the chairmanship of a flag officer of wide experience. The four other members were representative of the technical departments chiefly concerned. The secretary was an engineer captain. The Committee consulted the Ministry of Shipping on the subject of raft lights. My hon. Friend will appreciate that there must be considerable differences in function and design between life-saving appliances for men of war and for merchant vessels. However, the fullest advantage was taken of the experience and resources of the Ministry of Shipping and of commercial firms. Some time was taken to approve designs for the Naval Service because of the desire to ensure that the Navy's special requirements were met, and that the technical difficulties inherent in such devices should he eliminated before production was started. Orders were placed at the beginning of August. The Committee completed its inquiries and was dissolved in the middle of September this year after making many recommendations. Most of these have now been put into effect. In order to save time, the Committee's business was conducted chiefly between the Chairman and the technical members mainly concerned. Few full meetings of the Committee were, therefore, necessary.

    JAMAICA (NATIVE LEADER'S DETENTION).
    Mr. David Adamsasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies the grounds upon which the native leader in Jamaica, Bustamente, has been interned by the Governor; the place and proposed duration of internment; and when it is intended to bring the prisoner to trial?
    The Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. George Hall): The detention of Bustamente was ordered on 8th September because of his inflammatory utterances culminating, in spite of a personal warning from the Governor, in a speech inciting to bloodshed, racial war and revolution. He is detained in the same compound of the internment camp in Jamaica as other non-enemy internees who have been detained for security reasons, and receives the same treatment; and he will be detained for as long as is necessary in the interests of public security. Detention was ordered by the Governor under the Defence Regulations and he will not therefore be brought to trial. He has not made objection under the Regulations to his detention.
    Mr. Adams: Does my right hon. Friend consider that it is in harmony with the traditions of this House that this man should not be brought to trial?
    Mr. Riley: Is my right hon. Friend aware that it is publicly reported in Jamaica that Mr. Bustamente, some weeks before his arrest, visited the Governor of Jamaica and offered, as a leader of the natives, to use his influence to secure the co-operation of Jamaican labour in the war effort, and that that offer was turned down; and, if so, why was it turned down?
    Mr. Hall: That is another question, but I understand that Mr. Bustamente and the Governor are personal friends. That does not, however, prevent Mr. Bustamente from making the type of speech to which I have referred, which placed the Governor under the necessity of taking the action which I have described.
    Mr. Riley: I am fully aware of Mr. Bustamente's combustible politics; I know him personally, and I want to know whether his offer was turned down.

  TRANSPORT.

    MOTOR VEHICLES (REQUISITIONING).
    Mr. De la Bèreasked the Minister of Transport whether he will now take steps to utilise those powers which he possesses to recall into National Service all those motor vehicles to-day mobilised in sheds, barns and garages; and whether he will take steps to obtain the necessary powers and organise their use when and wherever most needed?
    The Minister of Transport (Lieut.-Colonel Moore-Brabazon): I can assure my hon. Friend that I have the necessary powers, and if and when it appears to me that conditions are becoming such as to warrant the step suggested by my hon. Friend, I shall not hesitate to use them.
    Mr. De la Bère: Does my right hon. and gallant Friend not realise that these motor vehicles might be of considerable benefit in easing the problem of coal transport, and will he not try utilising them for the distribution of coal throughout the country?
    Lieut.-Colonel Moore-Brabazon: I have the matter in view.
    Mr. De la Bère: Does my right hon. and gallant Friend realise that the coal situation is very serious?
    Sir F. Sanderson: Is it not true that the general public have responded magnificently to all the appeals made to them by my right hon. Friend?
    Lieut.-Colonel Moore-Brabazon: That is true.

    POTATOES (TRANSIT).
    Mr. Woodburnasked the Minister of Transport whether he is aware of the alarm caused among farmers by his Order restricting the full protection from frost given to seed potatoes in transit and the conflict between his Order and the desires of the Ministry of Food; and what steps he proposes to take to guard against the probable severe losses of potato crops from the results of his Order?
    Lieut.-Colonel Moore-Brabazon: I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply which I gave on 23rd October to a Question on this subject by my hon. Friend the Member for the Maryhill Division of Glasgow (Mr. Davidson). My right hon.
    1332
    Friends the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Minister of Agriculture are considering the possibility of giving advice to potato growers and all concerned on the steps that should be taken to protect potatoes from frost now that only one sheet can be provided.

    RAILWAYS (EXPENDITURE).
    Sir Herbert Williamsasked the Minister of Transport the present rate of annual expenditure of the railways; how much of this is wages and salaries; and how these figures compare with those prior to the war?
    Lieut.-Colonel Moore-Brabazon: I am making inquiries and will communicate with my hon. Friend.

    LIFE OF PARLIAMENT (MEMBERS AND ELECTORS).
    Lieut.-Colonel Sir Thomas Mooreasked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the extension of the life of the present Parliament recently agreed to by this House without consulting the electorate, he will take steps to ensure that, where the electorate in the constituency wish to terminate the five-year contract entered into with their Member at the last general election they can do so at the end of the five-year period by petition, or memorial to Mr. Speaker, who could be then authorised to declare the seat vacant?
    Mr. Wedgwood: Before this Question is answered, may I ask whether it is correct to say that there is a five-year contract between a Member of this House and his constituents?
    The Lord Privy Seal (Mr. Attlee): To speak of the election of a Member as a "five-year contract" between the Member and his constituents is not, I think, an apt description of the constitutional position. Parliament for reasons which are well known and were discussed in the recent Debate decided to prolong the life of the present Parliament and I do not think it would be practicable or desirable to graft on to that decision the proposal put forward in the Question.
    Sir T. Moore: With great reluctance, Mr. Speaker, I must say that I do not consider this reply satisfactory, and I propose at an early date to raise the matter on the Adjournment.

    SUBSTITUTE ESPARTO PAPER, SCOTLAND.
    Mr. R. Gibsonasked the Minister of Supply whether, in view of the abundant supplies of substitute esparto paper in Scotland, he will modify the restrictions imposed on the use of paper by Paper Order, No. 20, and otherwise, and thereby relieve the depression and unemployment in the printing trade in Scotland.
    The Minister of Supply (Sir Andrew Duncan): As I informed the right hon. and gallant Member for Northern Midlothian (Lieut.-Col. Colville) yesterday, the supplies of home-produced paper-making materials enable some of the restrictions on the use of paper made from those materials to be relaxed for a time. An Order for that purpose has been made and comes into force to-day.
    Mr. Gibson: While I thank my right hon. Friend for his reply, which will give lively satisfaction in Scotland, will he take steps to encourage the alternative use of this substitute esparto paper?
    Sir A. Duncan: That is the object of this Order.

  FOOD SUPPLIES.

    BANANAS.
    Mr. Gallacherasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether he is aware that on 1st October 2,500 bunches of bananas in good condition were loaded into barges and taken cut to sea for destruction; for what purpose this food waste was carried out; and whether he will prosecute those responsible?
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Major Lloyd George): I have been asked to reply. I have made inquiries and have ascertained that these bananas did not arrive in good condition, but were found on arrival to be quite unfit for human consumption and were condemned by the medical officer of health. The latter part of the Question therefore, does not arise.
    Mr. Gallacher: If I am able to provide the Minister with information that the bananas were quite eatable, will he be prepared to take action?

    FLOUR (RESERVES).
    Mr. De la Bèreasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food
    1334
    whether, in view of the dangers of air bombardment, he will now consider repairing and putting into working order the disused mills throughout the country and bringing them back into activity; and whether, with a view to improving the country's larder, he will encourage householders throughout the country to hold a 140-lb. bag of flour, with a view to its utilisation for home baking in the event of an emergency and as a war precaution?
    Major Lloyd George: As a precautionary measure steps have already been taken to bring certain disused mills into production, and further action on these lines will he taken if the need arises. As regards the latter part of the Question, ample flour reserves are being maintained by the Ministry and by flour millers in all parts of the country. My Noble Friend does not, therefore, consider it desirable to extend household reserves to the extent that my hon. Friend suggests, but he would be glad if all consumers who are able to do so would maintain an emergency reserve equivalent to one week's normal requirements.
    Mr. De la Bère: Can my right hon. Friend tell me under what authority certain statements have been made by officials of the Ministry of Food to the Press regarding the possible price of bread and other matters, and will he draw the attention of the Minister of Food to this very undesirable practice that goes on?

    ONIONS (IMPORT).
    Sir H. Williamsasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether he has any statement to make as to the omission to arrange for the importation of a sufficient supply of onions?
    Major Lloyd George: As my hon. Friend is aware, the main source of our imported onion supplies at this season of the year is the Netherlands, and these supplies are not at present obtainable. It is not possible to make good more than a proportion of the deficiency from other sources, but every effort is being made to obtain such alternative supplies as are available.
    Sir H. Williams: May I ask my hon. and gallant Friend what power he has in the event of some of the shopkeepers withholding these onions and not exposing them for sale? What remedy have we?

    EGGS (MAXIMUM PRICE) ORDER (PROSECUTIONS).
    Rear-Admiral Beamishasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether he has had his attention drawn to the recent prosecution of Scottish firms in the egg trade when Max Schonbach, Benjamin Brazil, James McGreed, and others were fined for contravening the Eggs (Maximum Price) Order; and will he state the names of the Irish firms who were partners in the offences and whether they will be prosecuted?
    Major Lloyd George: My noble Friend is not prepared to disclose the names of firms which may be implicated in future proceedings, but I can assure my hon. and gallant Friend that investigations into the dealings of certain, firms in regard to eggs are proceeding, and that prosecutions will be instituted in appropriate cases.
    Rear-Admiral Beamish: Does my hon. and gallant Friend realise that the trivial fines that have been inflicted upon these people for fraud upon the public are not likely to act as a deterrent to these rugged and hardy clansmen?

    FISH (PRICE).
    Mr. Roland Robinsonasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether he is aware of the great rise in the price of fish during the past year; and whether, in view of the large profits made by foreign trawlers bringing fish to this country, he will consider controlling the price of fish, and at the same time reimposing the 10 per cent. ad valorem tax on all fish landed at British ports by foreign trawlers?
    Major Lloyd George: My noble Friend is aware that the price of fish has risen greatly, and he is at present considering the question of imposing a price control. He is unable to agree, however, that the present would be an opportune time for re-imposing the 10 per cent. ad valorem duty on foreign imports.
    Mr. A. Bevan: Is my hon. and gallant Friend aware that there is very considerable irony in the sending to the Press by the Minister of Information of examples of menus including fish which it is beyond the power of working-class people to buy? Fish prices are inordinately high.
    Major Lloyd George: That point is being considered.
    Mr. George Griffiths: Is my hon. and gallant Friend aware that a lot of housewives call this 8 o'clock breakfast stuff twaddle and cannot manage it at all?

    COAL SUPPLIES, MANCHESTER.
    Mr. Radfordasked the Secretary for Mines whether he is aware that, since his circular letter to local authorities of 12th July last, only 120 tons of coal have been received by the Manchester Corporation under the Government's stocking scheme for Manchester, as compared with an average weekly winter consumption in that city of not less than 30,000 tons; and what steps he is taking, in conjunction with the Ministry of Transport, to expedite deliveries to Manchester?
    The Secretary for Mines (Mr. David Grenfell): I am well aware that, owing to the heavy demand from consumers for stocking, the margin of supplies available for putting into Government dumps in Manchester has hitherto bet n small, and I am taking steps, in consultation with the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Shipping which should result in increased deliveries. In this connection I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent (Mr. E. Smith) on 23rd October.
    Mr. Radford: In view of my hon. Friend's explanation that the London Midland and Scottish Railway was unable to deliver these extra quantities of coal, how is it, since we control the railways, that we cannot order the London Midland and Scottish to carry the additional coal needed?
    Mr. Grenfell: I am afraid I cannot satisfy my hon. Friend on this occasion. There are conditions which are very difficult for all traffic working.
    Mr. Radford: Is it not a fact that Manchester is in the centre of a great coal-producing area, with Lancashire, Nottingham and Yorkshire all within reasonable reach?
    Mr. Batey: Is it not a disgrace that this state of affairs should prevail when there are thousands of miners out of work?
    Mr. Grenfell: I do not know whether it is to be described as a disgrace. If so, I am not responsible for it.
    Mr. Thorne: Has the Minister power to deal with the question of stocking?
    Mr. Grenfell: The position in regard to stocking generally is not as bad as seems to be assumed. There are very considerable stocks, even in Manchester. It is not true that the fact that the Government have been stocking coal indicates that there is any shortage. There are enormous reserves of coal in this country. Government stocking was left until the last, in order that private supplies could be filled up. There are very substantial stocks in every town in this country.
    Sir P. Harris: Will the hon. Gentleman co-operate very closely with the Minister of Transport, in order to ensure that where coal is available transport shall be found?
    Mr. Grenfell: There is the closest co-operation between the Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of Shipping, and myself. A special committee has been set up to deal with this question, and we are achieving important results.
    Mr. Tinker: Will my hon. Friend take an early opportunity of making a statement to the House on the whole position?
    Mr. Grenfell: I shall he very glad indeed to do so.

    PUBLIC ASSISTANCE (RENT ALLOWANCE).
    Mr. Radfordasked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that where a person is receiving public assistance and also a rent allowance, the latter has to be paid direct to the person concerned and not to the landlord, and that, in some cases, the tenant retains the money and does not use it to pay his or her rent, which constitutes a fraud on the public assistance committee; and whether he will take steps to have this prevented by the rent allowance being paid direct to the landlord?
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Miss Horsbrugh): Yes, Sir. The Relief Regulation Order prohibits a public assistance authority from paying the rent of a recipient of relief direct to the landlord. There would be strong objections to such an arrangement, and my right hon. Friend is not prepared to amend the Order in the sense suggested by my hon. Friend.
    Mr. Radford: Is my hon. Friend aware of the fact disclosed in the Question, that there have been gross cases of misappropriation of money by people to whom these allowances have been paid?
    Miss Horsbrugh: While my right hon. Friend realises the difficulties to which my hon. Friend refers, the fact remains that the money must be paid by the relieving authority direct to the applicant and that ordinary proceedings can be taken by the landlord against the tenant if the rent is not paid.
    Sir F. Sanderson: Does my hon. Friend not consider that the average landlord is well able to take care of himself?

  CIVIL DEFENCE.

    ELDERLY PEOPLE (EVACUATION).
    Mr. Sorensenasked the Minister of Health whether he is aware of numbers of elderly people, some suffering from infirmities, who are still remaining in areas subject to nightly air-raids and who cannot leave their district because they are unable to find accommodation elsewhere; and whether he is giving particular attention to this aspect of the problem with a view to securing suitable accommodation and meeting the entire cost of their removal thereto?
    Mr. Woodsasked the Minister of Health whether he is aware of the difficulty experienced by many elderly people in the London area in finding any accommodation in reception areas, and that they are consequently compelled to remain in London; and, in view of this, will he consider extending the present scheme, so as to provide billets for the aged and infirm people now resident in the London area?
    Miss Horsbrugh: The arrangements already made for the evacuation of the aged and infirm include those people in the London evacuation areas and in certain coastal towns who can make their own arrangements to be received in a reception or a neutral area; those homeless people who are willing to be removed from emergency rest centres to hospitals and then to homes on the outskirts of London; and those in need of medical and nursing care who habitually make use of air-raid shelters in the whole of the metropolitan boroughs and in East Ham

    1339
    and West Ham. The evacuation of all elderly people as a general class would not be practicable in view of the very special problems of accommodation, care and maintenance involved. My right hon. Friend is, however, anxious to provide such further facilities as may be practicable with the assistance of voluntary organisations and the local authorities, though it will be appreciated that the amount that can be done will be limited by the accommodation available.
    Mr. Sorensen: In view of the fact that numbers of these elderly people are suffering very great hardship, through having to spend the best part of the hours of darkness in the shelters, could there not be some special scheme for them?
    Miss Horsbrugh: I think the hon. Gentleman will appreciate, from the end of my reply, the difficulty of finding accommodation in the country. Many Members of this House have pressed us to increase the evacuation areas. It is a question of the number of people in the priority classes to be taken out and the amount of accommodation which is to be found in the reception areas.
    Mr. Messer: Has the hon. Lady considered the possibility of taking over big mansions and houses in the country, and using them for the chronic cases with which we are finding difficulty?
    Miss Horsbrugh: We have already taken many of the chronic cases to large houses on the outskirts of London. I think the hon. Member will realise that a number of large mansions are used for Service needs and the needs of those employed on work of national importance have also to be considered. It is not so easy to get this accommodation.
    Sir Francis Fremantle: Would it not be possible for the empty Emergency Medical Service hospitals to be temporarily used for the aged and infirm, until they are wanted for other purposes?
    Miss Horsbrugh: There is not a large number of empty E.M.S. hospitals. They are already being used for such purposes as this, and temporarily for other schemes of evacuation.
    Dr. Edith Summerskill: Does the hon. Lady think it wise for the Government to
    1340
    make these promises to the old people over the radio, when the accommodation is not forthcoming?
    Miss Horsbrugh: Of course, I am not responsible for the announcements made on the radio. But if the hon. Lady will look at the reply I have given, she will see that it is very carefully laid down—in fact, it has been announced on the wireless—that there are evacuation schemes for particular categories of the aged and infirm. My right hon. Friend cannot give an assurance that the majority of the aged people in London, or in other areas in this country, can be removed to reception areas.
    Mr. Kenneth Lindsay: What does the hon. Lady mean by saying that, as a Minister, she is not responsible for what goes over the radio?
    Miss Horsbrugh: Perhaps I have not regarded myself, as a junior Minister, as being responsible to such a great extent as the responsibilities of junior Ministers are looked upon by some other people. As the hon. Lady informed me, an announcement was made on the radio that was not considered to be in complete agreement with the policy stated here by my right hon. Friend. I do not think that I should be held responsible for that wireless statement, since the reply I have given sets out the Government's policy at present for the aged and infirm.
    Mr. Sorensen: Is the hon. Lady aware that a large number of houses are not being used, because the owners have locked them up and gone away?
    Miss Horsbrugh: I can assure the hon. Member that many of those houses are earmarked for special purposes, and have been held in readiness for those purposes. That is why the owners have gone away.
    Mr. Messer: Is the hon. Lady aware that the Duke of Bedford's hospital, fitted out for patients, is being used by the Foreign Office for their clerks?
    Miss Horsbrugh: There are certain temporary arrangements being made in the hospitals. At present we have more than sufficient hospital accommodation throughout the country, and in certain cases, where it is convenient, the hospitals are being used for other purposes.

    PUBLIC SHELTER, LEYTON.
    Mr. Sorensenasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the borough of Leyton is now included in evacuation schemes and facilities and in respect of the improvement of protection in the same manner as the neighbouring borough of West Ham; and whether he has made, or will make, arrangements for the usage of further portions of the tunnels, together with the provision of lighting, now used by a large number of people at night Who are citizens of Leyton and neighbouring districts?
    The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Home Security (Miss Wilkinson): So far as shelter protection is concerned, Leyton is in identically the same position as is West Ham. My hon. Friend's reference to tunnels relates, I take it, to the eastern extension of the tube; my information is that, except for a part which is reserved for other purposes, all suitable sections are used for shelter and that the lighting arrangements are being improved. As regards evacuation, the general facilities for the evacuation of mothers with children are at present confined to the administrative County of London, together with East and West Ham.
    Mr. Sorensen: Can my hon. Friend say why there should be this discrimination made between areas like West Ham and Leyton, when both areas are being subjected to just as much damage; and is she aware that the whole of the available space has not been used in the way that she apparently believes? I was there last night, and I can assure her that it is not so.
    Miss Wilkinson: With regard to the planning arrangements being of a different kind, the matter is one of longstanding Home Office policy, and questions upon that subject should be referred to my right hon. Friend. I know exactly how every part of the tunnelling is being used, and my information is really more accurate than the individual examination of my hon. Friend.
    Mr. Sorensen: May I ask my hon. Friend again why there should be this discrimination between two areas, both of them equally affected and contiguous to each other, and will she use her
    1342
    influence to see that the borough of Leyton is included along with the boroughs of East Ham and West Ham?
    Miss Wilkinson: I can assure my hon. Friend that my knowledge of the different sections of London is not as large as his. He has had much greater experience than I have, and perhaps he will therefore address any question on that point to my right hon. Friend on the next Sitting day, which is the Home Office day.

    RAILWAY ACCIDENT, NORTON FITZWARREN.
    Lieut.-Colonel Wickham(by Private Notice) asked the Minister of Transport whether he is now in a position to make a statement regarding the accident to the 9.50 p.m. Paddington-Penzance express which occurred near Taunton in the early hours of 4th November?
    Lieut.-Colonel Moore-Brabazon: I am informed that this unfortunate accident occurred at 3.52 a.m. on 4th November at Norton Fitzwarren, just beyond Taunton. The night was dark and it was raining heavily at the tune. The 9.50 p.m. express passenger train from London to Penzance travelling on the down relief line, was de-railed at the catch points protecting the down main line at this junction. I deeply regret to say that, so far as can he ascertained at present, some 24 persons are known to have been killed and 59 injured, 20 of them seriously. I am sure that the House will wish to join with me in expressing sincere sympathy with the relatives of those involved in this accident, and also with those who have sustained injury. I understand that there is no evidence to indicate that the accident was in any way due to defective track, sabotage or enemy action. A newspaper train travelling on the down main line at the time neither contributed to the cause nor the seriousness of the accident. I have appointed Leut-Colonel Mount, Chief Inspecting Officer of Railways, to hold a full inquiry into all the circumstances.

    NEW MEMBER SWORN.
    Douglas Lloyd Savory, Esquire, for the Queen's University of Belfast.

    DETENTION OF A MEMBER.
    Sir William Davison: On a point of Order, Mr. Speaker. Can you inform the House as to the reason for the delay in submitting to the House the report of the Committee of Privileges with regard to the hon. and gallant Member for Peebles and Southern (Captain Ramsay) which was sent to the printers some three weeks ago?
    Mr. Speaker: I understand that a Question on that matter has been put down for the next Sitting day.

HOUSEHOLD MEANS TEST.
The Prime Minister: I have received questions and inquiries from all the three parties in the House, and in consequence I should like to make a short statement regarding the review that has been made by the Government of the household means test for unemployment assistance and supplementary pensions. The Government have given an immense amount of consideration to this matter. We have all represented so many different points of view and have all arrived at a united conclusion. The Government intend to introduce legislation to enable them to give effect to certain changes designed to remove causes of complaint against the existing means test. The test will become one of personal need, and will be based on the following principles: the needs and resources of the applicant will continue to be aggregated with those of his wife and of any dependants, but the resources of any other member of the household will no longer be aggregated with those of the applicant. If the applicant is the householder, a standard contribution by non-dependent members of his household towards rent and other overheads, will be assumed and taken into account as part of the applicant's resources. This means that inquiry will normally be limited to the needs and resources of the applicant, his wife and dependants. If the applicant is not a householder, and is living with relations, regard will be had to the constitution and circumstances of the home in assessing his personal needs, but inquiry into the resources of other members of the household will in any case be greatly reduced and will often be unnecessary. No applicant without resources of his own will be left dependent on other
1344
members of the household for means to buy clothing and other necessary personal requirements. The Government have asked the Assistance Board to work out the detailed application of these principles in the case both of unemployment assistance and of supplementary pensions in order that they may be in a position to submit draft Regulations as soon as the necessary legislation has been passed.
Mr. Thorne: Will not the right hon. Gentleman have difficulty in finding out what are the needs?
Mr. Graham White: Can the Prime Minister say whether the proposal Is limited to supplementary pensions and unemployment assistance and that it has no relation to the position of the Poor Law?
The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir, that assumption is correct.
Mr. White: May I express the profound satisfaction of my right hon. and hon. Friends on these benches for the change that has been made?
Mr. Bevan: In view of past experience, would the Prime Minister consider giving the House more facilities than existing procedure permits when the draft Regulations are before the House? The draft Regulations are based on legislation, but that will not give the House proper opportunity of considering and amending in detail the nature of the Regulations. Experience shows that most administrative difficulties arise from the fact: that the House has had no opportunity of guiding the Assistance Board in these matters. Can there be an alteration?
The Prime Minister: I think it is probably considered all the world over an extremely remarkable fact that we are able to carry on our regular and long-valued procedure in the House under conditions which obviously, from time to time, enforce themselves upon every Member, and I do not feel at the moment that this is the time to embark on even more elaborate procedure than that which we are trying, under so many difficulties, to carry through.
Mr. Bevan: It is not a matter of making procedure more difficult. Experience has gone to show that large sums of money are spent and difficulties arise because the House has not given sufficient detailed

1345
guidance to the Unemployment Assistance Board, and the procedure of those Regulations will not permit the House to do so. Is there not a case for alteration?
The Prime Minister: That was the point to which I endeavoured to address myself.
Mr. Silverman: Does the right hon. Gentleman recall that there was given to the House some time ago a pledge about the exemption from even the personal needs test of a certain limit of savings and that subsequently a Bill was introduced in this House, designed to carry out the pledge, but was withdrawn because the House did not think it did carry it out. Can the right hon. Gentleman say when that matter will be dealt with?
The Prime Minister: There will have to be a Bill, and that Bill will have to pass through all stages, including the Financial Resolution, and that will be the opportunity when questions like the one which was raised by the hon. Member can be thrashed out.
Mr. Silverman: Is there a possibility that a Bill will be so drafted as to deal with this matter?
The Prime Minister: I am afraid that to e have not yet reached the stage of casting a Bill into draft, but I have been talking with my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer this morning, and he hopes that in a few weeks a Bill will be before Parliament.
Mr. Mander: Is it intended to proceed with the Determination of Needs Bill as well?
The Prime Minister: That is at the present time being considered.
Mr. Lawson: Where more serious mistakes have been made by the House is through not having power to amend these Regulations, and—
Mr. Speaker: I think sufficient questions have already been put to the Prime Minister.
Mr. Batey: May I ask a question on the statement of the Prime Minister? He said it was to be a personal needs test. Does that include a man and his wife? The Prime Minister seemed to me to
1346
include the family and not other members of the household. Are we to understand that the Prime Minister means that the incomes of members of the family will be included but not other members?
The Prime Minister: The statement was most carefully drafted, and I think it would be wise to read it first.
Mr. McGovern: Will this Bill be introduced before Christmas so that its benefits, if any, will come to applicants before then?
The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. It will certainly be introduced before then.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
The Prime Minister: I have a short statement to make on Business. I take this opportunity to inform the House that we desire to obtain the Committee stage of the Supplementary Estimates on supplementary pensions, the Government of India Order and other formal Business not later than 3 o'clock to-day. I hope this course will be agreeable to the House. I then propose that we should go into Secret Session in order that I can make a statement on the future sittings of the House.
Mr. Mander: Will the Prime Minister be good enough to arrange, on occasions of important Debates, such as yesterday, for some Minister, not necessarily himself, to be present so that we can have a reply at the end of the Debate? A number of important speeches were made in the House yesterday, and no Minister attempted to reply.
The Prime Minister: The Lord President of the Council was here all the time.
Mr. Mander: But he did not speak.
The Prime Minister: Between listening and speaking there is a gulf, and the gulf does not diminish in width during the progress of the war.
Mr. Mander: Would the Prime Minister be willing to consider asking a Minister not only to listen but to speak?
The Prime Minister: Everything that has to be said has to be very carefully considered—also not only what is said but what is left out. I have no doubt that if I had been able to be present here

1347
all the time yesterday, I might perhaps have uttered a few remarks at the end, but I doubt very much whether that would have added to the information.

HOUSE OF COMMONS OFFICIAL REPORT.
Sir H. Morris-Jones: I beg to give notice that I intend on the next Sitting day to bring before your notice, Mr. Speaker, the inability of Members of this House to receive the OFFICIAL REPORT, particularly in view of the fact that we had assurances some weeks ago on this matter and that inconveniences have been caused.

HOME GUARD (STATUS AND ROLE)
The Joint Under-Secretary of State for War (Sir Edward Grigg): I ask your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House to make a short statement on the Home Guard. The Army Council has had the rôle and requirements of the Home Guard under careful review and has taken decisions which I desire to submit to the House. The Prime Minister has said that the Home Guard are as much a part of the Army as the Grenadier Guards. That statement was no mere compliment; it was a declaration in terms which no one can mistake of the military status and value of the Force. The Home Guard consists, it is true, of soldiers raised to fight in small detachments near their homes, without that organisation into mobile battalions, brigades and divisions which is necessary for a regular Field Force. But its military value for the important purposes which it serves is in no way impaired—on the contrary, it is in some ways enhanced—by its special character as an auxiliary part-time force.
In this character it is essential to our defence system for the duration of the war, and we desire on that account to give its organisation, which has hitherto been largely provisional in character, a firmer and more permanent shape. But the House will, I am sure, agree that in doing this we should not seek to alter its local and friendly character. Though this is a deeply united country, it is immensely various; and the Home Guard reflects its almost infinite variety of habit and type. That home-bred quality must not be impaired in order to secure the uniformity
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and organisation which are necessary for armed forces of other sorts. We want the Home Guard to have a military status as unimpeachable as that of any Corps or Regiment; we want it also to be equipped with an administrative system which provides for its requirements without too much formality or what is called "red tape"; we want it, finally, to have all the opportunity of further training for which it asks. But we do not want it to be trained or strained beyond its powers as a voluntary spare-time Force.
First, then, as to its rôle and the training required for it. The Home Guard exists for home defence in the most literal sense. Its members have joined up in order to give to the defence of their own localities all the time which they can spare, by hard living, from their normal work. Its military rôle is, in fact, to reinforce the defences of the country by providing local garrisons for communications, vulnerable places and key-points, as also by giving timely notice of enemy movement to the commanders of mobile troops. With the longer nights, when normal employment over-runs both dawn and dusk, it cannot maintain its summer standard of vigilance. There should, however, be no difficulty in reducing the calls upon it during the winter months. Where the task of a section is to defend a locality in exposed conditions, it need only be held in readiness to man its posts at short notice, should the emergency arise. Watches, in-lying pickets and patrols can be limited to such as can be maintained on a shift system by those who can afford the time. Needless picketing or patrolling should be discouraged, and attention turned to training instead. A simple manual for Home Guard training has already been issued. Much of it can be carried out under cover, and authority has been given for renting or otherwise obtaining the accommodation required. Exercises can be carried out at week-ends when the members of a unit are free to take part in them.
I would add that the training of the Force is not as uniform in principle at the present moment as it ought to be; there are places such as factories and the central area of some cities where its rôle has not as yet been adequately worked out. Within certain broad limits its duties must vary from place to place; but those limits should be scrupulously observed, and every section should be clearly apprised of the duty for which it is needed

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and for which it should train. Drills and parades are not as essential to the training of Home Guard units as they are to that of Regular troops, though Home Guards, like all other good troops, like turning out occasionally for a church parade or other ceremony and marching for all to admire behind a band. That does good to everyone. Nor is the Home Guard intended to organise or train for mobile action on any but the most limited scale. The highly laudable military zeal of local leaders in these directions may at times have outrun its proper rôle. The higher commanders should watch and, where necessary, check such tendencies, in order that the strength and contentment of the Force may not be impaired.
I think, Sir, that the House and the Home Guard itself will be satisfied with this broad definition of its winter rôle. I would, however, add two things. In the first place, we are providing for the training of instructors and leaders, and have for that purpose taken over the school started with much public spirit by Mr. Edward Hutton at Osterley, with the Osterley staff. In the second place, we recognise that compensation should be paid for loss of wages, if the Home Guard is called out for whole time emergency service, which prevents its members from doing their normal work, under direct orders from the higher Regular Command. Such compensation would if the occasion arises be subject to the same limitations and conditions generally speaking as apply in the case of the Civil Defence Services.
I come now to the questions of status, administration and command, which are to some extent intertwined. Operational command of the Home Guard is vested in the Commander-in-Chief, Home Forces, who exercises it through the regular Commands. This arrangement is, of course, essential, since the Home Guard is an indispensable element in the system of military defence for which the Commander-in-Chief is responsible. On the administrative side, however, this new Force, which is five or six times as large as the peace-time Territorial Army, is in our opinion now entitled to a Director-General and a fully equipped directorate of his own. We have therefore decided that the Inspector-General on the staff of the Commander-in-Chief shall be replaced by a Director-General, Home Guard, who
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will have his headquarters in the War Office and will bring together the administrative staff which has hitherto worked partly under Sir Alan Brooke and partly under Sir John Brown. There will still, however, be an Inspector-General as well as a Director-General of the Force, and that post of Inspector-General will be filled by General Lord Gort, who will combine it with the other duties already entrusted to him.
Not less important is the question of rank. At present, as the House knows, there are no ranks in the Force, but only appointments with unfamiliar titles to various ranges of command. This is not an altogether satisfactory arrangement, though, thanks to the Home Guard itself, it has served for a period of emergency very well. Its defects are obvious, and I need only summarise them very briefly. In the first place, the fact that under this arrangement Home Guard commanders are only private soldiers vis-a-vis the officers, warrant officers and non-commissioned officers of the Regular Army imposes upon them and also upon the higher Regular Command a disability which might prove serious. This is no mere question of punctilio. The Home Guard numbers in its ranks many officers of wide experience in the three Armed Services; and the Commander-in-Chief has drawn attention to the fact that one of these might very well be the most reliable commander of troops in his locality, should that Locality find itself isolated in the mixed fighting which an invasion or an air-landing might produce. Unless, however, that Home Guard commander held an active commission of some sort, he could not be placed in command of any but Home Guard troops and would in fact be subordinate to any Regular officer or non-commissioned officer who happened to be on the spot. In the view of the Army Council and also of the Commander-in-Chief this very serious limitation to the responsibility which may be laid upon Home Guard commanders should be removed; but that is impossible under the Army Act unless Home Guard commanders are granted King's Commissions in some form. Some such change is therefore essential if the country is to have full value from the first-rate soldierly material which the creation of the Home Guard has mobilised.

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In the second place it is a constitutional rule in this country, long safeguarded by this House, that all commanders of armed forces should be bound by a definite responsibility to the State—that is, to the King in Parliament. To fix that responsibility there must be some commission or charge which sets it out in terms. Last but far from least is the matter of custom and sentiment. Members of the Home Guard are using the familiar military titles for their commanders, despite the Army Council Instruction setting out the list of unfamiliar titles by which those commanders are supposed to go. It is, indeed, natural to assume that a Force which forms part of the Army should be commanded by colonels, captains and corporals, as the rest of the Army is; and we have had strong evidence from all ranks of the Home Guard that it will never feel assured of full and unassailable military status while these familiar ranks and titles are denied.
All these, Sir, are potent arguments, and they have overcome our anxiety lest the militarisation of the Home Guard in this way should impair its present informality and introduce an undesirable rigidity into the relations of officers, non-commissioned officers and men. We are, indeed, satisfied that the necessary change can be made without consequences of that kind. His Majesty has therefore been pleased to direct that King's Commissions shall be granted to all approved commanders in the Home Guard, and that the Force shall also have a suitable complement of warrant and non-commissioned ranks. The commissioned, warrant and non-commissioned officers will bear the traditional titles of their rank. The necessary Order-in-Council will in due course be laid before the House, and a full statement on the nature of the proposed commissions will then be made. The commissions will be commissions in the Home Guard and normally limited to the exercise of command over Home Guard troops; but they will enable the higher Regular Command to place Home Guard officers in command of all troops, Regular or other, in any given locality should a specific emergency require. They will also define the Home Guard officer's responsibility to the King in Parliament, and they will carry with them the military titles traditional for each rank. But those
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will be the only changes which they will introduce. The conditions of service in which volunteers are enrolled will not be altered at all. For example, officers will have no rights to disability pensions other than those obtaining for private soldiers; they will have no power of summary punishment; and discipline will depend, as at present, upon the team spirit of all ranks. We are indeed satisfied with the informal but effective discipline now ruling in the Force. It breathes the spirit of the old train-bands, and we do not wish to impair that democratic and very British spirit in any way.
I would, in conclusion, deal briefly with equipment and finance. The present grant of £1 per head was provisional and has proved unsatisfactory in some respects. The cost of transport, training accommodation and subsistence allowance varies greatly from county to county and cannot therefore be fairly met out of a capitation grant which is per head the same for all. We propose accordingly that these shall be dealt with separately. The new capitation grant will be limited to clerical assistance and miscellaneous charges such as typewriters, postage, stationery and telephones. For these purposes, which are all important now that the Home Guard is taking permanent form, we hope to give the County Associations not only adequate funds but reasonable discretion in the use of them.
As for equipment, a very considerable range is now on issue to the Home Guard. I need not trouble the House with all the items on the list, but will confine myself to the most important, namely, arms and uniform. Rifles, automatic rifles, machine-guns and grenades will very shortly be available for the Home Guard on a scale which represents full armament for 1,000,000 men. Discrimination has, of course, had to be exercised in the issue of these arms, not only between area and area, but also between Horne Guards enrolled for general duty in their locality and Factory Guards, since the latter are organised in numerous watches and could not make adequate use of a full complement of arms; but we hope to complete the issue before long. With regard to uniform, battle-dress is being issued on a large scale and will before long be available for the whole Force; denims will be withdrawn. Greatcoats cannot be supplied in adequate numbers before the winter comes on, and we have therefore arranged

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for a large issue of trenchcapes, a warm and serviceable garment made of waterproofed service serge. There has been a serious shortage of steel helmets for the Home Guard at a time when they were urgently required, and we realize how galling this has been, particularly since the Civil Defence Services, which were earlier in the field, have been fully supplied. But my right. hon. Friend the Minister of Supply has made new arrangements, and we hope for a much larger weekly issue in the near future.
I hope the House will forgive me for inflicting these details upon it. All are of importance to the efficiency and contentment of the Home Guard, which richly deserves all the consideration that Parliament and the War Office can give it. Never was a Force so formidable more quickly or more cheaply raised. Sir, the debt owed by this country in recent weeks to many sections of its population, city dwellers and industrial workers no less than those who carry arms, is beyond compute; but no section has rendered finer service than those who, through the length and breadth of the country, have given their energy and ability to the organisation of this Force, and given them without stint. The War Office makes no claim to the achievement. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State's appeal did not create, it simply released, a pent desire for service which has given us more than three times the numbers at which we aimed. From end to end of the land patriotic men have devoted time, pains and in many cases private resources as well to the manifold needs of the Force. We hope by these new arrangements to show that the high value of their services is recognised by the State.
Mr. Lawson: I am sure the House has heard with considerable satisfaction the hon. Gentleman's statement on this very valuable Force. I should like to ask him whether it is intended to bring more actively into the organisation that important section of the Home Guard known as the Factory Guards. Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the equipment and training of the Factory Guards leaves very much to be desired, and that there is great dissatisfaction among the men because they feel they are considered as guards of special enterprises rather than as members of the Home Guard?
Sir E. Grigg: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has raised that point. We are extremely anxious that Factory Guards should not be regarded merely as guards of private enterprise, but as guards over the safety of their locality, and steps will certainly be taken to see that that principle is carried out.
Sir P. Harris: I wish to ask the Patronage Secretary whether we may have a very early opportunity of discussing this important and most comprehensive statement, which ought to be the subject of a full Debate?
The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Captain Margesson): Certainly, if it is the wish of the House that there should be a Debate on this subject, the Government will do their best to provide for it.
Lieut.-Colonel Sir A. Lambert Ward: Will my hon. Friend have his statement printed in pamphlet form and issued to all ranks of the Home Guard, as I think it will give them very great satisfaction?
Sir E. Grigg: I will consider that.
Mr. Bellenger: With reference to the hon. Gentleman's remark that the Home Guard are as much an integral part of the Army as the Grenadier Guards, does this foreshadow any change in the terms of service?
Sir E. Grigg: No, Sir. I said that there will be no change in the terms of service.
Mr. Bellenger: I was referring to the notice they can give when they want to leave the Service.

ROYAL ASSENT.
Message to attend the Lords Commissioners.
The House went; and, having returned—
Mr. SPEAKER reported the Royal Assent to:
Prolongation of Parliament Act, 1940.
Clyde Lighthouses Consolidation Order Confirmation Act, 1940.
Fife County Council Order Confirmation Act, 1940.

HOME GUARD (STATUS AND ROLE).
Mr. Silverman: I should like to join with others in congratulating the Joint Under-Secretary on the statement he has made. I am sure it has been received in the House and in the country with great satisfaction. However, I should like to ask him a question which has not so far been raised. Is there anywhere in existence anything which defines who it is who can join the Home Guard, and who it is who has the right to refuse an applicant? A great many of us in the House—I am sure I am not alone in the experience—have from time to time had complaints, either that men who have seemed to be fully qualified to join have been refused admittance when they applied, or that men who have been taken into the Home Guard and have seemed to give great satisfaction to everybody have been asked to resign, the reason sometimes being given and sometimes not—sometimes it is because a man is suspected of belonging to, or does belong to, a political party which is unpopular.
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member must confine himself to the question before the House.
Mr. Silverman: I should like to mention just one instance. It is the notorious case, about which questions were asked in this House, of a man who had won a V.C. in the last war, who was not allowed to join the Home Guard because one of his parents was not British-born. Can it be shown who it is who has the right to join the Home Guard, and with whom lies the discretion of vetoing applicants?
Sir E. Grigg: I quite agree that the system has not worked altogether satisfactorily. We have been very much concerned about that. We are going into it and I hope we shall be able to clear up any difficulties.
Mr. Woodburn: The Minister mentioned his desire to keep the democratic form of the Home Guard. How does he propose to safeguard the Home Guard against the introduction of that tremendous gulf between commissioned officers and the non-commissioned ranks, which exists in the Regular Army and which would create a great breach in the organisation and in the comradeship of the Home Guard?
Sir E. Grigg: I do not think any such gulf would be created. At present a tremendous number of officers who have held commissions all their lives are serving as soldiers in the Home Guard, and it cannot be said that any such gulf exists. The mere fact that a number of them carry the King's commission for certain specific purposes, will not alter the spirit of the Home Guard.
Dr. Summerskill: I hope the hon. Gentleman will answer this question with the seriousness which I believe it merits. I want to know whether he has considered allowing women to join the Home Guard, in view of the fact that in villages up and down the country there are women who have very little to occupy their spare time and who waste it very often in doing knitting and things of that nature. There are many women who can do knitting, and there are others who can do something better. I suggest that I can. We find women in the Battle of London doing work in the firing line, as well as men.
Sir E. Grigg: We have given consideration to that question, with every desire to give such opportunity as we can to the many women who want to serve, but we have been deterred by two things. In the first place, there is a tremendous demand for the services of women in the Civil Defence Services and, in the second, it is not much use recruiting women into one of the military Auxiliary Corps unless you can give them uniforms. As the hon. Lady knows, we have already been finding difficulty in providing uniforms for the Home Guard as it is. Perhaps later on it may be possible to do something.
Miss Rathbone: Has the hon. Gentleman considered this point—that during the longer nights it will be rather difficult for those people who work in the day-time to do all the watching that they have been doing during the summer? That is where women might come in. They might undertake some of the watching and observing duties which it will be difficult to provide for under winter conditions.
Sir E. Grigg: We are reducing the duties very greatly for the winter. I doubt whether extra numbers are required for that purpose in the Home Guard.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  SUPPLY.
  Considered in Committee.
  [Colonel CLIFTON BROWN in the Chair.]

CIVIL ESTIMATES, SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES, 1940.
  CLASS V.

    SUPPLEMENTARY PENSIONS.
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £11,200,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1941, for the payment of Supplementary Pensions to certain persons in receipt of Old Age Pensions or Widows' Pensions, and for certain administrative expenses in connection therewith."
    Mr. Gordon Macdonald: On a point of Order. May I ask for your Riding, Colonel Clifton Brown, at the commencement of the Debate, on this point? We heard earlier a long statement from the Prime Minister on the same subject-matter as that with which we are about to deal now. Since that will involve legislation I wonder to what extent we are at liberty to discuss the statement.
    The Deputy-Chairman: I am afraid the rule is perfectly definite. The Prime Minister's statement involves legislation, and it cannot be discussed on this occasion.
    Mr. James Griffiths: It is true that the proposal requires legislation, but the Prime Minister announced that the Government proposed to remit the principle to the Assistance Board and ask them, later on, to submit Regulations. Would it be in order for us to discuss some of the things about which the Assistance Board will have to make up their mind? Will you rule out references of that kind?
    Mr. Graham White: It seems to me that, in order to discuss the Estimate intelligently, we shall have to take into account certain consequential changes which are likely to arise as a result of the Prime Minister's announcement. There may be a question of the load of expenses as between the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Health.
    The Deputy-Chairman: Hon. Members have raised rather difficult questions. I am inclined to think we must see how we go on. I have no desire to limit the Debate unduly, but I do not want it to go outside the scope of what is legitimate on the Supplementary Estimate before us. While I could not answer in advance the definite questions which have been put, I think it better to trust hon. Members to keep within reasonable limits.
    The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Ernest Brown): The original Estimate was submitted before the Act was passed on 21st March and before the Regulations were made on 8th June. There was, therefore, no material on which an Estimate could be based with any confidence except, of course, our knowledge of the old age pensioners who were receiving supplementary allowances through the then existing system of supplementation by public assistance authorities. I do not think I need stress at length the need for the Supplementary Estimate, for the figures themselves demonstrate that we need the money, but I think, in view of the Prime Minister's statement, which will of course rule out of order those things which involve legislation in the future, I should be meeting the Committee if, as far as possible, I confined myself to the outstanding facts in order that the Committee and the country may get a broad picture of the results of the three months' work.
    This Supplementary Estimate is intended to make provision for 34 weeks, that is, from 3rd August to 31st March next year, for 1,060,000 supplementary cases. That does not mean individual pensions. Allowing for the fact that a married couple are usually treated as one case where both parties are pensioners, it is equivalent to about 1,325,000 persons. We have taken this figure as the basis for the Estimate in view of the fact that there has been a gradual increase in the number of supplementary cases since the scheme began, and the increase appears likely to continue. For the purpose of the Estimate the average payment per case—not per person—has been taken at 9s. a week, which is 2d. in excess of the average amount shown by a sample examination of cases dealt with in the first few weeks of the scheme. We have grounds for believing, that, as these cases come under periodical review,

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    payments will, on balance, be increased. I will not give any figures about that. We shall have to discuss them in the light of the consequent changes which will be necessary when the new Bill is brought in.
    These are the outstanding facts which the Committee I am sure would like to have. In March, 1939, there were 275,000 old age pensioners in receipt of Poor Law relief at a total annual cost of £5,250,000. At the present time supplementary pensions are being paid in about 1,000,000 cases at an annual charge, including winter allowances, of about £24,000,000. As I have already indicated a man and wife living together are treated as one case, and the real number of beneficiaries is appreciably higher than 1,000,000. On the basis of a sample inquiry it may be put at 1,220,000. It will be seen from these figures that the number of old age and widow pensioners receiving an additional weekly payment by way of a supplementary pension is more than four times greater than the number of old age pensioners who were previously in receipt of Poor Law relief, and that the cost of the supplementary pensions is more than four times greater than the cost of the relief previously given. These figures make it plain that, with all the difficulties involved in the application of a central scheme over the whole country in place of hundreds of local schemes, a central scheme is much more popular than a local scheme.
    Mr. Tinker: It also shows how many suffered up to this change.
    Mr. Brown: I was coming to that. It also shows, as all social workers had suspected, that there was a great deal more need which did not express itself because of a dislike of local inquiry and of the application to the Poor Law. My hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Mr. Tinker) only anticipated what I was about to say. On the average, the weekly payments to the pensioner, whose basic pension is normally at the rate of 10s. a week, works out at about 7s. 5d. This average figure conceals a wide range of payments varying from 1s. to 30s. or more in individual cases. The lowest figure of 1s. may be paid to an applicant living alone who has resources of his own. In view of the numerous statutory disregards and discretionary allowances, a single pensioner—to take an example—may receive a sup-
    1372
    plementary pension, although in addition to his old age pension, he has a superannuation payment of 16s. a week, bringing his income, apart from supplementation, up to 26s. a week. Indeed, if he has a disability pension, of which the first £1 a week is ignored, he may have considerably more than 26s. a week and still be entitled to a supplementary pension. In household cases the payments of supplementary pensions range from 2s. to 30s. or more. There are a few household cases in which 40s. is being paid. I will give an illustration to make it clear how that arises. Here is a case of an old age pensioner with a young wife and four children between eight and 14. The need for the man and wife is assessed at 31s. and that of the four children at 21s. 6d., making a total of 52s. 6d. Deducting the pension of 10s. a week, the payment made is 42s. 6d.
    Perhaps the Committee will find it convenient if I take one or two leading categories and show the proportions in which supplementary pensions of various amounts are paid. An analysis of the range of weekly supplementary pensions shows that in some 30 per cent., of the cases the payment is 10s. or more. In a further 30 per cent, it is between 7s. 7d. and 10s. In the remaining 40 per cent. or so it is less than 7s. 6d., but only in 11 per cent. of those cases is the payment 2s. 6d. a week or less. A good deal has been said about the fact that of the original applications a considerable number could not be allowed. The Minister of Health and I, and the Assistance Board and the Government have taken into consideration in our review all the complaints that have been made as to how the new Act applied, and we took a large sample of these cases. That sample showed that, approximately. 36 per cent. of the applicants had resources of their own to which, even allowing for the numerous disregards and dis retionary allowances, were sufficient to take them outside the range of possible beneficiaries. A further analysis of cases disallowed is in progress and will be made available to the House when future discussions take place.
    I should like to say a word about those classes of cases that had to be taken over from the public assistance authorities. Throughout the land the Assistance Board has administered the supplemen-

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    tary pension scheme in such a way as to ensure that no person suffered any reduction in income through being transferred from the Public Assistance authority to the Board. Out of the 266,000 cases so transferred, 190,000 have had increases as a result of the application of the new Regulations. In about 50,000 cases a special addition has been necessary to bring the amount which would have been payable under the Board scales up to the Public Assistance figure. In the remainder of the transferred cases the supplementary payment is as before. The Committee may like to have some statistical information as to the distribution, according to different factors, of pensioners drawing supplementary pensions. The figures are based on a 5 per cent. sample of 976,000 cases. Take the geographical distribution: 10 per cent. of the pensioners are in Scotland, 7.1 in Wales and 82.9 in England.
    And now what about the basic pension? In 46.3 per cent. of cases the basic pension is a contributory old age pension, in 12.7 per cent a widow's pension, and in 33.6 per cent. a non-contributory pension. This leaves a residue of 7.4 per cent for which the information is not available. In terms of cases the Committee will probably wish to know the difference between men and women. Treating the case of a man and wife living together as one case, 23.9 per cent. were male pensioners, 51.6 per cent. female pensioners and 21.5 per cent. married couples both of whom were pensioners. I have a long analysis of the distribution between household and non-household cases. I will not trouble the Committee with it all, but three outstanding cases will be of interest. If necessary, the whole table can be printed in the OFFICIAL REPORT. The analysis shows that 33.3 per cent. are female pensioners living alone; 29.9 per cent. a single pensioner or married couple, both pensioners living in a household containing non-dependent members; and 16.8 per cent. a married couple, both pensioners, living alone. In view of hon. Members' inquiries, they may find these facts interesting.
    Mr. Ness Edwards: I am afraid the Minister did not make clear the details of each category living in households, and I should be glad if he could clear that up.
    Mr. Tinker: The Minister said he would put the information in the OFFICIAL REPORT, but I understand it cannot appear there unless he includes it in his speech, because it would be something which we had not had a chance to criticise.
    Mr. Brown: It would be easy to arrange for a Question to be put and for the information to be given as an answer to it. However, I am in the hands of the Committee.
    Mr. Tinker: Let us have it all.
    Mr. Brown: I will give it in terms of categories: 12.7 per cent. are male pensioners living alone; 33.3 per cent. female pensioners living alone; 3.1 per cent. male pensioners with dependants; .8 per cent. female pensioners with dependants; 16.8 per cent. married couples, both pensioners, living alone; .4 per cent. married couples, both pensioners, living with dependants; 29.9 per cent. single pensioners or married couples (both pensioners) living in a household containing non-dependant members; 3 per cent. two or more pensioners other than a married couple so living. Those are the categories, and they show exactly how the households are divided up in ratio. The numbers hon. Members can work out for themselves, or, if they desire to have it in the OFFICIAL REPORT, I will give the information as an answer to a Question.
    As to the distribution of cases with resources, that is, resources apart from the pension, and those without such resources, the analysis shows that in 37.7 per cent. there were no resources other than the main pension, that in 29.9 per cent. there were other resources, but by reason of disregards or discretionary allowances no account was taken of such resources in assessing the supplementary pensions; and in 32.4 per cent. resources went to reduce the supplementary pension. I think those facts are of interest, because they measure the problem which the Committee has to face. In view of the limited time I will not detain the Committee by entering into any examination of the operation of the scheme, except to say that I think hon. Members will agree that, over the whole country, the Board's officers have applied the machinery with both flexibility and consideration. The period of

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    winter allowances is just beginning, and because it is so recent I have no facts to give the Committee on that point. As hon. Members know, it has been the practice of some public assistance authorities, at least in Scotland, to make yearly or half-yearly grants of clothing to old age pensioners in receipt of outdoor relief. In their administration of supplementary pensions it is the intention of the Assistance Board that no pensioner shall be in a worse position than when he was in the charge of the public assistance authorities—
    Mr. Woodburn): Is it not the case that instead of giving that relief by way of clothing they are now giving it in cash?
    Mr. Brown: That is an illustration of the flexibility of the procedure, but the basic principle is that old age pensioners should not find themselves worse off. It may suit applicants to have the money instead of the clothes. I have one word to say about appeals. In the four weeks ended 27th September, the last period for which I have the figures, 7,256 appeals were received, and there were some outstanding from an earlier period. In the same period of four weeks the decisions of the officers of the Assistance Board were confirmed in 6,797 cases, and varied in 2,060 cases.
    Mr. S. O. Davies: Those were appeals that went to the appeals tribunals?
    Mr. Brown: Yes, Sir.
    Mr. Davies: Has the Minister any figures to show how many appeals were rejected?
    Mr. Brown: The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health is to reply, and I will see whether we can get the figures. As the Committee know, the figures that I have given only represent a measure of the extent to which, in three months, this scheme must have affected for good the budgets, the social economy and the happiness of thousands of households in the country. Any changes that may flow from the announcement made to-day by the Prime Minister can, of course, only be for the benefit of the pensioners. The nation has a warm regard for the old people, and that feeling is shared in every part of this House.
    Mr. Ellis Smith: It looks like it.
    Mr. Brown: Sometimes, of course, acquiescence is the best of signs from the Minister's point of view.
    Mr. James Griffiths: In making his statement the Prime Minister said something with which all of us cordially and warmly agree, that it is a fine tribute to this House and the people of this country that in the storm and stress of this great conflict we can turn aside to discuss problems of this kind. But if he were here I would say that this is the kind of war which can only be won if this House devotes its attention to removing every social sore in this country, and that we are not turning away from the war when we are dealing with this matter. We are fortifying the principal and, I think, the decisive thing in this war, the morale of the civilian population. Therefore, we ought to regard ourselves this afternoon as not putting on one side the problems of the war when we are discussing a Measure which will reflect itself in the greater confidence of our people. It is now just over 5½ years since I was privileged to make my maiden speech in this House. It was largely devoted to what I thought then, and still think, is the meanest thing this House of Commons has ever done, the imposition of the household means test, and to me and to many hon. Members on both sides of the House—because there are Members opposite who have joined in protest against the household means test and I am glad to see one at least is present—it was a matter of pleasure to hear the Prime Minister's statement that the Government now propose to substitute something fairer than the household means test.
    I do not propose to say more about the Prime Minister's statement until I have read it, but I do hope the Government will make a clean cut and have no more "snags". The Secretary of State for Scotland, who has just moved this Estimate, and given his explanation, for which we are grateful, has some experience in this matter, and knows that what I am going to say is right. The Assistance Board's record in this matter is not a very enviable one. It is now to be asked to produce new Regulations which will come before the House. So far it has not produced a single set of Regulations which has not been turned

    1377
    down. The first Regulations produced a storm in the country, and the right hon. Gentleman became Minister of Labour as a result of that storm. The Prime Minister's statement this afternoon will become the terms of reference of the Assistance Board in drawing up those new Regulations. They have been asked to look at those principles and translate them in the Regulations. I hope that the Government will give instructions showing that they desire to do the big and generous thing for the aged people of this country and that the Regulations, when they come forward, will be carried out in generous measure in the administration, which will not take advantage of loose wording to make matters more difficult. My hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) raised a very important point, which I think the Prime Minister did not fully realise or reply to in his statement. When these Regulations come before the House—
    The Deputy-Chairman: I must rule discussion of the Regulations out of Order.
    Mr. Griffiths: I was only going to ask whether we were to be limited to turning the Regulations down or accepting them, when they come before the House, and to suggest that there might be some other course. I ask the Minister to consider that point.
    More than 1,000,000 old age pensioners have had to apply for supplementary grants or allowances to their pensions in order that they might exist. That is a sad commentary upon the social system in this country. These men and women, now aged 60 or 65 years, have had to work hard all their lives. They have given their lives in the service of this country and, at the end, in the evening of their days, because their wages and their standard of living have been so deplorably low, they have inadequate resources to sustain them. The Minister of Labour, in the very detailed analysis which he gave, and for which we are much obliged—we shall study them when they appear in the OFFICIAL REPORT—indicated that 37 per cent. of these aged people were found, upon investigation by officers of the Assistance Board, to have no resources except their pensions. That means that nearly 400,000 aged people, many of whom began work at 11 or 12 years of age, have reared families and
    1378
    have boys now in the Services, find that, at the age of 60 or 65, they have only their pensions to depend upon. We must solve that social problem. We must not wait until the end of the war to do so but must solve it now, if we are to win the war. There is something that radically needs altering in the industrial and social system of this country, and I hope that we shall not wait, but shall begin altering it now.
    Another point of very great importance in the statement was made by the Minister to-day. We are receiving, discussing, and passing, as we shall, this Supplementary Estimate because the original Estimate went wrong. There was a very serious under-estimate by Government officials of the number of persons who would claim pensions. They made the mistake because of something to which we have drawn attention very often from this side of the House; it is that the number of old men and women who will not go to public assistance committees is far larger than any Government Department estimated. It is not larger than we estimated, because we have lived among these people and we know what they feel about it. This fact is in many ways a very great tribute to the elderly people of this country, because it shows that they still have sufficient pride and self-respect to refuse to do something which they regard as receiving parish relief—as they still call it. To them it is something which they ought to avoid. I hope that all these facts will be borne in mind when the new scheme comes forward. If they are, the scheme will be worthy of the talent and the courage of the generation to whom we owe so much.
    As the time-table, which has been much shortened by the announcements which have been made, makes it desirable that we should all be brief, I will content myself with raising two or three issues. The first is that even after the new scheme comes into operation there will have to be investigations. I put it to the Minister that it is desirable, nay essential, that the greatest possible care should be taken in the appointment of investigators and in the instructions that are given to them. Their work has been very well done, but I hear that the investigations have not been conducted in some rural areas as they ought to have been. I urge upon the Minister that the appointments and

    1379
    instructions of investigators be very carefully considered.
    It has, I will not say, "come to our knowledge" because perhaps that is not the right way of saying it, but it has been rumoured persistently to us, in connection with the determinations, that, because the first determinations indicated a larger number of pensioners than the Government had estimated and a far larger amount of money than had been budgeted for, some kind of secret instruction went out to the officers of the Assistance Board. When the cases came back to be reviewed, pensioners who, on their first determinations, had been awarded 5s., 6s. or 7s. 6d., found those pensions reduced to 2s. 6d., or 2s., or completely wiped away. In many cases that was due not to changed circumstances but to changed instructions. I certainly suggest that, if this House passes Regulations, it is entitled to ask that they be not whittled down afterwards by secret instructions from the Minister to the people who have to operate them. Where are those secret instructions? Is that being fair to the House of Commons and to the old people? I want an assurance that in future no secret instructions of that kind will be sent out to whittle away what, after all, we have decided shall be given to the old people.
    I want to say a word about appeals. Some time ago I put a question to the Minister of Health, and he promised to consider it. I am hoping that the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to reply to-day. The right hon. Gentleman gave figures of the appeals, and questions were asked from this side. My question was addressed to the Minister of Health on the same aspect of the problem. There is no right of appeal for the old age pensioner, as there is no right of appeal for the unemployed person, who receives an unemployment allowance. All he is entitled to do is to say, "I am not satisfied with my determination, and I want to have my claim to appeal considered by the chairman." As a matter of fact, the absolute right of determining whether there shall be a hearing of an appeal rests with the chairman of the tribunal. It does not even rest with the tribunal as a tribunal; it rests with the chairman. In passing those Regulations the House of Commons could not have been fully aware of the implications of what they decided. I
    1380
    want an absolute right of appeal. Why not? We have decided upon certain Regulations which leave a good deal to the discretion of officers. Since so much is left to the discretion of officers, Parliament should lay it down that an officer in the use of his discretion ought not to have the last word, but that there should be a right of appeal by the pensioner or the unemployed man to the tribunal. When the matter is considered again I hope that that right of appeal will be granted. What has happened is that the chairmen of tribunals have acted very arbitrarily. Some chairmen of tribunals have used their power with great discretion and in the majority of cases have allowed an opportunity for the old people to appeal, but there are other chairmen who just wipe them out. I think it is the desire of Members on every side of this Committee that there should be a right of appeal by the old people, and I hope it will be granted.
    The Minister has given us a mass of figures, all of which are very valuable and I hope will be valuable to the Assistance Board when they come to consider the new Regulations. I want to make a special plea. Now that we shall have an opportunity of discussing the matter again, I would like us to consider afresh whether that which we have allowed the people is enough. I do not think it is. We give 32s. to an old man and an old lady who live together, subject to adjustments, winter allowances, and such matter. Even when they get the maximum allowance, it still leaves them unable to meet the conditions of life as they exist to-day. The cost of living is continually going up. That will have to be considered. I do not think it has been sufficiently considered by the officers or by the tribunals. The Prime Minister has promised us that before Christmas we shall meet and pass Regulations that will do something like real justice to these aged people who have given their whole life to this nation and who are giving their sons to this nation to-day. They deserve the best that we can do for them.
    Mr. Lipson: The hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) has spoken with the sincerity and eloquence that we usually associate with him, and I for one find myself in considerable agreement with what he has said. In particular, I agree with his

    1381
    opening remark, that in discussing this matter to-day we are not turning away from our war effort, but that this in fact is part of our war effort. I would go even further and say that, as good sometimes comes out of evil, I very much doubt whether we should have been considering this increase in the old age pensions had it not been for the war, and I doubt whether we should have had from the Prime Minister to-day the statement about the abolition of the household means test but for the war. In common with other hon. Members, I welcome that statement.
    I think the Committee will certainly approve the voting of the money that is asked for the purpose of the supplementary old age pensions. In fact, the only thing that some of us would have liked would have been that the sum had been larger, because although the amount of money that has been spent on supplementary old age pensions is very great and the number of people who are benefiting from the supplementary old age pensions is very much larger than was anticipated, I think we all know in our constituencies many cases of individuals who have been refused supplementary old age pensions and who in our opinion should have been granted them. We have been told by the Minister that the number of those who are getting old age pensions is something like four times as great as those who were in receipt of public assistance relief, and that figure, I believe, is something like twice as large as was anticipated during the Debate would be the number of those who would benefit from supplementary old age pensions. That shows how right were those of us who said it was necessary to increase the old age pensions, and how much more right we were than the Government in this respect because we were more alive than they were to the need for this increase. Although they estimated that the figure would he something like 600,000, it has proved to be something like 1,320,000. Therefore, I hope that when social questions are again discussed more attention will be paid to those Members who, day by day, are in touch with their constituents and who know their needs.
    Large as has been the number who have benefited, I, in common with other Members of the Committee, have had to write a considerable number of letters to the
    1382
    Minister of Health and to the Parliamentary Secretary drawing attention to the facts in the administration of these supplementary old age pensions which have caused concern. Some of those hard cases will be met by the statement which has been made by the Prime Minister to-day, but there are others still outstanding which will not be met and which I would like to have considered. I have had two kinds of experience with regard to the administration of the supplementary old age pensions. Old age pensioners have written to me and have been to see me in large numbers. I think I have had more letters and more visits in connection with the administration of the supplementary old age pensions than in connection with any other matter since I have been a Member of the House of Commons. They have come to me and convinced me that they ought to have a supplementary old age pension when one has been refused. I have sent many cases up to the Minister, and he has sent them to the Assistance Board in my area. As a result of that in many instances the pension has been granted. That shows that, so far as my own particular area is concerned, the administration has not in many instances been as considerate as it might have been. I think it is wrong that old age pensioners should get what they are entitled to only as a result of pressure brought to bear by a Member of this House. I hope, therefore, that the administration will be looked into carefully, with a view to its improvement in certain areas. The Minister must know which they are, since he can judge from the correspondence he has had from Members of this House and others.
    I have also had another experience, Old age pensioners have approached me recently, at my house or in the street, and have told me that they were originally granted a supplementary old age pension and that it has now been reduced or taken away, though the conditions are exactly the same. I want to submit that that is contrary to an undertaking given in this House, for one of the merits which was urged, when it was put before the House, for the proposal that the administration of supplementary old age pensions should be put in the hands of the Assistance Board, was that, as compared with public assistance committee grants, supplementary old age pensions would not

    1383
    be subject to constant review, so that the pensioner, his pension once granted, would know that he had reasonable security providing his condition remained the same. Yet we find that after the Assistance Board has granted pensions a great many of them are, after three months, being reduced or withdrawn.
    I also wish to draw attention to what I consider to be an alarming piece of administration of supplementary old age pensions by the Assistance Board arising out of war conditions. As a result of the war, a great many old age pensioners have left bombed areas and have gone to safer areas. I have heard about a great many of these people, because I have the good fortune to represent a constituency which is considered to be one of the safer areas. When these people come into the reception areas they find that the supplementary old age pension which they were previously receiving is reduced. Immediately they come away to a safer area the officials of the Assistance Board find out, pounce upon them and reduce their old age pensions, the reason presumably being that as they have gone into the houses of friends or relations they are no longer paying rent. I have had my attention drawn to instances like this and I have sent one to the Parliamentary Secretary. This concerns an old lady who came from a bombed area to stay with her son in my constituency and whose pension was reduced. She said, "I cannot continue to live here; I am not going to expect my son and daughter-in-law to keep me on the reduced pension, and unless this is put right, I shall go back to the bombed area." I sent an S.O.S.—marking the letter "Urgent"—to the Parliamentary Secretary, saying, "Cannot you stop this? It is not right." On the one hand the Minister of Health tells old people that they should leave bombed areas, and then, when they do so, they are penalised by the officials of the Assistance Board and their pensions are reduced. I asked if the Parliamentary Secretary could not intervene and stop this sort of thing. All the reply I received from the Parliamentary Secretary was a formal acknowledgment of my letter. This is some two or three weeks ago. I had a letter the other day to say that the old lady has now gone back to the bombed area, and I have sent another
    1384
    letter to draw attention to the matter. I have received just a formal acknowledgment.
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Miss Horsbrugh): I think my hon. Friend does not realise that, in respect of all those who leave bombed areas, a billeting allowance of 5s. a week can be and is being paid by the Government to a relation or friend who takes them in. Everyone who leaves an evacuation area and goes to a reception or neutral area receives, if they ask for it, 5s. a week billeting allowance for the people with whom they are living. If they have gone to the area and have not asked for the allowance, they can write to the town clerk of their original area and get a certificate.
    Mr. Lipson: I think I have an answer to the Parliamentary Secretary's statement. A week ago I met the chairman of our billeting committee. She is a lady who is an alderman of the local council and has been Mayor of Cheltenham. She drew my attention to this matter and said, "We do not give the 5s. billeting allowances to old age pensioners because we find, if we do, that the Assistance Board at once reduces their allowance by that amount."
    Miss Horsbrugh: I am sorry I did not make it clear. My hon. Friend said that the person of whom he spoke felt that the relation could not be asked to give everything and get nothing in return. If an old age pensioner goes to live in the house of her son, daughter, or of a person who is no relation, the billeting authority, as my hon. Friend knows, does not give the 5s. to the old age pensioner: it is given as an allowance to the householder. It does not matter if the evacuee is an old age pensioner or anything else. There are hundreds and thousands of cases. The 5s. allowance is not given to the individual evacuee; it is in each case an allowance for the receiving householder.
    Mr. Lipson: If I may be allowed to repeat a little more of the conversation I had with the chairman of the committee, I may provide the Parliamentary Secretary with an answer to the point she has made. The chairman said to me: "I think it is a shame, because when these people come away, suffering from shock and so on, their needs are greater; they need more money." I therefore submit that what we

    1385
    ought to have is a standstill arrangement during this period of bombing, so far as supplementary old age pensions are concerned, so that the old age pensioners who have to leave bombed areas and go to reception areas should not have their supplementary pensions reduced on that account, but should be allowed to keep the 5s. to help them to meet the additional expenses which they must incur in coming to a new place under strange conditions, probably suffering as a result of their bombing experiences. I would ask if consideration could not be given to that point.
    There is one other matter to which I should like to refer, and that is the question of appeals. A large number of old age pensioners have drawn my attention to the fact that their appeal has been disallowed as being out of order because it was made two or three days after the expiry of the stipulated period of 14 days. I submit that these old age pensioners do not always exactly understand problems of this kind, and that 14 days is much Ion short a time to allow them. As a matter of fact, I do not see why there should be a time limit at all. Appeals should be considered on their merits, whether they have been made within 14 days or not. If a person can make out a case for a supplementary old age pension it ought to be heard, but in present circumstances some of these old people just miss the date and their appeal cannot even be heard. I would therefore ask the Parliamentary Secretary if the 14 days' rule could not be abolished.
    In conclusion, I think that as a result of the war, and particularly of the bombing, there is much more community feeding among all classes. We realise too how much this country owes to its ordinary men and women. If the morale of our people in the bombed areas had failed within the last few weeks, our situation would have been indeed serious and critical. But they stuck it, and we feel that we owe a very great debt of obligation to them. I am sure that there is not a single hon. Member who is not anxious that that debt should be paid in full. In particular, I hope it will be paid in full to the old age pensioners.
    Mr. Batey: No legislation which this House has passed in the last eight years has given rise to so much satisfaction as the Act dealing with
    1386
    supplementary pensions. Members are receiving letters from old people nearly every day, however, complaining of the assessment of the supplementary pensions. The statement made by the Prime Minister to-day takes a good deal of the sting out of this Debate, but I am not at all clear about that statement. I understood that the household means test was to be abolished, and a personal means test substituted. I have a copy of the Prime Minister's statement—for greater accuracy—and there are two questions arising from it which I beg the Parliamentary Secretary to deal with when she replies. The statement says that the standard contribution of non-dependent members of the applicant's household towards the rent and other overheads will be taken into account.
    The Temporary Chairman (Major Milner): The hon. Member is not entitled to debate that matter; he must wait for the legislation.
    Mr. Batey: But we understood that the household means test was to be abolished. I want to point out that it is not to be abolished. It is to be altered, and perhaps one or two small points will be remedied, but the household means test will remain.
    The Temporary Chairman: I am sorry to have to stop the hon. Member. He will have an opportunity of debating that when the new legislation is introduced. This is not the occasion.
    Mr. Batey: I am sorry, because I wanted to deal with that question. One does not want to discuss the numerous complaints that one has heard in regard to supplementary pensions. My hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) raised the question of the right of appeal. I agree that every old person ought to have the right of appeal, but I go further. I would like the Parliamentary Secretary to tell us how many appeals have been made since the Act was passed, and how many have been refused. My experience is that it is no use for old people to make appeals, because in 19 cases out of 20 the appeal is decided against them. That is due to the constitution of the appeal courts. There is a legal gentleman, who is appointed to hear the appeal. I say that without intending any offence. I could tell before the appeal came before him what his

    1387
    decision would be. Under the Act giving old age pensions at 65 and pensions to widows, we had so many appeals decided against the applicants and so few granted that I want the Parliamentary Secretary to ask the Minister now to consider seriously the appointment of a representative of the working classes on each of the appeal courts, so that we might get some guarantee that the appeals will receive some attention, and not be dealt with as they are at present.
    I should like to know, too, what is the cost of the appeal courts. How much do these legal gentlemen receive? The expenditure seems to be waste of money with the appeal courts constituted as they are at present. I would like the courts reconstituted so that each has a representative who knows something about the lives of the applicants. I confess that the advice I give to all my own people is not to appeal, because the appeal will go against them; and, once the appeal court has decided, the decision is final, and even the Minister cannot do anything. Another grievance is the difficulty which some people have in getting their pensions. I have in mind the case of a woman who reached the age of 60 in February. She made an application for a pension, and received a postcard saying that she would get the pension in July. Last week she still had not received her pension. I sent that case to the Minister, and I asked that something should be done to speed up the machinery, so that those entitled to pensions may get them.
    Mr. Ness Edwards: Every Member who resides in his constituency finds, I think, that this problem of supplementary pensions and its administration is causing more difficulty and more work than any other problem. It is true that, as a result of the passing of the main legislation, a substantial number of aged people found contentment and satisfaction. Substantial benefits have been conferred by that legislation. But it is equally true that something like 250,000 aged people in this country have been refused supplementary pensions, and that at least another 250,000 have been given supplementary pensions on a scale different from that intended by this House. These problems will not be met by the statement
    1388
    made by the Prime Minister. I do not want to discuss that statement, except to say that hon. Members would be wise not to build up too many expectations in the minds of aged people on the basis of that statement, or we shall see ourselves going back again, as we did over the treatment of war savings.
    I want to deal with points which may appear to be small, but are of importance in the administration of the supplementary pensions. The intention of Parliament is being thwarted by the Assistance Board. Whatever good intentions may be expressed from the Front Bench here, they are very seldom carried into operation by the Assistance Board. It hides away from the House of Commons. I will give one or two examples. Reference has been made this afternoon to the appeal tribunals. The previous Minister of Health repeatedly said here that not only must justice be done, but that it must appear to be done as well. He left us with the general impression that most of the old age pensioners would find an open door at the appeal tribunals. What has been found? In many parts, at least, of South Wales some chairmen of appeal tribunals have been acting like little Hitlers. They have simply turned down applications. Representations have been made by some Members of Parliament for the reconsideration of applications. Even then the chairman of the appeal tribunal regards himself as lord of all he surveys in this connection and merely leaves the pensioner dissatisfied because the pensioner has not been able to have a hearing. I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to try to impress upon the minds of chairmen of appeal tribunals that it is highly essential that old age pensioners should get satisfaction, in the sense that they can get a hearing of their grievances before the properly authorised appeal tribunals.
    On the administrative side, we have in this conflict between the Assistance Board and Parliament an example of the difficulty in regard to the winter additions. We heard an announcement from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health recently in which she described what these winter additions would be and how they would be applied. Everybody who heard that statement thought that the old people were to get something extra in the winter. What do we find? It will only apply in those cases where not less than half of the amount coming into the

    1389
    household is derived from the Assistance Board or from pension. I quote the hon. Lady's statement:
    "Officers will pay particular attention to cases wh re the pensioner has only his old age and supplementary pension for the support of himself and dependants, and also where the pensioner is a member of a household with other persons not dependent upon him, and to cases where not less than one-half of the total income of the household is epresented by the amount of the supple ary pension."
    So that the man who has been penalised once and has got the least out of the Assistance Board is to get the least consideration. The Parliamentary Secretary does not appear to appreciate the point.
    Miss Horsbrugh: I do, quite.
    Mr. Edwards: The pensioner living in a household is given a smaller supplementary pension and it is argued that he is not entitled to the winter addition, That, in my view, is an indication of how the Assistance Board is getting behind the intention of the House of Commons. The House has decided what shall be disregarded. It has agreed, in the main legislation, that certain items of income shall be wholly disregarded for the purpose of the winter addition. Here we get a conflict between what is laid down in the Statute and the instruction to the Assistance Board which has been read out in this House by the Parliamentary Secretary. I would draw the attention of the Committee to that matter. There is another phase of the problem. We were repeatedly told that in the application and administration of supplementary pensions there would be every effort made to keep to the good practice of the local authorities. The previous Minister of Health said:
    "The Board will now draw up new Regulations in order to bring this practice into conformity with the practice of good local authorities."
    I am afraid that the Assistance Board has not carried out that pledge. The public assistance committees have defined the household. In Glamorgan, for instance, they give 75. 9d. But what has happened now? All cases treated as a separate household by the public assistance committee were given the 9s. 6d., whereas previously they had had 7s. 6d. from the public assistance committee, but under some new instruction, which has invited the area officers to look more closely at the definition of a household,
    1390
    all the books have been called In and the new supplementary pension of 7s. 9d. has been issued.
    Miss Horsbrugh: Am I right in assuming that they are now getting the same as they were getting under public assistance?
    Mr. Edwards: We were told that the practice of good local authorities would continue to be applied. All local authorities defined what a household was and gave public assistance supplementation on the basis of a separate household. In Glamorgan that amount was 7s. 9d. When the supplementary pension came into operation, the Assistance Board accepted the fact of a separate household and, in that case, gave the 9s. 6d., but under some new instruction the books are now being called in and supplementary pensions of 7s. 9d. are being sent out. The figure is the same, but the Minister did not tell us at that table that the figure was to be the same. He did not limit it in that way. He said that the practice of the good authorities would continue to be applied. When these people complain, the Assistance Board says that the practice of the local authority is wrong and that therefore they ought to have only 2s. 6d. It seems that the Assistance Board again has gone behind the Minister and the House of Commons.
    Some 60 or 70 per cent. of the defects in connection with supplementary pensions rests upon the question of what is a household and how the household is defined. We shall not get rid of the household means test unless we grapple with this problem and we shall not bring that measure of satisfaction to the old age pensioners that apparently we want to give them. I will quote an example of how, again, the Assistance Board is acting, in my view more partially in the case of supplementary pensioners in connection with the definition of household, than they are in connection with unemployment assistance. I brought a case to the notice of the Minister in which a son-in-law was living in the household. He was on unemployment assistance some two years ago. His case was investigated by this same Assistance Board who held that he was living in a separate household. It based his unemployment assistance upon the fact that he was paying 6s. in rent as a sub-tenant. The house in fact

    1391
    belonged to his mother-in-law who had been a tenant for many years. The Act dealing with supplementary old-age pensions came into operation and the same Assistance Board made an investigation of the application and came to the conclusion that it was one household only and that the lady, who was regarded as a tenant for many years, was not the tenant or the householder with the result that she obtained only 2S. 6d. instead of 8s. 6d. I submit, with all due respect, that the Assistance Board is endeavouring to spread out the butter as thinly as they can in order to hide the extent to which they have miscalculated the very grave need which exists among our old people.
    There is one other point which I have been asked to raise by the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Jackson), who, unfortunately, cannot be present on account of ill-health. As the House knows he represents a rural constituency. During the main Debate on the Bill a point was raised on the exercise of rural discrimination, and I must say, from all the reports I get, that this is having an extremely bad effect on the countryside. Food in the country is price-controlled and rationed in the same way as food in the urban areas. Meat is probably dearer and fish is certainly dearer, and whatever grounds may have existed in the past for rural discrimination, they do not exist to-day. There ought to be some mitigation of the rural discrimination clause, and I hope that, as a result of this discussion, we shall get a little more humanity from the Board. The difficulty of Members to-day is that so many cases come to us that we are coming more and more into conflict with officers who are trying to do their job in difficult circumstances. In fact it is becoming almost a personal conflict between Members of Parliament and assistance officers, and I am hoping that as a result of to-day's Debate we shall get some improvement.
    Lieut.-Colonel Sir William Allen: The only satisfaction I can derive from the Prime Minister's statement is the fact that the whole matter is to be reconsidered. It is quite evident from the speeches made by some hon. Members to-day that they are very sceptical as to what the eventual decision of the Government may be with regard to
    1392
    these supplementary pensions. To my mind it ought to be a very simple matter, and I think the Parliamentary Secretary would do well to impress on the powers-that-be that—
    The Temporary Chairman: The hon. and gallant Gentleman is not entitled to discuss legislation arising out of the Prime Minister's statement. If he proposes to do that, I shall have to call him to Order.
    Sir W. Allen: It is not my intention to discuss proposed legislation, but I want to say that an old age pensioner who may perhaps get 6s. a week income ought to be entitled to a supplementary pension pro rata to that 6s. and that if an old age pensioner is getting 10s. a week, there ought to be no difficulty about giving him a full supplementary pension. It simply means taking into consideration the personal means of the individual. If that is done, I think the whole thing will be simplified and will do away entirely with the present process.
    Mr. Barr: I am sure that we can accept your Ruling, Major Milner, that we cannot reflect on the content of the statement made by the Prime Minister; but in accordance with what has been allowed to fall from various speakers, I think I may be allowed to congratulate the Prime Minister and the Government on the announcement made to-day. If the statement is followed out in a generous spirit, it will be a landmark in the social progress and change of this country, and will do much to heal what is a serious open sore at the present time. I might have made my tribute even more unqualified had it not been for some of the points that have been remotely hinted at with regard to the statement. So I confine myself to the present administration. It is not that I wish to complain unduly, because the tribunals and officers are working under Regulations which have been laid down, and have not a fully free hand; but I would like to give two instances of the working of the Act, both of which come from my constituency. I have the names here, which I withhold, but they are available. The first concerns a household pensioner who was granted a supplementary pension of 5s. 6d. His daughter, who is married, with her husband in the Army, acts as his housekeeper. She found her resources straitened, and went out to work to keep

    1393
    out of debt. The result is that the 5s. 6d. is cut off, and in a letter to me this pensioner says:
    "I have one alternative—turn my daughter out, and get 9s. 6d. I will not write to her husband in the Army and tell him that I am compelled by the U.A.B. to turn his wife into the street until I am sure there is no other way."
    The other case concerns an iron worker, 82 years of age, who resides with his married son and family. He was given 3s. 6d. a week supplementation for the first four weeks. During this time his son worked a few hours overtime for nine days, and the result was the withdrawal of the 3s. 6d. which had been granted. The son heard the call "Go to it," but in doing so he robbed his father of his small supplementation.
    I should also like to indicate the feeling in my own constituency among pensioners themselves. Here is a resolution which is similar to those passed all over the country, although I think I may claim that in Scotland Coatbridge has been almost the centre of this movement. The Coatbridge Branch of the Scottish Old Age Pensioners' Association, requesting the Town Council to support an amendment of the 1940 Act, says of the Act:
    "The means test clause of the Act is making the position of the said pensioners very cruel and unfair and, in spite of promises made to the contrary, has worsened the conditions of many of our old folks now that they have no claim to public assistance, and in many instances penalises unfairly any attempt to be thrifty."
    In his admirable statement, the Secretary of State for Scotland said that the aim was that there should be no worsening. I think the reference in the quotation I have made is largely to the worsening that took place especially at the beginning. The Public Assistance Committees used to give clothing and other perquisites, and then that provision was not available under the new conditions. I gather that an effort is being made to make this up either in cash or by some other means, and I trust that it will be fully augmented, for this is a real cause of complaint. The resolution to which I have referred was sent to the Coatbridge Town Council, and the Town Council were asked to give their support. That support was granted unanimously. I would observe that it is not a Labour Town Council, although there is a considerable number of Labour representa-
    1394
    tives on it; in Coatbridge what are known as the Moderates are in power. There was not a single word in the Town Council in favour of the Act as it is now being administered—not that they blamed the administration, and not that I wish to do so. The other Town Council in my constituency, that of Airdrie, while not expressing adherence to the resolution—I think they were not asked to do so—were of the same mind, and they have said that they would welcome the bringing in of a personal means test in place of the family means test now applicable.
    There have been most enthusiastic meetings on this subject. The feeling that has been created is such that new members are constantly joining the Old Age Pensioners' Associations, and one correspondent has said to me that the interest is now at fever height. I wish to quote to the House from a letter sent to me on 17th September by ex-Provost Irvine who is at the head of this movement, and who has taken up this matter with great earnestness and addressed meetings in many parts of the country. He wrote:
    "So far as I can remember no single piece of legislation has given rise to so much dissatisfaction and indignation as this has done, and it must inevitably lead to a regrettable mistrust of our Parliamentary system at a time when such an institution should have the unqualified support of every right-thinking person as an impatial court for the people as a whole."
    I know that I may not discuss the merits of a personal means test as far as it requires legislation, but I think I may recall to hon. Members that, in the case of non-contributory old age pensions, our present legislation has been operated on this basis from the beginning. In 1908, there was an income range from £21 to £31 10s., and the pension granted varied accordingly on a sliding scale from 5s. down to is. In the 1919 legislation there was a further advance from a limit of £26 5s. up to £49 17s. 6d., and in the 1924 legislation unearned income to an amount of £39 was disregarded. I will not say more on that matter. That legislation is already in force, and I trust that by the change that may come in that regard we may make an even further advance. I should like to call attention to an Answer that was given by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, on 11th December, 1935, in which he said that if the means limit for non-con-

    1395
    tributory pensions were placed at £100, for the first year the expenditure on the part of the Treasury would be only from £,5,000,000 to £6,000,000, although there would be a steady increase in after years.
    I close my remarks by saying that there is a real need to eradicate the growing discontent in this matter. Even with the good intentions which there may be behind the Act as it is now operated—and I accept all that has been said about the benefits that have come from it—there is this discontent, which is deeply opposed to the stability and strength of the State. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for Scotland said that the nation has a warm regard for the old people. I trust we shall show that this regard is active. I am sure that, although we cannot claim the right hon. Gentlemn as a native of Scotland, he is well familiar with much of our Scottish literature. In that literature there is a famous and oft-quoted verse—I need not say from where it comes—
    "To make a happy fire-side clime To weans and wife;
    That's the true pathos and sublime Of human life."
    We have had enough of the pathos; let us seek to give them more of the sublime. I am glad that, according to the right hon. Gentleman, not only the weans and wife, but the old people, are to come into the picture, to have a happy fire-side, to have a fire-side that they can call their own, and to have a sense of independence. I trust that in the administration, and if need be in the legislation, to which I may not refer, we shall no longer deal with this question in a cheap and niggardly way, but that we shall deal with it with generosity, dignity, and justice.
    Mr. Ellis Smith: Those hon. Members who were in the House when the Ruling with regard to this Debate was given from the Chair will remember that it was to the effect that it would be in Order to comment upon the Prime Minister's statement within reason, but not to debate it. I propose to abide by that Ruling. When the statement was made, I was pleased with it, but since looking at a copy of it which my hon. Friend the Member for Spennymoor (Mr. Batey) has obtained, I have become a bit sceptical about certain portions of it.
    1396
    Therefore, I shall not to-day make the observations that I had intended to make on it, but shall look forward to the statement being interpreted to the House in a most generous way. Let me say that the only satisfactory interpretation, as far as we on this side are concerned, will be the complete abolition of the household means test. We, on this side, if we are worthy of the people we represent, are smarting under the lash of the administration of the means test since 1931.
    Having said that, I want to deal now with the administration of the present Act. I say unhesitatingly, speaking from my own experience—and it is a pretty wide one—that the intentions of Parliament are not being reflected in the administration of the Supplementary Pensions Act. The assurances which were given by the then Minister of Health, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Kelvingrove (Mr. Elliot), have not been fulfilled. During the passage of that Act I, with a small number of my hon. Friends, sat through the whole of the Debate. We were impressed by the magnanimous spirit of the right hon. Gentleman who was piloting the Act through all its stages. I went away night after night, and also spoke at week-ends, hoping that that spirit was going to find expression in the administration of the Act. But here I have a few concrete examples. A man appeals to the chairman of a tribunal. Just imagine him; he is a man of over 65 years of age. Imagine all it means to a miner, or an engineer or a pottery worker, who has worn himself out and has not managed to obtain the livelihood of many hon. Members in this House. Such men have spent 40 or 50 years in the mines, or in engineering works, or in steel works. They have worked themselves out, and they then go before the tribunal. Their energy has been sapped, and they have lost their confidence.
    This particular man went before the tribunal, and the chairman asked: "You live with your cousin?"—applicant, "Yes." The Chairman: "She receives a pension?"—the applicant: "No." The Chairman: "But she does, it is on this paper"—the applicant: "She does not draw a pension." Try to put yourself in the place of the applicant who is being contradicted by the chairman of this tribunal

    1397
    on evidence of this character. The chairman's clerk then butts in and asks: "Who buys in for you?"—the applicant: "I do." The Clerk: "Who cooks for you?"—the applicant: "I do, but I have not much to cook." The clerk: "Who does the washing?"—the applicant: "I do." The Chairman: "What do you pay 5s. a week for?"— the applicant: "My bed." The tribunal awarded that man a supplementary pension of 3s. 6d. a week. Does any hon. Member justify that kind of treatment? I have another case of an applicant of 60 years of age. He has a pension of 7s. a week, but he also has £108 in the bank. The household includes a daughter, aged 42, who had not attended school since she was nine years of age. She has no work, although she has been eager to obtain it in spite of her ill health. Relatives living in the neighbourhood gradually put by a sum for the daughter which eventually accumulated to £382. What does the tribunal say in this case? It says that the capital of the invalid daughter must help to keep the father.
    I have other cases, but there are many other of my hon. Friends who wish to speak and I shall not, therefore, quote them all. I sent these two cases to the Minister of Health, but they are only typical of many. Here is another. The applicant is a widow, aged 73, who during the last four years has occupied two unfurnished rooms in a house of which her spinster daughter is a tenant. During that period she has paid her daughter a weekly rent of 5s. The widow has provided the fuel and lighting, and the doctor has ordered her to have energy-bread, glucose and fish. The daughter is an elementary school teacher. This applicant goes before the tribunal and the tribunal turns the case down because the daughter is obtaining a salary from the school. In another case the Preston and District Old Age Pensioners' Association have been in touch with Bolton and Manchester. They have been asking that a friend should be allowed to go along with an applicant to the tribunal. In this district they are refusing to allow old age pensioners to have representatives with them. I have the whole correspondence with me, and I hope that the Secretary of State for Scotland will glance over it before the Parliamentary Secretary
    1398
    replies. If he does so he will see that we are not overstating our case.
    I now wish to quote to the Committee extracts from speeches made by the right hon Gentleman the Member for Kelvingrove, which would show that the Act is not being interpreted or administered in the way that Parliament and the right hon. Gentleman intended. In February, the right hon. Gentleman, then Minister of Health, said:
    "In carrying out their duties the Board have encouraged their officers to take a reasonable and humane view of the applicant's circumstances."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th February, 1940; col. 1210, Vol. 357.]
    Has that been done in the cases I have quoted? These cases are typical of many others in other parts of the country, and had there been more time, many of my hon. Friends on this side could have given similar concrete instances. However, this Debate has been arranged in such a way, after being delayed on three occasions, that time is inadequate. The right hon. Gentleman went on to say that the Regulations would be modified as necessary. Will the Regulations be modified as from to-day, or as soon as possible, in order that we can see that the intentions of Parliament are carried out in the administration of this Measure? In March, the right hon. Gentleman moved an Amendment which stated:
    "(4) The administration of supplementary pensions shail be conducted in such manner as may best promote the welfare of pensioners."
    I ask my hon. Friends who are in close touch with old age pensioners in industrial parts of the country whether those assurances have found expression in the administration of the Act. Then the right hon. Gentleman went on to say:
    "On the question of administration the hon. Member for Stoke (Mr. E. Smith) made several points which I shall certainly have to take into account in the administration of the Statute in the future."
    The right hon. Gentleman is very anxious first of all that a long catechism should not be imposed on the old people, and that the questions should be limited in number and should be asked at the largest possible intervals. I certainly agree with him, but I have not the slightest hesitation in saying that the assurance has not been carried out. The then Minister of Health expressed his agreement on other matters, and said:

    1399
    "The fundamental point of administration raised by the hon. Member for Stoke was that as people reach three score years and ten it is a matter of general knowledge that their circumstances and, indeed, their bodily constitutions change—and for that reason it is necessary that the administration should take into account these special circumstances. I can give the assurance in the fullest sense that I have in mind that the personal requirements of the members of the families must he taken into account. … They must be dealt with by a special technique and by a special degree of sympathy, and it will be my object to administer the regulations along those lines."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 1st March, 1940; cols. 2445 to 2475, Vol. 357.]
    I hope that, as a result of to-day's Debate, a fundamental change is to be made in the administration of the Act. Do not let us forget that there are still thousands of old age pensioners having to live upon 10s. a week. Too many of us are forgetting that fact. In my view, the time has arrived when we should not only consider the abolition of the whole means test, but when the ordinary pension of 10s. should be increased as soon as possible in order that the ordinary old age pensioner can enjoy benefits similar to those that other sections of the community are obtaining. The Minister's assurances have not been fulfilled. Can the Parliamentary Secretary give us a promise that she will look into those assurances and that, if our statements are found to be statements of fact, a circular will be sent out as soon as possible to the Board's officers, and in particular to the Assistance Board, instructing them that these assurances must be fulfilled? There is no doubt that the House expected a generous interpretation of the Regulations. We have not had it, and we therefore have a right to expect that the evidence that we have brought forward will be considered, that the assurances given by the right hon. Member for Kelvingrove will be renewed and that as soon as possible there will be a fundamental change in the administration of the Act.
    Mr. Leslie: I cannot help feeling that the Act has been administered harshly and in such a way as to prevent allowances being granted, and certainly not in the spirit we expected when the Act was passed. Judging from the many letters that I have had from old people, and in conversations with quite a number of them, this household means test is hated even more than the old one. It
    1400
    was bad enough when the old people had to depend on their sons and daughters, but it is worse when they have to depend on sons-in-law, especially when, as in many cases, they are handicapped by large families. This supplementary pension is deemed by disappointed pensioners a will-o'-the-wisp, something illusory, holding out false hopes. Here is a case of an old man living with a son-in-law, a miner. There are seven in family, the eldest girl of 17 earning 6s. a week, and the pensioner is allowed 3s. 6d. Under public assistance he would receive 6s. 3d. Surely a miner with a large family to support, one girl earning 6s., which is quite insufficient to feed her, has enough to do to provide for his family without his earnings being taken into account in deciding the legal allowance of 3s. 6d. to the father-in-law. Here is a case of an old lady living with a son-in-law who has a boy of 16, an apprentice, and another at school. The pensioner is allowed a paltry half-crown a week. Here is another old man of 80, living with a son-in-law who works in the pit, and no allowance is made to the pensioner. I have a case of a bedridden old lady of 78 living with her son. No allowance is granted despite the increased cost of living and the medical needs of the pensioner. These are sample cases which have been brought to my notice. How could it be wondered at that the old people are bitterly disappointed? In each case I have advised the pensioner to appeal, but I regret to say that in almost every case the appeal was turned down and no allowance was given. I hope that when the promised legislation is brought forward it will not only be generous but will be administered in the spirit and intention of Parliament.
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Miss Horsbrugh): I will do my best in the short time I have to answer as many as possible of the questions that have been put to me. Hon. Members have, quite rightly, quoted cases where there is extreme dissatisfaction. Although I cannot now go into any detail on the subject of the difficulty with the household test which has been referred to as the difficulty of the son-in-law, I am sure, when the matter is being considered in accordance with the Prime Minister's statement, anyone who considers the difficulties of the household will

    1401
    be met on every second occasion with the son-in-law. Among other points which have been raised but which cannot be discussed at the moment is the subject of the exact amount of the pension. A point that we can discuss at present is the way in which it is working in the case of any particular grievance. The Secretary of State for Scotland gave a survey, and I will think it will he most useful if I confine myself exactly to the questions that have been addressed to me, but I should like to say that we all want the old people to get the pension in exactly the way we meant. There is no difference between us. I will go further. Those in charge of the Assistance Board want the pensioners to get it in exactly the same spirit as we agreed. We can also agree that it is only natural that some mistakes should occur when bringing this enormous number into the machine at one time. Over a million cases were dealt with, and throughout the country large numbers of people were employed to investigate particular cases. The hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) said that some of the investigators had not done their job well and were not the right type of investigators. It will be better for the Board and for us if on every occasion when there is anything definite hon. Members bring cases to our notice. Everyone realises that there must be mistakes and there must be from time to time a person who is not suitable. While I thoroughly agree that there have been mistakes, we know that there have also naturally been misunderstandings on the part of the pensioners. They have not understood why they have not got this or why some one has got something else. We have to take that into consideration too. The best plan is that all the cases which have been quoted by hon. Members and others should be looked into individually.
    That brings me to the subject of views. The hon. Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Lipson) said he had sent many cases which had been increased on review and the hon. Member for Llanelly mentioned cases where the pensions had been reduced. We should realise that, in many of these cases, answers have to be sent by post because personal consultations and investigations cannot take place, and in order that a pensioner should get a pension quickly it was decided to
    1402
    pay a certain sum for an interim period. That is why in some cases the pension has been for only a month while in other cases it has been for three months. The reason why a longer period was not given is that the full facts were not known and that there would have to be a review. I think it was the best arrangement to give the pension at once before the review on the understanding that it was only for a short time and that the pension might be changed. They have in some cases been changed up, and others have been changed down.
    One hon. Gentleman said that not many went up, but the hon. Member for Cheltenham said that when he sends cases they very nearly always go up. His complaint was that as they nearly always went up it showed that more cases should be reviewed. The hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Ness Edwards) put a case in which there had been a review downwards, and said that by decreasing the pension we were not carrying out that part of the Act in which the pension paid by the Board had to be not less than the old person was receiving from the public assistance authority. That is laid down in the Act, and if there is a mistake it is against the Act. The hon. Gentleman gave the case of a pensioner receiving 7s. 9d. from the public assistance authority. The Board gave 9s. 6d. There were cases in which they gave too much and other cases too little. When the review came it was found that the 9s. 6d. was too much, and when the supplementary pension was reduced to 7s. 9d. it was the same as the public assistance authority had given. Although the hon. Gentleman gave that case to show that we were not following the Act, the amount paid was not less than the amount paid from public assistance.
    Several hon. Gentlemen asked about appeal tribunals and the right of appeal. The hon. Member for Spennymoor (Mr. Batey) said that there ought to be a worker on the appeals tribunals, but, in fact, a worker is represented on them. I have lists of the number of appeals, one to the end of August and one to the end of September. The number of appeals decided in August was 6,848. It has been said that there are a great number of cases in which the right of appeal was not given by the chairman, and there is some idea that people are not given a fair

    1403
    chance of appeal. In August the number who were refused the right to appeal was 881, which was a small percentage of the total appeals decided. When I looked at the figure I was surprised to find it was so small in relation to the number of appeals. In the 6,848 appeals the determination of the Board's officer was confirmed in 5,676 and a new determination was substituted in 1,172 cases. For September the number of appeals was 8,857, and 711 were refused the right to appeal. The Board's officer's determination was confirmed in 6,797 cases and new determinations substituted in 2,060 cases. In view of the remarks of the hon. Member for Caerphilly and the hon. Member for Llanelly, I looked up the figures for Wales. In September the number of appeals was 1,847 and 43 were refused the right to appeal. In August the number of appeals was 1,215 and 189 were refused the right to appeal.
    Mr. J. Griffiths: The smallness of the figure does not affect the principle that the old age pensioner should be allowed the right to appeal.
    Miss Horsbrugh: I agree that there is a principle involved, but the hon. Gentleman asked for the number of appeals and I thought it would be of interest to have a note of the number that had been refused. I am not arguing at the moment whether it is right or wrong. I come to the question of those who have been evacuated to the reception areas and who have had changes in their supplementary pensions. In a great many cases the pension book is given for an extended period, perhaps up to 13 weeks. In other cases the book is given for a shorter period when it appears that the circumstances may change.
    I have dealt with a good many of these cases and I have found that in many of them there has been the very unfortunate coincidence that the person had to leave an evacuation area at the time the pension book was running out. That was unfortunate because some people had a pension which had not been reviewed and had only had it for a month. They went to a reception area when the pension was due for review. They arrived at a new house where the Government was paying the householder 5s. for the billet. If a case can be made out to show that the
    1404
    pensioner is suffering from distress or sickness and is in greater need, extra can be given by the Board, and it is being given, but if a billeting allowance of 5s. is being paid instead of the pensioner having to pay rent, he cannot also get the rent allowance in his supplementary pension. What we are trying to do is to get these particular cases dealt with as sympathetically as possible. It is an extremely difficult problem, because of the way in which people are moving about. Some have gone from evacuation areas only temporarily, some have changed their homes, and there are other difficulties. Fresh instructions have gone out, or are going out to the officers of the Board in the reception areas asking them to give special attention to these particular cases. Some of them come under no form of Regulation and have to be dealt with on their merits. I can assure the Committee that the matter has been taken up, and that every effort is being made to deal with these cases with the greatest possible sympathy.
    Mr. Lipson: Could those instructions be made available to Members?
    Mr. Ness Edwards: That is most unusual.
    Miss Horsbrugh: I think I can tell the hon. Member that these cases have been dealt with in a sympathetic way. Where a billeting allowance of 5s. is given instead of the rent being paid, that must be taken into account, but it may be possible to increase the allowance as well. I should like to have replied to one or two more questions, but time will not permit me to say more than this.
    Mr. E. Smith: In view of the evidence produced in this House with regard to the administration of the Act, can the hon. Lady give an undertaking that a record of these proceedings will be considered by the Ministry of Health and by the Board and that circulars will be sent out as soon as possible to the officials of the Board directing them to make their procedure accord with the intentions which have been expressed by Parliament?
    Miss Horsbrugh: The record of this Debate will be considered very closely both in the Ministry of Health and by the officials of the Board, but any circular would not deal with changing

    1405
    administration but would give directions, if definite faults were found. Like my right hon. Friend, the Board are anxious that this legislation should work as we all mean it to work. There have been cases of which we all know in which there has been misunderstanding, and those cases must be gone into separately, but I can assure hon. Members in closing that it is our intention, with the help of hon. Members who bring to our notice cases in which there is a misunderstanding, to make this legislation a real benefit to the people for whom it is intended.
    Question,
    "That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £11,200,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1941, for the payment of Supplementary Pensions to certain persons in receipt of Old Age Pensions or Widows' Pensions, and for certain administrative expenses in connection therewith,"
    put, and agreed to.
    Ordered, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again.—[Mr. Holdsworth.]
    Resolution to be reported upon the next Sitting Day.
    Committee also report Progress; to sit again upon the next Sitting day.

    GOVERNMENT OF INDIA ACT, 1935.
    Resolved,
    "That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty in pursuance of the provisions of
    1406
    Section 309 of the Government of India Act, 1935, praying that the Government of India (Adaptation of Acts of Parliament) (Amendment No. 2) Order, 1940, be made in the form of the draft laid before Parliament"—[Mr. Amery.]
    To be presented by Privy Councillors or Members of His Majesty's Household.

    SUNDAY ENTERTAINMENTS ACT, 1932.
    Resolved,
    "That the Orders made by the Secretary of State under the Sunday Entertainments Act, 1932, for extending Section 1 of that Act to the undermentioned areas, namely:—

    (1) the Borough of Stafford,

    (2) the Borough of Cheltenham,

    (3) the Urban District of Saltburn and Marske-by-the-Sea,

    (4) the Rural District of Eton (Parish of Iver),

    copies of which were presented to this House on 16th October, be approved."—[Mr. H. Morrison.]

    SECRET SESSION.
    Notice taken that strangers were present.
    Whereupon Mr. SPEAKER, pursuant to Standing Order No. 89, put the Question," That strangers be ordered to withdraw."
    Question agreed to.
    Strangers withdrew accordingly.
    [The remainder of the Sitting was in Secret Session.]

MINISTRY OF INFORMATION.
  WAR EFFORT (PROPAGANDA).
  WAR EFFORT (PROPAGANDA).
  NAVAL AND AIR ACTIVITIES (ENGLISH CHANNEL).
  NAVAL AND AIR ACTIVITIES (ENGLISH CHANNEL).
  UNITED STATES, RELIEF WORK (FILM).
  UNITED STATES, RELIEF WORK (FILM).
ROYAL NAVY
  HIS MAJESTY'S SHIP "LIVERPOOL" (ATTACK)
  HIS MAJESTY'S SHIP "LIVERPOOL" (ATTACK)
  STEAMSHIP "EMPRESS OF BRITAIN" (INQUIRY).
  STEAMSHIP "EMPRESS OF BRITAIN" (INQUIRY).
  CIVIL DEFENCE (EVACUATION).
  CIVIL DEFENCE (EVACUATION).
  TERRITORIAL ARMY COMMISSIONS.
  TERRITORIAL ARMY COMMISSIONS.
  RAW MATERIALS (ALLOCATION).
  RAW MATERIALS (ALLOCATION).
NATIONAL FINANCE.
  SPAIN (LOAN).
  SPAIN (LOAN).
  BRADFORD (LOANS, GIFTS AND INVESTMENTS).
  BRADFORD (LOANS, GIFTS AND INVESTMENTS).
  AGRICULTURE (DERELICT LAND).
  AGRICULTURE (DERELICT LAND).
  COAL PRICES, NORTHERN IRELAND.
  COAL PRICES, NORTHERN IRELAND.
  SPAIN (OIL IMPORTS).
  SPAIN (OIL IMPORTS).
POST OFFICE.
  ARMED FORCES (TELEGRAMS).
  ARMED FORCES (TELEGRAMS).
  CHRISTMAS CARDS.
  CHRISTMAS CARDS.
  TELEPHONE SERVICE.
  TELEPHONE SERVICE.
FOOD SUPPLIES.
  ONIONS.
  ONIONS.
  PIGS.
  PIGS.
  FOOD PRICE INVESTIGATION COMMITTEE (NORTH MIDLANDS).
  FOOD PRICE INVESTIGATION COMMITTEE (NORTH MIDLANDS).
  RATIONED FOODS (SOCIAL FUNCTIONS).
  RATIONED FOODS (SOCIAL FUNCTIONS).
  OATS (PRICE).
  OATS (PRICE).
  PACKING STATION LICENCE (BEXLEY).
  PACKING STATION LICENCE (BEXLEY).
  MILK.
  MILK.
MINISTRY OF SUPPLY.
  BROKEN GLASS.
  BROKEN GLASS.
  CONTRACTS (PAYMENTS).
  CONTRACTS (PAYMENTS).
Preamble
The House met, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
LORD REITH.
The Right Honourable Sir John Charles Walsham Reith, G.C.V.O., G.B.E., having been created Baron Reith of Stonehaven in the county of Kincardine—Was (in the usual manner) introduced.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
LORD SNELL: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion which stands on the Order Paper in my name.
Moved, That Standing Order No. XXI be considered in order to its being dispensed with, for the purpose of giving precedence to the Motion for the Third Reading of the Prolongation of Parliament Bill over the other Notices and Orders of the Day.—(Lord Snell.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.

PROLONGATION OF PARLIAMENT BILL.
Read 3ª (according to Order), and passed.
House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.

ROYAL COMMISSION.
The following Bills received the Royal Assent:

Prolongation of Parliament.

Clyde Lighthouses Consolidation Order Confirmation.

Fife County Council Order Confirmation.

House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.

HORSHAM GAS ORDER, 1940.
SITTINGBOURNE DISTRICT GAS ORDER, 1940.
LORD TEMPLEMORE: My Lords, I beg to move that the Special Orders, as reported from the Special Orders Committee, be approved.
Moved, That the Special Orders, as reported from the Special Orders Committee yesterday, be approved.—(Lord Templemore.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

MILK PRICES.
LORD ADDISON LORD ADDISON rose to ask His Majesty's Government what action they propose to take on the Report of Lord Perry's Committee to the Minister of Food on the prices of milk; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I am sure that every one of us will experience regret that owing to sickness Lord Woolton is not able to be present to-day. He appeared to be in quite good form yesterday, and was looking forward, as he told me, with interest to this discussion. However I have had a letter from him to say he is unfortunately in bed with a high temperature. We all hope he will soon be restored. The noble Lord, Lord Moyne, has told me that on the whole it is desirable that the discussion upon this subject should take place, and I understand he is prepared to reply for Lord Woolton.
I need not apologise to your Lordships for this Motion. Although it concerns a very homely topic it is of first class importance. It concerns the health of millions of children. As we all know, statistics undoubtedly show that vast numbers of our children do not get anything like enough milk, and that those who get more milk are immensely better in health in consequence. The biggest obstacle to the increased consumption of milk for a long time past in this country has been its high price, so that working people, if they are to do what the experts say they ought to do—namely, give each child the equivalent of a pint of milk a day—and if there are three or four children, are saddled with an expense on milk alone which they are quite unable to meet. The result has been that the Minister of Food in July last proposed a
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scheme which would subsidise milk and would enable children under five years of age to have milk at twopence a pint, whereas the ordinary retail price is four-pence a pint. I should be very interested if the noble Lord can tell us how that experiment is going on, because it is of the utmost consequence that, if possible, it should be a success. So far as I have heard the intimations are very favourable, but I hope the noble Lord will be able to tell us the position.
The Minister of Food has been faced with a question with which many others of us who have had similar positions in times past have been faced—namely, the obstacle to the increased consumption of milk which is presented by its high retail price. The fact is that for many years for one reason or another it has cost a shilling, or round about a shilling, to distribute a gallon of milk, and for a long time the cost was practically doubled between what the farmer got who had all the risk of labour involved in producing it, and what those got who received the milk and distributed it to our people. Well, it is a grotesque inequality of service. All the labour and risk of rearing the animals and looking after them for years, feeding them and so forth, brought in round about a shilling a gallon until late years when it has been increased somewhat, and now we find ourselves confronted with the fact that milk doubled in price in some strange way after the farmer parted with it and it got to our doors.
The result has been that Lord Woolton decided to appoint a Committee of a highly responsible kind to inquire into this problem, and I would like the House to recall the membership of that Committee. My noble friend opposite, Lord Perry, was the Chairman and we all know his public service. It was my privilege to meet him first during the last war at the Ministry of Munitions where he rendered distinguished help. He has been the chief business adviser of the Ministry of Food, and, as everybody knows, he has been head of the great firm of Ford, and lots of other things which I will not embarrass him by reciting. He was assisted by Sir Alan Anderson, who is a Director of the Bank of England and an important man in the shipping world, by Mr. J. W. Bowen, who was formerly Secretary of the Union of Post Office

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Workers, Sir Francis Floud, who for many years was high in the Civil Service, Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries and, later on, High Commissioner in Canada, and then, as great distributors, there were Mr. A. G. Short, who is the Managing Director of Messrs. Thomas Wall & Company, which most of us know best I think by seeing the barrows on the street which exhort us to "Stop me and buy one" (but a great distributing business is concerned with it), and, finally, the Managing Director of Messrs. Woolworths, Mr. W. L. Stephenson, one of the biggest distributing concerns, I should say, in the world. These were the six persons who composed the Committee.
I am sure that everyone will agree with me when I say that it would be difficult to bring together a group of people combining a greater amount of business experience than these people represent. Their terms of reference were
"to investigate the present costs of distributing milk in Great Britain (i.e., the difference between the payment received by the producer and the charge to the consumer) and to advise what steps would have to be taken in order to bring about a substantial reduction in such costs."
I may say that these gentlemen were not the first to inquire into this subject. As a matter of fact we have had a succession of official inquiries for years and they have all arrived at the same conclusion. There was the Reorganisation Commission in 1933. They said that the costs of distribution were unnecessarily costly. There was another Report of the Commission known as the Cutforth Commission in 1936. They came to the same conclusion. They said they were satisfied that the cost "could be greatly reduced if the trade were reorganised on a more efficient basis." Then there was the Linlithgow Committee which came to the same conclusion in 1936. There was a Report by the Food Council to the president of the Board of Trade in 1937 which came to an identical conclusion.
In view of this consensus of highly authoritative opinion, the marvel is that nothing has happened. The strange thing is that it is necessary for the noble Lord, Lord Woolton, to make another inquiry. He has had another inquiry and the results are before your Lordships. So far as general conclusions are concerned they are identical with those that went before.
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I hope that so far as your Lordships have time you will look at this Report. For my part I have never read a Report to a Government Department which is more succinct, more businesslike and more deadly than this. Therefore one is fully warranted in drawing attention to it. Varied reasons are given for the high cost of the distribution of milk and they were examined with meticulous care by the Committee whose Report is before you. One of the reasons given for the high cost of distribution is that milk roundsmen go round and sell groceries. Another is that they distribute milk very often; and many other reasons are given, some of them quite good, for the service being an expensive one. Nevertheless, the Committee say that when they have examined all these causes alleged for the high cost of distribution, none of them explain why the cost of distributing a gallon of milk should vary between 6d. and 1s.—that is, a difference of 100 per cent.—for distributing the same thing.
They contrast the high charge with the experience of some of the co-operative societies. I do not know how many members of your Lordships' House were born north of the Tweed, but those who were may well be proud of the record of the Scottish societies as set out in this Report. It appears that a few years ago the co-operative societies distributed only about 2½ per cent, of the milk of the people and that now it has risen to nearly one-fourth, and in Scotland one-third. It is quite clear, therefore, that for some reason or other the service of these societies is increasingly popular. We have given to us here the records of some of the Scottish societies. The Aberdeen case is really very striking. It appears that there the society supplies the milk of two-thirds of the population of the City and does it profitably at 6d. a gallon. Other examples are given, and the Committee conclude that whatever may be said for or against the services of Scottish societies it is clear that their service in milk distribution is increasingly acceptable. The real reason is that it is managed as a business in itself and is not mixed up with all sorts of other odds and ends.
The Committee conclude that the distribution of milk should be regarded as a national service. They examined the cost and on pages 10 and 11 of the Report you see the result of their examination. What

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it comes to is that, the Committee concludes, after a meticulous inquiry, that processing, bottling, milk wastage, containers and other charges should be dealt with on an allowance of 2½d. per gallon. Some of the big London distributors do it for an even lower charge. The next service of distribution—roundsmen's wages and other charges in that group—should cost about: 3½d. per gallon, and administrative expenses, 1d. The question of profit is very illuminatingly discussed in paragraph 35 of this Report, on page 12. There it appears that, on the basis of examinations which were previously made, a profit of one-third of a penny per gallon will provide about 7½ per cent, on the capital employed, and a profit of 4d. per gallon will provide about 100 per cent, on the capital employed; so that the Committee conclude that to allow id. per gallon for profit will permit a return of 20 per cent, on the capital employed, if it is efficiently done. In other words, the Committee suggest that a margin of 8d. per gallon should provide for all the costs of efficient distribution and for a good profit. The fact is, however, that we are paying is., and sometimes a little more. The Committee point out that any one who does it for 8d. is making a good profit.
Unfortunately, the Committee do not seem to have received much help from the distributors' organisations. In my view—and I say this as the parent of the Agricultural Marketing Act—the contract which was arranged with the farmers by the Milk Board is an improper one. When providing for the selling of the milk to the Milk Board by the farmers, there is a condition that the retail price shall be so much. In my view, in fixing the price paid to the farmer there should not be a condition that someone else shall charge a much higher price to the public. That form of contract has in fact entrenched an expensive form of distribution much more than it should have been entrenched. As a matter of fact, as it stands at present, the charge for distribution is based upon the least efficient distributor getting a living. That is really the basis of the present agreement, and the reason that no reduction is being obtained, notwithstanding this series of authoritative Reports, is that the organisation of the distributing interests is so powerful that hitherto they have prevented anything being done.
The Committee use very striking language, in view of the fact that this is a Government Report, as to the attitude of the distributors' organisations. In one place it is reported that they showed no inclination to recognise that reforms could be developed, or even that economics were possible. From paragraph 55 it appears that the long and the short of it was that in four interviews with the distributors' organisations, it seemed that nothing could be done; and the Committee conclude in paragraph 59 that
"The attitude of the English distributors…amounts almost to a flat denial that anything can be done, either voluntarily or under compulsion."
That is the language of this official Report, and it is rather strong language. It behoves us, I think, to support the Committee, and the Minister if he is willing, in insisting that something should be done.
Happily, the Committee present us with a very businesslike set of proposals. They propose that a margin should be fixed, and that after due time the organisation of the industry must be such as to enable it to distribute milk within that margin. It is proposed that there should be a margin of 8d. I am not now speaking as a Party politician, but I confess that when I saw these hard-headed business men saying some of the things that they have said in this Report, I felt rather a thrill of satisfaction, although I am not speaking in any way from that point of view. They say that it is most important that
"The administration of milk distribution in the national interest should be made the active concern of some organisation equipped with all necessary powers and facilities."
What it comes to is that there should be an authoritative organisation competent to require an efficient and economical service. They say that an official and economical service can be rendered, and that it can be rendered profitably at a charge of 8d. a gallon, which is a reduction of 1d. per quart for every householder in the country when it is passed on.
In the absence of this more economical and more efficient system the Treasury, as we know, is now subsidising, to a very large extent, the distribution of cheap milk. Even when all this is done, the milk can hardly be described as cheap; still, it will be within the reach of a very much increased number of buyers. And here

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is now the fifth authoritative Government Report suggesting that active steps should be taken to bring about a more economical, and therefore more advantageous, system of distributing this vital food. I feel myself that the nation is enormously indebted to my noble friend opposite and to those who were with him for presenting us with this highly valuable Report. So far as Lord Woolton, the Minister of Food, is concerned, it presents him with a great opportunity. He has all the power necessary now that the Committee say a national organrsation should possess, and I put this Motion on the Paper in the fervent hope that he will be willing to exercise it. I beg to move for Papers.
EARL DELA WARR: My Lords, I think the House owes its thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Addison, for raising this most important question. Your Lordships may recollect that the noble Lord, Lord Addison, has himself had a considerable amount to do with this particular problem, and he and I indeed had the pleasure of co-operating together for a certain period of our political existence in putting through the Agricultural Marketing Act. I do not think we know yet whether the noble Lord who is to reply on behalf of the Government is going to be able to state the decision of His Majesty's Government on this question or not. It may be that he would prefer to hear the comments of your Lordships' House first. If so, I think we should all feel that that was a very reasonable point of view, and indeed a compliment to your Lordships' House.
As the Report points out, and as the noble Lord has re-emphasized, this is not a new subject. Those of us who have been concerned either with agricultural policy or with food policy generally if they look into this question will, I think, remember that there has been no time at which the problem of the difference between the price to the producer and the price to the consumer has not been one of their main concerns. For myself, I have always felt it to be quite fundamental. In an urbanised country like this it is quite hard enough for a farmer to obtain an adequate reward for his services without his produce having to carry quite unnecessary charges of distribution also. The Report has reminded us of four former
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Commissions, going back to Sir Edward Grigg's Reorganisation Commission. If its authors had looked further back into history they might see that in 1923 the noble Marquess, Lord Linlithgow, issued a Report, that a year or two before there was a Report by Sir John Murray, and that my noble friend Lord Astor in 1919 issued a Report to the Ministry of Agriculture.
Every one of those Reports has been unanimous—unanimous on the point that distributive charges are too high. They also have one further point in commonߞnamely, that nothing whatever has been done about them in regard to distributive charges. I make that a point because on the producer's side when it was recommended that the farmers should organise under the Milk Marketing Board they at once adopted that proposal and did everything that they had been asked to do. But that was only a first step and, as the noble Lord, Lord Addison, said, though that first step, left lone to stand by itself, did a great deal of good, it also did some harm, because the work was not completed and carried into the distributive field. And now we have this final Report—I hope I am right in using that word—of the noble Lord, Lord Perry. I think those of us who read that Report must share with the noble Lord, Lord Addison, the desire to congratulate the noble Lord on what is not merely a most business-like but also a most statesman like production. And it has this great quality in its favour, that it is extraordinarily short and to the point. I think it says at least as much as, if not more than, most of the other documents, and some of them ran into five or six times the number of pages.
Now, my Lords, this is an important subject we are discussing. I do not think any one of us would disagree with the statement that a cheap and adequate supply of milk, especially for the younger portion of our population, would probably do more to reduce the loss and suffering due to disease and bad health than any-other single step. In addition to that, we are discussing produce from the farm worth, in pre-war figures, something like £55,000,000 a year, or no less than approximately one-fifth of the whole agricultural industry. This Report, if I may say so, tackles the problem from quite fundamentally the right point of view.

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The noble Lord has mentioned certain schemes which have always been very close to my heart—namely, the cheap milk scheme for children in the schools, and now the extension that the noble Lord, Lord Woolton, has made to mothers and children under five. That is a sound scheme, but nevertheless there must be a limit to a system which, on the one hand, charges too high a general price for milk, and then has to subsidise cheap milk to particular classes. The noble Lord therefore tackles the question of the general price.
It often seemed to me in the years I spent at the Ministry of Agriculture, dealing with some of these questions as Under-secretary, and in other posts, that there is a great danger in discussing this question of high charges of distribution too much merely from the point of view of excessive profits. If I were asked to generalise as to this unnecessary distributive charge, I should say it is, as often as not, something in the proportion of 25 per cent, attributable to excessive profit and 75 per cent, to the bad system that the distributor is being asked to work. The noble Lord, Lord Parry, does not fall into that particular mistake at I suggested. We know that at the present time there are distributors who are distributing at 6d. a gallon, and then are other distributors who need 1s a gallon. There is obviously something wrong with the working of that system. I believe that one of the major points which are wrong—and the noble Lord deals with these points very thoroughly—is the customer himself or herself. It is so often the unnecessary services that the customer demands from the distributor which are responsible for a great deal of the trouble. I was speaking to a small butcher the other day who told me that at twelve o'clock one day he had been rung up by a customer who lived four miles away and asked to send two cutlets up by lunch-time. When he protested, the customer replied, "Very well, then make up my book." He was a small trader, and he had to hire someone to take the cutlets out. Someone had to pay for that, in the same way as someone has to pay for the two or three deliveries of milk that have to be made.
The Report states a reduction is required, and it says what reduction there should be. The Committee suggest an 8d. margin, and then they set out to show how to arrive at that 8d. margin.
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They take point by point and, if I may say so, very sound points they are too. There is only one suggestion—I do not like to call it criticism—that I venture to make, and that is that while this new margin of 8d. which is being proposed, is I proved by the figures put in the Report to be a perfectly fair margin, we have got to admit that it is a narrow margin. There is nothing much to play with in it, and we are in essence taking this trade one step in the direction of making it a public service. I suggest that if we send this trade in the direction of becoming purveyors of a public service, these purveyors are entitled to the security that is usually given to purveyors of a public service. I am rather sorry, therefore, that the noble Lord did not take his Report one step further and say that the distributors should be granted the compulsion that I believe, in fact, they asked for, at any rate in relation to a certain number of the points enumerated in paragraph 60 of the Recommendations.
Let us look at it from the point of view of the retailer with a number of competitors in a given town. That retailer has to go to his customer and say, "In future I am going to charge you a deposit of 3d. on bottles, and in future I want you to pay me in advance rather than deal with me on credit. In future you are not going to have a half-pint bottle or a quart bottle at your convenience. You are going to have your milk delivered in pint bottles." These are all sound steps, but I do not believe it is fair to leave the retailer in the position of having to go to his customer, with all the possibility that there is some competitor who will not take the same steps. The noble Lord puts forward a perfectly good point here, that he is restoring competition as regards price and that the margin will not allow of some outside retailer doing as I suggest, but there is always in every industry some person who thinks he knows better than anyone else. It happens again and again. Moreover, I suggest to the Government that the margin proposed is going to be so narrow that it is not going to allow very much competition on the lines suggested in the Report. Therefore, I would ask His Majesty's Government to consider carefully this question of adding to the Report and giving distributors the sanction of compulsion behind what we are suggesting they should do to put their house in order.

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One last point. The Report refers to future organisation, and suggests—I am inclined to feel rightly—that the problem of future organisation might be dealt with at a slightly later stage. Admittedly that is taking two bites at a cherry, but most of us would admit that the first bite proposed here is a very good bite. I hope at the same time that the Government will keep in mind the future organisation of this trade so that what is being done now, largely in order to obtain a cheap supply of milk during the war, may be consolidated into a permanent, sound organisation for this most important industry and trade.
VISCOUNT ASTOR: My Lords, I propose to make very few remarks and those of a rather general character. The two noble Lord who have preceded me have dealt very fully with the recommendations in the Report. Both noble Lords are qualified by their past experience to deal with this problem. They have been associated with the Department of Agriculture, and both of them have shown in their public life that they are vitally concerned with the welfare of children. That is admittedly bound up with the whole question of milk. They have indicated, as all who study the question know, that there is a vast untapped market for farmers—namely, milk. An enormous expansion is available, but one of the pre-requisites is the cheapening of milk. If we can do that, we shall benefit the farmers and we shall benefit the whole physique of the nation. That is why it is a pity, in a way, that in time of war we are discussing, with the limitations which are necessarily associated with it, a problem that is so vast and really must effect the welfare both of this great industry and also of the rising generation.
It has been my privilege to be associated with bodies that have considered this question in the past. As the noble Lord who has just spoken indicated, an Inter-Departmental Committee, of which I was Chairman, made recommendations on these general lines somewhere about 1919. I remember that at that time I was at the Department which is now the Ministry of Food, with Mr. Clynes. It was towards the end of the war, and I have a very clear recollection that it was the intention of the Department to bring
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about a national control of the wholesale distribution of milk which, if there had been time—the end of the war prevented that policy being put into execution—would have had far-reaching and most beneficial effects. I merely mention that to show that this is no new question and, as is indicated in one of the paragraphs of this Report now before your Lordships' House, there have been numerous recommendations and proposals which have not been acted upon. Taking a broad line, I only want to refer really to two paragraphs towards the end of this Report, paragraphs 55 and 56. In paragraph 56 the Committee say that they are
"reluctant to make proposals which, if adopted, would permanently alter conditions in the industry."
Surely the fact that we are at war is an inadequate reason for not facing boldly post-war problems, and if in war time we have an opportunity of taking a step which will be of permanent post-war benefit I suggest to your Lordships that we should take it with courage.
What that step should be is really indicated in paragraph 55 which is headed "The control of distribution." Here it is stated that the Milk Marketing Boards are organisations of the producers and their powers have been exercised mainly in the producers' interests, with the result that the general policy "has not been satisfactory." Those are their own words and the Committee said they were
"definitely of opinion that the administration of milk distribution in the national interest should be made the active concern of some organisation equipped with all necessary powers and facilities."
It would be lamentable if an essential step in post-war reconstruction vital to the welfare of agriculture—because, after all, dairying is really the corner stone of British agriculture—and one which will have far-reaching effects in improving the nutrition of the rising generation, should be shirked. If that were so we really should be lacking in imagination and courage. If by adopting this Report to-day we can take even if it is only a half step towards this greater step, I trust the Government will take it.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: My Lords, all three noble Lords who have addressed your Lordships on this matter are specially qualified to do so. I claim no such special qualification, but

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I should not like the Minister to reply without saying just a word in support of the views that have already been expressed. I should like to join in congratulating the noble Lord opposite on having put the question down and on the very admirable speech he made in support of it. I thought that speech showed considerable self-control. I could imagine that the noble Lord might have found some agreeable passages in the Report out of which to make capital. I think he was very wise not to do so, but as a supporter of private enterprise, probably a much warmer supporter of private enterprise than the noble Lord opposite, and perhaps even warmer than the noble Lord sitting beside me (Earl De La Warr) I should like to say that no supporter of private enterprise would deny that, where occasion is called for it, private enterprise must be brought under proper control. There are passages in this Report which I think would have given the noble Lord (Lord Addison) a field had he chosen to exercise his talents upon it. I am glad he did not.
I should like also to congratulate the noble Lord whose Report this is, because I do not think I have ever read a Report comparable to Ibis from a Committee of investigation of the kind. It really is a remarkable document. I notice that the cost of it was about £200, of which £50, roughly, was spent on printing. I should have thought it ought to be a bestseller. Everybody who has not read this Report ought to do so. It really is a very remarkable document. One of the noble Lords who spoke said he thought it was too uncertain what the Government's decision is going to be. I cannot believe that that is so. There is only one possible decision after the Government have considered this Report. If my noble friend Lord Moyne is not able to tell us what that is to-day, I hope it will not be long before we are told. I should like, in conclusion, to express my regret that the noble Lord, Lord Woolton, has been unable to be here because he is not well, and that, possibly, as a consequence the Government may not be able to say definitely what they are going to do; but I cannot believe myself there ran really be any doubt about it and I sincerely hope that what I believe will turn out to be right.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES (LORD MOYNE): My Lords, the noble Lord who put down this Motion has explained the unfortunate absence of Lord Woolton. Lord Woolton was very anxious that we should ventilate this subject because he has the problem of milk distribution very much at heart. He felt that ventilation of it in your Lordships' House would much strengthen his hands and that the well-informed advice which so many in your Lordships' House are in a position to give would be most valuable to him in making his decision. I to-day am of course only his mouthpiece and I am not in any way speaking for the Ministry of Agriculture, who in this particular matter are not directly concerned or affected. In recent years this question of milk prices has occasioned acute controversy. The noble Lord in his opening speech reminded us of the number of inquiries which have taken place and Reports which have been made. The Government to whom those Reports were addressed did their best to tackle the matter and brought in a Milk Bill, as the noble Lord will remember, in, I think, 1936. It was a very comprehensive and rather complicated measure, which would have dealt with the wider ground of the producer as well as the distributor, but unfortunately the Parliamentary fortunes of that Bill were not favourable.
The problem which is now being considered is a somewhat narrower one, affecting merely the distributors and the distribution costs, and therefore of less direct concern to the Ministry of Agriculture than the wider problems that were raised by the previous injuries. The Government have shown the importance which they attach to the matter by already taking action on one part of the problem. The noble Lord asked for information about the National Milk Scheme which was framed and launched by the present Minister of Food in the early days of his responsibility for that Department. It was launched on the 21st of July last and dealt merely with milk for mothers and children under five and expectant mothers, and had nothing to do with the scheme of milk in schools which, of course, is under the Board of Education and in regard to which I have no information and indeed have not been

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asked for any to-day. The scheme of supplying milk at half price was, as I have said, for mothers and children under the age of rive and free milk for mothers and children below certain income limits. At first progress was comparatively slow, but my noble friend was not disturbed by that as it was expected that for various reasons it would not immediately reach its full volume. It is now an immense success. Three million out of a possible 3,900,000 persons are recipients of this benefit of cheap or free milk and of these people thirty per cent, are getting milk for nothing and seventy per cent. are getting it for twopence a pint. The consumption of milk under this scheme has reached the volume of 11,000,000 gallons per month.
The noble Earl, Lord De La Warr, mentioned that this was only a partial solution of the problem. Naturally it is costing a very large sum of public money, but it is treating the symptom of a problem and not really going to the root cause. For that reason it was very necessary that wider measures should be taken. The Government are immensely indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Perry, for the promptitude and efficiency with which he has tackled this very thorny problem, and I am sure the House will recognise that it is impossible for the Government to give a final answer or indeed any answer on such far-reaching and drastic proposals until very careful consideration has been given. By quoting dates, however, I think I can satisfy your Lordships that the matter is being treated as one of urgency and that the Report is certainly not going to be used, and was not intended to be used, as a method of shelving an awkward question. The Committee were appointed on June 15 and were asked to report within three months. They actually signed the Report on September 30. The Government did not wait to get the Report into print before sending it out to the distributors and others concerned. They sent it to them in stencil form and the recipients of these advance copies were asked to let the Government have their observations by the end of the month. Although these observations are not vet in the hands of my noble friend Lord Woolton, he Hopes to receive them shortly and to be able to reach a decision on the steps to be adopted at a very early date.
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He will of course take into careful consideration the various criticisms and suggestions made to-day. The noble Earl, Lord De La Warr, mentioned the question of compulsion. That seems a very important point to prevent unfair competition and undercutting by certain classes of distributors, and I feel sure that that is a point which will be very carefully considered. I can only add that my noble friend Lord Woolton is giving careful and urgent consideration to this matter and will make a statement as to Government action at the earliest possible moment.
EARL DE LA WARR: My Lords, it is only by leave of the House that I can say anything more, but I should like to say that I did omit to mention in my speech that, although I am now acting as personal liaison officer between the Ministry of Agriculture and certain agricultural committees, I of course spoke to-day, with the leave of my right honourable friend the Minister, entirely for myself as a member of your Lordships' House.
LORD ADDISON: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord for his reply. I appreciate that the Minister of Food only received this Report about five weeks ago. I know, too, that he did circulate it in stencil form and lost no time at all in giving those concerned an opportunity of considering it. I believe we shall have an opportunity in the near future of hearing what they all say about it, and I am sure we all welcome the assurance that we shall have reported to us before very long what is the Ministry's decision in the matter. I thank the noble Lord for what he has told us and I beg leave to with draw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, with-drawn.

WELFARE OF THE TROOPS.
LORD STRABOLGI LORD STRABOLGI had the following Notice on the Paper: To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they propose to take to meet the conditions under which the large numbers of troops in this country will be serving during the coming winter; to what extent it is proposed to use these troops to aid in dealing with the results of air raids on this country; what policy is being adopted with regard to educational and recreational

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facilities, and for the welfare of the soldiers generally and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: my Lords, I am sorry that owing to circumstances over which we had no control my Motion has come on rather late, but I think you will agree that it is one of very great importance. It was drafted by my noble friend Lord Addison, who asked me to deal with it, and I have been doing my best to study the subject. All my noble friends on this side of the House, and I think many other noble Lords, attach very great importance to the whole of this subject. My noble friend Lord Teviot had a somewhat similar Motion on the Paper some time ago. It was taken off and as a matter of fact I have introduced another subject also into my Motion. Your Lordships will be aware that with a great number of men under arms in this country waiting for things to happen there is real danger of boredom.
I know that my noble friend Lord Croft is aware of the danger, and I am sure that he and many others are doing their best to alleviate it. Of course one of the answers that will be made is that there are educational facilities—lectures and so on—to keep the men occupied and to improve their minds. I have a letter here from a member of your Lordships' House who apologises for not being able to be here. What he says is so apposite that I hope your Lordships will forgive me if I read part of his letter. He says:
"I know from A to Z the reply you will get from Croft."
I apologise for his non-use of my noble friend's title.
"The War Office in this matter has the mind of the French towards their Maginot Line—namely, that all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds; their complacency is abysmal. You will be told that under Sir John Brown and the rest of the welfare officers"—
here I break off to remark that I know that these men, who are doing their very best, are getting no pay whatsoever and have the greatest difficulty in getting their expenses—
"recreation is amply catered for, as never before in the history of the Army, whereas we have now all met scores of units for whom nothing whatsoever has been done. As regards education you will be told that the Report of the Haining Committee is being fully implemented under Bendall, the new civilian Director of Education at the War Office; you
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will not be told what his authority over soldiers is or why he should have been put above the trained personnel of the misused (and still scattered) Army Education Corps.
"The Haining Committee, as you probably know, consisted of three—I, Haining, who knows about the Army but not about education; 2, Wood, who knows about education but not about the Army; and 3, Villiers, who knows about banking, but not about the Army or education. Their appendix, which dealt with what had been done in the last war, has been entirely suppressed and no reference to that at all appears in the issued pamphlet.
"You will be told that under the arrangements made by the Central Advisory Council (Basil Yeaxlee and Co.) all is working splendidly; you will not be told that even now arrangements with all the professional bodies are still just in the stage of discussion. You will be told that the work applies to the troops abroad as well as at home, but you will not be told how the civilian arrangements here operate in Egypt! You will be given a very rosy and misleading picture."
I hope that my noble friend who wrote this letter is wrong about the reply which we shall be given by Lord Croft.
I must quote a few more words from the letter:
"Now they talk so much about democracy in the Army and do far less in this supremely important way of the mind and morale than was done twenty years ago. We had an organisation that went with the units; not a half-civilian, half-improvised affair such as Bendall and Yeaxlee now are getting, slowly and ages late, together. And we also had, very important and now so neglected, close liaison educationally with all the Dominion Forces."
I thought it as well to quote those words from my noble friend, who is certainly very expert in this matter and knows a great deal about it.
Egypt is mentioned in that letter and, although it is outside the immediate wording of my Motion, I hope that your Lordships will forgive me if I refer to the welfare of British soldiers who are sent abroad. We are, of course, sending abroad a great many young soldiers who, but for the war, would be employed on different work altogether; and it is very necessary, I think, that they should be given some chance of meeting the civil European population of our Eastern Dependencies. That is not always arranged. I know that this is rather a delicate matter. I have given my noble friend some details of a particular case that I have in mind. I have had representations made to me by young soldiers who, but for this war, would have been at one of the older universities, men of good family and certainly of good educa-

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tion, who in the East are completely cold-shouldered by the European population because they have the honour to wear the uniform of a non-commissioned officer or private in His Majesty's Army. These same Europeans at home would be living in a five-roomed house in Balham or Hoxton. A word in season to some of our Governors, I suggest to my noble friend, would have a very good effect. These European civilians in our Eastern Dependencies would be living under a foreign flag but for these young men.
I know that the War Office reply on the question of the employment of the troops at home is that there is a great deal of training to be done, and that I can well understand. I know nothing whatever of military matters, but I imagine that training is not very easy in the winter in any case, and I have always understood, from experience in another Service, that drills can be overdone; they can become wearisome and do more harm than good. That is why, in my Motion, I make the suggestion that more use should be made of the Army to assist the civil power and the Government in dealing with the effects of air raids. I recognise the splendid work that the Pioneers have done in London when called in rather belatedly to assist, and I am not referring so much to that. I am informed that there are in London ample reserves of unemployed men suitable for clearing away debris and for demolition work and so on, but it takes a little time to organise them. I am not suggesting that greater use should be made of the Army for what is, after all, unskilled labour. There is, however, a grave shortage of skilled workers, and there I believe that the Army could help.
All your Lordships have had bad experiences with the telephone, and I believe that this trouble affects the Army itself in various parts of the country. The official excuse given is that damage has been done to the telephone and telegraph lines and to cables, that it takes a long time to repair them, and that the Post Office have not enough skilled electricians, telephone technicians and so on. His Majesty's Army, however, has a very fine Signal Corps containing a great many skilled men, some of whom have only just left the Post Office; and one of my suggestions is that greater use should be made of these skilled men. They
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should be lent to the Post Office to make good the damage as soon as possible.
Another way in which the Army could help at the present time is by lending some of its lorries. My noble friend will no doubt say that the Army transport is fully occupied. That is, of course, the official reply, but I am afraid that it is not altogether accurate. A great many Army vehicles are being held in reserve. It does not take long to re-assemble them if they are needed, but in the meantime there is a grave shortage of lorries to clear away débris and to move furniture—this was referred to by my noble friend Lord Nathan recently—from houses damaged but not destroyed to the new homes to which people have been evacuated. Any of your Lordships who try to get furniture moved into the country to-day will have the greatest difficulty in obtaining transport for the purpose. I think that Army lorries should be used in this way. I would also dare to suggest that my honourable friend Mr. Grenfell, the Minister for Mines, would be very glad of the loan of some Army lorries for carting coal about the country. The railways have difficulty in carrying out the distribution of the coal, and if we have a cold snap—and the weather is becoming inclement—there will be a good deal of discontent and discomfort owing to the lack of coal, which housewives in many parts of the country cannot buy.
I believe that the highest Army authorities will agree that the morale and the contentment of the Home Front are tremendously important. If they have any doubts about it, they have only to consult the memoirs of General Ludendorff and see what happened to the German Army when the Home Front became disorganised and the people discontented. I suggest that it is a military objective to assist the civil population when they are in the front firing line, as they are to-day, under the air attacks which affect London and so many other large cities. Indeed, at the time of the confusion in the East End of London, at the beginning of the concentrated air attacks, when certain local authorities were not able to cope with the sudden emergency and with the strange conditions which suddenly developed, I said to several people in authority and to certain members of the Government, "Give me a thousand blue-

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jackets and complete charge of one of these disorganised boroughs in the East End of London, and I will restore order out of chaos in forty-eight hours." I do not know whether we can spare a thousand bluejackets in London to-day; we may need all the trained bluejackets we have. Soldiers, however, are not very inferior to sailors in doing unaccustomed work, and under their own non-commissioned officers and officers, and working as a team, the doing of unaccustomed work is, I suggest, good training for them. The non-commissioned officers get to know their men and the men get to know their non-commissioned officers. They get used to working together as a team, and if they were together put to deal with some of the results of the heavy air raiding I think it would be good for the Army and certainly good for the civilian population. The fact that this was not done during the Crimean War and the Napoleonic Wars really is no argument against its being done now. The conditions are different and I am sure the War Office realise that they have to change with the times, like everybody else.
I have a note from the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, who could not wait for this Motion, which raises a matter of great importance and he has asked me to bring it before your Lordships because it is very apposite to this matter. It refers to the Auxiliary Military Pioneer Corps, who are, I understand, friendly aliens. Many of them are intellectuals, widely travelled and widely read men, and they are very unhappy because they have not more to do. If I may quote the letter, he says:
"I frequently get letters telling me of their boredom. The officers do not seem to be able to organise any thing for these men."
I presume they are British officers who command these battalions.
"Some of them lave suggested that they should be allowed to form a volunteer danger squad to do work in the bombed areas. I do not know if this is possible."
There is an offer from these friendly foreigners, some of them Germans, who are serving in this Auxiliary Military Pioneer Corps, some of whom it is stated did very active work with the British Expeditionary Force in France and now they want still further to help this country by going into the danger areas and, I suppose, relieving the Auxiliary Police, Air Raid Precaution workers and so on. I hope that my noble friend has taken
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note of that, and that it may be possible to use these volunteers in those danger areas.
I have consulted one or two soldier friends of mine in the country over the week-end, and many of them said that if they could get a chance to go into the big cities, and London particularly, and give a hand and take some of the risks, rather than stay in what are at present, for them, perfectly safe areas, they would all be very glad indeed, and very proud to do it. I am certain the Army would be willing to give any help in this way that they could. Anything rather than have men kicking their heels in idleness. I know the difficulties. I know that the War Office is sympathetic to this. My speech is really not critical, apart from the extract I quoted from the letter from my noble friend, and I know that my noble friend Lord Croft feels very keenly about this whole question. In that spirit I therefore beg to move.
LORD GAINFORD: My Lords, sixteen years ago I was deputed by Mr. Asquith, as he then was, to organise the entertainment of our troops, not only at home but overseas. I entered into an arrangement with a vast number of education authorities and a great number of societies, such as musical societies, music hall artistes' organisations, and scientific organisations, and we arranged for a Committee to direct the entertaining of the troops. That Committee represented a great number of what I might call intellectual bodies, but also a great number of entertaining organisations. That Committee got into operation and the response which we received from civilian organisations offering to entertain the troops was perfectly magnificent. They had their representatives in nearly every case on this Committee of eighteen. When we were getting this organisation into full use Lord Kitchener took exception to civilians entering into any question which related to the entertainment of the troops under his command, and he so pressed his own view that it had to be run entirely by the War Office that for a time that Committee ceased to operate. The organisation, however, did operate and was utilised by the War Office, with only a nominal control over it. The object which I had at that time was to see that there was no boredom among the troops in the evenings, especially in the long

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winter evenings, either abroad or a home.
I notice to-day that troops in our country villages have very little opportunity of meeting together to be entertained—neither are concerts arranged nor are there lectures or in many cases educational facilities, because there are no halls or suitable places for entertaining. I am not aware of the whole of the arrangements which have been made by the War Office, but I do witness that boredom among many of our troops. It seems to me also that they are moved about unnecessarily, in order to occupy them from time to time. I have heard of troops going from the West Coast to the East Coast, and of another lot going from the East Coast to the West Coast, for no object of any importance except to keep them on the move. Whether that is so or not I do not say, but it does seem to me that recreation is absolutely necessary. I believe that the officers can look after outdoor recreation far better than a civilian organisation, and I believe that indoor occupations, such as darts and ping pong, can be run by officers far better than by an outside organisation. But in regard to scientific teaching and entertainment by musical artistes and people of that kind, it is essential that the organisations with which these various bodies are associated should be consulted. I do press the War Office to realise that and to secure the proper and adequate entertainment of the troops during the evenings which are before us.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF ONSLOW): My Lords, I feel the greatest sympathy with what has fallen from my noble friends and particularly what has just been mentioned by my noble friend Lord Gain-ford, and I wish to emphasize the great importance of keeping the troops amused and occupied, especially as they have before them long winter evenings when they will have nothing to do. I would point out also the very great difference there is between troops quartered in London or near London or other big towns and those who are quartered in the country. In my part of the world, though we are not very far from London or other big towns,
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there are troops quartered in country villages and they have very little to do. It is difficult to get large halls and, if we could get them, there is no heating apparatus. Is is therefore most essential, especially in those districts, to provide some organisation to meet this state of affairs.
I am very sorry that my noble friend Lord Gorell is not here to-day. I wish he had been because he would have told your Lordships a great deal more than I can about this matter. But I remember that when I was serving in France during the last year of the last war, and was in touch with Lord Gorell, he was in charge of the educational side of the occupation of the troops in their spare time, and he could, I am sure, tell your Lordships and tell the War Office—he probably has done so already—a very great deal about this matter. I can remember it being said—I do not remember who said it, but some very distinguished officer—that boredom was a greater enemy than the Boche. There was a great deal of truth in that. Soldiers get every sort of feeling of weariness and tiredness, and their interest—they cannot help it—fizzles out. I do not believe there would be any difficulty whatever in getting almost a plethora of people to come and assist in keeping the troops occupied and amused. One need not stress too much the educational value for subsequent peace-time activities. What we want to do is to keep the men occupied at the present time. A great variety of lectures and entertainments should be organised. There are several organisations; I had a letter from one the other day, anxious to get people to give lectures to the troops. There are scientific societies of all kinds and other semi-educational bodies, and every possible organisation in the country which would be likely to help.
I suggest this should be carried out as it was carried out in the last war. The difficulty, perhaps, is to obtain accommodation and for the troops to get about during the black-out, but such difficulties should not be insurmountable. There are all over the country—in private houses, for example—largish rooms available, and there are in most villages places which could be heated and made to accommodate a certain number of

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people. This matter is one of very great importance indeed. We are not going to finish the war this winter. It may be three or four years before peace comes to us again, and during that time troops who have done most of their training already will have little to do and time will hang rather heavily on their hands. Therefore, I emphasize the great desirability of putting this plan in hand at once. The winter is coming on, and every possible effort in this direction should be made without delay.
LORD NATHAN: My Lords, I have been interested in the speeches which have been made by the two noble Lords who have last spoken because during the past twelve months and more it has been my duty to undertake the responsibilities for the welfare of the troops in the Eastern Command and the London Command, an area comprising, as your Lordships will realise, a most important proportion of the British Army, having regard to the area concerned—namely, the Eastern Coast and the South-Eastern Coast, to say nothing of London. I am speaking here in the presence of Lord Croft, who is at who remove, I suppose, my official chief in these matters. I shall give away no secrets. I was interested in what noble Lords have said because that made it clear how valuable a discussion of this kind h, for it will enable my noble friend opposite to make a statement as to how much has in fact been done. After twelve months of hard work with a voluntary staff of upwards of 300 in the area to which I have referred, distributed geographically in every county and every village in every county, doing precisely these things to which noble Lords have referred, I was somewhat concerned to find that so little was, in fact, known of this work by the general public.
The educational system which was devised under the guidance of Lord Gorell in the last war was apt, in my recollection, for the purposes of the Army of the last war. Broadly speaking, the position then was—though I do not like to use the phrase, but it is suitable for describing what I mean—that the Army was divided into what you might call class corps and working-men's corps. The educational system under the Army Educational Corps in the last war was devised and applied for the purpose of helping the education of those in what may be called
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the working-men's corps. To-day the Army is composed in an entirely different fashion. It is a real cross-section of the community. There is no such thing to-day as a class corps or a working-men's corps. There is only a unit representative of the nation as a whole. Often you find in the units of to-day's Army that the soldiers who comprise it in the ranks are older, of far greater experience of the world, of far greater knowledge, better education, and higher social standing than many of the officers who are commanding them.
My daily observation shows that all classes within the various units of the Army are mixing in a manner which is really remarkable. Experience has shown that the best kind of unit you can find is one which is composed of all classes brought together. That means that there is a very different problem to be confronted so far as education is concerned compared with the last war. Lord Gorell was providing for those who had gone from the elementary schools. Enormous changes have taken place in the whole education system of this country in the last twenty years. The number of children who leave school at fourteen to-day has diminished, and there is the whole range of secondary schools, central schools, scholarships to the universities, and one thing and another of that kind. The system that Lord Gorell devised, which was well suited for his day, is out of date. It is not applicable to the circumstances of to-day, and, whilst I say it with respect, I would add this, that the Army Education Corps as we have known it is quite unsuited to undertake the duties which noble Lords who remember the last war and their work in that war have mentioned. The members of the Army Education Corps are qualified, trained, and indeed commissioned for the purpose of training boys coming into the Army. That is why the Army Education Corps is quite unsuited for dealing with the Army of to-day.
I am not saying there is not a useful purpose which members of the Army Education Corps can fulfil in selected places for selected groups of soldiers who have not had the advantage of the better education that is now available to the great bulk of the population, but for the Army of to-day you need teachers of university standard. It is a very intelligent Army

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that you have to-day. It is interested in everything that is going on. It does not want education of a formal nature; it has no time for education of a formal nature, the men are very much too busy physically and mentally for that. No, what we have to do is to keep alert the mind of the soldier, to see that there is a mental and intellectual stimulus to his mind, and to see that when this war is over and the soldier goes back to his civilian life—after all, the vast majority will go back to that life—he will be a better man intellectually than he was before, having benefited from his experience in the Army. If we can only do that, if we can bring to their aid and education the best brains that we can find for that purpose and the greatest experience drawn from the very citadels of our educational system, then we shall do well.
I welcome the fact that we have been able to bring into this whole combination the representatives and skilled teachers of the universities. Nothing less is good enough for the soldier of to-day. It is not formal education that our soldiers want. It is lectures, informal talks and discussions in which they can themselves take part. In the last war it was against discipline for a soldier to take part in a discussion following upon a lecture, and that was very much the position at the beginning of the present war, but we have changed all that. Now informal talks, lectures and discussions in which the soldiers themselves can take part are a very important aspect of their whole recreation and education, and it is not merely the soldier but the officers also who listen to the lecturers who speak in various parts of the country. I think the noble Lord, Lord Gainford, will be interested to know this in view of what he has said about his experiences of gathering people together. I have a list of 250 lecturers drawn from the learned societies and the unlearned societies of this country, and they include such a variety of people as the Astronomer Royal with his scientific attainments and such a person, we will say, as "Plum" Warner who can go to the troops and talk about his experiences as a cricketer and so on. To all this vast range of knowledge and experience brought to the reinforcement of the soldier's mind and intelligence, you find a most remarkable response. There
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is always someone, as there is in your Lordships' House and in the other place, who is an expert upon every subject that is raised. That is one of the most remarkable results of attending at these lectures and discussions. The soldier of to-day is a cross-section of the community.
Something has been said with regard to entertainment. The best entertainment, I am certain, is that which the troops can provide for themselves—their own divisional concert parties and things of that kind. I am only speaking within the limits of my own experience of the areas for which I am responsible. There is a real effort made to provide in every formation a unit which can entertain the wider formation to which it belongs. That is going on all the time. Sometimes this unit is of a very high quality, though sometimes it is not, but it is great fun to see your pal trying to entertain you even if he is not doing it in a first-class professional style. What is more, even the mere rehearsal and preparation itself afford recreation and entertainment. In addition to that, there must be a good deal more entertainment, and upon this I should like to ask my noble friend if he will say a word afterwards. In what I have said so far I shall probably have carried him with me. I am worried about this question of entertainment. I dare say your Lordships are aware that at the outbreak of the war the responsibility of providing professional entertainment for the soldier was conferred upon an organisation commonly known as E.N.S.A., which is a branch of the Navy, Army and Air Force Institute. It did not work too badly in the early part of the war. It did considerable service in France, and it did some very good work in this country, but, of course, it was not all that one would like. There was, perhaps, a slight slowness in realising what the soldier of to-day really wants. There was, perhaps—I think perhaps there is to-day—more of the sort of idea that it was important to keep the theatrical industry off the "dole" rather than use the institute for its primary purpose of entertaining the troops. The condition of the theatrical industry was perhaps rather more in the mind of the Director than the troops. However that may be, it has performed a useful service.

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There was never enough entertaining, there never is enough entertaining. But with Dunkirk the situation really changed. Then we had not only all the troops brought back from France to this country, but we had the accumulation of a vast new force spread all over the country. Every town and village was full of troops and the whole problem of entertainment became far more formidable, not only because of the increased numbers involved but because of what I will call security reasons. We had invasion, not Indeed in fact, but in the offing. Troops had to be kept more on the qui vive. The civilian inhabitants were moved inwards from the coastal areas, but the troops were in small groups at the coastal areas. You could not allow large bodies of entertainers to go into those areas at all. Now the problem is complicated by the fact that so many have moved to the central belt from the coastal areas and many others have moved out of the metropolitan area into the central belt, so that you get a densely-populated central belt and a sparsely-populated coastal area. The metropolitan area for this purpose does not come into the picture because the metroplitan area looks after its own entertainment.
The result of all this has been that the halls which would be used for giving entertainment have been taken up either for the billeting of troops or the billeting of evacuees from metropolitan or coastal areas. Nearly all the village halls are occupied. I do not want to generalise, and I must not commit myself to saying that every particular hall in the area is occupied, but even if the halls an; not occupied they are not fitted with blackout apparatus. What is most important of all, we are in a battle, and more than 200 troops are not allowed to be assembled in the Command for which I am responsible at any one time. If there is an air-raid in the neighbourhood they have to take cover.
Those are conditions which make it very difficult to provide entertainment and even so E.N.S.A. is not providing enough. Only to-day when I spoke to him, the Director of E.N.S.A. told me, forsooth, that, if I wanted one additional concert party for the very large proportion of the British Army for which I am responsible, what he had got to do to get it was to telephone or write to Lord May
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at the Treasury to inquire whether the Eastern Command and London could have an additional concert party. I asked why and he said it was because all this had to be dealt with by the Treasury, and that every concert—as I understood him, I can scarcely believe it to be true—and every indent for an entertainment had to be settled by Lord May. What is Lord May's knowledge of the requirements of the Service I should like to know. Let Lord May come and talk to me about it. I am personally responsible. Let Lord May speak to me, and I will take him where I venture to say he has never been, among troops, and show him the character of entertainment which ought to be provided. If the Army is to be properly entertained it must have the right to demand the entertainment which the proper Army authorities consider to be necessary or it must have its own entertainment organisation through which the entertainment can "be provided; it matters not which. What does matter is that there should be adequate entertainment for the troops.
Some say that we should rely upon amateurs. I speak only for the area which is within my own knowledge and competence. Of course there are always a number of well-disposed amateurs who are prepared to help the troops. One of the glories of this country is the amount of voluntary work you can get. I wonder if your Lordships realise that the whole of this welfare work for the Army is done by those who are acting as volunteers. But the amount of amateur assistance you can obtain depends upon the area. In and around London and between London and the coast there is very little amateur assistance available. Your Lordships may be interested to know that when I was trying to get amateur assistance, out of the first seventy or eighty amateur organisations which I approached, sixty had closed down. They said that owing to the Blitzkrieg, to difficulties of transport and one thing and another they had gone out of business as amateurs. Therefore, so far as certain areas are concerned, amateur assistance can only be looked for in a minor degree. Within those limits it is valuable.
I was interested in what the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, said with regard to music. There is nothing, I believe, which is more valuable to groups of soldiers than good music. When we talk of concerts in the

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Army we do not mean concerts in the sense of straight music, but sing-songs and things of that kind. But we also want straight music, and your Lordships will be interested to know that a number of straight music concerts are being given. I attach the utmost importance to this question of music, because your Lordships would be profoundly mistaken if you were to hold the view that the whole of welfare consists of entertainment and education. It covers a much wider field. In particular, I would point out that what makes the difference between civilian life and military life is most markedly the lack of privacy in the life of a soldier. You cannot find physical privacy for a soldier, but you can find what he wants very badly and very often. You can find him a sort of spiritual privacy, a sort of emotional outlet which is a release of the spirit and a recreation to him. I believe that in no way can that outlet be better provided than by really good music. The soldier gets, not a physical privacy, but a spiritual privacy, and in that he finds refreshment of spirit. This subject might well occupy a very long speech and I have no doubt my noble friend will have a good deal to say to us.
I have only touched the fringe of some aspects of the matter. I have had something to do with welfare for a longer period than he has because he has only relatively recently taken office. Although he is my official chief I think he will not misunderstand me when I say that he has-been a real inspiration to the Army. The Army does feel that there is someone at the War Office looking after the men's welfare. When you have got that feeling you have got at least some distance towards contributing to their welfare.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (LORD CROFT): My Lords, may I first reply to the preliminary question put by my noble friend Lord Strabolgi with regard to the training of troops? The question of the use of troops in repair of damage and clearance of debris is a matter involving several Departments and it was referred recently to the War Cabinet. It has been decided that the Army should only be called on to do this work in an emergency or for a short period until a Labour Corps could be
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organised and arrears overtaken. The time of the Army must be spent in intensive military training. I am able to state however, that the War Office has not refused calls made on the Army for labour to meet a temporary emergency, and in view of what has recently appeared in a section of the Press I am grateful to the noble Lord for having put this specific question and given me an opportunity of making this clear.
He referred to one or two other questions to which I will certainly give every consideration. There are difficulties in the way of lorries taking coal about the country. I have not given the question a great deal of thought, but I know that it is difficult sometimes to use the same vehicles for coal as for other purposes. We have still, as the noble Lord will realise, a shortage of vehicles for ordinary transport in the Army. There is not enough equipment specially for that, although I am glad to say armaments are progressing very rapidly. It is not quite so easy as it looks on the face of it to contemplate moving coal or furniture for private individuals about the country. It might not fit in to our present system. A question was also asked about foreigners serving in the A.M.P.C. That Corps includes foreigners. They go into our own Corps. The name "auxiliary" is going to be dropped to make it more important. Those foreigners who have joined that Corps are of course eligible for the same kind of work as other pioneers are employed upon, but for a reason which has already been explained I do not think we can take them out of the Corps in which they are at present engaged, although it might be possible to do something with the organisation of well-disposed German Jews. I will certainly see that that matter is considered.
With regard to the interesting experience of the noble Lord, Lord Gainford, in years gone by, when the question came up and he was responsible, I am very grateful for the lessons which he has impressed upon us from his experience, and I think that after the speech of the noble Lord who has just sat down he will see that the fruits of the trees that he planted are helping us at the present time. I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Nathan, for his kindly references to myself, of which I shall endeavour to be worthy. He answered very effectively the

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letter from a noble Lord which was read at the beginning of the debate by my noble friend Lord Strabolgi. It seemed to be a very effective answer indeed on all the points, to which I need not further refer.
I know that my noble friend has raised this question because of the supreme importance that he attaches to the whole question of welfare in the Army at the present time. It k perfectly true that in peace-time Regular officers were trained to take a very active interest in the welfare of their men, their comfort in barracks, their organised sports, their entertainment and their mental stimulation. The idea was, of course, that the commander, whether of a platoon, company, battery or battalion, should in reality endeavour to be a kind of father of his family, as it was expressed, I remember, in the French Army during the last war. That kind of paternal interest, however, takes tine and experience; and when suddenly we found that our small peace-time Army had to absorb thousands of officers without this experience, and men who themselves had to meet an entirely new set of conditions, without in many cases previous knowledge of how to shift for themselves, we had this difficult problem. The Army was increased ten-fold; there arose, therefore, at the very beginning—my noble friend was concerned with it at the beginning—a demand for something new, which was summed up as "welfare for troops." Through the Territorial Associations of this country, welfare officers were appointed who could offer advice and give help in the matter of entertainments and try to provide things which were essential in the primitive conditions in which the Army at that tine found itself—such things as straw for the men to lie upon when they had no quarters, hurricane lamps for huts, where they were often missing, books, gramophones, tools for gardens, woollen goods for sentries, who were out in very bleak weather, and in fact all those things which go to make for the comfort of the troops and make them feel, if possible, at home.
Fifteen hundred welfare officers were appointed through the various counties for this purpose. For the most part they were ex-officers—some were ex-warrant officers—and they understood the ways and needs of soldiers. Invaluable help
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was also given by many mayors of boroughs, some of whom, especially in Lancashire, themselves became the welfare officers of their districts. The whole of these services were given voluntarily—my noble friend has mentioned this, and I want to repeat it—and in most cases at very great sacrifice of time and energy. I should like to pay my tribute now, if I may, to this gallant band of welfare officers who, without any thought of reward, have rendered such signal service to the Army.
The more I have been brought in contact with the existing formations throughout the country, the more I find that there are numerous municipal bodies and other authorities which have worked with the welfare officers in order to provide larger affairs such as clubs, comfort centres, concert parties and everything that can widen the life of the soldier. I am sorry that the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, had to leave to catch a train, because I should like to mention—although it is invidious to do so when all have done so well—that in Plymouth, of which the noble Viscount is still, I believe, Lord Mayor, they started at the beginning of the war an organisation to cover all the various social activities, and persuaded a very large number of the citizens of Plymouth to give their pennies every week. The money is then allotted in due proportion to the various needs, and I can say that in that case the Fighting Forces have not suffered; probably there has been a better flow into the coffers of all these war services in consequence.
In peace-time the State always pays, clothes, feeds and houses its soldiers. It was never considered that luxuries or extras of any kind should be distributed at the expense of the taxpayers, and I think that as a general principle that is right. When our welfare officers took over, therefore, they were completely without funds, but, by various devices, they raised sums of money in the counties and the boroughs, the whole of which went for welfare work for the troops. The noble Lord, Lord Nathan, has been a very good beggar in that respect. I am told that he has almost miraculously managed to raise funds when others of a less optimistic nature might well have despaired. The present Director-General himself also raised

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quite considerable sums through the generosity of private benefactors.
But, with the experience of last winter to guide us, we realised that something much wider must be attempted, and that is why this Committee was set up under the Presidency of Major-General (now Lieutenant-General) Sir Robert Haining, in order to produce an ordered scheme. The Report was adopted soon after the Dunkirk evacuation was completed, when our troops came back from the Continent and when, as has been explained, in addition to our great new inflow of recruits, we had 500,000 men of the Expeditionary Force for whom to provide. A Director-General of Welfare was appointed, with a very small staff, to plan and direct what to-day has become a service of very first-class importance. To build on firm foundations, however, we found that we must no longer rely upon voluntary subscriptions, but must seek financial aid from the Treasury in order to meet our very substantial capital charges and certain overheads. We applied for this help and it was given to us, and that aid we gratefully acknowledge. This branch of the War Office's activities includes mental stimulation (education and books), recreation (sports and games), and entertainment (cinemas, concerts, wireless and plays), as well as comforts, including woollen goods and small luxuries of that description.
LORD GAINFORD: My Lords, I should like to ask the noble Lord one question. In the last war we obtained a grant from the Treasury which enabled us to cover the cost of transport of people who were qualified to entertain. May I ask whether that has already been secured from the Treasury this time?
LORD CROFT: That does not arise in the case of the professional artistes, who are dealt with by E.N.S.A., but I am glad to say that something has been done in that direction quite recently, to try to help to get the artistes to the troops. We set ourselves first to provide, wherever possible, educational facilities by means of lectures of great variety, talks, correspondence classes and evening classes in municipal schools. We have had the very greatest assistance from the municipal authorities. They have never turned us down, but always welcomed our men
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to their evening continuation classes. This side of our work is, as stated in the letter read by my noble friend, under the newly-appointed Director of Education, Mr. Bendall, who is an experienced officer lent by the Board of Education. He has had five counties of educational administration under his control, and he has also had a wide experience in the Army, commanding three different units in the last war before going to his educational work, so that he knows both sides of the story. We also had the help of Mr. Wood, a very capable official lent by the Board of Education, in getting the administrative side of this work started.
Under Mr. Bendall's direction the Army Educational Corps has been considerably expanded, but principally for the purpose of organising the various routings and lay-out for these more skilled university lecturers who have come to us in such very large numbers. Although welfare officers also have been helpful in getting a large number of lecturers to assist, these university lecturers very largely come to us through the Council of Adult Education of which Sir Walter Moberly is Chairman, and they have already undertaken a very big programme. I think we can say it is in full swing, and we have had some Treasury aid to assist us. During last month 880 lectures were given—quite a good figure I think—and 534 classes were formed over a very wide range of subjects. Correspondence courses are also now going ahead in many parts of the country.
To give the details of all welfare activities would take two or three hours, but I must just give the headlines of some branches of the work. I apologise for the length of my remarks, but I know that the country is anxious to know something of the work which we are undertaking. I must put first of all the work of the Council of Voluntary War Work, for here you have all the great organisations like the Y.M.C.A., the Y.W.C.A. and the Church Army. Practically all the Churches of the country are interested, and they have done a wonderful work without which we should have had great difficulty. The number of huts and institutes of these organisations used as canteens (the static ones), apart altogether from the work of the N.A.A.F.I., is 2,086, and in addition to that 430 mobile

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canteens are provided by these organisations. That is without the Women's Voluntary Service who are also starting canteens. I have not included their figures because they have not come to me, as it is only in the last three weeks that they have become an associate member of the Council of Voluntary War Work. The Services Book Fund have distributed books to the number of over three and a half millions, and in addition 600,000 books like the "Penguins" There are, I am glad to say, good supplies now available, going out at this very moment, and book depots have been set up in each Command. Mobile libraries on canteen vans have been started in several areas, and more will be provided.
Now I come to mobile cinemas, to which I attach enormous importance. We have about fifty in action now. We hope to have another ninety by the end of the year, and, in addition, we have 150 on order. These cinemas will be used in the daytime for training, and at night for entertainment. The majority of our young men in the Army of all intellectual degrees have firmly got the cinema habit, and a very large number of them, owing to their war stations and the system of our defence, or to the fact that they are in detached posts far from a cinema, have very rare possibilities of seeing a film. We decided therefore some months ago greatly to increase cinema instruction in the training of the Army. The obvious sequence was that mobile cinemas, after being used for instruction, should put on educational, news or entertainment films in the long and dreary evenings of the black-out. For this reason we are seeking to hire entertainment films which these soldiers otherwise never can see. We are hoping to get a good supply of such films, which we do not believe will be withheld from our soldiers, provided satisfactory terms can be cone to with renters of films. Beyond that I do not wish to say anything, except to correct two very false impressions which found their way recently into the Press.
The first was that the present mobile film supply was quite adequate, and that there was no need for any further extension of this form of entertainment. To that suggestion I must reply with emphasis that the soldiers themselves are the best judges of adequacy of supply and the Army Council alone has the informa-
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tion on which to form an opinion. That information comes to my branch of the Department in full flood from every part of the country to the effect that the supply of cinema shows is immensely below requirements and that for hundreds of thousands of men the possibilities of reaching a cinema theatre are either remote or out of the question. The cinema provision for the troops is perhaps almost the greatest need of all at the present time in the welfare work of the Army. We hope to meet that need. The second point concerns the statement to which publicity has been given in certain quarters that the Army Council through my branch of the Department was demanding "free films" from the trade. That statement is wholly without foundation. I happen to know something about business and, knowing the difficulties of trade today, I think it would be wholly unreasonable—indeed most unfair—to ask any trade to provide us with its commodity at other than a profit to itself. Never did it cross our minds even for one moment to make any such suggestion. The Army has always been a good friend of the cinematograph. We have wanted our men to get to the cinema—it helps to maintain good cheer and interest. For similar reasons the Army has used its influence wherever possible, having due regard to safety, that entertainment of this character should be maintained or extended. That friendly co-operation we wish to preserve.
Now I come to live entertainment. A large number of concerts have been provided for the troops by the organisation which has already been mentioned, E.N.S.A., the organisation which distributes professional entertainment under the control of N.A.A.F.I. I should like to express the gratitude of the troops to the numerous first-class artistes who, I understand, for moderate fees, have given their services so readily and frequently at considerable discomfort to themselves all over the country. I am sure we are all grateful for that spirit which has been displayed. I am unable at present to give your Lordships the number of concerts which have been held through this service, but in volume it is large.
With regard to voluntary entertainment, which has also been referred to, here we are doing everything we can possibly do to stimulate the voluntary

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idea, because you cannot have enough entertainment. It is nonsense to say that in an Army of this size you can have enough entertainment. Commands have been encouraged all along and especially encouraged now, within their own organisation, to co-ordinate the supply of voluntary entertainment. If I may just give one instance, though it is not an average instance—it is the best, I must admit—in the Northern Command, for some months, there have been 300 entertainment parties running which have provided 350 performances a week. I do not know whether that can be beaten in any other Command, but it seems to me a very fine effort in that particular line. A policy of encouraging unit and divisional concert parties to the utmost is being everywhere undertaken. I entirely agree with the noble Lord who has just spoken that if only we could get concert parties going as in the last war in every unit, rivalling those of other units and then exchange them with neighbouring units, it would be an enormous help this winter.
Wireless has been another great problem. Welfare officers have been most helpful in managing to "scrounge"—that is the right word in the Army—wireless sets from private individuals and generous subscribers. Quite a lot have been got, but not enough. All over the country we want more. We want them in Iceland, in the Shetlands, in the Orkneys, and so on. Here again it was difficult until we had the backing to give a large order and get the stuff manufactured. I am glad to be able to say that something like 4,700 sets are coming forward in a very few days, and thereafter a very much larger number will be on the stocks and will reach the troops—not soon enough for my liking, but in the course of time. Your Lordships will realise the difficulty of supply from the fact that the wireless market, when we came to examine it, had not even the second-hand sets which we wanted to buy.
Every unit in my opinion should have its own welfare and entertainment officer from its own establishment. If they have officers extra to establishment, well and good. But they must help from that end, and if they get contact with the welfare
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officers under the command of officers like my noble friend opposite who has just spoken, I am certain we shall get fine results. With regard to broadcasting, we are in close touch with the British Broadcasting Corporation, who have been most helpful and co-operative as to the type of programme to be broadcast on the Forces wave-length and the most suitable time for transmission.
With regard to horticulture—if I may dart from one end of the picture to the other—we look upon that as of very great importance. Special grants have been allocated recently for seed and tools in order that welfare officers may stimulate cultivation, because it is clearly our duty, where these posts have taken over an acre or an acre and a half, to see that every square yard of soil which can be cultivated is used to advantage. I recognise, of course, that the men at these detached posts are mostly on duty day and night incessantly and doing very fine work. With regard to welfare expenses, Territorial Associations have been authorised to provide accommodation and clerical staff for county welfare officers, and recently welfare grants—not large ones admittedly—have been made to compensate for the percentage of loss under the old N.A.A.F.I. scheme to which they were recently subjected. One word with regard to hostels which are so very important. There are hostels now in most of the larger towns where men can spend their short leave cheaply and comfortably. In London there are enough, thanks to the vision shown before the war in some cases, but especially since the war, to accommodate over 3,000 men and women, and excellent hostels exist at most of the large provincial centres.
We are trying to do everything we can to stimulate the idea of local hospitality for soldiers by private individuals in various parts of the country. Special canteens with rest-rooms have been provided at about 50 main stations, and further stations are under consideration. Free cloakroom and washing accommodation has been provided at all the principal stations throughout the country. There, again, the welfare officer for the Eastern Command has been taking a very active part, and if I may take the opportunity of saying so, he was, on one occasion, most unjustly criticised in another place.

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Legal advice is being handed out by welfare officers in many of the large towns through the Citizens' Advice Bureau. Air-raid inquiries is a later feature which has been forced or us. This also has emanated from Eastern and London Commands. There was the tragic fact that a soldier might be aware that the district where he lived had been bombed, and his wife and children might themselves have perished or, at any rate, might have been taken out of London. Steps are taken by the local welfare authorities as soon as possible—and it is a gigantic work—in order to see that any soldier having such anxieties can immediately have his fears set at rest and know where his wife and children are situated. I apologise for dismissing this very important subject in a single sentence.
With regard to the A.T.S., they are being treated exactly the same as the soldiers and the same welfare benefits are extended to them where they desire them. Exactly the same is done in the case of Allied troops. We have done everything in our power to make the Allied troops feel they are of us and of our Army, and that they should hive the same welfare facilities as our own men enjoy. We have now welfare officers looking after all the various contingents, except the French, who are dealt with by a special committee. Men on leave stranded at stations represent an immense problem, to get them home quickly so that they do not have to spend the night on some terrible platform. It is receiving attention. Visits to towns are a difficult problem, but we are doing what we can to make it possible for men from detached posts to get into the big centres from time to time.
Sport is still left under the Army Sports Control Board, but we have the closest liaison, and large sums of money have been collected, amounting to £63,000 from the Nuffield Trust and £14,000 from private individuals or football matches. The Sports Control Board have been able to issue a very large number of footballs, football boots, shirts, hockey sticks, balls, medicine balls, dart boards—of which 48,000 have been issued—wireless sets in addition to those I have mentioned, and musical instruments to the number of 10,000 in order that they may set up their own ukelele bands or provide other musical enjoyment; table tennis, billiard tables, and every variety
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of sport which it is in the means of the Army Sports Control Board to supply. Lastly, I come to comforts. The main source for woollen goods has been through the Director of Voluntary Organisations, and during the past month comforts at the rate of 25,000 a week have been issued. Standardised garments have been chosen in order to simplify the whole of the issue, and an immense amount of garments has been issued locally, for which we take no sort of credit, through various organisations including the Red Cross and St. John, who in many places undertake this work on the hospital side, looking after our soldiers in hospitals or convalescent homes.
I apologise for the length of this reply. I only want to say this in conclusion, that in many new units in this country the need for organising welfare work under an officer of drive and imagination was not fully realised, but the foundations of a very great work have now been laid. As always, it is the officer commanding the men, especially the commanding officers of the battalion or brigade, to whom in particular we must look, and our welfare officers, if their co-operation is sought, will aid. As it is, I am convinced that this kind of work is going on at far greater speed than in the past. I do not think it is an exaggeration to say, as was rather indicated in that letter, that probably there is no Army in the world that has ever had quite so much effort devoted to the promotion of its contentment out of military hours. Let us persist in that effort and we shall have not only a magnificent Fighting Force but we shall have happy warriors fresh and mentally alert for the very high task which awaits them, and, if I might use those great words of the Prime Minister which he applied to the whole nation, we shall have an Army which is both grim and gay.
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, I am very much obliged, and I am sure I am speaking for all your Lordships, to my noble friend, whom I thank for his very full and interesting reply and for the encouraging picture, especially of the recreation side, that he has given us. I was not quite satisfied with the attitude towards helping the civilian but I do not want to detain your Lordships this afternoon and I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, By leave, withdrawn.

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA (ADAPTA- TION OF ACTS OF PARLIAMENT) (AMENDMENT) (No. 2) ORDER, 1940.
LORD TEMPLEMORE: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend the Duke of Devonshire, I beg to move that the draft Order, as presented to Parliament and reported from the India and Burma Orders Committee, be approved.
Moved, That the draft Order, as presented to Parliament and reported from the India and Burma Orders Committee, be approved.—(Lord Templemore.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

SELECT COMMITTEE ON THE CONDUCT OF A MEMBER.
Message from the Commons for leave for the Viscount Simon, Lord Chancellor,
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to attend to be examined as a witness before the Select Committee appointed by that House on the conduct of a Member. Leave given for his Lordship to attend if he think fit; and a Message ordered to be sent to the Commons to acquaint them therewith.

SECRET SESSION.
LORD SNELL: My Lords, I beg to move that the further sitting of the House this day be secret.
Moved, That the further sitting of the House this day be secret.—(Lord Snell.)
On Question, Motion agreed to and ordered accordingly.
The Official Reporter then withdrew.
House in Secret Session.
House adjourned.