Sitting of 22 October 1942

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  NATIONAL WAR EFFORT

    Hospitals (Domestic Workers)
    Dr. Howittasked the Minister of Labour whether, in view of the great shortage of domestic workers in hospitals, he will direct that women shall be enrolled for domestic work in hospitals in the same manner as for the Services?
    The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. McCorquodale): I would refer my hon. Friend to the last part of the reply given to the hon. Member for Abingdon (Sir R. Glyn) on 6th October.
    Dr. Howitt: Is my hon. Friend aware that it is becoming more and more difficult for hospitals to function properly to-day with their present domestic staffs and that in the case of an emergency arising from enemy action the wounded would not be able to receive the attention which I know my hon. Friend would like them to have?
    Mr. McCorquodale: We are, of course, aware of those difficulties, which are fully set out in the reply to which I have referred.
    Mr. Messer: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the effect of the changed arrangements whereby deferments are referred to the district man-power board is to make the position worse?
    Mr. McCorquodale: I would not accept that.
    Dr. Edith Surnrnerskill: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that this shortage aggravates the nursing problem because nurses have to undertake domestic work, which they resent?
    Mr. George Griffiths: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the man-power boards turn a blind eye almost all the time to this question?

    Shipbuilding Strike, Tyneside
    Mr. Maxtonasked the Minister of Labour whether he has completed his inquiry into the causes of the shipbuilding strike on the Tyneside; and whether he can inform the House as to the findings?
    Mr. McCorquodale: My right hon. Friend is in communication with the organisations concerned on both sides and would prefer not to make any further statement at present.
    Mr. Maxton: Do I understand that this stoppage was against the wishes of the organisation concerned? Does the Minister intend to make a proper inquiry into the grievances of a large body of men who struck against the wishes of then-union? Will he consult somebody other than the leaders of the organisation?
    Mr. McCorquodale: I have nothing to add to my reply.
    Mr. Maxton: But does the hon. Gentleman realise that that is rather a scurvy way of dealing with some tens of thousands of men whose method of working compares favourably with that of any body of workers in this country? Does it mean that, with another Parliamentary Recess coming, we are to have no answer at all, and does he realise that this matter has aroused considerable interest on Tyneside?
    Mr. David Adams: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that deep-seated grievances in the matter of wages were not attended to for months?

    Domestic Workers
    Miss Rathboneasked the Minister of Labour whether he has given attention to the problem of households employing unnecessarily large staffs of domestic workers who have hitherto escaped attention because the workers are above or below the present registration ages; and, in view of the importance of avoiding wastage of the available supply of domestic help, whether he will consider rationing the number of domestic workers allowed to households in proportion to the size of the household, with due weightage for invalids and young children?
    Mr. McCorquodale: My right hon. Friend is considering my hon. Friend's proposal, but she will appreciate the difficulties involved in any such scheme, and before embarking upon it he would need to be satisfied that it would be likely to produce commensurate results.
    Miss Rathbone: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that many women who have been doing valuable paid or unpaid war work have been compelled to abandon it because they have had to do the whole of their own domestic household work? Is it fair that selfish women should be allowed, as at present, to hire so many manual workers on the excuse that they are below or above the registration age?
    Mr. McCorquodale: I have every sympathy with this question. We are discussing it with the Women's Consultative Committee at the moment.

    Directed Workers (Wages and Expenses)
    Sir Irving Alberyasked the Minister of Labour whether, where he has directed men to leave their ordinary place of employment and work elsewhere and this has resulted in lowering their earnings and their incurring train travelling expenses, he contemplates any action to remedy this grievance?
    Mr. McCorquodale: My right hon. Friend recognises that there are cases of this sort, as well as many others in which loss of earnings arises from war conditions without any direction from the Department. The rate of wages, including any allowance for travelling expenses, must in general be governed by the industrial agreements applicable to the new employment. He regrets that he cannot see any practicable method of making new arrangements for State subvention in these cases.
    Sir I. Albery: Does my hon. Friend realise that these men do not complain so much of the hardship caused by the war as of injustice and inequality? Will he draw the attention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the fact that the effect of this is to impose double taxation when it comes to paying Income Tax?
    Mr. McCorquodale: I am afraid we cannot depart from the principle of the rate for the job.
    Mr. Stephen: Does the hon. Gentleman consider it just to impose additional taxation on these people as compared with other citizens?
    Mr. McCorquodale: That is another question.

    Superannuation Regulations
    Sir I. Alberyasked the Minister of Labour whether he can now make a statement concerning superannuation regulations which hinder men from accepting paid work of national importance?
    Mr. McCorquodale: My right hon. Friend has written to my hon. Friend about this.
    Sir I Albery: On a point of Order. In putting this Question on the Order Paper, I did so because I believed it to be a matter of some public importance and because I desired to receive a reply which would also be available to the public. It seems rather to defeat that object for my hon. Friend to say that the Department has written to me.

    Conscientious Objectors
    Mr. Cecil Wilsonasked the Minister of Labour whether the Proclamation of 23rd July is still in force whereby only single women between the ages of 20 and 31 are liable for military and industrial conscription and that only such women between these ages have the right to register provisionally as conscientious objectors; and why Mary Cockcroft, of Sowerby Bridge, who is not yet 20 years of age, has been twice prosecuted for failing to comply with the direction of the Ministry and is now serving two months imprisonment, although she had no opportunity of appearing before a conscientious objectors' tribunal?
    Mr. McCorquodale: The Proclamation of 23rd July, 1942, which is still in force relates only to conscription for the Forces. Directions to perform industrial work are given under Defence Regulation 58A and are not subject to any age limit, nor is there any provision for the registration of conscientious objection to such directions although in practice persons known to have conscientious objections are not directed to work closely connected with the military side of the war effort. I am having inquiries made into the individual case mentioned by my hon. Friend.
    Mr. Wilson: How long are the inquiries likely to take?
    Mr. McCorquodale: I hope to have the result very soon, especially as this case happens to be in my own constituency.

    Hardship Tribunals (Chairmen)
    Wing-Commander Jamesasked the Minister of Labour whether he is satisfied, in the light of his experience, that the chairmen of hardship tribunals are in all cases administering the Act satisfactorily; and whether, in cases in which there is sustained complaint, he can, and will, cause independent investigation with a view to changing the chairmen where warranted?
    Mr. McCorquodale: My right hon. Friend is not aware of any material ground for dissatisfaction. The decisions of the statutory tribunals over which these chairmen preside are under certain conditions subject to appeal to the Umpire and could not properly be made the ground of any intervention by my right hon. Friend. Should there be apparently well-founded complaints in respect of other matters, my right hon. Friend has ample powers to take any action that may be necessary.
    Wing-Commander James: If specific cases are brought to the Minister's notice, are we to understand that he has power to investigate and remedy them?
    Mr. McCorquodale: Certainly, so long as they do not affect the actual decision and rulings of the Umpire thereon.

    Marine Engineering Apprentices
    Mr. Kirkwoodasked the Minister of Labour whether he grants deferment of calling-up to apprentices or journeymen marine engineers sitting for their fifth-year certificates; and what procedure is to be followed to obtain deferment in such a case?
    Mr. McCorquodale: The normal deferment arrangements apply to apprentices or journeymen marine engineers, but there are no special arrangements for deferring the calling up of such men solely on the grounds that they are preparing for a certificate examination. The usual rule is that deferment is granted until the man finishes his apprenticeship or reaches his twentieth birthday, whichever is the earlier. If, however, my hon. Friend has any particular case in mind and will communicate with me, I will look into it.
    Mr. Kirkwood: I will communicate with the hon. Gentleman, but I would like to ask him whether the attention of his Department has been drawn to the fact that at the moment we are short of marine engineers who are capable of going to sea. Is he aware that a number of men are just qualifying, finishing their time, and that if they get through, they will be capable of going to sea as second engineers?
    Mr. McCorquodale: If the hon. Gentleman will communicate with me, I will certainly look into the matter.
    Mr. Kirkwood: Thank you very much.

  ACCIDENT, IPSWICH
  Mr. Thorneasked the Minister of Labour whether he can give any information in connection with two men who were killed at Ipswich on Tuesday, 13th October, at a manure works, and what was the cause of the 10 tons of manure falling on the men?
  Mr. McCorquodale: This unusual accident was due to the accumulation of material behind the boarding at the base of a shed with sloping walls in which this material was stored, and to the collapse of the boarding when the material below it was removed. Steps are being taken to prevent a recurrence.

  EDUCATION (GOVERNMENT POLICY)
  Mr. Sorensenasked the President of the Board of Education whether he has made progress respecting his prospective education proposals; and when he will be in a position to introduce these to the House?
  The President of the Board of Education (Mr. Butler): Progress is certainly being made. I am not yet in a position to add anything to previous answers relating to the last part of the Question, which does not lie wholly within my discretion.
  Mr. Sorensen: In view of the very long delay in considering this matter, could the right hon. Gentleman say when we are likely to receive an interim or full report?
  Mr. Butler: Considering the magnitude of the issues involved, I would not accept the statement that delay has been unduly long. I am as keen as the hon. Member to make progress and to report to the House.
  Mr. Sorensen: While fully appreciating the fact that the right hon. Gentleman should be as keen as I am, is he not aware that numerous educational bodies have been anxiously awaiting this report for some time?

  PUBLIC HEALTH

    Venereal Disease
    Mr. Barstowasked the Minister of Health whether he proposes to take steps to compel compulsory notification of venereal disease, having regard to the increase of these diseases throughout the country?
    The Minister of Health (Mr. Ernest Brown): I am considering what action can most appropriately be taken to check the spread of venereal disease, but, at the present time, I doubt whether the particular suggestion made by my hon. Friend is best calculated to secure this object.
    Lieut.-Colonel Heneageasked the Minister of Health whether his attention has been called to the difficulty of dealing with carriers of venereal disease, and whether he will consider strengthening the existing powers?
    Mr. Brown: Yes, Sir. I am aware of the difficulties, and I have under urgent consideration the most effective methods of dealing with them.
    Lieut.-Colonel Heneage: Will my right hop. Friend say how long these inquiries will take, in view of the situation at the ports, and will he treat this problem as a plague and cease to surround it with mystery and laissez faire?
    Mr. Brown: I am not talking about inquiries. I am talking about urgent consideration, which means, of course, that I am thinking about action.

    Maternity Cases, London (Acommodation)
    Dr. Summerskillasked the Minister of Health whether, in view of the inadequate accommodation for maternity
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    cases in London, he proposes to take any action in the matter?
    Mr. E. Brown: The accommodation for London mothers includes in addition to the beds available in London those available at some 100 Emergency Maternity Homes which were established in the reception areas. The adequacy of the provision in London has recently been under discussion between officers of my Department and of the London County Council. Additional beds are being provided, but the number which can be brought into use depends primarily on the number of trained staff who can be made available. I have framed proposals with a view to ensuring that more of the women qualifying as midwives will undertake to practise as midwives, and after discussion with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour and National Service I am in consultation with representatives of employers and employed on this question.
    Dr. Summerskill: Is the Minister aware that unless some action is taken in this matter the scarcity will be reflected in maternal mortality figures next year?
    Mr. Brown: I am quite aware of the importance of the matter.
    Mr. Messer: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Midwives Board has issued a report in which it is stated that there is no shortage of midwives, but that the midwives are not doing the work?
    Mr. Brown: As I indicated in my answer, that is the real problem. A number of trained and qualified women are not doing the work.

    Hospital Staffs
    Mr. Messerasked the Minister of Health whether he is aware of the serious position facing the hospital services in consequence of depletion of staff; and whether, in view of the danger of a breakdown of the services, he proposes to take any steps to deal with it?
    Mr. E. Brown: I am aware that there is a shortage of staff at a number of hospitals, though my information does not suggest that there is any danger of a breakdown of the service. Both nursing and domestic work in hospitals is regarded as vital work for women of all ages, and I would refer, on this Question, to the replies given by my right hon. Friend the

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    Minister of Labour and National Service to my hon. Friend the Member for Abingdon (Sir R. Glyn) on 6th October, and to my hon. Friend the Member for Dud-deston (Mr. Simmonds) on 8th January. So far as trained nurses are concerned the total number of trained nurses available is insufficient to meet adequately the whole of the war-time demands upon them, but I believe that improvements can be secured by better distribution of those available, and after discussion with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour and National Service I have framed proposals with this object, in regard to which I am in consultation with representatives of employers and employed.
    Mr. Messer: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that it is not merely a question of nurses, but that the administrative staff has been cut to the bone, and that in one place which I could name there have been no fewer than six assistant masters within 12 months, and that now they cannot get anybody to replace one who has been called up?
    Sir Joseph Lamb: Is my right hon. Friend aware that a large number of trained nurses are now being employed in Red Cross work in factories?

    Dust Destructor, Hornsey
    Mr. Messerasked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that the Hornsey Borough Council have decided to close down their dust destructor and place the disposal of refuse in the hands of a private contractor; and whether, in view of the fact that this will effect no economy but will impose an undue strain on transport, he will cause an inquiry to be made?
    Mr. E. Brown: According to my information the Council's action is not yet decisive but experimental. I understand that it is anticipated that it will produce considerable economy in man-power on the working of the plant and the disposal of the product of incineration, and a negligible effect on transport.
    Sir Percy Hurd: Does not my right hon. Friend think that the Hornsey Borough Council are best able to manage their own affairs?
    Mr. Brown: That is so, but that is all the more reason why all concerned at the Ministry should watch the experiment.
    Mr. Messer: Does not the Minister agree that the ratepayers have the right to this information?
    Mr. R. C. Morrison: Will the Minister make the suggestion to the Hornsey Borough Council that they might consult with one of their neighbouring authorities who might be able to handle this work for them at less expense than is now involved?
    Mr. Brown: I do not think it is necessary for me to do that. I think there are very friendly relations between the two boroughs.

    German Refugee Dentists
    Mr. Graham Whiteasked the Minister of Health whether, in view of the increasing deficiency of adequate dental treatment, particularly among schoolchildren, and the presence in this country of some 60 German refugee dentists, whose loyalty is not in doubt and whose professional qualifications are not less than those of other German dentists already admitted to the permanent dental register and of other foreign dentists whose additional medical degrees have made possible their inclusion on the temporary medical register, he will see that a temporary dental register is set up?
    Mr. E. Brown: As stated in the Reply to my hon. Friend the Member for the English Universities (Mr. Edmund Harvey) on 14th July, I am anxious that all possible use should be made of suitably qualified alien dentists who are in this country. A temporary dental register is, however, not necessary for that purpose. The statutory provisions which made a temporary register necessary for alien doctors do not apply to dentists. If any of the dentists to whom my hon. Friend refers possess foreign qualifications which have been approved for admission to the Foreign List of the Dentists Register, they are eligible for inclusion in that Register. My hon. Friend will appreciate that there are obvious objections to departing from the standard afforded by these registrable qualifications.
    Mr. White: Is the Minister aware that since 14th July the situation has not improved, and that the Army Council have had to authorise the training of clerical dental orderlies and that the situation is very serious, and if there are such

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    obstacles as those to which he refers, will he not take some action to have them removed?
    Mr. Brown: The issue is whether or not their qualifications are up to standard.
    Sir Percy Harris: Is it not hard on British soldiers to be experimented on by untrained men or men who have been trained in a few weeks, and has not the right hon. Gentleman's Department some responsibility to help the Army in the matter?
    Mr. Brown: That is not the point of the Question on the Paper.
    Mr. John Dugdale: Is full use being made of doctors who are also dentists?
    Dr. Russell Thomas: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there are many dentists on the British Register who have no qualifications at all?

    General Nursing Council (Examinations)
    Mr. Rhys Daviesasked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that the General Nursing Council has arrogated to itself the power at discretion to refuse to admit to any of the council's examinations even candidates who have completed their studies, without being under any obligation to state their reason; and whether, in view of the adverse effects of this decision on the recruitment of nurses, he will intervene in this matter?
    Mr. E. Brown: I am making inquiries as to the resolution to which my hon. Friend refers and will communicate with him further as soon as possible.
    Mr. Davies: If the right hon. Gentleman finds that the statement in the Question is correct, will he see to it that the decision is reversed, because it is very hard to have this threat overhanging them all the time?
    Mr. Brown: I will look at the resolution first.

    Accredited Milk
    Mr. David Adamsasked the Minister of Health whether, in view of the fact that accredited milk is known to contain in many cases a variety of pathogenic organisms, and that the term "accredited" implies some special virtue, it is intended to re-designate this grade under a less misleading title?
    Mr. E. Brown: The principal conditions relating to accredited milk are that it should satisfy a bacteriological test for keeping quality and cleanliness and that the animals of the herd shall be subjected to a periodical clinical veterinary examination. These conditions have been unaltered for several years and should be well known, and I do not propose any alteration, at the present time, in the designation.
    Mr. Adams: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that every medical officer of health will refute his statement as to the cleanliness of this milk? Is it not time that we had only two grades of milk, clean and dirty?

    Meat and Milk (Inspection)
    Major Milnerasked the Minister of Health whether from the public health point of view, he is satisfied with the present arrangements for the inspection of meat and milk?
    Mr. E. Brown: Steps are being taken by the Government, as set out in the recent Memorandum on milk policy, to improve: the keeping quality of milk and to increase the amount of milk pasteurised. Meat inspection has incurred certain difficulties from the circumstances of war-time control and concentration of slaughtering in fewer places, but I have no reason to doubt the general adequacy of inspection. I am glad to take this opportunity of expressing again my appreciation of the work that local authorities and their officers continue to do in food inspection generally, despite the other claims upon them.
    Major Milner: Has the right hon. Gentleman had his attention drawn to the serious statements to the contrary made at a recent conference of the National Veterinary Medical Association, and what steps is he taking to refute those statements?
    Mr. Brown: I have had my attention Drawn to them, and they are grossly exaggerated.

    Medical Schools (Women Students)
    Dr. Summerskillasked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that many women students are finding it impossible to obtain a medical education in London; and whether he proposes to take any action in the matter?
    Mr. E. Brown: Admission of students to university medical schools is now governed by a quota system based on the pre-war admissions and many more students apply than can be accommodated. As I promised my hon. Friend the Member for North Battersea (Mr. Douglas) on 4th June last, this question is under consideration by the Committee appointed by myself and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland to inquire into the organisation of medical schools.
    Dr. Summerskill: In view of the fact that the medical schools in London are constituent bodies of the university, is the right hon. Gentleman considering making strong representations to the university on the subject?
    Mr. Brown: At the moment I have, as I say, with the Secretary of State for Scotland called a committee to consider this matter.
    Mr. Kenneth Lindsay: Is not the Committee appointed to consider not present but post-war policy?
    Mr. Brown: It is to inquire into the organisation of medical schools, not necessarily after the war.
    Mr. Maxton: Is it proposed to obtain a report which will be of immediate use?

  HOUSING

    Shortage
    Mr. Lipsonasked the Minister of Health what is the present estimate of the housing shortage?
    Mr. E. Brown: I regret that I cannot indicate with precision the extent of the shortage at the present time. My hon. Friend will, however, appreciate that in any case it is not possible under existing conditions to provide new accommodation but I can assure him that a start will be made with what will clearly be a very big programme immediately the labour and materials can be made available for the purpose.
    Mr. Lipson: Is it not the duty of my right hon. Friend to find out exactly under what conditions the people of this country are living now?
    Mr. Brown: I have vast masses of information about that, but my hon. Friend
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    asked a specific Question, and to that I could not give an answer.
    Mr. Lipson: In view of the fact that all the local authorities have this information, would it not be a simple matter for my right hon. Friend to obtain it?
    Mr. Brown: It is not quite as simple as that. There are many considerations involved besides statistical facts about houses.
    Earl Winterton: Is not my right hon. Friend aware that this matter may have very considerable bearing on the appalling increase in tuberculosis, in view of the overcrowding which goes on, and will he not at the earliest possible, date provide the figures for which he has been asked?
    Mr. Brown: I am not sure that I can do so with precision, but I will give the House the fullest possible information at the earliest possible date.
    Mr. G. Griffiths: Is the Minister giving any consideration to the question of the new entrants into the coalmining industry, as the mining villages are packed now, and if new entrants go there, what is to be done? It is time the Minister woke up.
    Mr. Brown: There is no need to tell me that. We are very busy on this problem, but, as hon. Members know, building labour is employed on very great strategic matters. It is not only mining that is concerned. The agricultural industry has its needs, too.
    Mr. Lipsonasked the Minister of Health whether he has given further consideration to the unsatisfactory housing conditions in certain areas where the population has increased since the war and no new houses have been built; and what action he proposes to take in the matter?
    Mr. Brown: Yes, Sir, I am constantly reviewing problems of accommodation in consultation with the local authorities concerned, so as to ensure the best use of existing accommodation and such measure of amelioration as is possible under present conditions.
    Mr. Lipson: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that the wives and families of many of the men serving in the Forces are living in most deplorable conditions and that this must be having a very serious effect on morale?
    Mr. Brown: There is not only that problem, but also the problem of Service men coming back from the Forces and young people who get married.
    Sir I. Albery: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind the number of blocks of flats and houses which have been almost completed?

    War Workers (Billeting)
    Mr. W. Brownasked the Minister of Health whether he is satisfied that the billeting of war workers on householders is being fairly applied as between working-class householders and other householders; and, if not, whether he will cause instructions to be issued to billeting authorities to see that the burden of billeting is fairly distributed?
    Mr. E. Brown: I am confident that, in general, the difficult task of finding lodgings for war workers has been carried out reasonably. The main consideration must be the comfort of the worker and I am glad to say that up to the present it has been possible in the vast majority of cases for arrangements to be made voluntarily. If the hon. Member has any particular instances in mind and will send me details, I will look into them at once.
    Sir John Mellor: Would not billeting be less of a burden if the payments were adequate?
    Mr. Granvilleasked the Minister of Health whether, in view of the serious overcrowding in the town engaged upon vital war production, of which he has been informed, resulting in families living and sleeping together in one room, night-shift workers unable to get rest and increased applications from key workers for release to other areas, he is satisfied that the chief billeting officer and the local authority concerned have adequate powers to deal with landlords who refuse war workers with families; and whether any right of vetoing tenants resides in the hands of the Mayor?
    Mr. Brown: I am confident that the billeting and requisitioning powers which I have delegated to the local authority concerned, together with the powers vested in them under an Order made under Defence Regulation 68 (c), are adequate for securing for workers transferred into the area such accommodation as becomes available, and I know that lodgings for
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    large numbers of workers and accommodation for some 400 families have been arranged by the authority. Owing to the housing shortage due to the stoppage of house-building it is not possible in this or other towns to provide family accommodation for all who desire it, but I propose to confer with the local authority concerned and with neighbouring local authorities in order to see what further action can be taken to overcome the difficulties which exist. I shall also be glad to discuss the problem with my hon. Friend and my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Wycombe (Sir A. Knox), who has also raised it with me. With regard to the last part of the Question, the Mayor has no powers of the kind mentioned by virtue of his office, but I understand that he was until recently a member of the Committee which deals with applications by householders for the Committee's consent to provide lodging.
    Mr. Granville: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that foundry and blast-furnace workers who, since the beginning of the war, have been engaged on heavy work for long hours and on night shifts, have been unable to get any rest during the day, and is he aware that his promise to take action will give satisfaction?

    Junior Civil Servants (Lodgings, London)
    Mr. Graham Whiteasked the Minister of Health whether his attention has been drawn to the difficulties experienced by junior civil servants, on returning to London from the provinces, in obtaining lodgings at a price which it is within their capacity to pay; and whether he will cause an inquiry to be made with a view to the removal of this difficulty?
    Mr. E. Brown: I am aware that some difficulties have been experienced, but my officers, in conjunction with the local authorities and various voluntary agencies, are making every effort to find suitable accommodation at reasonable prices in hostels and lodgings for these officers. I understand that the officers who have already returned to London are now satisfactorily accommodated, and I anticipate that it will be possible to make suitable arrangements for those yet to come. I am glad to take this opportunity of expressing my appreciation of the valuable assistance which is being afforded in this matter by the Women's Voluntary Services and the authorities of various hostels.
    Mr. White: May I appeal to my right hon. Friend to make a further inquiry without delay, because, having regard to the fact that many of these juniors are only paid 35s. to 40s. a week it is impossible to get respectable lodgings?
    Mr. Brown: My information is that some 700 lodgings have been found at 15s. a week for furnished rooms.
    Sir Percy Harris: Is it not a fact that there is a real famine in London for unfurnished rooms, and will my right hon. Friend concentrate his mind on making inquiries throughout London as to what is really happening?
    Mr. Brown: It is happening in other places than London.
    Mr. W. Brown: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that the Government must in this situation do one of three things: either increase the very low wages of the girls; or increase the subsistence allowance they are given; or, thirdly——
    Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member is now giving the answer to the Question he has put.

  LOCAL AUTHORITIES (SALARIED OFFICERS)
  Sir Waldron Smithersasked the Minister of Health whether he will call for a return from all local authorities giving a list of the names of all their salaried officials, how many hold more than one appointment, details of each appointment so held, the salary and allowances received from each appointment, and the total received by each individual; and will he place a copy in the Library?
  Mr. E. Brown: I should not be justified in asking local authorities to devote the time and labour required for the preparation of the suggested return.
  Sir W. Smithers: In view of the fact that these figures are easily and readily available, does not the right hon. Gentleman think they would afford startling revelations not only to him but to the Chancellor of the Exchequer?
  Mr. Brown: I think the hon. Gentleman is optimistic. One authority alone would have to consider more than 25,000 cases.

  ARMED FORCES AND CIVILIANS (PENSIONS AND GRANTS)
  Mr. Mainwaringasked the Minister of Pensions how many men have been discharged from the Armed Forces, during the present war, on account of tuberculosis; how many of these were held to have contracted the disease prior to joining the Forces; and how many have been granted some amount of pension?
  The Minister of Pensions (Sir Walter Womersley): It would not be in the public interest to give the figures asked for. But I am able to say that of the total number of men invalided out of the Armed Forces from the outbreak of war until the end of September last, 5.8 per cent. were discharged on account of tuberculosis, and of the claims made in respect of this disability rather more than 70 per cent. have been allowed.
  Mr. Mainwaring: Is it not clear that the condition of any man suffering from this disease must of necessity be aggravated by entering the Forces and being deprived of the ordinary care and attention that he previously had?
  Sir W. Womersley: No, it does not follow at all, if you take into account every circumstance of the man's service and everything that he gains in the way of medical advice, as the fact that over 70 per cent. have been accepted shows?
  Mr. Mainwaring: Nearly 30 per cent. are rejected.
  Mr. Montague: If a man has tuberculosis, ought not the Government to take the responsibility, whether the doctors find it out or not?
  Sir W. Womersley: That is not a question for me at all.
  Mr. Messerasked the Minister of Pensions whether he proposes to take steps to deal with the position of the widows of Service men killed in this war who are compelled to seek assistance from public assistance committees owing to their pension being lower than public assistance committee scales?
  Sir W. Womersley: A widow's pension is in the nature of a life annuity and cannot be compared with payments made by public assistance committees which are of a temporary nature, liable to fluctuate according to means and other circum-

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  stances and based on differing scales throughout the country.
  Mr. Messer: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think it a disgrace that a widow with three children should be compelled to seek public assistance because pension and allowances are not big enough to keep her?
  Sir W. Womersley: I do not think it ought to be necessary. The pension and allowances should be sufficient.
  Mr. Messer: If I submit a case to the right hon. Gentleman, will be consider it with a view to increasing the pension?
  Sir W. Womersley: I will consider any case that the hon. Member, or any other hon. Member, sends me.
  Mr. Lipsonasked the Minister of Pensions why a pension has been refused to the widow of Private Arthur Bryn Howell who died in hospital at the age of 42 on 20th September, seeing that Private Howell, who served for two years in the last war, was passed A1 when he volunteered in November, 1939; has he considered the effect of this refusal not only on the widow but on her two sons serving with the Forces; and will he grant a pension forthwith to Mrs. Howell?
  Sir W. Womersley: Private Howell's death was due to cardio-vascular degeneration associated with stone in the right kidney. I am medically advised that neither the stone in the kidney nor the cardio-vascular degeneration was caused or aggravated by any condition of military service and I regret that I am therefore unable to award a pension to the widow.
  Mr. Lipson: In view of the Service record of the family, if the Royal Warrant will not allow my right hon. Friend at present to grant a pension, is it not time it was so amended as to bring in cases of this sort?
  Mr. Manderasked the Minister of Pensions whether he will consider the advisability of arranging with regard to all increases in pay given to the Armed Forces, that half or some other reasonable proportion shall be disregarded by the War Service Grants Committee in considering the position of dependants?
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Pensions (Mr. Paling): It has
  2090
  already been made clear that the recent increases in the pay of non-commissioned ranks are entirely disregarded for the purpose of war service grants, and, as my right hon. Friend the Lord Privy Seal announced on 15th October, the method of dealing with the increased family allowances is under consideration.
  Mr. Mander: How soon will a decision be arrived at?
  Mr. Paling: I cannot say that.
  Sir Herbert Williamsasked the Minister of Pensions on what basis compensation will be paid to the relatives of those who were killed and to those who were injured in the aeroplane crash at Ruislip?
  Sir W. Womersley: Persons killed or injured in this unfortunate incident will be regarded as having suffered war injury, and claims will be considered by my Department under the appropriate Instruments.
  Sir H. Williams: Does that decision apply to all accidents where Government aeroplanes kill civilians?
  Mr. Speaker: That is a different question. This deals with one particular case.

  INDIA

    Defence
    Mr. Granvilleasked the Prime Minister whether he will consider the suggestion for the setting-up of an Allied War Council in India, inviting representatives of the United States of America, Russia and China to serve with those of Great Britain and India, in order to secure full strategic co-operation under the unified command of General Wavell of those powers concerned in the defence of India?
    The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Attlee): No, Sir.
    Mr. Granville: In view of the fact that every disaster in the war has been preceded by the failure of the Government to secure united strategy, is there any regular consultation with the United Nations?
    Mr. Attlee: I do not accept the hon. Member's statement. There is full consultation.
    Mr. Granville: Will the Government take advantage of the presence of Field Marshal Smuts to have an Allied War Conference in London to discuss the defence of India and other matters?
    Mr. Attlee: The hon. Member has not observed that there was a meeting of the Pacific Council yesterday to deal with these matters.

    Population Statistics
    Mr. Thorneasked the Secretary of State for India the total population of India in 1930 and the population shown by the 1941 census, excluding Burma; the cost of taking that census; the number of enumerators; and whether he can give the individual population of Bengal and the United Provinces?
    The Secretary of State for India (Mr. Amery): The population of India (excluding Burma) as recorded in the Census of 1931 was 338,171,000. According to the Census of 1941 it was 388,800,000, of whom 60,314,000 resided in Bengal and 55,021,000 in the United Provinces. I have not been officially informed of the cost of the 1941 Census, but a Press report puts it as £375,000 and the number of enumerators at a million and a half.
    Commander Locker Lampson: Is not this large increase in the population of India evidence of the success of British rule?
    Mr. Thorne: The reason I do not put a Supplementary Question is that there are 137 Questions on the Order Paper.

    Viceroy's Executive Council
    Mr. Manderasked the Secretary of State for India whether he will give an assurance that the reason for not completing the Indianisation of the Viceroy's Executive by appointing three Indians to the portfolios still held by Englishmen, is not because of any difficulty in finding suitable Indians for the position?
    Mr. Amery: The Viceroy, in the expansion of his Executive Council in order to meet war conditions, has been concerned to secure both efficiency and continuity, and is satisfied that his existing Council consists of those best qualified at the present moment to fill their respective offices. There is no question of any
    2092
    particular appointment being held on grounds of race or of the present European members being retained merely for the reason suggested by the hon. Member.
    Mr. Mander: Will my right hon. Friend make clear the reason why this policy, which meets with such widespread support, has not been put into effect?
    Mr. Amery: I gave the answer just now.
    Mr. Molson: Is it not the case that the appointment of a Congress representative would be unacceptable to Congress and that a representative of any other community in India might very well cause resentment on the part of other communities?
    Mr. Amery: I cannot say.
    Mr. Sorensenasked the Secretary of State for India whether it is the decision of His Majesty's Government that the Ministries now filled by non-Indians shall continue thus for the duration of the war; and whether he has considered recommendations to the contrary made by influential non-Congress Indians to the effect that Indians shall occupy all Ministries?
    Mr. Amery: I presume the hon. Member is referring to the seats on the Governor-General's Executive Council, and I would refer him to the reply which I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Mander) on 15th October.
    Mr. Sorensen: Is this matter being considered by the right hon. Gentleman and the War Cabinet, seeing that considerable pressure has been brought to bear from several quarters about this matter?
    Mr. Amery: The answer I have given to the hon. Member for East Wolverhampton covers that point.
    Sir A. Knox: Is not the agitation purely mischievous?
    Mr. Granville: Has the right hon. Gentleman seen a statement in to-day's papers that Mr. Rajagopalachari intends to visit this country, and will he extend to him and other distinguished Indians an official invitation to discuss the formation of a National Government in India?

    Congress Party Decisions
    Sir William Davisonasked the Secretary of State for India whether he has any information to show how far the unanimous approval accorded by Congress to the decisions of Mr. Gandhi in connection with the recent constitutional offer was the result of free discussion and voting or whether it was arrived at by the exercise of pressure?
    Mr. Amery: I have no information as to how the deliberations of the Congress Working Committee were conducted. It would appear from his subsequent action that Mr. Rajagopalachari must have dissented.
    Sir W. Davison: Are not the decisions of Mr. Gandhi submitted to Congress in the form of resolutions for unanimous approval in the same way that the decisions of Hitler are submitted to the Reichstag for unanimous approval?

    Congress Leaders (Interviews)
    Mr. Sorensenasked the Secretary of State for India whether he is aware that the Hindu Mahasabha, having secured unanimity among non-Congress parties, had their request to interview Mr. Gandhi rejected by the Viceroy; whether he has considered the protest made by the Mahasabha; and whether he will take steps to enable non-Congress representatives to meet Congress leaders respecting the proposals of the former?
    Mr. Amery: I have not yet heard that the Hindu Mahasabha claim to have secured the support of the Moslem League. I am aware that the Viceroy declined to allow Dr. Mookerjee to see Mr. Gandhi and I am not prepared in present circumstances to ask him to permit interviews with the Congress leaders.
    Mr. Sorensen: Does that hold good for all time? Does not the right hon. Gentleman appreciate the urgent necessity of allowing facilities for the discussion of this matter?
    Mr. Amery: No, Sir.
    Mr. Sorensen: Is it not highly desirable, in view of the right hon. Gentleman's own wish to see this problem solved, that the parties shall be able to come into contact with the most important of all parties in India?
    Mr. Amery: No, Sir; I have dealt with that matter.

  CHAINED GERMAN PRISONERS OF WAR
  Mr. Stokesasked the Prime Minister whether the decision to enchain German military prisoners of war was taken after consultation with his military advisers?
  Mr. Attlee: Yes, Sir.
  Mr. Stokes: Does my right hon. Friend recollect what happened in the last war with regard to reprisals on prisoners, and, if not, will he study what happened when it was suggested that prisoners should be put on hospital ships?
  Mr. Maxton: Will the Minister say——
  Mr. Speaker: An answer has been given on this point.
  Mr. Maxton: I cannot remember that we got any answer; it only put the matter off.
  Mr. Speaker: That shows that there was a definite answer.

  SERVICE PAY AND ALLOWANCES
  Captain C. S. Taylorasked the Lord President of the Council whether, as a result of the all-party deputation which he received recently, he has any statement to make on the question of Service pay and allowances and the many anomalies that still exist?
  Captain McEwen (Lord of the Treasury): I have been asked to reply. As the Lord President of the Council explained to the deputation, the Government must maintain their recent decision on the rates of Service pay and allowances, but they are willing to consider any anomalies which may exist. All the points which were raised by the deputation are under consideration, but as they were numerous and in some cases complex in character, a certain amount of time is needed for their examination.
  Captain Taylor: Would the Government be prepared to make a brief statement of the points raised earlier in the Session if I put down a Question?
  Captain McEwen: The hon. and gallant Gentleman had better put down a Question and see what happens.

  AGRICULTURE

    Livestock (Post-war Europe)
    Mr. Snaddenasked the Minister of Agriculture whether the British Association was invited by His Majesty's Government to study the problem of the post-war restocking of Europe with farm animals?
    The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. R. S. Hudson): No, Sir, but I understand that the Allied Technical Advisory Committee on Agriculture have asked the British Association to advise them on certain scientific aspects of this matter.
    Mr. Snadden: Is the British Association subsidised in any way by the Government?
    Mr. Hudson: I am afraid I cannot say without notice.

    Milking
    Mr. De la Bèreasked the Minister of Agriculture whether, in view of the national importance of an increased production of milk, he will make a pronouncement regarding his recommendations as to three-times milking?
    Mr. Hudson: I do not consider that any appreciable extension of three-times milking is practicable under existing conditions.
    Mr. De la Bère: Is my right hon. Friend aware that some additional effort will have to be made in order to make up the loss to small farmers which has been occasioned by the recent actions of the Ministry of Food? Is he aware that this is an important matter and is bound to affect production?
    Mr. Hudson: That is not the Question on the Paper.
    Mr. De la Bère: Why is my right hon. Friend trying to by-pass the matter? Is he not the trustee for the farmer and why does he not do his job?

    Women's Land Army
    Lieut.-Colonel Heneageasked the Minister of Agriculture for what reason it is still necessary to maintain a proviso that the Women's Land Army shall not be recruited from women already employed on the land for more than six months; and is he aware that it is discouraging farmers' and agricultural labourers' daughters from taking up agricultural pursuits?
    Mr. Hudson: The object of the Women's Land Army is to provide an additional force of regular labour for the land. It is not desirable, in my view, that the State should incur the unnecessary cost of organising for agricultural work women who are already employed in agriculture and who will not be taken from it.
    Lieut.-Colonel Heneage: Is my right hon. Friend aware that as a result of these restrictions women cannot go into the Land Army and continue to work on the land because they are taken away for other jobs?
    Mr. Hudson: Women who are already employed in agriculture will not be taken away from the land.

    Hill-breeding Cattle, England and Wales (Subsidy)
    Mr. Donald Scottasked the Minister of Agriculture whether he is now in a position to make a statement with regard to a subsidy for hill-breeding cattle in England and Wales on the lines of that at present in operation in Scotland?
    Mr. Hudson: I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave to him on 30th April last, to which I am afraid I have nothing to add.
    Mr. Scott: Can my right hon. Friend state the reason for this delay? Is it due to the difficulty of deciding which breeds are to be eligible for the subsidy?
    Mr. Hudson: Perhaps my hon. Friend will be good enough to look at the answer which I gave him in April, and he will see the answer to his Supplementary Question.

    Requisitioned Land (Compensation)
    Mr. W. Brownasked the Minister of Agriculture whether he is aware that farmers who are dispossessed of their farms by war agricultural executive committees can sell their land in the open market at prevailing prices, whereas farmers whose land is commandeered by Government Departments can be paid, under the 1939 Defence (Compensation) Act, only at the value as at the outbreak of war; and whether he will take steps to remedy this anomaly?
    Mr. Hudson: I cannot perceive any anomaly from the terms of the Question as put by the hon. Member. An occupy-

    2097
    ing owner of land who is dispossesed by a war agricultural executive committee can only sell the land subject to the committee's right of possession, and he or any purchaser can only claim compensation under Section 2 of the Compensation (Defence) Act, 1939. An owner of land requisitioned by any other Government Department is in precisely the same position.
    Mr. Brown: Is not the Minister aware that when a farmer is dispossessed of his land by a war agricultural committee he can let his land at current prices, whereas when land is requisitioned by a Government Department all that can be paid is rent appropriate to the level at the outbreak of war, and that between these two things there is often a wide gap? Will he not close that gap?
    Mr. Hudson: I am afraid that my hon. Friend has got hold of the wrong end of the stick. If he will come and see me, I will try and explain to him what the situation is.
    Mr. Stokes: Could not the gap be closed by a tax on site values?

    Lime Subsidy
    Major-General Sir Alfred Knoxasked the Minister of Agriculture whether he will consider the possibility of prolonging the period for the grant of a 75 per cent. subsidy towards the cost of lime as many farmers who ordered lime as long ago as May were, through no fault of their own, unable to obtain delivery till after the expiration of the time limit?
    Mr. Hudson: No, Sir. The increase in the lime subsidy from the normal 50 per cent. to 75 per cent. for summer deliveries was not intended primarily as a measure of additional assistance to farmers. Its object was to safeguard supplies by ensuring that lime producers had orders sufficient to enable them to keep their works in full production during a period when the agricultural demand for lime is usually at its lowest and thereby to retain labour which otherwise they would have had to lose. That object was fully achieved and the additional subsidy cannot be extended to deliveries after 31st August.
    Sir A. Knox: Surely it is very hard on farmers who sent in their orders early? I have cases of two farmers who sent in
    2098
    their orders several months before the expiry of the time and did not get delivery, and is it not hard lines that they should have to pay extra for their lime?
    Mr. Hudson: I am afraid that in wartime we cannot avoid hard lines.

  CINEMAS (SUNDAY OPENING)
  Mr. R. Morganasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many Orders banning all cinemas on Sunday have been submitted to, and approved by, his Department; and in how many cases local authorities, having received a certificate from the competent authority under Defence Regulation 42B, have decided not to apply for leave to open cinemas on Sundays?
  The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Herbert Morrison): The closing of cinemas on Sundays, except in places where Sunday opening has been sanctioned by Orders submitted to Parliament, depends on Statute law and not on any authority given by the Home Office. As regards the second part of the Question, I should like to correct the information which I gave to my hon. Friend on 1st October. I only know of two or three cases in which a local council having received a certificate from the competent authority under Defence Regulation 42B has decided not to apply for power to open cinemas on Sunday. The number of Orders submitted to Parliament is over 230, not, as I previously stated, over 270.

  POLICE WIDOWS' PENSIONS
  Miss Rathboneasked the Home Secretary whether, in view of the fact that the Committee on Police Widows Pensions reported over a year ago, making unanimous recommendations as to the need for increases in scale and for changes in the regulations regarding certain specified groups, he will expedite decision on these matters and make his own decision if the police authorities and the representatives of the police themselves have failed to agree?
  Mr. H. Morrison: As my hon. Friend is aware, the Committee expressed the view that the main cost of the improvements which they recommended should be met by increased contributions from

  2099
  the police themselves. It is on this issue of principle that it has not proved possible to obtain the agreement of the Police Federation. I will inform my hon. Friend as soon as I am able to make any further statement.
  Miss Rathbone: Does not my right hon. Friend think that it is intolerable that numerous police widows should be left in semi-destitution because the police authorities and the representatives of the police cannot agree about how much, if any contribution they will make towards the cost of the reforms which they have urgently pressed for, and is it not about time that the right hon. Gentleman took the responsibility of making his own decision?
  Mr. Morrison: No, Sir. I think that if we are going to make people pay for a benefit, they are entitled to be consulted. I am not sure that I am entitled to impose my view. The block arises from the fact that the Police Federation will not agree so far that policemen should make any contribution, and until that block is removed I doubt if progress can be made.
  Miss Rathbone: Are we not all being required to make payments and contributions of all kinds about which we are not being consulted, and why should this attitude be taken up in the case of the police widows?

  CIVIL DEFENCE

    Nursing Homes (Air Raid Precautions)
    Sir Frank Sandersonasked the Home Secretary whether he will take steps to ensure that all nursing homes erect adequate air-raid shelters against bombing and take all other necessary precautions?
    Mr. H. Morrison: For more than two years past local authorities in the more vulnerable areas have had authority to incur expenditure in providing air-raid shelter at nursing homes controlled by public authorities or private charities and catering primarily for persons whose financial position would make them eligible for free domestic shelter. The extent to which it is now possible to continue these facilities depends entirely on the availability in the locality concerned
    2100
    of the requisite labour and materials. The provision of air-raid shelter in a private nursing home run for profit is a matter for the proprietor. In suitable cases, it is open to the proprietor to avail himself of a scheme instituted early in 1940 under which the professional Institutions of Architects, Engineers and Surveyors arranged for the services of consultants to be placed, for moderate fees, at the disposal of householders needing technical advice about shelter.
    Sir F. Sanderson: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there are no legal means of enforcing the adoption of these essential precautions, and in view of the fact that a nursing home may have a large number of people left at night without a single male in attendance, will he consider taking such steps as may be necessary to enforce the adoption of precautions?
    Mr. Morrison: I will consider that, but we are in a difficulty as to material and labour just now.
    Sir F. Sandersonasked the Home Secretary whether, in view of the serious danger from incendiary bombs, he will take steps to ensure that nursing homes adopt adequate methods for protection against fire?
    Mr. Morrison: For fire-prevention purposes nursing homes are regarded as business premises and the occupier is bound to make adequate fire-prevention arrangements and to submit those arrangements to the local authority for approval.

    War Workers (Exit Permits to Northern Ireland)
    Dr. Littleasked the Home Secretary whether he will arrange that Northern Ireland war workers in Britain whose parents are dead, but who have sisters or brothers alive, will receive permits to enable them to visit these friends in Northern Ireland twice each year?
    Mr. H. Morrison: Persons who have come to Great Britain from any part of Ireland since the outbreak of war for the purpose of engaging in temporary war work can obtain exit permits to enable them to visit their homes or friends in Ireland not more than twice during a period of 12 months, but this concession does not apply to persons who came here

    2101
    before the war, and I regret that I cannot see my way to extend it to them?
    Dr. Little: But if the parents are dead, can brothers and sisters visit one another?
    Mr. Morrison: If they came here since the war they are able to visit their homes or friends in Ireland not more than twice during the 12 months, but that provision does not extend to those who came before the war.
    Professor Savory: Did not the right hon. Gentleman say that it does not apply to brothers visiting sisters and sisters visiting brothers? Was not that the last answer he made on the point, and is it not a fact that many brothers have been refused permission to visit their sisters and sisters to visit their brothers?
    Mr. Morrison: It may be so. There are certain restrictions on visits.
    Professor Savory: Would it not be possible as a practical suggestion to reduce the period of six weeks which the right hon. Gentleman is now allowing before exacting the passport with photograph? Does he not think this is rather too long, and that with advantage that period of six weeks could be reduced?
    Mr. Morrison: I think we had better watch how it works. In the meantime the scheme now in operation has been agreed with the Northern Ireland Government.

    Northern Ireland and Eire (Border Defence)
    Dr. Littleasked the Home Secretary whether, until the present murder campaign of the Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland has been brought to an end, he will make it impossible for all persons suspected of disloyalty, and members of the Irish Republican Army, to cross the border from Eire into Northern Ireland?
    Mr. H. Morrison: My hon. Friend's suggestion would, I fear, be as ineffective for the purposes he has in view as it is impracticable.
    Dr. Little: I should like to ask my right hon. Friend whether this Government is responsible for guarding the border, and whether he will take steps to prevent armed men with murder in their hearts from crossing the border into Northern Ireland and, having carried through their
    2102
    wicked designs, recrossing the border without let or hindrance and so escaping punishment?

    Fire Prevention Duties
    Mr. Brookeasked the Home Secretary whether a part-time warden in London, fulfilling his regular duties in that capacity, who has not hitherto been called on to do fire-watching at his place of employment, can be compelled to fire-watch there; whether he is then automatically relieved of his responsibility to the warden's service, or whether there is any tribunal for determining if he is more needed as a fire-watcher in the one place or as a warden in the other?
    Mr. H. Morrison: Persons who became Civil Defence wardens before 18th January, 1941, are exempt from compulsory fire prevention duties at the places where they work if they have continued and still continue to perform the duties of a warden for not less than 48 hours a month. Similarly, persons directed by the Ministry of Labour and National Service to become wardens under Defence Regulation 29BA are exempt. Persons other than head and senior fire guards, who have voluntarily become wardens since 18th January, 1941, are not exempt; but local authorities have, however, been instructed that when allotting duties to wardens and other civil defence workers account should be taken of any fire prevention duties which they are required to perform under the Fire Prevention Orders.
    Mr. Hutchinsonasked the Home Secretary why the obligation to perform fire prevention duties, under the Civil Defence Duties (Compulsory Enrolment) Order, 1942, is restricted to British subjects; and whether he will consider extending this obligation, subject to suitable modifications, to foreign nationals resident in Great Britain?
    Mr. Morrison: I am considering this question.
    Dr. Summerskillasked the Home Secretary whether women working with the Home Guard and undertaking duties hitherto performed by men will be exempt under the Fire Watching Order?
    Mr. Morrison: The women in question are not members of the Home Guard, and in view of the shortage of Fire Guards, I should not feel justified in exempting them from fire prevention duties.
    Dr. Summerskill: In the event of their becoming members of the Home Guard, will they then be exempt?
    Mr. Morrison: I am not looking for further exemptions. I am looking for further Fire Guards and do not want to extend the channels of escape.
    Commander Sir Archibald Southby: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War is considering the status of these women at the present time with the idea that they should become in some way members of the Home Guard?
    Mr. Morrison: I am aware of everything that my right hon. Friend has said.
    Mr. Manderasked the Home Secretary whether he will consider the advisability of arranging that women engaged on part-time work in war industries at night, in addition to their regular daytime employment, shall be exempted from fire-watching on the same basis as women engaged in part-time Civil Defence duties?
    Mr. Morrison: I have arranged for this matter to be considered at the next meeting of the National Advisory Council for Fire Prevention.

    Air Raids (Regional Commissioners' Statements)
    Mr. Reakesasked the Home Secretary what steps he proposes to take to discourage Regional Commissioners from making statements prophesying heavy air-raids and so creating alarm and despondency among the civilian population, particularly in danger areas?
    Mr. H. Morrison: It is right and proper that warnings should be given to the Civil Defence Services and the civil population to be in a state of readiness for heavy raids, and in my view it would be a reflection on the people of this country to suggest that such warnings would create alarm and despondency.
    Mr. W. Brown: Can steps be taken to ensure that Ministers should speak with one voice on this subject?
    Viscountess Astor: Is it not often the case that in devastated areas the authorities go fast asleep once a raid is over, and is it not necessary that they should be warned of what might happen?
    Mr. Sorensen: In view of the statement made by a certain Commissioner and its apparent contradiction with that made by the Prime Minister, which interpretation of possible events can we accept?
    Mr. Morrison: My hon. Friend will have seen that I spoke with the authority of the Prime Minister on Sunday, and there is a perfect reconciliation of any apparently superficial differences.

    British Detainees, Isle of Man (Employment)
    Mr. Edmund Harveyasked the Home Secretary whether further consideration has been given to the possibility of permitting British subjects detained under Regulation 18B in the Isle of Man to undertake farm work, either on parole or under guard: and whether his attention has been called to the hardship involved to those without private means if no opportunity for earning money is granted them?
    Mr. H. Morrison: Yes, Sir, every endeavour has been, and continues to be made to provide suitable employment, particularly farm work, for British subjects detained in the Isle of Man under Regulation 18B, but one of the difficulties is to find detainees who are able and willing to work on farms. A proposal to take over a farm in the vicinity of the camp is now under consideration. As regards the last part of the Question, I am informed that all the detainees who are prepared to work are now occupied.
    Mr. Stokes: Have the rates of pay been adjusted? Last time the right hon. Gentleman told the House that these people were getting only 1s. a week.
    Mr. Morrison indicated dissent.
    Mr. Stokes: It is of no importance whether the pay is 1s. a day or 1s. a week, because both are inadequate. As these detentions are of a preventive and not of a punitive character, does he think that is fair?
    Mr. Morrison: I do not know what my hon. Friend means. He refers to 1s. a day and then to 1s. a week, and he does not seem to mind much which way it is. It must be remembered that these people are being maintained at the expense of the State. I think the hon. Gentleman wants to elevate these ladies and gentlemen rather too high in the social scale.
    Mr. Stokes: I beg to give notice that I will raise this matter on the Adjournment at the earliest possible moment.

    Austrians (Registration)
    Colonel Cazaletasked the Home Secretary whether, in view of recent pronouncements by the Government, former Austrian citizens now in this country will be permitted to change the designation of their identity cards from German to Austrian if they wish to do so?
    Mr. H. Morrison: I would refer to the answer I gave to the Question on this subject by my non. Friend the Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Mander) on 15th instant.
    Colonel Cazalet: Although such a change may not alter the status of these individuals, would it not, from the psychological point of view, be a great relief and comfort to them?
    Mr. Morrison: I am afraid that we should get into complications. It does not follow because a person comes from Austria that he is more loyal than if he comes from Germany. It would be most unwise to give this sentimental concession, which would only land us into difficulties before we were much older.
    Mr. Astor: Will the Minister pay particular attention to the cases of Austrians who never accepted the Anschluss, and who refused to register with German Consulates for German passports?

    Southern Irish Persons
    General Sir George Jeffreysasked the Home Secretary to what extent he exercises powers to expel or intern Southern Irishmen or women who, on an increasing scale, are proclaiming sentiments hostile to this country?
    Mr. H. Morrison: Defence Regulation 18 (2B) empowers me to direct the return to Ireland, and to provide for the detention pending return, of any person not ordinarily resident in Great Britain at the date on which the Regulation came into force, who has so conducted himself as to render it expedient in the national interest that he should leave Great Britain. Under these powers 33 persons have been returned to Southern Ireland since 1st January, 1942. In addition the police have returned 198 persons for failure to comply with requirements imposed under
    2106
    the Passenger Traffic Order when they were given leave to land in Great Britain. In a small proportion only of these cases was there evidence that the persons concerned had given expression to hostile sentiments.
    Sir G. Jeffreys: Is the Minister satisfied that many of these people are not, in fact, exercising influence and doing things which would, in the case of other British subjects, render them liable to detention under 18B?
    Mr. Morrison: I can assure my hon. and gallant Friend that we do our best to keep observation and to take note of anything we hear. In any case where I have reasonable cause to act I send people back. If the hon. and gallant Gentleman has any cases that he would like me to look into, I shall be glad to investigate them.
    Mr. Buchanan: Is not the Minister aware that many Southern Irish on farm work, particularly in Scotland, are rendering very valuable service to the community?
    Mr. Morrison: I quite agree.

  NATIONAL FINANCE

    Growing Timber (Compensation)
    Mr. W. Brownasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that under the Defence (Compensation) Act of 1939, no basis of compensation is laid down in respect of growing timber; and on what basis Government Departments pay compensation in respect of growing timber?
    The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir Kingsley Wood): As the answer is somewhat long, I am circulating it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Following is the answer:
    The practice of Departments in payment of compensation for growing timber is as follows:
    Where land is requisitioned on which there is growing timber, the presence of that timber will normally be reflected in the rent payable under Section 2 (1, a) of the Compensation (Defence) Act, 1939. If any of the timber is severed subsequent to the requisition, compensation would be paid when possession of the land is relinquished under Section 2 (1, b) of the Act, which provides for the payment of the cost of making good any damage to the land

    2107
    which may have occurred during the period for which possession thereof is retained. Alternatively, Departments have, in suitable cases, negotiated an immediate settlement with the owner for the purchase of the timber as standing timber. Where growing timber has been severed under Defence Regulation 50, which provides for the doing of work on land, it has been the practice to deal with the matter under Section 3 (3, b) of the Act by payment of a lump sum as compensation.

    Income Tax
    Mrs. Cazalet Keirasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will consider enclosing a short explanatory letter with the first assessment of Income Tax to those liable for this tax for the first time, stating clearly the reasons for the deductions being assessed on previous earnings?
    Sir K. Wood: The notice of assessment, with explanatory notes, which is sent to an employee from whose salary or wages tax is to be deducted, shows the amount of the assessment and the tax and gives information as to the period upon the earnings of which assessments are based. It also states over what period the tax is deductible. I am afraid I cannot see my way to introduce a further document.
    Mrs. Keir: Is the Chancellor of the Exchequer aware that an inadequate understanding of the working of this Tax is causing a great deal of worry to a number of people who have very small incomes?
    Sir K. Wood: I am hoping that the difficulty is now passing away.

    War Damage (Payments and Receipts)
    Captain Gammansasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is yet in a position to lay before Parliament the statement of payments made by the War Damage Commission; and the sums received by the Inland Revenue for the last financial year under Section 56 of the War Damage Act, 1941?
    Sir K. Wood: No, Sir, but the figures are in course of preparation and, as provided in the Act, will be laid on or before 30th November next.

  QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS
  Mr. G. Griffiths: May I ask for your guidance, Mr. Speaker? On a Question
  2108
  which I raised in the House yesterday, the Minister of Health said he would answer it in the OFFICIAL REPORT, but I want to raise the matter on the Adjournment. Can you tell me how I can manage that?
  Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member must take a suitable opportunity.
  Mr. Griffiths: I am sorry, Sir, but I may not have the opportunity, because this is a Written Answer, although it is very unsatisfactory. Have I to put another Question down and then to tell the Minister I am going to raise the. matter, no matter what his answer may be?
  Mr. Speaker: Perhaps the hon. Member had better try it.

  MILITARY SERVICE (LOWER RECRUITMENT AGE)
  Mr. Arthur Greenwood (by Private Notice): I beg to ask the Minister of Labour and National Service whether he has any statement to make with regard to the minimum age for the compulsory recruitment of men to the Forces.
  The Minister of Labour (Mr. Ernest Bevin): Yes, Sir. The lower age in the National Service Acts has always been 18, but in practice the minimum age of calling up was originally 20 and was subsequently reduced, first to 19 and last December to 18½. Recruitment has continued in the last 10 months on a large scale without calling up men under the age of 18½, but the stage has now been reached when, in the opinion of the Government, this further reduction in age can no longer be postponed and is indeed urgently necessary. I will not, I am sure, be expected to go into detail about recruitment for the Forces; but I may say that there are requirements for all the three Services that necessitate this step. His Majesty has to-day signed a further Proclamation as a result of which men who have reached the age of 18 up to this date will be made liable to be called up under the National Service Acts, and I propose to register on 7th November those who reached the age of 18 between 1st July and 30th September, both dates inclusive; they will be medically examined later in the month and called up to the Forces as required, and many of them may expect

  2109
  to join in December. I will consider as usual what adjustments may be necessary in the national interest as regards apprentices and students. I should like to make it clear that the reduction in the age of calling up does not affect the minimum age, namely 19, at which men called up to the Army are posted for service abroad.

  CIVILIAN MOTORING (REDUCED PETROL ALLOWANCES)
  The following Question stood upon the Order Paper:
  Mr. BROOKE—to ask the Minister of Fuel and Power whether, in view of the loss of shipping and of life involved in importing petrol, he will consider introducing further measures of economy in civilian motoring?
  The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Fuel and Power (Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd): With the permission of the House I will answer this Question. Yes, Sir. The increasing needs of the Armed Forces for present, and still more for future, operations make it necessary to effect economies in all other consumption. The Government have therefore decided that the civilian motorist must be called on for a further contribution to this effort. Further general reductions will be made in petrol allowances for business and professional purposes. These reductions will take effect in the issues made in November for the period December-January-February. With the hon. Member's permission, I will circulate a more detailed statement in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
  Mr. Brooke: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the manner in which these further cuts will be accepted by private motorists will depend largely on whether or not they see waste of petrol by commercial, or Service, or Civil Defence vehicles?
  Earl Winterton: I wish to raise a point of Order on this matter. Is it not very unusual for a Minister to get up and say that he desires to answer, after Questions, a Question that has not been asked? Is not the usual practice for the Minister to ask the permission of the House to make a statement?
  Mr. Speaker: The Minister did ask the permission of the House. The usual practice is that I ask the permission of the
  2110
  House. I did not do so to-day, and I am sorry.
  Mr. Maxton: Do I understand the Minister to say that this was only a cut for these three months, to be restored later on?
  Mr. A. Bevan: Has not the time arrived, in the interests of economy of petrol, to restore the road signs up and down the country? Is it not a fact that many soldiers driving vehicles of all kinds go many more miles than they need to do, and are held up for many hours because they simply cannot find their way about? Would it not be much more sensible to put the signs back?
  Mr. Lloyd: That would be a matter for my Noble Friend the Minister of War Transport. It could not possibly take the place of the measures which I have mentioned.
  Mr. Price: Will any steps be taken, in view of the further restrictions on private motorists, to see that bus services are put in such a condition as to assist those who have to get in to do the essential shopping necessary in the countryside, which at present they cannot do?
  Mr. Lloyd: The Minister of War Transport has undertaken to take into account these further restrictions in the arrangement of the bus services.
  Mr. Astor: Will this be accompanied by careful investigation into the use of petrol by the Armed Forces, especially the use of higher powered cars than are necessary for transportation?
  Mr. Lloyd: Yes, Sir, but it is a fact that the Fighting Services have made, and are continuing to make, drastic economies in all petrol consumption other than that necessary for operations and essential training.
  Mr. Stokes: Will the Minister also inquire into the petrol allotted to Corps Diplomatique, who waste extravagant quantities?
  Sir H. Williams: Will consideration be given to encouraging the use of motor cycles instead of motor cars by people to whom it is necessary that there should be an allocation of petrol?
  Mr. Lloyd: Yes, Sir, the arrangements to which I have referred, and which are given in more detail in the statement which I propose to circulate, do in fact make arrangements to encourage in suitable cases the use of motor cycles.
  Mr. Stephen: Cannot an economy be achieved by military personnel carrying something in some of the transport wagons that are going about?
  Following is the statement:
  The Government have decided to apply the following further measures of economy, beginning with the issues of petrol coupons made to the majority of motorists in November for use during December, January and February:

  (1) In the case of motorists whose work is directly related to the war (to whom therefore "E" coupons are issued) there will be general reductions of the allowances granted for journeys made in the actual course of their work. The reduction will be 10 per cent. in the case of normal allowances, and more on the larger. These motorists are asked to meet the reductions by a more economical planning of their journeys, and by increased use of public transport.

  (2) The allowances of motorists receiving "E" coupons for journeys between home and place of duty will also be reduced. They can no longer expect to make these journeys in their own cars on every working day, and will be expected to cover other days by sharing or other arrangements. Motor cyclists will be allowed a larger mileage than car-users, and car-users who enter into officially approved undertakings for the regular conveyance of other workers will be allowed a larger mileage than those who travel alone.

  (3) The maximum allowances for the cars of applicants engaged in work not directly connected with the war, and therefore receiving "S" coupons, will be reduced by 25 per cent. The motor cycle allowances of this class will not be reduced.

  (4) There will be special arrangements to discourage further the use of high-powered cars. In general, where other circumstances are equal, the allowance for a motor cycle will permit a larger mileage than for a car, and the mileage possible with a car will decrease as the horse-power increases. The rate of decrease will be very steep at the upper end of the horse-power range.

  (5) Further reductions may shortly be necessary, especially in regard to motorists who receive "S" coupons.

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  (6) It is not intended to make any immediate general reduction of domestic allowances, but the sifting process already announced will be continued.

  (7) Comparable reductions will be imposed on the consumption of Government Departments and local authorities.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Mr. Arthur Greenwood: May I ask the Leader of the House whether he has any statement to make about Business on our return?
The Lord Privy Seal (Sir Stafford Cripps): No, Sir, no statement is to be made about Business on our return. I shall have to ask the House to go into Secret Session, after the next Motion on the Order Paper has been dealt with, in order to announce dates.

PERSONAL EXPLANATION
Sir H. Williams: I wish to tender an apology to the First Lord of the Admiralty for an injustice which I unwittingly did him yesterday. When I was asking a Supplementary Question of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food, I said something which implied that the First Lord had deliberately used his position in order to give an advantage to co-operative societies over private traders in the matter of milk distribution. I had no intention of implying anything of the kind, and I wish to put my apology on record.
NATIONAL EXPENDITURE
Sixteenth and Seventeenth Reports from the Select Committee brought up, and read; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed (No. 120 and No. 121).

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS
That they have agreed to—

Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) (No. 3) Bill.

Prolongation of Parliament Bill.

Welsh Courts Bill.

India and Burma (Temporary and Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, and

Local Elections and Register of Electors (Temporary Provisions) Bill, without amendment.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Ordered,
"That, notwithstanding the practice of the House, the Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) (No. 3) Bill may be considered in Committee immediately after the Bill has been read a Second time."—[Sir S. Cripps.]

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 House subsequently resumed in Public Session.

ORDERS OF THE DAY
  CONSOLIDATED FUND (APPROPRIATION) (No. 3) BILL
  Read a Second time; and committed to a Committee of the Whole House; immediately considered in Committee; reported, without Amendment; read the Third time, and passed.

DISPOSAL AND CUSTODY OF DOCUMENTS
Ordered,
"That the Second Report of the Select Committee be now considered."—[Sir Percy Harris.]
Report considered accordingly.
Sir Percy Harris: I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Report."
I owe the House an apology for moving this Motion on a day which is essentially a Private Members' day, but I feel that the recommendations of the Report are extremely urgent. My one regret is that my right hon. Friend the Chairman of Ways and Means is prevented by indisposition from being here. He is rarely absent, and I am sure I am expressing the feeling of the House in saying that we hope to hear of his speedy recovery. He has put in on this question of the disposal and custody of documents an immense amount of time and labour. He has shaken up the dust of ages, and we owe it to him and to his personal interest and industry, that both the Report now before the House and the previous one have come to fruition. There is a vital difference between the Report to which I am asking the House to agree and the
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previous one, which latter contained proposals to destroy documents, whereas this particular Report contains recommendations to preserve documents. If it is agreed to in its present form, it does not mean, as some of my hon. Friends are rather afraid, that no more papers will be handed over to salvage, but in the course of our explorations we found that in the Victoria Tower, which has always been a building allocated to the preservation of valuable documents, there was insufficient safeguard against fire. Much of the provision that is made is now unsatisfactory, and that is the reason why it is so important that this Report should be passed to-day. The matter is a little complicated, because these documents and these buildings are under the general control of both the House of Lords and the House of Commons as well as the Lord Great Chamberlain.
The danger of air raids is obvious to the House, and if by mischance the Victoria Tower was bit, we should, unless we had adequate arrangements against fire, be deprived of most valuable historic documents. The building was designed to be fireproof, but, to quote one example, it will be found from the Report that many hinges of the doors are rusty and require oiling and many of the windows of various rooms have been broken and only temporarily repaired, and it is urgent that these necessary safeguards should be provided without delay to make the building safe against fire. I would point out that official reference is made in the Appendix to the great importance of preserving a number of maps and plans which are now not merely of historic importance but are likely to be valuable when we come to re-plan and re-design many of our great towns and cities that have suffered from the blitz. An hon. Member behind me wanted to know whether the election petitions are likely to be pulped. This is an era when we do not often hear of election petitions. These, my Committee feel, are of real historic interest, and I think I can give him an undertaking that before they are handed over to salvage we shall come for authority again to this House.
Major Milner: I am sure we all associate ourselves with what the right hon. Baronet has said with regard to the regretted absence of the Chairman of the Committee. He has obviously as indeed has the whole Com-

2157
mittee, done an excellent job of work in this Report. I imagine that the House will at once agree with the proposals made by the Committee, but there are one or two questions which ought to be addressed to them, or at any rate which they ought to consider at some future date if and when they are set up again. While the Report deals in considerable detail with precautions against fire, I have been unable to see that any consideration whatever has been given to the question of precautions against bombing. I do not know the position in this respect of the Victoria Tower or what protection it affords, but that would appear to be a matter which should be taken into serious consideration. It may be that some concrete and steel or other protection might be desirable, and although I do not know, certainly from the Second Report of the Committee, apparently that matter has not so far been taken into consideration, although there may be some answer to that proposition. I suggest that the Committee take into consideration the sprinkler system which is now adopted in so many factories, whereby, if there is excessive heat in any part of the building, water fountains and so forth are so arranged that they automatically spray water on the heated part of the building and thereby prevent what might otherwise be a serious conflagration. That is a matter which the Committee might also perhaps take into account and which they do not appear to have considered.
One observes—and this is really perhaps the most serious point I have to make—that the Committee draw the attention of the Fire Committee of the House to certain points. That Fire Committee, as hon. Members know, is really set up under the jurisdiction of the Lord Great Chamberlain and Mr. Speaker, who have authority over these buildings. Although many duties are added to that Committee, it has no spokesman in this House. It is not set up by the House, and hence questions cannot be addressed to it. I would suggest that consideration might be given by those responsible to having perhaps behind that Committee—I would myself prefer to set up another form of committee which I have had long in mind and which I am surprised was not set up too years ago in this House—something in the nature of a House Committee to which representations could be
2158
made by Members and who would consider such representations, and, if thought desirable, make the wishes of the Members known to those in authority. It may be that such a committee can only be set up with the agreement of the Lord Great Chamberlain and Mr. Speaker, but its usefulness is so apparent that there would be no difficulty with regard to that. Such a committee would be a very valuable help, not only to Members, but to the authorities of the House. Perhaps between now and the re-assembly of Parliament such a proposal might be given consideration by those in authority, and unless the Lord Privy Seal would like to make further proposals to those already specified, I commend the recommendations of the Committee to the House and express agreement with the Report.
Mr. Edmund Harvey: I join with my hon. and gallant Friend and with the right hon. Baronet who has moved this Motion in expressing regret at the absence of the right hon. Gentleman the Chairman of Ways and Means, whose most interesting speech on the occasion of the First Report will be within the recollection of Members who were present on that occasion. We are all greatly indebted to him for the very great interest he has taken and the devoted labour he has given to this very important subject. The whole House will be in agreement that the Second Report proposes most valuable measures of conservation and that we owe a great deal to the Committee. I hope that we shall have an assurance from the Government that the appropriate Government office will at once take in hand the carrying-out of these recommendations, as soon as the House has agreed to the Motion. It is a case in which no day should be lost.
There is, however, one point referred to by my right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris) which I would like to deal with a little more fully. His assurance is most welcome, because it does convey clearly the intention of the Committee, but, unfortunately, the First Report of the Committee, which is referred to in this Report, leaves two important classes of documents—which can never be replaced—to be pulped at any time in the future if the Ministry of Supply considers it necessary to have the paper. During the Debate on

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the First Report I put in a plea for these two classes of documents to be preserved, and I especially asked that the Public Records Office should be consulted before any final decision. The Chairman of Ways and Means relieved my mind very much by an assurance that the Committee did intend to consult that Office and had, in fact, already sent an invitation. I was quite sure from his expressions then that the Committee would keep in mind the recommendations that the experts of the Public Records Office made. We have in this Report a definite recommendation of the Keeper of Public Records, but, unfortunately, although the Report quotes his recommendation, it does not give any decision of the Committee on that recommendation. This recommendation would involve, in effect, a modification of the First Report and the reservation of these two classes of documents from pulping.
In the First Report, to which the Keeper of Public Records refers, the two classes of documents are specified; they are the transcripts and proceedings before Private Bill Committees from 1835 to 1903, of which no printed copies are available, and verbatim transcripts of proceedings in court on election petitions. These can be disposed of eventually if required by the Ministry of Supply, and, unfortunately, there is an ominous sentence that follows that portion of this recommendation on the part of the Committee. It states:
"In both these cases the papers in question are the only existing records, but any reasons for preserving them are probably only based on their possible interest to historians."
That is an ominous sentence. A similar remark might have been made to the citizens of Alexandria when the great library of Alexandria was destroyed—that a large part of that library was only of value because of its possible interest to historians. These two classes of documents are unique, and the Keeper of Public Records has expressed in this Second Report his view that they ought to be preserved.
Mr. Speaker: I think the hon. Gentleman is dealing rather too much with the First Report which concerned documents that ought to be scrapped. This Report deals with the preservation of documents.
Mr. Harvey: That is true, Sir, but this Second Report quotes a note by the
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Keeper of the Public Records Office in which he says:
"I am very grateful to you for letting me see the First Report of your Select Committee containing proposals for the disposal of documents under three heads:

(1) documents for immediate disposal,

(2) modifications of the present practice of disposal, and

(3) documents for disposal in event of more urgent need.

He goes on to say:
"We found nothing to criticise in the reasons given for these proposals, except perhaps in the case of the two classes of papers, named in Section 9 of the Report, which are among those only to be released for pulping if the need for waste paper should become more urgent. I was consulted in November last in connection with the 'verbatim transcripts of proceedings in Court on Election Petitions,' and expressed the opinion that, as the only record of the proceedings, they ought to be kept. The same consideration would seem to apply to 'transcripts of proceedings before Private Bill committees from 1835 to 1903,' of which no printed copies are available."
Mr. Speaker: I do not think discussion on the First Report would be in Order on this occasion. We have finished with the First Report.
Mr. Mathers: Is it not permissible for us when these matters are before us to make representations to those who have put this Report before us in order that further consideration may be given to such a question as this?
Mr. Speaker: That is going back to the First Report.
Mr. Mathers: But it is included in this one.
Mr. Speaker: The First Report has already been agreed to by the House, and it is no good going back on it now. We can only deal with questions raised in the Second Report.
Mr. Harvey: I would not for a moment wish to dispute your Ruling on this point, Mr. Speaker, so I will only add how grateful I am for my right hon. Friend's assurance and say how much I hope that if another Committee is appointed later to carry on the work of this Committee, it will, in the course of its deliberations, be able to include in a further Report a formal confirmation of that assurance.
Question, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Report," put, and agreed to.

REHABILITATION IN INDUSTRY
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. A. Young.]
Mr. R. J. Taylor: I am glad to avail myself of the opportunity, on behalf of my party, to introduce a discussion on the subject of rehabilitation. This discussion will, I believe, give my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary an opportunity of stating what has been, and is being, done on this very important question, and while I believe he will be able to say what progress has been made, I would want this Debate so to arouse the national conscience on this question that we shall be able to say to the Government that we want to be satisfied that adequate provision is made for the clinical treatment of our injured people and for the rehabilitation of every injured man or woman who is in need of it. I appreciate—and my party appreciates—the splendid example of the Minister of Labour and National Service and the statements which he has made. He has done an invaluable service to the working classes of this country in making and helping to make this subject a very live issue. In dealing with this question I will endeavour to avoid dealing solely with miners and to deal more particularly with the industrial side. I recognise that the subject of rehabilitation is one of the things which, of necessity, the war makes very urgent. The statement that we heard from the Minister of Labour and National Service to-day was another pointer to the need in the future for these services to be ready when they are wanted. But the statement also showed us the need for our being able to return to normality, if possible, the men in the Services who will be wounded.
Let me turn now to the industrial field. The other day some figures were issued by the road transport authorities, I believe, giving the numbers of deaths and accidents on the roads. That may not be an industrial matter, but the lives of those people are valuable to the nation. The figures were startling. I will give the House some other figures which I can quote approximately from memory. I will not give the number of fatal cases, because they are outside the scope of the subject I am raising, but between 1928 and 1938 accidents in mines and quarries numbered 1,600,000, and in all other industries 1,600,000, the
2162
difference being only in the odd figures. Every day something like 1,000 people are injured in industry in this country. If one takes the seating capacity of the place in which we are now sitting as being 500, the figure I have given would mean that this place could be filled twice a day with the people who are injured in doing the nation's work. I do not say that all those people would be cases for rehabilitation, but the probability is that from 10 to 15 per cent. of them would be. The formidable numbers to which I have referred warrant my saying how justifiable it is that this question is being raised on the Adjournment.
In what I say I am speaking for all industries, but I have in mind particularly the mining industry. It is true that there has been progress in regard to accidents in the mining industry. It is not so very long ago—and my hon. Friends from mining districts will bear me out in this—when, if an accident happened in a mine, there was not the slightest provision for the easement of pain or the prevention of more serious consequences arising from what might be a very trivial accident. I remember the time when there were no first-aid appliances available, when no box was kept in the pit to which one could go for dressing and bandages, and when, if a limb was fractured in any way, a temporary setting had to be made by splitting timber, in order that the man might be brought to the surface. But, thank goodness, we are past those days. As far as concerns the liability for the actual treatment of compensation cases, however, there has not been that progress. The only thing that has been done has been the giving of compensation for loss of earnings, and that takes us a very little way. We have done our best to let our people know that they have been wrong in thinking they were paid compensation for the accident, We know all too well that they are not paid compensation for the accident. The compensation, which is very inadequate, is for the loss of earnings arising out of the accident. The payment of compensation will not meet the cost of rehabilitating the man himself. While it may not be opportune to do so, I want to make a digression here. I want to give the Government fair warning that if they think that it is safe to wait until after the Report of the Beveridge Committee before dealing with the larger question of compensation, they

2163
had better take further thought, because on the question of compensation things are very uneasy.
Industry has continued to pay a premium to make insurance in respect of the payment of compensation. There is one thing, however, which industry has been unable to see. I shall not make the charge of callousness, for it may have been due to lack of knowledge, but whatever may have been the cause, industry has not been able to see what income could arise as a result of the quicker return of men to industry consequent upon shortening of the period during which they received compensation, and, more particularly—and this ought to be the concern of all of us—as a result of a man again becoming a fit economic unit in society. Industry has not been able to see how the budget could be balanced. Industry could measure the cost of fracture clinics and rehabilitation centres, but it could not see what income there would be to offset the expense of again making a man a fit economic unit as soon as possible. In the latest figures which I have been able to get concerning Workmen's Compensation there is an item as follows: "Cases brought from other years." The total number—not for the mining industry alone, but for industry generally—was 6,703. The amount of compensation paid was £3,710,527. That concerns disablement cases only. I have not as yet referred to industrial diseases, and if they were included, the figure would be much higher.
In the quotations which I shall make before I finish my speech, I hope to be able to show from the number of cases and the amount of money paid in compensation, and the experience in the treatment of these cases so far, that there could have been saved a very considerable amount of money which might well have been placed on the income side of the balance sheet, and that the treatment which we are now urging should be given to our people would, if considered from the point of view of self-interest alone, have paid employers and industry generally. On the men's side, we are going on year after year accepting the inexorable toll of the mines, that endless stream of injured men. Sympathy, yes, because there is no place where sympathy finds more ready expression than in min-
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ing villages, but as to the after effects of accidents, we seem to have been ignorant, and it is regrettable. We were the people must affected, because we were the sufferers. It was not the shareholders of the colliery companies who suffered but the men who were doing the actual work, and they seem to have been in ignorance of the after consequences of these accidents. If after local medical or hospital treatment men did not return to normality, we have looked upon it very largely as inevitable. If industry has not been responsible for the rehabilitation of the workers, who has responsibility, because it must rest somewhere? I am pleased, of course, that the Minister of Labour is taking some responsibility, self-imposed to a great extent, because he has had to do with industry all his life, and so has his Parliamentary Secretary. We say it is the nation's responsibility.
The Lord Privy Seal and others have said pretty much the same thing that I am going to say, though in different language, that men are not employed in industry unless profits can be made out of them. By and large, every man engaged in industry produces more than he can consume, therefore there is a surplus, and every man and woman doing the work of the nation is adding to that surplus, which we call the national wealth, and it is on that national wealth that the Chancellor of the Exchequer bases his Budget. It is out of that national wealth that we derive subsistence for those who are unable to work, and it is out of that national wealth that we provide luxuries for some who can work and do not. Further, having tested it on those grounds, in the last analysis the workman is in the service of the State. He may get his wages from his employer, and before the Essential Work Order the employer has been able to give him the sack, but by and large he is in the service of the State. Therefore, if the people of the country in the past, in their wisdom—perhaps I should say in their darkness—have decreed that those who meet with accidents are only entitled to what is due to them in respect of their loss of earnings, it is the obligation of the State to make good the part that represents the loss in their service to the State. That is my claim to-day.
I am glad that a new light has come on this question of rehabilitation. There are some men who stand out as beacon lights

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in their research, in their endeavour and in their self-sacrifice, in bringing to the industrial world and to the nation the possibilities of clinics. We have heard much of Mansfield. I remember some figures which were given by Dr. Nicoll when he came here. There is a doctor in my constituency who has some splendid work to his credit in this matter. It is limited, because the facilities are few, but he only needs the opportunity. I remember one figure of 400 cases that went to the rehabilitation centre. The cases that go there are not hand picked. The purpose is to restore men to normality if possible, and therefore only the worst cases are taken. Of those 400, 378 returned to the pre-accident employment, 21 went back to light work—light work in the pit; it would be heavy work elsewhere—and two did not recover. One died, and one was too seriously injured. If you take those figures against the background of 60,703 outstanding cases in 1938, it seems to me that there would have been a tremendous field for recovery and for the bringing back of these men to productive economic work.
I saw the fine old mansion in beautiful surroundings. The men were having games and doing exercises. That is the sort of thing I am pleading for. I want our men taken away from the hospital atmosphere altogether. I went to see a friend in a very fine infirmary in the North. I will not mention its name, in case anybody may think I am speaking disparingly about it, but I do not intend to do that, because it is doing splendid work under great disadvantages. When I went to see my friend, who had had a serious accident, I found that the place was full of injured men. I had not been talking long with my friend before he had told me about the cases all up the line, and it seemed as though each case was getting progressively worse. That has a psychological effect on the men and retards their recovery. I hope that we shall not have that atmosphere in the fracture clinics. Those who go to the fracture clinics do not necessarily go to a rehabilitation centre. While there are 1,000 new cases a year, 750 do not go to rehabilitation centres at all. I want the fracture clinics to be in surroundings which are not those of a hospital, because the man who goes to the rehabilitation centre sees a progressive stage of recovery. The atmosphere is one
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of hope and cheerfulness, which implants itself on his mind and tends towards his recovery.
At Mansfield there are spinal cases. We are all used to broken arms and legs, but there is nothing which touches my heart so much as a case of a fractured spine. A man with a fractured arm or leg can get about sooner or later, but in the old days, in the case of a man with a fractured spine, we used to subscribe for a chair for him or he got it from the medical charity fund of our association. Then he was wheeled round the village for a few years until he died. If there is one thing I am glad of, it is that the treatment at Mansfield is helping spinal cases to such an extent that men are able to get back to their own work. It is a glorious thing, and no cost should stand in the way, for no cost can be measured against putting a man with a spinal fracture on his feet again and making him fit and able to look his fellow men in the eye and to earn his own living and be independent. I would like to add a word about the splendid service that is being done at Hoylake for one of the Services. If we can do that for the young men during the war, how much more necessary it is that we should be able to do it in peace-time for those who are doing the work of the nation. I think that we are passing from the reign of darkness where ignorance has held sway. The light is now breaking through, and on behalf of our party I hope we shall now enter into the reign of light and that the treatment of injured workmen shall be on the consciences of the people of this country so that nothing shall be left undone that will bring men back to normality and useful work.
Mr. Bernard Taylor: I welcome the opportunity of saying a few words on this subject, because I come from a division which can be regarded as the home and the hub of this great work of rehabilitation. During the past few months Ministers of the Crown, Parliamentary Secretaries and Members of Parliament have visited the centre at Mansfield and have paid tribute to the fine work that is being carried on there under the able guidance of Mr. Nicoll, the surgeon in charge. The work at the Mansfield centre is being carried on fairly extensively and with outstanding success. It is confined to the treatment of injured

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miners, and it serves a population of at least 33,000 belonging to the mining community. I will give later a few statistics which I hope will indicate the value of the work that is being done there from a social, economic and humane point of view. I wish to address myself to the general question of rehabilitation, and I am glad to see the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour in his place, for he is interested in this work and his Department desires that it shall go forward. In order to carry on the work of rehabilitation with the maximum amount of success, the first essential is that there shall be the utmost co-operation between the fracture clinic and the rehabilitation unit. At the fracture clinic the foundation is laid for recovery, and at the rehabilitation centre the finishing process of healing becomes an. art which expresses itself in broken men being made fit, not only to walk but able to re-enter industry. It should not be overlooked that the work of the fracture clinic and the rehabilitation unit are interwoven. They cannot be divorced from each other if the work is to find its full expression and we are to get the maximum value from both the fracture clinic and the rehabilitation centre.
Another point is that the psychological aspect of this work is as important as the physical. It is necessary in this work of recovering broken men to fit them not only to enjoy life but to re-enter industry, and one of the first things to do is to remove from their minds the feeling of insecurity which was characteristic of past days. To achieve this, there should be the closest co-operation between the industry, the fracture clinics and the rehabilitation centres. Let me quote the case of two colliery companies with fairly extensive undertakings in Nottinghamshire to interpret practically the point which I am trying to make. They have appointed safety and welfare officers, and the scheme is working with remarkable success, both in the interests of the injured men and, may I add, in the interests of the industry itself. There is the closest co-operation between the safety and welfare officers appointed by these two colliery companies and the surgeon in charge at the rehabilitation centre, and when a patient has reached the stage of recovery at which, in the opinion of the surgeon in charge, he is capable of performing some kind of
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work, communication is established with the safety and welfare officers; and the work is carried on even when a man, after recovery, re-enters the industry.
Let me say a word or two about the size of these rehabilitation centres, because there is a diversity of opinion on the point. I believe this work has come to stay and will be widely extended in the future, and I maintain that what we ought to avoid is the setting-up of mammoth, herculean centres. I am told, and the information is on the basis of experience, that the ideal is to provide accommodation for about 60 patients. That helps towards maintaining individual relationship and close personal contact between those in charge and the patients themselves. I hope that at these centres we shall not follow the practice adopted in our elementary education system, where we have big classes of 50 and 60. In such a class there is possibly a small minority of pupils who—for want of a better term—are mentally retarded and backward, and the problem facing the teacher is that if there is concentration upon the mentally retarded, the brighter pupils will suffer, because the pace of the class is set in the interest of the backward pupils. If there is concentration on the mentally retarded in a big class, the brighter children suffer. I hope that in connection with these rehabilitation centres we shall profit from that experience in education. If we avoid building mammoth centres, we shall retain what is most important, individual relationship and close co-operation between those in charge and the patients themselves.
Only a few weeks ago the British Orthopedic Association paid a visit to the Mansfield centre, and one of their speakers, commenting on the point I have made, said that a centre catering for 60 patients was the ideal to aim at. Another point is that these centres should be residential. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will give some thought to that point, because at Mansfield it has been proved that it works exceedingly well. The men get regular habits and have regular mealtimes, and so on, and that adds considerably to the progress patients can make. Let me give very briefly some account of the work done at Mansfield. At the fracture clinic, which is at the hospital, no fewer than 1,000 cases are treated each year, and that figure represents only the worst types of fracture. Of those 1,000 cases, between 15 and 20 per cent.—again the

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worst type of cases—are selected for treatment at the rehabilitation centre. I do not want to repeat what the hon. Member for Morpeth (Mr. R. J. Taylor) has said, but I would like to point out that one-third of those cases are spinal fracture cases, that 50 per cent. of the cases treated at the rehabilitation centre return to their pre-accident employment, and that no less than 94 per cent. return to some kind of productive and economic work in the mining industry. In the light of those figures, I can only say that the days of miracles are not past.
My hon. Friend the Member for Morpeth gave some other figures upon which I do not wish to enlarge, but this he did not say, and I wish to refer to it because of its significance. In the area covered by this centre the Bolsover Colliery Company have large undertakings, and within a period of time that company had 400 consecutive fracture cases, and 389 of them returned to productive economic work and 378 of them returned to their pre-accident work. Those are very alarming, sensational and astounding figures. What about the 6 per cent.? I said that 94 per cent. of the cases treated went back to work. The 6 per cent. who do not recover and cannot go back to the arduous work in the mining industry are turned over to the Ministry of Labour. I pay a special tribute to the facilities that exist for training these unfortunate 6 per cent. The training centres should, however, be in the industrial districts where the accidents happened, because men do not like to leave home after having had their accidents and be buffeted about. They like to be able to stay at home. This aspect of our industrial life has been terribly neglected in the past. Men have been left to endure suffering and torture consequent upon serious accident, and their services have been lost to the community and to industry. Their own hopes have been frustrated, and they have lived for years in suffering and pain. The work now being done is sufficient evidence that no time should be lost, and no effort should be spared to provide facilities which will reduce the wastage of manpower, particularly in the mining industry, and will bring new hope to broken men.
Mr. David Adams: It is a felicitous circumstance that, in the midst of our greater preoccupations, we can spend time upon this new science, which
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will be as a heritage to industry. This rehabilitation is relatively unknown, and the mining industry primarily has become interested in it; but it is equally applicable to all industry as well, as we have heard, as to the Armed Forces of the Crown. There has been very limited opportuniies up to now for making the knowledge that we now possess of our capacity to rehabilitate the injured more widely known, but the increasing mechanisation of production may make it more necessary throughout the whole field of industry for rehabilitation to take its natural part in restoration, where that is necessary.
From rehabilitation there is not only physical recovery, but great psychological changes in those who have been successfully treated. Mental and moral changes take place, we have been told. Whether this is due to the environment or to the treatment, or to both, I must admit that men who have been to Mansfield have come back with their entire outlook changed upon life and society and the problems of life. In that case, we have in this rehabilitation a new form of giving, to those who have been unfortunate enough to suffer in this way, a new and beneficial outlook. One of the men to whom I spoke had been a local preacher and described himself as a modern Naaman, suffering from the leprosy of invalidity due to an accident, and ne said, "I was washed in the stream of rehabilitation, and I have come out clean, whole and free from stain." I thought it was an admirable parallel and piece of imagery of what actually occurred.
It has been stated that compensation for earnings has been looked upon as the liability of those concerned, but to-day, after this knowledge has become general throughout the country and is accepted by the Ministry of Labour, a sufferer will be entitled to ask for rehabilitation in addition to any other obligation arising from loss of earnings. We were fortunate in being able to see in a Committee Room of this House the amazing results of Mansfield treatment. There was a film, and a lecture delivered by the great doctor who is at the head of Mansfield. Even more amazing was the information given to us that, unless there is absolute severance of the vertibrae, it is possible to-day to restore fully to health those who have been wheeled about in

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bath chairs, as in the county of Durham, where accidents are very common.
So far, there is only one of these centres at Mansfield, for 50 or 60 patients, but when this treatment becomes the natural part of the treatment of accidents, and disease, maybe, due to industry, perhaps some of the old-standing cases may be taken. Men of my acquaintance and constituents of mine may be restored by the magic of this rehabilitation scheme. It is clear to us that the obligation of rehabilitation must be made statutory, either upon the employers concerned, or freely, fully and gladly accepted by the State.
Mr. George Griffiths: As I have sat here to-day my mind has gone back to yesterday, when there was a discussion about wages of the workers and whether they were not too high, and the benches across the way were full. There was no chance for any of us to speak. Now, when we are speaking about the rehabilitation of the workers after accident, the benches across the way are empty. I hope a note of this will be made by the Press, so that we shall know where we are. I am naturally interested in this rehabilitation scheme. I have heard my hon. Friends speaking with knowledge of the matter, and they spoke
"as one having authority, and not as the scribes."
It was not something out of a book but something that they actually know and have seen and handled. I know something about the necessity for rehabilitation. My eldest brother 53 years ago sustained a fractured back in the mines. He is 69 years of age to-day, and he has never been enabled to go back to normal work from that day to this. Thank God, we can see on the horizon to-day the possibility of this kind of thing being wiped out. My hon. Friend the Member for Morpeth (Mr. R. J. Taylor) spoke about having seen the picture in the Grand Committee Room. My hon. Friend the Member for Consett (Mr. Adams) said he had also seen it. I like to see something better than a picture; I like to see the real thing. Along with the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Pensions, I visited Mansfield to see these men. We spent five or six hours there and talked to the men. We saw the men undergoing training—gymnastics, etc., outside and in-
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side. The psychology both of the instructor and of the men struck both of us. Why? Because we could see in the very eyes of these men, who had had fractured backs, fractured legs, etc., hope, inspiration. They said to us, "We have a chance now to get back to the work we were doing before we had our accident."
If one goes into any mining village today, one can see men who have had fractured legs, fractured arms. Some of them are bow-legged, some of them are knock-kneed; they are twisted all shapes. The reason is that no attention was given to them when the accident occurred. The attitude in the past when a man has been hurt has been to say, "What are his wages; what is his average wage for the last six months? Did he average £3 a week?" If he did not, he did not receive 30s. a week compensation. I have seen some of our chaps, married men with five or six children, go home with 21s. 6d. per week, and all the owners cared was that the man from the mutual indemnity company, when the injured man had been off work for a few weeks, would come round and want to know, "Is it not about time you were shifting and getting back to work?" If it was a serious accident, a bag of silver would be dangled before the injured man's eyes, and it would be put to him, "Take a lump sum settlement. You can manage a fish shop in a back street." That has been the attitude. We want it wiped out entirely. The way to do it is to make the insurance national State insurance instead of profits for the insurance company, so that if any profit accrues at all, it shall accrue to the man and to his wife and children.
I know the Parliamentary Secretary is waiting to get up, but my soul is full of this thing. My home has been hit by it; I was hit by it myself for 26 weeks when I was in the mines. I know something about it as a married man, because I had only 23s. for my wife, three children and myself. I wish to give another little example of experience. I cite a case about a lad who has had his leg off, a young fellow at Edlington. For over 12 months he has been like that, and nobody seems to think it is his business to see that he is rehabilitated. If somebody had been quick about it, this lad could have been back at work, the same work as he was doing, because without a doubt great

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strides have been made to-day, strides at Mansfield, but not only at Mansfield. There have been great strides here at Roehampton. I like the idea of that light leg, the aluminium leg, instead of a cork leg or wooden leg, whereby the wearers can move about and practically get back to their own work.
I went to the Mansion House a week last Wednesday, and I saw miracles walk across the platform there, not a picture on the screen, but actual human beings who had been mangled in the blitz of this war. A little girl 11 years of age who had been blitzed and had had her leg off came on that platform and skipped across it just like a little bird. One could not perceive that she had had a leg off at all. I thought that was wonderful. Another young lady who was there who had had her leg off is doing her work and travelling 26 miles daily on her bicycle. I do not want to enlarge on this. I want to say that if these things can be done for our own people who are blitzed by the enemy, it must be done for our own people who are in industry and producing the wealth of the country. It could be done. I believe the Minister himself and the Minister of Pensions also are whole-hearted so far as this is concerned.
The other day I went to Newquay, where they are beginning the rehabilitation of the men there while they are on their backs. I saw a lady instructress who had charge of about a dozen men. They were men who had been injured, men who were casualties in the war. There they were on their backs. Almost immediately they came into the hospital this lady was beginning their treatment, telling them how to move their feet, how to move their necks, how to move their backs, etc. When she had done with them they went to another trainer, a man. What is required in these rehabilitation centres is not only a man who knows how to manipulate the limbs, but a psychologist. I saw at Newquay one of the finest men instructors, who could read a man inside as well as read his accident. This man had the confidence of the people who were under him. There are great possibilities, there is great hope, and I believe that, not when we come out of the war, but now, for the casualties in the war, in the blitz, and in industry, we should do all we possibly can to bring these people back so far into industry.
The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. Tomlinson): I am glad to have the opportunity to-day of replying to the discussion on this important subject, and I am glad to be able to agree in the main with almost everything that has been said. Rehabilitation is a big subject, and is interesting from more than one point of view. Hon. Members have dealt with it to-day primarily from the industrial point of view, and it is from that side that we of the Ministry of Labour are most concerned with it. But there is a tendency to think sometimes that it is only concerned with one aspect of disability, that which arises from accidents in industry. One can understand that, because people who have been most connected with industries in which accidents have arisen have seen the effects of these accidents more clearly than any others. But all diseases which lead to disability—and they are many—must be brought under review if the picture is to be complete. So must the numerous accidents unconnected with industry. It may be a surprise to many, as it certainly was to me, to find that the majority of accidents were not connected with industry, apart from the war casualties, both among civilians and in the Services.
The object of rehabilitation, as has been very adequately said, is to restore the individual as far as possible to normal. Successful rehabilitation is not solely a medical problem. I hesitate to use definitions which might be misinterpreted, but I would say that in the strictly medical sense rehabilitation means the process of restoring lost muscle tone, restoring the full functions of the limbs, and maintaining the general health and strength. All those things are included in the term, used in its medical sense. This should begin as soon as possible after the injury or the operation, as soon as the patient's condition permits; and it should be a continuous process. When restoration, in the medical sense, has been achieved, the social and industrial experts are required. In consultation with the medical experts, they should determine whether the patient can return to his former occupation, and if not, what other kind of occupation would ensure his making the greatest contribution in the field of productive effort.
It may be true that we are appreciating the value of our man-power, in an economic sense, more clearly than we

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have done before, and that the progress made in rehabilitation is due to the enhanced value of man-power when it becomes scarce. The fact remains that not only from the standpoint of restoring the injured person to productive effort, in the interests of the community, but in his own interests, rehabilitation is essential. That which the hon. Member for Morpeth (Mr. R. J. Taylor) spoke of as the feeling of independence which comes to the individual who finds himself able after a serious accident or illness to earn his own living, is more important, I believe, even than his value to the community from a productive point of view. After restoration in a medical sense come training and resettlement. Both need careful consideration. The point made by the hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr. B. Taylor) with regard to that training being conducted, wherever possible, near the individual's home, is one which we have already discovered to be of importance. These principles, broadly speaking, are accepted by all. What steps have been taken to implement the desire of all sections of the House that they should be put into operation? With regard to the medical side of rehabilitation, much progress has been made, although much still remains to be done. In the Emergency Hospitals Scheme organised by the Ministry of Health and the Department of Health for Scotland, many orthopædic centres have been established, with a full range of facilities, including massage, physical training, occupational therapy, and workshops, as well as orthopædic surgery. Other hospitals have been earmarked for fracture cases; and some, if not all, of these facilities are available there. So there is at least a skeleton service available.
I ought also to mention the work of the Ministry of Pensions and that wonderful work, to which tribute has been paid, which has been going on at Roehampton. The people responsible for the development of that work have been pioneers in a cause which we all realise is vital. My visit to Roehampton some months ago and my talk with the surgeon in charge had such an effect upon me that whenever I have seen since then a man with a peg-leg I have felt a cold shudder down my back. We shall not have completed our task until everybody who has lost a limb has the advantage of what science has
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produced in the limb-fitting centres. It was because of the scarcity of man-power, among other things, and the need for bringing back into industry the people who were lost to the productive economic life of the community, that the Minister of Labour introduced the interim scheme in October, 1941, for the training and resettlement of disabled persons. The experience gained in the short-time—barely 12 months—which has since elapsed is indicative of the work that we believe can be done through this scheme, and it may be that a greater scheme will emerge out of it. The first thing about this scheme that I would like to emphasise—one which has been spoken of by, I think, all speakers to-day—is the manner in which we get in touch with the people who have suffered injury or who are disabled as a result of long illness. That is done, in the first instance, by interviews, which take place in the hospital.
Somebody said that the individual at the rehabilitation centre should be a psychologist, but it is just as essential that the psychologist should be at work before he reaches the rehabilitation centre. One of the striking things about this scheme which we have been putting into operation during the last 12 months has been the effect upon the individual concerned when, on being interviewed in hospital, there has been the prospect of returning to work of some kind. Therefore the psychological effect of bringing to the individual the possibility of training and restoration is something which cannot be over-emphasised. It has been said that "Hope springs eternal in the human breast." That may be true outside hospital service, but I have been in many a hospital in which hope seemed to have departed from all the breasts that were present. Therefore it is essential that the two things should be welded together right at the beginning. In the interviews which have taken place what has been impressed upon the individual concerned was not only that there was hope but that we were looking for him to be restored in order that he might return to industry and health.
The scheme in its original stage was confined to the training of people for the war effort. The training could be carried out if the individual, after training, could be placed in industry which would be helpful in the war. After the scheme had

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been running for some six months it was found that there are scarcely any industries to-day which are not wrapped up in the war effort and the scheme has now been extended to cover all types of industry. Up to the end of August the total number of people interviewed under the scheme was just over 41,000. The great majority of these were hospital interviews and related to war service or war injury cases, but included among the total a proportion of interviews at exchanges of persons with pre-war disablement. It is obvious that a great many disabled people in the country to-day have left the hospital a long time ago and given up hope, may be, but they have been brought back to the possibility not only of being usefully employed and earning their own living, but of once again taking up the thread of life and a place in society as a consequence of this new scheme. Of this total, about 29,000 have been placed or have found employment, but I would not like to say at this stage that they have all been placed in positions in which their injuries have been taken into consideration.
One of the difficulties about rehabilitation in war-time is that man-power is at a premium and economic circumstances are such that the individual can obtain a job, whether he is fit or not, and the consequence is that he will perhaps take on a job which is not suitable to him because of the economic conditions. It may be that at the end of the war when circumstances have changed the necessity for the re-training of these men will make itself felt because of the fact that they have only been trained for a war occupation. The fact that they have been brought along the road and have been brought from a state of disability back into the labour market and been employed is a long step in the direction of restoring them into full man-hood and full economic work. The total number of persons admitted for training under the scheme is just under 3,000, and when you subtract 3,000 from 29,000, it means that 26,000 have either gone back to their own jobs or been able to obtain jobs in industry similar to those which they were doing or which are most in demand today. Originally the training provided under the scheme, as I have said, was limited to war industry or war effort occupations, but it has now been extended.
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There is rather a striking figure with respect to the blind, who are in a special category of disabled people. It is strange to find, after all that has taken place with regard to the care of the blind and their rehabilitation and training, that out of 600 persons who have been interviewed, 200 have been placed in employment of a kind other than that which was regarded previously as being the exclusive employment of the blind. To-day there are many blind persons whose sense of touch has been so developed, perhaps as a result of their blindness who, after training, have been able to take inspection jobs requiring great delicacy of touch, and they are doing jobs in our engineering shops not only with credit to themselves but with great advantage to the people for whom they are working.
There is ample evidence from the individuals we have seen and the work that has been and is being done in different places that this scheme is successful and that it can be made more successful as the days pass. It has been possible to take over two centres at least which previously were subject only to voluntary contributions, and in which very badly disabled people are being treated or trained at the moment. I refer to the centres at Exeter and Leatherhead. Here training is given, and the object and purpose of the training, even in these centres where only the very badly disabled are being trained, is to restore them to a position in which they can obtain full work at full rates of pay. There is no desire either on the part of the Ministry of Labour or of any of the other Minis-tries in conjunction with whom we are working on this business to make these people into something other than the best type of workers. We feel that we owe it to these men who are injured either in industry or in connection with the war effort or even as the result of accident at least to bring them back into the scheme of things exactly on the same footing as those with whom and for whom they are working.
The second development in this scheme is the development of grants to undertakings which are employing the most severely disabled who have little or no chance of getting ordinary employment. That scheme has only just come into operation but it is intended to assist at any rate in bringing back to employment

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those who otherwise at this stage would not be capable of employment.
I would like to say a word or two, in conclusion, about one or two of the things which the introduction of this scheme and a study of the whole subject of rehabilitation have brought to our attention.

ROYAL ASSENT
Message to attend the Lords Commissioners.
The House went; and, having returned—
Mr. SPEAKER reported the Royal Assent to:

1. Appropriation (No. 3) Act, 1942.

2. Greenwich Hospital Act, 1942.

3. Courts (Emergency Powers) Amendment Act, 1942.

4. Prolongation of Parliament Act, 1942.

5. Local Elections and Register of Electors (Temporary Provisions) Act, 1942.

6. India and Burma (Temporary and Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1942.

7. Welsh Courts Act, 1942.

8. London Midland and Scottish Railway Order Confirmation Act, 1942.

Question again proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."
Mr. Tomlinson: When we were called to the other place, I was about to conclude my remarks. I want to put before the House one or two of the things that we have discovered as a consequence of our working of the interim scheme. The first is this. While we can claim great things for rehabilitation, I hope we shall not over-claim. It may be that a little story of a boy who was injured will illustrate what I mean. The boy had his fingers badly hurt in a mill and was taken to hospital. After a period, the doctor, looking at him, said, "Well, I think you will be all right, Johnny." The boy said, "You think I will? Do you think I shall be able to use my fingers ail right?" The doctor said, "Certainly, my boy." "Will I be able to play the piano with
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them?" "Oh, yes." "Well," the boy said, "that is funny—I couldn't before." That is where the interim scheme of the Ministry of Labour comes in, so that if an injured person cannot do that which he did before, he can at least be given a training which will enable him to undertake something useful.
The second thing I want to say is this. I want to emphasise that the possibilities of rehabilitation ought not to prevent us from using all the brains and ingenuity we have to devise machinery and working conditions which will render accidents and diseases arising from industry less and less frequent. We know that in wartime accidents tend to increase, not only because of the increasing number of people who come into industry, but because very often they come in without that background which others who have always been in industry possess. Although these accidents tend to increase, and although we may be able to improve matters afterwards by rehabilitation, let all who have any influence in industry, either in connection with the design of machinery or new inventions, do all we can to lower the accident rate in industrial occupations and prevent the necessity for rehabilitation, while taking steps to make rehabilitation a reality.

WAR PRODUCTION (SCOTLAND)
Mr. Boothby: I desire to raise the general question of war production in Scotland: This question is bound up with the compulsory transfer of Scottish mobile labour, particularly of Scottish girls, to work in English factories, which has now been going on for some time. I ask hon. Members to believe that there is very great indignation on this subject throughout the length and breadth of Scotland, and that this is not doing any good to the general war effort. There have, of course, been many cases of individual hardship. With these I do not propose to deal on the Floor of the House. There have also been cases where arrangements for the reception and accommodation in England of these girls from Scotland have been far from satisfactory; but I do not propose to deal with that point either. I accept the assurances of the Minister of Labour that things are all right now; and I intend to take advantage of his very kind invitation to visit one of the main

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receiving centres in England for the Scottish girls, and to see for myself the provision that is made for them.
It is with the principles that I want to deal for a few minutes, because the transfer of these girls from Scotland to England is a symptom and not the cause of the trouble. There is a background to this story. Ever since the last war Scotland has been more or less depressed. Between 1920 and 1940 her basic industries, agriculture, coalmining, fishing, shipbuilding, and engineering, languished. She never recovered after the depression of 1929. Scotland remained a distressed area, and was so categorised by the Government of the day. I submit to the House that, by comparison with England, Scotland received very bad treatment at the hands of the Government before this war. Her housing conditions were allowed to remain a blot on our so-called civilisation, much worse than those of England. Her principal cereal crop remained for years unsubsidised, as against wheat. Her natural resources, particularly of water power, remained undeveloped. Her railway system was administered from London.
Last, but not least, there was a steady drift of industry from Scotland to the South, and particularly of the lighter industries. I would remind the House that Nobel's great chemical industry started in Glasgow. It has now been merged in Imperial Chemical Industries with headquarters in England. Even some of the heavy industries, like Stewart and Lloyd, which began in Glasgow, were transferred to England; and, of course, what applied to the heavy industries applied far more to the lighter and more prosperous industries which, in fact, never really started up in Scotland during the years before this war. London was the magnet. London remains the magnet.
But in 1935, with the inauguration of the rearmament policy, came the great opportunity to reverse this process. It was not taken; and I want to say to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland—and I challenge him to deny it—that practically without exception, when the 1935 rearmament programme was inaugurated, every single shadow factory projected was located in England and not in Scotland. One can hardly name a single factory that was scheduled to be located in Scotland. It is almost
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unbelievable. Once again Scotland was left out in the cold. In a Debate in the House on 10th March, 1937, I referred to the unhealthy growth of London, to the danger of concentrating our industries too much in the South of this country, and to the necessity of doing something to stop the steady drift of industry from Scotland to the South. I said:
"I have often felt that if we in Scotland were only a Dominion, which perhaps we shall be one day, or a Crown Colony, our resources would have been developed many years ago."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th March, 1937; col. 1259, Vol. 321.]
I believe that to be true. I believe that, if Scotland had been a Crown Colony, there would have been an uproar every time there was a Colonial Debate in the House until something was done. As it was, we were just allowed to drift along, in distress. Nothing was done. In fact, worse followed. The Secretary of State well remembers the fate of the Caledonian Power Bill, which was twice rejected by English. Members in the teeth of a majority of Scottish Members. If that Bill had been passed, we could have been producing all the vital carbide that we require to-day. May I quote one sentence of a speech that I made on the Caledonian Power Bill?
"The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs during the last war coined the phrase, 'Too late.' That phrase is alarmingly true in this country at present and is terribly applicable to the present situation. If we had had this Bill two years ago we should be able a year hence to manufacture all the carbide that we want in this country and we should nave taken one constructive step, the only one we have had during recent years, to revive the Highlands and bring assistance to them. If we pass this Bill to-night we may still perhaps be in time."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th April, 1938; col. 447, Vol. 334.]
We did not pass the Bill that night. The English Members decided that it would be better to make our carbide in Norway than in Scotland.
Mr. G. Griffiths: It was not only the English Members. The Scottish Members were split to pieces.
Mr. Boothby: We had a substantial majority of Scottish Members on both occasions. I only say that English and Welsh Members decided that we should make our carbide in Norway. I often wonder what they think about that today, because we are not getting a great quantity from Norway.
Mr. Buchanan: I think my hon. Friend the Member for Hemsworth (Mr. G. Griffiths) is mistaken. The hon. Member for East Aberdeenshire (Mr. Boothby) referred to the Caledonian Power Bill, not the Grampian Power Bill.
Mr. Boothby: That is correct. The war then came, and still Scotland did not get her fair share of Government work. Why has Scotland not got her fair share since the war broke but? Is it because the Scottish workers have lost their skill? I do not think so. Is there a river in the whole world that has produced more and better ships during the last three years than the Clyde? I doubt it. Are the engineers of Scotland, famed for the last hundred years for their skill, no longer masters of their craft? That cannot be substantiated. Yet the number of new factories for war production is out of all proportion lower in Scotland than in England, and that has gone on steadily for the last three years. The North, the centre and the East of Scotland are still comparatively neglected; and, last but not least, contracts are not being placed in sufficient numbers with the firms that already exist. The Ministry of Aircraft Production is the most culpable of the Government Departments in this respect. So we get the pitiable spectacle of the best Scottish girls being drafted South because Scotland has not got her fair share of war production, and that is why I say that the cause of the problem is not the drafting of the girls as such. That is only a symptom of the neglect that Scotland has had before and since the war broke out.
I want some assurance that Scotland will get a better deal in the future and that, as and when these new factories come into existence and these contracts which we hope will be placed in Scotland are placed, the girls who have been compulsorily drafted to England will be given an opportunity, should they desire to return to their native land. The Minister of Labour said the other day that he was bound to treat Great Britain as a whole, and that he was not going to make any distinction between Scotland, Wales, the North, and the South of England. I agree that there is a case to be made out for what he said, but there is another side to the question. There is such a thing as national patriotism, Scottish patriotism,
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which I do not think is at all inconsistent with the war effort as a whole. I do not think it should be discouraged. I do not think that Scottish girls who want to work in Scotland should not be encouraged to do so. The sort of remark made by the Minister, if carried to its logical conclusion, would lead to a demand for some form of Home Rule for Scotland, which might prove irresistible.
Mr. Buchanan: I implore the Secretary of State to see, on the score of domestic happiness, that where father and daughter are living together the home should not be smashed up by the compulsory movement of the girl. A man working at munitions, perhaps from eight in the morning to nine or 10 at night, needs food, and, if you take away the only person who could look after him, you will make him a much less efficient worker and inflict domestic unhappiness without getting much in return. There ought also to be a better approach to the girls when they are interviewed. They should not be told in a brutal fashion, "take it or leave it. We have the law, and God help you if you do not obey it." That is a bit annoying coming from young women of about 25 interviewing others of perhaps 35 years of age. I admit that the Minister of Labour has not been altogether unreasonable when approached on the matter but I ask him to look at it again.
I think that Scotland at the moment is capable of greater development in the matter of industry. One of the arguments—and it is a reasonable one—is that we cannot in the middle of a war go in for great building because of the scarcity of material and men. I am certain, however, that there are a fair number of buildings available and that they are not being properly used. I mentioned the other day a building which is in the Tradeston Division, which was formerly an engineering works and was afterwards making sugar. It is used to-day as an office for the Assistance Board. My father used to work in it, and for at least 50 years it was carried on as a first-class engineering works. It might now be better used if machinery was put into it than as an office of the Assistance Board.
I would ask the Secretary of State again to survey the possibility of building space in Scotland and also of buildings which have machinery in them and which are

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not now, owing to the exigencies of the situation, making the goods that were normally made. Machines in such buildings could be taken out and other machines put in. I speak of this matter purely from a business point of view. I do not want to go into the war between Scotland and England and Wales. I once said in the Scottish Grand Committee that I would sooner have a good Englishman in the chair than a bad Scotsman. On these matters we are all like Jock Tamson's bairns, a very mixed lot. I do not want to raise any racial feeling. Speaking of this problem as a business proposition, I think it is better to move industry than a lot of human beings and so break up families. I would ask the Secretary of State to use his power and try to see whether he can swing the matter back in order to stop this great movement South. In Scotland there is some feeling on this matter. At a trade union conference on Saturday it was said that the politicians were agitating too much. If we had said nothing, we would have been accused of neglecting our duties, but when we say something we are told we are making an agitation. I am a strong, active trade unionist and hold some position in the movement, but I do not think trade unionism ought to be superior to the House of Commons, and I am not going to have offensive lectures made to me. This assembly is the greatest, possibly, in the world, and I am not going to have it substituted by other people. I am not going to have my duties as representative of Gorbals delegated to other people who have not been elected.
There is feeling in Scotland on this matter, but I do not exaggerate it or emphasise it. Some of the girls want to come to England and are happy when they get there. If they are to come, however, they should be given hostels. Private lodgings for a girl are rarely a success. A man lodger is a different thing. As soon as he has done his work he can go out to the pictures or have the fun of the fair. A girl, however, wants to stay in and wash her stockings or her hair, and she is a bit of a nuisance to the family she is staying with. As a result, she is not so happy in private lodgings as a man is. For the first two or three weeks her lodgings are good, but that does not last long. My mother used to keep lodgers, and I always said that there was never a good lodger or
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a good landlady. There is always war between them. For these girls, therefore, hostels should be provided. I am certain that there are buildings in Scotland which could be used for a movement of industry there. There is also available skilled labour, I will not say unused or untapped, but not fully used. If the Government applied their minds to it, I am sure that Scotland could be placed on a better footing with regard to industry than if has been before. None of us want to see a repetition of the terrible conditions that prevailed in parts of the country before the war, and for anything that the Secretary of State can do as a result of this Debate to help improve the situation in Scotland he will earn the gratitude of the people.
Major Lloyd: While I agree with and endorse the sentiments of my hon. Friends from Scotland who have spoken in this discussion, I want to raise another aspect of the matter with a special desire to tackle my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour in connection with a decision which has hitherto been acted upon but which I hope will be amended as a result of this Debate, that is, the decision that mobile women in Scotland must be earmarked exclusively for export for employment to England. I am not among those who hold any form of extreme nationalistic sentiment on this matter. The Emergency Powers Act to which we agreed unanimously on one day in May, 1940, gave the Government power to tell everybody what they ought to do and, indeed, what they must do. I have deplored ever since then the fact that the Government, and most of all the Minister of Labour, have never completely implemented that Act. It has been one of my greatest regrets that that Act has never been put into full force. At the same time, while I fully agree that Scottish girl workers must be prepared in the interests of Great Britain to be sent if necessary to English factories to help on the war effort, I consider that the situation at present revealed in Scotland shows conclusively that Scottish war factories of vital priority importance ought to be able to tap the pool of mobile Workers and that that pool should not be used exclusively for export of women workers to England.
The present Regulations mean that Scottish war industries of the greatest priority of importance are unable to utilise

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that pool of mobile workers except in the most exceptional instances, which might be quoted and which are of the most abnormal character. I consider that is all wrong. From time to time when this matter has been raised in the House my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour has rightly suggested that if there were not sufficiently vital employment for them in the war industries in Scotland, these girls must go to England where there was vital war employment for them. I am not one of those who disputed that contention.
I assumed at first, perhaps too readily, that when the Minister of Labour said that, he meant that there was not employment for them in Scotland and that therefore they had to come to England, but latterly I have been making inquiries as to how far that contention was sound, and I am satisfied that there is and has been for many weeks, perhaps even for many months, an insistent, strong demand from most vital war industries in Scotland that they should be allowed to utilise, and to utilise to the best possible advantage of our war effort, a large proportion of those mobile workers whom they have not been allowed to employ because they have been told by my right hon. Friend's officials in Scotland, especially in the Glasgow area, that those girls are taboo, that they have to go to England and therefore cannot be employed in Scotland, however vitally important the employment there may be. I submit that that is an indefensible attitude for my right hon. Friend to adopt.
One does not want to make invidious distinctions, but we know very well that being of the younger type, the healthier type, they are the cream of our girl workers. I do not mean to suggest that our immobile workers are not of the most efficient type, because they are, but obviously the mobile workers, being younger, with fewer domestic ties, more adaptable and quicker to learn a new job, are the cream of our girl workers. Why should only immobile women be available for our Scottish war factories? Why should the factories not be allowed to tap this vitally important pool of mobile workers? I do not want to be misunderstood. I am in no way opposed to those mobile workers who cannot be usefully employed in vital war work in
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Scotland going to England. I have no false or nationalistic sentiments on the matter. We all must do as we are told and they must; but from the point of view of common sense, from the point of view of justice, from the point of view of travel, from almost every point of view one can imagine, it is absolutely wrong that Scottish war factories should not be entitled to tap this pool of mobile workers. I have the most abundant evidence from vital war factories that that is not the case. In order to justify what I have said it is necessary that I should quote a few extracts from a letter from one of the most important war factories in Scotland, with a priority as high as that of any factory in any other part of Great Britain. I suspect that my right hon. Friend is fully aware of the firm to whom I am referring. These few extracts will amply confirm the statements I have made:
"We are a very large employer of female labour, having at the present time a very large number of women on our books. Our production programme has been increasing steadily and has not yet reached its ultimate figure. For our further expansion we are looking almost exclusively for female labour, and at the present moment we could absorb several hundreds. We have been greatly disappointed at the number of women who have been actually forthcoming. Our problem became particularly acute when the Orders were issued making this district an exporting area, thereby precluding us or any other people like us from engaging mobile women in Scotland. Naturally we find that young girls in the mobile class make the best operatives, being healthy, intelligent and, generally speaking, without the domestic ties of the older women. The section of our factory which has been for some time in the greatest need of expansion in personnel, where they particularly require girls of this class because of the nature of the work, is very seriously handicapped."
I would particularly ask the attention of Members to this point:
"Not only, however, have we been debarred from employing mobile workers but non-mobile girls have not been forthcoming in anything like the right quantity, or have to come from such a long distance that they are tired with their goings and comings."
I may interrupt that letter to say that I have have evidence that there are quite a number of girls who are away from home for 14 hours in the day, taking into account their working time and their time going to and from work. That is a scandalous position of affairs. This particular factory finds it so difficult to get immobile workers that they have to seek them far away, and the girls are 14 hours away

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from home on account of having to travel long distances. If this factory could dip into the pool of workers in the locality this scandalous state of affairs would never exist. The letter goes on:
"Throughout this year we have been fighting the issue in all quarters without any success at all. Within the last month, however, the problem has become so serious that we have made personal representations in important directions and we hope that the situation will improve. We have even gone so far as to say, which is true, that if we do not get assistance from mobile workers we cannot fulfil our commitments to the Ministry of Production."
That is a very serious statement from a vitally important factory.
Mr. Stokes: Will the hon. and gallant Member tell us how much of this 14 hours is spent in travelling?
Major Lloyd: Quite a lot. The pool of immobile workers is so small that the firms have to spread their net far afield to collect workers and go a very great distance indeed. I do not and dare not go further than that. When I say that it is 14 hours between home and home and that they put in an ordinary day's work, my hon. Friend can imagine roughly how far some of them have to travel. The letter goes on:
"As a result of this, during the last week or two there has been a considerable improvement."
This letter was written a week or two after some hon. Members and myself from Scotland had taken this matter up very strongly in the House of Commons by Question and answer. It is curious that this situation, which was so very deplorable, began to mend, as so often happens, the moment Members of Parliament took an active interest in the matter. I have had a further letter from my correspondents in which they say that the position has greatly improved. I give that point free, gratis and for nothing to my hon. Friend who may reply to this point for the Ministry of Labour. The position is better, but the fact remains that it is imperative that Scottish war industries of vital priority importance should be entitled to a priority claim on the cream of our Scottish girl workers, the mobile workers who are at present ear-marked for export to England.
Mr. Henderson Stewart: The hon. Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby) deserves the thanks of Scotland for raising this matter to-day. I agree with almost every word he spoke; my
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only comment is that his case was not entirely complete. It is true that Scotland, particularly before the war, was neglected by those in Government places, but that is not the whole story. A good deal of the trouble arose because our own people, for some extraordinary reason, lacked initiative and the enterprise to start new industries themselves. I am ashamed to recollect the spate of begging appeals to London at that time.
Mr. Kirkwood: The employers.
Mr. Stewart: Yes, I mean that. I remember the case of the Forth Bridge road, when there was a pathetic series of appeals. I say frankly that I am not proud of my country in its mendicant mood. We do not shine as beggars and too often that was the case during the depression. The situation is of course different in the middle of war. Initiative is cramped, and it is not possible for firms to set themselves up to create great enterprises without Government authority. They are dependent upon the action of the Government.
I see the Secretary of State for Scotland and a representative of the Ministry of Labour on the Front Bench, but the man who ought to be sitting there is the Minister of Production, who is primarily responsible for the trouble of which we are complaining. In principle we cannot, in the midst of a war of this kind, object that our girls, any more than our men, are drafted from one part of the country to another, and we do not object in principle, but we object to the circumstances which cause that drafting to become necessary. Why are these girls sent in such large numbers to England? Because the opportunities of production in Scotland are not properly exploited. Less than a year ago I raised this point in one of our larger Debates upon production, and I said at that time, upon the very highest authority in Scotland, that in the region near Edinburgh, bounded by Stirling, Falkirk and thereabouts, there were no fewer than 20,000 immobile women workers who were not working for the war and who might be put to employment. Since then, nine months or more have passed and it may well be that some of those women are working. But I see that the Minister nods his head. I am pretty certain that a good half of them are still unemployed.

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I agree that we might have secured more large factories in Scotland before the war but, on the other hand, I recognise that in some parts of the country and in a great city on the East of Scotland development has taken place. But I contend that the Government and the Minister of Production have failed, and are still failing, to recognise and to exploit the existing capacity that ought to be used. I put a Question to the Minister of Production yesterday, and I got a rather unsatisfactory reply. I asked him
"what steps he is taking to survey the capacity of the large number of industrial units throughout the country, not classified as engineering works but which could undertake some form of munition work; whether he is aware that many such units are now doing work of national importance in addition to their normal activities, with the result that local labour is employed and not sent away to other parts of the country; and whether his plans recently announced are designed to make full use of all such undertakings?"
The reply I received stated:
"The assessment of capacity in their regions is one of the principal duties of the regional boards. Their primary task must, of course, be to make full use of the capacity in the engineering industry; but they are always seeking to arrange for munitions production wherever it can be undertaken without impairing other essential production or wasting labour or other resources."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st October; col. 1982, Vol. 383.]
I asked that Question for a particular reason. Last week the chief official of the Ministry of Production addressed a great gathering of engineers in London, and I was invited to be there. I asked him, in the course of the discussion afterwards, which was in public, what steps he was taking to survey and use the capacity of non-engineering units such as I had in mind. I will give the House an example of them. A paper mill is, I understand, not technically an engineering unit, yet in my constituency there are paper mills doing for the Ministry of Supply work which has nothing to do with the making of paper. Some parts of their mills are being used to make fuses for shells. I asked the Ministry Chief if he and his regional boards were surveying all the possibility of using these non-engineering units, and his answer was "No." He had never thought of it. Hon. Members have heard the answer to the Question I put to the Minister of Production yesterday. I fancy that the explanation is that, theoretically, the
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regional boards have had this duty imposed upon them but in practice do not perform it. I declare from my knowledge of the facts in Scotland that there is a possibility of work in a large number of non-engineering work-places for the production of any amount of munitions and for the employment of hundreds, and it may be of thousands, of women who are not now doing war work. I ask the Minister to tell me what is being done about this matter.
My last Question I address to the Secretary of State for Scotland. He recently formed a Council of Industry, which was a development of the old Scottish Development Council, with which I had something to do, as the right hon. Gentleman will be aware. We were led to believe that the new Council would do a great deal more than the old had done. Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us what the new Council is doing? I have not yet heard of anything that it has done, and I should like to know whether the Council have faced the problem of the Scottish girls who are moved to England Does the Council concern itself with the opportunities for work in East Scotland, or raise with the Minister of Production the problem of those non-engineering units? Is it performing that kind of function? In other words, I seek here publicly an assurance that Scotland's claims are presented in the right quarter, in the right way, and with the highest, possible authority.
Mr. Gallacher: I listened with some attention and some interest to the speech made by the hon. Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby). I am sure that other Scottish Members will welcome him into the fold. I was struck by an argument of his which was supported by the hon. Member for East Fife (Mr. Henderson Stewart), and which is true, and that is that the employers of Scotland were responsible for the present situation and for industry going out of Scotland.
Mr. Henderson Stewart: I said "partly."
Mr. Gallacher: Nobody is more concerned about this problem than the right hon. and gallant Member for Kelvingrove (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot). He is very keenly interested in it and is very anxious to do a good job. It should be mentioned that Scottish Members have discussed this

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matter, and sent a deputation which has interviewed various Ministers and has received a certain amount of satisfaction from them—not from the Secretary of State for Scotland. The hearts of the right hon. and gallant Member for Kelvingrove, the hon. and gallant Member for East Renfrew (Major Lloyd) and the hon. Members for East Fife (Mr. H. Stewart) and East Aberdeen are sore that Scotland has been denuded of industry. Their own Tory pals have denuded it because they went from Scotland to big combinations in England. They were after profit. Now the right hon. and gallant Member for Kelvingrove, who told the denizens of the slums that profit was a great motive for helping you on in life, has seen his country denuded by his own Tory party. That is one thing which he and his colleagues will have to face. I would like also to remark on the fact that the Minister of Labour yesterday set a very good example by introducing Marxism into this House. If hon. Members understood Marxism, they would see that if these girls are taken away it will not give strength to the campaign for self-government in Scotland. If they are taken away as they are being taken away, there will be no Scotland left for self-government. If we can get our own girls back and our own industries going, there will be a basis for self-government in Scotland, which will have to come sooner or later. [Interruption.] That is Marxism.
Major Lloyd: Is it not possible that the British people, and especially the Scottish people, have understood Marxism so well that the hon. Member is the sole representative of it in this House?
Mr. Gallacher: The unfortunate thing is that the people of this country do not understand Marxism so well. If they did, the hon. Member and his colleagues would not be having such a happy time in this country as they have been having. They are beginning to get an understanding of Marxism. That is an awful outlook for Members on the other side. This deputation has had some interesting discussions with the Minister of Labour, the Minister of Supply, the Minister of Aircraft Production and so on, and there is no question that within the limitations imposed on them by present circumstances they are trying to open out new avenues, other activities, in Scotland. But they have got to break through their limitations.
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The hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) has made a valuable suggestion that in the present circumstances there is always the possibility of lifting the machinery from one of the big industries in industrial areas here and taking it to Scotland. If there is a big attack on some industrial centres, such as Coventry, everyone will get into a rush to do something of that kind when it is too late. Now is the time to make movements of that kind. We should try to learn the lessons which are being demonstrated in other parts of the world—look at the Soviet Union—but we should not wait until this is forced on us. There is the opportunity to do it now and to help the country as a whole.
What is the Secretary of Scotland doing in this matter? I know he has been in Scotland talking about new industries. He has been very encouraging, so far as his hearers are concerned, but I never hear of any fierceness down here in the Government, of the Minister going in and making threats of any kind to other Ministers. Is he afraid of the Minister of Labour, or of the Minister of Supply, or the Minister of Aircraft Production? The Secretary of State for Scotland, with his doughty lieutenant, should call a meeting of Scottish Members during this Recess to discuss the important problems that should be dealt with in relation to Scotland when the King's Speech is before us. Why should we not have such a meeting called to discuss this question, which has become a serious problem for Scotland and for the country as a whole?
Many Members have dealt with the question of mobile and immobile labour. The Scottish Members' deputation when discussing this are all clear on the fact that it is impossible to run an industry efficiently with only immobile labour. If the meanings of "mobile" and "immobile" are considered, it will be realised how impossible it is to run a factory on immobile labour. By immobile labour is meant women with domestic responsibilities who must give a certain amount of time to work at home. By mobile women is meant young, active, energetic women who have no domestic responsibilities and no need to give service to the home. If all those who are best fitted for production are taken away, and all those who are least fitted for production are kept to fill the factories, it is impossible to run

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industry that way. This differentiation is a mistake, and a change must be made. The Secretary of State for Scotland has had the very strong support of the Scottish Members. I do not know when a Secretary of State for. Scotland—and I include his doughty lieutenant—has had more support from the Scottish Members, and they will back him to the utmost limit if he will take this matter up. I hope he will do it.
Lieutenant-Colonel Elliot: The hon. Member who has just spoken, I can assure the House, takes a very much more forthcoming attitude on deputations when he is approaching a Minister in his innermost sanctum than he adopts on the Floor of the House. Between ourselves, I prefer his attitude on those occasions to his attitude on this. It seems to me that the danger we suffer from in Scotland is this desire to quarrel with one another. It is not at all true to say that either one side or the other is responsible for the depression in Scottish industry to-day. I could give many examples. I will give one which is present to the minds of many of us. When a great new industry was offered to Scotland, Scotland was begged to take it—that of carbide and ferroalloys—it was the subject of the most bitter discussions on the Floor of the House from one Scottish Member to another, and was turned down, not at all by the unanimous vote of one side or the other but by a vote in which many Members of the other side of the House took part. Let us remember that when one side or the other seeks to cast away all the blame for the condition in which our country is at present,
Mrs. Hardie: That is a rather distorted version regarding the carbide and ferroalloy industry. There was a principle involved of handing over great Scottish assets to private enterprise.
Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: That surely is what is being said, that because of concentration on abstract principle the House, or many Members, refused to allow the development of an industry which would have been of the greatest value to Scotland and of the greatest benefit, I believe, to the country as a whole. As the hon. Lady will know, support for that came from that side of the House as well as
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from this side. It is wrong to say that the whole blame should fall on one side or the other. If we go back and dig up all the quarrels of the past, we shall never get industry going again in Scotland. We are now faced with very important problems, and we should tackle them, rather than saying that the whole blame for what has happened in the past is due to such-and-such a set of idle and self-seeking individuals.
Mr. Boothby: My right hon. and gallant Friend will surely admit that in the case of the Scottish hydro-electric scheme a considerable majority of Scottish Members on both sides voted for it.
Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: Yes, but the point is that an important opposition to it was developed not on party lines, but on lines of abstract principle. The point was made by the hon. Lady, and all of us will agree. Time and again in Scotland we have thrown away the substance for the shadow; we have lost opportunities because we would not come to an agreement on how the thing should be done. We have had experience of that in Scottish housing. I would not have raised this subject had it not been specifically raised—and indeed posted to my address—by the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher). For love of our country, let us abandon these past quarrels, and concentrate on immediate problems, which are quite important and pressing enough. Take this question of hydro-electric power. The Secretary of State, all credit to him, set up a Committee, which will, no doubt, report at an early date. Let us see that we get something from that Committee, rather than digging up old quarrels and seeing whether we can find stones in that debris to throw at each other. It is said that it is impossible during the war to expect great enterprises requiring building to be set going in Scotland. I do not take that view.
It may well be that in a long war, in which great engineering schemes are produced, one of those great engineering works will be constructed in our country. There has been a miracle of engineering development in the last few months. A great army of men has come from across the Atlantic, and has been accommodated in this country, in spite of the shortage of materials and labour, which one would have said a priori would have made such

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a development impossible. It must have been expected that those who are stressing the demand for a relief offensive to assist Russia would boggle at the thought of anything which would delay the continued construction of the great bombers by which alone that offensive is being pursued. I can sympathise with the Minister of Labour and the Minister of Aircraft Production when they say that all mobile labour must be kept on the plant and tools which are capable of turning out a continuous flow of these great instruments for which the people of this country, inside and outside this House, are so insistent, to relieve the strain upon our great Ally, who is so hardly pressed. But we are passing, as we have been assured by General Smuts and others, to new developments, and in those developments I believe it is possible for Scotland to take a share. I believe that the demand which has been put forward, that a proportion of the mobile labour should be reserved for the local factories, is justified. Whatever one may say, older people, ourselves in this House among them, are not so quick in learning new processes as younger people, with their more nimble fingers. I am sure none of us would like to be piloted by any Member of this House in battle against the enemy in a Lancaster, or even in a Beau-fighter; we would rather be piloted by some boy just out of the university, or even just out of school.
I am sure that that scheme is pressed upon the Secretary of State for Scotland by the hon. Member for West Fife—who has apparently evaporated from this discussion—in season and out of season. Naturally, his creed being what it is, the hon. Member does not recognise any activity which is not accompanied by bangs of some kind or another. He considers such activity divorced from reality. If the Secretary of State were to place shots of dynamite under the chairs of his colleagues, it would no doubt cause a great sensation in Cabinet discussion, but there is no reason to believe that it would forward the cause we have in view.
Mr. Buchanan: They might retaliate.
Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: If they did, he, being only one, would be shattered to fragments before he had destroyed his colleagues, especially one built on such ample and Cœur de Lion proportions as the Minister of Labour. There is no doubt that a far greater proportion of
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Scottish factory space is being used at present, for production and for storage, than was the case a few months ago, and I am sure the Secretary of State will be able to tell us that new industries are being concentrated in Scotland, although it will be quite impossible for him to give details to the House. My hon. Friend the Member for East Fife (Mr. Henderson Stewart) asks for not merely assurances, but specific instances. Specific instances would be difficult to give in time of war, but I am sure, as one who has paid some attention to this matter, that development is being advanced as fast as it is in the power of my right hon. Friend to do so. The Ministers whom many of us have interviewed, and continue to interview, are aware of the necessity. Discussions which show that Scotland is keen on such development will, I am sure, strengthen the hands of my right hon. Friend. One or two specific points raised by the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) and others are important.
The primary thing is the need for industrial plant and equipment in the North, of which the transfer of labour to the South is merely a symptom. I agree that there are ways in which such transfer could be ameliorated. The position of a girl in the household as a housekeeper might well be the subject of further regulation. That is a position which is recognised in many other fields of industrial life, and might profitably be recognised in this one. Occasionally girls who have been deferred have omitted, not knowing the intricate working of these matters, to claim their deferment, and have been called up almost automatically, without any specific withdrawal of the deferment or notification of the Government's intention, simply because the deferment has run out. The girl thinks that for some reason she has been de-reserved, and she accepts that position. I beg of the right hon. Gentleman in some way or other to call the attention of these girls to their rights under the provisions which this House has made, and make quite clear, more than once if necessary that a deferment is a renewable thing which can be renewed again and again and give them at least the repeated notices that most of us get, when, for some reason or other, we have not found it possible to pay our Income Tax on 1st March. Before we are put into gaol, we find ourselves reminded several times about our duties

2199
to the Government, in increasingly active tones no doubt, but without removing us from our present employment and casting us into employment by the State.
Your administration can be and should be modified, but the big general question, I agree, is that labour must move in order to put out the maximum effort of the war industry. That general principle is conceded in all parts of the House, but the planning should be increasingly brought forward and pursued by means of which the great development of that potential in the Northern Kingdom takes place, has taken place and should take place at a rate increasing above the way it has been running lately. A great deal of the aircraft industry has largely been developed south of the Border, and it has been extended to two or three times the size of the shipbuilding industry, but it is no reason simply for saying other industries are given a greater proportion than in England. It must be a much greater proportion to balance up the enormous development of this trend in industry which has taken place in the Midlands and the centres of motor car production here. Therefore, there must be planning and immediate movement of orders, and then subsequently movement of plant and equipment, and even the movement of structural engineering, of factory buildings, and, it may be, power development such as the hydro-electric power development should not be turned down merely because it would be some time before it could come into fruition. If the war ends, good and well, but we are told on all sides that we must prepare for a long war. Let us look ahead, for much of the present difficulty, we know, is due to the rush, the emergency, the hurry, the fearful pressure to develop at once and immediately every small job and potential which existed in this country. This is very largely the reason why we find ourselves now with this over-concentration of potential in certain areas and not always in areas where it can usefully be developed. The Secretary of State is keenly alive to this, and I am sure that he is pressing on with the utmost diligence of which he is capable.
Mr. Kirkwood: I welcome this Debate. When I raised the question originally in this House the Minister of Labour was good enough to draw attention to the fact that I was prac-
2200
tically alone in this matter, but the House knows to-day that there never was a matter on which the Members of Scotland were so united as they are on this question. It is a very serious question, affecting the life of Scotland. Munitions work to-day, as we understand it, is essentially engineering, and the cradle of engineering is Scotland. The greatest asset of Scotland is its young women. I have visited some of the largest factories in Britain with the Minister of Supply and the Minister of Production. Only three weeks ago I visited factories in my native land with the present Minister of Supply, and there we saw what the Minister of Labour describes as mobile workers. They were at work in Scotland. We saw them in what were formerly carpet factories, and they had had no previous experience whatever in the particular type of machinery they were using. It was in Kilmarnock where we were dreading the application of this method of taking the mobile girls from Scotland. As an engineer, I have seen young women at work who I never dreamed would find it possible inside six months to be able to produce some of the most accurate type of tools that have to be used in the manufacture of aeroplanes.
I do not blame the present Government for what is going on. I protested when they were building these huge factories in England. In wandering through England as I do, I have seen these great factories being erected, and there have not been any erected in Scotland. The employers of labour who were asked to develop along these lines refused to go in for the development of the aeroplane, but it must be remembered that at the inception of the building of the aeroplane we were before England. My late employer built the machinery for the R.34. It is the same with regard to the motor car-industry, and the employers of labour in Scotland allowed all that to go, so that I do not blame the present Secretary of State for Scotland nor the present Minister of Labour, who has been left with a baby to hold. I saw this week-end in this country huge up-to-date factories built on the finest lines, copied from Germany and America, with finished machinery in them but not a single human being. At the same time English colleagues are annoyed because we have the hardihood to stand up here, not because

2201
of any national sentiment at all, although I do not make any apology for the sentiments I have always expressed in this House, and will continue to do so as long as I am able to draw the breath of life. I have always made these appeals, not to the detriment of Britain, but in the interests of the wealth of Britain. How can we sit calmly by, as I have been forced to do, and see the finest raw material in the world being drained away from my native land?
There is another aspect—and all Scottish Members have done all they could to get this remedied—and it is that now that all our young women are going to England the birth-rate in Scotland is decreasing at an alarming rate. Surely it is time the Government did something gigantic, something in a big way, not as a twopenny-halfpenny move or a palliative. We want factories built in Scotland, We have the skill, the finest skill in the world, to produce what is necessary to win this war. Now it is being frittered away. My hon. Friend the Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) has mentioned the conference which took place in Scotland last weekend. I have said time and time again in our movement that a millionaire is a menace, and it is becoming apparent to me that a powerful trade union leader is becoming a menace. His satellites make speeches in Glasgow, and they think they can do whatever they like. But there are men and women representing the Scottish race, in this House and outside, who are of independent minds, and if we cannot raise our voices outside or in the trade union movement, we can do so on the Floor of the House of Commons. I know perfectly well that the House will see to it that we shall have the right to express our point of view here, irrespective of whether trade union officials or anybody else try to dominate us. One thing is certain—they cannot dominate me.
It is no use my throwing bouquets to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland, because he knows my estimate of him. The highest honour any Scotsman can attain is to become Secretary of State for Scotland. This high honour has been conferred on him, and with it goes responsibility. I have never heard him raise his voice in this House in the manner we are doing to-day. I have never heard him standing up against the Government. It is because of the support that my right hon. Friend has bad
2202
from his colleagues that he is Secretary of State for Scotland to-day. It is the bounden duty of my right hon. Friend, having listened to hon. Members in all quarters of the House making appeals to him, to let the Cabinet know the sentiments that have been expressed in this Debate condemning Governments that have gone before. It is all very well for the right hon. and gallant Member for Kelvingrove to say that we have no right to go back. We have to go back. We do not want to go back with a view to causing irritation or any split—we do not want to do anything of the kind—but in this case we have to lay the blame where it should be in order that we may get those who are in power now to tell the Cabinet what Scottish Members have said in this Debate—to tell the Cabinet that we will not sit idly by and see our country being; depleted of its womenfolk in this way. It is apparent to me, after being here for 20 years, that, as a result of this war, one after another of the rights—not the privileges, but the rights—that our race has struggled for through the centuries are gradually being filched from us. We heard to-day the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Labour announcing that our boys of 18 are to be conscripted. Will anybody tell me that if it had been a Tory who stood at that Box and made that statement, these Benches would have remained silent? I do not believe a word of it.
Mr. McEntee: Why?
Mr. Kirkwood: My hon. Friend does not need to ask me why. He knows why perfectly well. It is only too true and too obvious that if a Tory had announced the things which the Minister of Labour has announced, this House would have been in an uproar. Several of us, Mr. Speaker, as you know from experience, would in all probability have been required to be emptied out. It is no laughing matter. It is a very serious accusation that I am making and I know perfectly well what it implies. But the place in which to make these statements is this House, and not outside where there can be no reply made to them. That is one of the privileges of the House, that he who dares and has the opportunity to express his sentiments, can do so, particularly if he is prepared to pay the price—and I am prepared to pay the

2203
price, whatever it may be. The present Government and the Secretary of State for Scotland recognise, as well as the Minister of Labour does, that Scotland has been wronged in this matter, and, that being the case, it is their duty to see that these wrongs are righted.
Mr. Stephen: I desire to associate my friends with our colleagues from Scotland in their protest with regard to the transfer of girls to England, and the general position with regard to Scottish industry. I feel that the Ministry of Labour has been very badly served in many ways by the administration in Scotland. I attended the meeting of Scottish Members which has been referred to, and I made the comment that I had never seen such unanimity among them on any other occasion. There is a very widespread feeling of anger in the country. It has not been engineered by political means but is the expression of very great resentment on the part of the people everywhere. Last Saturday I heard of a case of a girl at Ardrossan who kept house for her father, and there were three young children. The Committee gave her three months and told her that at the end of that time her father would have to find a housekeeper. I do not think the Ministry want that sort of thing to happen at all, but it is happening. In another case the suggestion was made that, if a person could not be found to look after the girl's invalid father, she could put him into an institution. That sort of thing has done tremendous harm; and the Minister should see to it that the administration is made much more humane. Officials and members of committees have to realise that the exigencies of war cannot be used to allow them to become petty Hitlers. If young women can get jobs in local war industries, there should not be so much difficulty about their being allowed to take them, and in that way I believe a great many difficulties would be overcome.
I made a proposal to the Secretary of State previously that he should have a committee of Scottish Members meeting in Scotland during periods of Recess. The Secretary of State has a Council with him in Scotland, and it would be a help to him if he had a committee of Scottish Members which would receive reports from the Council of Ministers and have some days
2204
of discussion on Scottish problems. If the Secretary of State will not give me all I desire in a separate Legislature in Scotland with financial control, the committee I have suggested would be a half-way house and might do something to ease the situation in Scotland. I desire to support my Scottish colleagues in the protest that they have made to-day and to hope that there will be some alleviation of the distressful situation that has arisen in Scotland.
Mr. Mathers: The Scottish Members form the most diversified group of individuals that is to be found in the House. The hon. Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen) is right, however, in saying that on this matter there is unanimity in claiming that all that is possible to be done shall be done in order to provide work in Scotland, so that the draining away of our young womanhood to the South of the Border, which we all deplore, shall be prevented and that the current shall be reversed and the young women brought back at the earliest possible moment or, at least, given the opportunity of coming back to their native land. In making two points, I do not want it to be imagined that I do not endorse many of the things that have been said by my colleagues. I hope that one point will be listened to by the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour, because I noticed that when it was being put to the House by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Kelvingrove (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot), the Parliamentary Secretary's attention was otherwise engaged. I will repeat what the right hon. and gallant Gentleman said. It was in relation to the postponement that is given by the hardship committees.
There is, as he knows nothing at that place on the document that is handed to the applicant to show that after the deferment date, which is put in in ink, has been reached, there is the possibility of a still further deferment being granted if application is made in due time, that is, some considerable time before that date is reached. The right hon. Member for Kelvingrove made the point that it should be made clear to girls who get a certain period of deferment that if their circumstances are such that they require a further deferment they ought to apply at a particular date in order that consideration may be given to their circumstances and further deferment granted.

2205
The other point is this: Much has been said about empty factories, or partially empty factories, in Scotland not being used to the fullest extent for industrial purposes at the present time. I know that inquiries were made about such factories. Particulars of them were gathered and tabulated, and they were registered for storage purposes and the like. My point is, Can we help those who have this particular problem under review at the present time by asking local authorities to press upon the Secretary of State for Scotland, or whoever will accept communications, the desirability of using those factories for industrial purposes in-order that Scottish girls may be employed instead of being sent away to England? May I put it the other way? Is it well enough known to the Government that those factories exist, is all the information that is required known about them, and can they, without any further efforts on the part of the Scottish local authorities, Members of Parliament or anyone else, see that the space and equipment available are put to use whenever the opportunity arises? Those are the two points that I wanted to make, and I hope that we may have from the Government Bench a reply to much of what has been said here to-day by Scottish Members. I know how deeply this position is felt in Scotland. I am not suggesting that I have any peculiar knowledge in that regard, but I believe the position is known to every Scottish Member, and I know that in Scotland there is deep earnestness and great concern about this problem.
The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. T. Johnston): We have had, I think, a very useful discussion, one which will be to the benefit of the Scottish people, if only for the reason that for once, at all events, there has been a cordial unanimity of purpose displayed by all parties and sections in this House. I do not seek to disguise, indeed I never have disguised, the fact that I dislike the compulsory transfer of girls from their homes to work in factories South of the Border. That dislike is, I should say, shared by every other member of this Government, including the present Minister of Labour, but we must get our facts in proper perspective. The present arrangement whereby girls are transferred to work in English factories is not a wicked, malicious plot against the Scottish fireside;
2206
it is not a deliberate policy of breaking up the Scottish home. It directly follows from the iron necessities of war. Whatever may be said—and a great deal can be said—about the original planning of shadow factories and their siting, the fact remains that those shadow factories are not in Scotland. The fact remains also that aero engines are urgently required for the purposes of war. Therefore the policy of transferring girls has been carried out. I repeat that no girl under 20 has been transferred. This policy of transferring female labour, as it is called, to work in those necessary factories to produce material so urgently required for the prosecution of the war has been made necessary. While that is true, it is also true that every possible precaution has been taken to ensure the comfort and safety of these girls. No hon. Member has said one word in criticism of the welfare arrangements that the Ministry of Labour have in being in England.
Mr. Neil Maclean: It can be said.
Mr. Johnston: I said that nobody had said it.
Mr. Maclean: Be honest.
Mr. Johnston: I have sat here and listened to some criticisms, and perhaps I may be allowed to state my views. The Church of Scotland have made inquiries; the Scottish Press have sent independent investigators; every letter that came to the Scottish Office, either through a Member of Parliament or direct by way of complaint from a woman worker, was carefully studied, examined and replied to. Although, from the very nature of things, there were slips here and there, particularly at the beginning, it is true to say now, that out of the large number of girls transferred to work in factories South of the Border, fairly adequate and very sympathetic arrangements have been made for their material welfare and comfort.
One hon. Member said that he had not heard any explosions in the Government over differences of opinion upon this matter. Because he has not seen any dead bodies carried out from meetings he would be unwise to assume that the Scottish point of view has not been put. From the time the Council of Industry

2207
was started in February of this year, there has been a steady reduction in the number of women transferred South of the Border. The number is now about half of what it was then. I can say further, I hope without disclosing important information, that there are four areas in Scotland now, into which women are being imported, and there are 24 areas now, out of which there are no transfers compulsorily of women.
Mr. Kirkwood: How long has that been in operation?
Mr. Johnston: I cannot say, but it is now.
Major Lloyd: Why should not the Glasgow area be one of them?
Mr. Buchanan: Why should Glasgow only get all the slums?
Mr. Johnston: Please allow me not to be specific about areas. I am forbidden to mention areas, but I am giving totals, and I am merely saying that the trend has been towards a diminution in the numbers of transfers South of the Border. In addition to the investigations which I have already said are being conducted into every possible allegation of hardship once a girl has been transferred, we have offers, and I am very glad to welcome them, from Scots clubs, Caledonian societies and so on, in the Midlands of England. When we receive them at the Scottish Office we place the Ministry of Labour in possession of these offers, and we hope that there will be some kind of home-from-home arranged in as many areas as possible, in the Midlands of this country. I would say if I might to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Eastern Renfrew (Major Lloyd) that with a good deal of what he said I most cordially agree, but he ought not to assume that the Government are entirely responsible for the absence of hostel arrangements in the particular area to which he refers. As a matter of fact, I myself was so disturbed about the health conditions which might obtain from these long hours and long travelling that I went and saw the directors of that firm. I did my best to persuade the directors of that organisation to set up a hostel. I want to say no more about it than that.
Major Lloyd: Surely the answer of the firm would be that the only people who want to use a hostel are the mobile workers? The immobile workers prefer
2208
to remain at home with their husbands and children.
Mr. Johnston: Yes, Sir, but the fact is that if there was decent housing accommodation there we would not be getting letters from Aberdeenshire from girls who beg not to be sent to this particular factory to which my hon. and gallant Friend referred, but prefer to be sent to England where they would have a hostel. That is a contributing factor.
Mr. Buchanan: I want hostels.
Mr. Johnston: I know, but I am dealing with this particular instance which the hon. and gallant Member for Eastern Renfrew has raised, and I say that the state of affairs to which he refers is not entirely a Government responsibility. Most of us now have women relatives who are down South working on Government jobs. I would, in fact, if I had the choice, rather be an employee at a factory where there were decent hostel arrangements than be at home compelled to go to a factory where, between my factory employment and my transport, I had to spend 14½ hours away from home. I ought to say that the many questions which arose about Ministry of Labour operations, hardship committees and so on will be replied to by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary, and I would like, if I may be permitted, to deal rather with the long-term efforts that we are making to stop the necessity for transferring girls south of the Border. Unemployment figures are not a very reliable guide these days, owing, first, to the increasing employment of persons not previously engaged on industrial work.
On the other hand, they are not a reliable guide because of the continual intake into the Services from industry. However, since February, this year, unemployment in Scotland has fallen to the lowest figure I remember—from 33,000 to 20,000; and these 20,000 contain physical disability cases and persons in transit from one job to another. I am assured that, for all practical purposes, unemployment in Scotland has ceased. The Scottish Advisory Council on Industry will in a week's time issue its-first report. It started in February, and has had a most active career, and most encouraging results. It would not be fair for me to anticipate what the council will be reporting publicly to its constituent bodies in a week's time.
Mr. Buchanan: Will the report be available to us?
Mr. Johnston: I cannot say, but I think so, I can say that during this year there have been 119 new units of production established in Scotland, employing, or in course of employing, 25,000 workers. A unit of production is either a completely new undertaking—that is, a new building, with new factory processes going on in it—or an extension of existing premises, or existing premises which have been converted to an entirely new form of war production. There are 18 new undertakings, 37 extensions of existing business, and 64 conversions of existing premises to other forms of production. Some of these conversions will, I hope, have post-war permanency; and they will employ, and are employing, more labour than the processes on which the factories were previously engaged. In addition, there are eight new units under active consideration. They will employ 900 workers. There are four other new units, which will involve new buildings and the employment of 1,200 workers. Then there is a large-scale new works, of which I am not at liberty to say anything to-day. There may have been more, but I understand that some private firms in England have been deterred from going on even under pressure because of the story that Scottish Workers and managements are disinclined to adapt themselves to new processes. What nonsense.
Mr. Boothby: Cannot they be compelled to go if the Government think that they ought to go under the powers they have been given by this House?
Mr. Johnston: If they are munitions of war factories, yes, but they are not munitions of war factories that I am speaking of now. It is not true that Scottish workers and managements are disinclined to adapt themselves to new processes. I believe that nowhere in the world is there a greater adaptability. We have had to adapt ourselves. Here is the final answer to the question of my hon. Friend the Member for East Fife (Mr. Henderson Stewart). In 1941 we had 500,000 square feet of factory space allotted to production by the Factory and Storage Control. By the end of April, 1942, that was up to 1,500,000; by the end of July, 1942, it was up to 2,500,000 square feet, and in the months of August
2210
and September there was another 642,000 square feet allotted to production. I do not want to say anything about the causes of our depression.
Mr. Henderson Stewart: The right hon. Gentleman has told us about new factories, which is welcome news, but would he tell us what he or his Council does to prevent the closing down by orders of the Board of Trade of quite considerable firms, one of which is in my constituency at the moment, employing several hundreds, and who have a very good claim to be continued?
Mr. Johnston: I thought I had covered that by saying a report by the Council on Industry would be available for publication in about a week's time, and it would be unfair for me, on my part, to seek to anticipate what they are going to say, but I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the Advisory Council on Industry try to ensure wherever there is a nucleus of production that that nucleus, as far as possible, be established in Scotland. We have taken active and energetic steps in at least 20 instances with the Departments down here, and in the overwhelming number of them we have been successful. I cannot say that there should not be concentration. If there is a town in which there are four companies producing the same commodities and none is working at full pressure, if they are all working, say, at half pressure, we cannot stand in the way of concentration of these processes into two of the factories, leaving two new buildings. What we say is that we take every step we can to get new industries into the two new buildings and that the two remaining factories producing the old commodity should be allowed to continue working at full pressure.
I can only say, that on behalf of the Government, I welcome this discussion. I wish there were more of them. It would greatly strengthen our hands and assist us in endeavouring to undo what was undoubtedly a serious, a grievous wrong inflicted upon industrial Scotland. It was an inadvertent wrong. I do not believe that it was done maliciously, but it was done, and we have to do the best we can to retrace our steps and to ensure" that when this war is over we start out with a better chance of survival as an industrial nation than we had at the end of the last war.
Mr. Mathers: Before my right hon. Friend sits down, can he answer the point I put to him about the information that is available with regard to these empty factories?
Mr. Johnston: There is the most elaborate information about all these factories.
The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. McCorquodale): The Secretary of State has asked me to intervene and answer, if I can, some of the specific points which have been raised with reference to labour during the Debate. May I first refer to the point raised by the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Mathers) and my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Kelvingrove (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot) about the notice on the deferment papers with regard to renewal. I will look into that point, although I am under the impression that there is printed at the bottom of the form a statement that application should be made within 14 days of the run-out of the deferment if renewal is required.
Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: What I suggested was that some reminder should be given to the girl of the run-out and power to renew. It is true that it is on the form, but three months afterwards the girl has perhaps not applied her mind to it and consequently has not applied for deferment.
Mr. Stephen: Very often the girl thinks her employer will do it.
Mr. McCorquodale: I will certainly see if it is administratively possible. The hon. Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen) raised points about hardship—a question which was largely dealt with in the previous Debate on this subject, which was so well opened by the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan). In general, I am convinced that the hardship tribunals are endeavouring to carry out the statutory obligations laid upon them by this House with as much sympathy and care as possible but if there are cases where hon. Members think that is not so, the Minister or I will be very willing to take them up. With regard to the cases where movement is under the Registration of Employment Order, the independent women's panels, in the first place, assess women as mobile or immobile, and it may be interesting to the House to know that,
2212
taking the supply regions as a whole—that is, the regions which supply workers to other regions—about 50 per cent. of the unmarried women who have been interviewed have been classed as mobile. When we come to Scotland, we find that the women's panel has classed only about 40 per cent. as mobile and 60 per cent. as immobile, showing that on this point, at any rate, more consideration is given in Scotland than in England.
My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Eastern Renfrew (Major Lloyd) raised one or two questions of principle and related them to one firm. I think everybody will agree that it is the duty of the Ministry of Labour and National Service to mobilise the men and women of this country to the full for the war effort, and that we cannot regard Scotland differently from the rest of the British Isles in this matter. Nor, I am sure, will Scotland wish to be classed as a special area with special privileges which are not given to England and Wales. Many parts of Scotland are now classed as areas from which no persons are moved. Some areas are now classed as importing areas, and mobile girls when available will be moved to them as required. But other areas in Scotland are not so full of work that they can use all their present immobile labour, and in these cases we cannot allow mobile girls to stay and take local jobs while immobile labour is available.
Major Lloyd: That does not answer the point I tried very hard to make, that there is a demand for several hundred women, preferably mobile women, from a most important war factory, and they are unable to obtain them. Is that right?
Mr. McCorquodale: With regard to the special case mentioned by my hon. and gallant Friend, I would only say that it would seem to me to be quite impossible to run efficiently a labour policy if we are to be expected to change or vary that labour policy because some big and important firm can get the ear of a Member of Parliament from the area to raise the matter here.
Major Lloyd: Surely, that is not the question. They are, indeed fortunate to have their case presented here, but it ought never to have been brought to that. The matter ought to have been dealt with by the Ministry beforehand.
Mr. McCorquodale: My hon. and gallant Friend is asking the Ministry of Labour to vary their policy of moving mobile girls out of areas where immobile girls are available, with special reference to this factory. I regard that as asking for a special favour for this factory, and I say it is impossible to run efficiently a comprehensive man-power policy if we are to give way to special cases of this kind.
Mr. Maclean: Is it not the case that in the factory to which reference has been made, there are jobs for those several hundred girls even though they are classified as mobile workers, and that there are not sufficient mobile workers to go there to work constantly at the job without a lot of absenteeism, in the same area? That is the point that has to be answered.
Mr. McCorquodale: The man-power position of the factory in question is under constant supervision from the Supply Department concerned and the Ministry of Labour, and from time to time the preference afforded to the factory, as to other factories, with regard to the supply of labour, varies. Recently, an increased flow of labour has been sent to that factory, not at my hon. and gallant Friend's request, but at the request of the Ministry concerned. In conclusion, I would only say that it is quite obvious that the Ministry of Labour do not move people about for the fun of the thing, considering all the work and cost involved. The last thing we wish is for labour to be moved unless it is absolutely necessary, and it is our constant endeavour, as it is that of the Secretary of State for Scotland, to impress upon the Production Departments the necessity of sending new work to Scotland and to the other areas where immobile labour is at present available, and we will continue that pressure until their demands are satisfied. The position is very much better than it was, and I am sure the House will have noticed that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour, in answer to a Question the other day, replied that, as far as is practicable, if girls have to be moved back to Scotland, as well may be the case when the proposed factories which are at present planned come into full operation in Scotland, Scottish girls will get first preference in being moved back North of the Border.

WAR AND PEACE AIMS
Earl Winterton: I desire to raise a matter which I have given notice I would raise and in which other hon. Members on both sides of the House are interested. There is not very much time left and I wish to give sufficient time for a reply by the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and for the speeches of other hon. Members who are interested. This matter arose quite unexpectedly out of an answer to a Question. It might not have attracted much attention at the time but for the fact that I gave notice that I would raise it on the Adjournment, and I take full responsibility for that, because, however little notice is taken of the Question at the time, or however little interest is taken in the Debate afterwards, it should never be forgotten that reports of the proceedings of this House are read all over the world and statements made in Debates are broadcast everywhere. The greatest possible error that the Government or the people in the countries of our Allies could commit is to think that this is a war of one or two countries. It is nothing of the sort. It is a war of a large number of countries, with wholly different social systems and often differing points of view, but with a common viewpoint on the most important question of all, the defeat of Nazism and its counterpart in Japan.
The Question was based on the recent utterances of two distinguished Ambassadors. I do not wish, directly or by implication, to attack those utterances, though one was adversely commented upon in a friendly country, perhaps owing to misinterpretation of its purpose. I have no Wish either to attack the Under-Secretary's answer. I only suggest that it needs some clarification. My hon. Friend's position in the Christian world, and I hope I may add mine as a member of the Church of England, and a communicant should be sufficient evidence that we do not seek in any way to diminish the force and fervour of Christian principles, but a very lengthy background of official and unofficial experience of the Middle East and India has taught me the tremendous importance, of having regard to the strength of conviction of men of other religions. My hon. Friend asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
"whether, in view of recent pronouncements by His Majesty's Ambassadors to the United States of America and Spain, respectively,

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when the issues of the war were defined as the establishment of Christian civilisation and Christian brotherhood and, in view of the divergent attitudes to religion held by governments of the United Nations and the fact that millions of Jews, Hindus, Moslems, Rationalists and Atheists are engaged in prosecuting the war, he will indicate to representatives of His Majesty's Government that the war and peace aims of the United Nations should be expressed in the broad and generally accepted terms of the Atlantic Charter and not as the exclusive concern of Christianity or any particular body of religious faith?"
I cannot see any objection to that statement of the position. It seems to me that my hon. Friend's words were admirably chosen. This was the Under-Secretary's answer:
"No, Sir,"
which obviously implies a direct negative to my hon. Friend's thesis. It could have no other meaning. He went on:
"Though the Atlantic Charter remains the authoritative expression of the war aims of His Majesty's Government, I think my hon. Friend would admit that the Charter falls within the broad principles of Christianity, as would I hope, any other aims to which His Majesty's Government subscribe."
I do not understand the last part of the answer. It seems to have no relevance to the main point. My hon. Friend went on to ask:
"Are we to take it, therefore, that missionaries are no longer required to take Christianity to the other nations who are fighting in this war; and, seeing that we state that the aims of the war are for Christian civilisation, is it not extremely incongruous that the majority who are fighting are not Christians?"
The Under-Secretary replied:
"I do not think that those who are fighting on the side of the Allies, at any rate, would dissent from the proposition that they were righting for principles for which Christian civilisation itself stands."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 13th October, 1942; cols. 1501–2, Vol. 383.]
I do not want to comment on that reply, except to repeat, at the risk of boring the House, that we have in the British Empire a minority of Christians compared with adherents of other religions—a considerable minority. For example, there are over 100,000,000 Moslem inhabitants in the Empire and vast numbers of Hindus and adherents of other religions. I think, therefore, that the whole trend of my hon. Friend's answer was, I will not say unfortunate, but likely to give rise to misconception.
I would venture, like my hon. Friend the Member for West Leyton (Mr. Sorensen) to lay down a thesis and invite the
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Under-Secretary to say whether he sees anything wrong in it. There are points that should be brought out in this matter, which is a far greater difficulty than people realise. I do not want to comment on the speech of a distinguished statesman recently, but words about the Crusade and about fighting for the Cross do reach the ears of our Moslem fellow subjects. Anyone who has lived, as I have lived, with Moslems as a comrade in arms and shared their food, can realise the strength of their religious convictions. I do not want to explain what appears to be the antithesis between the fact that our Lord is one of the prophets to a devout Moslem and the fact that the Cross is to the Moslem the most appalling emblem of blasphemy that can be imagined. When I was with the Arabs we never had the Red Cross on any of our tents or on our Red Cross implements. We always used the sign of the Crescent, because the Cross is a symbol of blasphemy for the Moslems. They cannot imagine how a God who sent his Son to earth in the guise of a man should suffer him to be crucified. These are delicate matters to refer to, but they should be referred to in Debate. This country is not as religious as it was, but there still remain countries of the East which are deeply religious and where their religious symbols mean to them more than anything else in the world.
I suggest that when leading statesmen of the Allies are dealing with this difficult and delicate question they should do so something on these lines: There is a viewpoint, common to men and women of all religious faiths in the United Nations, which utterly condemns and abhors the daemonic paganism of the German leaders. I think that it goes much further and that there is a burning hatred among men and women of no religious faith but of ethical principles in those same nations against the sadistic barbarism of Germany and Japan alike. I will give an example of that. It is the fact that both the Japanese in occupied China and the Germans in occupied Russia and Poland have again and again created brothels in country districts and small towns where such things were unknown and filled them with the female inhabitants in the country, who have been seized and sent there against their will. That is a cause of the greatest offence and horror, not only to the people who profess

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the Christian faith in those place, but to people, for example, of the Moslem faith and to people with no religious faith but with a belief in ethical principles.
This is said, very truly, to be a war between conflicting ideals which go to the deepest roots of human aspirations, and therefore I say, in conclusion, that we need to broad-base our appeal to world religious and moral opinion, and not to perch it on the single foundation of any one creed or religion, however much we believe in it and are proud to believe in it. Field-Marshal Smuts, in his address yesterday, used some words to the effect that Hitler was trying to trample on the Cross. I think that the Moslems who are fighting for the British Empire would say that he is also trying to trample on the Crescent, trying to trample on everything that is symbolic of religion and morality and good feeling throughout the world. We shall not defeat him by talking of Christian crusades or even of Christian civilisation; it must be a much more broad-based appeal. In that way we shall destroy this great horror which has come to the earth.
Mr. Sorensen: I appreciate what the noble Lord has said about the content of my own Question which was put some time ago, and I hope that other hon. Members will also appreciate the valiant honesty of the Noble Lord in raising this question and asking us all to address ourselves to what, I am sure, is from more angles than one a very important question indeed. We all take it, as I do myself, that Nazi-ism and Fascism are a philosophy of life, if it can be called that, of a very desperate, cruel and degenerate character, and all of us are looking forward to the time when they will be shattered and the decencies of life will emerge once more and take their place in the hearts and minds of men and women. Yet it is surely a false syllogism to suggest that because Nazi-ism and Fascism are opposed to Christianity, therefore all who are not Nazis or Fascists must be Christians, which is the assumption that so many people make. It is true that the part is in the whole and that the whole is not in the part, and although it can be said that he who is not against us is for us, surely that does not mean that he who is not against us therefore subscribes to the Thirty-Nine Articles
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of the Church of England. That does not follow at all.
We have to recognise, as the Noble Lord has pointed out, that the majority of those in the British Empire alone, and for that matter among the United Nations, are non-Christians, and it would be extremely embarrassing to the Premier of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to suggest that in addition to his acceptance of the Atlantic Charter he was also by his alliance with us indirectly subscribing to the Athanasian Creed. If it were necessary for him to pledge himself to Christian principles, and to involve his country too, he would soon make very earnest representations to those who tried to involve him. It is true, as the noble Lord has said, that there have been representations in certain quarters, in particular in Turkish quarters, against the interpretation put on certain statements in the way the Noble Lord has described. Indeed, I suggest that Members of this House are put in some embarrassment. There are members of the Goyernment—not of the War Cabinet as far as I know, but certainly members of the Government—who may be atheists, and one I know is a prominent and very earnest and able exponent of rationalism. There may be some who are Jews There may be some who would subscribe to the Marxian philosophy of life, which it would be very difficult to reconcile with some of the elements of Christianity, although not with others".
In those circumstances, I suggest that the House is put in some embarrassment when there is this all-too-easy suggestion that this is a simple struggle, as some would have it, between Christianity on the one hand and, by inference, non-Christianity on the other. Indeed, if an analysis were made of the various elements and faiths behind or associated with the United Nations at the present time, even a rough analysis, we should find it very interesting to discover how many are non-Christian, being of another faith, or of no faith whatsoever.
I have spoken of our own House; may I speak of our own country? We recognise that only some 20 per cent. of our people actually attend church, and although it does not mean that the other 80 per cent. are non-Christian it does suggest that there is some question whether they are Christian in the very

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definite sense of the term. There are many in our midst who are Jews or who are Unitarian, Spiritualist, Christian Scientist and who would, from some standpoints, be denounced by an orthodox Christian. From other standpoints also they might not be included by some within the general term "Christian." On the other hand, I am aware that the average man who joins the Fighting Forces, if he has no particular faith or is indifferent, is classified as "C. of E.," whatever that may stand for, but that applies also to other people who have to join other institutions of His Majesty of a less desirable and attractive character. But this is nominal and not necessarily of Christian significance.
May I give some figures? They are rough, I admit, but they are not very far out. They relate to the nations who "re concerned in this war and are within the general organisation of the United Nations. Take our own population at 48,000,000 and classify them all as Christians, a very doubtful procedure. Put on top of that figure the 133,000,000 of the United States of America as Christian, again very doubtful, because there are large numbers of Jews in the United States as well as other people who are not Christian; then we may put on another 100,000,000 who are in other nations—the Netherlands, Norway and the South American nations. Put on another 25,000,000 from the Dominions and reckon 45,000,000 as Christian out of the total of 90,000,000 black Colonials who are British subjects. We then have a total of about 340,000,000.
On the other hand, among the United Nations we have the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, with a population of some 170,000,000. I am aware that in that country are many people who still practice their Orthodox Christian faith, but if we are to go by general representation, then, as we classified this country as Christian though many people in it are not, we must accept the fact that the U.S.S.R. is, officially, non-Christian. There are the Indian Moslems. According to the assurance of the Prime Minister, they number some 95,000,000. It is not for me to doubt the Prime Minister's figures, although I have questioned them on other occasions. Those people are certainly not Christians. There are some 280,000,000 of Hindus, Parsees, and
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members of other faiths in India, and approximately some 15,000,000 Burmese Buddhists, who, one presumes, might well be classified as "belonging to us." Then there are some 430,000,000 Chinese, an interesting mixture of Taoism, Confucianism and Buddhism, at least some 45,000,000 pagans and non-Christian coloured Colonials in the Colonial Empire. They make a total of over 1,000,000,000. It means that, roughly speaking, there are three non-Christians to one Christian. If one went further and recognised the importance of the friendly nations of Turkey and of Egypt, we might find there another 30,000,000 odd who, of course, profess the Moslem faith and cannot be classified as really belonging to Christian civilisation.
I do not deny, nor would anyone deny, that there are elements in all these faiths which are in common, but I suggest that it is quite wrong for us to try to bundle together all the virtues of the world and classify them with our own particular label. Kindliness, courage, honour and duty are virtues of which Christianity has no monopoly. We find them in other faiths as well, and it is simply playing with words to take all those truly human and desirable virtues, put a label on them and pretend that by labelling them "Christian" we are making all those people Christian. It makes confusion worse confounded, and I would submit therefore we have to be honest in these matters. That is why I am particularly grateful to the noble Lord who has helped to bring us back to honesty and to recognise that although there are elements in Christianity which are also in the purposes of the Atlantic Charter, and possibly in this war, it would be quite wrong and misleading to assume they are fully or exclusively Christian.
It being the hour appointed for the interruption of Business, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Major Sir James Edmondson.]
Mr. Sorensen: I will continue by saying that it seems to me quite false to try and identify those virtues common to so many human races simply with Christianity. If I may add one word, which may be divergent from those of the Noble Lord, to me, personally, Christianity at its highest goes beyond those virtues. I cannot expound

2221
this now, but nevertheless would submit the Christian faith is not yet fully accepted even by the great majority of nominally Christian people. One day we shall reach that stage and we shall then begin to practice what I believe is the redemptive technique of the Christian faith, still not greatly assimilated or appreciated. For though the war from a political standpoint may have been inevitable no one can suggest that the highest processes of Christianity, its highest ethical elements, should be intermingled with the inevitable tragedies and grossness of war. I beg the Under-Secretary to recognise that he will be doing a great disservice to Christianity if there is this very easy identification of Christianity at its highest with these grim and often sordid processes in which we are engaged at the present time. I know it has often been done in the past. I remember that St. Bernard of Clairvaux could write mystical poetry of the highest order and yet promote bloody crusades against the Saracens. We all know of Luther, a great protagonist of the Protestant faith who could yet butcher the peasants in the Peasants' Revolt. There was Cromwell, who was a great Puritan, but who could deal death and destruction to the Irish. We are all creatures of mixed motives and involved in tragic inconsistencies. Though the war involves us all more or less, I hope that the ultimate values in Christianity will be kept apart as something to which the race is steadily moving although it has not achieved them as yet.
There are varying interpretations of this war. One is that it is a war for survival; another that it is a war for power; another that it is a war for democracy. Some allege it is a war for God. I would not say that myself, because though God moves in a mysterious way I dislike bringing sacred names into the terrible processes of war. I will confine myself to this assertion, that with the peoples of all the United Nations whether they be Russian Marxist or Mohammedan, Jew or Christian, there should be a certain common denominator and that we should seek to preserve that common denominator. It is so easy for elements even in that common denominator to be swept aside. As a war proceeds the highest purposes with which it was begun gradually fade or become diluted and poisoned until at last, even before the war is ended, men and women have almost forgotten exactly what the war may be about or the high
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purpose accepted in the beginning. I hope that in the course of this war certain ethical elements will be preserved by this country, precisely because I believe this country can be a great country, a great Britain in the real sense; great not so much in terms of military success and victory and territorial aggrandisement, but in terms of ethical and social example to the world. Because I believe that, in that sense, our country has a great mission to fulfil, I hope we shall recognise that the Christian religion is not yet dominant and that, while still keeping our Christian faith until the peoples of the world can appreciate it more, we shall avoid hypocrisy, by saying, "These are the things for which the nations stand; these are the things, therefore, which when the war is over we hope will still live." For that reason, I hope earnestly that we shall prefer to interpret this war in terms of the Atlantic Charter and of the decencies of life, and leave individuals, groups and minorities to add to that and expand their faith in ways they think best.
Captain De Chair: I did not know that the Noble Lord was going to raise this matter to-day, and I hope he will not mind if I, who have the same affection as he has for the Moslems, say a word. I could not help feeling when listening to him that there was a danger, if the House followed quite logically the argument which he was trying to lay down, that we should acquire a distorted view of this problem. What would the Noble Lord's argument lead to? It would lead to our conducting a war of material aims, from which the core of faith had been removed.
Earl Winterton: The hon. and gallant Gentleman really must not misinterpret what I said. I distinctly laid it down that it was not a question of material aims. He cannot have listened to a word of my speech. I never heard such a travesty of a speech.
Captain De Chair: I did not wish to imply that there was no question of spiritual aims in the Noble Lord's war conduct. What I said was that if logically carried out, it would lead to a position in which we should have to remove from every statement of war aims the expression of Christian principles. That is a fair comment on his speech, to which I listened with great care. Let me quote a great materialist. Napoleon said, on

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27th August, 1808, I think, when writing from Saint-Cloud:
"A la guerre, les trois quarts sont des affaires morales; la balance des forces réelles, n'est que pour un autre quart."
May I translate that as "In war moral factors count for three parts, and material for only one"?
If moral factors count for three times the material and if our morale is to be influenced by the announcement of war aims surely the statement of Christian principles must play a large part in maintaining our combatant spirit. From my experience of the Arabs in the Middle East, I do not think they will pay much attention to what we say about the religious purposes for which we are fighting. They are Moslems, and Christianity to them, therefore, is anathema. They will not be influenced by declarations of Christian principles, enunciated by Christian war lords—if I may use the term. They are fighting for their own ideals. If we were to analyse the forces motivating all the United Nations, we would find that in each the religion of their country and of their own race plays a large part in their war aims. Therefore, I do not think that any conflict of opinion will arise between ourselves and the Moslems through our enunciating in our war aims a statement of those Christian principles, for which, surely, the British in the fighting line are fighting.
Mr. Driberg: I wish to speak very briefly, as a member of the Church of England, in support of the Noble Lord. I think that the difficulty between the Noble Lord and the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for South-West Norfolk (Captain De Chair) can be resolved very simply in this way. We are surely fighting, broadly, for the system of beliefs and the way of life defined by President Roosevelt as the Four Freedoms. One of these four freedoms is freedom of conscience, which, of course, includes both freedom of a member of any religious body or denomination to practise his own religion and also freedom for those who do not believe in any religion, to maintain their own anti-religious or non-religious attitude, as indeed it is defined also under the Soviet Constitution which says "Freedom of religious worship and anti-religious propaganda."
Mr. Sorensen: Not religious propaganda.
Mr. Driberg: I am quoting the exact words. Surely that is what freedom of conscience is in the Four Freedoms defined by President Roosevelt. Those of us who are Christians within the United Nations can perfectly well regard our war effort as a crusade, because, undoubtedly, the Axis, Nazi-ism and Fascism stand for something totally opposed to Christianity at its best. But I suggest we should hot attempt to impose that idea or that word upon our comrades in the United Nations who are not Christians, whether they be Moslems or atheists or anything else. There is also, frankly, a certain danger in the over-insistence on what may be called the Christian front that we shall play into the hands of a small group of propagandists here in this country who are concerned to establish what is called the Latin Bloc, which, in my view, as an idea for the reconstruction of Europe, would be fatal to all the principles for which we, are in fact fighting. May I, finally, warn the hon. Gentleman who will be replying on behalf of the Government against falling into the same error—indeed heresy—that was displayed in the answer to the Question which the Noble Lord read? I ask him not to refer to "what are broadly understood as Christian principles" or anything of that kind, when what is obviously meant is the humanistic principles which are common to all world religions and higher philosophies. Christianity is a body of doctrine as well as an ethical system, and you cannot divorce the ethic from the doctrine.
The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Richard Law): I am very sorry if I have somewhat to curtail this Debate. I have no wish to do so at all, but these issues which the Noble Lord has raised are of some considerable importance, and, as he said, of some delicacy, and it is necessary that there should be some reply to the Debate from the Government. I am very grateful to my Noble Friend for raising this matter in this Debate, and certainly I have no complaint whatever to make of the manner in which he has raised it or indeed of the line which any of my hon. Friends who have intervened in this Debate have taken. It is quite clear from what my hon. Friend and others have

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said that there is some misunderstanding on this question inside the House. No doubt there is equal misunderstanding outside the House and, indeed, outside this country, and it is of the greatest importance that the situation should be clarified so far as I can clarify it. My hon. Friend rather implied that I did something less than justice to the thesis of my hon. Friend the Member for West Leyton (Mr. Sorensen). If I did I was wrong, but I do not think I did an injustice to my hon. Friend's thesis. Certainly I did not intend to do so. What I questioned then and what I question now was not his thesis but his premises. However admirable and truthful a thesis may be, if it is based upon false premises, I do not think it should pass unanswered. With great respect, I thought—and still think—that my hon. Friend's thesis, admirable though it is, was based on false premises. For my hon. Friend implies in his Question that Lord Halifax and my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea (Sir S. Hoare) in the speeches of which he complains stated that the war aims of the United Nations were the exclusive concern of Christianity. They said nothing of the kind. I have read again with some care——
Mr. Sorensen: I did not say that.
Mr. Law: Well, my hon. Friend in his Question asked my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary
"… to indicate to, representatives of His Majesty's Government that the war and peace aims of the United Nations should be expressed in the broad terms of the Atlantic Charter and not as the exclusive concern of Christianity or any particular body of religious faith."
That was the implication underlying in the Question—that Lord Halifax and my right hon. Friend had stated these aims as the exclusive concern of Christianity. Now I am telling my hon. Friend that that is not the case. As I was saying, I have read again the speeches of which he complains. I have read them with some care, and I hope—although I am not altogether certain—that hon. Members who have been critical of them have read them with equal care. What Lord Halifax did say was that the institutions which we in this country share with the United States of America derive from a Christian ancestry and a common ancestry. I do not think anyone can object to that or deny it. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea drew attention to the common heritage of
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Christian culture to which, as he said, Europe owed at least part of its historic unity, and went on to say that Europe might draw common inspiration from the past. The first is a statement of fact and the second is a legitimate deduction from that fact. The speeches of Lord Halifax and my right hon. Friend maintained that the objectives for which the United Nations are fighting are Christian objectives, and I do not think anyone would deny that. But that is not the same thing as saying that these objectives are exclusively Christian and that only Christians can share these objectives and faith. Obviously, that is not the case, and there is nothing in either of those speeches that in any way denies the universality of the ideals for which we are fighting. Everybody holds those ideas—Moslems, Christians and the members of every, religion. They are not exclusively Christian, and nothing in those two speeches either stated or implied that they were.
Dr. Haden Guest: Except the fact that there was no reference made to any other religion—which is a very important thing.
Mr. Law: I think it has to be remembered, in view of the interjection of my hon. Friend the Member for North Islington (Dr. Guest), that the two speakers are both Christian men, representatives of a Christian King and a Christian country, and speaking to a Christian audience; so that there was nothing strange in the fact that they should speak in Christian terms. The plain fact is that there are certain standards of value, certain standards of truth, certain standards of absolute values, which are common to all the great religions. It is a fact, too, that those standards of value and of truth do not belong to the religion of Woden and of Thor; they do not belong to the faith, if it can be called a faith, which is professed in Nazi Germany. When statesmen of the United Nations speak of the political issues of this war, they speak in their own language, whatever that may be, and nobody finds offence in that. Similarly, when statesmen of the United Nations are speaking of the deeper spiritual issues of the war—and there are deep spiritual issues in this war—they must speak, and can only speak, in terms of their own religion. That does not mean at all that they are denying the religion of anyone else.
Earl Winterton: I do hope that my hon. Friend, in making that statement, will remember that when the Prime Minister or an Ambassador speaks on these matters, he is speaking not only for this country but for millions of our fellow-subjects in all parts of the world—Jews, Moslems, Hindus and men of no religion. I hope my hon. Friend will not pursue his line of argument, because I think it is a most dangerous one.
Mr. Law: I am grateful to my Noble Friend for his interjection, although if he had shown a little more patience, I think I would have been able to meet his point without the interjection. I was saying that it is a natural thing to speak of religious issues in terms of one's own religion, whatever it may be. I was going on to say that in the United Nations, as we all know, there are great varieties of nationality, great varieties of race, great varieties of religious belief. In the British Commonwealth, as we all know, and as my Noble Friend pointed out, there are the same great varieties, and as he said, Christians are in fact in a minority in the British Commonwealth; but I am sure that, whether in the British Commonwealth or whether among the United Nations as a whole, there is a clear understanding as to what the position is. We have never attempted to impose our religious beliefs upon our fellow subjects in the British Commonwealth and we never will attempt to do so. Equally, I cannot see why anyone should suppose that we would try to impose our own methods of thought, upon religion or upon any other subject, on the United Nations. There is no question of our doing so, and we shall never attempt to do it. I hope that what I have just said does, in some way at any rate, meet the point which my Noble Friend very rightly tried to bring out.
My Noble Friend said he hoped we should not try to base ourselves upon the narrow foundation of a single creed, and I hope I have shown that we are not trying to do so. Even when we state the
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case in terms of the Christian religion, we are not placing it solely on that basis and we are not denying the fact that all these principles which we have been discussing have a far wider base than that of the Christian religion by itself, for they are common to all the great religions. Whatever we are, Christians, Moslems, Jews, Atheists, or Rationalists, we are fighting for the same things and against the same things. We are fighting against barbarism and against the denial of all standards of value. We are fighting for those things which the wisest of mankind, of every race and every religion in every age, have always fought for; and we are all fighting together. We are all in the same fight. I hope it is not necessary to emphasise that any more. It is a fact.
My Noble Friend said he had some experience of the Middle East and of India, but that was an under-statement. He has had great experience. He has had far greater experience than I have, and he has far greater experience of this House than I have. But this I affirm and this I assert, and I will risk my Noble Friend's disagreement. Neither in the East nor in the West, neither in this House nor outside it, does a man or a people forfeit respect by stating with candour and truth and honesty the things that they believe in. The Moslems do not despise us because we profess our Christian belief. We do not despise the Moslem because he professes the faith of Islam. Sometimes I think, looking back over the last 20 years, we have fallen into error. We have not realised that what forfeits respect is being afraid to state our beliefs in the hope of gaining respect, I hope that in the future we shall avoid that error, that we shall be willing to state what we believe in, that we shall be willing to work for it and, as is unfortunately the case now, that we shall be willing to fight for it.
It being the hour appointed for the Adjournment of the House, Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

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  Medical Schools (Women Students)
  Industrial Dermatitis
  Industrial Dermatitis
  HOUSING (LOCAL AUTHORITIES' SCHEMES)
  HOUSING (LOCAL AUTHORITIES' SCHEMES)
  WEST INDIES (STOCKDALE COMMISSION)
  WEST INDIES (STOCKDALE COMMISSION)
KENYA
  Land Tenure Committee
  Land Tenure Committee
  Maize (Price)
  Maize (Price)
  TRADING SITES, PLYMOUTH (STALLS)
  TRADING SITES, PLYMOUTH (STALLS)
  WAR CRIMES (COMMISSION OF INQUIRY)
  WAR CRIMES (COMMISSION OF INQUIRY)
  ARGENTINA AND CHILE (BRITISH DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS)
  ARGENTINA AND CHILE (BRITISH DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS)
  CHINA (MUNICIPAL PENSIONERS)
  CHINA (MUNICIPAL PENSIONERS)
BRITISH ARMY
  Requisitioned Property (Damage)
  Requisitioned Property (Damage)
  Anti-Aircraft Units (Duty Periods)
  Anti-Aircraft Units (Duty Periods)
  Gunnery (Films)
  Gunnery (Films)
  Lectures (Miss Rosita Forbes)
  Lectures (Miss Rosita Forbes)
  Worn Boots (Disposal)
  Worn Boots (Disposal)
  Welsh Guards (Training Marches)
  Welsh Guards (Training Marches)
  Life-Saving (Acts of Gallantry)
  Life-Saving (Acts of Gallantry)
  Soldier's Death (Inquiry)
  Soldier's Death (Inquiry)
  Parcels from Abroad (Duty)
  Parcels from Abroad (Duty)
  Boot Polish (Use)
  Boot Polish (Use)
  Defence Areas (Householders, Compensation)
  Defence Areas (Householders, Compensation)
  Damages (Claims)
  Damages (Claims)
  Brigade of Guards (Commissions)
  Brigade of Guards (Commissions)
  Field Allowance (Scottish Commands)
  Field Allowance (Scottish Commands)
  Dependants' Allowances
  Dependants' Allowances
  BRITISH PRISONERS OF WAR
  BRITISH PRISONERS OF WAR
MILITARY SERVICE
  Technicians
  Technicians
  Food Distribution Trade (Release Application)
  Food Distribution Trade (Release Application)
  Rejections (Tuberculosis)
  Rejections (Tuberculosis)
EDUCATION
  Administration (Part III Authorities)
  Administration (Part III Authorities)
  Religious Instruction
  Religious Instruction
  Demobilised Students (Financial Assistance)
  Demobilised Students (Financial Assistance)
  DISABLED EX-SERVICE MEN (ASSISTANCE)
  DISABLED EX-SERVICE MEN (ASSISTANCE)
CIVIL DEFENCE
  Personnel (Waterproofs)
  Personnel (Waterproofs)
  Evacuation (Parents' Payments)
  Evacuation (Parents' Payments)
  War Workers (A.R.P. Duties)
  War Workers (A.R.P. Duties)
  Fire Watch Exemptions (Medical Examination)
  Fire Watch Exemptions (Medical Examination)
  London Fire Force (Dance)
  London Fire Force (Dance)
  British Subjects of Italian Origin (Sentence, Folkestone)
  British Subjects of Italian Origin (Sentence, Folkestone)
  Fire Prevention Duties
  Fire Prevention Duties
AGRICULTURE
  Ditch-Clearing and Under-Drainage
  Ditch-Clearing and Under-Drainage
  Returns
  Returns
  Fencing Repairs (Materials)
  Fencing Repairs (Materials)
  STATUTE OF FRAUDS
  STATUTE OF FRAUDS
  PROSECUTION, CAMBRIDGE
  PROSECUTION, CAMBRIDGE
GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS
  Economy (Committees)
  Economy (Committees)
  Ministry of Labour (Staff)
  Ministry of Labour (Staff)
  Regional Commissioners (Staffs)
  Regional Commissioners (Staffs)
  ARMED FORCES AND CIVILIAN WORKERS (RAILWAY TRAVEL)
  ARMED FORCES AND CIVILIAN WORKERS (RAILWAY TRAVEL)
  PACKAGES FOR SHIPMENT (MARKING)
  PACKAGES FOR SHIPMENT (MARKING)
  CHEAP TRAVEL TICKETS (STUDENTS)
  CHEAP TRAVEL TICKETS (STUDENTS)
ROYAL AIR FORCE
  Aircraft Accidents
  Aircraft Accidents
  Women's Auxiliary Air Force (Battle Dress)
  Women's Auxiliary Air Force (Battle Dress)
  Officers (Retirement Leave)
  Officers (Retirement Leave)
NATIONAL FINANCE
  Income Tax
  Income Tax
  Wages Policy
  Wages Policy
  Plant Reinstallation (Cost)
  Plant Reinstallation (Cost)
  Lend-Lease Imports (Duty)
  Lend-Lease Imports (Duty)
  Banking and Insurance (Committee's Report)
  Banking and Insurance (Committee's Report)
  Note Issue (Increase)
  Note Issue (Increase)
  Savings Certificates and Defence Bonds (Maximum Investment)
  Savings Certificates and Defence Bonds (Maximum Investment)
  Fiduciary Note Issue (Securities)
  Fiduciary Note Issue (Securities)
  Public Utilities (War Damage)
  Public Utilities (War Damage)
  Requisitioned Securities (Payment)
  Requisitioned Securities (Payment)
  War Loan Subscriptions (Total)
  War Loan Subscriptions (Total)
  Bank for International Settlements
  Bank for International Settlements
  CLERKS TO JUSTICES (CONDITIONS OF SERVICE)
  CLERKS TO JUSTICES (CONDITIONS OF SERVICE)
  SHOP HOURS, BIRMINGHAM
  SHOP HOURS, BIRMINGHAM
  RATIONED GOODS (PROSECUTION, LIVERPOOL)
  RATIONED GOODS (PROSECUTION, LIVERPOOL)
  ADVERTISEMENT HOARDINGS, RENT
  ADVERTISEMENT HOARDINGS, RENT
Preamble
The House met, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
LORD SNELL: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Cranborne, I beg to move the Motion standing in his name.
Moved, That Standing Order No. XXXIX be considered in order to its being suspended for this day's sitting.—(Lord Snell.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.

CONSOLIDATED FUND (APPROPRIATION) (No. 3) BILL.
Brought from the Commons, endorsed with the Certificate from the Speaker that the Bill is a Money Bill within the meaning of the Parliament Act, 1911; and read 1a:
Then, Standing Order No. XXXIX having been suspended, Bill read 2a: Committee negatived: Bill read 3a, and passed.

PROLONGATION OF PARLIAMENT BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.
WELSH COURTS BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.
INDIA AND BURMA (TEMPORARY AND MISCELLANEOUS PRO VISIONS) BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.

LOCAL ELECTIONS AND REGISTER OF ELECTORS (TEMPORARY PROVISIONS) BILL.
Order of the Day for the Third Reading read.
LORD TEMPLEMORE: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend the Duke of
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Devonshire, I beg to move that this Bill be read a third time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(Lord Templemore.)
LORD JESSEL: My Lords, before this Bill is passed I should like to make one remark. I hope that before local elections are considered and a Register of electors made, the Government will pay attention to the reiterated wish of all Parties and of all political agents that the Register may be so compiled as to give electors an opportunity of voting. As has been said many times in this House and in another place, there is too much rush and hurry between the compilation of the Register and the date of the voting. It does not give the electors sufficient time. I venture, therefore, on this occasion to remind your Lordships of this and to beg the noble Lord in charge of the Bill to ask the Department to take this question into consideration—a reform which has been desired for many years.
On Question, Bill read 3a, and passed.
House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.

ROYAL COMMISSION.
The Royal Assent was given to the following Bills:

Appropriation (No. 3),

Greenwich Hospital,

Courts (Emergency Powers) Amendment,

Prolongation of Parliament,

Local Elections and Register of Electors (Temporary Provisions),

India and Burma (Temporary and Miscellaneous Provisions),

Welsh Courts,

London Midland and Scottish Railway Order Confirmation.

House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.

PLANNING.
LORD REITH LORD REITH had given Notice that he would call attention to the machinery of planning advocated in the Reports of both the Uthwatt and Scott Committees; ask

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His Majesty's Government whether they propose immediately to adopt some such essential first step in preparation for postwar reconstruction; and also move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, as it was I who invited Lord Justice Scott and Mr. Justice Uthwatt to set their minds to the task which your Lordships know of, I might be permitted to say a word of appreciation to them and to their colleagues. Whatever your Lordships may feel about the recommendations in those two Reports, I think it will be agreed that in a task of such magnitude and complexity they have done their work so well as to merit anything that we could say in admiration of them and in gratitude to them. The Motion which I have the honour to submit to-day deals not with the content of those Reports but with the machinery which they advocate for national planning. I should like to make that clear—that I am dealing with machinery and not with anything else in those two voluminous documents. If one contemplates putting an article on the market or establishing a cause, there are three points which, if one is sensible, one considers: first, whether in fact there be a market for the article or a need or a demand for the cause; secondly, the processes of production; and, thirdly, the machinery or organization required for the purpose. We might argue as to whether processes have to be designed to fit machinery available, or whether machinery should be devised to which processes must conform. In this case I submit that it is the machinery which has to be settled, and that if it is settled it will not be so difficult to design the processes of production.
My submission is that the machinery for national planning should be settled now, and that it is quite impossible to wait until all the points in the two Reports have been studied and analysed, and decisions taken on them. Three decisions are required, and in this order of urgency. First, machinery for national planning now, as I have indicated; secondly, a Government decision quickly on two, anyhow, of the major recommendations of the Uthwatt Report; and, thirdly, as soon as may be, decisions on all the points which have to be covered, and legislation introduced thereon. I believe that any machinery is better than none, and my advocacy to-day is that, primarily, machinery should be settled.
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The Motion says "some such essential first step." It does not say this or that step—not even what the Uthwatt and Scott Reports recommend. But subject to the qualification that any machinery is better than none, may I give my views on the machinery? First, we cannot separate social and economic planning from physical planning. Secondly, in both the social and economic spheres and in the physical sphere the machinery must be inter-departmental. Thirdly, about a dozen different Departments must all plan in their particular fields, planning not being the responsibility or prerogative of anyone. And, fourthly, there should be ultimately responsible one Minister, non-departmental, unbiased, and with such authority as will enable him to co-ordinate and reconcile, and, above all, to get things done.
Both Reports recommend such a Minister, and that is significant. It is no less significant in that their terms of reference did not include a specific recommendation on machinery, and if they have gone beyond their terms of reference I for one am glad, and I endorse that recommendation of one Minister such as I have indicated. Your Lordships may ask: "Does this mean the undoing of what was so lately done in the transference of town and country planning powers from the Ministry of Health to the Ministry of Works?" Yes, my Lords, it does. You may say that it was I more than another who was responsible for that transference; that after more than a year of effort, and with no small satisfaction, I announced it in your Lordships' House on February 11. Yes, it was I. So then your Lordships may ask: "Is this a change of front?" No, it is not a change of front. What is recommended now is what I wanted in December, 1940. What I was able to secure was what I announced in your Lordships' House on February 11, 1942. As it was I who was to be Minister of Planning I was perhaps entitled to hope, despite the experiences of the past fifteen months, that more might come. Well aware of the difficulties—there were times when I saw little else but difficulties—but with the encouragement and support of the Lord President, to whom this country owes more than it knows, we came to what was then announced; we established a position from which I had hoped to advance
My noble friend—and I am fortunately able to use the term personally if I am not entitled to use it officially—my noble friend the Minister of Works and Planning—is he clear where he gets off and the Paymaster-General gets on, or are they both off or on together? I am sure they are very polite to each other, but I suspect that at times they are rather bored with each other and with the lack of definition of their respective responsibilities. Why is my noble friend not replying to-day? "Because it is an inter-departmental matter," I presume he would say, and, indeed, it is. And why is the Paymaster-General, for whom I have an admiration, studying the Reports of the Scott and Uthwatt Committees and not Lord Portal? Those Reports do not recommend the abolition of a Minister of Planning, as some may feel and may contend this afternoon. May I submit to your Lordships from experience that they are recommending the establishment, for the first time, of a Minister of Planning? So long as there are two Ministers so long will there be confusion and procrastination—and I speak with no small experience of that particular administrative twilight. The rest of the machinery is of less importance than that there should be one Minister in general charge, a Minister of National Development; secondly, under his chairmanship a Committee of Departmental Ministers concerned; thirdly, the central planning body for land control, in which the town and country planning powers would be vested; and fourthly, the individual Ministers concerned with particular aspects of planning. I have no time to define the respective responsibilities of those four parts of the organization. There are obvious difficulties, but they are slight compared with the magnificence of the objective.
I am in favour of a Commission and such a Commission as the two Reports recommend. I say again, please let us have machinery settled, any machinery that will work; and subject to that I would make these observations. I am in favour of a Commission, rather than a Department, for all the reasons that I gave fóur months ago when I spoke on public corporations and Commissions. I know well the arguments that will be advanced against such a Commission: that it is undemocratic, that it might
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become arbitrary and autocratic, that Parliament would never agree to such a range of responsibilities passing from its own control, the control of the elected representatives, and that local authorities might find it or consider it infra dig. to deal with a Commission in such an important matter.
The Commission would be responsible to the Minister of National Development; it would be subject to him and to direction from Parliament; it would operate under such safeguards as Parliament wished to impose upon it. I believe that a Commission would be much the most efficient type of organization and, incidentally, that Londoners and others concerned would have more confidence in it than in a Civil Service bureaucracy. Its main duty obviously would be to advise the Minister on the proper use of land and to administer and strengthen the Town and Country Planning Act.
I mentioned the second stage—a quick decision on the principles of the more important recommendations of the Uthwatt Committee. The country expects an early decision, first, that the Government accept the principle of wholesale prohibition of the development of undeveloped land, subject to fair compensation, and secondly, that local authorities should have wide powers of purchase where areas require development as a whole (and not merely because of war damage). Such a statement would be welcomed by the country, I believe, and it would encourage local authorities to go ahead with their plans. I ventured to tell them, when I was in a position to speak to or with them, that if I were they I would plan boldly and comprehensively. Someone should see that they do it now.
On the only other occasion when I came here to speak, if not unfortunately in from the sea, at least up from the seaside, I said that the lack of institutions was preventing the country from getting the most out of our key men. That applies to causes as well. By lack of institutions I mean the proper constitutional setting and adequate circumstances of all sorts to enable people to work and causes to be prosecuted. We are tired, some of us, of lip service to the Almighty and to dreams of new Jerusalems in what little is left of our once green and pleasant land. New Jerusalems never have, and never will, come down from Heaven, and nothing of high significance — social,

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economic or physical—will ever come unless we start building now.
I well know the oppositions that will come—oppositions of vested interests, prejudices, apprehensions (some more understandable than others), politicians, political Parties, Party machines, local authorities, landowners, speculative builders. Cannot they be subordinated to unbiased consideration of these tremendous issues at stake, for the good of England and the English people? Despite all that has happened and all that may yet happen, the people of this country believe in victory, unshakably believe in victory. Victory as an aim is splendid, but tolerably obvious. I would urge on the Government that victory is not enough—just that, my Lords, that victory is not enough—that the people in England, in their faith and courage, are looking beyond victory to the coming of peace with healing in its wings. They require of the Government a vision of England beyond the war; they require a vision of clear shining to cheer them after storm and rain, and they ask of the Government now a token of a covenant thereto. I beg to move.
LORD ADDISON: MY Lords, I am sure the whole House without any distinction of Party or of persons, will join in appreciation of the initiative of the noble Lord who has moved this Motion. I do not know the happenings in Government circles, but I do know that we all feel that the initiative and drive of the noble Lord were of immense value to the country. In bringing this Motion before us to-day he has added to the debt which we owe to him. Before making any observations upon the Motion, I would address a question to His Majesty's Government with respect to the debate. I see that a very large number of speakers have put down their names to take part in the debate and in view of its prime importance that is not to be wondered at, but I understand from my very good and noble friend the Deputy Leader of the House, who is to reply, that we are not to have any statement from the Cabinet as to their views or decisions on this matter. I cannot but think that it will be an unsatisfactory and insufficient use of this splendid opportunity of debating these great issues, unless the House receives the fullest information from a member of the Cabinet as to what the Cabinet think
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about it. I think also, in view of the large number of speakers, that the Government should give consideration to the desirability of having a renewed debate at an early sitting.
My noble friend behind me (Lord Latham) has given Notice of a Motion which raises questions concerning the Uthwatt Report, and unless we receive more satisfaction than the prospect seems to open out to-day, I think the wider general issues raised in the debate should not be disposed of before the Government have given us some authoritative decision on the matter. I do not expect that the noble Lord will wish to intervene at this moment on this question of the position of the debate, because I am quite sure we shall not conclude it to-day, but I hope that as soon as possible we shall receive some guidance on the matter. We know that, unfortunately, the Leader of the House cannot be here just at present. Perhaps my noble friend will consult him.
I think that the noble Lord, Lord Reith, has brought this matter before us with the big issues in his mind, and I confess that the long delay which we have experienced in this matter is very depressing because it is evident that at the end of the war immense issues will thrust themselves upon us at once. We shall have our desolated towns to consider, and immense questions will be rained upon somebody as to what is to be done about living conditions and replanning in town and country. There will also be a rain of questions with respect to the location of industries, and as to the continuation of policy affecting agriculture and the great cluster of interests which gather around it. It is quite impossible to think that any decision of any use can be given on these matters unless long beforehand some body of men has been giving sustained thought to them. Nor is it possible to imagine that there will be anything but confusion unless there is central direction available on the bigger issues of policy and principle, and that cannot be provided unless a body of men is set up to think about it and deal with the issues which are involved. We have these four Reports, the Barlow Report on the Location of Industry, the two Reports of Mr. Justice Uthwatt and the Report of Lord Justice Scott. I would like to associate myself with what the noble Lord said in paying a tribute to the infinity

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of labour which has gone to the consideration and fashioning of those Reports. I have been, on more than one occasion, Chairman of a Government Committee of this kind, and I recognize, therefore, the immense amount of work which must have gone to the fashioning of these Reports.
Apart from the emergencies that must arise at the end of the war, there is one other fact, from which there is no escape, which adds to the urgency of the matter: that is the conspicuous and undeniable failure of what has been called planning in times past. It has not prevented the desolation of the countryside. It has not prevented the ruin of much good land. It has not, in fact, been effective in any efficient way. I shall say a word in a moment as to why I think that that is so. There are two main issues of policy which must be decided by the Government, neither of which, I am sure, can be decided without much thought. Those issues are what is to be the action with regard to the acquisition or control of land, compensation, and other matters affecting land, and what is to be the machinery which the Government are to adopt, both central and local, with regard to getting this work done. There appear to me to be two outstanding questions of policy on which we ought to receive some guidance. What is to be the central Government machinery dealing with these things and how is it to function? Clearly, whatever issues come up, you have a cluster of Departments involved, since building, roads, location of industries, agriculture, housing, and so on, are all matters related to great Departments of State. A number of busy Ministers are involved in each one of these matters. Yet there seems to be no body at present—and so far as I can make out the Government have not decided who or what it is to be—to take charge of the business.
It is in relation to this that I think the noble Lord deals with the key of the matter. We want to know when the Government are going to decide—I take it they have not yet decided—and what form of Government machine they are going to set up to consider and decide the major questions of policy involved in what is called planning. Really it is much more than planning; it is the economic well-being of the country. I
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quite agree with the noble Lord that we ought to have a Minister. I am not in the least concerned as to what his name is to be. But clearly there must be a Minister whose business it must be to get these matters considered, to bring the Departments concerned together, to get the issues formulated and focussed and to get the matters of high policy—I think one could easily mention a dozen without any difficulty—brought before the Cabinet for decision. Until the Cabinet decide something about what is to be done on some of these big issues, no Minister can do anything. Therefore the first thing to do is to have a body of Ministers who will formulate for the Cabinet the issues which require decision and direction. It seems to me that the noble Lord must be right when he says that we ought to have a group of Ministers—clearly Departmental Ministers—and that there must be a Minister in charge of the business generally. That Minister ought, I think, to be Chairman and should be appointed to get to work on these matters at once.
Now as to the Minister in charge. The matters that will come before this body are of such high national importance—they affect housing, industry and the life of the people in every respect—that he must be a Minister of high rank. This is a vitally important business. I think the noble Lord suggested that he should be called Minister of National Development. I am not quite sure what the name suggested was, but it is really immaterial. At all events, this is much more than a matter of planning. The next question upon which early decision is clearly required is as to how the Committee of Ministers are to secure action when they have decided what it is they want to do. I hope that an attempt will not be made to direct and control the policy of rehabilitation by leaving it to the initiative, active or otherwise, of the individual Departments; one would go slow and another might go fast. It must be directed, and we must have a Minister in charge who will be possessed (if I may use a slang term) of a sufficiency of ginger. It is a big job which is contemplated, and therefore I think that this Minister should be served by a very efficient staff. The noble Lord has raised the question of whether this Minister should be served in respect of this group of questions by a semi-independent Com-

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mission. For my part, I do not mind much how he is served, so long as a body of persons is appointed to get on with the job.
I can quite see that the objections to a Commission which the noble Lord indicated would be very forcibly entertained in many quarters. A Commission may be useful for dealing with many limited tasks, however. I myself was responsible for proposing, many years ago, that there should be a National Parks Commission, and that has been supported on all sides many times during many years. That is a defined and special job which could properly, I think, be put in charge of a Commission. I am quite sure that, unless the Government take some effective action in respect of this side of the matter, our countryside will be progressively desolated, to our eternal regret. A National Parks Commission might well, I think, be created, as well as other specific Commissions; but in the main we must look to this Minister being served by an efficient Department. There must be continuity of work, continuity in the collection of information, and in many other ways, such as the building up of exteriors.
There is one other word which I should like to say, although the subject is not, perhaps, quite material to the Motion. It is about the local machinery, because this is a vital matter of policy. There are two main reasons why planning has failed so far. First of all, we have not had any satisfactory system for dealing with the acquisition and control of land, and with compensation questions. My noble friend behind me (Lord Latham) is initiating a. debate at a later date on the recommendations of the Uthwatt Committee on this subject, and I hope that we shall have an interesting discussion. I and my noble friends will probably find ourselves in a considerable minority in the view which we take, but this is a fundamental question and we must have some agreement on how to deal with these issues affecting the land.
Secondly, the whole thing has been cluttered up by a multiplicity of authorities, who have looked at small private interests rather than the big national interests. In the war, we have taken a very short cut so far as that sort of thing is concerned, and I am not sure that sometimes we have not taken too short a
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cut. In respect of agriculture the powers are very drastic, and they are exercised fearlessly. The way we put the big national issues in front in time of war, and get things in their right perspective, is a strange and remarkable contrast to the niggling way in which we have dealt with these issues in time of peace. We have seen many a charming hillside desolated by some shanty which a man has been allowed to put up to sell ginger-beer and bananas, and that has been due to the fact that matters have been considered by people with narrow personal considerations in their minds, rather than big national issues. I do hope, therefore, that the Government will decide to make a clean sweep of a very large number of so-called planning authorities. The one thing which they have not done is to plan; they have been completely useless, and in fact a hindrance. In my view regional or local planning authorities should not be smaller than county councils and county borough councils, or a combination of them. I hope that the Government will decide that in setting up effective machinery for getting things done they will have regard in the first instance to the fashioning of the local machinery as well as the central. However, the object of this debate is to urge the Government to present the country with some decision as to the central machinery for the direction and formulation of policy. It is a matter of the first urgency, and I hope that this debate will lead to progress.
VISCOUNT SAMUEL: My Lords, there is no member of your Lordships' House who is better qualified to take the initiative in opening this debate than the noble Lord, Lord Reith. We are grateful to him for the work which he did while he held the office of Minister of Works and Buildings; and we are grateful to him for opening the debate to-day, and especially, perhaps, for limiting its scope by the terms of his Motion. The subject is an exceedingly wide one. The two Reports which we now have under consideration, the Scott and Uthwatt Reports, contain over 300 closely-printed pages, full of a variety of suggestions and of many technicalities. The noble Lord's Motion today does not ask us to consider what the plans ought to be, but who it is that should make them. He is not raising the question of the planning of Britain, but the question of planning the planners.

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The word "planning" is being used in a variety of senses, and much confusion has been caused thereby. When the noble Lord, Lord Reith, said that for fifteen months he was groping in a Ministerial twilight, I believe that that state of things was due to the confusion in the minds of the country at large, not excluding His Majesty's Government, as to what the term "planning" really meant; and during the study which I have been giving to this subject in the last two years I quickly came to the conclusion that, unless that confusion was dissipated, we should still be in a state of indecision and still be groping in the twilight. The word "planning" first came into use in a political sense shortly before the Housing and Town Planning Act was passed in 1909. That dealt with such questions as the layout of cities, the future development of our towns, the preservation of amenities and the like. Gradually Parliament extended the provisions of this legislation, and in 1932 there was passed the Town and Country Planning Act. When people used the term "the planning movement" they have had in mind the movement to deal with those subjects and to secure those objects. Of recent years, however, the term "planning" has been given a very much wider sense, and indeed has come to include how we are to secure a rationally-organized society.
There is a very useful organization generally known as "P.E.P."—Political and Economic Planning—which for some time past has been issuing what it calls "broadsheets," now numbering about 200, dealing with various aspects of planning, and in fact covering all sides of our national life. The fact that there have been in Russia Five-Year Plans covering the whole development of the country in every aspect has also had an influence here. During the war, the fact that the nation as a whole has been able to act by common agreement and to extend State activities into a number of fields from which it had previously been absent, has also brought public opinion to the conclusion that, after the war, similarly, public action in one form or another should be able to plan and to improve in many respects our system of society. Under the term "planning" are now included such subjects as the rationalization of production and consumption
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so as to avoid unemployment and give some security of employment to the working-classes, the location of industries in different parts of the country, the division of the land of our country between agriculture on the one hand and industry and urban development on the other, the improvement of the health of the nation and of its education, the dealing possibly with the excessive inequality of incomes and, generally, a policy of creating a better Britain. The confusion has arisen through using the word "planning" or "Minister of Planning" at one moment to mean planning in the narrower sense in which it has been used in earlier years, and the next moment in using it in the sense of creating a better Britain. Both these policies and both these activities are essential.
With regard to the wider policy, including all these various aspects to which I have referred, it is quite obvious that no one Minister could possibly accomplish all these tasks, and to suggest that there should be a Minister of Planning who should deal at one and the same time with the location of industry, with the relation between agriculture and development, with education, with health, with finance and with trade is an obvious absurdity. Such a policy could only be carried out by the Cabinet as a whole, possibly devolving upon a Council of Ministers—the Ministers chiefly concerned—the actual practical application of a general policy. And to call the Chairman of such a Council of Ministers the Minister of Planning, or the Minister of Reconstruction, or the Minister of Development, or what you will, seems to me entirely wrong, and is likely only to continue and to increase the existing confusion. That large policy on which the nation has set its heart is likely to be the main purpose of Governments and Parliaments for many a long year when this war is over. It will, in fact, dominate the political field, and it can only be accomplished by a Council of Ministers acting under the Cabinet as a whole, which will include the President of the Board of Trade, the Minister of Labour, the Minister of Health, the Minister of Transport, the Ministers of Education and Agriculture, the Secretary of State for Scotland, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and also, in my submission, the Minister of Planning in the narrower sense, that is to say, in the

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main the physical planning of town and country.
The model which I would submit to your Lordships is rather that of the Committee of Imperial Defence, and the task is no less vast and no less important than that of Imperial defence. That Committee, working largely through sub-committees, summons to its meetings whatever Ministers are concerned with the particular business of the particular day. The Chairman of that Committee, the Committee of Imperial Defence, is of course the Prime Minister, although it is impossible during war-time to conceive of the Prime Minister becoming Chairman of this other Committee. After the war, if the Prime Minister were himself closely concerned with these domestic policies, he might become the Chairman, working perhaps often through a Deputy-Chairman; or the Chairman might be the Lord President of the Council or the Lord Privy Seal—some Minister of high Cabinet status, but certainly not anyone who should be called Minister of Planning. The title might well be "Committee of National Organization," which I think would be a better title than "Committee of Development," which has certain limitations, into which I need not enter, which would make it perhaps unsuitable.
Such a general layout was the result of the Government's deliberations, which lasted for a whole year. They spent twelve months in doing little else than considering what should be the pattern of the machinery of Government at the centre, and in the end the noble Lord, Lord Reith, announced to your Lordships' House on the 11th February of this year that the Government did propose to set up a Council of Ministers, with a Chairman who should be an independent non departmental Minister, and that one of these Ministers should be a Minister of Planning. At that time they included "Works," and made him Minister of Works and Planning. And the policy which was laid before this House by the noble Lord, Lord Reith, in the earlier part of this year was accepted, and the Government introduced a Bill and passed it through Parliament in this Session, to carry out that very purpose, which the noble Lord himself now, as a somewhat unnatural father, repudiates. It seemed to me at that time, and it seems to me now, that that policy was right, and I
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sincerely hope that the Government will not again cast it into the melting pot and produce something quite unnecessarily that is entirely different.
If the functions are to be divided, one authority to carry out planning in the wider sense—the creation of a better Britain—and the other the physical planning of town and country under the Town and Country Planning Acts, then the division of functions would be perfectly simple and easy. The Council of Ministers would lay down the general lines of policy—location of industry, relation of agriculture and development, stability of trade, and all those wide issues I have mentioned—and further, where there were divisions of opinion between particular Departments on actual plans as to the use of land in a particular locality—the Minister of Agriculture might have one opinion, the Minister of Planning might have another, the Minister of Health might have a third and the Air Ministry might want that particular land for an aerodrome—then such a difference of opinion between Departments (which would not often occur, let us hope), would come to the Council of Ministers in the last resort to be solved.
On the other hand, a Minister of Planning, a Departmental Minister, would have very wide duties that would require the full attention of the most active and energetic member of the Cabinet. His would be the duty to give initiative to the whole physical planning policy throughout the country. Just as the Minister of Education or the Minister of Agriculture gives a lead to public opinion on those subjects, so would this Minister on the subject of planning in this narrower sense. Hitherto town and country planning has been restrictive, regulative, rather negative, telling people what they must not do. In future planning ought to be a more positive policy—with initiative, constructive, showing people what they ought to do and to accomplish. Such a Minister would have to be in daily touch with perhaps a hundred planning authorities throughout the country with whom would rest the actual preparation of the local plans themselves. For I trust it will never be a question of some body of civil servants in Whitehall under the head of a Departmental Chief drawing up maps, sending them down to the different localities and saying:

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"This is what the Government have decided should be the characteristics of your locality, and you will kindly adopt these ideas and carry them out in detail." That would never be tolerated by the country as a whole, and, I feel sure, would never be attempted. But the Minister of Planning would be the channel between the Government as a whole and its Committee of National Organization, as I ventured to call it, on broad matters of policy, and the individual local authorities.
With regard to the problems that immediately arise now owing to the devastation caused by the war in so many of our cities and the reconstruction of the "blitzed" areas, it may be that at the present time the Minister of Planning would be the best person to deal with that problem also. Then he would have to superintend the general policy of national parks and preservation of the coastline and of landscape scenery. His would be the duty also of carrying out the specific recommendations of the Uthwatt Committee with regard to development rights and to superintend the administration of that property. Furthermore, he would have an extremely important duty in research and in the supply of information on all matters relating to this aspect of our national life, drawing that information from all sources at home and abroad and spreading it throughout the nation. In Parliament he, the Minister of Planning, would be responsible for the execution of the whole of this vast policy. There I differ from the two Committees and from the noble Lord, Lord Reith, with regard to the entirely different plan which they suggest. They suggest that the whole of this policy should be in charge of the Minister who is to be the Chairman of the Council of Ministers. He is to be responsible in Parliament. There is to be no Minister of Planning, but a Commission which is to act under the general superintendence of this Minister of the first rank.
I make the less apology for differing from those two Committees, great as is their authority—the Scott Committee and the Uthwatt Committee—because this matter was entirely outside their terms of reference. They were not asked to advise on the machinery of planning at all. The title of the Scott Committee is a "Committee on Land Utilization in Rural Areas." It is not the business of a Committee
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with that title to decide how the Cabinet should devolve its work, whether on a Minister or on a Commission. The other, the Uthwatt Committee, had the title of an "Expert Committee on Compensation and Betterment," so that the matter is even further from their terms of reference than in the other case. With all respect to the distinguished character of the membership of those Committees, I venture to say that they were not constituted as bodies qualified to adjudicate upon this point. If this had been the topic referred to them, their membership would have been very different. For instance, there was not a single member of the House of Commons on either Committee, and only one member of your Lordships' House, Lord Radnor. As far as I can judge, there was not one member of the two Committees together—there were sixteen members altogether—who had ever served in the House of Commons, except Lord Justice Scott himself, and not one other who had any firsthand acquaintance with the machinery of Government. Moreover, they took no evidence on this point—neither Committee. They did not consult the great organizations of local authorities, and last of all, in the Scott Committee, two of the most competent members dissented from the recommendations of the Committee on this head for the reason that it was outside their terms of reference and beyond their competence.
The reasons why, to my mind, this proposal of a Commission is a bad one are these. Neither Parliament nor the local authorities nor public opinion will, or should, tolerate these matters which touch so closely the lives of the people, which raise great social issues, and are concerned with wide property interests, being relegated to some body which is not directly under the control of Parliament. It is proposed that this Commission is to approve or disapprove the plans prepared by the great local authorities. The local authorities would not tolerate that for one moment. It is proposed by the Scott Committee that the Chairman is to be, not a Minister, but of "Ministerial status," whatever that may mean, but he is to have a staff drawn from the Civil Service, with local officers. It is to be a Government Department in fact, but without either the name or the status of a Ministerial office. If, as the noble Lord who has just spoken suggested—I hope

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I did not understand him wrongly—there is to be both a Ministry of Planning and a Commission, then there would be a great deal of duplication and overlapping.
LORD ADDISON: I said a Commission of a limited kind.
VISCOUNT SAMUEL: There may be Commissions for specific purposes, but if there is to be a Commission of the wide power suggested by the Uthwatt and Scott Committees, and at the same time a Minister of Planning in the narrower sense, there would be a great deal of duplication and overlapping, and the complications would be found to be intolerable. I remember years ago, when the policy of national health insurance was first carried into effect, its administration was put under the superintendence of a Commission, and similarly the Road Fund was administered by a Road Board; but it was not very long before it was found that that was an unsatisfactory arrangement, and both these functions have been devolved upon Ministers of the Crown. Commissions may be very useful in their own way—the Forestry Commission, for example. Parliament has approved Commissions to deal with mining royalties, to administer electricity supply, to deal with war damage—all very suitable bodies. And also with respect to national parks and stretches of the coastline, there again, these things can best be administered by some body of that kind and not directly, perhaps, by a Government Department.
Furthermore, development rights, if they were purchased under the proposals of the Uthwatt Committee, might be very well supervised by an expert Committee under the general superintendence of a Minister. But to set up a Commission to do the work now being done under Act of Parliament by the Minister of Planning, administering, under so recent a Statute, the Town and Country Planning Acts—to upset that and devolve it upon an official body with the status of a Commission like the Forestry Commission—would, I feel convinced, be a wrong policy. If the Government were to think of accepting this recommendation—coming from these two Committees, they must give it the most respectful consideration—before accepting it I urge them to consult the great associations representing the municipal corporations and the county councils, see what their view is, and,
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through the usual channels, ascertain what course is likely to be taken in another place should such a proposition be made.
Whether there ought to be also some regional planning authority in regions like the present Civil Defence Regions, is a moot point on which different views might be held and on which, for my own part, I have formed no very strong opinion. Possibly with regard to the location of industry there might be a regional organization, but I am quite sure that the region is far too large an area to deal with particular local plans of individual cities or counties. I am inclined to think that the local authorities would prefer to have direct access to a Department in London when they are unable to deal with the matter entirely within their own competence, rather than to have an intermediate body as well. However, on that point, as I say, I hold no strong view; but with regard to the local authorities, who, after all, must be a part of the machinery of planning, there I think there is a very clear line that the Government should take. It is certain, and I think no one would dispute, that our present local governing boundaries are not satisfactory so far as London is concerned. One has only to look at the state of London in this respect for an example, and most or very many of our county boroughs have agricultural land around them which is vitally affected by the planning activities of county boroughs. Questions of the green belt and so on come in and affect a wider area than our present county boroughs. But at the present time, and before the war is over, it is quite impossible to undertake the highly controversial duty of reconstituting our local government boundaries. Therefore we have to have some more or less makeshift arrangements to carry on the work meanwhile.
I agree in the main with what was said by my noble friend Lord Addison, that the work of planning must be devolved upon the larger authorities: the county councils and county boroughs or joint committees of the two in the particular areas where that may be the best course; but I do not quite agree with him in saying that all these small authorities ought to be wiped out altogether in this connexion. I think the non-county boroughs and the urban and rural districts

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can undertake very useful functions of an advisory character, and, with their more intimate knowledge of the local details, may be of great assistance to the county councils and county boroughs in the actual drawing up of the particular plans. But the duty and responsibility should, I believe rest ultimately on the county boroughs and county councils. It is very urgent to determine now what those areas should be, because unless and until they are determined the local authorities are unable to act. And I hope the Government will at some convenient time set on foot a campaign to impress upon the nation as a whole the great importance of proper membership of local authorities, that our local authorities, our local councils, should be strong, honest, energetic, enlightened bodies, able to carry out effectively the much wider duties which are now to be cast upon them. Let us, all of us, in our own spheres take every opportunity of pointing out to the public that here there is a sphere of public service which is worthy of the devotion of the best of our citizens.
This discussion is upon machinery and not upon functions, but I cannot refrain from saying in a very few sentences how much I think should be welcomed the constructive suggestions of the Scott Committee for the revival of agriculture and of rural life in general, and also how valuable are the technical proposals of the Uthwatt Committee with respect to the question of land compensation and betterment. I regard the Report of the Uthwatt Commitee as one of the most valuable documents presented to Parliament in our time, and I earnestly hope the Government will accept its recommendations, except of course where they stray outside their proper sphere into the question of Governmental machinery. The purchase of development rights proposal does seem to me an admirable conception, and the wide extension of the local planning authority's powers of land purchase is one that should make a strong appeal. Possibly even those powers might be made still wider and very simple by giving these great local authorities general powers of land acquisition for any purpose for which they might think it necessary to take action, while allowing an appeal against their decision to some suitable a authority.
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With regard to the financial aspect of all this, I do not see why there should be any dead weight debt imposed upon the country as a whole. Such land purchase on a large scale for purposes of reconstruction should bring its own revenue. It could be financed by a suitable issue of bonds and ought not to impose any heavy burden upon the taxpayer in general, but on the other hand might bring in course of time a large additional increment to the public purse. As to the actual development, the construction of buildings and so forth, while there may be a case for some State or municipal action, in the main that would be left in all probability to private enterprise, to private initiative, or to the work of the great corporations which are engaged in public undertakings of one kind or another.
Let me in conclusion reinforce, if I can, what was said so strongly by my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition, and has been urged again and again in this House in previous discussions, that this is a matter of real immediate urgency, that it is not to be left pending month after month and year after year. It is quite essential that the local authorities should know, and know soon, what are to be the areas within which they will operate, what powers are to be conferred upon them, what rights they will have for the acquisition of land, whether they are to be freed from the present tangle of compensation and betterment, whether development rights are to be purchased by the State, what are to be their own powers of purchase of land and how they are to be financed. Some early indication should also, if possible, be given of what is the Government's policy with regard to the location of industry.
Let us visualize the situation that will certainly arise the moment that the war is over. I myself am haunted by the gravity of the problem of unemployment which will straightway confront this country and other countries. It has been well said that the signal "Cease fire" will also be for millions of people the signal "Cease work," and unless we are ready with our plans and arrangements for giving employment over this great field of industry, the field of construction, there will be in this land a surging tide of passionate feeling and of indignation that provision had not been made duly in

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advance. I hope that property rights will not be an obstruction to the adoption of a policy of this character. Property rights disregarding the public interest will not, I believe, be pressed in the present age, but property owners would be wise to remember that the alternative proposals to those of the Uthwatt Committee will not be to leave things as they are, nor yet to accept an indefinite delay, but would be likely to prove to be reforms of an even more radical character, and perhaps executed in a more revolutionary temper. The Government declaration on these matters will be awaited with the deepest interest throughout the country. Already there has been excessive delay. A whole year was lost in the inter-departmental disputes to which the noble Lord, Lord Reith, has indirectly referred, arising largely through this confusion as to what planning really means. A second year was spent—not lost but usefully employed—in the preparation of the Uthwatt Report, and, as an excellent leading article in The Times said not long ago, the publication of their proposals removes the last excuse for further postponement of official action in the field of national planning. Let us not lose a third year because there is no one in the Government in a position of authority and with sufficient enthusiasm and drive to push matters through to their proper conclusion.
I am sure we all hope that early in the next Session the legislation which is indispensable will be introduced; but if once more we receive to-day a reply in terms that have become too customary in this House, that "the Government fully appreciate the importance and indeed the urgency of this question, that it is engaging now their most active consideration, and that they hope to give a pronouncement on policy at no unduly distant date," while in fact no real effort is being made behind the scenes to solve the difficulties because the Government have been unable to make up their minds, then I think the country will not tolerate such a situation and the Government will find their credit undermined. That, for my own part, I should deeply regret, and it is for that reason that I venture to offer this note of frank and friendly warning.
LORD LANG OF LAMBETH: My Lords, I wish to associate myself with what has been said by other noble Lords about the welcome which we give to Lord
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Reith on returning to a subject which he has made his own. Great as is the confidence o which we have in his successor some of us regret that he was not left longer to see the task which he has inaugurated at least effectively begun. I hope I shall not be trespassing too far upon the freedom which is allowed in your Lordships' House, if I do not keep strictly to the terms of the noble Lord's Notion. Indeed, there is little to be said on this matter of machinery after the very able and weighty speech to which we have just listened from the noble Viscount. I wish to speak on another subject, though that subject does stress the importance of creating at once suitable machinery. What I wish to speak about is the supreme importance to the national life of preserving an unspoilt countryside. A great deal of my life in the last thirty-four years has been spent in the country districts in the north of England, in Yorkshire, and in the south of England. For the last fourteen years I have had the good fortune to spend much time in, and give much thought to, the country districts of Kent which was once called the "Garden of England," but I have had the ill-fortune to see, during the whole of that time, progressive deterioration of the beauty and care of the countryside. The worst of it is that a mischief of this sort is a mischief which literally is irreparable. Once done it cannot be undone.
I am surprised at the contrast between the amount of well-meant legislation on these matters and what has been actually done. There was the Town and Country Planning Act of 1932. I suppose there are many plans on the shelves of various authorities as the result of that Act. I am told that before the war seventy rural authorities had plans prepared. I do not know what kind they were, but they were certainly never carried out. What is going on in spite of that Act? The wonderful line of the South Coast is defiled for miles and miles with ramshackle bungalows and apparently nobody is able to say them nay. Or think of housing. We rejoice in the number of houses built since the last war, but how little care there has been as to the site, or the materials, or the design and their congruity with the landscape in which they are placed! Again and again, as I pass through these districts I see houses built, I am sure, with the best intentions

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but wholly incongruous with their surroundings. Sometimes they break the skyline. Somebody must be responsible, but nobody seems to know who it is.
Take again the Ribbon Development Act passed in 1935. Its passage was acclaimed, but still I see towns sprawling into the country—long rows of dull houses with the advantage neither of country nor of town. Then there is the matter of advertisements. There were Acts passed in 1907 and 1929 dealing with this evil. There has been perhaps some improvement but still there is obtrusive ugliness. Some advertisements of a certain kind, no doubt, may be necessary for the information of the public, but advertisement certainly ought to be prohibited at least in any conspicuous place unless it has had the licence of the planning authority of the area. Think again of the desecration of the countryside by colliery tips and ironstone slag heaps which is going on in spite of what has been said. I believe Northamptonshire is particularly suffering at the present time in this way. There is no reason for it, because experiments made in the Midlands and in Lancashire show that very efficient alternative uses can be made of these excrescences.
I agree with the recommendation of the Scott Committee that it should be made obligatory on those who have worked the land that they should restore it, when the working has ceased, either to agriculture or forestry or some similar use, and restore it at their own cost. For all this it seems to me three things are necessary. The first has been forcibly pointed out by the noble Viscount. We really must see to it that our local councils, rural and even parochial, are vastly more strong and representative than they are at present. It is really lamentable that so few people of real public spirit and education think it worth while to serve on those bodies in spite of their increasing importance. Their election ought to be a matter of reality and not, as is so often the case, a matter of form. In the second place, it is very important that these local authorities should receive something more than advice and assistance from the central authority, whatever that may be. There should be much more clear direction. I agree with the noble Viscount that you cannot cut the local councils out of this countryside planning. They must have their position, but it should be one,
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in my judgment, of advice and influence and not of final settlement. That I think ought to be the function of a larger authority. In the third place, before all, the tendencies which were only too rife before the war set in again after the war—here I would speak in support of my noble friend Lord Reith—we should have machinery ready to act, and to act at once, else it will be too late.
Do not let it be thought that in urging this view about the preservation of the planning of the countryside we are indifferent to the claims of the townsfolk to enjoy its beauty. On the contrary, our object is to enable them to enjoy it, for it is their heritage, before it is spoiled. By all means encourage everything that enables our townspeople to escape from the conditions of urban life. I am sure we are all in favour of the further development of camps, provided their character and situation are approved by the planning authority. We are all in favour of hostels for our youths who show themselves happily so increasingly eager to avail themselves of opportunities of escape into the country. We should support what has been dwelt upon by other noble Lords who have spoken, the development of national parks and the implementing of the admirable work of the National Trust. Places which ought to be so set aside spring at once to our minds—the ranges of Snowdonia, Dovedale, the Lakes, and great parts of our coasts.
Again I am sure we shall all view with sympathy the desire of townspeople, if they can, to have a house in the country, if it be only a cottage, provided—here I speak with some experience—that these town-dwellers, coming down for the end of the week, do not appropriate houses which were meant to be used, and ought to be used, by agricultural labourers, and provided also that those who wish to have a place in town and country are not allowed to build their houses anywhere and anyhow without regard to site, material, design or other considerations. But in the main what we wish to do is to encourage the use of the country; nor need I dwell upon the advantages of the green belts of which we have been hearing so much. Only in that connection, I would say that perhaps more than anywhere else before expansion of the towns can begin there must be in readiness some sufficient authority to control and regu

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late. I mention all this because I am sure that it is by increase of control that we shall secure for our people increase of enjoyment.
Will your Lordships allow me to add one word about our country villages? Some of you perhaps may remember a very eloquent passage in the essays of James Anthony Fronde where he had asked himself: "Where shall I find the essential old England, which after all lies deep in the hearts of our people everywhere?" And he replied: "I find it looking down upon the village church rising amidst its trees, over clustering roofs, and hearing the sound of the church bells, and then I say to myself that is England. "In passing I cannot help adding how welcome it will be when we are permitted to hear church bells again. I do not wish to take—indeed I never do take—a sentimental view of the village. We all know that picturesqueness is often the cloak of most unhealthy conditions. Vast improvement is still needed in the housing conditions in these villages, in spite of all that has been done to bring the houses more into harmony with the life and needs of the country people, in giving access to piped waterlines, in arranging for supplies of gas, electricity and so on. I am sure we shall all agree with the Scott Report that we cannot expect to restrain the drift from the country into the towns unless we maintain adequate wages for those highly-skilled workmen, the agricultural labourers, and the amenities of their village life.
Everything should be done to encourage the life of the villages. Much is being done by our Women's Institutes, and at present also by the Home Guard, in developing a real sense of community. After all, we must remember that the English village gave us the first form of self-government in this country, and it is upon this basis that the whole structure of self-government of which we now make our boast has been built. There are many of us who think it is hopeless ever to expect a sense of community in the whole nation unless it is first developed in the smaller communities where it can be made real and intimate and natural. For all these reasons I hope that everything possible will be done, under the care and supervision of a proper planning authority, to see that the village life of England is maintained. I apologize
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for the length of time that I have taken in speaking, but I do not apologize for the choice of my subject, because I am certain that it is one of the greatest importance. We are the most urban nation in the world, and the preservation for our people in the future of all that the countryside ought to mean is a matter the importance of which can scarcely be exaggerated. For that reason I support my noble friend Lord Reith, at least to the extent of his plea that machinery, whatever its form, must be ready when the war ends. I wholly agree with what the noble Viscount said about the necessity of restricting the planning authority to workable limits. I am sure there is nothing pertaining to what we call our post-war reconstruction of greater importance than preserving for future generations what yet remains—and adopting the words of the noble Lord, I say: Thank God there is much still of "England's green and pleasant land."
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: My Lords, it is rather pathetic to reflect that it must be two years this month, or possibly early next month, since Lord Reith received permission to set up machinery for the physical planning of this country. Nothing has happened yet in the way of the appearance of anything in the nature of an effective Central Planning Authority. My own feeling is that the passage of these two years has proved one thing. It has proved the need of one Minister, not two, to handle the economic and social planning and physical town and country planning. I regret to find myself in this matter differing from the opinion of the noble Viscount opposite. I did venture to keep my eye on the noble Lord, Lord Portal, while Lord Reith was speaking about the two Ministers. I can tell your Lordships that I did not notice any acute symptom of distress or denial appearing on his face, and I am going to draw the conclusion that he is in agreement that there should be one Minister and not two. The noble Viscount opposite, in the course of his argument to the contrary, said that Government Departments had spent twelve months considering the pattern of the machinery and at the end of that time had come to your Lordships with a satisfactory solution. That is one way of putting it. I should prefer to say that the Departments in Whitehall spent twelve months quarrelling about the division of

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functions and then produced a totally unsatisfactory and unworkable compromise.
That was the statement of February 11. I am not saying anything which is derogatory to Lord Reith, because he has told your Lordships that it was what he could get and that he had hoped to get more. The noble Viscount said that a Minister of Planning would give initiative to the whole planning policy and that he would be responsible for the execution of vast plans. Most of them would be in the Departments of other Ministers, and the noble Viscount did not attempt to give you a definition of what the functions of the Minister of Planning would be. I do not think he can because it is impossible so to define physical town and country planning as to distinguish it from this social and economic planning.
In passing I would like to observe that the noble Viscount quoted an excellent article from The Times in favour of no delay. The same article came down quite strongly in favour of a Commission. Moreover, I think that it was not quite a fair argument to compare the proposed Commission with the Forestry Commission; I cannot imagine two things more different. The last thing that I wanted, however, was to be involved in this debate in a dispute as to the form of the machinery, and I regret that the noble Viscount, whose services to planning in the past have been immense, as I am sure they will be in the future, did not concentrate more on the points of agreement rather than on the points of disagreement amongst those of us who are keen about planning. If my noble friend Lord Snell did not know what he was going to say when the debate began, he has certainly a good idea now, and I have no doubt that he will make the most of the differences which have manifested themselves.
Since the Government accepted—as they did—the implications of the Barlow Report on the Location of Industry, there has come into being a totally different conception of what is meant by planning. The Barlow Report has three main implications; the redevelopment of the congested urban areas, the dispersal of both industry and industrial population from those congested areas, and the encouragement of a reasonable balance of industrial development in the various regions of the country. Whether we like
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it or not, that means control and direction of industrial location. The point that I want to make is that planning is good for industry, just as it is good for agriculture and for the preservation of amenities. It is important to try to persuade our great industrialists that they have everything to gain by planning, because I am quite certain that in industry to-day there is not a general recognition of that fact. There is a reluctance on the part of industry to accept the new conception of an ordered development of the whole of our industrial and agricultural resources and of the amenities of the country.
The recognition of the need for a prosperous agriculture has come to us since the war. If we can have an ordered development of industry in line with that of agriculture, then the protection of amenities will follow. Instead of attempting to deal with a ribbon here or a rural area there, we want protection to take a positive line and not to be done simply by the negative restriction of development. To convince industry that ordered development is in its own interest is the most important thing that those of us who are keen about planning can do to-day, and I feel strongly that, by comparison with the state of affairs before the war, there is a case which we can establish. Before the war we had overbuilt and overcrowded our great towns, with the result that a large proportion of the population was becoming hopelessly urbanized. The urbanization of our city populations is one of the greatest misfortunes which can befall a country, and in the long run it will be just as detrimental to industry as anything else could be. The failure to co-ordinate transport with housing is another great burden upon industry. Had the war not interrupted the progress of the traffic problem towards chaos, I think we should have been faced with difficulties which we can only faintly imagine. That again is a burden on industry, which only an ordered development can possibly avoid. Industry needs a happy and healthy industrial population, just as agriculture needs a happy and healthy agricultural population. If we can get that, then I think that the protection of amenities will follow of necessity. Planning in this matter seems to me to be simply taking the long view. Industrialists take the long view in their own affairs, and it is up to us to convince them that in national affairs planning is the long view too.

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I favour the conception of a Committee of National Development which was outlined by my noble friend Lord Reith. They would co-ordinate departmental policies, and that must be done above the departmental level. Take four Departments: industry, agriculture, transport and housing. They all intimately act and react one upon another, and we shall never get a definite policy of ordered development unless that higher Committee, which ought to be—and there we are in agreement—a Standing Committee of the Cabinet, can spend its time thinking out, initiating and co-ordinating policy. The reason that I feel that a Minister of Planning in addition to a Minister of National Development is wrong is just that planning is not a function of government which can be separated from other functions; nor is it possible to separate planning from development. All development has to be planned, and all Departments are developers, more or less. For that reason, I am perfectly clear that the new conception of planning demands new machinery of government.
It is the glory and the strength of our Constitution that new demands find a response in our constitutional machinery. Constitutional principles remain unchanged, but constitutional forms change. One constitutional principle which we have to observe is, of course, democratic control, the responsibility of Parliament and the control of Parliament over all these arrangements. Another is that one Minister cannot interfere with the Department of another; and that is why I think that a Minister of Planning is a wrong conception of the inter-departmental arrangements which are necessary for securing this ordered planning. The Central Land Control—which is the term which I should use, since "'Commission" has made itself so unpopular—has to be the servant of all Departments and not the master of any, except through its Minister, the Minister of National Development, if I may give him that name. The Central Land Control will influence all Departments, because all Departments will consult it.
I should like to outline to your Lordships some of the qualities and characteristics which I think that this Central Land Control or Organization ought to have. Firstly, it must be so composed as to command authority on land use. It must
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have at its head the Minister of National Development, and through him be subject to Parliamentary control and criticism. It would receive directions from Departmental Ministers, subject to the co-ordination of this Council or Committee of National Development. It would be able to give independent and authoritative advice on land use to Departments, to local authorities, to statutory bodies, to private developers, to landowners and to anyone else, because it must be remembered that the new conception of planning embraces not only all private development but statutory bodies and Government Departments, not excluding the Service Departments. For the first time all Government Departments have to come under control and co-ordination. That will be done by the upper body, but all developers should have to take advice from this Land Control, which will be the authority on land use. Again, I think that this body could very conveniently act as a buffer between the private interest and the local authority; and if, as would be the case, appeal was necessary, it could act as an impartial and fair-minded tribunal. It would, of course, conduct continual research and study, and it would build up a great body of information which would be of the greatest possible service to industry.
Coming now to the question of local authorities, this body would save the Minister from the day-to-day work of administration of the Town and Country Planning Act. I do not think that it is right to pour scorn on the idea or to suggest that the local authority would find that beneath its dignity. Local authorities will be supreme in planning in their own spheres. Policy will be laid down from above, and the day-to-day work of administration will be done in this Control of which I am speaking. I see no reason whatever to suppose that that would not be a convenient body to deal with that administration and to deal with the local bodies.
Lastly, one attribute of this body which I envisage would be its power and its right 'to make an annual Report to Parliament. That is something which a Government Department cannot do, but it would focus public opinion on the progress that was being made and on the proposals for land use. I think it would exercise a very great influence on all developers, and on everybody who had

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occasion to consider land utilization. I attach the greatest importance to the right of such a body to report to Parliament, and for that reason alone I would favour a new body to be devised rather than a Government Department. This planning is a new field of government. It needs exploration by the best mind the Government can spare from the conduct of the war. I wish that mind, wherever it is to be found, could be set to work now and given the proper machinery. I have been emphatic about the machinery which I suggest, but that is really a minor point. I wish we could get agreement, and I believe your Lordships are agreed that what we want now is to get this Central Planning Authority established. I would be prepared to let the Government select the right man and give him a free hand. If he says a Department is right, have a Department.
I think it is fatal to quarrel now about details, however strong the views some of us may have. For this planning is going to have a great effect on the future. It is a platitude to keep repeating that, but it is true. I would like to conclude by giving you the words of General Smuts, which he uttered when he arrived here a few days ago. Talking of the future, he said it would require wisdom and planning, foresight and good will—good will above all, as well as wisdom. Wisdom one cannot command, good will one can. And I think good will is what is wanted by everybody concerned—individuals, Government Departments, local authorities, and everybody else. If we are all going to stick out for what we think is right we shall never get on. If the Government would get on with it there is hope of seeing some daylight
LORD LATHAM: My Lords, I would like to support the weighty adjurations which have been made this afternoon to get on, and get on quickly, with the settlement of the necessary machinery for effective planning in this country. But important as is the need for speed and the avoidance of delay, it is not less important that the machinery which is devised should be machinery which is able to discharge its functions. Nothing could be more fatal to effective planning in this country than that there should be erected a machine theoretically capable of action but in practice not capable of action. I
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therefore cannot subscribe to the suggestion of my noble friend Lord Balfour of Burleigh, that what is of most importance is that we should seek agreement, and not, as he said, concern ourselves with details. The details of this machinery for planning are of prime importance, because if we do not erect a machine which will properly take its place in the constitutional machinery of the country and at the same time be capable of working cordially with local government and other agencies upon whom will fall a very considerable proportion of the task of planning, then the machine will fail and planning will suffer a setback. It is in my submission therefore of the utmost importance that we should thrash out our differences as to machinery with the common object of seeking that machine which can best and most efficiently do the job.
I do not propose to go outside the terms of the Motion this afternoon. I shall beg leave to invite your Lordships to consider the recommendations and proposals of the Scott and Uthwatt Committees at a later date. I shall therefore to-day confine myself wholly to the question of the machinery. I am, if I may say so, terrified of this Central Land Control. If it is to discharge the functions which are assigned to it by the Scott and Uthwatt Committees, and which have been amplified and added to this afternoon by my noble friend Lord Balfour, it will in fact take over the home government of this country. It would in practice be the usurpation of most of the functions of the home Ministries, and that is a proposition that only needs to be stated to be rejected. My noble friend Lord Balfour particularized somewhat as to the personnel which would constitute this Central Control. I can only say that however select its personnel may be it will be much more than human if it is capable of accomplishing half of the duties which are assigned to it in the Reports of the Scott Committee and the Uthwatt Committee, and in so doing it would, in my view, hinder rather than help the effective planning of this country. I do not wish in this debate to make debating points, but I was a little surprised at the statement of my noble friend Lord Balfour that he was not in favour of establishing a Minister of Planning, because in his speech to your Lordships' House on February 11, in

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the debate which followed the statement by the noble Lord, Lord Reith, Lord Balfour said:
"I welcome the establishment of a Ministry of Planning."
May I suggest, with every respect to my noble friend, that there really must be some relative permanence of viewpoint among us if we are going to construct a machine which can do the job?
I should be the last person in the world to seek to minimize the importance of planning, but I do think there is a danger of planning, in the sense in which we are this afternoon considering it and in the sense in which both the Scott and the Uthwatt Committees considered it, being magnified into the planning of the whole economic and social life of this country. If that is pursued, planning in the narrower, but none the less important, sense will be entirely submerged, to the detriment of planning. We are, I apprehend, considering what is the best kind of machinery to secure the best use of the land of this country. That amounts very largely to physical planning. There appear to be two almost conflicting views on planning. One is that planning is national organization' and development, with town planning as an addition to it instead of being an important integral part of it; and the other is the conception of planning only as a matter of amenity, artistic effect, and architectural beauty. I submit to your Lordships that planning in the sense that we are considering it to-day is the control of land user in this country and that the machinery for that control is what we should consider.
I share the view, so impressively expressed by my noble friend Viscount Samuel, that there is no need for the appointment of a Central Planning Authority in the form of a Commission or a Board. I do not believe that such a Commission or Board could work effectively. Certainly I do not think that Parliament would—or, as o Viscount Samuel said, should—give it the very wide powers which are recommended in the Uthwatt and Scott Reports. It would amount to a supersession of local government in the very important matter and realm of planning. It may well be, as my noble friend Lord Reith submitted to your Lordships' House a few weeks ago, a proper form of organization to have a Commission or Board to manage transport, to control water, to regulate the
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generation and distribution of electricity, even to manage and control the mining industry, but it does not follow that a Commission, whether quasi-independent or independent, is the proper organization to control planning, which enters into so many aspects of economic and social life.
It has been suggested—I think it is in the Uthwatt Report—that the formation of a Commission for this purpose might follow the lines of the War Damage Commission. The War Damage Commission has been set up to discharge important functions but of a limited order. That Commission is concerned with the settlement of claims for damage to property arising from enemy action. It may well be that that is a complicated business. It may well be that it will be a longterm job, but it is a limited job, and sooner or later it must come to an end. Planning, on the other hand, is not a limited job. It is a continuous process, and it will not and ought not to come to an end. I suggest, therefore, that a structure which may be eminently suitable to deal with claims for damage to property as a result of enemy action is not necessarily the machine which would be appropriate for dealing with planning. It is not, perhaps, sometimes sufficiently recognized what an important part regulation will play in planning in the future. I have been one with many others who, fore years, have inveighed against the negative character of town planning powers which, as my noble friend Lord Samuel said—and as is the case—amount to no more than power to prevent a person from doing a certain thing, but not power to require him to do anything, or indeed for a local authority itself to do very much. It is to be hoped that in any new legislation that deficiency will be repaired.
But even if it is in the most ample manner, it will still remain the case that the bulk of development will be done by private developers, and town planning therefore, will be the regulation of that private development—determination as to whether it can take place on a certain site and, if so, to what requirements it must conform. Therefore town planning, the use of land, will resolve itself into the administrative process of a large measure of regulation. That is an aspect of town planning which can be properly done by a Minister of Planning, responsible to

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Parliament, through the proper local planning authority. It has been estimated that immediately after the war, although there may be unprecedented building activity by local authorities and Government Departments, nevertheless 6o per cent. of the building will be done by private enterprise. That means that 6o per cent. of development will be of a regulatory character. I can conceive of no better way of hindering town planning and increasing the reluctance of private developers to accept town planning restrictions than that the regulations should be imposed by a non-representative body such as a Commission or a Board. I can see this as one plain result of the appointment of a Commission having the powers adumbrated by the Scott and Uthwatt Reports, that the Minister would become a court of appeal in disputes between local planning authorities and the Commission, with private developers frequently inter-pleading. If that were the case it would constitute a very serious embarrassment to effective planning.
I cannot accept the doctrine that a Commission, constituted as is suggested, would necessarily be better than a Government Department. Let us be perfectly frank. However selective you were in setting up this Commission, whatever distinguished material might be available, it is idle to pretend that you can collect a body of men or women in a Commission who will know more about the various problems of the Home Departments than the staff in those Departments themselves. In point of fact the Scott Committee admit that almost by implication, because they suggest that the staff of this proposed Commission should be drawn from the Departments. As my noble friend Lord Samuel said, this Commission would de facto be a Government Department, and it would lead, in my view, to confusion, to delay, to overlapping and shilly-shallying between the various Departments and the Commission. I cannot accept the doctrine that because a Ministry may need prodding we should bring into existence a non-representative body to do the prodding. That is the function of Parliament. If a Ministry is not doing its job it is the function of Parliament to see that it does it; and it is a curious departure from constitutional procedure that we shold first of all have a Ministry knowing that it is going to need prodding and then
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set up an independent Commission to do the prodding. It is not in that way, I suggest, that we can solve this question of planning.
My own view is that the Minister of Planning should be relieved of all other departmental cares, but that does not mean that he will be without departmental cares. His cares will be planning, and there will be plenty of them, and they will keep him busy. It is largely a fiction, I suggest, to talk of a Minister being freed from departmental cares. In my submission we do not want a Minister of Planning who will be, as it were, a kind of sublunary person living in a ratified atmosphere without departmental cares, looking down upon the theoretical conception of planning this country. We want a Minister of Planning who is a Minister for operating the powers of the Town and Country Planning Act, who will initiate schemes of development with other Departments and with local planning authorities, who will when necessity arises be the final authority to give the decision, a Minister who will be prepared to act when a local planning authority has failed properly to act in planning its district, who will settle and see to it that the plans of local planning authorities conform to the national plans, who will be prepared to hold the scales of justice evenly if occasion should require between the private developer and the local planning authority, and who should be generally the urge and impulse of planning. If that is done, if the Minister of Planning takes that view of his duties, if his Department discharges them effectively, if appropriate local planning authorities are brought into existence and co-operation between those local planning authorities and the Minister is secured and encouraged, then in that way, subject always to adequate powers being given to the Minister and to the local planning authorities, you will find, I suggest to your Lordships, a machine capable of effectively and efficiently planning this country without the complications and without the incumbrances of quasi-independent bodies responsible to nobody and whose fiat would be accepted by nobody.
EARL DE LA WARR: My Lords, it is inevitable that there should be certain disagreements about the major details of what is a comparatively new undertaking such as we are discussing to-day, but I

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hope that His Majesty's Government will take note of the fact that there is no disagreement at all, that indeed there is complete unanimity, on the point that the time has come when we have got to look and plan ahead. We have to go further than that and we must be prepared here and now actually to lay the foundations. If your Lordships will forgive me indulging in a generalization before saying anything about the particular Reports that are before us, I am emboldened to do so because, after all, we have had to wait a. very long time before hearing anything from the Government, and I am afraid some of us are riot very sure that we are going to hear a great deal to-day. These Reports have now been published for some months and we have still heard nothing.
One sometimes hears in discussions on these Reports the suggestion that there is a great deal in them that is going to be very useful, but that on the whole they go rather too far. It is inevitable when Reports of this character are issued on difficult and controversial subjects, however excellent they may be, that none of us can say we are going to accept them without very careful detailed examination and criticism, but for all that I cannot help feeling that this is a time when we should begin to look ahead, when we should be very clear in our minds as to the spirit in which we intend to plan the future of this country. Are we going back to the pre-war spirit when, after every Report showing bold or wide vision was published, we at once set up a number of subsequent Committees, to bring about suitable modifications, or are we going to say that we have learnt what seems to me one of the main lessons of this war, that if we intend in the future to be a great country, a leading country amongst the nations of the world, we have got to be prepared to think big and not look for small mean solutions that inevitably lead to doing too little and being too late?
If we look at pre-war days, if we look at our treatment of the Social Services, at the treatment of our great Colonial Empire, of agriculture, the distressed areas and, last but very far from least, our treatment of armaments, we see that they all received the same treatment, not the maximum we could do but, if I may put it crudely, the minimum that we thought we could get away with. We have all got to take our share of
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responsibility for that, and not least those of us who were in the Government at the time. But that is not really the point. The point is that we should make up our minds that we are not going to repeat the mistakes of those days. Small nations can think and plan on small lines, but a great Empire like this, if we are going to remain a great Empire, has got here and now and onwards to make up its mind to plan with courage and vision and imagination. I am myself encouraged by the debate that we have had to-day, because it is evident, although it is a debate devoted mainly to the questions of machinery, that as a House we are determined to tackle this great question of planning in a spirit of breadth and courage.
The object of these two Reports, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Latham, very briefly defined them, is to secure the best use of our national resources in land whether it is a question of farming, preservation of amenities, or development for building or industrial purposes, and that no matter whether they are publicly or privately owned. At the present moment, in the interests of food production, we are not prepared to tolerate bad farming or bad landowning, and I do not think anyone of us concerned with farming or landowning wants to see that tolerated in the. future. But we have still to look at the problems of the future use of land in terms of preventing the waste and destruction caused by the speculative builder or by the capricious location of industry. In some cases we find, from lack of planning of the location of industry, great congestions that make us feel quite hopeless as to any possibility of being able to bring some order out of the chaos that is there, while on the other hand there are areas. well equipped with services, all too frequently at the public expense, that have been allowed to lie derelict. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Portal, is not present because no one has seen more of this than he has in his capacity of Commissioner for one of the Special Areas, and no one has done more to help to alleviate the position in one of those areas.
I think it is quite clear from what we see of the past and from what we see of the possibilities of the future—the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, stressed that point with particular emphasis—that henceforward we must not plan only in terms of negation but in terms of making

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more of the land than is possible unless we look ahead. This debate has shown that if we are to make any progress there must be a Central Planning Authority of some kind. We have not yet reached agreement on the form that that central planning machinery should take, but we are agreed that there should be some central authority. Both the Committees and the Barlow Commission were agreed on that point, and I think even those of us who look on ourselves as champions of local authorities and experienced in their work, would agree that the piecemeal local treatment hitherto given to this subject has proved a failure. Let us have all the decentralization we can, once we have a central body, but without that central body no real progress will be made.
The noble Lord, Lord Reith, asked us to-day to concentrate on machinery. I think it is perfectly clear that the point in regard to the setting up of machinery that is most troubling your Lordships—and I imagine possibly troubling His Majesty's Government, hence the delay in being able to make any pronouncement—is whether, in handing over this matter to a Central Planning Commission, we are to put the matter into the hands of a Minister of Planning with a Department of his own, or whether Ave are to have a Minister without Portfolio acting as Chairman of a body of Departmental Ministers. This system of outside statutory bodies working under the ægis of a Department, is a system that has grown very much lately and we should agree that for certain executive functions it is a very sound development, but I think we should, all of us, including the noble Lord, Lord Balfour, agree that when it comes to questions of settling policy there has to be Ministerial control, and the more direct that is, the better. Whether it is exercised by a Minister with a Department of his own or by a Minister sitting as Chairman of a Cabinet Sub-Committee is a matter of detail as compared with the importance of the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Addison, that he should be a Minister of real weight in the Cabinet capable of putting plans and policy through once policy is evolved.
For myself—here I am in disagreement with the last speaker—I should be inclined to think that a Minister would be
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less likely to be faced by an organized alliance of Departments against him if he has not a Department of his own. Once a Minister has a Department of his own then, if he has anything to say, about another Department, he is in the position of one Departmental Minister interfering with another. Under him, and responsible for executive functions, I personally would like to see a body of the character of which the noble Lord, Lord Balfour, has spoken. As to exactly what powers should be given to that body, there obviously must be considerable thought and discussion, but I should have thought that it would be a source of some sense of security to those who are going to be planned—and some might fear that they were going to be planned out of existence—if they knew that it was not going to be possible for some new political Minister to come in and make use of the strong administrative powers granted him in order to bring about a change in policy without Parliamentary sanction. I can well see that a Commission, working under a Minister, would give a greater guarantee of security.
LORD LATHAM: Surely it is the function of Parliament to prevent, a Minister doing things with which Parliament is not agreed.
EARL DE LA WARR: I know Parliament has a lot of functions, but it does not always succeed in carrying them out. I do not share with the noble Lord, although. I am, I suppose, a politician myself, that tremendous confidence in politicians. I believe that for carrying out executive functions, such as will need carrying out, there is a great deal to be said for bringing in the outside expert and putting him under the Minister, but, nevertheless, in a defined position. Whatever the form of central planning machinery we set up, I think that there is another point upon which we can be quite in agreement, and that is that it is not the least good having this machinery unless we have also the powers. In the past we have had a series of Town and Country Planning Acts, Ribbon Development Acts and so on, but, as I think the most reverend and noble Lord, Lord Lang, said, remarkably little was to be seen as the result of those Acts of Parliament. We must see to it that in our future legislation we do not have those safeguards, not only of private but of

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local authority interests, which, in fact, have made any progress whatsoever impossible. The tragic story is told, I think, in Chapter VI of the Scott Report, and it culminates with the reductio ad absurdum that in order to obtain some degree of control of planning, local authorities up to date had evolved plats for housing a population of no less than 300,000,000 more than our present population of 41,000,000.
The Uthwatt Committee have endeavoured to tackle these problems. I think they have made it clear that they do not feel that trying to patch up the existing patchwork is going to be any use, and that in order to make progress it would be necessary to make a clean start by vesting in the State the rights of development in land. They make, also, certain proposals as to the method of compensation, and for making easier public purchase of land. But those are matters which I imagine we shall discuss at a later date in the debate raised by my noble friend Lord Latham. Some of these proposals must strike us when we first see them as very drastic, and drastic they are. But it does depend upon that to which we compare them; whether we compare them with pre-war standards or possible alternatives. The noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, mentioned what he felt to be the only really possible alternative. I am not sure that he used the word but lie, obviously meant out-and-out nationalization the land—a proposal championed by nobly Lords sitting on this Bench and also by many agriculturists to-day who have no connexion whatsoever with the Labour party. For myself, I cannot feel that the mass of thinking people in this country care one rap for theories about the public or private ownership of land, and that if we were to start a political discussion on these lines we should find ourselves not only quite out of touch with reality but quite out of touch with public opinion. What they do care about, and what we all care about who have spoken in this debate, is that the wild and thoughtless use of this precious and limited commodity of land in this country should not be continued, and that somehow, by some machinery or other, it must, at all costs, be prevented. Can that be done without nationalization? The Scott Committee and the Uthwatt Committee both, in such consideration as they have given to the problem, are of opinion that it can.
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Surely every one of us would feel then that an attempt should be made to make this new system of planning work. We have all of us seen a good deal of bureaucracy in the last two or three years of war. What we want, surely, to get out of this system of planning is the maximum of control in the public interest with a minimum of bureaucracy. As one who has rather been inclined to take the other view than that which has been put forward in these Reports I feel strongly that we should make the attempt to make these proposals work, on one condition, and that is that the attempt is made wholeheartedly. If the Government are going to delay yet further before adopting any policy at all, if when they do adopt some policy it is to be subject to such safeguards of private and local authority interests that, in fact, planning legislation will not work, then let us realize that planning can be written off as a failure, and that the public will demand something further. If, on the other hand, the Government will, here and now, accept the principle of planning and will set up a Central Planning Authority, whether it is based on a Commission or based on Ministers—never mind that for the moment—then I believe the system can be made a success. It will solve a great problem, and, at the same time, will show the world that it is possible to have ordered development and to combine that with individual freedom.
There is a middle way between chaos on the one hand and bureaucracy on the other. It is not just a compromise, because it is something very much more positive than either: it is the planned development of a free people. I believe that these Reports may well lay the foundations on which we can erect a structure of that character. I do, therefore, implore His Majesty's Government not to give us a non-committal reply to-day. I hope that they will tell us that they have accepted the principles of these Reports. I hope they will tell us what action they intend to take on them, and what kind of machinery they intend to set up to give effect to those principles; and, last but not least, when.
VISCOUNT BLEDISLOE: My Lords, I do not propose, at this late hour, to occupy your Lordships' time for more than a very few minutes, but I cannot convince myself that sufficient tribute has been paid to the

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really eloquent, cultured and inspiring speech with which this debate opened. Listening to the noble Lord, Lord Reith, one was reminded of the Parliamentary utterances in days gone by of such great orators as Burke, Disraeli and Gladstone. I for my part welcome in your Lordships' House such speeches as we hear from time to time from the noble Lord, which seem to lift us for a time above the somewhat mundane outlook which this commercially-minded country is apt to take in forming and expressing its political views. A very great poet, in less commercial days, said:
"The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers."
When the noble Lord, Lord Reith, addresses us, I feel that it is possible to combine the idealist with the practician, and to combine some measure of idealism with a constructive policy for the benefit of this country.
There is one note which I think all the speakers have struck in this debate, and which I want to emphasize: the enormous importance of promptitude in announcing the machinery of planning to be set up by the Government. The reasons which I venture to urge in this connexion are these. Deferment and uncertainty create a feeling of insecurity amongst all those concerned with the land of Britain and with its development. Moreover, land speculation to-day is rife. Land speculation has been found in recent years to be a much more profitable business than land cultivation, and it has proved to be to the obvious detriment of this country, especially in time of great emergency. A third reason why I would urge that something should be done at once towards setting up this machinery is that sporadic developments are now going on which may prove, and probably in very many cases will prove, inconsistent with an optimum national plan.
In spite of all that my noble friend Lord Samuel has said—and I agree with the greater part of what he said—I still feel bound to favour, as part of this Government machine, something in the nature of a non-political Commission. I do not care what it is called, but I do not like the term "Control" suggested by my noble friend Lord Balfour of Burleigh, because I think we shall all be heartily tired of the
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word "Control" before this war is over. I have in mind a sort of largely-expanded and glorified Development Commission, which will be able to carry out the execution or administration of Government policy continuously and without perpetual distraction due to turbulent variations in political outlook. It would be subject, of course, to paramount Ministerial control and general direction on the part of the Government. To my mind, it is of vital importance to have continuity of administration according to a definite plan, without such constant unsettlement as we in our experience as politicians know quite well occurs with changes of political outlook and changes of Government in tins country. Let me give you, to show what I mean, an illustration which must be present to the mind of all agriculturists in this House. One certain anticipation in the minds of nine-tenths of the members of both Houses of Parliament at the end of the last war was the rehabilitation of the agriculture of this country; and yet, within a year of the passage of an Act passed with that object, another Act was passed repealing it, with the result, of course, that agriculture was thrown back and was ill-prepared to face the insistent demands made upon it at the outbreak of the present war.
As part of country planning, I want to make a special appeal to the Government to make use of the landowning class. It is the enterprising, patriotic and public-spirited landowners who during the last century have been mainly responsible for the most successful and the most progressive planning in our country districts. Nowadays landowners are regarded as a class whom it is not necessary to consult, and still less necessary to invite to cooperate with the Government in matters relating to land development. I think that that is a profound mistake; and I for my part, as the sole surviving founder of the Central Landowners' Association, which was set up many years ago under the guidance of a former Lord Chairman of Committees of this House, the late Lord Onslow, with a view to carrying out a constructive policy, so far as the landowning interests are concerned, in the development of agriculture, most earnestly hope that the valuable help which is available from the more enlightened and progressive landowners of this country will be made use of on

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any minor committees or commissions which may take part in carrying out rural development.
There is one other body which I want to suggest should be taken into account, and that is the Council for the Preservation of Rural England. I happen to be President of the Gloucestershire branch of that body, of which my late respected friend Lord Crawford was the enthusiastic President for many years. That body has in many counties prevented the rural degeneration to which the most reverend and noble Lord, Lord Lang of Lambeth, referred in his very poetic speech. It has preserved the countryside against the somewhat impetuous war-time policies of different Government Departments, and has saved no small part of our most beautiful countryside from contemplated depredations and unnecessary vandalism on the part of those Departments. I share the view which my noble friend Lord Samuel expressed, that we should not deprive county councils in particular, not only of the valuable powers which they possess but of the incentive and enthusiasm which are developing on county councils with a view to systematic and wise planning in their areas. When it comes to the lesser councils I am by no means convinced. My experience of the small local authorities is that they suffer from smallness of outlook—a lack of vision—and very often, perhaps owing to that lack of vision, a tendency to hamper rather than encourage most desirable development in the countryside.
There seems to be considerable difference of opinion as to whether there should be one planning authority or several different planning authorities. Surely progressive development, viewed from a national point of view, is inconsistent with a multiplicity of various watertight planning units without any really effective liaison or constant consultation between those representing seemingly conflicting ideas. I could not help wondering when Lord Samuel was speaking about London and Middlesex. Of course there is a portion of the county in which geographically London is situated which is definitely agricultural, but there must be any number of problems arising on the borders of metropolitan London and rural Middlesex which would necessitate some body over and above the existing local authorities which is to decide, in the national interest, what is the best planning for the
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areas that they control. I have nothing further to say except that I do hope that whatever my noble friend Lord Snell is about to tell us he will be able to say that this matter is going to be dealt with, and dealt with at once, by His Majesty's Government.
LORD PHILLIMORE: My Lords, this has been a satisfactory debate. I understand that we are discussing the machinery advocated in the Scott and Uthwatt Reports, which they had no right to consider, and that we are not discussing the body of those Reports, where the recommendations reside. I think it is well to get that quite clear in case this debate finished on a note of triumph for the noble Viscount opposite, and a note of threat to me, with a suggestion that the guillotine is waiting for me round the corner. We are not discussing, as the noble Earl, Lord De La Warr, spent some of his speech in discussing, the wisdom of planning or central planning. I say that in no spirit of offensiveness, but I think we may assume that we all agree now on planning, we all agree on a Central Planning Authority, we all agree on a "ceiling," and furthermore, we agree that these planning powers shall be universal and compulsory. Now I think we have got some considerable way if I am right in supposing that that is what we have agreed to.
VISCOUNT SAMUEL: What kind of ceiling?
LORD PHILLIMORE: The March, 1939, ceiling.
VISCOUNT SAMUEL: The price of land?
LORD PHILLIMORE: Yes, the price of land. I venture to think that we have been presented with something of a wrong and incorrect picture. It is always easy to decry the past and to substitute that for energy in the present. I think if you look back on the history of the town-planning efforts of the last fifteen years you will find that a very considerable result has accrued to the nation. When you think that town planning involves the separate hunting up of every separate occupier and every separate owner in the district concerned; when you remember that the valuation for Mr. Lloyd George's Land Values Duties took from 1910 to 1921, and that the

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scheme was then thrown on the scrap-heap as being useless; when you reflect that the whole of the people of this country had to be educated into the idea of town planning; when you reflect that the Civil Service Department at the disposal of town planning was new, was scanty in size, had no previous experience for the most part, and was generally thought of as the underdog in the Departments—when you remember all those things, and when you remember that model bylaws of every description were thrown at the town planning authorities over a period of years, then I think you will have to agree that the figures in the Uthwatt Report of schemes in process of being carried out, are not so bad, and indeed in certain cases the completed schemes were ready for submission to Parliament.
Well, I do not think myself there has been this loss of time which has been assumed this evening. I do not despair of going more quickly. I hope we shall go more quickly. I agree that the central machinery must be found. Personally I thought Lord Latham, who has now left his place, was somewhere on the right lines. I thought that he alone of all the speakers had the proper municipal pride and the proper faith in local self-government. I believe myself that the debate so far, with that honourable exception, has stressed far too much what will be done in Whitehall and far too little what will be done in the country. I cannot help thinking that, given a good Minister with a good working service under him, and some larger units—and here I quite agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe—in the country, there is no reason why we should not find by that very simple and orthodox method the proper machinery for running the town planning of the future. But I want to make it quite clear that it is machinery that we have been discussing to-day, and that no vote that your Lordships may take will mean that we approve of the specific proposals of the Scott and Uthwatt Reports.
LORD WEDGWOOD: My Lords, the fact is apparent that we are thoroughly divided to-day, so that there is a possibility of the still small voice of reason being heard. We have the astonishing spectacle of the pillars of the Conservative
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Party urging State dictatorship in the user of land and the pillars of the Socialist Party urging the righteous rival claims of the local authorities. Well, that shows openness of mind on both sides, which is most useful. We do want time to consider where we are going and even what we want. In the eloquent opening speech of the noble Lord, Lord Reith, he said those terrible words which we have had re-echoed ever since in every speech—"get something done." Everybody thinks getting something done is what we want. If that is all you put your mind to you will get the wrong thing done. A friend of ours, known to most noble Lords here present, President Nicholas Murray Butler, of Columbia University, has said that the greatest danger to democracy is the people whom he calls "the for-God's-sakers"—the people who cannot think for themselves, who are always saying to those in authority "for God's sake get something done." The business of Parliament, I need hardly tell your Lordships, is to stop the Government doing foolish things, not to urge it. It is most necessary that in this case we should reflect before we try to "get something done."
What do we want to do? I gather from the Uthwatt Committee's Report and from the speeches to-day, particularly Lord Lang's, that the great aim and object of the new Planning Minister or Commission, or whatever it is going to be, is the preservation of rural amenities and, above all, the preservation of our existing form of agriculture. The essence of the Committee's Report is that the land of England should be divided into two classes—agricultural land and developed land. If that appears a desirable course to your Lordships, to me it is a perfect abomination. It is the development of Fascism so far as agriculture is concerned. It means the crystallization of the existing system of tenure and the existing system of agriculture. You are going to preserve part of England for agriculture and refuse to allow industry or workers to live in that part of England.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: Hear, hear.
LORD WEDGWOOD: You are going to Ghetto-ize the industrial population of this country. Lord Balfour of Burleigh may approve of that. All Fascists will approve of it; but nobody who loves

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liberty can possibly approve of confining the industrial classes to the towns and keeping the agricultural portion of England in pristine beauty. It is not only the Ghetto-izing of the industrial population I am thinking of. This crystallization of land ownership and land tenure means that the agricultural labourer must say good-bye for all time to any ideal of three acres and a cow. He will not be allowed to buy. He has got to remain for ever an agricultural labourer. The Guild system in the Middle Ages had the same idea. Messrs. Chesterton and Belloc would have liked to see the Guild system introduced for agriculture, I suppose, as well as the retention of every man in that state of life to which God has pleased to call him. But that is not England. That is not our history. We have spent four hundred years breaking down that system. I do not believe you will be able to re-establish it in this country, however much you want to do SO.
Every industry in this country during this war is thinking of how it is going to get on after the war. They all see the same way—that is, to have for themselves the organization of their industry, whether it he the agricultural industry, the potting industry, or the textile industry. They are all anxious to get back to the condition they were in before, and to avoid competition. Just as we have passed Acts of Parliament preserving the interests of dentists, doctors, nurses, and perhaps lawyers, by preventing fresh people from coming into their professions, so you are going to do it for the agricultural industry as well—crystallize, ossify. It may succeed, but it will be the ruin of our Empire and the destruction of all possibility of recovery of our trade and prosperity. We are all nowadays mixing up reconstruction of the country with the reconstruction of industry after the war. You cannot separate them. This question of the user of land is fundamental to the reconstruction of every industry. In my particular industry—the pottery industry—we have recently, fortunately, been able to buy a large estate, to transfer our factory there, and to have the people, when the houses are built, living in delightful country conditions. We should not be able to do it under the system proposed.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: Of course you would.
LORD WEDGWOOD: We should not. Who would be the people to say whether this industry could go out into Staffordshire? They would say, "Keep your industry in your towns." In these circumstances no new industry can develop. The user of land depends on getting rid of the idea of preserving the existing system, preserving agricultural land as it is to-day. The only hope from these discussions and Reports that I can get is that we have had Lord Phillimore, who used to be the principal supporter of the landowners in this country, accepting the ideal of a ceiling for the price of land—the 1939 ceiling. That is all right. I am sure Lord Balfour of Burleigh would accept that too. But let noble Lords consider for one moment the impossibility of determining now what the 1939 valuation should be. If you are going to deal with the user of land in this country—and I agree with every noble Lord who has spoken that it is the most important thing for the future of this country—the essential thing is a valuation of the land as it is to-day. We must have that valuation if we are going to buy pieces of land for anything. If you are going to dictate the user, you must know what you are going to pay. When you have your valuation, then you can reconstruct back from that your ceiling valuation for 1939. You have only got to consider the inflation that has taken place since, and make the percentage deduction. It is easier to make your valuation of what it is to-day than to start trying to value property which has changed hands dozens of times, perhaps and been broken up.
Whether you are going to deal with that problem of the user of land by purchase, which I do not recommend, or by the rating and taxation of land values, which I do recommend, valuation is the key to both. Valuation is essential. When you have that valuation, you might remember the incidence of taxation. I agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, that this might have been a better Report if they had put a politician or two on the Committee. When people recommend that there should be an increment duty on land instead of a tax on land value, they seem to be completely ignorant of the well-established fact that the incidence of an increment duty falls upon the user of land, upon the purchaser, whereas the incidence of a tax on land values falls on the landowner. One is a burden on in-

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dustry for all time, the other tends to make land cheaper and easier of access for the people who want to use it.
LORD SNELL: My Lords, I wish to explain to your Lordships at once why I am replying to this debate, and not the Minister of Works and Planning. The reason is that the subject under examination is the proposed machinery of a Central Planning Authority, and as the recommendations of the two Reports are being examined not by one but by many Departments, and as the particular machinery suggested involves a change in the powers of the present Minister, it is thought advisable that the reply should be made by someone not directly involved. I am the most readily available victim and therefore I make the reply. I should like first of all to say something about the question which was put to me by Lord Addison. It was as to the possibility of a renewed debate on this matter. As your Lordships know, there is a Motion on the Order Paper in the name of my noble friend Lord Latham, which raises the whole question in wider aspects than the Motion of to-day, and therefore Lord Addison's point will be adequately met when that is discussed.
The Motion which has been moved by the noble Lord, Lord Reith, is one of exceptional interest, and the speeches which have been made are altogether worthy of the subject with which they have dealt. The question of planning is the latest and perhaps the best of our recent national enthusiasms, and the nation, I am sure, will not permit that the matter should be neglected, mishandled or delayed. The nation has become planning conscious, and it desires to have quick results—but it was not always so. I can remember the days when to suggest that a thing should be planned was to offend the aesthetic ideas of the time. It then resented the suggestion that beauty from order springs. Untidy irregularity was preferred to any kind of the monotony of order, and I can remember in a public lecture Oscar Wilde saying that it was wrong to arrange even the furniture in a room, that it should be left to occur. That is what happened to our villages and towns and to the whole country. Things were left to occur, with results that called forth the tremendous flaming anger and opposition of men like Ruskin and William
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Morris. But to-day the nation is in open revolt against the waste and ugliness of disorder. It wants planning and wants it quickly and it is unwilling to wait for it. That is a good sign, but let us be clear what planning involves. It is an altogether vague term and might include anything from the planning of the future of the currency to the planning of the future of your Lordships' House.
Certain charges have been made to-day that there has been undue delay on the part of the Government in announcing their decisions. That charge, I venture to suggest, is ungenerous, and I think it is untrue. Lord De La Warr, for instance, said that this matter had been considered by the Government for a very long time, some months. In actual fact, of these two Reports the first was presented to Parliament in August, 1942, and the second, the Uthwatt Report, in September, 1942, so that the Government are chided because in a few short weeks they have not been able to decide on this very complicated and important matter.
EARL DE LA WARR: The noble Lord does not suggest that that was the beginning.
LORD SNELL: No, I am referring to the Reports. The Government could not consider the Reports till they were available. The recommendations made in them cover a very wide field. They raise issues of the most fundamental importance which cannot be overlooked. In the Scott Report alone there are offered a hundred separate recommendations, and they affect almost every Government Department. For instance, they affect the Board of Trade, the Board of Education, the Service Departments, the Home Office, the Ministries of Agriculture, Health, Fuel and Power, Labour, War Transport, and Works and Planning, and the decisions that have to be made upon these matters are perhaps the most vital of any of the social decisions that have had to be made in recent times. Among the questions arising out of these recommendations may I quote the following? The Scott Report includes these questions: the place of agriculture in our post-war economy, the provisions of public utility services in rural areas, and the control of the extractive industries. The Uthwatt Report deals with the prohibition on payment of fair compensation of the development of undeveloped land outside built

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up areas except with the consent of the State, and the grant of compulsory powers of acquiring the land itself when wanted for public purposes or approved private development.
LORD WEDGWOOD: Does the noble Lord say the Government approve of them?
LORD SNELL: No, I say those were the recommendations involving the consideration of these specific problems. In addition to those I have named there are the assessment of such compensation on the basis that a single sum is to be fixed representing the fair value to the State of the development rights taken as a whole; wide powers of compulsory acquisition of land in reconstruction and other areas; the proposed new procedure for obtaining and exercising compulsory powers of acquisition; and the scheme for the imposition of a periodic levy on increases in annual site value with the object of securing betterment for the community as and when it is realized, enjoyed or realizable. Those are a few of the great questions that have to be examined, and when you reflect upon the complexity of those questions it is surely ungenerous to charge the Government with delay. I understand the enthusiasm which promotes criticisms of that kind. In a black-out we can always go at a thrilling pace if we do not mind where we are going. But this is not a subject for slap-dash decisions of which you might have to repent. What the nation has the right to expect and demand and what the Government are determined to give to it, is that it shall have the wisest decision possible in the shortest possible time. It was always made the charge against Shakespeare's most famous character that he showed irresoluteness of will because he postponed a proposed act until he had satisfied himself that what he proposed to do was right. I imagine the argument is that if you have an uncle to kill the right thing is to get on with the grim business and then reflect about it afterwards. All I can say on this point is that the Government are giving to these matters close and continuous study and no time whatever is being lost or wasted.
The noble Lord, Lord Reith, said that the machinery should be settled now. As my noble friend Lord Latham pointed out, machinery has no virtue in itself. It depends on what it is going to do. In-
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effective machinery is no contribution to the solution of a complicated problem. Machinery is useful only in proportion as it is able to do what it was expected to do. The noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, was so enthusiastic as to demand that something should be done now. As a politician he knows that at present we have not got a Government composed of people of one particular political school of thought; it is a National Government composed of people with many different points of view and that makes it rather more difficult for decisions of this kind to be made quickly. In the opinion of the Government it would be obviously very short-sighted to come to an immediate decision on the proposal for a fresh change in our central machinery without taking account of the wider powers and responsibilities which these two Reports recommend that the Government should assume. I do not wish to imply that no decision can be reached on the proposals of these two Committees in regard to the Central Planning Authority until we have reached decisions on every one of their very extensive and important recommendations, but we must clearly view the Government's policy in this field as a developing whole.
When we come to the consideration of the Reports I will try to shorten my comments as much as I possibly can. My first duty, I think, is to thank those who worked at the two Reports for what must have been a very strenuous period of labour and for the work that they have put into them. It would not be right on my part to comment on the specific criticism which the noble Lord, Lord Reith, has made to-day, without recognizing to the full that he not only speaks with authority on the matter but also knows as well as anybody something of the difficulties that have to be faced. In regard to the central authority, for instance, I hope he will not think it improper on my part to remind him that at an earlier period he appears to have regarded the establishment of the Ministry of Works and Planning as at least a preliminary step towards the creation of a Central Planning Authority. On February 26, 1941, he said on a Motion of the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, that
"the principle of planning will be accepted as national policy and that some Central Planning Authority will be required."

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Therefore, when the noble Earl, Lord De La Warr, says that the Government should accept the principle of planning, I reply that they do accept that principle and have said so quite specifically in the various statements that have been made.
If I may pursue that further, you had a pledge from the noble Lord, Lord Reith, and then you had an acknowledgment of the fulfilment on July 17, 1941. In reply to a Motion by the then Lord Bishop of Winchester, Lord Reith said:
"if the noble Lord from the north—"
referring to Lord Balfour of Burleigh—
"chooses to regard the Central Planning Authority as having been established, I will not gainsay him. I, as an individual, personally regard that as having been accomplished in embryo."
He also said—I regret that that thought was not repeated in his speech to-day—
"There is much new and hard thinking to be done before the right permanent form of positive central planning machinery … an be determined."
He went on:
"The Government believe it to be too early to set up the new Central Planning Authority in its final form."
The noble Lord, Lord Reith, explains, like all Ministers, that that did not represent all he wanted, but represented all that at that time he could get. At a later period my noble friend Lord Portal, on April 21 this year, stated that the statement of Government policy which Lord Reith had made still stood, so that the acceptance of the principle of a national planning authority has been adequately stated. On the Second Reading of the Ministry of Works and Planning Bill on April 29, in another place, the Parliamentary Secretary for Planning stated that the Bill was a first step, and a first step only, in carrying out the policy of the Government which was announced on February 11
I should enjoy going into the differences which appear in these various Reports, but I have not the heart to detain your Lordships for that purpose. The recommendations in the two Reports regarding a Central Planning Authority, although they have much in common, are not identical by any means and the differences between them cannot be ignored. In the Uthwatt Report, for example, the important Minister is to be specially charged with development; national development is to be added to planning and the Min-
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ister is to be the Minister for National Development. In the Scott Report the important Minister is to be "Minister of National Planning" or "Minister of National Organization," and an essential distinction is drawn between planning and development. In regard to the Commission that is proposed, both Reports recommend as part of the essential machinery of the Central Planning Authority the setting up of a Commission, called in the Scott Report the Central Planning Commission. This would involve a fundamental change in the planning machinery. From the Government's point of view, this proposition requires to be examined in all its aspects and implications. The Uthwatt Report does not deal with the functions of what the noble and gallant Admiral the other day, in suppressed quarter-deck language, called the "narrow-minded, pig-headed local authorities." And yet the subject is one of very great importance and the Scott Report does recognize that difficulty. The present position, as I understand it, is that it is the local authorities who plan subject to the revising power of the Minister of Works and Planning. In the discussion which has taken place to-day in regard to this particular matter, Lord Reith has expressed himself as being in favour of a Commission. In that he was supported by Lord Addison and Lord Balfour of Burleigh. On the other hand, the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, and Lord Latham were opposed to the Commission in that particular form.
LORD LATHAM: My Lords, I am in the recollection of the House, but may I say in the absence of my noble friend Lord Addison, that I do not think that he agreed with the proposal for a Commission.
LORD SNELL: Perhaps I may not have caught his point correctly. But the Official Report to-morrow will show. I cannot help feeling that as the debate has gone on the difficulties in the way of quick decisions have been more and more revealed. If the debate could have gone on for some time longer the result would have been, I think, unanimous approval of the position of His Majesty's Government.
Now with regard to the Government decision. As these proposals are being continuously and thoroughly studied,

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together with other recommendations, the Government are not prepared to announce their decision in regard to them until their investigations have further advanced. I might, however, quote one paragraph, paragraph 360, from the Uthwatt Report which runs as follows:
"However the Central Planning Authority is constituted, and whatever departmental arrangements are made, it is essential that there should exist means by which the requirements of agriculture, transport, public services, and defence, as well as housing, industrial location, town siting, and other matters can be given proper weight and considered as a whole. Co-ordination at the centre as respects the various Government Departments interested in particular aspects of planning is necessary. Without this the general lines on which national development should proceed cannot he properly determined, nor the lands properly managed it the interests of national development."
His Majesty's Government accept that paragraph because it states in terms with which the Government agree the object which we all have in view.
There is another matter that I should like to mention. Lord Justice Scott's Committee on Land Utilization in Rural Areas recommended, under the title, "Registration of Title," as follows:
"We recognize that the registration of title should be made compulsory over the whole of England and Wales.
We recognize that the extension of compulsory registration of title will, for reasons of staff and administration, take some time, but it is important that it should be completed within five years."
The existing legislation on this subject contemplates a gradual extension of compulsory registration on sale by orders made with references to particular counties or for particular county boroughs. It is riot perfectly clear from the Report of Lord Justice Scott's Committee whether the recommendation is intended to refer to compulsory registration on sale or to compulsory registration irrespective of any change of ownership. At the time when the war began, it was the settled policy of successive Lord Chancellors gradually to extend the compulsory provisions of the Land Transfer Act; but it was obvious that the rate of the extension must be determined, in part at least, by the resources available to the Land Registry for the purpose.
The events of the war have restricted those resources. The building belonging to the Land Registry in Lincoln's Inn Fields has teen seriouly damaged by
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enemy action; and the staff of the Land Registry has been greatly depleted both by the departure of men for the Fighting Services and by the necessity of lending all the staff that could possibly be spared to assist other Departments more immediately concerned with the conduct of the war. My noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor, therefore, within whose sphere lies the administration of the Land Registry, has to face serious problems connected with that administration, apart altogether from those presented by the extra burdens proposed to be placed upon the Registry by Lord Justice Scott's Committee.
Bearing in mind, however, the declared policy of Parliament, as expressed in the Land Transfer Act, 1925, and the recommendations made by Lord Justice Scott's Committee, the Lord Chancellor thinks that the time has come when a further extension of the compulsory provisions of the Act demands serious consideration, and he has, therefore, appointed a Committee to consider the recommendations. Its terms of reference will be as follows:
"To consider the recommendation made by the Committee recently presided over by Lord Justice Scott, and to consider whether it is practicable to give effect to it at the present time, and, if universal registration of title to land is not immediately possible, to report in what localities and by what stages compulsory registration on sale can best be brought about."
My noble friend Lord Rushcliffe has been good enough to promise the Lord Chancellor that he will act as Chairman of the Committee. Although I am not yet in a position to announce the names of those who will serve upon it, I can say now that it will include representatives of both branches of the profession and others conversant with the advantages which follow upon the substitution of transfer of land by registration for transfer by conveyance, as well as with the administrative problems connected with a further extension.
Something is, after all, being done; the Government are not entirely so blameworthy as has been suggested. I shall not detain your Lordships further, but I will express my opinion that this has been an interesting and even an important debate. What has been said will receive the immediate and careful consideration of the Government. This House, Parliament and the nation are of one mind and

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purpose in this matter, and they are determined that the opportunity, whenever it may come, to reconstruct our shattered world shall not be neglected or misused. His Majesty's Government share that great enthusiasm, and they will try to ensure that the nation shall not be disappointed. We owe this common endeavour not merely to posterity but urgently and particularly to those who with ever-shining courage are bearing the dangerous hazards of these grim days. When men are dying to keep England free, the least we can do is to try to make her great.
LORD REITH: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Snell, speaks as though the
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Scott and Uthwatt Reports had fallen like bolts, or rather like bombs, from the blue of heaven on an unsuspecting and unprepared community. Two years have passed! I am glad to hear that a Committee has been appointed at any rate. I thank Lord Snell for his reply—courtesy demands that I should—and I shall say no more, except this. He maintained two or three times that Government policy in this matter of the creation of a Central Planning Authority for England still stands. I submit to him that he has merely made it clear that it is standing still. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.
House adjourned