Sitting of 3 February 1944

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

  DISABLED EX-SERVICE MEN (STREET MUSICIANS)
  Mr. G. Straussasked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware that in some parts of London small bands of street musicians beg for alms; that they exhibit notices stating they are ex-miners and disabled ex-Service men; and whether, in view of the fact that this has a depressing effect on morale, particularly amongst women whose husbands are in the forces, he is satisfied that suitable work has been offered to all discharged men who are physically fit enough to spend hours a day playing in the streets?
  The Minister of Labour (Mr. Ernest Bevin): I can assure my hon. Friend that all men discharged from the Forces on medical grounds are interviewed by officers of my Department. Those who are fit for work are offered suitable employment or training, and treatment is available for those in need of it in order to fit them for work. I share, however, my hon. Friend's concern regarding cases of the kind to which he refers. Continuous steps are taken to check up the position, and I am considering what further measures it is possible for me to take.
  Mr. Strauss: I am very much obliged to the Minister for his reply, but is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the sight of these street musicians, many of whom appear to be strong and fit, is extraordinarily annoying to middle-aged women who are forced to do long and arduous war work, and that it has a very bad effect?
  Sir Alfred Beit: Is the Minister aware that, in addition to the persons described in the Question, there are quite a number of single men begging for alms in much the same way; and will he consult the Metropolitan Police with a view to giving
  1378
  them greater discretion in taking action against these people?
  Mr. Bevin: I am going into the whole matter. I am constantly checking up on these points.
  Mr. G. Straussasked the Minister of Pensions whether he is aware that in some parts of London small bands of street musicians beg for alms; that they exhibit notices stating they are disabled ex-Service men; and whether, in view of the fact that this has a depressing effect on morale, particularly amongst women whose husbands are in the forces, he is satisfied that the present scale of pensions is sufficient to obviate the necessity for discharged men to supplement their income in this way.
  The Minister of Pensions (Sir Walter Womersley): The rates of pension were adjusted in August last following the Government's general review of war pensions. If the men to whom the hon. Member refers are in fact war pensioners they are probably not in the higher ranges of disablement and the question of total maintenance would not therefore arise. The fact that they perform as street musicians does not prove that they are unfit for other work or for rehabilitation and training, and my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour and National Service has dealt with this aspect of the matter in reply to an earlier question.
  Mr. Strauss: Will my right hon. Friend also bear in mind that one effect of these street bands of disabled ex-Service men is inevitably to set women asking whether, when their husbands and sons come home, they will be reduced to the same plight?
  Sir W. Womersley: I am well aware of that fact, but I am also aware that training and rehabilitation are not compulsory. We must have the consent of the man concerned, and if he feels that because he can play an instrument in the street he can make far more money than the standard rate of wages in other occupations, we cannot compel him but only try to persuade him, and let the light of publicity into these cases. I thank my hon. Friend in this instance for bringing them into the light of publicity.
  Major Petherick: In view of the fact that it is stated that most of these men make a considerable income by parading

  1379
  in this way, and in order to allay public anxiety, will the right hon. Gentleman cause these cases, as far as practicable, to be investigated, especially of the men who are found playing musical instruments in the street?
  Sir W. Womersley: My right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour and National Service has already said that he is going to go very fully into this matter to see whether any action can be taken.

  NATIONAL WAR EFFORT

    Public Parks (Labour)
    Mr. Linsteadasked the Minister of Labour whether he is satisfied that labour employed in the parks departments of local authorities is, in general, being used for the furthering of the war effort; and, in particular, what was the result of his enquiry into the circumstances in which, on Friday, 12th November, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, 10 men and one woman were raking leaves in Battersea Park and burning them.
    Mr. Bevin: I am satisfied that all labour which could better be employed elsewhere has been withdrawn from work in public parks, and that, having regard to the ages and medical categories of the persons employed, I cannot make a special point of the operations in Battersea Park to which my hon. Friend refers.
    Mr. Linstead: While thanking the right hon. Gentleman for his reply, may I ask whether he will consider making representations to the London County Council, because of the unfortunate effect on the public of seeing numbers of people doing what appears to them to be work of less than national importance at this time?
    Mr. Bevin: I think the maintenance of public parks by people over military age and not fit for other work is a very essential thing.

    Lorry Drivers, Birmingham
    Mr. Higgsasked the Minister of Labour if he is aware that the calling up of lorry drivers is affecting the distribution of coal to small consumers in Birmingham; and if he will suspend any further calling up of these men.
    Mr. Bevin: No, Sir; but if my hon. Friend will furnish particulars of any such cases of difficulty I will look into them.

    Coalmining Training Centres (Instructors, Pay)
    Mr. Colegateasked the Minister of Labour what salaries are to be paid to the mining engineers who are to act as instructors under the training scheme recently instituted for new boy entrants into the collieries; and how these salaries compare with those of mining engineers employed as instructors for safety purposes under the Collieries Act of 1911.
    Mr. Bevin: Various grades of technical staff are engaged on instructional duties in the coal mining training centres I have recently established, and different qualifications, experience, etc., are required for the different grades. The salaries to be paid are on ranges extending from £5 per week, plus war bonus, to £600 per annum plus war bonus, and correspond, roughly, with earnings in the industry, but I will send my hon. Friend particulars of the grades, duties and pay of the staff in question.

    Young People (Hours of Work)
    Mr. Sorensenasked the Minister of Labour whether he has any approximate estimate of the number of young people under 16 years of age now working more than 44 hours per week and those between 16 and 17 years of age working more than 48 hours per week; and what action has been taken to see that employers conform to the necessity of not employing young people for excessive hours of labour.
    Mr. Bevin: I regret that information on which to base such an estimate is not available. The hours of young persons in factories are closely watched through the factory inspectorate.
    Mr. Sorensen: Is the Minister aware that complaints have been made in certain directions by organisations interested in young people, and that some of these young people are working very long hours?
    Mr. Bevin: A continuous watch is kept, and I keep asking for specific cases, but, in the main, I get only generalities. If hon. Members send me specific cases, I will look into them.

    Employment, West Ham
    Mr. Thorneasked the Minister of Labour how many men are registered at the employment exchanges in the borough of West Ham for employment.
    Mr. Bevin: I will send the desired figures to my hon. Friend.

    Building Labour, Kensington
    Sir William Davisonasked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware that urgently needed repairs to the roofs of bombed houses in Kensington, in order to make the buildings watertight, have had to be indefinitely postponed by reason of a recent Government Order commandeering all building labour in the Kensington area; and will he see that sufficient labour is left in the borough to enable the borough council to undertake all urgent work such as that referred to.
    Mr. Bevin: I would refer my hon. and gallant Friend to the answer I gave on 27th January, 1944, to the hon. and learned Member for Ilford (Mr. Hutchinson).

    Aircraft Factory Workers (Grievances)
    Mr. Ellis Smithasked the Minister of Labour if he will ask that an investigation be made into the conditions that gave rise to a stoppage of work at an aircraft factory, the name of which he has been given.
    Mr. Bevin: I understand that discussion on grievances is already proceeding through the normal machinery of the industry.
    Mr. E. Smithasked the Minister of Labour why workers were being sent to an aircraft factory while many employed there are working ordinary time, with a small night shift; what steps he has taken to remove the grievances which have subsequently arisen at this factory, of which he has been informed; if he has considered the correspondence sent him by the hon. Member for Stoke and with what result.
    Mr. Bevin: I am having inquiries made and will communicate with my hon. Friend as soon as possible.
    Mr. E. Smith: In the inquiries which the Minister makes, will he have special regard to the need for consultation between production Departments like the Ministry of Aircraft Production?

  OLD AGE PENSIONS
  Mr. Ness Edwardsasked the Minister of Health what effect will board and lodgings given to trainees in the mining industry by old age pensioners have upon the calculation or supplementary pensions.
  The Minister of Health (Mr. Willink): I am informed by the Assistance Board that payments by the trainees in question will be treated in the same way as payments by other boarders, the normal rule being to regard as a resource one half of the amount by which the payment exceeds 18s. Thus, out of a payment of 25s., 3s. 6d. would be taken into account as a resource in calculating the supplementary pension payable to a pensioner with whom the trainee was boarding.
  Mr. Tom Brownasked the Minister of Health if he will reconsider his decision not to make the payments to old age pensioners, whose cases have been re-assessed and those cases which will subsequently be re-assessed, retrospective to 17th January, 1944, so as to comply with the method adopted in the majority of our social services.
  Mr. Willink: No, Sir. The Regulations, which were approved by this House last December, follow previous practice and make no provision for giving retrospective effect to increases in supplementary pensions resulting from their operation.
  Mr. T. Brown: Is the Minister not aware that it is manifestly unfair to penalise these old people because their cases cannot be reviewed and re-assessed until April of this year?
  Mr. Willink: The House, on more than one previous occasion, has taken the view that it would be very unfair to hold everybody up until the whole thing has been done, and, since the matter is one of need, the idea of large retrospective payments has never been in accordance with the wishes of the House.
  Mr. Tinker: Is the Minister aware that most Members of the House are unaware of what happened last time, and that there is a feeling in this House that some examination should be given to this question? Can I assure him that the old age pensioners are feeling this very keenly, and think that there has been some injustice

  1383
  to them? May I ask the Minister to examine this question and see if something cannot be done?
  Mr. Willink: The hon. Member has already given an indication of his intentions in this matter, and I think hon. Members should consider what took place in 1941 and 1943.
  Mr. Buchanan: Cannot the Minister see his way to alter the instructions or regulations in view of the very great disparity between 17th January and April? Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman ask the Board's officers at least to hasten their decisions, and bring the payments forward to a date before April?
  Mr. Willink: The information I had was that this matter would take about two months. I am sure the Board will take notice of what Members have said, and that they do proceed with the work with the utmost speed possible in the circumstances of to-day.
  Mr. Gallacher: Is it not the case that 2s. or 2s. 6d. per week will be the maximum payment, and how can the Minister talk about large retrospective payments? Cannot the right hon. and learned Gentleman make a statement about what the payments will be?
  Mr. Willink: I am not prepared to answer that Question without notice.
  Mr. Brown: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I will raise this matter again.
  Mr. Ness Edwardsasked the Minister of Pensions if the increase in the rates of supplementary pensions now payable to old age pensioners will be deducted from war service grants to the mothers of serving men in those cases in which the father is getting a supplementary pension.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Pensions (Mr. Paling): The amount of any supplementary pension received by her husband is an item of the household income to be taken into account in assessing the war service grant which can be awarded to a mother. It does not follow, however, that an increase in the amount of the supplementary pension would lead to an equal decrease in the war service grant.
  Mr. Edwards: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that the present practice is to decrease the war service grant by the same proportion as the increase in the supplementary pension and that the effect of that is to thwart the intention of the new regulation which increases supplementary pensions, and will he try and stop this see-saw business of depriving these people of assistance and so thwarting the intention of this House?
  Mr. Paling: If the supplementary pension that is granted is of sufficient size we would have to decrease it, but it would not be the only factor taken into account. In any event, we have to take into account any general increase in household income.
  Mr. Edwards: What does my right hon. Friend regard as "of sufficient size"?
  Mr. Buchanan: Is it not a fact that in the great mass of cases, where an increase of supplementary pension is paid, a decrease is automatically made in the war service grant; and is it not somewhat unfair that when this House has granted an increase to these old people, its effect should be taken away by a very mean and miserable reduction in the war service grant? Would the right hon. Gentleman, who surely could hardly defend such a policy, look into the matter again?
  Mr. Edwards: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the answer to my original Question, I beg to give notice that I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment.

  HOUSING

    Gibraltar Evacuees, London
    Sir Irving Alberyasked the Minister of Health, in view of the shortage in accommodation in London, if he will now consider moving Gibraltar evacuees from some of the 19 hotels and 11 blocks of flats at present occupied.
    Mr. Willink: I fully realise the shortage of accommodation in London, but I have no alternative accommodation at my disposal such as would be required to give effect to the suggestion of my hon. Friend.
    Sir I. Albery: Is it not a fact that some of the premises at present occupied are quite unsuitable and are badly needed for other purposes?
    Mr. Willink: It is the best accommodation that we have been able to find, and I very much regret that there is no other alternative accommodation at my disposal.

    Requisitioned Houses (Release)
    Sir John Mellorasked the Minister of Health whether, in districts where overcrowding is acute, he will advise local authorities to release for occupation houses now held empty for emergency use.
    Mr. Willink: I am afraid we have not yet reached the stage at which all accommodation reserved for the homeless could be released. It is a question of balancing the immediate needs of families unsatisfactorily housed against the potential needs of the homeless in the light of possible emergencies. The risk of attack is, of course, greater in some areas than in others, and, if my hon. Friend has any particular case in mind, I will certainly consider whether any further releases could be made.
    Mr. Lipson: Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman say whether these houses are kept constantly under review, and whether it is considered that some of them could be released in certain areas?
    Mr. Willink: The matter is kept under constant review.
    Mr. Sorensen: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman not aware that, in many areas, there is accommodation over shops which is quite empty or used for packing cases, and could he not make inquiries in that direction?
    Mr. Willink: I know from my own experience in earlier years about that type of accommodation. It has been considered.
    Sir J. Mellor: Does the Minister realise how annoying it is to those who are enduring the discomfort of overcrowded lodgings to see houses standing empty?
    Mr. Willink: I fully appreciate that, but the embarrassment in the case of an emergency, for those who are bombed out, would cause even greater distress.
    Mr. W. Thorne: Is the Minister aware that there are many houses for sale, but none for letting?

    Rent Restrictions Committee (Evidence, Publication)
    Mr. Frankelasked the Minister of Health whether, as the Rent Restrictions Committee have decided to conduct their proceedings in private, the House can be assured that the Minutes of Evidence will be published in due course.
    Mr. Willink: As the Committee have followed the practice of previous committees on this subject and decided that their proceedings should be private, I do not think I could properly give an assurance that the Minutes of Evidence will be published. Copies of the memoranda of evidence submitted to the Committee will, however, be placed in the Library of the House at the conclusion of the Inquiry and the Committee's report will, of course, be published in due course.
    Mr. Frankel: Is the Minister aware of the great importance of this matter to many hundreds of thousands of people in this country, and are they to be denied knowledge at any time of what is going on during the inquiry?
    Mr. Willink: I have to take account of what is the normal practice with committees of this kind, of the wish and the decision of this Committee and also of the very great bulk of the evidence that will be submitted orally.
    Mr. Frankel: Is not the Minister aware that the conditions under which many hundreds of thousands of these people are living are not normal, and that, therefore, he ought to waive the normal procedure in their case?
    Mr. Willink: The question of conditions is quite other than the question whether this very large mass of evidence should be published in full.
    Mr. Buchanan: Is the Minister aware that the question of rent is perhaps one of the most important considerations in the income and life of the great mass of working people, and that evidence on the question whether an increase of rent should be granted is something of which the public ought to be fully informed?
    Mr. Willink: The hon. Member will realise that the first part of that question is wholly remote from the question addressed to me. If the memoranda of evidence and the whole report are available, the public and Members of this House will have the full material.
    Mr. Silverman: If the Committee had decided to take the evidence in public the question of publishing the whole of the oral evidence afterwards would not arise; and is it not important that, while the inquiry is on, we should know what evidence is before it, so as to be able to deal with it and reply to it?
    Mr. Willink: No, Sir, I do not agree.

  PUBLIC HEALTH

    Consultant and Specialist Services
    Sir Douglas Hackingasked the Minister of Health whether he has considered the letter about consultant and specialist services appearing in the British Medical Journal and the Lancet of 15th January, signed by the presidents of the Royal College of Physicians of London, the Royal College of Surgeons of England and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, of which he has received a copy and in which it is stated that these colleges are, at his request, making a survey of the present availability of consultants and specialists; and whether, in view of misunderstandings that have arisen on this matter, he will indicate the purpose and scope of the survey.
    Mr. Willink: As the Answer is a long one, I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Sir D. Hacking: I must comply with the Minister's request, but, in view of the great interest in this by the whole of the medical profession, will my right hon. and learned Friend see that the greatest possible publicity is given to the official reply and explanation, through medical and other journals throughout the country?
    Mr. Willink: There is every reason to think that the right hon. Gentleman's wish will be gratified.
    Following is the answer:
    As is generally known, surveys of the hospital services have been in progress throughout the country for some months, the aim of which is to assist in producing plans for the co-ordination of those services after the war by ascertaining the supply of and probable demand for hospital facilities, and by making recommendations for any necessary extensions and improvements. At an early stage of these
    1388
    inquiries, it became clear that a very useful purpose would be served by the initiation of similar inquiries in England and Wales into the supply and distribution of consultants and specialists, and the probable demand for them in a comprehensive post-war hospital and consultant service. Arrangements were accordingly made with the presidents of the three Royal Colleges for a survey to be made of the existing consultant and specialist services, in order to ascertain whether there was a surplus or shortage in any area, and whether redistribution would be desirable in any post-war hospital service.
    The Royal Colleges have, as already announced, established a Central Medical Academic Council, including representatives of the universities, to perform the necessary work at the centre, and area committees based on the universities to undertake the collection of information and preparation of lists locally. My predecessor invited the vice-chancellors of the universities to act as chairmen of these area committees. It is hoped that this survey will make available for the first time information about the numbers and types of consultants and specialists in the country. Information is already available about specialists in the services.
    Misunderstandings appear to have arisen owing to the fact that, in order to arrive at the numbers and types of consultants and specialists, it is necessary to draw up lists of names. I am, therefore, glad of this opportunity of assuring the profession, and especially its members who are on war service at home or abroad, that such lists will be treated as strictly confidential and will not be used as a test of eligiblity for appointment as consultant or specialist in any comprehensive post-war hospital service. If, at a later date, it were thought desirable that consultant and specialist appointments should be restricted to persons qualified in some particular manner and enrolled on a list for the purpose, it would be necessary to provide for the establishment of a register on a statutory basis in a manner approved by Parliament.

    Panel Doctor's Fee, Birmingham
    Mr. Higgsasked the Minister of Health if he is aware that Dr. D. Singh, of Kingstanding, Birmingham, charged one of his panel patients, Mr. W. R. Davis, of 432, Queslett Road, Birming-

    1389
    ham, 10s. 6d. for a doctor's note; and will he take steps to suppress such high charges.
    Mr. Willink: I am not aware of the charge to which my hon. Friend refers, but if he will send me more particulars I will consider the matter.

    Hospitals, London (Overcrowding)
    Mr. Sorensenasked the Minister of Health whether he has information respecting overcrowding in hospitals in the London and Greater London area; whether he is regularly supplied with reports respecting this and the increased burdens to which the staff are subjected; and whether he is taking any action to secure relief in those hospitals that are now seriously understaffed.
    Mr. Willink: I am advised that there is no appreciable overcrowding in general hospitals in the area mentioned. When necessary, arrangements are made under the Emergency Hospital Scheme to transfer patients to outer hospitals for treatment. I regret that owing to conditions arising out of the War, unavoidable overcrowding exists in a number of hospitals used for the treatment of the chronic sick and for mental cases. The answer to the second part of the Question is "Yes, Sir." As regards the last part, steps are being taken by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour and National Service to assist hospitals with staffing difficulties. If my hon. Friend will give me particulars of any individual hospitals he may have in mind, I shall be pleased to have inquiry made.
    Mr. Sorensen: While I assure the right hon. and learned Gentleman that I shall do so may I ask him if he is aware that the nursing staffs in some hospitals are suffering from very severe strain and that if he does not supplement them by other nurses, many will break down under the strain?
    Mr. Willink: We are all aware of the very great strain to which my hon. Friend refers.
    Dr. Edith Summerskill: Has the attention of the right hon. and learned Gentleman been drawn to the shortage of maternity accommodation in almost every hospital in the country?

  ARTIFICIAL LIMBS (CIVILIANS)
  Mr. Bartle Bullasked the Minister of Health if, in the interests of fair play, he will enable civilians who suffered loss of limbs in the last war due to enemy action, to obtain artificial limbs in the same way as civilians injured in this war.
  Mr. Willink: Civilians who lost limbs in the last war are eligible for the supply of artificial limbs under the present arrangements, particulars of which I will send to my hon. Friend. He will see that the individual or someone on his behalf is asked to make a contribution to the cost, and this provision could not be waived without re-opening the whole question of compensation for injuries sustained by civilians in the last war.
  Mr. Bull: Would not civilians injured in this war receive compensation?
  Mr. Willink: I would like notice of that Question in order to give a fully accurate reply.
  Mr. Bull: It is a very simple one.

  TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING (LAKE DISTRICT)
  Major Procterasked the Minister of Town and Country Planning if he is in a position to state what steps he has taken, or proposes to take, to further the projects of making the Lake District a national park and the Trough of Bowland a recreational centre.
  The Minister of Town and Country Planning (Mr. W. S. Morrison): As regards the Lake District becoming a national park area, I would refer to the answer given on 27th January, 1944, to the hon. Member for Devizes (Sir P. Hurd), of which I am sending my hon. and gallant Friend a copy. As regards the Trough of Bowland, I am well aware of its potentialities as a recreational centre, and I would assure my hon. and gallant Friend that I shall bear these in mind in considering planning proposals for the area.

  ARMED FORCES (PENSIONS AND GRANTS)
  Mr. Hewlettasked the Minister of Pensions whether, when pensioned men disabled through loss of limbs are dis-

  1391
  charged into civil life, any investigation is made on behalf of his Department to ascertain whether these men are able properly to maintain themselves on the amount of money they receive.
  Sir W. Womersley: Before a man who has lost a limb is discharged from the Forces the question of his resettlement in civil life is discussed with him by a medical officer of my Department and an officer of the Ministry of Labour and National Service. If he is unable to resume his old employment, arrangements are made for him to have training for an occupation suited to his disablement and during such training he is paid allowances for the maintenance of himself and his family, in addition to his disability pension.

  JUVENILE DELINQUENCY (COMMITTEE)
  Mr. Vernon Bartlettasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, who are the members of the Committee on Juvenile Delinquency; and whether the Committee's findings will be made public.
  Mr. Graham Whiteasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department the kind of committee and the scope of the inquiry he proposes to set up on juvenile delinquency.
  The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Herbert Morrison): I am anxious to have the help of representative men and women in advancing as early as possible all practical measures for improving the law and administration. The question what is the best way of attaining this object and what should be the character and functions of any Committee raises various issues which I am exploring, and I am not yet in a position to make a statement.

  ESCAPED PRISONERS, LONDON
  Mr. Thorneasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he can give any information in connection with the escape of 11 prisoners from the County of London Sessions at Newington Butts; and what action he intends taking about the matter.
  Mr. H. Morrison: This escape was made possible by the insecure condition of part of the County of London Sessions House due to enemy action, and steps have now been taken to remedy the defects. A contributory cause was the fact that one of the Prison Officers was absent for a short time in attendance on a sick prisoner. The question of the supervision of the prisoners is being investigated by the Prison Commissioners.
  Mr. Thorne: Is my right hon. Friend aware that since I put down this Question I have had a number of postcards asking why I should bother my brains about the escaped prisoners?

  ENEMY REFUGEES (ORGANISATIONS)
  Major Petherickasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will give a list of organisations owned or manned by German refugees; and whether such refugees gave, on entering the United Kingdom, undertakings not to engage in political activities.
  Mr. H. Morrison: Organisations of which the members, or a substantial proportion of them, are racial or political refugees from Germany—or, indeed, from other European countries—vary widely in their character, purpose and size. Some, for example, are charitable, others cultural or social, while others again may have political aims of various kinds. I do not think it would serve any useful purpose to publish a list of such organisations. Refugees were not required on coming here to give an undertaking to refrain from political activities, but as guests in this country they are, of course, under a special obligation not to engage in political activities which will be resented by our people or may be unhelpful or embarrassing to the war effort of the United Nations.
  Major Petherick: Is my right hon. Friend aware that some of these organisations, either consciously or unconsciously, are doing the work of Dr. Goebbels in trying to persuade the people of this country that the Germans are an honest, industrious people, and must be let down very lightly when the war is won?
  Mr. Morrison: I was not aware of that. There are various tendencies, and I think it is undesirable for these organisations

  1393
  to get involved in activities that are controversial in our domestic sense, but I do not think there is very much to worry about.
  Mr. Silverman: Does my right hon. Friend think there is any real harm in a German who has escaped from his country because he does not sympathise with the regime there trying to persuade others, if he can, that those governing Germany now are not governing with the consent of the people?

  INDIA (LORD HALIFAX'S SPEECH)
  Commander Sir Archibald Southbyasked the Prime Minister whether his attention has been called to a speech made by Lord Halifax in Washington on 28th January, in which he stated that if the people of India established an agreed constitution after the war and then decided not to remain in the British Commonwealth, we had undertaken not to overrule such a decision; and if this speech represents the policy of the Government.
  The Prime Minister (Mr. Churchill): Lord Halifax's speech involves no new pronouncement on behalf of His Majesty's Government, whose declarations on this and other matters are upon record.
  Sir A. Southby: Could my right hon. Friend say by whom this undertaking was given, observing that his efforts to keep India within the Empire have always met with general support throughout the country? Who gave this undertaking?
  The Prime Minister: All the declarations on this subject have been made in this House.
  Mr. Shinwell: In view of a statement made by an hon. Member yesterday to the effect that there was a desire in some parts of the House to attack Lord Halifax, may I say that there is no such desire at all? We merely desire to enable the House to express its opinion on matters of this kind.
  Mr. Austin Hopkinson: The House will recollect that I never suggested that the source of these attacks was in this House.
  Mr. Granville: Is it not a fact that our Ambassador in Washington was merely repeating the sentiments and principles of the Prime Minister's Mansion House speech?
  The Prime Minister: I have not read in detail the text of the speech which Lord Halifax delivered, and I prefer for the moment to let it rest there.

  DODECANESE ISLANDS
  Major C. S. Taylorasked the Prime Minister whether he now has any statement to make about the loss of the Dodecanese Islands; and whether he can give an assurance that adequate naval support was given to the British troops who were left to defend Cos.
  The Prime Minister: I have, at present, no statement to make on this episode and no assurances to give.

  AGRICULTURE

    Women's Land Army
    Mr. De la Bèreasked the Minister of Agriculture whether he will consult with the appropriate W.L.A. authorities so as to ensure that all the W.L.A. groups in the country are allotted some wet weather employment in order to obviate the hours which at present are wasted.
    The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. R. S. Hudson): County war agricultural executive committees have been asked to make whatever arrangements are practicable to ensure that members of the Women's Land Army in their employment are kept fully occupied in wet weather. If my hon. Friend is aware of any avoidable failure to provide such wet weather employment perhaps he will let me know.
    Mr. De la Bère: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is great scope for development in the organisation of these matters and that in a large number of districts they are not fully organised at this time?
    Mr. Hudson: Perhaps my hon. Friend will be good enough to let me have particulars.
    Mr. De la Bère: I will.
    Mr. G. Griffiths: Will the right hon. Gentleman consult with the Minister of Labour, so that if a farmer sends them home under the Essential Work Order, they will be paid for time lost?
    Mr. Hudson: No, Sir.
    Major Vyvyan Adamsasked the Minister of Agriculture whether he is aware that a member of the A.T.S. who lost an eye in the performance of her duties would, on discharge from the Service, receive a permanent pension of 16s. per week; and whether he will arrange for Miss Kathleen Giles, who has so far received only 25s. for each of the nine weeks during which she was unable to work after losing an eye when employed in the W.L.A., to receive on discharge from the W.L.A., a permanent pension of the same amount as if she had been a member of the A.T.S.
    Mr. Hudson: No, Sir. Members of the Women's Land Army are not dealt with on the same basis as members of the Women's Forces, but, as I have explained to my hon. and gallant Friend, on the basis of the Workmen's Compensation Act.
    Major Adams: Does not my right hon. Friend think there is an important point of principle involved in this case? Is not Miss Giles, just because she is a member of the Women's Land Army, likely to be treated worse than a member of the Forces, or somebody in private employment?
    Mr. Hudson: Members of the Women's Land Army are dealt with in the same way as ordinary agricultural workers in regard to injuries arising out of and in the course of their employment.
    Major Adams: But is not my right hon. Friend well aware that anybody in private employment, receiving such a terrible injury as this, would certainly be sure of some compensation?
    Mr. Hudson: No, Sir, certainly not.

    Rabbits (Destruction)
    Mr. R. C. Morrisonasked the Minister of Agriculture if he is aware of the fact that a plague of rabbits were recently destroyed by gas; and whether this waste of food will be avoided by other methods of destruction.
    Mr. Hudson: I am not aware of the particular case referred to by the hon. Member, but the use of cyanide gas is strongly advocated as a means of exterminating rabbits. Having regard to the damage caused by rabbits to food production, I am quite satisfied that the need
    1396
    for their destruction by all available means, including gassing, overrides any consideration of their food value.

    Departmental Decisions (Publicity)
    Mr. Granvilleasked the Minister of Agriculture whether he has given his public relations officer powers to inform the agricultural industry and public opinion of the implications of decisions taken by his Department affecting farm prices and food production.
    Mr. Hudson: The farming and general Press are informed of all decisions affecting food production, and facilities are provided in the Department for dealing with requests from the Press and the public for additional information.
    Mr. Granville: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there are still large numbers of agriculturists who are not aware of the full facts and decisions with regard to these prices? Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that not only is it important to take a right decision but that it is also important to take public opinion on it? Will he take a leaf out of Lord Woolton's book?

    Government Policy
    Mr. Dribergasked the Minister of Agriculture if it is proposed to formulate and make public the Government's long-term policy for agriculture as soon as possible after the conclusion of the present discussions with the industry or to wait until after the end of the war in Europe.
    Mr. Hudson: As I stated on 28th October the discussions will be concerned with policy both in the transitional period and in the subsequent period; they will be exploratory and confidential and reports will be made from time to time to the War Cabinet on their progress. They will have to cover a wide field and I cannot say when it may be possible to make announcements on the various aspects of the problem.
    Mr. Driberg: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that one phrase which he used in his speech in the recent Debate caused some disquiet by suggesting that the formulation of policy would not take place until after the war; and will it not be

    1397
    necessary to relate this policy to the Government's general reconstruction and planning proposals which are to be discussed, we hope, this Session?
    Mr. Hudson: I think my hon. Friend had better let me see how I get on with the discussions before pressing me too far.

    Farm Prices (Consultations)
    Mr. Granvilleasked the Minister of Agriculture when he proposes setting up the cost investigating system in conjunction with the National Farmers' Union and the Agricultural Workers' Union and other bodies in order that his Department, agriculture and public opinion may be fully informed of the facts in relation to the present commodity schemes and future long-term agricultural policy.
    Mr. De la Bèreasked the Minister of Agriculture if he now proposes to have further discussions with the National Farmers' Union in connection with the adjustment of farm prices; and if at the same time he will consider the views of the National Union of Agricultural Workers.
    Mr. Hudson: I have nothing at present to add to the statements made by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor and myself during the Debate on 26th January, but I have already had an informal talk with the President of the National Farmers' Union.
    Mr. Granville: In the speech referred to, there is no mention of the Agricultural Workers' Union being consulted. Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether it is the intention to consult this Union?
    Mr. Hudson: I said some time ago that all sections of the industry would be consulted about post-war policy.
    Mr. De la Bère: Is my right hon. Friend aware that this is vital in the national interest for the restoration of confidence? Will he endeavour to exercise unshakeable sanity, invincible patience and tireless good will?
    Mr. Granville: Will the right hon. Gentleman give us an assurance that on the specific question of setting up a cost investigating system, he will consult with the Agricultural Workers' Union?
    Mr. Hudson: I do not propose to limit myself in any way by giving assurances. I propose to carry out to the best of my ability the promise that I made.
    Mr. Granville: On a point of Order. I beg to give notice that I will raise this matter on the Adjournment at the first opportunity.

    Pig Production
    Mr. E. P. Smithasked the Minister of Agriculture whether he is aware that there is considerable anxiety in the pig-producing industry as to its future in post-war years; and whether he will give an assurance that no action is contemplated which will not give opportunity for its possible expansion after war, in view of its great value and because it is a principal source of manurial humus.
    Mr. Hudson: As my hon. Friend will be aware, the whole question of post-war agricultural policy is the subject of exploratory discussions with representatives of the industry. The future of pig production will be considered in the course of those discussions.

  "FRIENDS OF SPAIN" ORGANISATION
  Mr. Dribergasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is keeping under observation the pro-Fascist organisation known as "Friends of Spain," formerly "Friends of National Spain"; and if he is in possession of a complete list of its present and former members, in case of any risk of assistance to the enemy or obstruction of the Allied war effort through their activities.
  Mr. H. Morrison: This organisation has been inactive since the outbreak of war and I have no reason to suppose that there is any danger of its helping the enemy or hindering the Allies. The hon. Member may rest assured, however, that I shall not lose sight of it.
  Captain Alan Graham: Does not the right hon. Gentleman consider that the description "pro-Fascist" is very misleading and that because one is an anti-Red, one need not necessarily be pro-Fascist?
  Mr. Driberg: Is it not interesting to note the readiness with which some hon.

  1399
  Members always seize the opportunity to identify themselves with the cause of the enemy?
  Captain Graham: On a point of Order. May I ask your protection, Mr. Speaker, against the implication which has been made against me by the hon. Member opposite?
  Mr. Speaker: There is so much noise going on that I really cannot hear. I do not think that the hon. and gallant Member wants my protection; I rather think that he put a provocative question.

  HEAPLY BLEACH AND DYE WORKS (FIRE)
  Mr. Thorneasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he can give any information in connection with the fire at the Heaply Bleach and Dye Works; and how many yards of cloth were lost in the fire.
  Mr. H. Morrison: I shall shortly receive a full report on this serious fire. At present I have no details but from the information available it appears to have been satisfactorily handled by the National Fire Service. No information can be given as to the extent of the damage.
  Mr. Thorne: Has my right hon. Friend any reason to believe that these premises were deliberately fired?
  Mr. Morrison: I have no knowledge to that effect at the moment.

  CIVIL DEFENCE SERVICES, NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE (INQUIRY)
  Wing - Commander Grant - Ferrisasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is in a position to make any further statement regarding his proposal to extend the scope of his inquiry into the administration of the Watch Committee of the Council of the City and County of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, so as to enable further allegations reflecting on the administration of branches of the Civil Defence Services to be investigated.
  Mr. H. Morrison: Yes, Sir. I am satisfied, as a result of the preliminary inquiries to which I referred in my reply
  1400
  to a Question by my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mr. Ivor Thomas) on 16th December last, that it would be desirable in the public interest to widen the scope of the proposed inquiry so as to enable further allegations reflecting on the administration of branches of the Civil Defence Services to be investigated, and the Council of the City and County of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, whom I have consulted, concur in my view. I am also satisfied that it would be desirable that this inquiry should be held in public, and that there should be power to compel the attendance of witnesses and to take evidence on oath. I accordingly propose that the inquiry shall be held by a tribunal to which the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act, 1921, will be applied, and the necessary Resolution for this purpose will be submitted to each House of Parliament at the earliest opportunity.

  DOUBLE SUMMER TIME
  Mr. Keelingasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware that the delay in announcing the period of double summer-time causes inconvenience to people who have to arrange public entertainments and meetings; and whether he will either make the announcement earlier in future years or standardise the period.
  Mr. H. Morrison: While I am anxious to meet, so far as possible, the convenience of people who are arranging public entertainments and meetings, my hon. Friend will recognise that the governing consideration must be the effect on the war effort. I hope to be in a position to make an announcement in the near future.
  Mr. Keeling: Does that mean that the right hon. Gentleman hopes to make an earlier announcement about next year's double summer-time, or only about this year's?
  Mr. Morrison: The point I was covering was an announcement about this year but I will consider the suggestion as to next year.
  Mr. Keeling: Will the right hon Gentleman start now considering next year's double summer-time, with a view to making an announcement before Christmas?
  Mr. Morrison: No, Sir, it does not seem to be necessary to start to do that now.
  Sir Herbert Williams: Could the right hon. Gentleman make an announcement in time to provide the information for the printers of diaries?
  Mr. Morrison: I quite see that point of the hon. Member's question, and I would like to do that, but sometimes considerations arise fairly shortly before the time of an announcement, which it is right to take into account.
  Sir Joseph Lamb: Will the right hon. Gentleman see that, if there is any question of extending the period, full consideration will be given to agricultural interests?
  Mr. Morrison: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that I never forget that aspect, which is important.
  Sir J. Lamb: Thank you.
  Major Adams: Have the Government any intentions about double summer-time after the war?

  JAPANESE NATIONALS, UNITED KINGDOM (REPATRIATION)
  Sir W. Davisonasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether steps will be taken to repatriate all Japanese subjects in this country, having regard to the feelings of anger caused by their continuing residence in Great Britain after the inhuman treatment by the Japanese of our prisoners of war.
  Mr. H. Morrison: The number of Japanese subjects resident in this country is quite small, and the question of their repatriation involves various considerations, including, in particular, the willingness of the Japanese Government to repatriate British subjects in exchange.
  Sir W. Davison: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that serious breaches of the peace are likely to occur if Japanese are seen in our streets? Are we justified in furnishing police protection for people who have behaved in a loathsome manner?
  Mr. Morrison: That is a question which has not arisen, and I hope will not arise. If the public start that sort of thing, they may find themselves attacking somebody who is not a Japanese at all.

  EDUCATION

    Local Authorities (Schemes)
    Mr. Oldfieldasked the President of the Board of. Education on what occasions since 1921 the Board has exercised its powers under Sections 11, 12 and 15 of the Education Act of 1921 and required local authorities to submit schemes.
    The President of the Board of Education (Mr. Butler): The Sections of the Education Act, 1921, to which the hon. Member refers, correspond to Sections of the Act of 1918. After the passing of that Act, local education authorities were asked to submit schemes for the organisation and development of education in their areas. In view of the financial position that arose, my predecessors in office did not feel justified in giving their statutory approval to the schemes submitted which would have made it obligatory upon the authorities to carry them into effect.

    Young People's Colleges
    Sir Granville Gibsonasked the President of the Board of Education the estimated number of children between 15 and 18 years of age who will be called upon to attend young people's colleges under the scheme outlined in the Education Bill, giving the total for each separate year; and what is the estimated financial burden to be borne by employers as a result of being called upon to pay the wages of young people attending colleges during the working hours of firms.
    Mr. Butler: The average number in the age groups which will enter young people's colleges in each of the first three years from their opening is estimated to be about 500,000. My hon. Friend will realise I cannot undertake to give exact estimates for a long period ahead. I cannot furnish an estimate of the additional costs likely to fall upon employers as a result of the requirement to release young employees to attend college during working hours for the equivalent of one day a week. I am, however, advised that over the whole field of employment, juvenile wages ordinarily represent only a small fraction of total costs.
    Sir G. Gibson: Is my right hon. Friend aware that if the average wage of a young person is 50s. a week, the cost of absence

    1403
    for one day a week will be £20 a year; and that if 500,000 young people go to these colleges for three years each, it will mean a burden on industry of £30,000,000 a year? Cannot my right hon. Friend avoid that cost by making it compulsory to attend these colleges in the evening?
    Mr. Butler: One of our objects is to avoid evening work for young persons, and while I do not doubt the figures which my hon. Friend has put forward, I would remind him that industry, and employers generally, have accepted this scheme extraordinarily well. If, however, he wishes to discuss costs with me I shall be only too glad to do so.
    Mr. J. J. Lawson: Is it not a fact that firms have been working this system for many years?
    Mr. Butler: That is so.
    Captain Cobb: Is my right hon. Friend aware that employers in Rugby regard this scheme as of immense benefit?
    Mr. Butler: That is so; employers large and small in Rugby have co-operated in a magnificent manner.

    Endowed Schools (Direct Grants)
    Sir J. Mellorasked the President of the Board of Education what promises with regard to status and control were made on behalf of the Board to endowed schools which relinquished direct grants in accordance with Circular 1259.
    Mr. Butler: No general assurances were given to schools, but in reply to inquiries individual schools were informed that, while their status would not be affected by their relinquishment of direct grant, local education authorities could not be precluded from attaching conditions to their financial aid to the schools.
    Sir J. Mellor: Was not a promise made by the Permanent Secretary to the Board at that time that they would not suffer any extension of control by local education authorities?
    Mr. Butler: I have been at pains to go into this matter carefully and, as I have said in my answer, perhaps my hon. Friend would like to discuss with me some of the schools in which he is interested and investigate it in that way.

    Teachers (Superannuation)
    Mr. Coveasked the President of the Board of Education whether he is aware that there are a number of cases of superannuated teachers returning to teaching service during the present emergency owing to the difficulties of local education authorities regarding teaching staff; that, under Section 6 of the Teachers (Superannuation) Act, 1925, their pensions, when they again ceased teaching after serving an additional 12 months or more, were reduced because over the last five years of service their average salary was lowered because a smaller salary had been paid for the additional service; and whether he will amend the provisions of this section and remedy this anomaly.
    Mr. Butler: I am aware of the possible effect upon teachers' pensions of Section 6 of the Teachers (Superannuation) Act, 1925, in the circumstances to which the hon. Member refers, though that effect is likely to be felt in only a few special cases. I have noted the point for consideration when opportunity offers in connection with any legislation to amend the Teachers (Superannuation) Acts.

    Requisitioned Training Colleges (Release)
    Sir I. Alberyasked the President of the Board of Education if he has made any representations with a view to securing the release, for educational purposes, of St. Katherine's College at Tottenham, Whitelands College, Putney, and the King's College of Household and Social Science, Campden Hill Road.
    Mr. Butler: I am now engaged in reviewing the position of all the training colleges which, owing to war circumstances, are being used for purposes other than training teachers, with a view to recovering them for their normal purposes as soon as possible. Of those mentioned by my hon. Friend, King's College of Household and Social Science is a university institution and is not directly the concern of my Department.

  GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS (PUBLIC RELATIONS STAFFS)
  Mr. Petherickasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether he will state the number of persons employed in

  1405
  the Public Relations and/or Press Departments in every Government Department.
  The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Assheton): As the answer contains a number of figures, I will, with my hon. Friend's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
  Mr. Stokes: Cannot the right hon. Gentleman tell the House the total number?
  Mr. Assheton: I think that would be rather misleading. Perhaps the hon. Member will await the figures.
  Following is the answer:
  The attached table gives for all Government Departments the particulars referred to. The figures include all Public Relations and Press Department staff employed in this country, but exclude those serving overseas.

  GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS.

  Number of Staff engaged on Public Relations and Press work at 31 st January, 1944.

  Admiralty

  115

  Agriculture and Fisheries, Ministry of

  61

  Air Ministry

  371 (a)

  Aircraft Production, Ministry of

  27

  Colonial Office

  21

  Dominions Office

  8

  Economic Warfare, Ministry of

  11

  Education, Board of

  12

  Food, Ministry of

  70

  Foreign Office

  10

  Fuel and Power, Ministry of

  22

  Health, Ministry of

  25

  Home Office and Ministry of Home Security

  21

  India Office

  19

  Inland Revenue

  2

  Labour, Ministry of

  24

  National Savings Committee

  98

  Pensions, Ministry of

  2

  Post Office

  11

  Production, Ministry of

  15

  Supply, Ministry of

  136 (b)

  Town and Country Planning, Ministry of

  5

  Trade, Board of

  27

  Treasury

  1

  War Damage Commission

  2

  War Office

  530 (c)

  War Transport, Ministry of

  16

  Works, Ministry of

  8

  Scottish Home Department

  7

  The staff of the Ministry of Information employed in this country numbers

  2719

  (a) Includes staff employed in the R.A.F. Film Production Unit and in the Photographic Dark Room.
  (b) Includes 69 staff employed in the Publicity and Campaign Branch of the Directorate of Salvage and Recovery.
  (c) Includes staff employed on Press conducting, censorship and psychological warfare work and in the Film and Photographic Service: also includes staff required for the Allied Expeditionary Force which is an entirely new commitment.

  JET-PROPELLED AIRCRAFT (WHITTLE INVENTION)
  Mr. Parkerasked the Minister of Aircraft Production why funds and facilities at the disposal of the Air Ministry were not at an early stage of Group-Captain Whittle's experiments devoted to the development of his ideas and, if necessary, to the construction of a prototype machine.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Aircraft Production (Mr. Lennox-Boyd): I would refer the hon. Member to the reply which my right hon. and learned Friend gave yesterday, regarding the facilities accorded by the Air Ministry to Group Captain Whittle to pursue his work. When it became apparent that Power Jets required financial assistance for further progress, a contract was placed with them for research and devolpment work and since March, 1938, their work has been substantially carried on with Government funds.
  Mr. Granville: Has this very important technical development work at any time been held up through lack of co-operation by the hon. Gentleman's Department?
  Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Certainly not.

  BRITISH FILMS (EXPORT)
  Mrs. Cazalet Keirasked the President of the Board of Trade if it is the usual practice for exporters of British films to stipulate in their contracts for the sale of foreign rights of the films that they must only be shown with proper screen credit to the British producer.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Captain Waterhouse): Yes, Sir. I understand it is usual to make this stipulation, and I should like it to become the invariable practice.
  Mrs. Cazalet Keir: Is my right hon. and gallant Friend satisfied that these stipulations are observed?
  Captain Waterhouse: I have no evidence that they are not observed generally. In one particular case they were not observed, but the stipulation was in the contract.

  BRITISH ARMY

    Royal Artillery (Sicilian and Italian Campaigns)
    Lieut.-Colonel Heneageasked the Secretary of State for War how many batteries of the Royal Artillery have been mentioned in the Sicilian and Italian campaigns; and, in view of the reticence about artillery units in the North African campaign, if he will say why the Royal Artillery is treated differently from other units of the Army and ships of the Navy.
    The Financial Secretary to the War Office (Mr. Arthur Henderson): As my right hon. Friend said in an answer to my hon. and gallant Friend on 8th June, he is anxious that units should be mentioned whenever such a mention is consistent with the security of the troops concerned. But the Army Commander in the theatre where the units are operating must in each case be the judge of this. The mention of the name of an Infantry Regiment does not disclose the identity of the battalion concerned whereas the number of a Field Regiment or Battery of the Royal Artillery immediately identifies the unit. The Royal Artillery can as a rule be mentioned only as a Corps although from time to time it is possible for the Army Commander to make exceptions. The 11th (H.A.C.) was mentioned in Sicily but no other units of the Royal Artillery have so far been mentioned as having taken part in the operations in Sicily and Italy.
    Colonel Heneage: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman promise to keep an eye on the question, having in view the extreme reticence about artillery units, which has dated from the time of the Duke of Wellington?
    Mr. Henderson: I should be quite willing to have further inquiries made of General Alexander whether it is possible to extend the list, but that is as far as I can take the matter.

    Cadet Force (Uniforms)
    Sir W. Davisonasked the Secretary of State for War if he is aware that, while
    1408
    officers in the Sea Cadet Corps and Air Training Corps receive a grant of £20 in respect of uniform, together with the necessary clothing coupons, Army Cadet Force officers receive no monetary allowance or clothing coupons for the purchase of uniform and have also to provide themselves with overcoats and boots; and will he see that Army Cadet Force officers receive the same allowances in respect of uniform which are already provided for Sea Cadet Corps and Air Training Corps officers.
    Mr. Henderson: An officer in the Army Cadet Force receives his uniform free as an issue and he consequently does not need a cash allowance or coupons.
    Sir W. Davison: In view of the desirability of obtaining as many recruits as possible for the Army Cadet Corps, is it not desirable that the same arrangements with regard to uniform should be available as in the case of the Sea Cadet Corps and Air Training Corps officers? Is the hon. and learned Gentleman aware that there is considerable feeling as to the difference between the three corps?
    Mr. Henderson: I do not think it is practicable at present to alter the basis on which the outfit is given. In the case of the Sea Cadet Corps officer or the Air Training Corps officer it is partly on a cash basis whereas the Army Cadet Force officer is given his uniform.
    Lieut. - Commander Gurney Braithwaite: Is it not a fact that, with the present cost of uniform, Army Cadet officers are doing a good deal better?
    Captain Duncan: Is it not a fact that the uniform does not include overcoat and boots but only battle dress, anklets and cap, and will the hon. and learned Gentleman see that an overcoat and boots are issued?
    Mr. Lipson: What is the cash value of the outfit given to the Army Cadet officer so that we can compare it with the grant given to the other officers?
    Mr. Henderson: I should require notice of that Question.
    Sir A. Southby: Is it not a fact that overcoats are not issued to cadets and, that being so, they can hardly be issued to officers?

  INTERNATIONAL LABOUR CONFERENCE (FINLAND)
  Mr. Shinwellasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that the I.L.O. have invited representatives from Finland to attend the convention in the U.S.A.; and whether His Majesty's Government intend to take any action in the matter.
  The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Eden): I understand that the International Labour Office have notified the Government of Finland, which is still a member of the International Labour Organisation, of the convocation of the forthcoming session of the International Labour Conference. His Majesty's Government are considering what action is necessary.
  Mr. Shinwell: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that the International Labour Office is strongly supported, financially and otherwise, by the Allied nations, that this action has given considerable offence to one of the Allied nations and that in all the circumstances it might be desirable to exclude Finland from the deliberations of the International Labour Conference?
  Mr. Eden: I have said that I am considering what action is necessary. I should not like to go beyond that.
  Earl Winterton: Will my right hon. Friend consider making a general announcement that His Majesty's Government will take part in no international functions at which any enemy belligerent Power is represented?
  Mr. Eden: As I have said, there are rather exceptional circumstances because Finland is, as a matter of fact, the only country with which we are at war which is in a position to attend. I realise that from our own point of view it would be difficult, if not impossible, for us to attend any conference at which an enemy belligerent was represented but we are not the only people concerned in this business.
  Mr. Thorne: Is it not a fact that if Russians and Finns get together in one meeting there will be hell?
  Sir H. Williams: Is it not the case that the relation of Finland to the United States is the same as that of Japan to Russia—they are neutral one to the other?
  Mr. Eden: It is a fact and that is exactly what I had in mind. But we are examining the situation. I have no doubt that the matter will be arranged but we cannot help it by discussion here.
  Mr. Shinwell: I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will do his best in the matter but will he bear in mind that the International Labour Office is not an American but an international institution which we support?
  Mr. Eden: That is exactly why I say I am considering the position. If it were an American institution it would not be for me to say anything, but as it is international it is a different matter.
  Mr. Gallacher: What would the attitude of hon. Members be if an organisation in Moscow invited American delegates to sit at the same table with Japs?

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Mr. Greenwood: May I ask the leader of the House to state the Business for the next Sitting Days?
Mr. Eden: The Business will be as follows:
First and Second Sitting Days—Committee stage of the Education Bill.
Third Sitting Day—Second Reading of the Income Tax (Offices and Employments) Bill, and Committee stage of the necessary Ways and Means Resolution; Second Reading of the House of Commons Disqualification (Temporary Provisions) Bill; and Committee and remaining stages of the Courts (Emergency Powers) (Scotland) Bill [Lords].
Fourth Sitting Day—Committee stage of the Civil Supplementary Estimates; Second Reading of the Public Works Loans Bill and the Committee stage of the necessary Money Resolution; and further progress with the Guardianship (Refugee Children) Bill [Lords], and Naval Forces (Extension of Service) Bill [Lords].
Mr. Shinwell: Can my right hon. Friend say at this stage what subject is likely to be selected on the Civil Supplementary Estimates on the fourth Sitting Day?
Mr. Eden: There are several different Estimates. It is likely, I think, that the Dominions Office Vote may be one of

1411
them. Perhaps hon. Members, after studying the list, will, through the usual channels, consider what subjects are most likely to meet the general wishes. There is a wide selection to choose from but it will, of course, be for the Chair to decide what is in Order.
Mr. Pickthorn: Is there any prospect of a Debate on the Motion and Amendment signed by Members of all parties about Regulation 18B?
[That this House is of opinion that the time has come for reconsideration of Regulation 18B and of the practicability of bringing to trial those now in detention on the sole responsibility of the Home Secretary.
Amendment:
Line 2, leave out from 18B to end, and add "so that, with a view to removing all questions of detention or release out of the arena of political controversy and relieving the Home Secretary of sole responsibility therefor, a judicial tribunal may be provided to determine what are the facts and whether on these facts there is reasonable cause to believe that such detention is necessary."]
Mr. Eden: I am afraid that I cannot say anything about that now. No arrangements are at present in hand about it.
Mr. Moelwyn Hughes: Is it intended to extend the Sittings of the House on the first two Sitting Days in order that some material progress might be made with the considerable number of Amendments to the Education Bill that are down on the Order Paper?
Mr. Eden: I should rather hope that we might be able to make good progress without doing that.
Captain Cobb: May I ask when we are to have the long promised Debate on the war situation?
Mr. Eden: I have been in consultation with the Prime Minister about that. I cannot give a definite date now, but, naturally, we would like to have it as soon as my right hon. Friend thinks it is a good moment, militarily and internationally, to have it.
Commander King-Hall: Will the Government spare a short time to discuss the
1412
Motion standing in my name and those of 248 of my hon. Friends on the supply of copies of Hansard to the libraries of the Armed Forces?
[That, in the opinion of this House, copies of Hansard should be provided at the public expense to Navy, Army and Air Force libraries, information centres and news rooms.]
Mr. Eden: That may or may not be a good plan, but I do not think we want to debate it.
Commander King-Hall: If another 59 Members put their names to this Motion, so that it obtains a majority of the House, will the Government accept it as an affirmative Resolution?
Mr. Eden: I do not think we have ever proceeded by that method before.
Commander King-Hall: I beg to give notice that I will raise the matter on the Adjournment.
Sir H. Williams: When will the Motion be taken to approve the British Guiana Constitution (Amendment) Order which was made by the Privy Concil on 11th March last and published to this House only two days ago?
Mr. Eden: The hon. Gentleman was good enough to give me notice of this Question, but unfortunately the Colonial Secretary is indisposed and I have not had a chance to consult with him. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will put a Question down or repeat it next week, and I will give him a further answer.
Commander Sir Archibald Southby: In view of the fact that the principle of delegated legislation is running through many of the Bills we are now discussing, will the Government consider giving time to a Motion on the Order Paper on the subject in the name of the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne), as it is desirable to have a Debate on the principle at the earliest possible date?
[That this House desires the setting up now of a Standing Committee of all parties to examine the delegated legislative powers conferred upon the Executive for war purposes and to report which of these powers should be terminated when hostilities with Germany cease.]
Mr. Eden: I will look at that and consider whether anything can be done.
Mr. Gallacher: Will the Leader of the House consider seriously the necessity of the Prime Minister making a statement on the serious situation that confronts the people of this country in view of the great cynicism that has been aroused as a result of the Prime Minister's intervention in a by-election squabble?
Lieut.-Commander Gurney Braithwaite: Will my right hon. Friend, in order to meet a practical difficulty arising out of the war, give rather longer than the normal notice when the various Service Estimates are to be taken, so that Members serving in the Forces may have ample opportunity of being present?
Mr. Eden: I think the hon. and gallant Gentleman has a point there, and I will see whether something can be done about it.
Captain Duncan: In view of the fact that the Minutes of the Proceedings of this House which I received last week-end stated the day to which the House was adjourned, will the right hon. Gentleman, in future, cease using the words "First, Second and Third Sitting Days"?
Mr. Eden: That has been gone into several times and the position has been fully explained by my right hon. Friend.
Mr. Silverman: Has not the situation changed a little since we began sitting on four days a week? Since everybody knows or can guess what are the Sitting Days, what is the point of going on with this mockery of not mentioning the days of the week?
Mr. Eden: The hon. Gentleman is as capable of making that conclusion as I am.
Mr. Reakes: Is the right hon. Gentleman now in a position to indicate the probable date of the introduction of the promised Bill dealing with the pensions of State pensioners?
Mr. Eden: The Bill presents certain drafting difficulties because account has to be taken of the differing positions of local authorities up and down the country, but we hope to be in a position to present it in about a fortnight's time.
Mr. Buchanan: Are the Government seriously going to continue sitting on a fourth day each week when everybody knows that an hour extra on the other
1414
days would save a meeting on the fourth day? It does not redound to the credit of Parliament when there is hardly anybody here, because nobody is taking the fourth day seriously.
Mr. Eden: I really do not accept the hon. Gentleman's description of the fourth Sitting Day. We have a certain amount of business to do and we must, as far as I can see, meet on the fourth day to do it. I cannot find any other way out of it.
Mr. Maxton: May I add my voice to that of the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan)? As a faithful Member of the House I sat through the Sitting on the fourth Sitting Day of the last series, and there was a very select company. Some compression would have been possible. I think that if we were to have Questions on that day, it would, at least, give the majority of Members something to come for.
Mr. Eden: I, naturally, do not want to ask the House to sit longer than is absolutely necessary, but there is this legislative programme to be put through. I have done my best to meet the wishes of my hon. Friend. I even put Newfoundland on the programme on a fourth day, knowing his interest in that subject. We shall watch the position, but, as far as I can see, no further compression is in our power.
Several Hon. Members Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: This is becoming a Debate. There is no Motion before the House.
Mr. Stokes: Will the Leader of the House explain why there is an objection to Questions on the fourth Sitting Day? Formerly we always had them on four days.
Mr. Eden: This House has never had Questions on that day, and I do not think it would be good to start the practice; in addition to which, we have been fortunate enough to complete the Order Paper more than once lately.

NATIONAL EXPENDITURE
Second Report from the Select Committee, brought up, and read; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 28.]
MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS
That they have passed a Bill, intituled "An Act to prevent claims for prize salvage being made or relied upon without the consent of the Admiralty or the Secretary of State."—Prize Salvage Bill. [Lords].
PRIZE SALVAGE BILL [Lords]
Read the First time; to be read a Second time upon the next Sitting Day.
ORDERS OF THE DAY

  REINSTATEMENT IN CIVIL EMPLOYMENT BILL
  Order for Second Reading read.
  The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. McCorquodale): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
  I move the Second Reading of this Bill with some trepidation. If Paraliamentary Secretaries can ever be described as fortunate, I would suggest that my colleague the hon. Member for Farnworth (Mr. Tomlinson) and I are very fortunate, in that our Minister has entrusted to us a very large part in the preparation and presentation to Parliament of two Bills which the Ministry of Labour have now before the House. We have been very grateful for that sign of confidence, and also for the opportunity given us of gaining experience. My hon. Friend the Member for Farnworth, with his Disabled Persons (Employment) Bill, is in sight of home. I think it will be generally agreed that he conducted his part in that Bill with distinction, skill and humour. That is why I am in a condition of some trepidation. If I may mix metaphors for a moment, I would say that I am going in to bat as a sort of second string, and I am frightened lest I should let the team down. I hope that the House will show some consideration for me, especially as the Bill is complicated, and I shall have to stick rather closely to my notes in some parts of my remarks.
  The House will recollect that when the first Military Training Act was passed, in May, 1939, a provision was introduced to give to those called up under it, rights of reinstatement in their original civilian jobs. The object of the Military Training Act was to bring in a short period of peacetime conscription. We were introducing a militia and it is quite possible that the Section on reinstatement rights would have been adequate for the needs of those who were being called up for a few months in peace time. But now those men, and those who have been called up since, are, after more than four and a half years of war, in a completely different position from that which was then anticipated. I think that anybody who has recently studied

  1433
  Section 14 of the National Service Act will have come to the conclusion that its provisions are totally inadequate for our present requirements. I am sure that hon. Members will agree with me that there can be nothing more calculated to arouse a sense of frustration and bitterness in the minds of men and women than to tell them that, because of their present services, they have a right given to them in the future, and for them to find when that time comes that the right is merely illusory. I suggest, for that reason, that it is a matter of the greatest importance that we should clear up the present position as to reinstatement rights of Service personnel.
  My Minister and I have received many representations from Members of Parliament and others as to the unsatisfactory nature of the present provision. I will take a few examples which have been raised. All those who have been called up under the Military Training Act and under the subsequent National Service Acts have been granted reinstatement rights, but those rights do not extend at present, to volunteers to the Forces. Again, the obligation on the employer to reinstate a man apparently merely extends at present to the period of his normal engagement, so that an ex-Service man, having established his reinstatement rights and arrived to take up his old job, might find himself being pushed out again at the end of the first week by an unscrupulous employer, or even at the end of the first day, if his normal engagement was so short. Again, the Section does not give any guidance to the oft-cited, and indeed very real, difficulty, of the reinstatement duties of an employer who has had several employees in the same job, one after another, successively called up to the Forces. I give those few examples to show that the original proposals are inadequate to meet the present position.
  I do not think, therefore, that the Government need any justification for asking the House to repeal the original Section and to consider the new Bill which I am now introducing. The Bill seeks to remedy existing anomalies and endeavour to provide a workmanlike machine to carry out what we intend. I would like to emphasise as strongly as I can at this stage that the Bill proposes to establish reinstatement rights to existing jobs. It is not a Bill which is intended, or in
  1434
  any way claims to create any new jobs or employment. Therefore it is not a part, and is not intended to be a part, of any charter of full employment, or anything of that sort. The Government's intention to provide full employment must rest on other grounds than the grounds of the Bill. This is a limited Measure, designed to define the priority of entry into certain jobs. It is very important that soldiers, sailors and airmen should understand this limitation. If there is, or is likely to be, a job available with the employer by whom a man was last employed before he was called up, the intention of the Bill is to give a degree of priority of engagement for that job, to the senior returning ex-Service man who applies for it. But if there is no longer that, or any other, reasonably suitable job available—
  Mr. Granville: Does that mean senior in military rank?
  Mr. McCorquodale: No, Sir. I am coming to the point in a moment. It means senior in engagement. If there is no reasonable job likely to be available, then, I am afraid that this Measure will not help that particular ex-Service man. It is important that that point should be understood. Therefore, I say that the Bill is not intended as a contribution to the maintenance of a general level of employment in the post-war period. Nevertheless, it is rightly regarded by the men and women in the Forces—as we are told on all hands—as being of the greatest possible importance to them, personally. Surely those people are the first charge on the consideration of this House, and the Bill is therefore not only of interest to Members of the House but its progress is likely to be watched outside with the greatest interest, especially by the relatives of those who are serving. In the Department, when we came down to the detailed discussion of this proposal for legislation, we found, as indeed we had expected and feared, that it was a matter of the greatest difficulty and complexity. I should like to pay tribute to those officers in the Department who have spent so much time on the Bill, with great success, and also, if it would be in Order, to the Parliamentary counsel who have so skilfully translated our intentions into words appropriate to an Act of Parliament.
  Mr. Silverman: Does the hon. Gentleman think that some congratulations might be extended also to those Members of the House, who, four years ago, pressed upon the attention of the then Minister the very anomalies that he is now seeking to correct?
  Mr. McCorquodale: I have no doubt that the hon. Members concerned have themselves the pleasure of remembering those things. We naturally consulted, and have had most helpful and useful advice from, representatives of employers and workpeople and other interested parties. We have also had the ready and willing promise, I am glad to say, from all concerned of their most sincere good will and co-operation in carrying the Measure into practice when the time comes. I am convinced that if the basis for reinstatement in civil employment of the ex-Service man depended entirely on its legal aspect, our plans could not work out to our satisfaction. These legal rights and penalties are in the main to deal with the recalcitrant employers, but surely the over-riding factor required for successful functioning of this operation will be good will and consideration on the part of all concerned—I would emphasise of all concerned—both employers and fellow work-people. Therefore, the fact that we have this promise of good will in full measure is a matter for the keenest satisfaction, and yet I suggest that we must maintain these legal sanctions. A question was asked the other day by my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesend (Sir I. Albery) of my Minister which seemed to suggest some doubt in his Mind as to whether all this legislation was really necessary, whether it would not have been better to rely on the good sense and decency of employers in general, with the sanction of public odium, and perhaps the pressure from local confederations which could be put on backsliders. I do not agree that such a situation would be satisfactory. Not only would it not be possible ultimately to enforce the obligation on the unwilling employer, but there is surely a more fundamental reason than that. These rights have been promised to the soldiers, sailors and airmen, and if the returning Service man has a right—and I emphasise the world "right"—to expect the best possible provision to be made for him, the last thing he would like would be that his employment should be made the subject of what one might call a voluntary,
  1436
  charitable endeavour on the part of his previous employer. If he has a right, and I maintain that because of his service to the nation he has that right, there should be a legal power to enforce that right.
  At the outset of my remarks I mentioned the question of volunteers, who were not included when the reinstatement rights were introduced for the first time. When the war broke out a Clause was introduced in the first National Service Act similar to the one which was in the previous Military Training Act, 1939, and the war time Act conferred reinstatement rights on Reservists and Territorials called up to the colours as well as on the men called up under the National Service Act, but no provision was made even then for new volunteers. I do not think we really need be surprised at this if we remember the circumstances, because reinstatement was a novel idea in those days, and it was not possible at the outset of the war to know whether volunteering was likely to play a big part in our recruitment. It was the obvious course to lift this Clause almost bodily from the peace time Act and place it in the war time Act, and that is what occurred. It is interesting to note that those Dominions which have introduced reinstatement rights, and also the United States of America, who have also introduced something of this sort, have included volunteers as well as conscripts under their schemes. It has been our policy since those days to encourage volunteering to the greatest possible extent, especially for the most hazardous branches of our Services, and most notably, of course, in the case of air crew members both of the Royal Air Force and the Fleet Air Arm. In actual fact no less than one-fifth of our total Armed Forces at the present time are volunteers, and in the women's services the proportion of volunteers is very high indeed. I think everyone will agree that these men and women should certainly have the same rights as those who were conscripted. It would be quite indefensible that a man should be without reinstatement rights because he answered the call of his country voluntarily and did not wait to be called up compulsorily.
  There is a further argument, which has more recently come to the front, for extending these rights to volunteers. It is quite possible that the European war will be over before the war in the Far East,

  1437
  and it will be necessary for us to retain for the war against Japan the maximum forces that we can possibly deploy. The House will agree that every possible consideration must be given to the men who will have to go to fight that war. Many of them will be volunteers, and they must not have lesser rights as regards reinstatement than other men who would have been released earlier and who will have been able to establish their reinstatement rights and, possibly, have got back into jobs.
  I mentioned at the outset that the existing law gives no clear guidance as to what is to be done when reinstatement rights are held by a succession of men who have all in turn been called up. This shows at once the necessity for a change in the existing law, for it is unsatisfactory that legislation should not give a plain answer beforehand to questions that must arise in an enormous number of cases. The position is in actual fact even worse, for under the existing law such questions can only be finally answered as a result of the prosecution of the employer by the former employee. At the moment that is the only method of settling disputes. It is a position to which I will refer in a few minutes and which I cannot think is altogether satisfactory.
  If hon. Members will turn to the Bill they will see that in Clause 1 (a) we are closely following the existing law in providing that a man should be reinstated
  "in the occupation in which the applicant was last employed by the former employer before the beginning of his war service and on terms and conditions not less favourable to him than those which would have been applicable to him in that occupation had he not become a person to whom this Act applies."
  —if it is "reasonable and practicable." Otherwise, he is to be reinstated under Clause (b) "in the most favourable alternative occupation and under the most favourable conditions" that are reasonable and practicable. I suggest, therefore, that everything must turn on those words "reasonable and practicable." I ask the House to turn to Clause 5, because it is in that Clause that we seek a definition of what is reasonable and practicable which will provide an answer to the question most frequently asked. The principle of this Clause is that the man whose employment with his former employer dates back longest is to have the prior right. That is the definition of seniority for which the hon. Member for Eye (Mr. Granville)
  1438
  was asking. The effect of Sub-section (1) of Clause 5 is that if the only way in which an ex-Serviceman can be reinstated is by dismissing someone else who has been earlier established in the employment then that is not to be regarded as reasonable and practicable; and if two ex-Servicemen apply at the same time and it is only reasonable and practicable to reinstate one of them, then the one to be reinstated is that man whose employment in the firm dates back longest. Under Sub-section (2), if an ex-Serviceman can be reinstated only by discharging someone whose employment does not date back so long, the obligation of the employer is to discharge that other man and reinstate the ex-Serviceman.
  Sir Granville Gibson: May I ask a question on one point? I am only seeking information. In such an event as the hon. Gentleman has just outlined, what would happen in the case of a firm where a man comes back from the forces and there is a man who has been employed in the job during the war? Is the employer really called upon to dismiss that man?
  Mr. McCorquodale: I am obliged to the hon. Member. Yes, that is the case. If the ex-Serviceman was in the employ of the firm before the other man, then the ex-Serviceman has a prior right, and the other man must be dismissed, if that is the only way to get employment for the ex-Serviceman in his old job. I am suggesting that the fact that discharge under this Clause to make room for an applicant is stated to be a reasonable and practicable solution shows that an employer is not in general required to create jobs which would not otherwise exist, and that is an important thing to remember. If, again, two ex-Servicemen return one after the other and it is only reasonable and practicable to reinstate one, the first comer is to be reinstated, if he applies, of course, even if his employment does not date back so long as that of the other one; but he will have to give place in due course to the other ex-Serviceman whose employment does date back longer if and when the latter returns and applies for reinstatement. But it would still be the obligation of the employer if he has or can find another suitable job to offer it to the ex-Serviceman who is being displaced if he has not been employed in the firm for more than six months since his return.
  Commander King-Hall: In the case which the hon. Gentleman has just described the ex-Serviceman in the job is discharged to make way for a man who has priority. Has that man who has been discharged any right to come back again if the employer, after employing the first man for 26 weeks as directed by the Bill, says, "I have done my duty to you under the Act and I discharge you"?
  Mr. McCorquodale: The question, so far as I could follow it, illustrates the difficulty of trying to answer hypothetical questions across the Floor of the House. I should like to see that question in writing, because I did not quite follow it all; then I would certainly get an answer for the hon. and gallant Member. Across the Floor of the House and in the middle of a speech it is difficult to concentrate upon a hypothetical question of that complexity. I did say before the interruption that an ex-Service man who was displaced would have to be offered another job, if possible, if he had not been employed for six months, and that brings me to another point in the Bill. We have fixed a period of six months for the retention of the reinstated man, for I suggest that reinstatement without retention is quite an illusory benefit. It is obviously necessary to prevent the possible type of evasion that might take place by an unscrupulous employer only employing the man for the briefest period and then pushing him off. The United States and the Dominions lay down a minimum period. In Clause 4 we fix the minimum period as 26 weeks or six months. It is interesting to note that the Dominions have chosen the same period.
  Sir Irving Albery: What is the minimum period in the Dominions?
  Mr. McCorquodale: Six months in the Dominions. I am not sure about the United States of America, because their whole legislation is on rather different lines and we cannot quite compare it. We have had consultations on the length of the period, and we are satisfied that retention for six months is a reasonable claim for the returning ex-soldier to make. I do not think anybody is likely to object that six months is too long. During the six months the returned ex-soldier will have a chance to impress his merits on his employer, and naturally we all hope
  1440
  that in the vast majority of cases his employment will become permanent.
  Mr. George Griffiths: I am a bit perturbed about this, and I was asked by the local authorities to put this point. The Government have taken on a crowd of local authorities' employees for A.R.P. and then have called them up into the Army. Who is their employer, the local authority or the Government, and who is it that will have to find them a job when they come back?
  Mr. McCorquodale: That is a question to which we will certainly provide an answer. My right hon. Friend will reply to this Debate. I am sure a great number of Members will wish to ask questions and he will try to answer them. It is rather difficult to answer questions of that sort straight across the Floor of the House. I think I should mention at this stage, that the provision for retention for six months will be subject, as everything else is in this Bill, to what is reasonable and practicable. The employer who reinstates a man will not be required to retain him if, owing to change of circumstances, it is not practicable to do so; for instance, if the job has disappeared. It is not meant to create a job if no job exists. The obligation on the employer is to retain the employee for 26 weeks following his reinstatement or for so much of that period as he can reasonably and practicably be able so to do.
  I now come to a very important section of the Bill, and this is the method of enforcement and the settlement of disputes. The existing law provides no civil machinery for the settlement of disputes, but merely leaves it open to a person who thinks he should have been reinstated to prosecute his employer in the court and if the prosecution is successful the employer is liable to a penalty not exceeding £50 and the payment of 12 weeks' remuneration. With the best will in the world, it will not always be easy to decide what is reasonable and practicable. I suggest to the House, therefore, that it is obviously best to treat this matter in another way. We hope that the definition of "reasonable and practicable," in Clause 5, which I have described will remove many doubts as to the liability of reinstatement. There are bound to be disputes, and it is most desirable to provide appropriate machinery to deal with them, without resorting, in the first instance, to the court.

  1441
  Therefore, as the House will see in Clause 8 of the Bill, we propose to provide committees consisting of a chairman, an employers' representative, and an employed persons' representative. It is possible that some of the cases which arise will turn on technical considerations in industry. That is quite likely in many of the jobs, and technical assessors might be helpful in certain cases to advise local reinstatement committees. If this proves to be the case, the Bill gives power to the Minister to appoint such assessors. From the decision of the reinstatement committee, the Bill provides in Clauses 8 and 10 for appeal to an umpire. Here we are following a well-known policy of the National Service Acts and of the courts of referees which has worked with remarkable smoothness. Reasonable uniformity between the decisions of the different reinstatement committees will be obtained through the rulings given by the Umpire in representative cases. These committees will be able to make orders for reinstatement or for compensation for loss suffered, such compensation not to exceed 26 weeks' earnings. It is only if an order for reinstatement is not complied with that the employer concerned will then be open to prosecution.
  We laid down in Clause 2 the method of making application for reinstatement and this is a matter to which, naturally, the representatives of employers and employed persons attach great importance. It is obviously desirable, I think, that an employer should know at the first possible opportunity if an ex-Serviceman desires to claim his reinstatement rights, a matter which is, of course, entirely decided by the ex-Serviceman. I have seen it suggested in some quarters that this Bill is likely to compel the ex-Serviceman to demand his reinstatement rights. That is not so; it is entirely a matter of the wishes of the ex-Serviceman, and no form of pressure is going to be used in this direction. We stipulate, therefore, that the applicant shall forward his application in writing either directly to his employer or through any of our employment exchanges within a period up to the fifth Monday after the end of his war service. There is thus a clear four weeks before the application has got to be made and there is, of course, an escape proviso in case sickness or any good cause prevents the sending-in of the application so soon.
  1442
  Administratively, we have had in mind, if it can be done, to issue to the returning ex-Service man or woman, at his or her demobilisation centre, an explanatory leaflet about the reinstatement rights and enclosing with it, an application form with the suggestion that the man or woman should fill this up immediately if he or she wishes to go back to a former job and forward it in the prescribed manner. The House must remember, however, that the applicant will be returning from a long period of arduous war service and he, surely, needs some time to settle down, to find a home to live in, which unfortunately will not always be easy, and to enjoy a little holiday after his long service, so we are proposing that he should inform his employer of the time when he will be ready to return to work, which should be at some date within the following month, and he will thus have a little over eight weeks before he need settle down to a job. Some may say that this is too short a time and that the returning warrior should be allowed a longer period than two months in which to make up his mind whether he wishes to go back to his old job. We were impressed by the very strong representations made to us by both sides of industry that it is desirable, not only in the national interest but in the interest of the man himself, that he should settle down to his peace-time job as quickly as possible, and we therefore came to the conclusion that the period of just over eight weeks should adequately meet the problem.
  There is, I think, another important consideration which I should mention to the House. A great number of our main industries have been concentrated by one means or another and a very great number of the businesses of the country are either curtailed or have shut down altogether for the time being. It is quite likely, therefore, that in many cases an ex-Serviceman's old job, or a similar one, will not be immediately available although there may be a very good prospect of it being available in the near future. The obligation on the employer is to reinstate the man when he makes the request for his old job or the next available job, but I am suggesting that such a job may not, at the moment, exist and, therefore, the applicant may have to wait. It is very desirable that these industries should get back on their feet at the first possible

  1443
  opportunity and also, I think, that as many of their old employees as may be should return to the employment in which they are skilled.
  Sir I. Albery: There is one point which I think ought to be cleared up. By what means does the Bill determine whether an employer is able to give employment to a particular number of men? It may be that an employer had six lorry drivers before the war and now only employs three. Who, therefore, determines the number he should employ now?
  Mr. McCorquodale: If there is a dispute as to whether he should employ more than three, then the matter goes to the reinstatement committee for adjudication.
  Sir I. Albery: How do they decide?
  Mr. McCorquodale: On the facts laid before them. They have not got to make a job where one does not exist. I am suggesting that it is very desirable that these concentrated industries should get back on their feet as early as possible and that the men should return to the jobs in which they are skilled if they so wish, and we are therefore proposing in this Bill that the employer's liability should be a continuing one so that if he cannot reinstate just at the moment, he shall reinstate at the first opportunity provided the applicant, of course, still wants to come. In Clause 2, Sub-section (3), we provide that if the applicant cannot be taken on at once he should keep in touch with his employer by renewing his application every three months so that the employer may know where the worker is and whether he is still willing to come. There may be a great number of temporary jobs at the end of the war, clearing up the mess, to which the ex-Serviceman may wish to turn for a while until his old job is available for him, but it should be our endeavour to see that his right to get back to his permanent employment is safeguarded as far as possible.
  The continuing obligation of the employer to reinstate will exist for the time that this Bill is in operation, which is, until six months have elapsed after the present emergency and that is defined in Clause 20 by reference to the Armed Forces (Conditions of Service) Act; and the end of the emergency is the date when the service of reservists, territorials
  1444
  and duration volunteers will automatically end, which is in fact six months after demobilisation is completed. There is perhaps one point with which I should have dealt. I have mentioned that we have provided for appeal from the decision of reinstatement committees to an umpire. It would clearly be impracticable for everyone who is disgruntled at the decision of a reinstatement committee to be allowed to appeal. That would clog the whole machinery. We therefore propose to follow the precedent laid down in the Health Insurance and National Service Acts and only to allow appeals to the umpire in cases where the decisions of the reinstatement committees are not unanimous, and in cases where leave to appeal is given by the committee. In other cases the House will see in Clause 10 that appeals may only be made at the instance of an organisation of employers or an organisation of employed persons of which the man or the employer is a member at the time when the application was made.
  Lieut.-Commander Hutchison: May I interrupt? Has the Minister not the right of appeal as in the case of the National Service Act?
  Mr. McCorquodale: In the case of the National Service Act, the Minister is immediately involved because the man has been called up for State service, but this is a matter in which the State is not immediately interested, and, therefore, we do not think it would be right for us to make the appeals directly, but, of course, if there is any decision against which we think an appeal should be made, we will ask the appropriate organisation to see that it is made. With regard to the scope of the Bill the House will see from the First Schedule, that all the Women's Services directly concerned with the Armed Forces are included, and I am sure the House will agree that they should be so included in view of the excellent service they have given to the country. Under Clause 6 it includes all male persons who after the 25th May, 1939, entered upon a period of whole-time service in the Armed Forces of the Crown. The reason for fixing the 25th May is that on that day the Reserve and Auxiliary Forces Act and the Military Training Act were passed, and also some of the women volunteers started service about that time. It also includes under

  1445
  Clause 6 (1, c) persons, whether male or female, who after 10th April, 1941, entered into whole-time service with the Civil Defence Force within the meaning of the National Service Acts, 1939–42, in consequence of an enrolment notice under those Acts. The House may well say one of two things about that. The first question might be why sections of the Civil Defence Service are included at all, or, alternatively, if we are including volunteers as well as conscripts, whether it would not be logical to include volunteers as well as conscripted persons in the Civil Defence Forces. The facts of the matter are these, and I suggest they are important. When it became necessary, in 1941, to recruit compulsorily for the Civil Defence Forces the Government were advised at that time that direction under the Defence Regulations could not legally be used for that purpose and so the National Service Act in 1941 was extended in order that men could be recruited to the National Fire Service, the procedure being the same as for the Armed Forces. Thus what really happened was that by a side wind this small group of people obtained reinstatement rights which had always been in the National Service Acts and the Armed Forces Acts from the beginning. It would not be right, we felt, to remove by Act of Parliament the right of reinstatement from persons to whom a previous Act has already given it.
  We, therefore, do not propose to go back on this small number of Civil Defence workers—the actual figure is about 30,000 in the fire service and the police forces—who have already obtained these rights. But I think the House will realise that if we opened the door to other Civil Defence personnel, voluntary or directed, we could not resist the claims of other deserving bodies of men and women who have played such a fine, indeed vital part in the war service of the nation. What, for instance, of the women of the Land Army, the men directed to the mines or explosive works or filling factories, or those who were directed to vital war work in general? We could not leave it at that. We would have to consider not only those directed by the Ministry of Labour but those who have gone voluntarily to war work without waiting to be directed. So, in the end, I would suggest, the House will see that the effect of having gone right down the slippery slope would be to
  1446
  make the Bill of no use to ex-Servicemen or indeed to anyone else.
  Mr. Silverman: I was not sure whether the hon. Gentleman in his catalogue included those directed to the mines. I think we have all understood that, in the past, the Minister has said that boys directed to the mines will have the same right as if they had been in the Armed Forces of the Crown. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman really intended to say that or whether it was a slip.
  Mr. McCorquodale: No, we are not proposing that the men directed to the mines under any of the schemes shall be included in this Bill. They are not included under the National Service Act. If the hon. Member reads the exact words he will see.
  Mr. J. J. Lawson: Would that apply to the men who have been in the mines all along?
  Mr. McCorquodale: The optants? Of course. I have explained why we have restricted the rights under this Bill. It looks probable, as I say, that we shall see victory won in Europe while the battle in the Far East still rages. We sincerely hope, in that case, that a large number of Civil Defence workers will no longer be required for active duty, and they will therefore have the opportunity of seeking fresh jobs while the great majority of Service personnel are still fighting a bitter and costly war far away from home. I believe in all sincerity, that the Civil Defence personnel in general will not wish to gatecrash—if I may use that term—these reinstatement rights which were obviously originally intended for members of the Armed Forces of the Crown. It is interesting to note that my Minister made that quite clear when speaking of the National Service Act in 1941, so I would strongly urge hon. Members, if I may, not to seek to widen any further the scope of this Bill.
  It has been suggested that we were wrong in giving rights to ex-Service men while exacting no obligations in return. It has been put forward that if an employer is required to offer 26 weeks' work, the employee should be required to stay an equivalent period in the job. I do not think that would bear examination. We are endeavouring to enable the ex-Service

  1447
  man to return if possible to his pre-Service occupation, but if he finds he dislikes his work and wants to get away I cannot believe it is going to be any good not to allow him to go. A disgruntled employee will not be a happy employee and I am sure it will be better for all parties concerned if a change were made. Furthermore, we are in this Bill trying to recognise that ex-Service men have some rights because of their sacrifices, and I do not think it would be appropriate to put on them obligations of this sort at the same time.
  I am asked to say, so that there shall be no misunderstanding, that the Government are prepared to accept obligations towards their former employees similar to those imposed on other employers under this Bill. May I remind hon. Members in conclusion—and I apologise for keeping them so long—that this Bill is, as I have said, of a strictly limited character, providing priority of employment, and that it can in no way create new employment. Nevertheless, it is a measure of great importance at this present time to our soldiers, sailors and airmen, and to the maintenance of their morale. That is the reason why I have kept the House, I am afraid, for a time while I have endeavoured to go not only into the provisions of this Bill but into some of the reasons lying behind them.
  Mrs. Hardie: I have been waiting patiently—I did not want to interrupt the hon. Gentleman—to see if he would make clearer the position in Sub-section (1a) of Clause 1, the effect of which is that men or women in the Services are to be put into jobs not less favourable than those which would have been applicable to them had they not been called up. I have in mind the case of young men and women who were employed in shops, insurance offices and banks who would leave at 19 and come back at the age of 24 or 25, and who would have been earning promotion in the intervening time had they remained. Do they come back to office boy's status and wages and conditions, or is the employer asked to put them in jobs appropriate to their age, without having had them for the appropriate time in actual service?
  Mr. McCorquodale: I think the obvious obligation on the employer is to put them
  1448
  back into the job in which they would have been, if they had never gone away, and to give them the appropriate wages and conditions. There may be questions about apprentices and the like and their re-training which will have to be discussed, industry by industry, but the Clause quite clearly lays down that the returning ex-Service man or woman should get the job appropriate to his or her age and appropriate to the service he or she would have given if they had never been away. We are not suggesting that if a man thought that by staying he would have been promoted to foreman or manager—
  Mrs. Hardie: No, but in a bank the ex-Service man concerned would have been earning promotion in wages, and in a shop he would have been learning a trade. They will have to come back without knowing the job which would have been appropriate for them had they remained.
  Mr. McCorquodale: The hon. Lady is on quite a good point. We shall have to make arrangements possibly for training, or retraining, a great number of people, which we intend to do The obligation under this Bill is to restore to those concerned their position at the level and on the wages they would have expected had they never gone away. I would finally say this. I would recommend the Bill as an earnest endeavour to establish reasonable reinstatement rights in their civil employment for the men and women in our Armed Forces, because I believe that is the intention not only of this House but of the whole country. That is an object we all have at heart and I would therefore with some confidence ask the House to give this Bill its Second Reading.
  Major Thorneycroft: May I at once pay a tribute to my hon. Friend for the great ability and skill he has shown in presenting this rather complicated little Bill to the House. I would also like to pay a tribute to the ingenuity of the draftsman. But having gone through these more or less graceful preliminaries I feel bound to say that I would be disguising my real feelings if I did not say that this is a thoroughly bad Bill. I am not making, and I hope no one will represent it as such, a personal attack on my hon. Friend or my right hon. Friend who is to reply. I have the highest regard for both of them. I do not question the honesty

  1449
  of their intentions or the fact that they are trying to do something really good.
  My objections to this Bill are threefold. The first is an objection on principle. I do not think it is possible to take one small part of the machinery of demobilisation and resettlement by itself and deal with it in vacuo without having any idea about what the Government's general plan is. My second objection is a practical one, and maybe even more cogent. I suppose there is one overriding test of all Bills we consider in this House which goes far wider than the mere party boundaries. It is found in the answer to the question, "Will it work?" I do not think this Bill will work, and that is my second objection. My third objection is based on grounds of conscience. This Bill purports to meet a pledge and that pledge, putting aside all the legal phraseology, is generally understood by the words, "The serving men will have their own jobs back." I do not think the Bill meets that pledge. I think that to introduce a Measure which does not meet a pledge yet purports to do so is a dangerous thing. I do not want to be mealy-mouthed about the business. I will not say it is a swindle, because that word has unfortunate associations in current by-elections, but I will say that it is a political manœuvre with which I would not like to be associated.
  I would like to recall our minds to what was going on in 1939 when proposals of this sort were first introduced. At that time we were living under the pressure of great events. I do not think any one of us realised to the full the implications of total war, the immense upheaval of our economic, industrial and social system which was going to take place. The principle of conscription itself was only reluctantly conceded by a large and responsible body of political opinion. That was the circumstance in which provisions of this sort first found their way on to the Statute Book, the first in the Military Training Act—only a matter of six months then—in the Reserve and Auxiliary Forces Act, and finally in the National Service Act. Looking back, it is interesting to observe that on each of these occasions less and less time was devoted in the Committee stage to the careful consideration of the proposals—[Interruption]—apart from the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Silverman) who always gives the most anxious consideration.
  Mr. Silverman: I thank the hon. and gallant Member for his complimentary reference, but at that time a little group of us on this side called very special attention to the fact that what was put into these earlier Acts was a pledge that was, as the Minister now describes it, for the reasons he gave, illusory. May I ask the hon. and gallant Member what he did about it then?
  Major Thorneycroft: I am not going to pay the hon. Gentleman a second compliment. I think I was quite generous enough. That was in 1939. We are now in 1944, and things have changed. The problem itself has changed. It is no longer a question of trying to resuscitate old jobs in order that they should fit the ex-Service men on their return. It is much more a question of taking the Service men and retraining them and finding enough of them to do the immense task of reconstruction that lies ahead. That is the fundamental problem with which we are all faced. Not only the problems have changed. The men have changed; they have grown older. Many have lost their old skill, and many have gained new skill and new aptitudes in the Services. I do not think we can attempt to fit the problem of 1944 into the framework of 1939. I do not think that is the way we should tackle it. It is in these circumstances that this Bill is presented to us. It is an honest attempt to meet the pledge; I admit that quite frankly. I do not think that the drafters of the Bill themselves think it does meet the pledge. If they did, I doubt whether they would have introduced the words "reasonable and practicable" nine times in the Explanatory Memorandum.
  The Minister of Labour (Mr. Ernest Bevin): They were in the original pledge.
  Major Thorneycroft: The original pledge is nearly as complicated as this one. We are going to have this question of pledges introduced more and more. There is one reasonable approach to this matter, and that is that you have to look at a pledge in the way it is generally understood by the people to whom it was made. The people to whom it was made generally regarded this pledge as meaning, "We are going to have our old job back." If there is an obligation, as I think there is, it is not a conditional obligation, it is an absolute obligation to find a job in every

  1451
  case, and not only in a small number of cases. Few can, in fact, benefit under this Bill. It is not intended to affect the large number of men who never had jobs before they went into the Army. It is not going to help those who have grown out of their jobs. The office boy who is now a bomber pilot going over Berlin at night is not going back to licking stamps. It does not affect those who want a new job, who have learnt a different skill and a different trade and do not want to go back to the old one. It does not help those whom the employer will take back any way, as many will—there is no sense in making it obligatory for a man to do that which he is going to do in any case.
  The only ones who will benefit are a limited class, the men who want to go back to their old jobs, whose old jobs are still open, and whose employers, because they are bad and anti-social employers, will not take them. I doubt whether that limited class represents a very big percentage of the actual number of serving men. Even in this class, the employer may show that it is not reasonable and practicable to take the man back. Even if it is, there may be two or three other men or women who have served and who have a better priority. Even suppose that the man is lucky and gets the job, some other applicant may come along with a better claim, as I understand the Bill, and the first man may be removed just when he thought he had got through these difficult conditions. As I listened to my hon. Friend dealing with the provisions of Clause 5, I tried to put myself in the position of an employer looking at all those tortuous phrases and trying to find out the nature of this somewhat tenuous obligation and to whom he owed it. I was reminded of the story of the woman in the Bible who married the eldest of seven brothers. He died, and she married the second brother, and he died too, and likewise the other five. At last the woman died also, and in the resurrection whose wife was she?
  Mr. Silverman: What is the answer?
  Major Thorneycroft: The answer is that they would be like the angels in heaven, where there is no marriage or giving in marriage; but in this case I think they would be rather puzzled angels. Let us assume that the man is not only in this limited class, but that he happens to be
  1452
  the lucky man in the draw, and has the priority. At the best, he has the right to be employed for 26 weeks by an employer who does not want him. At the worst, he will sit back for a month or so while the employer is engaged on litigation as to what is reasonable and practicable and what the Regulations which are going to be passed by the Ministry of Labour on that subject really mean—Regulations which they may not have seen and which neither the employer nor the employed man really understands, or, worst still, rival employees may want to litigate about this matter. I do not think that that is a very useful right to give to the serving man.
  I know that the argument may well be advanced that, anyway, this Bill does not do any harm. I do not think that that is a very attractive argument. What will go out to the serving man is not the rather difficult technical provisions of Clause 5 (1, c), as to whether some other man was employed on conditions of service of the same permanent character, but the rather pompous Title of the Bill. The serving man will say, "Look what Parliament is doing! It is going to give us our old jobs back." My hon. Friend said that the serving man attached considerable importance to this matter. If any word of mine could reach the serving man, I would tell him to look at this Bill with great caution; that it might be wiser not to think so much of the old jobs of 1939 but to start looking more into the future. It is very difficult for a back bencher to make practical proposals to the Government. I do not know what the Government's plans are. It seems to me that we are entering on a period when we are going to have a tremendous change-over from war to peace, when we are going to have something comparable to an industrial revolution packed into a few months or weeks. I do not know how the Government are going to tackle it. They may tackle it by means of an Essential Work Order, and all the cumbersome machinery that goes with it. Under an Essential Work Order you may take the men out and give them benefits far greater than anything accorded under this Bill.
  Mr. McCorquodale: My hon. and gallant Friend realises that the Essential Work Order applies to scheduled undertakings.
  Major Thorneycroft: My point is that the first way the Government can tackle this question is by putting a string on each individual man and putting him where they think the work ought to be done.
  Mr. McCorquodale: Not under the Essential Work Order; that will be a new procedure.
  Major Thorneycroft: I am obliged to my hon. Friend for his very fair correction. I may have described the system wrongly. Let us call it the system of registration and direction. If they adopt that system, they can give the serving man far greater benefits than under this Bill. The other course they can adopt is to make block allocations of man-power to various industries, in order that those industries which they want brought up to great activity will be brought up, and others which they do not want brought up will be kept down.
  Mr. Silverman: That could only be done by having such an all-inclusive control of industry as the hon. and gallant Member would be the last to support.
  Major Thorneycroft: My hon. Friend seems not to have read "Forward by the Right." I will send him a copy, and he will see that I am very far from objecting to control of industry.
  Mr. Silverman: I did not say that.
  Major Thorneycroft: But suppose the Government adopt the second method, the broad allocation method. It seems to me that the Bill will be unworkable. One Government Department will say, "Here is your old job back in the silk stocking trade" and another Government Department will say, "We do not want silk stockings; we want all our man-power engaged on producing capital goods." May I very shortly make a few practical proposals as to the lines on which I think this matter should be tackled? The first thing is for the Government to take what steps they can to create the conditions in which jobs will be found. My hon. Friends and I have pressed the Government for a declaration on the question of full employment—my Noble Friend the Member for South Dorset (Viscount Hinchingbrooke) made a speech on that matter in the Debate on the Address—but so far there has been no Government
  1454
  statement on the matter. The second thing is that they should declare their demobilisation plans. It is not enough for Ministers to make vague and contradictory statements in the country; there are still no clear statements about their demobilisation plans. The third thing is that in taking men out of the Army they should at least take some care in studying their particular aptitudes and abilities, so that these men may be put into the right jobs. The fourth is that they should start national training schemes. The great thing is that people should be trained for jobs which they can hold permanently. I ask my right hon. Friend to make a statement on this point. I admit that, while these are practical proposals and would help far more than anything contained in this Bill, they do not give the serving man a right to a job. My own view is that to give serving men the right to be employed for 26 weeks, and to be sacked at the end of that time, is not worth much. I think that this 26 weeks would be better spent in learning a job and getting that job permanently.
  There are two ways in which the Government can tackle this question: they can do so either by regulation or by leadership. If my right hon. Friend or my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister were to make a declaration of policy on the matters I have indicated, to tell the employer and the serving man what the Government's plans are and what the Government want done, they would achieve far more than by any number of ingenious Regulations. I do not suppose that anybody outside the House of Commons is going to oppose this Bill. I do not suppose the employers' organisation will. I do not suppose the trade unions will. Why should they? It combines two excellent qualities: it is practically unworkable, and it is politically expedient. But it is not what employers' organisations think or what trade unions think which ultimately matters; it is what we think. It is our responsibility. For my own part, I have rather a high regard for fighting men, and I am not prepared to fob them off with easy promises and soft words. I would rather tell them the blunt facts, that peace does not mean a return to 1939 and the old job for them, any more than it does for any other member of this society. I would rather tell them that they will have a job, not necessarily

  1455
  the old one, but a job in which they can take a pride and be of service to their country.
  Mr. Ellis Smith: We welcome this Bill, and shall facilitate its passage in the Committee stage, but, at the same time, shall seek to strengthen it on behalf of the ex-Servicemen and our noble men and women who are now serving in the Armed Forces. This Bill is a contribution to dealing with the gigantic post-war problems with which this country will be faced. We believe that this Bill, so far as the social unplanned system, for which most of the hon. Members who have cheered so loudly stand, is concerned, will implement the promise made in 1939 to our men and women who went into the Armed Forces. We believe that, as far as it is possible, this Bill will bring about the reinstatement in their pre-enlistment employment of those who have served in the Armed Forces. It imposes an obligation upon the employers to provide employment, and that, fundamentally, is what hon. Members do not like and is responsible for the critical speech to which we have just listened. But those of us who belong to the people, and are born of the people, cannot forget what happened after the last war and how we were treated, and this Bill, in itself, marks a big step forward compared with the treatment of my generation after the last war. The Government have the final say in the calling up of men and women under the National Service Acts, and we believe that although, in accordance with this Bill, reinstatement will depend upon the goodwill of the private employers in industry, who are well represented by the hon. Members who cheered that speech, it is the Government who will have the last word. We, on this side, shall devote all the Parliamentary time possible to seeing that this country fulfils the obligation and implements the pledge given to our men and women who have served in the Armed Forces.
  I cannot forget, during the time that I carried through a good deal of work under very difficult circumstances and in a representative capacity, that my best friends, both men and women, used to say, "Beware, Ellis, of the most plausible people." I could not help thinking of that when I listened to the speech we have just heard. We believe that it is
  1456
  the desire of the British people that those who have served in the Armed Forces should be reinstated in their pre-enlistment employment, and I am convinced that those hon. and gallant Members who are closely associated with the ordinary men and women in the Forces will agree that it is the least we can do on their behalf. Knowing capitalism as we do, and having felt its lash, as some of us have for 20 years, we have our doubts about the employers' attitude when the war is over, and these doubts have been intensified by the loud cheering in this House. We had an example only a few weeks ago, when the hon. Member for Balham and Tooting (Mr. Doland) raised a disgraceful bit of business that had happened in the London area. He told the House that a firm in the London area had informed a sergeant serving in India that, owing to reorganisation and staffing arrangements, no guarantee of re-engagement of any pre-war member of the staff was possible. I realise that the cheering that has just taken place means that those hon. Members believe in the attitude of that firm. Fortunately, the Minister of Labour and the Government were not prepared to take that view, and, as a result of the answer that was given, I understand a change has been brought about. The Minister, in reply to the hon. Member for Balham and Tooting, said:
  "The firm have not committed any legal offence, and I am willing to believe that they meant no harm, but I must express my astonishment at their stupidity in not realising the effect which such a letter must have upon its recipient, and my condemnation of their apparent disregard of any considerations other than those directly affecting their own interests."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th November, 1943; cols. 837–8, Vol. 393.]
  When this Bill becomes an Act of Parliament, that will be a legal offence. I was going to ask the Parliamentary Secretary if he would consider issuing a leaflet, in clear and simple language, pointing out the responsibilities of the discharged men and women themselves in connection with this Bill, but the hon. Gentleman has made an announcement to-day that it is their intention to do that. I am very pleased to hear that, because, as I know from my own experience, four weeks soon go, and it is most important that men and women in the Armed Forces should be reminded of their own responsibilities. I know from my own experience, not as a commis-

  1457
  sioned officer, but as one who served in the ranks, that most men will be glad to get home and that four weeks will soon go, hence the need for their responsibilities to be emphasised in this leaflet. How will men and women be affected in cases of this kind? I was an apprentice when I went into the Army and I was demobilised in 1920. When I came home the firm were willing to reinstate me, but, owing to an industrial dispute, were not able to. I secured employment at another place and fortunately everything went well, but suppose a person is not prepared to walk about or be at home, and prefers employment, as most men and women do in this country. If he finds other employment, the job may only last a few days or weeks. In that case, will he have forfeited his legal rights under this Bill because he accepted employment?
  Many times in this Bill the words "reasonable and practicable" are used. May I remind the Parliamentary Secretary that what is reasonable and practicable to the hon. Members who cheered is not reasonable and practicable to my Friends? Can we have the words defined in accordance with the intention and spirit of the Minister of Labour? It may be that those hon. Members may be sitting there when this Bill comes for implementation, and therefore it is most essential that, during the passage of this Bill, and while a Coalition Government are in office—because we have no confidence at all in the Conservative Party of this country and that confidence has been further undermined here to-day—those words shall be interpreted in a way that will give us more confidence.
  We should have a few concrete interpretations in the Bill or in the Regulations. Many cases will have to go before the reinstatement committees. Lawyers, for example, may preside over most of them. We see that a large proportion of the hon. Members sitting over there to-day belong to the legal profession. We know the kind of treatment that the workers of this country receive at the hands of the legal profession. We cannot forget the administration of the "Anomalies Act." At the 1931 Trades Union Congress some of us were among the small number who prophesied what would happen in connection with the administration of that Act, and they will administer this Act in the same way unless a definite interpretation in the
  1458
  Regulations is issued, with the instruction that it shall be administered as magnanimously as possible.
  When a man has been away three, four or five years, is 26 weeks' employment, as a maximum, considered long enough? In many cases it will take that length of time to acquire the skill required. In my own trade, and in others, men will need at least 12 months to enable them to become proficient enough to follow the trade. The words "reasonable and practicable" remind me of a hard experience I had myself. In 1930–31 I read the agreement which exists between the engineering employers and the trade unions, and Clause 12 of that agreement says:
  "When a depression in trade takes place, systematic short time shall be worked, where practicable, in preference to discharging men."
  This is what happened. Our interpretation of that Clause was that all available employment should be spread over as many people as possible, but those responsible for running that particular side of the factory, and those men who were ready to play up to them in order to keep their jobs, interpreted it in a different way, but fortunately we were able to get through to the higher management, with the result that they took a bigger view. That is the kind of attitude which is going to ruin this country, and which was responsible for 20 years of disastrous government between 1919 and 1939, and was the kind of attitude responsible for the anti-Soviet policy between the two wars. That is the kind of attitude responsible for the pro-German policy that nearly got us into a very difficult situation. Fortunately the people of this country have seen through this attitude, and I am confident that if they have an opportunity of translating their opinions by bitter experience this House will be filled with a different kind of people from those who have filled it during the past 20 years.
  During this difficult period some of us determined that as many men as possible should be given employment in industry, and the result was that the employers agreed with us that all available employment should be spread over as many people as possible. I want to ask that we should approach these words "reasonable and practicable" in the same way

  1459
  during the Committee stage, and I can pledge my hon. Friends that they will do all they possibly can to facilitate the carrying out of this pledge given to the ex-Service man before the war. We shall strengthen the Bill and do all we can to improve it. We consider that the available employment should be spread over all engaged in any industry, and it should be so arranged that they shall have a decent standard of living maintained. Could we not have the Regulations put before the House before the Committee stage is reached, or a White Paper issued containing the ideas upon which it is proposed to base the Regulations? I think it is important, and the House will expect it, that when we go into Committee on this Bill we should have a White Paper so that we can consider the Regulations and see that the Bill can be administered in the very best way possible.
  We must make the Bill and the Regulations as sound as we can make them. We owe it to our men who are serving in the Armed Forces, and we shall need the fullest possible information on the Committee stage. The Regulations can mar the Bill and its administration. We have seen to-day the attitude of certain people towards the Bill and the Regulations, and therefore it is most essential that we should have the information before us, so that we can make the Measure as strong as possible. We cannot forget how our people were treated between 1931 and 1939. Clause 11 of the Bill provides that an employer who fails to comply with an Order for reinstatement is liable, on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding £50. Many people do not mind paying fines of that kind. In industrial areas, bookies who are caught do not mind paying fines many times that amount, because they make it up in other ways. Therefore, we suggest that the very minimum fine should be £100 for any firm that fails to carry out its obligations under the Measure.
  The reinstatement committees will be very important. The average man who will go before such committees will be inclined to be nervous when he is asked questions. It will be bound to affect his evidence, and we ask that representatives of the men themselves should be allowed to attend with them, so that they can state their case if necessary. We have received
  1460
  a letter from a number of organisations pointing out that the Bill does not provide for the reinstatement of personnel who were conscripted into Civil Defence. It is only the persons who were conscripted into Civil Defence at the end of the blitz period for whom the Bill provides. They ask that the personnel serving under Civil Defence during the blitz period should be included. I ask the Minister if he will see that the reinstatement committees are given a greater status than committees of the kind we have had in the past. They ought to be composed not of the kind of men who have been cheering the critical speech that has been made to-day but of large-minded men in industry. We want these committees and the whole of industry to be a success. We want this country to be a great country after the war. We have to get away from that attitude and call upon men to serve on these committees who know industry and the people. A great deal will depend upon these committees and we want them to be a success, because we owe it to the men and women who served in the Armed Forces. We have enough of the courts with workmen's compensation, and we want the question of reinstatement to be kept away from the courts. Reinstatement must not be made a legal battleground upon which some people can depend for their professional income.
  We must frankly admit that in some cases small employers will no longer exist and we realise that there will be great difficulties in carrying out this Measure. The difficulties will be tremendous, and it is for us to make our contributions with the object of minimising those difficulties. Where small employers no longer exist it should be a State obligation to implement the promise made to men and women by arranging to find employment in accordance with the provisions of the Measure. I would like the Minister to reply to this question: How do the provisions of the Bill compare with those of similar Measures in our Dominions and the United States of America? When the war is over with Germany as many of our men as is possible will want to come home. They will have had enough of it. Then, I suppose, volunteers will be asked for in order to deal with Japan. Can we have an assurance that this Measure will apply until the Japanese war is finished and all our men return home?
  Mr. Bevin: I think I ought to correct a false impression. There will not be volunteers called for Japan. It is one war and the National Service Acts will operate until the whole thing is finished.
  Mr. Smith: We stand for fulfilling our obligations to our Allies and that should be quite clear in view of our record. When one has been away from home four, five or six years—
  Mr. Bevin: That is another matter.
  Mr. Smith: —that fact should be taken into account. We were in the war in 1939 and we stood alone for 12 months and, therefore, when any relaxation occurs I hope that these facts will be borne in mind. I want to make it clear that our movement stands for fulfilling our obligations to our Allies. A great deal depends on this Bill and how it is administered and upon the spirit. In this war up to now—and I am pleased about this, because we suffered from it last time—there has been very little favouritism as far as calling up is concerned. I do not apply that to profits and property, but as far as the people are concerned there has been no favouritism worth talking about. The National Service Acts have determined when and how a person shall serve. We could never have mobilised our man-power so efficiently had it not been for the fairness of the Minister. We cannot forget the way he has been treated lately, especially during last week in this House. Can we have an assurance that the same fairness will be applied in reinstatement? I know that the Minister himself cannot give such an undertaking, but cannot we on the Committee stage co-operate together as far as possible in order to see that that fairness is applied? The hon. and gallant Member for Stafford (Major Thorneycroft) has made a very critical speech against the Bill on behalf of a large number of Conservatives, who are led by the hon. and learned Member for North Edinburgh (Mr. Erskine-Hill) and are the kind of Members who filled this House in 1918 and 1929.
  Major Thorneycroft: To what body is the hon. Gentleman referring?
  Mr. Smith: To the Conservative Members' Committee.
  Major Thorneycroft: Now I understand.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Charles Williams): At this point I think that I might intervene. We cannot discuss the Conservative Members' Committee or the Labour Members' Committee at this stage of the Bill, and perhaps the hon. Member will keep to the Bill and not deal with outside influences.
  Mr. Smith: I am trying to keep to the Bill, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. A very critical speech was made against the Bill while Mr. Speaker was in the Chair, and within limits, provided we keep in Order, we are entitled to deal with it, and shall do, providing we keep in Order.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I heard a great deal of that speech. I am not in any way stopping the hon. Member from dealing with it, but at this stage of the Bill outside committees have nothing whatever to do with the Bill itself.
  Mr. Smith: Thank you for that guidance, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. The hon. and gallant Member for Stafford said that this is a thoroughly bad Bill and he was loudly cheered by nearly all the Conservative Members present. He went on to say that he did not think that they should take one aspect of demobilisation. We say that the men and women for whom this Bill is designed to cater should receive preference in regard to reinstatement. We shall do all we possibly can to implement the pledge that was given in 1939 and 1940 to the men and women serving in the Armed Forces. The logic of the speech of the hon. and gallant Gentleman, and of every hon. Member who cheered him, was that the pledge of 1939 should not be kept to our men and women serving in the Armed Forces. He said that things had changed, but he had no need to remind us of that fact. Those of us who are regular in attendance in this House have seen the change among hon. Members now that we are getting through the war in the way that we are. He said that he put himself in the place of an employer. He had no need to say that. It was obvious from his speech that he was speaking on behalf not of all employers but of the narrow-minded employers of this country. Men and women in the Civil Service have been guaranteed reinstatement, and all that we are asking is that ordinary men and women should be put upon the same basis

  1463
  as those who have been guaranteed reinstatement in their pre-enlistment employment. We believe, although we recognise all the difficulties that arise out of the unplanned social system which those hon. Members are doing all they possibly can to perpetuate, that, in spite of all that, the Bill is a genuine attempt by the Government to implement the promise that was given in 1939.
  I was surprised at the speech which was made to-day and yet I ought not to be surprised. We are living in serious and difficult times. Our men are looking forward to carrying through the greatest feat in the world's history. This Bill will give them a little satisfaction and the Government should see that they are given more satisfaction. They ought to make an early announcement in regard to pay and gratuities to be given on the termination of hostilities. We appreciate the sacrifices and the services of nearly all our people in this country, but none of these have been as great as the sacrifices and services of those who serve in the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, and in the Merchant Navy. We would like to know how the men who serve in the Merchant Navy are to be affected by this Bill, and hope that the real friends of these people will co-operate with the Government in order to improve the Bill so that these men and women will have confidence in those who are serving the public in this country.
  Apart altogether from other considerations, it is a terrible sacrifice to have to be away from home for many years and many men in the Services have been away from home three, four and five years. Many of them are the fathers of children who are now two or three years old and whom they have never seen. If one talks to some of our women on omnibuses when they are carrying young children they will say that the fathers have not yet seen the children, and yet we can have all this quibbling here to-day by hon. Members of this House who had a great responsibility for the worsening of the international situation that brought about the war. We cannot do too much for these men and women. After the last war nobody cared. Many of my hon. Friends signed on at the employment exchanges for months. They had served in the last war for three or four years
  1464
  and went through Passchendaele, Ypres and Cambrai, and yet, after the war, nobody cared. Somebody is going to care this time. My hon. Friends are going to see to it, that no matter what kind of Government they are, they will have to care after this war, and we believe that this Bill is a genuine attempt to carry out a pledge after this war. Many times I lay on my bed in France and Germany. Many of the hon. Members who were cheering to-day and who claim to be great patriots have never done this. I exempt hon. Members who are serving; I do not refer to them but to certain hon. Members.
  Lieut.-Commander Gurney Braithwaite: Surely that is not a charge which should be made in this House. It can equally well be made to hon. Members opposite.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: There should not be any charges on either side.
  Mr. Smith: I shall take notice of your advice, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but my hon. Friends on this side have sat here and, in spite of the speech we have had to listen to, and the provocative cheering, they never raised their voices but were prepared to listen. Many times I lay on my bed in France and Germany wandering what the future had in store for me. Thousands will be doing that nightly now. This Bill will give them a little hope. It will be a contribution towards dealing with the difficult problem of demobilisation, and let no one underrate these difficulties. It makes me smile when I hear some people talking about the way they are going to carry out demobilisation. After the last war, under stern military discipline, I was involved in two strikes in France and one in Germany because we wanted to come home. We had had enough of it, we had gone through it, and we wanted to get back to our wives, to our young people and to our associates; and the same will apply again. Therefore, the Government should give the maximum confidence to those who are serving this country so well at the present time. That is the contribution that we on our side, together with the Government, are making in regard to this Bill. Let the Government remember that many of our men will have been away five years. We entered this war in 1939 and we stood alone for 12 months. We have called

  1465
  upon every available man and woman in this country to serve in accordance with the decisions of the Minister and the Government. We have built no houses in this country since the beginning of the war worth talking about, and therefore it is along these lines that something constructive should be done. This Bill is a limited contribution to the problem of demobilisation and full employment. It provides for the reinstatement of our men and women who have served so nobly in the Armed Forces. The nation has contracted an obligation to all our men who have served so well at home and in the Armed Forces, and the logical consequence is that this Bill should be carried through as quickly as possible, but the Government should follow it up with a policy of full employment or of full maintenance.
  Twice in my relatively short life—and this is a condemnation of British public life in itself—we have had full employment in two wars. Our people are now saying—and I am going to encourage them to say it in every possible way—"If we are all wanted in war, then we should all be wanted in peace." Those who support the system that gives so much to so few, the pre-war appeasers who are now the economic defeatists, the same people who cheered so loudly not so long ago, are now saying that after this war Britain will be poorer. We refuse to accept that pessimistic view of Britain's future. We are not poorer except in regard to the loss of many of our best sons. Never were our people better organised, never was the production per employee greater in industry than to-day, never have our people had greater skill, never have we had more productive capacity. Our stock in this country is higher now throughout the world than ever. In 1939—as a result of their influence to a great extent—our stock had gone down badly, but because of the efforts of our people, because of the fact that we stood alone for 12 months, the stock of the British people throughout the world is now higher than ever. Therefore we do not take a pessimistic view of Britain's future. We want to think big, plan big, build big, and not quibble in the way that hon. Members have quibbled to-day. That is the road towards building a bigger Britain, that is the road towards full employment, and we believe that this Bill is an indispensable contribution to the policy we have outlined.
  Sir Arnold Gridley: I am sure that those of us who have listened to this Debate so far, have very much enjoyed the verbal quarrel between neighbours in the County of Stafford. We have had a brilliant performance on the part of my hon. and gallant Friend who sits in front of me and a typical speech from the hon. Member for Stoke (Mr. E. Smith). I find myself not in full agreement with either, and I hope to explain to the House why I take a different attitude upon this Bill. I was intrigued, as I think we all were, with the closing sentence of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Stafford (Major Thorneycroft) when he described this Bill as one which was "practically unworkable but politically expedient." That is a good Parliamentary debating sentence, and I give it no higher praise than that because I should be very sorry to support a Bill on the ground that it was politically expedient if, in fact, it was an impractical Bill.
  I agree with what my hon. and gallant Friend said in some respects. He said this was a piecemeal attempt to deal with the problem. I think it is, as I hope to show presently. He asked, will it work? To that I think the answer is that it can be made to work if we all co-operate on the Committee stage to make such improvements in it as seem to us to be desirable. His third objection was: Does it meet the pledge given to serving men? He admitted that it was an honest attempt to fulfil the pledge but did not think it did. If this Bill is an honest attempt to fulfil the pledge, then I do not think it is true to say that it is politically expedient. The terms seem to me to be a contradiction to some extent.
  On the other hand, I agreed with the hon. and gallant Member for Stafford in the latter part of his speech when he favoured the efforts of the Government being concentrated on the provision of full employment. I could not agree with him more. I also think he is on perfectly sound ground when he asks the Government, at the earliest possible moment, to declare their demobilisation plans because demobilisation and reinstatement are very much knit together and it is very difficult for us to be considering this question of reinstatement to-day in the absence of knowledge of what are the Government's demobilisation plans. He made two minor suggestions—if he will not mind my

  1467
  calling them minor—that men who have been in the Services for four or five years and have acquired new skill should be selected with care for the post-war jobs they will be asked to undertake, and helped to find them; and that there should be new training schemes. A good many employers are ready to set up training schemes inside their own works where this is practicable.
  So far as the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke is concerned, he made one most valuable admission which presently I am going to call to our aid. He is not satisfied with the way in which regulations are to be made. He and his party want to see them. He wants the House to have an opportunity of discussing them. He wants a definition of what is reasonable and practical and so on. There will be few of us who are in disagreement so far as that is concerned.
  Mr. J. J. Lawson: But for different reasons.
  Mr. E. Smith: I realise the many difficulties in drafting and I asked, if we cannot have the Regulations before the Committee stage, could we have a White Paper issued containing the ideas on which it is proposed to base the regulations?
  Sir A. Gridley: I quite agree, and if a White Paper setting out the proposed regulations were presented to the House first that would be valuable to Members of all parties, and so I hope that may be done. We are discussing to-day a Bill with which in part I wholly agree. It is a measure of compulsion to provide that employers reinstate their former ex-Service employees—if they have been lucky enough to survive the risks of this war—in at least as good employment as they enjoyed pre-war so far as it is reasonable and practical. It is, perhaps, a somewhat sad reflection that we are discussing a compulsory Measure of this kind at all, because it seems to suggest that employers do not fulfil their moral obligations, whereas, as a matter of fact, I think every one will admit that the majority of good employers have not only promised their men who are now serving overseas, and who survive, that they will reinstate them in their jobs when they come back, but have also given financial assistance in the way of making up the difference between the Service pay and the former pay in Indus-
  1468
  try, so that the absence of the breadwinner will not bring financial hardship upon the family.
  It is true there is a small percentage of employers who cannot be relied upon to carry out their moral and social obligations, and such bring undeserved discredit upon the great majority of employers who fulfil their responsibilities. There are reasons, however, why the men themselves should have security and as our legislation stands at present they certainly have not got that because, since we passed the National Service Act, conditions have wholly changed, and there are now two or three men on active service who used to be in the same job, and employers and the men themselves want to know what their position is.
  I very much doubt whether the magnitude of the reinstatement problem after the war is going to be as formidable as it was after the last war. If this country has learned any commonsense, and if we in this House—whatever our political views may be—have learned anything by bitter experience, it is that we ought to retain for some considerable time, perhaps for years after this war, a pretty strong Army, Navy, and Air Force. Therefore, we shall not make that senseless immediate reduction in our forces that we did at the conclusion of hostilities in 1918 to 1919. The Services themselves have become so much more highly mechanised that they will require to retain a very much larger number of skilled men than they needed after the last war. Thousands who have joined the Services will not return to their old jobs and will not desire to return. They will have lived an entirely different life from that to which they were formerly accustomed. They will have learned to have a spirit of adventure and to take risks, and will seek wider opportunties, when they come back, than those in which they shared before they voluntarily or compulsorily joined the Services.
  A few days ago we discussed the Education Bill, which will create a demand for many thousands of teachers. There will be a call upon many who are now serving in the Forces, who should be encouraged by training and other means to fit themselves for posts that will be vacant in the teaching profession. That is one of the most urgent needs we must satisfy if we are to make real progress

  1469
  in our new educational programme. Alas, only too many of our former employees will never return, because they have already made the supreme sacrifice. Before this war is finished who knows what further heavy and distressing sacrifices will yet have to be made, what costs we have yet to pay, before we gain complete victory? Therefore, I do not think that this problem of reinstatement in civil employment after this war will be as great as it was after the last war. We have learned a great many lessons from the mistakes we made at that disastrous time.
  The important problem of unemployment has, properly, been mentioned. If only we can find the solution to that problem it will make demobilisation and reinstatement in industry very much easier and many of the difficulties with which we shall be faced will melt away. Therefore, I hope we shall have within the next few months a plan for full employment, either from Sir William Beveridge, if he can produce such a plan—and I beg leave to doubt it—or that the Government themselves will present us with their views as to how the problem should be tackled.
  I would now like to refer to one or two points in the Bill itself and to call the Minister's attention to them. In Clause 1, Sub-section (1) it states that employers are under an obligation to reinstate former employees when their war service ends after the commencement of the Act. I am not quite clear whether that should not be retrospective. Are employers not to be bound to reinstate former employees whose war service ended before the commencement of the Act? If not, should they not be, so that all are treated alike? Sub-section (1b) involves the reinstatement of an employee in the most favourable occupation and on the most favourable terms and conditions which are reasonable and practicable in his case. I emphasise the words, "in his case." Would it be unreasonable to ask that the words, "and in the circumstances of the former employer," should be added?
  In Sub-section (2) the employer is compelled to take the employee back at the first opportunity which is reasonable and practicable. The question here arises as to how long the employer may dally. I have here a letter from a responsible body of employers in the West Country and on that point they say this:
  1470
  "From the point of view of the employer it is noted that the Bill does not impose any time limit, enforcible by the applicant, under which the employer must employ him or even answer his application. If the employer does not reply to the application for 13 weeks the applicant must renew it. How is the applicant to know whether the employer can employ him or not? Should there not be a provision requiring employers to reply?"
  Some of my hon. Friends opposite may think it rather strange that employers should suggest that an obligation of that kind should be put upon them. I ask the Minister to be good enough to consider that question. The same employers refer to Clauses 2 and 3—and these are substantial points—and say:
  "In view of the delay which might take place on the part of the prospective employee it seems that it would be helpful to employers if the demobilisation authorities themselves could notify employers that the particular person will be demobilised on a specified date."
  I hope hon. Members can concentrate on this rather difficult illustration. The point of view of these employers is this: Suppose an employer has had three persons, "A," "B" and "C," occupying a particular position and all three have been called up and are now serving and all three become available at the same time. Suppose "C" is the first to notify the employer that he is available for employment when "A" was the original person in the position; the employer might not know until some weeks later that "A" or "B" is to be released and will be available. The employer might very well take on "C," only to find that "A" or "B" is also available, although they have delayed notifying him. The suggestion is made—although it may be impracticable to adopt—that the man's unit should make the notification, not the local demobilisation authorities. There is a gap here that seems to require filling.
  There is another important point mentioned by these employers, which arises under Clause 5. They point out that a man highly skilled in a particular job in which he has worked for, say, 15 years, is directed to another industry while another person who is appointed to take his place may be called up after working for only six months. Both become available for reemployment at the same time. The Bill, it would seem, provides that the least skilled man, the one who worked for only six months in the job, is bound to be re-

  1471
  employed while the older employee, who is far more skilled, will be refused. It is hoped that this is a wrong interpretation of the Clause and it was suggested that I should raise the point with the Minister. These are some of the practical difficulties in carrying out the provisions of this Bill as they are at present drawn.
  I intended to raise a point on Clause 6, to which the Parliamentary Secretary and my hon. Friend opposite referred, namely, that the Bill deals only with part of the problem that we ought, as a Parliament, to be tackling. No one would gainsay that prior importance should be given to reinstating in industry those who have served in the Forces and in Civil Defence, but there have been hundreds of thousands who have been taken out of one industry and transferred to another industry, very frequently at a rate of wages lower than the one they were enjoying at their former occupation. Are they to have to struggle to get back to their former jobs? The Women's Land Army has been referred to and there are many other occupations one could think of in which transferees are only too anxious to get back to their former jobs. They have no security such as this Bill seems to provide for ex-Service men and women.
  May I ask the Minister to look at Clause 7, which designates the employer of an applicant as one who is to employ him for only four weeks preceding the commencement of the applicant's war service. Is not this far too short a time? Should not the period of service be much longer? The employment may have been of a temporary or casual nature. Some employers may have dismissed long service employees because of the imminence of their call up. Would it not be more appropriate if the employer, under this Clause, was one who had employed the applicant for a continuous period of 26 weeks prior to the commencement of the applicant's war service? An employer should certainly not escape his obligations if he terminated the applicant's employment during the four weeks immediately preceding the commencement of his war service, unless the subsequent employer had taken the applicant into his permanent employment. I wonder, too, what is the position of a former employer who has given up business, possibly under compulsion, who has failed and become
  1472
  bankrupt, who has gone abroad, who may be in very reduced financial circumstances or may have himself become disabled? It only shows the great importance at arriving at what is reasonable and practicable so far as many of these Clauses are concerned.
  I now want to refer to what has become a rather old horse in our Debates. Under Clause 8, which establishes Reinstatement Committees, sole and arbitrary power is given to the Minister himself to form panels and from these he may himself appoint a chairman and also one person to represent employers and another to represent employed. Surely, before the Minister constitutes these panels he should agree to put himself under an obligation to confer with organisations of employers and associations of employed persons. These arbitrary powers may be very necessary in war time legislation but here we are dealing with a post-war matter and this House should not grant to the executive powers which make them independent in peace time of Parliamentary control. I ask the Minister whether he will be prepared at long last to make a concession in this type of legislation.
  I think we ought not to forget that it is not only men in this country, or those who come back at the end of their service, who should be in our thoughts. At the moment my mind is very much on the thousands of civilian prisoners, particularly in the Far East. Some of them were employed by companies domiciled in this country and others in overseas countries. How is their reinstatement in civil employment to be secured? Many of them joined local defence forces in the Colonial countries where they are now imprisoned and the question arises whether it is not the duty of our Government to ask Colonial Governments, as soon as they are in a position to do so, to pass similar legislation to that which we are considering, so that the interests of these men shall be dealt with.
  Speaking as an employer, I give the Bill my approval with the qualification that I think that by co-operation between parties we can greatly improve it. I know there are some who consider that it is a quite unnecessary Bill and that the problem it seeks to deal with could be left to the good sense and the sense of duty of employers towards their employees. But I know that the great majority of em-

  1473
  ployers are in favour of the general principle of the Bill. They desire to see certain improvements made in it but they do not want it to be rejected. They desire to see it implemented because it will enable them to see much more clearly ahead than the legislation at present on the Statute Book allows them to do. I should like to read a paragraph from an admirable report produced by a committee presided over by an hon. Member of the House, the hon. Member for Lewisham West (Mr. Brooke). It states:
  "A special responsibility will rest upon industry after the war to help the demobilised man to adjust himself to life out of uniform. Millions, over a period, will be entering or re-entering industry from the Services. For the older men it will be a return to the kind of life to which they were accustomed before, but even so they will have been for several years right away from it. Many will cheerfully welcome the change. Others will find it hard to give up an active outdoor life for a relatively static indoor one. Others, to whom Service life has meant interest and adventure, will yearn for the same stimulus in the factory or the office, and will chafe if they miss it. Good sense and understanding on both sides will be needed if all these men are to find their feet again in industry quickly and contentedly. The nation will be the gainer if industry can help. Then to carry over into civil life and every day work the same natural spirit of comradeship and of pride in doing a job well which they have absorbed in the Army, the Navy or the Royal Air Force."
  That is finely written and it is in that spirit that I would ask Members in all parts of the House to approach the Bill.
  Mr. Lewis Jones: I was rather alarmed when I heard the slashing attack on the Bill by the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Stafford (Major Thorneycroft). I though he was unfair to the Minister and his colleagues. His speech seemed to suggest that this Bill was the first during the war which had dealt with the question of reinstatement, and the Minister was supposed to be throwing out to men in the Army, Air Force and Navy some kind of swindle. I am a member of the executive of the British Employers Federation, which has been consulting the Trades Union Congress on this Bill for some time, and our main desire has been to make the legal enactments already on the Statute Book more workable in order to assure the return to industry of as many men in the Services as it could possible take. The principle of reinstatement is not new. It was in the Militia Act of 1939. I know that ever
  1474
  since that Act there has been a dwindling in the chances of a return to industry, but that is the fault of the circumstances through which we have been passing in the last few years. It was an easy matter in the early part of 1939 to safeguard automatically the return to civilian employment of nearly all the militia men who were called up, which was a very small number compared with the large number called up during the period of the war. Obviously the chance of returing to their civilian employment is becoming more difficult.
  I think the people of the country, employers and employed and the men in the Services, welcome the clarification that the Bill provides. It does not provide work for a single additional man. It is not an unemployment Bill but a Bill to secure reinstatement in civilian employment. It has nothing to do with finding employment in the general way that we are all talking about. I welcome the Bill and I believe it is workable. I can say on behalf of British employers that it is our intention to co-operate in every possible way to make the Measure work smoothly. It is the most natural thing in the world for an employer to want his own work people back, and what is more natural than that the men in the Services should want to go back to their own employment and their own employers? The Bill gives us the guiding principles as to the methods by which these men are to be reinstated. I think the Press during the last few months has been responsible for the misunderstanding which has taken place in connection with the Bill. It does not guarantee to every ex-Service man his employment back in civilian life. It could not do it. I know of jobs in the steel industry which five or six different men have held. You cannot replace the lot. When one of our national newspapers tells people that the Bill guarantees re-employment in civil employment, that is all wrong. It is impossible to reinstate every man in the Services in his own civilian employment.
  I know a case of a works which has had on its pay roll 1,000 men. Half of them have gone into the Services. Of the 500 now employed 300 will be discharged in order to allow of the reinstatement of the men in the Services and 200 will not have a ghost of a chance of returning to work. That is not the fault

  1475
  of the Minister. No Government could have promised these men reinstatement in a job that is not there, because the only thing that stops them going back to the job is the seniority rule that is set out in the Bill. It is a pity that the impression has been created in the country that the Bill provides reinstatement in civilian employment to anyone who has gone into the Services. Another statement that has been made rather surprised me. A leading article in one of our national newspapers says:
  "Many people joined the Services as lads. There are others who went to the war as little more than boys and will come back as men wanting men's jobs. Their case seems to be covered by the provision in the Bill that applicants must be reinstated on terms and conditions not less favourable than they would have enjoyed had they not joined up."
  The Bill does nothing of the kind. The Bill has never promised that a boy who joins the Army and remains there till manhood will get a man's job when he gets back to civil employment.
  Captain Duncan: Will my hon. Friend look at paragraph 1 (b)?
  Mr. Jones: If my hon. Friend will turn to the Act of 1939, as amended by Section 14 of the Act of 1941, he will find that it says a man must be re-employed in an occupation on terms and conditions not less favourable to him than would have applied to him had he not left civilian employment. That means that if a man had remained in civil employment for five years and had been promoted to a higher grade job, he would have had the higher status and remuneration of the job. The present law says that a man is to be reinstated in an occupation, and if that means anything it means that if, while he has been away from his job, he has missed two promotions and two advances in wages, he has, when he returns to his employment, to get conditions equivalent to those that would have applied to him had he remained in civil occupation. That is the law as it is to-day. This Bill, however, says that the man is to be reinstated, not in an occupation, but
  "in the occupation in which the applicant was last employed by the former employer before the beginning of his war service and on terms and conditions not less favourable to him than those which would have been applicable to him in that occupation"—
  1476
  not the promoted occupation—
  "had he not become a person to whom this Act applies."
  There have been during the last five years advances and increases in sliding scales, and we say that a man who comes back to the job he held when he joined up is entitled to all the advances that have been paid in that job while he has been away. That is my explanation of it, and I think I am right.
  Captain Duncan: This is a fundamental point in the Bill. Will the Minister explain it again?
  Mr. McCorquodale: I have already spoken once. The Minister is to reply, and he can deal with the point then.
  Sir I. Albery: I gather that the hon. Member is making the point that under the Bill an ex-Serviceman on his return will be less well off than he would have been under the old Act.
  Mr. Jones: I say that under the present law a man could claim to be reinstated in an occupation, not the occupation, on conditions and terms not less favourable than those that would have applied to him had he not joined up, but that is always qualified by the phrase "reasonable and practicable." I believe that something has been taken away by this Bill that the ex-Serviceman has under the present law. After the last war it was my lot on many occasions to reinstate men in the iron and steel industry and to demote men who had not been in the Services in order to give to the returned Servicemen the promoted jobs they would have had if they had not joined up. I am satisfied that in this Bill the Minister is introducing changes in the law in order to make it practicable that a man will be reinstated in his old job, that is to say, the job he was in when he joined up, and that he will have the full advantage of any betterment that might have taken place in that job while he was in the service. I am not a lawyer, but that is how I read the Bill after the discussions in which I have taken part for many months on various aspects of the Bill. I believe that my interpretation is right.
  Sir I. Albery: On a point of Order. Matters of the most important legal kind are being discussed and I think that a Law Officer of the Crown ought to be present to advise us.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: That is not, of course, a point of Order.
  Mr. Jones: May I refer to the question of payment for the job when men return and show how essential it is that Section 14 of the 1939 Act should be amended by this Bill. Take the case of apprentices in the engineering industry. The director of the Engineering Federation told me the other day that one member had had 200 apprentices join up. An apprentice serves for five years, and at 18 he has done two years of his period. He then enlists in the Services and serves, say, five years. He is 23 by the time he leaves the Service. Had he remained in civil employment he would at that age have been a journeyman for two years, and it is fairly obvious that we cannot expect any employer to guarantee an apprentice, who has done only two years of his training, the full craftsman's rate when he returns to his employment. I am not suggesting that the Clause deals with the question satisfactorily. Apprentices have to be dealt with on a totally different footing. The best people to deal with apprentices under this Bill are the employers' organisations and the trade unions. It will be possible for them to take into consideration, for instance, whether an apprentice while in the Army was attached to a technical unit and, if so, to make allowance for the time he was in such a unit.
  Reference has been made to the 26 weeks' employment. May I assure the hon. and gallant Member for Stafford that I belong to an industry where the termination of a contract is practically unheard of. In the whole of my 26 or 27 years' experience in the iron and steel trade of South Wales, I do not know of half a dozen dismissals. Men become attached to individual works and they remain there all their days. We must not, therefore, look upon employers as merely wanting to take these men back to their employment, satisfy the 26 weeks' requirement, and then throw them on the scrap heap. The newspaper which I have already quoted, after referring to the fact that every soldier must be reinstated, says:
  "If for any conclusive reason that job cannot be given, then compensation will be given instead."
  Mr. Ellis Smith: What newspaper is it?
  Mr. Jones: One of the national newspapers—not one of the hon. Member's
  1478
  papers. It is a pity that there should have been so much misleading of public opinion on this matter. Compensation under the Bill will only be paid if it is proved that it was reasonable and practicable for an employer to reinstate an ex-Serviceman and he failed to do it. The Bill does not guarantee reinstatement to every worker. It does not guarantee him a man's job if he was a boy when he enlisted. What is more, it does not guarantee him compensation if he is not reinstated. The whole effectiveness of the Bill will be decided by the definition which the Minister gives in Regulations to the words "reasonable and practicable." I like the suggestion that the Minister should produce for the information of the House a copy of the Regulations and that he will tell us in his reply what he thinks, ought to be the definition of these words.
  I know the difficulties that are bound to crop up. May I put two or three cases? Clause 5 lays down the basis of reinstatement and talks about the seniority rule. Is seniority in employment to be seniority in a department? Take a factory which has several specialist departments. A man is to be reinstated in a job, but he cannot be reinstated in the department he was in before and cannot be found alternative occupation in that department. It is, however, possible to find him alternative occupation in a different department of which he has experience. I want to know whether seniority of employment means seniority of employment in all departments or in the department in which the man was employed before? Take another case. I have in mind two steel works in South Wales owned by the same company. I know for certain that one of these works will be closed down within the next few weeks and that it will not be re-started after the war. The men employed by those works were employed by the same employer. Will the men who return from the Services, who had worked in the closed-down works, have the right to reinstatement in the other works across the road which are owned by the same employer? Does the phrase "former employment" mean the location of the business or the business of the employer?
  There is another case which is rather important to industry generally. A large number of industries never employed women before the war. In the iron and steel trade they were not generally em-

  1479
  ployed, and when it became necessary to find substitutes for some of the men who were called up we allowed women to be employed by agreement with the trade unions, and they have done a remarkably good job. It is clear to us now, that a steel works is not a place for a woman, any more than it is right to send women down a mine. Voluntary agreements with trade unions say that women shall not be in steel works after the war, yet the Bill gives to women rights of reinstatement within the industry, notwithstanding the fact that the employers and trade union leaders are in agreement that they should not be employed there. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will put that point to the Minister. Nobody has had greater experience than the Minister in these matters and I am sure that he will understand it at once. Employers and employees in the industry are very concerned about it.
  I, personally, believe that this is a workmanlike Bill, but it has its limits. It was never intended as a solution of the problem of unemployment, but was merely intended to put into workmanlike order the reinstatement Sections of the 1939–41 Acts of Parliament. It will need all the good will and toleration of employers and employed in the country, and a good deal of co-operation between the Trades Union Congress and the Employers' Confederation. I can, however, assure the House that the British Employers' Confederation are determined to do everything possible to see that the Bill is workable and not only to give the impression, but to make sure, that men who return from the Forces get a square deal. The men will be greatly disappointed that reinstatement is not possible for them all. It was suggested that the Bill should have been kept back until the Government have produced their big scheme on the subject of employment, but the problem with which the Bill deals arises every day now. For example, there was a case a few weeks ago of a sailor who had lost a leg and came back to drive the same crane which he had been driving before the war.
  We cannot afford to wait for the bigger Measure dealing with unemployment, but I hope that the Government are considering very seriously the big question, so that alternative employment may be found for
  1480
  these men. I am satisfied that the men in the Forces are seriously concerned about what is to happen to them when they come back. I am in regular communication with a very young commanding officer serving overseas with a technical unit. He tells me that the men with whom he works, and to whom he gives wonderful praise, show considerable concern as to their post-war employment and he appeals to me and to other Members of Parliament not to let those men down. In a letter a few days ago he said:
  "I have a slogan out here which all my lads understand. I count only deeds and not excuses."
  He reminds me that when the men come home they will count not in terms of excuses but only in terms of employment. I hope that the terms of the Bill will not be expanded to include civilians, because that will mean less chance for ex-Servicemen to get their jobs back. When the Bill is on the Statute Book, I hope that the Government will turn their very serious attention to the problem of unemployment which has continued for so long.
  Mr. Silverman: When this House adopted the Military Training Act some six months before the outbreak of war, everybody knew that, in all probability, before the six months' period of training contemplated by the Bill had expired, this country would be at war. It is not the case, as has been hinted in some of the speeches that we have heard, that circumstances have changed, and that what we are contemplating now is something different from what we contemplated then. One of the problems with which that Act purported to deal, and with which the House wanted it to deal, was this problem of reinstatement of work, at the end of the period of service, which everybody knew might be long. It dealt with the matter in a way which the Minister to-day has described as inadequate and illusory. Somebody interrupted the speech made from this side of the House just now to suggest that the Bill gave the returning soldiers less than they got under the other Measure. That, of course, is quite patent nonsense, and could not be suggested by anybody who had read both Bills. The only thing that anybody had any right to at all under the 1939 Act was one week's notice. When you looked at the phrases and added this, that and the other together, it was clear then, and after a

  1481
  lapse of some four years has apparently become clear to the Government, that that Measure gave a right to a week's notice, or to a week's wages in lieu of notice, and to nothing else in the wide world.
  The Bill before us may have its defects. It may not, in all its phrases, be quite clear. It may not cover every aspect of the problem. We are prepared to concede all that; but the Bill, even as it stands and without any improvements that we might seek to effect or succeed in effecting in Committee, will give to the great majority of those who return after the war the right to enter the employment that they left, on terms not less favourable to them than they would have enjoyed had they never left it, and security in that employment for at least six months. How anyone, in the light of those facts, can suggest that the returning soldier gets less under the Bill than he would have got under the other Measure, I just do not understand.
  A variety of Committee points has been raised. There is the question of whether something ought not to be done for large numbers of people who are not covered by the Bill. The hon. Gentleman who spoke just now thought it would be a mistake to widen the scope of the Bill to admit them, while other people think it would be most unfair not to do so and that all classes have equal rights. The question which I raised with the Minister was about boys drafted or directed into the mines. It may very well be too, as the Minister suggested, that I should look very carefully at the words of the pledges which were given. If I looked at them with a microscope I might find that this Bill was not any breach of a pledge. If that is so, the only result would be to make me think that the Minister had kept his promises in the letter but broken them in the spirit. I am certain that all the boys who were directed into the mines will be covered by the assurances then given that they would be in no sense worse off than if they had been directed into the Forces. All those are Committee points, and I hope that they will all be raised, with any other points that ought to be raised, in Committee in an attempt to improve the Bill, and I am certain that the Government will welcome helpful suggestions from any quarter of the House to make the Bill more workable, or more lucid where there is any ambiguity.
  1482
  It that were all, there need be only a very short Second Reading Debate. If the Debate has to be longer, it is because of the amazing speech made by the hon. and gallant Member for Stafford (Major Thorneycroft), speaking as he told us for a group of people. He suggested to me that I ought to have read "Forward by the Right" but I do not see why I should start off on the wrong foot. If I have not read, "Forward by the Right," I have read the Atlantic Charter and I know the assurances which have been given to the world about the new world that we are to get. By supporting the Bill, my hon. Friends are not relieving the Government of their obligations to provide a very different world after the war, and none of us are under any illusions that the Bill does it, or seeks to do it. I feel that the hon. and gallant Member knows that very well. He talked about trying to force 1944 into 1939. Of course, you cannot, and nobody believes that when the war is over the world will go back to what it was on 2nd September, 1939, as though all that has happened in the interval was a nightmare and that all we had to do was to open our eyes, forget it all, and take up our lives exactly where we left them then. Everybody knows that even if that were possible, we should be back at war within six months.
  Here is a Bill which attempts to do a difficult and limited job. The hon. and gallant Member says he does not warn it done, and he gave us three grounds or reasons of objection. I understand, by the way, that it was at one time his intention and that of his Friends to move the rejection of the Bill. He has not done that, but he has made a speech which, if he believes it, ought to have led him to urge the rejection of the Bill.
  Mr. McLean Watson: Perhaps he was thinking about the next General Election.
  Mr. Silverman: He was not thinking about the next General Election. He told us that he was not. His complaint about the Bill was that it was a swindle, although he did not like to use the word because of its unfortunate associations. How unfortunate the associations are we shall not know until to-morrow morning. He said that the Bill was politically expedient, and that we were all supporting it because it was so and because it was practically unworkable. He said he was

  1483
  against it in principle, and his principle was that you should not attempt to do part of a job until you were ready to do the whole job. Then he said he was against it because the Bill was unworkable on practical grounds, and then, if you please, he told us that he was against it on grounds of conscience. He thought it would be a most immoral thing to do. Why would it be an immoral thing to do? Because, he said, a pledge was given to give people their jobs back, but that this Bill does not give them their jobs back. I cannot feel what is in the hon. and gallant Member's mind. It seems to me that no one can make any sense out of the three grounds he gave for criticising the Bill.
  Supposing this Bill, either as it stands, or as it will be after it goes through Committee, does, in fact, carry out the pledge that was given, supposing it is workable, then you would have a Bill that carries out a pledge in a workable way. But the hon. and gallant Member would still be bound to reject it on principle. That is what he told us. Did he mean that? Did he really mean that this House ought not to carry out a pledge in a workmanlike manner because it was wrong in principle to do so? It does seem to me, and I say so with all respect, that there was an element of humbug about his speech. He invited that his speech should be brought to the notice of soldiers and sailors and airmen. Presumably, he wanted them to be told that this was a swindle. Did he really want them to be told this was a swindle? Did he want them to be told that the whole confederation of workers' organisations, on the one side, and employers' organisations, on the other, had come together, at great labour, to work out a scheme, and that a Government representing all shades of political opinion in this country had introduced that scheme into the House in legislative form in order to swindle the soldiers, the sailors and the airmen? The hon. and gallant Member makes a speech which commits him to opposing the Bill, even if it is shown that it carries out the pledge and that it carries it out in a workmanlike manner—and that seems to me to be the swindle. It would be very unjust and dishonest to say to the sailors, soldiers and airmen: "You are being swindled by the employers; you are being swindled by the
  1484
  trade unionists; you are being swindled by Parliament. I am the only honest man and I would not allow the pledge to be carried out in a workmanlike fashion, because I am against it in principle."
  It does seem to me that the little group of those who are becoming fashionably called "Young Tories" will have to think again, or they will never be much older Tories. It seems to me they are making a very bad start. They are justifying the taunts that were levelled at them from this side of the House only a few days ago. The hon. and gallant Member invites me and invites the public to read his pamphlet. He wants us to focus our attention on what they say and to ignore what they do. Their activities in this House are directed towards introducing as many snags and difficulties as possible even in the limited, piecemeal reconstruction legislation. How is that going to help anybody? How are you going to make a new world out of that? Heaven knows I have been, and still am, profoundly dissatisfied with the speed and the scope of the Government's proposed Measures for social reconstruction. I have taken the opportunity to criticise the Government, and that is a most unpopular thing to do, not only on one side of the House. I have done it because I thought it right to do it, and because I thought the public generally is not only ready and waiting, but gasping for some sign that the Government do understand what the times demand and are prepared to do something about it.
  What encouragement are they getting from my hon. and gallant Friend and his associates? Every time some little Measure is introduced they raise some snags in debate about definitions, or who is in or who is out, prolong the Debate and introduce as many political controversies as they can.
  Sir Alfred Beit: Is not that an improvement on the Committee stage which the hon. Member says he is going to give us in this Bill?
  Mr. Silverman: Yes, but as I said at the beginning of my speech—and I repeat it now—a great many Members have taken part in this Debate and have raised a great many points which I would like to see raised and dealt with in Committee. I may have one or two to raise myself. I do not think the Government will object

  1485
  to helpful constructive suggestions in Committee.
  Sir A. Beit: The hon. Member was just referring to certain improvements which were introduced by some of my hon. friends in the Committee stage of the Disabled Persons (Employment) Bill.
  Mr. Silverman: I also supported some suggestions on the Committee stage of that Bill, but I did not get my way about all of them. I am not sure I got my way about any of them, but I was prepared to combine with anybody who wanted to make a constructive suggestion. A great many of the suggestions which were made at that time were not constructive at all, and were not intended to be constructive. They were intended to be obstructive and were intended to use the broken bodies of the disabled in order to provide a platform for political debate. That is not reconstruction; that is not a new world. That is the same old Tory world all over again. New faces, new voices and new worlds, but the same old Tory swindle, the same old reactionary principles and nothing else.
  Perhaps I have spoken long enough, but I would like to repeat that we do not intend that this little Measure, which is intended to do all that can be done to implement a particular pledge and to deal with a particular limited situation as best it can, shall be regarded even as an instalment of general plans for social reconstruction. It is not intended to be that and it ought not to be discussed in that form. I only make the point because I think it is the right point to make in view of the speech that was made. I hope that, when the Committee stage comes, we will be able to co-operate in order to deal with certain difficulties which are there and will have to be dealt with and to decide matters which are still the cause of controversy, but, subject to that, I think everybody welcomes the Bill and congratulates the Government on having made an honest attempt to implement the pledge they gave.
  Captain Prescott: The hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Silverman) referred to new Tory faces. Mine is one of them, and I would ask the indulgence of the House for a maiden speech. May I say also that I am a young Tory in years if nothing else. I would commend to the House the Bill which is
  1486
  now before it. I would commend it in principle but at the same time I would venture, if I may, to offer one word of explanation and another of caution. First and foremost I am sure that everyone in this House desires that when the men and women now in the Services come back they shall be able to return not merely to their homes but so far as possible to the employment which had previously been their choice, and by which they had earned their livelihood. I am quite certain that whoever may have spoken to-day, and from whatever side of the House, the desire has been universal to repay the debt which in fact can never be repaid to those millions of men and women concerned.
  I confess that I, like many other people in this House perhaps, would have wished for more than we are in fact getting by this Bill. But it is something, and for my part I would welcome it, and I hope it will show to the men and women in the Forces that they are not forgotten by the Government nor are they forgotten by this House. But as has been said by the Parliamentary Secretary in introducing this Bill, it does not create employment. If I may use the term, it is really an "apportionment Bill," to apportion such employment as may be available after the war. I sincerely hope that before very long it will be possible for proposals to be put before this House implementing a policy of food, work and homes for all, because I venture to say, with diffidence, that if these problems are not tackled and solved in as satisfactory a way as is possible when peace comes, this Bill, despite the good intentions behind it, might prove an aggravation rather than otherwise.
  I do not want it to be thought that I speak with any personal interest in this Bill. I make no claim to gallantry, or to have done anything more than countless thousands have done in this war; I have done less. But as an officer who served, or tried to serve so long as he was permitted to do so, I would tell the House, if I may, of the very great concern which I know exists in England and overseas among men in the Services, who are repeatedly asking the question "What will happen to us when the war is over?" Therefore although I would ask for more, and I hope we may obtain more for these men to whom we owe so much more than much, I hope it will go out from this

  1487
  House as a message to them all and as a partial reassurance and show them that they are ever present in our minds.
  May I mention on this question of employment not merely the men and women in the Services but also those other countless millions who have run the country and have provided the implements of war without which, despite their valour, the Services would have been of no avail. In that respect may I, for example, mention an industry of which I have particular knowledge. It has made enormous sacrifices in the cause of the war effort; it has achieved very great results. It is possible that in the near future its efforts may not be required to the same extent, and indeed may possibly finish. There are with regard to that particular industry so far as I am aware, and I have made inquiries, no detailed plans, no detailed measures for ensuring that when the time comes it may pass from war production to its ordinary peace production. If steps are not taken, then not only would the employers be unable to fulfil their provisions under this Bill but there would be complete unemployment in that industry and many thousands would be thrown out of work.
  It is for those reasons that, while I support this Bill most fully—though I think probably from an administrative point of view there may be certain difficulties in working it—I ask that it may be considered in relation to the country as a whole, and to the plans for reconstruction of industry and full employment for all. May I thank the House for the patience with which they have listened to my maiden speech and the views I have put before them. They are not, I fear, very novel, but I feel them deeply. It has been said on the other side of the House by one hon. Member whose speech I listened to with great pleasure that he was a son of the people. There are fewer class distinctions these days than previously, I am glad to say; but for his information, and for the information of the House may I say that I also can make that claim, and while I take great pride in being a Member of this House I take even greater pride in representing a constituency which saw and aided the early struggles of my father.
  Mr. Owen Evans: It falls to my lot to congratulate the hon. and
  1488
  gallant Member who has just made his first speech to the House. I am very gratified to have heard him and to welcome him to the House. He has spoken fairly and reasonably and with brevity, and I am quite sure that the House will be very glad to listen to him again in the days to come. He struck what I consider to be the right note with regard to this Bill. He said he was interested in the Bill because he knew that members of the Forces were interested in their future after their return to civil life. It is for that reason that I welcome this Bill and support it.
  The President of the Board of Education in introducing his great Measure, the Education Bill, said it was the first of the Government Measures of social reform. Whether he meant it was first in order of time, or in order of importance, I do not know, but I think he must have meant it was the first of a series of Measures which the Government propose to introduce to deal with social and economic questions after this war is over. Among the important things, education is certainly fundamental but one other question of great importance is the question of employment. We have heard in Debates and in the Press that the application of the Beveridge Report will depend on the avoidance, to a large extent, of what is called mass unemployment. The Minister very modestly said in his speech to-day that this Bill does not profess to give any additional employment anywhere. That has been said also by a number of speakers, and it is quite true, but I venture to say that the machinery provided by this Bill to co-ordinate the employment of those men and women from the Services when they return to civil life is a necessary part of the organisation of employment in this country. It is an extremely important point. It does not increase, I suppose, by any amount, employment in this country but it does enable employers to know exactly what they have to look to when the men return from their Service occupation.
  As I look on it, the Bill is absolutely essential as a guidance and help to employers and as a means of directing those employers who would otherwise be inclined to leave things alone, or not to give due consideration to old employees who returned after the war. I listened with great interest to the very eloquent

  1489
  and forceful speech of the hon. and gallant Member for Stafford (Major Thorneycroft), and I think that that speech can be left entirely to be answered by the most able speech that we have heard from the hon. Member above the Gangway. It was amazing to me to hear anybody who describes himself and his group as being radical and progressive call this a bad Bill because it does not embrace all industrial and economic problems that are likely to arise after the war.
  I do not happen to belong to any employers' confederation or body of that sort, but in the industries with which I am connected we are very closely concerned with representatives of the trade unions. I took the trouble to send a circular to the heads of very large works in this country, to get their opinion on this Measure and on how it would work in administration. The replies I got pointed out various difficulties and some anomalies, but not one of them objected to the Bill as a whole. They all welcomed it, as making it easier for them to deal with the situation when a large number of men return. One of them, the head of a very large works from which 300 to 500 men have gone into the three Services, said that there was nothing in this Bill which they as a works would not have been prepared to do without any Bill, but even in their case, although they have a splendid organisation and a splendid understanding between the managements and the trade unions, he admitted that the Bill gives some guidance on how they should deal, for instance, with several people who have been doing the same job. I recognise that the points that these people made are Committee points and do not undermine the principle of the Bill, but, without exception, each put his finger on these difficult, rather vague words, which appear several times in the Bill, "reasonable and practicable." I hope that the Minister, in the Regulations, will try to explain what constitutes reasonableness and practicability. I know that those words have been in all kinds of legislation for many years, but I hope that the Minister will be able to define more clearly what they will mean in practice.
  Another point raised by those employers was that the Bill puts the obligation on the employer to employ a man on terms and conditions not less favourable than he would have had had he not joined the
  1490
  Forces. Nobody anticipates very great difficulty in the case of the ordinary workmen, the tradesmen or unskilled labourer; obviously, it means that where increases in wages or better conditions have been given in their classes of work they are entitled to the benefits of them. But we know that the position is different amongst the black-coated men and technical men on the staffs. In any great industry there is a big staff of research workers, chemists, metallurgists, and so on. It may be that one man is rejected for the Forces and is allowed to continue in the service of the company, and in the years that follow he makes great progress in his profession, he attends classes, and gets a degree. His colleague, who has gone into the Services, comes back after his discharge. What will his position be? He cannot be reinstated in the position that he might have occupied, the position occupied by his colleague, who has graduated. I am sure that the Minister will take the opportunity on the Committee stage to deal with these difficult problems of administration, and I do not propose to detain the House on them now. Speaking generally, I am sure that the bulk of employers will welcome this Bill as a guide. They would have carried out its principles anyway. Great preparations have been made, without this Bill, in many large industries, and they fully recognise their obligations to those who have served their country in this great crises.
  Sir Irving Albery: I have listened to most of the speeches, starting with that of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Stafford (Major Thorneycroft). I share many of the views which he expressed in criticism of this Bill. I have also listened to hon. Members who have spoken from the point of view of the employers, but my main concern is the point of view of the man who is serving overseas. I would not go so far perhaps as my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Stafford in declaring that this is a bad Bill, but from the point of view of the man serving the country overseas, I should certainly describe it as very disappointing. Most of those Members who have spoken for the employers have welcomed the Bill, but nearly all have said that they were actually making arrangements to do something better than what is provided in the Bill for the ex-

  1491
  Serviceman when he came home. I am sure that the average employer up and down this country is perfectly honest and will do all in his power to help ex-Servicemen when they come back. This Bill, in most cases, will help them to say, "I have done all I have been called upon to do, and probably something more beside."
  The Bill appears to me to be wrongly titled. Instead of being Reinstatement in Civil Employment, it should be Limitation of Obligation for Reinstatement in Civil Employment, because, in fact, that appears to me to be what it does. I should like the House to consider what this Bill really does. Consider the different classes of employer. Class 1 are those employers who desire, and are able, to give employment to all their employees when they return from the war. Class 2 consists of the employers who desire to give employment to all employees but who may not have vacancies, though in many cases they will make them and would actually employ their people, even if this Bill were never passed, in so far as they were employed before. They would do so purely out of a sense of loyalty to their own employees who come back from the war. The third class are those employers who will find it impossible to take back their employees. These three classes must cover the bulk of employers. Those who will take their men back, even when they have not got full employment, do not need to be compelled; those who cannot take them back cannot be compelled. That leaves practically only one class of employer—and I am sure they are a very small number in this country—those who could take them back and refuse to do it. They must be a very small quantity, and therefore it seems to me that to set up a whole lot of machinery, with committees, umpires—
  Mr. Lewis Jones: Is the hon. Member aware that there is a law of reinstatement already? You have got the 1939 and the 1941 Acts, and all this Bill does is to clarify them.
  Sir I. Albery: I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman. I do realise that there is already a law, but my complaint is not that the Government should do something to clarify existing law or simplify it, but that it appears to me that, in the present Bill, they are setting up a whole lot of
  1492
  cumbersome machinery which is entirely unnecessary. It might provide employment for the people mentioned in the Money Resolution and for the umpires, but I think this matter could be better approached from another direction. I do not think anybody could deny that, broadly speaking, it is the desire of employers all over the country to take back people who have gone to the war, and I suggest that if the Minister of Labour had gone to the big employers of labour in this country and asked them to give him an 80 per cent. guarantee, collective, not individual, but by associations, that they would arrange to take back everybody who came back from the war, he could have obtained that guarantee.
  One has to remember, unfortunately, that everybody will not be coming back. What I dislike intensely about this Bill is the impression it will give to the men overseas, very few of whom read the Debates in this House, that this House of Commons has passed the Second Reading of a Bill which really does confer upon them some advantage and greatly safeguards their position as regards re-employment after the war. I agree with my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Stafford that to a large extent, it will not work. When it comes to the question of the committees, I really do not understand how they will act, and I do hope the Minister, in his reply, will give his attention to that, and will make it clear to us how these committees are to decide when an employer can be forced to take on additional employees over and above those whom he thinks he can employ.
  Mr. Bowles: Surely the hon. Member must remember that, after the last war, a certain number of employers were rather scared of taking back men who had been successful in the Services and who had become captains, majors and even colonels, because of the fear of how they would behave in taking orders?
  Sir I. Albery: I must say I am not aware of the exact circumstances described. There are obvious difficulties. If somebody leaves as a junior clerk and comes back as a colonel, it is obvious he will not wish to be any longer employed as a junior clerk and there will be difficulties. As far as I know, employers will do their best in that direction and

  1493
  will be very glad to do it. A good deal of stress has been laid on the fact that those who have gone to the war, especially the younger men, have in many cases been deprived of essential training which would have justified their employment in the position to which they ought to be entitled. There is another side and a very important side. There is no doubt that many of the men who go to the war will have gathered, in the war, a very valuable experience which will certainly make them more valuable employees in many respects. I do not wish to say more except that I am disappointed in the Bill. My great fear is that it will convey to the men in the Forces that a guarantee and provision have been made for them to a much greater extent than is really the case under this Bill.
  Lieut.-Commander Gurney Braithwaite: May I offer very sincere congratulations to the hon. and gallant Member for Darwen (Captain Prescott), who I think is a real accession to the strength of the House and incidentally to our party. I welcome him the more as the successor to one who was greatly beloved by those who knew him and who fell in battle in the most honourable traditions of this House. The House welcomes this Bill, and its very publication has done much to relieve the anxiety existing throughout the Forces regarding the prospects of post-war employment. I agree, however, with the hon. and gallant Member for Stafford (Major Thorneycroft) who indicated that the label in the shop window is of a considerably more alluring character than the goods within. I feel that it is, nevertheless, necessary to stress the prerequisities which are essential if this Bill is to become anything more than a pious aspiration. Without being guilty of reopening a topic debated by the House last week, may I reiterate that men who earn their living on the land cannot be reabsorbed in the future unless the present position regarding the future of agriculture is speedily resolved?
  I wish to raise a practical problem with the Minister. As the House knows, officers of the Royal Naval Reserve are peace-time officers of the Mercantile Marine. To my personal knowledge, some of these gentlemen, who now have behind them four years of inestimable service to the country as commodores of
  1494
  convoys, have already received communications from the shipping companies which employed them in times of peace saying that, owing to heavy losses in their fleets, there will be no jobs for them on the cessation of hostilities.
  Those letters have already been received by the officers whom I have mentioned. Here is a real problem and I should be most grateful if my right hon. Friend the Minister, whose sympathy and good will no one can doubt, would tell us whether this matter has been under review and, if so, what solution the Government have in mind. Would it be possible to take over a number of the Liberty ships and run them under the Ministry of War Transport, which, one hopes, by that time, will have become the Ministry of Peace Transport, making use of these R.N.R. officers for the purpose? This difficulty calls for solution without delay, so that detailed plans can be completed long before the fighting ends. I think I gather a muttered query by the Minister as to whether I am suggesting that these should be run under Government ownership. I am not interested as long as these officers get ships in which to sail. That conforms, I think, even to the views of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Stafford.
  I have one more point to make and one only before I sit down, and I hope that I shall not be accused of what the hon Member for Stoke (Mr E. Smith) called quibbling, if I put it to the House. He rather indicated that those who criticised the Bill were the enemies of progress and were acting in a manner detrimental to those who are fighting. I think he will agree with me that this is a real point. Resettlement, rehabilitation and reinstatement are admirable objectives but they are not enough. There are large numbers of special cases in which reinstatement is in one sense actually undesirable. I refer to those young men, mostly secondary school boys, who come into the Services from dog's body and blind alley occupations and who have made good as executive officers, having for the first time had the opportunity of displaying the great qualities of leadership which were latent in them in their school days. I suggest to my right hon. Friend and to the House that it is not in the national interest that these men should return to those same blind alleys from whence they came.

  1495
  The solution of the problem seems to be administrative rather than legislative but the Second Reading of the Bill appears to be the best opportunity to place on record my hope that the Ministry of Labour will build an adequate pipeline from the Forces, through commanding officers or some other machinery, by which their Appointments Department, an excellent institution which possesses great possibilities if energetically conducted, will be supplied with the names of men whose executive and administrative achievements entitle them to become leaders of this nation in the paths of peace as well as amidst the havoc of war. If the Ministry of Labour works through the Appointments Department, which I have had the opportunity of visiting and which appears to be an excellent piece of machinery, if energetically operated, there should be an opportunity for these men who have made good as leaders on the field of battle. Do not send them back to the blind alley from whence you called them up. I should be grateful if my right hon. Friend, in replying to the Debate, would gave an indication of the intentions of the Government in this matter. I shall not detain the House any longer as others wish to speak, but these observations express my support of the Second Reading of the Bill and the hope that it will enjoy a smooth, rapid and improved passage to the Statute Book at the earliest possible moment.
  Mr. McLean Watson: Like most hon. Members who have spoken I welcome the Measure now before the House. The Minister of Labour has done a very good job during the last few weeks in introducing two Measures of considerable importance, the one dealing with the rehabilitation of disabled men, not only in the Forces but in industry, and the other this Measure, which is for the re-employment of ex-Servicemen and women. I am glad that the hon. and gallant Member for Stafford (Major Thorneycroft) has not had the enthusiastic support from his own side that he expected. There has been a softening down of the tone on the other side since the speech he delivered earlier in the Debate, and perhaps it is just as well, as the impression that would have been created outside, and especially in the Forces, would have been very bad for
  1496
  him and those with whom he is associated. Those who are at present serving are very concerned, as they have been throughout the period of the war, as to what may happen to them when the war is over and they are demobilised. Many of them have recollections of what happened after the last war and are hoping that they may not have the same experience that their fathers or relatives had at that time.
  Some objection has been raised from the other side to the complicated machinery under this Measure. If the machinery outlined in the Measure had not been there, there would have been very strong criticism from hon. Members opposite because there was no machinery with which to deal with the problem, but because the Minister is setting up machinery for dealing with the problem, objection has been taken to his action. We have been told that if the Minister of Labour had gone to the big employers in this country he would have found them very willing to have re-employed ex-Service personnel without all the complicated machinery proposed under the Bill. There is no complicated machinery under the Bill. It is very simple machinery and I believe it will be very effective. It will certainly rid us to a large extent of the problem which arose after the last war, when we trusted to the patriotism of employers to take back their workers. That war had not ended very long before ex-Service men, as well as those who had not served in the Forces, were to be found in queues at the employment exchanges. There was no patriotism then and no question of patriotic employers employing them; they were simply told there was no employment for them. The same sort of thing may happen after this war. We do not know, but it will depend very largely upon the steps taken by the Government to ensure full employment.
  If the provision of full employment is the policy of the Government and they are determined that we are not to have unemployment, then, as far as hon. Members on this side of the House are concerned, the Government will receive all the assistance we can give to ensure that neither ex-Service men and women nor those who have been serving in, perhaps, a minor capacity, if one can refer to the essential industries of war as being minor services, will be unemployed as was the case after the last war. The Government

  1497
  are to be congratulated, if we compare this Government with the Government at the close of the last war, on giving some thought to these problems. Demobilisation did not seem to trouble the Government which we had at the close of the last war. Then, if men could not find employment there was a place for them in the queues at the employment exchanges. This Government are taking some thought on the matter and are making preparations.
  In the Measure before us to-day we have at least a sincere attempt to deal with the problem. Like some hon. Members who have spoken, we admit that this is not a complete solution; it cannot possibly be, because some of the occupations that we had before the war started have gone. There can be no question of reinstating ex-Service men in employment that has gone. There will be other difficulties. Very considerable employments have been created for the purposes of the war, but these will go when the war finishes unless we have what hon. Members on the other side seem to contemplate—and this seems to be a sort of safety valve in their minds—very considerable Armed Forces, a large standing Army, a large Navy, a large Air Force. We have been told over and over again from the other side of the House that we will not be as unprepared for the next war as for this war, and the intention is to retain large Armed Forces. I daresay that hon. Members on the other side are banking on these large Armed Forces keeping men from industry who would otherwise be clamouring for jobs. We heard from the other side of the House that there will be no demobilisation this time as there was last time, so that there is not the need for the machinery set up in this Bill for dealing with the reinstatement of ex-Service personnel, because there will not be so many to reinstate. Will there not? I think there will.
  The Minister of Labour is to-day introducing this Measure, but once he was introducing another piece of legislation, to conscript labour and to get the power to transfer labour from one industry to another just as he wished. That power is in his hands to-day; all he requires to say is that a transfer is in the national interest and it is sanctioned. But when the Minister comes along with a Measure of this kind, not to take individuals out of industry and put them into the Armed Forces or into some other occupation, but
  1498
  to reinstate them in civilian occupations, we have an outcry from the other side of the House about bureaucracy, interference with private enterprise, and not trusting the employers to do the right thing when the time comes. It is well that the Government are looking ahead in this matter, and I congratulate them on having introduced this Measure.
  Like many others I would have preferred something much more comprehensive, but, at any rate, this is an indicaton that the Government are willing to go along step by step, and, even if they have not produced their whole scheme, we have to welcome a Measure of this kind so long as it is going in the right direction. We want the Government's whole plan, we want to know what they intend to do with the industries of this country, so that we shall have some idea of the number of men and women either in civil occupations or coming back from the Forces who will be absorbed into those industries. But that the Government have not produced their whole plan to-day is no justification for refusing to pass the Measure now before us. Therefore I welcome it. It may be true that in Committee we shall have to amend it in certain particulars, but I daresay the Minister will be willing to consider constructive Amendments that may be moved. On the general principle, however, there should be no question of this House giving a Second Reading to a Measure which is going to reinstate in civil life men and women who are serving in the Forces.
  Major Manningham-Buller: I have listened to the speeches coming from hon. Members opposite, and the speech of the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Silverman) did not appear to me to do full justice to the speech made by the hon. and gallant Member for Stafford (Major Thorneycroft). I have read this Bill with some care. When I read its Title I thought, at last we have got a Bill which will clear up the confusion which has existed since the passing of the National Service Act with regard to the reinstatement of ex-Service men. By the use of the word "reinstatement" I am quite sure that the majority of Service people will think that it means something which is going to apply to them all—all those in the Forces, not just a particular section of the Forces—and I went on to read the Bill hoping that it would carry

  1499
  out that object. I do not want to engage in any form of party politics, but I must admit that when I read through the Bill I was greatly disappointed with the machinery which the Parliamentary Secretary and others have chosen to describe as workmanlike.
  It does not seem to me that this Bill, with its high object—which certainly has my fullest support—really goes far enough to achieve very much, and it was in that connection, as I understood it, that the hon. and gallant Member for Stafford made some reference to the words "attempted swindle" because, if this Bill goes through and the report gets abroad not only throughout this country but the world that this Bill contains something for every serving man, contains a valuable right for him, and if he comes home and find it does not, those will be the words that he will use. I did not understand that my hon. and gallant Friend was making any accusation against the Minister or the Parliamentary Secretary, or impugning the objects of the Bill but trying to guard against the misunderstandings which might arise in the future and which might have very unfortunate repercussions. May I say why, although I support and welcome the Bill, I regret that it does not go further than it does? First of all it makes no provision at all for the mass of young people who have never been in any employment. It makes no provision at all for those whose employers have had to shut down their industries.
  The only persons in the Forces to whom this Bill can apply are those who have the good fortune to come back and find their employers still carrying on the same sort of business, and even upon that small section of our serving men this Bill does not confer very much, because it has been said from all sections of the House that the majority of employers will do all they can without any Bill to provide for their own old employees among the ex-Service men. It has been said by the hon. Member below the Gangway who welcomed this Bill, that it is one which had been approved by the employers he had consulted. Those principles could equally well have been declared in a White Paper without any Bill whatever. This Bill can only apply to the small number of what I do not hesitate to call black sheep employers who are not pre-
  1500
  pared to fulfil their moral obligations to their former employees.
  What sort of right does it give to the former employed ex-Service man against such an employer? He has to make an application. "The Parliamentary Secretary said he would be provided with a form at the demobilisation centre and perhaps he will be supplied with an Explanatory Memorandum and a copy of the Bill. If the soldier is going home on four weeks' leave one can imagine what he will do with that paper. But supposing he studies it and sends in his application for a job, the best job which it is reasonable and practicable for his employer to give him. His employer may have a different view from that of the employee as to what is reasonable and practicable. Suppose there is then an appeal to a reinstatement committee and then to the umpire. How long will elapse and what will the ex-Service man live on between the time of his application and the final determination of his right? It seems to me that a long period may result and that one quite possible effect of this Bill—I hope I am wrong—is that instead of creating active good will between employer and employed it will do exactly the reverse.
  Take the case of two solicitors' managing clerks, who have worked alongside each other, have joined up together and have been demobilised at the same time. Suppose one is reinstated as a managing clerk by one firm and the other is given the lower position of third clerk in the adjoining firm. That may lead to a great deal of bitterness between employers and employees and not to that active good will which the Parliamentary Secretary said was a condition precedent to the real fulfilment of what is the object of us all. I would like to make it quite clear that although I share to a considerable extent the views put forward by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Stafford I am not one of those to whom the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Silverman) was correct in referring to as a member of the Tory Reform Committee. I support him to a considerable extent but not out of any connection with that Committee. I hope that on the Committee stage of this Bill we shall be able to make it a good Bill and that in our efforts to do so we shall not be accused by hon. Members opposite of seeking to play

  1501
  party politics. The most vital thing of all is that this Bill should not be represented and exaggerated by hon. Members opposite, so that those who are not in this country to-day should think that it confers on them rights far greater than, in fact, it does.
  Lieut.-Colonel Sir Ian Fraser: I do not take the despondent view which some Members have taken of this Bill. I think it was necessary to have this Measure now, because men are beginning to come out of the Services and employers who want to do the right thing find themselves in some difficulty and are glad of the guidance which the Bill affords. I think the Bill is well drafted and to the ordinary man means what it says, and that the Parliamentary Secretary presented it well to the House. I wish it a good passage and, subject to minor Amendments, a swift way on to the Statute Book. Having said that, I am bound to add my voice to the Debate, not by way of criticism of the Government's proposals but by way of eliciting from the Government answers to two or three important questions. It must not be supposed by our people or by our ex-Service men and women—and I would like the Government to make it clear that they do not wish it to be so supposed—that this Bill is anything more than a very small and limited Measure to clear up difficulties about reinstatement and to give guidance in a very limited field. Under no conditions can this Measure solve more than part of the problem of seeing that ex-Service men and women come back to a job.
  I hope that the Parliamentary draftsman, in using the word "reinstatement" did not seek to limit the Bill closely to the question of placing a particular person in his old job. I hope that the word "reinstatement" in the Title of this Bill means, broadly, the rehabilitation, the bringing back and the getting back into civil life of our men and women in the Forces. On that assumption I invite the Minister, on the Committee stage, to consider an Amendment which will declare a wider and a necessary policy on the part of the Government to meet the needs of those who, as I read the Bill, are not being catered for at present. They are, for instance, the men who did not have jobs before the war because they were at school or college or
  1502
  were unemployed. They cannot have a personal right of reinstatement in a particular place, but I think the nation and the House would say that they have a right of reinstatement in civil life in the broad sense of that word, and to go back to civil life on the road they were travelling before. If reinstatement does not mean that, then the Minister ought to find a new title or a sub-title which does mean that, so that we may secure for people serving in the Forces what the nation would wish them to have and what they think they ought to have—the right of prior place for a job.
  What does that mean? Where a man has personal reinstatement rights for a particular place he must face the fact that somebody may have to be put out of a job to give him that right. That is an unpleasant fact that must be faced. The provision of a preference in employment for ex-Servicemen and women does not mean putting people in general out of jobs. It would be a bad thing that that should take place. What it does mean is exercising a discretion in the Ministry of Labour to see that the people coming back from the Armed Forces, who have not personal rights of reinstatement, are first offered to employers when they have vacancies. There is nothing new about this. It is familiar to the Minister, it has been familiar to other Ministers for 20 years, and I am glad to say that the right hon. Gentleman has now sanctified it by putting into a recent Bill a Clause which gives it statutory form. I submit that the Government should put a similar new Clause into this Bill, so that it may be known to ex-Service men, first, whether they have a personal right to a particular place under this Bill, which offers that right in a reasonable and practicable form, and that, secondly, where they have not that personal right Parliament says that they shall have the right of getting a job. When the Minister replies to the Debate I hope he will tell us either that he will consider some enlargement of the Measure upon these lines or that this Bill is only a piece of machinery designed to cover a limited sphere and that it is the Government's intention to bring in a wider Measure proclaiming the general preference for which I have asked.
  Captain Duncan: I look at this Bill more from the point of view of the local welfare officer, or the

  1503
  Citizens Advice Bureau, or the ordinary company officer in India, Burma or Italy. He hears something on the B.B.C. or gets some leaflets from the Army stating that the Reinstatement in Civil Employment Bill is being introduced into Parliament. The Bill affects a very large number of people. I have no idea of the exact numbers but should I be very wrong in suggesting 12,000,000? All soldiers, sailors and airmen are interested in the problem. Soldiers overseas particularly are afraid that they will be disillusioned, in the same way as soldiers in many cases after the last war were disillusioned.
  If I were asked by a soldier what were the chances of employment for him under the Bill I should have to say, "You must have been employed by your former employer for four weeks before you joined up. You must be lucky enough to have been the first man holding that job to go. Your duty when you are discharged from the Army is to report before the fifth Monday after your discharge in writing to say that you are available for the job. If your employer, who has no obligation to reply, does not reply, in another three weeks you write again and, as far as one can make out, the employer again has no obligation to reply, so you go on writing every 13 weeks and hope for the best." That is as far as the Bill goes at the moment in regard to getting a job. Then what sort of job can he get? In accordance with Clause 1 (1, a) the employer is supposed to take him into
  "the occupation in which the applicant was last employed by the former employer before the beginning of his war service and on terms and conditions not less favourable to him than those which would have been applicable to him in that occupation had he not become a person to whom this Act applies."
  If that is not available, according to paragraph (b), such other occupation in the same line of business as would be reasonable and practicable. Is the soldier really going to be satisfied with that?
  That is not all, because there are a number of other limiting provisions, notably in Clause 5 (2), which go to limit the need for the employer to give the soldier work. I am almost suspicious of the number of employers who have spoken welcoming the Bill, notably the hon. Member for West Swansea (Mr. L. Jones), who tried to make out that Clause 1 (1, a) did not mean what the Minister explained
  1504
  that it did mean. In other words, he tried to make out that, if a chap goes to the war as a young man and comes back wanting a job, he is to be given the same job, whether he was an apprentice or not, as he had had before the war. The Parliamentary Secretary was asked whether that was the right meaning or not and he distinctly said that it should be in the same grade of occupation that he would have been entitled to had he not been in the Service. In other words, if he had been an office boy or a junior clerk when he left and in five years he would have been entitled to become a senior clerk, he would have been entitled to a senior clerk's job. That is the way I read it and that is the way the Parliamentary Secretary explained it. Again, there will be all sorts of difficulties in deciding what is reasonable or practicable. For these reasons I suggest that the Bill is potentially useful to 12,000,000 but in fact it will be of very little use at all. It will not be of the slightest use to those who have already been promised their jobs back in any case. It will not be of the slightest use to those whose previous jobs have come to an end because a factory has closed down. It is of no use to the small shopkeeper, because he is his own employer and he does not come into the picture. It boils down to this, that it is only of use to an employer who does not want to take him back—a frightfully small section of the population.
  Are we to have this elaborate machinery to deal with, say, 20,000 cases? I believe it is necessary to have a Bill to deal with this small category of people—recalcitrant employers—but is it necessary to have these reinstatement committees and umpires and all the other elaborate machinery? It would be very much simpler if we could deal direct with the Minister and if he had powers of direction.
  I intensely dislike Clauses 8 and 9. For the purposes of determining the questions and making the orders, reinstatement committees can do this, that and the other.
  "Any order made by reinstatement committees shall be binding on the employer and an order requiring that there shall be paid to the applicant by way of compensation for any loss suffered or likely to be suffered by him by reason of the default a sum"
  not exceeding in any event the amount of the 26 weeks' wages can be enforced by

  1505
  the reinstatment committee. I do not like that sort of thing, because it takes away from Parliament the right to question the Minister on these difficult cases. The reinstatement committee is an independent body. Admittedly the Minister appoints them, but the Minister's answer will always have to be that the reinstatement committee has considered it and it has been referred to the umpire, whose decision will be final, and therefore the Minister has no right to intervene. That is wrong, because these cases will be very few but they will be just the sort of case which will be brought before Members in their constituencies and it is all the more important that we should have the right to question the Minister or, if necessary, raise the matter on the Adjournment or on the Minister's salary. If we are going on with the Bill we ought to amend the machinery so that the doings of the reinstatement committees can be reviewed in Parliament and the Minister made answerable for them.
  The Bill will be a disappointment to very many serving men. They had hoped for something different. We all realise the difficulties of employers in view of the revolutionary situation that has occurred in industry since 1939. We do not want it to go out to the serving men overseas or at home, who do not read Acts of Parliament and what the Parliamentary Secretary said, that this is a Reinstatement in Civil Employment Bill when it really is not in fact and applies to only a very few serving men. Let us amend the Bill and make it a better Bill if the Minister will not take it back and do it himself.
  The Minister of Labour (Mr. Ernest Bevin): I regret that there has been an attempt to utilise this Debate to import into the Bill from the point of view of the serving man and woman something that it was never intended to do. May I first deal with the situation as it is? Parliament on that fateful day in September, 1939, took a Section from the Military Training Act which had been passed earlier and put it direct into the National Service Act without any machinery to give effect to it. I do not criticise this in the light of the circumstances at that moment. I am responsible for the administration of this Act, and what astonishes me is that Members who have spoken to-day have not appreciated that it is in operation
  1506
  now and that it is not an Act only to be operated when demobilisation generally takes place. The hon. and gallant Member for Stafford (Major Thorneycroft) has talked as if no men were coming out of the Army now. They are coming out every day, and I am faced every day with the problem of what employers' obligations are now—not what they will be when the war ends.
  I would say to the hon. and gallant Member in all kindness and friendliness that this is a Coalition Government, and he cannot claim the liberties that he claimed to-day and keep a Minister on a lead. If he is going to attack me as he attacked me to-day, I will not say anything much to-day—out of kindness to him, and I will have regard to his youth, to his inexperience and to his overdeveloped ego—but if he does it again I shall claim the liberty to reply in the same language that he applied to me as a Minister. I do not want to do it, because I have a frightfully delicate job to do and a very heavy responsibility, and I am not playing the party game in this Coalition. I undertook to the Prime Minister to try to see this war through and to do one of the most delicate jobs that any Minister undertook. It is no good to tell me that I am honest and straight and that you do not criticise me, and then go on to infer that I am introducing a dishonest Bill. I am dealing with men who are fighting in every field in this war, and that sort of thing will not do. I will not make any further comment now, but I shall not submit to it again. I hope that we shall not have criticism of that sort of any Measures—Measures for which the Cabinet, not I, are responsible. The Government have considered this thing in all its aspects and have authorised me to present this Bill. I have had the most unfortunate experience of some of my own party voting against me at times and criticising me seriously, but no one can ever say that I have kicked the ball into my own net since I have been in this Coalition.
  Sir I. Albery: Will the right hon. Gentleman really explain exactly what he is complaining of? I heard the speech of the hon. and gallant Member for Stafford (Major Thorneycroft). It was perfectly in Order and there was nothing personal about it. I have heard many speeches directed against Ministers, and occasion-

  1507
  ally against the Prime Minister, which could have given just as much cause of complaint as anything said to-day. What are the threats which the right hon. Gentleman is making?
  Mr. Bevin: There was a reference to a letter sent to the Brighton constituency. It was perilously near accusing me of introducing a Bill which, as applied to the Forces, is a swindle, and I resent that very much. I am trying to play the game with everybody, and I say that, however clever these speeches may be, it should be remembered that there are thousands of men outside who place an implication upon that sort of thing. I say to my young Tory friends that they had better be briefed better from the young Tory office. I leave it at that.
  This Bill is intended to straighten out, and no more than that, the unfortunate legal complication which was introduced at the moment and under the pressure of the declaration of war in 1939. I have not attempted to do anything else. May I remind the House that this question has been put to me over and over again, and perhaps I may quote from some of the answers I gave in 1941 when dealing with the extension of the Conscription Acts and the direction of labour. My hon. Friend the Member for Holland with Boston (Mr. Butcher) put some Questions to me, and I do not depart from the answers to-day. On the general question of reinstatement for everybody, he asked me whether I would take steps to cause the re-employment of workers at the conclusion of the service to which they were directed. I said that I had no power to issue directions for that purpose. Supplementary questions were asked, but the vital point is this. I said:
  "I am bound to say that the way in which my mind is moving is that there should be acceptance of a general social obligation."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 9th October, 1941; col. 1095, Vol. 374.]
  That is on the whole question of resettlement and on the point, where reinstatement is not possible, that these people have been directed out of their normal lives into some other life to serve the war purposes, but the industries are not there and the circumstances have so changed that they cannot be re-employed. I stand where I stood in 1941 when I in-
  1508
  troduced that difficult and delicate Measure to conscript women, when I said that the State cannot escape its social obligations for the re-employment and the proper succour of these people. From that I do not depart. I have never attempted in this Bill to deal with that. At the proper time the whole question of how to deal with demobilised men and women will be dealt with in this House, but not on this Bill. At that moment the Government will reveal their methods and proposals for dealing as a whole with the re-settlement in civil life of those who are serving in the Forces and not only in the Forces but in the Merchant Navy and, in addition, the people who have been, as one hon. Member put it to me, taken out of good jobs and put into inferior jobs in this war. I would like to say how glad I am that this has been acknowledged in this House now, because it has been assumed that everybody put on munitions went into a much better job. In many cases nothing of the kind happened. Some people have paid a very big price to help this country in very difficult circumstances.
  That side of the matter has to be dealt with under a general, comprehensive scheme. If private enterprise or private employment cannot fill the bill to give employment, the argument between private employment and State employment goes West. Employment has to be found by somebody; it has to be provided, because we can never again leave people in a state of demoralisation. I think that on that point we are on common ground. That is the comprehensive method, and I think hon. Members will find, as the pattern unfolds itself in the work we are doing, that the Government will not have very much to be ashamed of in the preparations they are making. I know that it is very easy to say: "Why have the Government taken so much time to deal with this or that problem?" Believe me, Sir, the problems are not easy. It is so easy to write a report and, as I have discovered to-day, it is so difficult to draft a Bill. It is so easy to argue before a judge what a Bill means. I would have the House remember that I am an amateur K.C.—and I won, whether I deserved it or not, anyway. If I may say so in passing, that was the only time I ever blacklegged. I asked my opponent, who was a K.C., if he could give me the union rules. He said they had only one, which was,

  1509
  "Never try to take more than the client has got."
  Most of the points raised to-day are, in the main, Committee points. I shall welcome a discussion in a friendly spirit in Committee. May I deal with one or two fundamental things? First, I would select machinery. It was said by the last speaker that only 20,000 or 30,000 people may be affected. That is not correct. I cannot give hon. Members the numbers that are in the Forces now, because I dare not reveal them. We had, roughly, 1,750,000 unemployed at the time when war was declared. That means that if you take the proportion of unemployed at that time to the employed the number of people actually without jobs when they entered the Services will not be more than about 150,000. So the rest must have had a job somewhere. I only draw that illustration to show the magnitude of the task, which has been accentuated during the progress of the war. Some employers under the interpretation of the present law have an obligation to as many as a dozen men for one job. That is an impossible situation. It is not a question whether you can take them back, but of what is the right thing to do.
  They have another problem. Men have been in the Army or the Services, have come back and been released to Class W reserve, gone to another employment and are now back in the Army. All this manipulation of man-power that has gone on during the war has brought about the most difficult complications, which cannot be dealt with under the present law. What did we do? I remember sitting in the Gallery of the old House of Commons many years ago and listening to a Debate on industrial agreements and industrial legislation, and I shall never forget something which was said by Lord Robert Cecil in taking part in that Debate. A certain legal gentleman had been criticising industrial arrangements as illogical and ill-defined, and a phrase that always stuck in my mind came from Lord Robert Cecil, and it was: "That is why they work." It is so true. The basis of collective action and collective agreements in this country is not precise definition in precise legal language, but the good spirit and good understanding which are behind them. I did not want a law that could not be carried out, so what did I do? I went to the employers, the trade unions and all sorts of other people of a represen-
  1510
  tative kind. The question was never raised about anybody wanting to avoid the obligation. That question has never arisen at all in any of the discussions. What has arisen is, how to carry the obligation out.
  I ventured the idea of the reinstatement committee. Committees of this kind may be ridiculed, but they have done a grand job in this war. If hon. Members knew the amount of legal trouble that has been saved in the administration of the National Service Acts and the good will created, through the independent chairman and the two assessors, they would realise that committees have helped to carry on this war to a most amazing extent. I resorted to that idea. I think that when we get into Committee hon. Members will not find precise legal language to carry out the obligation. I turned and rested on three things. The first was that, over the great area of British industry, the State and local authorities, there is a body of people who want to do the job of reinstating. Secondly, I have, on the trade union side, an opinion and a desire not only to reinstate and absorb, but to make up the training of men, in order to get them back into their jobs. That is a great spirit. Thirdly, I have a public opinion that is determined to see the right thing done.
  On those three bases I have tried to invent the most simple machinery, without the Press blaring and making a stunt of it, or anything of that kind. In the ordinary room where these fellows meet, if they do not comprehend the legal terms, there may be three or four employers and trade unionists there who will say: "Well, it wasn't quite within the law" and somebody else will say: "At any rate, we'll find a job for him." I have to work very largely on that basis, in order to work smoothly. I am confident that it will work that way in the future. If hon. Members ask me to put everything down in precise legal terms in the Bill, then I am afraid I must say that I cannot do it. Another point raised has been about this awfully vexed question of regulations, which has almost become as historic as King Charles's head. It will apparently be coming up on every Bill.
  Hon. Members: Hear, hear.
  Mr. Bevin: I knew I would get a cheer for that. I am not very keen about regulations at all under this Bill. In

  1511
  fact I will make this confession to the House: I did not put the provision in the original draft at all, but in the discussions I have had over a wide field of industry I have found that they are a little afraid of case-made law, a little afraid of every principle having to go to the umpire and then getting into a legal tangle. I have put this regulation proposal in the Bill to meet industry, not to meet the Minister at all. It is difficult to get case-made law to meet every kind of circumstances, and it was represented to me that I ought to take power to make regulations so that as the reinstatement committees get to work and the cases are thrown up reasonable regulations can be made, not too rigid, as a guide in settling these difficult problems. It is only in this sense that the idea of such regulations has come in this Bill.
  Mr. Graham White: I apologise for intervening, I do not often interrupt, but did I understand the Minister to say that he had submitted some sample regulations to somebody?
  Mr. Bevin: No.
  Mr. White: Would it be possible for him to submit to the House before we are through with the Bill some examples of the regulations he has in mind?
  Mr. Bevin: I am in doubt about this. I am in the hands of the House, but if hon. Members wish to press it, I do not know quite how to meet the point. It is this term "reasonable and practicable." I do not want to take advantage of that, and to give no guide to the reinstatement committees at all. It was suggested that in the working of these reinstatement committees a set of general propositions would come up out of experience and then, instead of having to get amending legislation at that time, I should have the power to make regulations born out of experience. I shall be taking a leap in the dark if I am asked to define these regulations before I know the kind of case I am to deal with precisely. It is very difficult to be able to say to the House that this or that is the precise form of regulation I shall want.
  I am making a frank statement to the House. I am making this proposal to take power to make regulations should they be necessary. As far as I humanly
  1512
  can I prefer to work through guidance, but what it is desired to avoid, I repeat, is too much case-made law and umpire decisions whereby you are absolutely tied and cannot vary a principle at all. When we get to the Committee stage we might be able to analyse that a little more closely, but at the moment I only inform the House that it was really the wishes of those with whom I have been negotiating. I tried in this Bill, as far as I could, to build it up without any regulations of this kind at all, and I leave that to some of my colleagues in the Cabinet to face probably when other Bills arise.
  I was particularly interested in the speech of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Darwen (Captain Prescott), and I, too, congratulate him on his maiden speech. The point he made about the rehabilitation of particular industries is a matter to which the Government are giving very careful consideration, but again, if I may say so to him with respect, it does not quite arise on this particular Bill, but I think there will be opportunities later to meet that point.
  I was asked a question as to why we had inserted the four weeks in the Bill and not a longer period. Under the present law it is 14 days. If the man had been only in employment a day the obligation applies but it points to the necessity of this Bill that one of the difficulties I have had to face in dealing with returning soldiers, not with the big industries—do not think I am making a general charge, but you have an awful lot of sharp people in this world who are not too patriotic—I found that when certain employers discovered that they were under an obligation to reinstate they immediately sacked the man when I sent out the enlistment notice. By putting the date back four weeks I caught that clever trick by the neck. I hope the House will agree with me in doing it.
  In considering this point, as the hon. Member for Stockport (Sir A. Gridley) will appreciate, I was in a frightful difficulty with two types of labour. One was the building and civil engineering trades, the other was bodies like the dockers and others of that kind who were in casual employment, and had no employer, so to speak. What we have done in the case of the casual employments which have since become pools—and this deals very largely with the point raised by my hon. Friend about the Merchant Navy—is that we

  1513
  have made the pool the employer under this Bill in the case of docks and so on in order that where casual labour has been wiped out and a corporate body or organisation has come into existence in the meantime, although the employer may have disappeared in the case of that particular industry and a pool has taken the employer's place, then the man has the automatic right to be reinstated in the pool.
  Lieut.-Commander Gurney Braithwaite: Immediately on demobilisation?
  Mr. Bevin: Yes, Sir, that is as far as we can go. That does not deal with the problem raised on the more difficult side, regarding the reinstatement in particular firms. I sympathise with the R.N.R. and I have discussed the question with a number of men, as my hon. Friend knows. I know a good many of the captains and others who went gallantly to the R.N.R., and they come to me and discuss their position. I give this undertaking that when the general question of looking after these men arises I personally will watch their interests with very great care and see that if there is a hiatus in time, between their demobilisation and the provision of ships for them to sail in, they are not let down. I have the greatest possible sympathy both for them and the men who have done what they have done in that sphere. In that I am sure every colleague of mine in the Cabinet will be ready to respond to find a solution to the problem. I think I have dealt with the four weeks difficulty, but in Committee I will look into any point that hon. Members may raise on which there should be further consideration.
  I have been asked about the men who have already come back and have been employed. Ought I to make this Bill retrospective? I was a little nervous about retrospective legislation: hon. Members have had rather violent views about it; but in so far as the Ministry of Labour, by direction to another job, have prevented a man from going back to his old job, he is protected under a Defence of the Realm Regulation, preserving his rights. Such men will be protected under this Bill. I am quite willing to look into the question of whether that can be extended, but I have very grave doubts. Already there have been so many adjustments made, that I am afraid of disturb-
  1514
  ing many voluntary arrangements under the very difficult administration of the law as we have had it.
  There is one point to which I should call special attention. It shows that the very nature of this legislation should be flexible. I have discussed with both sides the possibility of what I might call pools of returning men from the Forces in industry itself. Again I cannot include it in the Bill, but this is an indication of how I think it will work out. You take a given industry. The industry has been concentrated. You cannot open up everything at once. You can preserve the rights of men, as this Bill goes, but both sides are willing in the intermediate stage to take on men coming back, who will be ultimately transferred to a firm which has yet to be opened up. I pay very great attention to that, because that flexibility in the administration for which I have provided is, I think, of very great service in dealing with this problem. My hon. Friend the Member for West Swansea (Mr. Lewis Jones) said that this had been discussed with the British Employers Confederation, and I think he put their approach to it extremely well. One of the most difficult trades to deal with is the retail distribution trade. Apart from the general employers' organisations, members of this trade have not been so intimately in touch with us, but when they heard the proposals they wrote to us, and I would like to read this paragraph, because this is where you get the ones, the twos and the threes, and not the big firms:
  "In the first place, I should say the Confederation welcomes the Bill, both as to its principles and general proposals, as a fair and practical measure, and we believe it would hardly be possible to devise any more satisfactory arrangement for dealing with a very difficult problem."
  Well, that represents a side which has presented untold difficulties to me, because you get down to the ones and twos.
  May I mention one other thing? It is said that this Bill is not sufficient and it was pointed out by the hon. and gallant Member for Stafford that a man who was in a junior position might be quite different when he came back. I ask hon. Members to remember that we have already announced to the House a complete scheme—and I beg hon. Members to take these Bills as they unfold themselves and look at them as part of a plan

  1515
  —a complete scheme of the Government, with very substantial grants, to make up the gap lost as a result of the war. If these young men come back and they need training, or, in the higher grades, to go to a university, or need technical training, we have gone out of our way to take all possible steps we can in order that these young men and women shall make up the gap caused by the war. You must not take these Bills as being separated from that. Assuming a boy who was in a bank, and needed to make up his accountancy but had not the facilities, we are ready as a Governmen to try to make up that gap which has arisen from being in the Services. We have already announced that to the House, and we are already trying to preserve the rights of apprentices when they come back.
  In all these fields, which would take far too long to go into now, this Bill is merely endeavouring to simplify the employer's obligation and make quite clear to the men what their rights are, and then to create machinery of a common sense kind sufficient to get the maximum results. I beg hon. Members not to drag into this Bill the whole general demobilisation problem. That is a wide, big comprehensive thing, which must be dealt with and revealed to this House, but I assure the House, that when that is done this Bill will be found to be the correct link in the chain and will be a contribution to the working of the whole.
  Mr. Bowles: May I ask the Minister to answer the point put by the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Silverman). Are boys directed into the pits to have the same rights as people directed into the Services?
  Mr. Bevin: I have not gone beyond the 1939 Act in this Bill, but the boys who have gone into the pits will be found to be looked after when they come out under arrangements which I have already announced.
  Question, "That the Bill be now read a Second time," put, and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read a Second time.
  Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House.—[Captain McEwen.]
  Committee upon the next Sitting Day.

REINSTATEMENT IN CIVIL EMPLOYMENT [MONEY].
Considered in Committee, under Standing Order No. 69.
Resolved:
"That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to make provision for the reinstatement in civil employment of certain persons who are, or have been, in the service of the Crown or in a civil defence force, and for purposes connected with the matter aforesaid, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of monies provided by Parliament:

(a) to members of Reinstatement Committees appointed under the said Act, to the umpire and any deputy umpires appointed under that Act, to persons appointed to sit as assessors and to any officers and servants of the Minister of Labour and National Service employed for the purposes of the said Act, such remuneration and allowances as the said Minister may, with the approval of the Treasury, determine;

(b) to persons attending as parties or witnesses before such Committees, the said umpire or any such deputy umpire, allowances in accordance with such scales as the said Minister may, with the approval of the Treasury, determine;

(c) any expenses incurred by or on behalf of the said Minister in the taking by him, or on his behalf, of any civil or criminal proceedings under the said Act."—(King's recommendation signified.)—[Mr. Bevin.]

Resolution to be reported upon the next Sitting Day.
The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

SUNDAY ENTERTAINMENTS
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Captain McEwen.]
Mr. Sorensen: I desire to raise the question of Sunday entertainments. Though we have only half an hour at our disposal and therefore cannot possibly do justice in this matter, I am glad to have this short opportunity to draw the attention of the House to a matter which concerns not only Members of the House but the general public. At a meeting of a private character in this House a day or two ago a number of eminent religious people were speaking and one of them stated that not more than 20 per cent. of the people of this country were regular attenders at church. I am not saying that that is good. I, personally, would rather see a much

1517
larger proportion, but I mention this because I am certain every Member of this House would agree that any suggestion that 20 per cent. should have the power to impose upon the other 80 per cent. the necessity for attending church every Sunday would just be intolerable and out of keeping with our democratic professions.
The result is we now recognise that, while some may prefer to attend church every Sunday for divine worship, others are equally free to choose otherwise in spending their Sunday. Some, in the course of the Sabbath day, spend their time reading, or gardening, or walking, or engaging in Home Guard duties and sometimes indeed, in making munitions of war. Later in the day, perhaps, they may go to a cinema, as is possible in many parts of the country, or if they do not do that, they may go to a public-house, if that is their choice, and finally, if they do not care for either of those, they may sit by the fireside and turn a knob and, by turning a knob, can listen either to a religious broadcast or an entertainment. But if, on the other hand, they care to go outside and go to a concert, they can do that as long as the performers, I understand, use no theatrical equipment in the nature of scenery or costumes. This in itself is not only anomalous, but grotesque, and it seems absurd that an actor can recite Shakespeare but if, when he is trying to recite Hamlet, he looks like the Prince of Denmark, a policeman can pop round the corner and tell him that he is committing a crime.
The position is worse in those many towns where thousands of our serving men are wandering the streets with nothing to do. It may be said that, if they please, they could go to church, but the whole point is that they do not prefer to go to church, and in this freedom-loving land, they have as much right not to go to church as they have to go to church. It seems to me, from the religious standpoint, monstrous that any religious people should try to act as dog-in-the-manger towards those who will not come to their church. It will render no service to religion whatever—in fact, quite the reverse—indirectly to try to pursue the path of coercion. I have, as some hon. Members know, a very strong Christian faith myself but I am certain that Christian faith, or any other variation of it held sincerely in this House, will not
1518
be commended by trying to prevent those who do not prefer to go to divine worship from choosing to spend Sunday in the way that they think best.
Therefore, I am going to urge the Home Secretary to reconsider this as a war-time matter, and one that concerns millions of our fellow human beings in this country. I hope he will not let the unfortunate experience he had some time ago rankle in his soul. I am sure, as he is a charitable person himself, that it does not do so. I hope he will give an opportunity to the House, once more, to express its view. Of this I am certain, that in the countryside a great majority of people, including those who are earnest Christian people, desire to see this absurd anomaly swept away. I am fully aware of the many difficulties, and I want to make it clear that, personally, I am now merely concerned with securing justifiable facilities for charitable and amateur purposes. I know this may be bound up with much else but that is what concerns me. I want to see this anomaly destroyed, I want to see men and women able to go to a theatre if they wish to do so, in the same way as, if they please, they can turn on a knob in their drawing or dining-room and listen to a theatrical performance broadcast over the B.B.C.
I would also urge the Home Secretary to give the House an opportunity at an early date to reconsider this matter without any of the prejudices that were assembled on the last occasion. I am persuaded that the majority of the House then were in favour of a reasonable extension of these facilities, but many, at the last minute, became foolishly intimidated by a number of postcards written to them, often filled with copious but quite irrelevant texts from Exodus and Leviticus, and went into the wrong Lobby. I believe the Home Secretary was rather disconsolate on that occasion because of expectations unfulfilled. Do not let this House be tied by past folly. Let us have a chance to reconsider this matter. I do not cast any reflection whatever on those very earnest and sincere people who feel it would be utterly wrong to go to a theatre or listen to a Sunday entertainment. No one suggests they should do so. I respect their point of view though I do not always appreciate their arguments, which in some cases I think are woefully antediluvian. No one suggests that they should be compelled to

1519
do what they feel is wrong; what we are suggesting is that those who do not feel it is wrong should have equal freedom to pursue what they think is right.
If I may add a postscript I would say that I understand that, on occasions, some of these entertainments have been given without interruption. It seems to me to be a reflection on us and our sanity that we have to rely upon that rather distasteful person the common informer to turn the attention of the police or the licensing authorities to a particular kind of entertainment. If the common informer had not acted, many of these shows would have taken place. I do not know whether that can be dealt with. The common informer is, apparently, an old institution, but for all that, I think that he does not fit in with our modern sense of social and political decency. If anything can be done to suggest how that curious and unpleasant person can be taken out of this arena, I am sure that would be one step in the right direction. Without any ulterior motive, without any desire to see what is called a Continental Sunday in this country, without any wish to cast any reflection on those who earnestly believe they must keep Sunday in a particular Sabbatarian way, nevertheless, in the interests of millions of our men and women and in the interests indeed of true religion, I would urge that this House be given an opportunity at an early date to reconsider this matter so that the more absurd anomalies may be swept away.
Lieut.-Colonel Sir Thomas Moore: I am not a teacher of religion like the hon. Member for West Leyton (Mr. Sorensen) who introduced this subject; I am merely a humble follower. I, no doubt like him, have been brought up in a very strict Christian home where, so far as I remember, I participated in five religious services every Sunday. Properly, those Sundays have gone because I think they did tend to give young people a "scanner," as we say in Scotland, against religion. Although we may not go to church as much as we did 30 or 40 years ago, I do believe that our people are, at heart, as truly religious as ever. You cannot make people religious by compulsion; you can do it only by making religion a satisfying and attractive theory of life and a satisfying method of conduct-
1520
ing one's life. Therefore, I am definitely up against the Lord's Day Observance Society for seeking to compel people to go to church by denying them any alternative. Anyone who goes to our industrial towns in the black-out on a Sunday evening can see young people who have been torn away from their homes, their associations with their localities and have been forced to live under difficult conditions and, possibly, in unfriendly places. One can see them wandering down drab and dreary streets, prevented by the laws we have made from getting clean, wholesome entertainment in warm, bright and dry halls. That is a law which we in this generation cannot substantially support.
I admit that until two or three years ago, the present arrangements were agreed to, but two or three years means a long time in war. Conditions have greatly altered in war. We have now vast numbers of Allies in this country whose outlook on life has altered to some extent our conception towards these matters. For the sake of our young people in the Forces, for the sake of their moral future and for the sake of the parents they have left behind, who are wondering what is happening to them on the strange paths they are now treading, I ask the Home Secretary to pay great attention to the request which has been made and to give us an opportunity of reversing the decision we stupidly came to some time ago.
Sir Patrick Hannon: I will not detain the House for more than a few moments. Nobody will, I think, suggest that anybody has a warmer attachment to the keeping of the Lord's Day than I have. On the last occasion when we debated this matter in the House I voted against what I called the commercialisation of Sunday, but, as the Member for one of the Divisions of a great city, I am faced every Sunday with a very difficult and embarrassing problem. We have, as has been said to-day, masses of troops walking about the streets of our towns in a helpless and hopeless situation and, I am sorry to say, very often in surroundings not compatible with the decency and self-respect of the Fighting Services. While I recognise the difficulties with which the Home Secretary is confronted in dealing with this appalling question, I am bound to say that, in the interests of our troops, I would like to see our healthy Sunday

1521
afternoons restored in some way so that these men and women could get a little enjoyment and recreation during the afternoon. My difficulty, which is probably the difficulty of most Members, is that I do not want Sunday afternoon recreation for the troops to be a profit-making business for certain proprietors. It will have to be done with such restrictions as will prevent the profit-making motive. I agree with my hon. and gallant Friend that there is a deep-rooted feeling of reverence for religion, even on the part of people who do not go to church, but we are face to face with the very clear moral obligation of how we are to deal with these men, particularly American troops, masses of whom walk the streets of Birmingham every Sunday. I am profoundly concerned with their welfare and with the moral character of our young girls. I hope the Home Secretary in his wisdom may be able to find a way out of the difficulty without creating a precedent which will violate the way in which Sunday has always been regarded.
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Herbert Morrison): I am much obliged to my hon. Friends for the moderate and friendly way in which they have put their case and for not leaving me too tight as regards time in which to reply. Perhaps it will be convenient if I first deal with the point whether we can eliminate the profit-making motive. With regard to cinemas, an arrangement has to be made as regards the application of profits to charity, and substantial sums do go to charity from the Sunday opening of cinemas. I had a lot to do with administering the Act in London. There was a lump sum or percentage arrangement and on the whole it worked, though there was a great scramble by charities to get on the list, and there were arguments whether we were getting the profits which were due or not. But as a moral proposition I thought this was a very English device, and I always thought there was a considerable element of humbug about it. If it is wrong that there should be Sunday entertainments I really cannot see that from a moral or Christian point of view it is right to permit them because the profits go to charity. But it is the way the English get out of awkward situations, though I should not like to have to defend it on its merits. Still, it works.
1522
There are also practical difficulties about imposing the condition that theatre profits should go to charity, and we at the Home Office have not yet been able to find a real workable scheme whereby to enforce it. It is doubtful whether a compromise would be acceptable to the theatrical profession. It was a condition of the Defence Regulation that there should be a six-day week but if people perform for charity voluntarily and without pay, I do not see how that condition can obtain. It might be hard on some of them—and they are very good about charitable performances, so good that I do not like liberties to be taken with them. Then we should have to have a legal provision defining charitable performances that were to be admitted and other performances that were to be prohibited. We should, as I have said, have to decide whether, if a performance was to be a genuinely charitable effort on the part of the theatrical people, it should be a condition that they were not to be paid, particularly the humbler people such as stage hands and chorus girls. I should feel hesitant about making it a condition that they should not be paid at all for their services. Nevertheless directly the element of reward comes in the purely charitable basis becomes rather shaky.
We would also be faced with the problem of ensuring that nobody made a profit. With cinemas, where the attendance is known pretty well, you can almost calculate it in advance, but with theatrical performances, musical shows or vaudeville performances, there might have to be an accountancy examination for each performance. That would involve a lot of work for the theatrical people at a time when it is difficult to get labour for the purpose, and there might be very little for charity at the end of the day. I think that the idea for limiting Sunday entertainments and performances for charity does not stand up, and it avoids the main issue. It is a concession to the critics and I understand the motive of my hon. Friend, which is legitimate, but I do not think it stands up. The other idea is that Sunday entertainments should be confined to the troops. I do not think this would work, because the troops would want to take other people, and once they were allowed to do so abuses would arise. I share the general feeling of the House

1523
that the common informer is an antiquated and undesirable device.
Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Major Milner): I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will not discuss the question of the common informer as it would involve legislation. I ought to have pulled up the hon. Member for West Leyton (Mr. Sorensen) when he referred to it.
Mr. Barr: I would like to point out that the Society for Sabbath Observance which has been mentioned, assures me that no use has been made of the common informer for a very long time.
Mr. H. Morrison: I just want to make it clear that there are one or two cases, where undoubtedly the private enterprise of individuals—I am not talking about the capitalist system at the moment—in exploiting this Act has got very near to blackmail. I have had no evidence that the Lord's Day Observance Society is in the least involved in that kind of activity. I appreciate that this question might involve legislation, and directly you try to deal with it you are bound to go into the general issue. First, you would have to redefine the offence, and, second, you would have to have a public authority, which would probably have to be a local authority, to conduct the prosecutions. I do not think I could go into this question without raising the major issue. You, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, have been kind to me, and I will leave the question of the common informer. Otherwise, somebody may raise a point of Order, which would be a kind of common informer action against me.
I turn to the main issue, namely, that the House came to a decision, and the question is whether the Government ought to give facilities to the House for considering it again. The House is master of the situation. If the House really wants facilities, the Government would obviously acquiesce. My problem is whether there is a substantial indication—and this must be guess work—that the House has altered its mind. We can all have opinions about it and none of us can be sure we are right. I thought on the day before the previous Debate and, indeed, up to the time I got on to my feet, that I had something like a majority of about 100 for the Defence Regulation.
1524
There were quite a number of hon. Members who intended, and, indeed, had signed documents in that sense, to give their votes one way, and who decided at the last minute to vote against the Regulation. Members must take notice of their constituents sometimes, and I do not complain about that. But it was a funny experience. I came to the House feeling that I would get about 100 majority with the Whips off. I advised the Government to take the Whips off, for this was eminently a matter in which the Whips should not coerce the consciences of Members.
Mr. A. Bevan: As the Government command a majority of almost one-third of the House, they could make sure of carrying this, if they put on the Whips.
Mr. Morrison: I quite agree. I think that if we had put the Whips on there would have been revolts against the Whips on a considerable scale. That happens sometimes on matters where it is less legitimate than in this case. With the Whips on, we might have carried it by a two-to-one majority. If it had been absolutely vital for the prosecution of the war, it would have been our duty to put the Whips on. I cannot believe that it is vital to such an extent. In these matters of religious conscience I never like the Whips on if I can do without it. When I was halfway through my speech I said to myself: "My lad, you are on an awkward wicket," and the House rejected the Regulation by a majority of eight. I have no feeling of soreness about that. There was no personal humiliation about it, because if you take the Whips off you must put up with it if the thing goes wrong as a consequence. I have not any soreness now. It was a Parliamentary decision and, the decision having been made, I, in common with other Ministers, am the servant of this House. If the House of Commons comes to a decision, I must accept it or take the obvious course. In this matter I accepted it, and unless it is urgently necessary to do so in the national interest, I think I have no right to go seeking to upset a decision of the House freely arrived at.
If it were shown to me, or if I could be persuaded to believe, that there was a change of Parliamentary opinion, and that the House really wanted to reach another decision, certainly I would advise the

1525
Government to give facilities for the discussion. What evidence is there that there is a substantial shift of Parliamentary opinion? The only case of change I know of is that of my hon. Friend the Member for the Moseley Division of Birmingham (Sir P. Hannon), and even he is subject to doubts and qualifications on the point. I do not know of any substantial shift of Parliamentary opinion, but we who come from London must be very careful about our judgments of public opinion nationally on this point. London has a very tolerant view about this sort of thing. I understand that, and that is all right; but I am certain that it would be a grave mistake to assume that opinion in London is representative of opinion in the country as a whole. I do not believe that there is a substantial change of Parliamentary opinion, and I think, that at this stage of the war, having had a good Debate about it and a decision, there would be no point in raising the matter again, unless I were sure that there was a shift of Parliamentary opinion, and that it was urgently necessary in the national interest to do so. I am not so convinced. It might well be that some hon. Members would say "You have had a go at that, and we resent having to use up Parliamentary time that ought to be devoted to reconstruction Measures in this House."
Mr. Sorensen: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman one question? I quite appreciate that some parts of the country adopt different views from those of London. Would it not be possible, in the circumstances, to adopt the principle of local option, and, as London represents only
1526
about one-fifth of the country, to give powers to the Metropolitan area?
Mr. Morrison: That was in the Defence Regulation, but there was no proposal that everybody had to do it. The local authority was to be supreme at the end of it, Notwithstanding that, hon. Members who opposed the Regulation said: "We don't want them to be permitted to give a favourable opinion in this matter."
Sir T. Moore: How can the evidence be judged, to decide whether a change of opinion has or has not taken place in the House?
Mr. Morrison: I do not know. There is no science of judging Parliamentary opinion. I have a hunch at the moment that, subject to such inquiries as can be made, there is not a firm and substantial majority that would stand at the end of the day. I honestly do not see it. In all the circumstances, although I appreciate the sincerity of hon. Members on both sides of the controversy, I do not think it would be right or Parliamentarily sound. It might lead to a quarrelsome Debate, more so than the last—which was not very quarrelsome, although there was some hard hitting in it. People in the House and in the country would feel that we were trying to revise something which had been settled, at a stage of the war that was not appropriate. The Government, therefore, with regret, do not see their way to give facilities.
Question, "That this House do now adjourn," put, and agreed to.

  BILLETING ALLOWANCES (EVACUEES)
  BILLETING ALLOWANCES (EVACUEES)
  GENERAL REGISTER OFFICE
  GENERAL REGISTER OFFICE
  OLD AGE PENSIONS
  OLD AGE PENSIONS
HOUSING
  Post-war Plan (Mr. Harold Elliot)
  Post-war Plan (Mr. Harold Elliot)
  Unfinished Houses
  Unfinished Houses
  Agricultural Workers' Cottages
  Agricultural Workers' Cottages
  Blackpool
  Blackpool
  HOUSING ESTATE (MEDICAL FACILITIES)
  HOUSING ESTATE (MEDICAL FACILITIES)
  SUPPLEMENTARY TEACHERS (SUPERANNUATION)
  SUPPLEMENTARY TEACHERS (SUPERANNUATION)
  EXPECTANT MOTHERS (EMPLOYMENT)
  EXPECTANT MOTHERS (EMPLOYMENT)
  PRISON SENTENCES (EXPECTANT MOTHERS)
  PRISON SENTENCES (EXPECTANT MOTHERS)
  EX-ARMY LORRIES (RECONDITIONING)
  EX-ARMY LORRIES (RECONDITIONING)
  JUVENILE COURTS (MAGISTRATES)
  JUVENILE COURTS (MAGISTRATES)
  STATE MANAGEMENT SCHEME, CARLISLE (CAFES)
  STATE MANAGEMENT SCHEME, CARLISLE (CAFES)
  PRIVATE BILL LEGISLATION (STANDING ORDERS)
  PRIVATE BILL LEGISLATION (STANDING ORDERS)
  NORTHERN IRELAND (TEACHERS' SUPERANNUATION)
  NORTHERN IRELAND (TEACHERS' SUPERANNUATION)
  INDIA (SOLDIERS, INOCULATION)
  INDIA (SOLDIERS, INOCULATION)
COAL INDUSTRY
  Mines Inspectors
  Mines Inspectors
  Substitute Fuels
  Substitute Fuels
  Mining Trainees
  Mining Trainees
GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS
  Ministry of Labour and National Service
  Ministry of Labour and National Service
  Ministry of Supply
  Ministry of Supply
  Civil Servants (Training)
  Civil Servants (Training)
  POST OFFICE SAVINGS BANK
  POST OFFICE SAVINGS BANK
  DEATH SENTENCES
  DEATH SENTENCES
  RESPIRATORS (REPAIR AND REPLACEMENT)
  RESPIRATORS (REPAIR AND REPLACEMENT)
  WOMEN PRISON OFFICERS (RECRUITMENT)
  WOMEN PRISON OFFICERS (RECRUITMENT)
  EX-SERVICE PERSONNEL (EDUCATION AND TRAINING)
  EX-SERVICE PERSONNEL (EDUCATION AND TRAINING)
BRITISH ARMY
  Inoculations (Orderlies' Services)
  Inoculations (Orderlies' Services)
  Majors (Pay and Allowances)
  Majors (Pay and Allowances)
  ARMED FORCES (PENSIONS AND GRANTS)
  ARMED FORCES (PENSIONS AND GRANTS)
  MOBILE GRAIN-DRIERS
  MOBILE GRAIN-DRIERS
  SCOTTISH HOUSING ADVISORY COMMITTEE (REPORT)
  SCOTTISH HOUSING ADVISORY COMMITTEE (REPORT)
  UNITED STATES CLAIMS COMMISSION, UNITED KINGDOM
  UNITED STATES CLAIMS COMMISSION, UNITED KINGDOM
  YUGOSLAVIA
  YUGOSLAVIA
  WAR DECORATIONS AND MEDALS
  WAR DECORATIONS AND MEDALS
  BRITISH PRISONERS OF WAR
  BRITISH PRISONERS OF WAR
  MINISTRY OF INFORMATION ADVERTISEMENTS
  MINISTRY OF INFORMATION ADVERTISEMENTS
  OVERSEAS TRADE
  OVERSEAS TRADE
  PORTUGUESE TIN (EXPORTS TO GERMANY)
  PORTUGUESE TIN (EXPORTS TO GERMANY)
  SPAIN AND GERMANY (TRADE RELATIONS)
  SPAIN AND GERMANY (TRADE RELATIONS)
Preamble
The House met, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
PRIZE SALVAGE BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a(according to Order), and passed, and sent to the Commons.

RENT CONTROL.
VISCOUNT MAUGHAM VISCOUNT MAUGHAM had given Notice that he would move to resolve, That in view of the great complexity of legislation in relation to rent restriction it is desirable that a Consolidation Act be passed pending a reconsideration of the whole matter. The noble and learned Viscount said: My Lords, I should like to say, at once, that before putting the Motion which stands in my name down on the Paper I communicated with my noble friend, Viscount Ridley, Chairman of the Committee investigating the problem of rent restriction, and obtained from him complete assent to the matter being ventilated in this House. I certainly should not have put the Motion down unless he had consented. I also wish to say that it did not seem to me very important to go into any particular detail about this matter in the form of the Motion, having regard to the fact that the Government cannot be expected to introduce any amendments before they have received a Report. Accordingly, when I saw the Amendment of my noble friend Viscount Buckmaster—[to leave out all words after "desirable" and insert "to pass an amending and consolidating Act without delay when the findings of the Inter-Departmental Committee on Rent Control are known"]—I thought that it was perhaps an improvement on my own Motion, and I am perfectly willing to accept it.
I was desired by a very important organization to call attention to the question of rent restriction and I do so the more gladly because it is a matter which is becoming more urgent day by day and which will become of the greatest possible importance when the war comes to an end. The legislation began in the year 1920.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT SIMON): It began in 1915.
VISCOUNT MAUGHAM: Yes, but the material Acts with which we are chiefly concerned began with the Act of 1920. I am obliged to the noble and learned Viscount for his intervention. Since 1920—that is to say for twenty-four years—the Legislature has no doubt been endeavouring to carry out a comparatively simple aim—namely, to deal with the shortage of such houses as we are concerned with to-day, dwelling-houses according to the definition of the Acts, which includes something more than dwelling-houses, not exceeding in rateable value the sums which are mentioned in the various Acts, with which I shall deal in a moment, and incidentally, in order to control the rents of such houses, to restrict the eviction of tenants to cases of serious misbehaviour by those tenants. Including the Act of 1920 and the last Act of September 1, 1939, there have been altogether fourteen Acts, the last having been passed two days before the outbreak of war and in view of the war, which began on September 3. The present position is one of complete chaos. The Acts deal with control, decontrol, gradual decontrol and recontrol, and yet with all those aims in view and all those Acts, it is impossible for ordinary landowners, who are not necessarily rich and who may own only one house, or for most of the tenants to know where they stand in regard to this matter. I should mention at once that there is no possibility of contracting out of either the Act of 1920 or the subsequent Acts including that of 1939.
Let me remind your Lordships with what these Acts deal. Under the 1920 Act we are dealing with houses where the rateable value was £105 in London, £90 in Scotland and £75 elsewhere. The "standard rent,' as it is called, is the rent at which the house was let on August 3, 1914, when rents were exceedingly low, or, if not then-let, the rent at which it was last let before that date, or, if it was first let after that date, the rent at which it was first let. It must have been erected, however, before April 2, 1919, so that the newer houses were left untouched by this question of rent control. The 1939 Act, however, restricts the rent to the rent at which the house was let on September 1, 1939, or, if not then let, to the rent at which it was last let before that

651
date, or, if first let after that date, to the rent at which it was first let. Neither Act provides any limitation on the words "the rent at which it was last let before that date," and it has been settled that that may be one or two hundred years ago. One of the learned Judges who mentioned the matter said it might have been first let five hundred years ago, and yet the rent at that time would be the standard rent for that dwelling-house. You cannot imagine anything more ridiculous than that, but it has been so for quite a number of years. The 1939 Act applies to houses whenever erected, unlike the Act of 1920, and I should mention that both the Acts—including the amending Acts, which I need not mention—give a status to the house itself. The landlord in each case includes any person deriving title from the original landlord, and a new tenant under a fresh tenancy from the landlord derives the benefits given to the previous tenant. I am speaking now, of course, of controlled houses.
In my judgment, speaking with a great deal of experience of Acts of Parliament, there is here a quagmire of legislation in which very little firm footing is to be found. It reminds me of some of those bogs in Ireland where you set out, perhaps, in the hope of shooting snipe,- and where you see here and there a lovely piece of green grass which looks firm, but if you put your foot on it, unless you are very fortunate, you plunge down perhaps below the level of your head. That is the sort of thing with which we have to deal in these Acts. There have been two hundred reported cases, of which quite a number have gone to the Court of Appeal, and they stopped there because they can go no further without the leave of the Court or of the House of Lords. In a very large number of the cases which go to the Courts the Judges have expressed their strongest disapproval of the form of the Acts and their view that these Acts are thoroughly ill-considered in many respects and lead to great injustice. One learned Judge congratulated Solomon on not having to deal with the Rent Restrictions Acts, because the problems which came before him were a mere trifle to those which County Court Judges have to solve every day. One of the Lords Justices has spoken of the manifest injustices which these Acts cause, due to the hasty and ill-considered language in which they are
652
framed. I shall mention two instances of that in a few moments.
I want to point out—because I am not here to blame the Legislature for anything of that sort—the vast importance of the matter which we are now discussing from the point of view of the erection of houses after this war. We are told that 4,000,000 houses are needed. Between the two wars three quarters of the houses which were built were built by private enterprise, and that indeed is a fortunate thing for the State because we now know that the building of houses by local authorities, though it is absolutely essential in many cases, is a most uneconomic process for the State as a whole. With regard to the houses built by local authorities between the two wars, £270,000,000 was expended by the State in subsidies, £50,000,000 has been paid out of the rates, and the loans proper for these houses, in order to provide money for building them, have totalled £1,053,000,000. There will also be £4,000,000 a year payable in Exchequer subsidies till the year 1974. That is the cost of building by local authorities with the assistance of the State. If the 2,500,000 houses built by private enterprise without help from the rates or the taxes had all been built by local authorities the figure which it would have cost the State would have been absolutely astronomical.
Let me come to a word or two about the Act of 1939, which, as I have said, will apply to all the houses which will be built as soon as building commences in this country, unless the Acts are greatly modified or are swept away. That, like the Act of 1920, also refers to dwelling-houses, and the rateable values are to be not greater than £100 in London, £90 in Scotland, and £75 elsewhere. The result is that all these houses of which we are told that 4,000,000 are needed, must be built either by the local authorities—in which case they are not bound by rent restriction; they can put the rents up or down as the occasion may require—or by private enterprise. But the question I have to ask is, how are you to get private enterprise to build any of those 4,000,000 houses unless you reform the system on which you are going?
I am rather anxious to call your Lordships' attention to the cost of building at the present time. Things have been altered entirely since the period before the

653
war. The cost of building is now twice as much as it was, and that of course has entirely altered the prospect to private enterprise undertaking building. Till recently there has been only conjecture as to what it would cost to build a rural house for agricultural labourers and others to live in. But on the 25th of last month the Ministry of Agriculture quite frankly made a statement as to the cost of the farm cottages which they had been building in various parts of the country during the yea- that had just passed up to the month of January. There were 105 farm cottages completed, of which 49 were occupied. The Ministry announced that work was in progress on 2,500 cottages. Figures were available for 54 of these out of the 105 that had been completed. They were figures of houses for farm workers, which had been built at an average cost of £994 each, which is very near the estimated figure that has been given before. We may call that £1,000 a house without much exaggeration. That includes £39 10s. for the land, and also the charges for road making and the architect's fee.
What was disquieting was to find that, although there is admittedly this enormous lack of housing all over the country, the local authorities were finding it exceedingly difficult 1o get tenants at the rents which they had fixed for these houses, which were 10s. a week, plus rates. Of course, rates are a very important thing in reckoning up the rent for a cottage for a. working man, and, although it was noted that the wage rates for farm labourers were double what they were before the war, yet great difficulty was experienced in getting tenants for those houses. What I want to point out is that a house built for £1,000 cannot possibly be let economically at 10s. per week. On the contrary, that is about half the economic' rent of the house, if not less than half. Then how do you expect the private builder, who built such a number of houses—2,500,000—during the period between the two wars, to buy a piece of land, to do all the work of development and so on, and to put up a rural dwelling-house? Having borrowed the money, as he must in order to finance his project, he must repay it before he gets any return. He cannot compete at present rates with the houses built by local authorities with State money and local money from rates, and all the advantages which the local autho-
654
rities have got. It is true that all big builders say—and I have no reason to think that they do not say correctly—that they can build more cheaply than local authorities. Let us assume that a house which the authority can build for £1,000 can be built by them for about £750 and can be let for a similar rent; but still, making all those allowances, there is nothing in it for them. You may say costs ought to come down. Well, there it is. If the Government have a system by which they can reduce the cost of building to about a half, which was the cost before the war, you would solve a great many problems. The great difficulty everyone has to face there is that the cost of building is really the cost of labour, and you cannot put back the clock. You are not going to get working builders, especially after the war, when there will be a great shortage of labour, to accept a great reduction of their present rate of wages. I do not know how you are going to solve that problem. It seems to me a very serious one.
There are one or two things I want to add about the Rent Restrictions Acts which are worth considering, and some of which, perhaps, are not present to your Lordships' minds. I have said that the Acts are terribly unjust. With regard to that, I would like to point this out. It is important to bear in mind, as regards houses that are going to be built after the war, that there will be three distinct classes of dwelling-houses of the type we are thinking of which will be found side by side or in adjoining streets. The first class will be those which are controlled at rents far less than the current rents—namely, at about 4s. 6d. a week and sometimes even less. The tenants of these controlled houses have the great advantage of certainty of tenure. Their rent cannot be put up. If a tenant dies, his wife can go on as tenant, and if she dies the children can go on as tenants. For many years, therefore, that house would be rented at 4s. 6d. a week. That is the first class. The second class is the class of decontrolled houses, which are not very numerous because the houses that were decontrolled on September 1, 1939, come under the 1939 Act. To make my statement accurate, I must mention that these houses may be let at comparatively low rents, but they offer no certainty of tenure, being decontrolled, and the owner can raise the rent. To-day they are, in all probability,

655
let at a fair rent. I come to the third class. These are the houses built by the local authorities with the assistance of subsidies and rates. These give no certainty of tenure because the local authorities can turn out their tenants as soon as their month, or whatever it is, is up and they can increase the rent when they like. They will start by being let, and they are now let, at wholly uneconomic rents. The want of certainty of tenure may mean that the tenants will not like them quite so much, but they are let at rents far lower than the present builder under private enterprise would have to fix.
It cannot be right to let these different classes of house side by side, or in close proximity, at such enormously different rents. You could have one house let at 4s. 6d., and another house beside it let at 16s. That is unjust and unfair and leads to great dissatisfaction. If the State comes to the conclusion that the proper thing is that occupants of houses of this kind ought to have half their rents paid by the State, and the Legislature chooses to agree, let us face it and let us get half the rents, in one way or another, paid straight away by the State in the case of houses of that kind—or out of the rates, I do not care what the machinery is at all. What I object to is that John Doe should be paying 4s. 6d. a week, and Richard Roe next door should have to pay two or three or four times as much. That has a very bad effect.
The noble Lord, Lord Phillimore, who knows a great deal about this subject from his great experience, is unable to be here to-day because, unfortunately, he is not well. He wanted to speak in this debate, but what he suggests and has asked me to put to the House is that one of the bad effects of the Rent Restrictions Acts is the way in which they immobilize labour. He adds:
"If we are going to catch up, you will agree with me that labour after the war will have to he more, not less, mobile than before. The present position is that the whole country is dotted with cases where the tenant has got in perhaps twenty years ago on terms which were even then favourable but which by now are an overwhelming inducement to him to stay where he is regardless of where his work may be. Such a man will not go away. The difference between his standard rent and the normal pre-war rent may be as much as 20s. a week, and the tenant naturally says that that takes a lot of earning. 'If I possibly can I shall stay here.'"
656
I believe that is absolutely a sound observation, and I do not believe the Government have any answer to it whatever. We cannot go on like this.
Let me mention another thing. Under the present régime, when the war began, a large number of people were sent away from London into fairly distant places. Your Lordships will all be aware of messages of a disagreeable character that came from Llandudno. Many of these people are coming back to live in houses in the suburbs and neighbourhood of London. The Acts provide that if the owner of a house wishes to return after having let his house—and all these houses have been snapped up by factory workers and others—some regard should be had to the fact that it is the landlord himself who wants to return. There the Act provides that the Court may make an order which enables the owner to get his own house if the Court is satisfied, having regard to all the circumstances, including the question whether other accommodation is available to the landlord or tenant, that greater hardship would be caused by. refusing the order or judgment than by granting it. Now your Lordships may be surprised to hear that in many County Courts, where this matter is heard day by day when the Court is sitting, half the time of the learned Judge is occupied in dealing with cases where owners want to come back to their own houses and where the tenant is saying: "Great hardship will be caused to me if you make the order as I am here working in a factory in the neighbourhood." The result, as I have been informed by someone well acquainted with the facts, is that in many cases of these people who want to get back into their own houses the landlord has to get a lodging in one house, his wife perhaps in another, and his one or two children in a third, and it is in the pure discretion of the Judge whether he will make an order or not. These men were sent away by the Government. They did not go willingly; they had to go. Now they have got to come back to perform the same State service. Yet they are suffering this intolerable burden and, as I think, injustice which, if the people in charge of this matter had been a little more far-seeing, might have been foreseen.
I will now give one other example of how the Act sometimes operates. This is

657
the case of Davies versus Warwick, of which the noble Viscount on the Woolsack is very likely aware. It was reported in 1943, I King's Bench, at page 329. I have told your Lordships roughly how the standard rent of a house is to be determined. After the 1939 Act it was not so very easy by reading the Act to find that out, because you had to look first at the Increase of Rent Act, 1920, then you had to look at several Mortgage and Rent Restrictions Acts, then you had to look at Section 3 and Schedule 1 of the Rent and Mortgage Restrictions Act, 1939. Now in this case the house was let as long ago as 1916 at a rent of 3s. 9d. per week and it was properly raised, owing to circumstances I need not go into, to 4s. 3d. per week. The tenant left after being there a number of years and the owner went into possession. The owner was in possession in May, 1939, and he was still in possession when the Act of September 1, 1939, came into force. Therefore the owner was in possession of a house which had previously been let at 4s. 3d. per week.
As luck would have it a month after the Act came into force he unfortunately let the house to the plaintiff Davies at the then current rate, as I understand it, of 12s. 6d. per week. The plaintiff Davies paid that rent, 12s. (3d. per week, for ninety-seven weeks without complaint. As far as I know this was the current rent of such a house, but some clever person said: "Oh, hut this house was once rent restricted. Inasmuch as the standard rent in your case is the rent at which the house was last let before September 1, 1939, and as the landlord was in possession on that date, that original rent is the standard rent of the house." So the man went to the Courts. The learned County Court Judge took one view, the Court of Appeal took another. The final order was that the standard rent of the house was 4s. 3d. a week; consequently the landlord was to repay ninety-seven times the difference between 4s. 3d. and the 12s. 6d. at which he had let the house. There is nothing to show that this man was rich. Very likely he was not richer than his tenant, because tenants very often get very decent wages in these days and landlords very often, notwithstanding what people sometimes say, own one house or a couple of houses which represent the whole of their property in the world. That at any rate was the result of this case and this tenant got back payment of rent for ninety-seven
658
weeks. He and his wife and children will be able, unless the law is altered, to go on paying 4s. 3d. a week for a house which is worth at least 12s. 6d. a week.
That is an example of the working of these Acts, and I am quite sure I am not going to hear any complacency with regard to that feature of the case from the noble Viscount who replies for the Government in this debate. The Lords Justices, in their judgment on that case, referred to the hasty and ill-considered language which had been used in the framing of the Act of 1939. They pointed out that the Judge was given no discretion even if tenants of identical houses were paying much more rent than the so-called standard rent, and no discretion if the first letting was at a low or nominal rent, or even if the first letting was at a low rent because the tenant had to pay for repairs. It does not matter. The law applies, like the law of the Medes and Persians. The first letting, fortunately, is one that does not go back 500 years, but it is one going back a good long time, the letting being one at a ridiculously low rent having regard to present circumstances, for next door there may be a tenant of a local authority house who is paying the full value for it. I do not think I want to take up any more time. I have given your Lordships a fair sketch of the position and of the great injustice which is being caused by these Acts. Now I want merely to say this. I hope that the Government will think fit not only to consolidate but to amend these Acts. I think they ought to consolidate them because they are unintelligible as they stand, unless you are willing to spend many hours at a time in going through fourteen different Acts and seeing whether you can understand them. An ordinary person cannot do it. If I may be allowed to speak of myself, I have spent a very long time trying to appreciate these Acts and I am far from convinced that I understand them now. It may be said that there is every reason why things have gone on in this way with regard to rent restriction legislation. Of course recently there has been a great deal to do and there is a war going on, tout before the present war there was plenty of time for the consideration of these matters.
I wish to conclude my observations by saying what I have long felt about legislation in your Lordships' House and, so

659
far as I know anything about it, about legislation in another place. It is absolutely wrong to put before any legislative chamber an amending Bill where there are four or five and, still more, where there are a dozen previous Acts which have to be read before you can understand the amendment, and to put it before your Lordships without any accompanying Paper to tell you exactly what will be the result of the amendment. With nothing to show that, it may very well be that, in order to discover the inequity which is involved in the case with which I have just been dealing, your Lordships would have to spend two or three hours in examining the legislation. That really is not just to your Lordships, and matters are getting worse and worse every day. The complexity of legislation is such that I, who have spent years in the law, am constantly finding when I see the Order Paper and get a copy of an amending Bill that I am absolutely unable to find out what it is about. The Bill may be passed through this House and through another place without any comment at all. That is not the way in which legislation should be passed. One thing I feel very strongly ought to be done, and it is this.
When you have to amend an Act it ought not to be done by legislation referring you to Acts, and to the Schedules of previous Acts, which you cannot get without great difficulty. It ought not to be done in that way. There should be consolidation and when an amending Bill is put before your Lordships it should be possible readily to discover what it is you are asked to put into law. An amendment of that sort cannot be made perhaps during the war, but I am sure the system of legislation by reference is wrong and I am sure that the presumed power, the imagined power of the Houses of Parliament to understand legislation before it becomes law, is being scoffed at so to speak by this system of cleverly drawn amending referential Bills which none of us have a chance of understanding. I beg to move.
Moved to resolve, That in view of the great complexity of legislation in relation to rent restriction it is desirable to pass an amending and consolidating Act without delay when the findings of the Inter-Departmental Committee on Rent Control are known.—(Viscount Maugham.)
VISCOUNT BUCKMASTER,VISCOUNT BUCKMASTER, who had given Notice that he would move as an Amendment to the Motion as it stood on the Order Paper to leave out all the words after "desirable" and insert "to pass an amending and consolidating Act without delay when the findings of the Inter-Departmental Committee on Rent Control are known," said: My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble and learned friend for having accepted my Amendment, and I have much pleasure in supporting his Motion in the form in which it now stands. I feel that your Lordships have great confidence in the noble Viscount who is Chairman of the Committee which is now sitting. His knowledge and experience on this matter are considerable. We have also complete confidence in those serving with him on the Committee, and so it seemed to me wiser not to press at present for consolidation or other action but to wait for the findings of the Committee.
My noble and learned friend has covered the ground with such ability and so fully that he has saved me the necessity of saying part of what I intended to say. Your Lordships may remember that some months ago I ventured to bring this matter before the House on the basis that in some cases the law was inequitable to owners of controlled property. I put it as low as I could. Since that happened I have enjoyed a large volume of correspondence and also, perhaps, a surprising and fleeting popularity not always accorded to members of your Lordships' House. That correspondence has urged me to address your Lordships again. Not one single letter have I received from a tenant saying the law was harsh or that his position was an unfair or an unhappy one. That, I suggest, is very remarkable. When I put my original Motion down one member of your Lordships' House, for whom if I may say so I have the greatest regard, suggested that I should not proceed with it, and that this House was not the proper place in which to defend the rights of property. It is a very remarkable thing that when everybody could have written and said "Here is an unpleasant person defending the rights of property," not one single person did so. But many people, some of them small men, men in humble circumstances who had put their savings into house property, wrote to me and urged me to take up the matter again.

661
That is a significant fact which I hope will not escape your Lordships' notice.
I do not propose to quote any of these letters, but if you will allow me I should like as briefly as I can to mention as an example a case rather on the lines of the case quoted by my noble and learned friend and perhaps a little more striking in its consequences. The case was brought to my notice by the County Court Judge who dealt with it. A policeman in 1939 had two years to serve before he retired. He had £800 saved. That was all he had. With these savings he bought a house with vacant possession He let it for a year certain and after that quarterly. He let it at £50 a year, a rent fair at the time, which the tenant was glad to pay. The moment the tenant was in he started to examine his position under the Rent Restrictions Acts. Indeed, for all I know, he may well have been advised before he made the agreement and may have known his position before-hand. Having taken advice what does he find? This house was not first let on 1st September, 1939. Therefore he can go back to the last rent of £13. The policeman, having retired, gave notice to determine the tenancy under Common Law. The tenant of course refused to go. The unhappy policeman then went to the County Court to ask for an order for possession. Under the First Schedule of the Act of 1933 he has to prove that his hardship is greater than that of the tenant. The County Court Judge who dealt with the matter tells me he would have liked to have decided in favour of the policeman, but what could he do? The policeman is a retired man. He can live in Scotland, or Cornwall or where he likes. The policeman is therefore left in a position not very satisfactory for someone who with care and providence has tried to find a home in his declining years. He has lost his savings and his house as well.
What I am going to say now is not the sequel to the story, but it is the conclusion which the story might have The tenant is quite free to go to the owner of the house and say: "Look here. I am in. My rent is £13. You cannot possibly get me cut. Therefore the house is worth nothing. Who wants a house let at £13?" In such a case the owner might decide, as other people whose investments have been unfortunate might decide, to cut his loss. He might sell the house
662
to the tenant for, say, £200. But the tenant is perfectly free to get out. He may find someone who wants the house for his own use and sell it to him at the market price, which may be £1000 or more, every penny piece of which he can. retain and nothing goes to the original landlord. That shows the way in which this Act can fall with grievous hardship on owners of smaller property controlled by these Acts. These people are small owners in many cases, and often people of good will. I wish to emphasize that there is good will. It is wrong to think that the landlord is always a harsh man out to oppress his tenants. There exists in the country a real measure of good will between landlord and tenant, or it did exist until the position became what it is now. But even with the best intentions the landlord may not be financially able to repair his cottages. If he cannot do it, the result is, of course, that they fall into disrepair, and this at the very time that every habitable house that we have should be kept in a proper state to live in. The cost of repairs is such that the matter is often quite beyond the landlord's scope. And not only that but when he does do some repairs he may often have to use some inferior substitute material which means that the work, before very long, has to be done all over again.
That has covered two of the main causes of hardship under these Acts. I would like now, if I may, to show a way in which I think these Acts operate in a manner quite other than that which was intended. It is not only that they tend to allow these houses to fall into disrepair and become uninhabitable. Take the case of an owner of property controlled at an uneconomic rent which has been destroyed by enemy action. What inducement has he to rebuild? If the War Damage Commission accept liability in full he will have to wait many months before he receives payment. But his builder will expect to be paid by instalments as the work proceeds, so that the landlord will have to find many hundreds of pounds on which he will lose interest, and in the end he will find himself back in the same unsatisfactory position from which he started. There is, therefore, I say, no inducement for such a man to rebuild.
This gives me the opportunity to call attention, if your Lordships will allow me, to an error which, I think, crept in

663
when this matter was last before you. My noble friend Viscount Mersey was dealing with the point that these Acts do tend to restrict building. He was speaking of agricultural cottages, and he said that even if you got a licence and you had the material you would not build these cottages to let at 3s. a week. My noble friend Lord Snell corrected him by saying that in the case of a new house it can be let for what you like, and that becomes the standard rent. That may be so, but it was not so in the case with which my noble friend Viscount Mersey was dealing. He was dealing with an agricultural cottage built by an employer for one of his own people. In such a case the only rent that can be received is that allowed by the Agricultural Wages Board, which is usually 3s. a week. A friend of mine in another place built one before the war at a cost of £750. He is not likely to repeat the experiment for so small a return. Now that is what is happening at the very time when we are told by the noble Lord, Lord Beaverbrook, that 30,000 of these houses are wanted.
One other aspect of the matter with which I should like to deal is that of possession, which is covered by Sections 3 and 4 of the Act of 1933. The landlord can regain possession if the tenant defaults. But, in such a case, only too often when the landlord seeks an order the tenant pays something off the arrears or promises to do so, and the order is suspended. I have no wish to be harsh or hard towards people who have fallen into difficulties. To do so would be contrary to my nature and to my training. But, at the same time, one has to remember that all these landlords are not prosperous people, that the excuses for not paying the rent which are put forward may not always be genuine, and that there may be many other potential tenants, honest people, urgently needing these houses who cannot get possession. The landlord is also entitled to regain possession in case of overcrowding or sub-letting the whole of the property without his consent. In the former case, all too often owing to the shortage of houses the provisions of the Housing Acts are ignored. In the case of sub-letting it is only too easy for a tenant to retain technical possession of one room. That takes him outside the provisions of the Act and in such a case he can sublet. He can still more easily avoid
664
the Act by taking in lodgers, which is a profitable thing to do, and the consequent wear and tear and damage have to be made good by the landlord who, of course, receives no penny piece of reward in regard to the lodgers. Such licence, in fact, is allowed to the tenant, so much is he able to do that certain well-known words spring to my mind. They are from the lines of Virgil in which he describes the boat race. If I might be allowed to attempt a very lame translation, I would say: "To them all things are possible because they seem so." That appears to me to be only too often the position of the tenant.
There is just one last aspect of this question of possession on which I should like to touch. It is an important matter. It has been brought to my notice and I have been asked to call your Lordships' attention to it. Consider the case of those living in a vulnerable area—on the coast, for example—before the war, before the passing of the 1939 Act. In many instances such people left the coast and let their houses at a very low rent. They now find that that abnormally low rent has become the standard rent. They further find that if they wish to regain possession of their own property they cannot do so unless they prove greater hardship. In the assessment of hardship, when the balance is held as between landlord and tenant, the tenant is entitled to say: "Because I have got accommodation at a low rent I cannot get alternative accommodation at a similar cost." That means that the landlord has, by conceding such a low rent, defeated his own attempt to get back into his own house. That, surely cannot be just.
I wonder if your Lordships have considered this question in relation to men in the Services. Many of these men have young wives, they have asked those wives to live with their mothers or with their mothers-in-law, and they have let their own homes. Their little homes have been let, and after some years of service overseas these men are anxious to come back and to restart their home life in their own homes. Can they get possession of their houses? As the law stands, they have to prove greater hardship. If they have one child and the tenant has three, or if for any other reason the County Court cannot give possession, they fail to get pos-

665
session of their own houses. Now that has caused a very large measure of dissatisfaction amongst those of our men in the Services who are aware of the position. The matter has been raised in another place, but with the law as it stands no satisfactory answer can be given.
I fear that I have detained your Lordships at some length, certainly for a longer time than is customary with me. I would, however, say one other thing. I do not wish your Lordships to feel that in speaking as I have done I do not accept the principle of rent control. I do accept it; I consider it essential in times of national crisis. Nor would I have it thought that I am seeking to advance the interests of one class of the community against those of another. I am not. I am only hoping to see justice done in so far as that may be possible. I feel that we may leave this matter with safety to the Committee now dealing with it in the hope that, when their findings are known, His Majesty's Government will, without delay, introduce a measure which, while effecting this purpose, may yet be somewhat fairer in its provisions.
LORD NATHAN: My Lords, there was a final observation made by the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Maugham, to which I wish to subscribe—namely, that the complexity of our legislation is now such that every effort should be made to make that legislation intelligible to the ordinary citizen whose conduct and action are to be guided and affected by it. I believe that the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack could render no greater public service in the high office which he holds than by devoting his conspicuous talents and high intelligence to the task of seeing whether it is not possible to simplify legislation as it comes before Parliament and, by consolidation, to simplify it when it has already come before Parliament, and when a number of Acts relate to very much the same subject-matter. I believe that that would be a very real public service of conspicuous value, and the more so when the legislation affects the lives and conduct of the great masses of the people.
It is, as the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Maugham, pointed out, almost impossible for the citizen, whether he be landlord or tenant, to ascertain what his
666
rights are under the legislation relating to rent restriction. There are no fewer than nine principal Acts of Parliament relating to this subject passed since 1920, apart from some seven or eight other Acts of Parliament to which reference has to be made in particular circumstances in order that rights may be ascertained. These again are supplemented by a round dozen of Statutory Rules and Orders applicable to the same subject-matter. In the book which I have before me, this legislative matter is brought together under one cover. The Statutes themselves occupy thirty-eight pages of close print, and the Statutory Rules and Orders a further fifteen, so that there are fifty-three pages of closely-printed and highly-complicated matter which the citizen has to consider before he can ascertain his rights. It would be fruitless to suggest that it is sufficient that he should look at any one of these Statutes—or at any of the Statutory Rules and Orders, but I shall confine myself to the Statutes—because the later Statutes amend in various particulars the earlier Statutes. They not merely supplement them but amend them, and it is necessary, in order that rights may be ascertained, for the whole of the legislation to be considered by those who have to ascertain their position.
It is an impossible task, and I was delighted when I saw that the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Maugham, supported by the noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster, had put down a Motion calling for consolidation. I should like to see the principle of consolidation carried a great deal further. It is not rent restriction alone which is ripe for consolidation. I know that the noble and learned Lord Chancellor has seen to it that even in this last Session of Parliament there has been consolidation in important branches of the law, and I am hopeful that he may think that it would be a good thing to clear the ground for the post-war period by extending his activities so far as consolidation is concerned, and so far as the task does. not overwhelm the draftsmen, who in these days, I know, are already hard pressed.
Having made that appeal to the Lord Chancellor, an appeal which I hope may gain some response, I turn to the Motion and the Amendment before your Lordships' House in their particular terms. I have already said that my noble friends

667
support the principle of consolidation, and indeed they urge it upon the Government. For myself, I should have thought that it would perhaps be better to consolidate before amending, because it is far easier for the draftsmen to amend and for the Legislature to understand the amendments when new legislation comes before them if there is first a consolidating Statute bringing the whole of the existing law under one cover. I should have thought that that would be better, since consolidation is normally the basis upon which amendment is founded. However, the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Maugham, has accepted the Amendment of the noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster, and I shall certainly not quarrel with him on that.
I thought that the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Maugham, gave some indication that he was giving consideration to this matter over a field wider than that of rent restriction alone. I thought that he was, if he will forgive me for saying so, showing a tendency in his speech to raise the whole question of housing policy and of the relative advantages and disadvantages of municipal and private enterprise. I thought that he was inclined rather to undermine the whole purpose of the Rent Restrictions Acts, and I was glad to hear the noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster, state that for his part he supported the principle of these Statutes.
VISCOUNT MAUGHAM: My Lords, I should like to say that I quite agree with Lord Buckmaster that there must be rent restriction.
LORD NATHAN: I am very glad to have elicited that statement from the noble and learned Viscount. We must understand how these Rent Restrictions Acts came into being at all. They had their origin not in any question of profound principle or long-sighted policy, but rather as an immediate means of meeting an emergency when it arose in the middle of the last war, when there was so great a shortage of houses and a definite indication that certain persons were inclined to take advantage of their economic position to squeeze out the small man from his home or to squeeze an undue rent from the small man's pocket. Parliament intervened with a view to stabilizing the position, and the code of legislation comprised in the Acts of 1920 to 1939 follows upon
668
that legislation initiated for a temporary purpose and to meet an immediate need in the middle of the last war. It is noteworthy that legislation now on the Statute Book in this matter is of a temporary nature. The term of the various Statutes is limited. The latest, the Act of 1939, operates, speaking in general terms, up to the end of the present emergency.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Six months after.
LORD NATHAN: I beg pardon, six months after the end of the present emergency; but my purpose was to point out that the legislation was of a temporary nature. I think it would be worth while for the Committee of the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, to consider whether legislation should continue in the future on a temporary basis for a period of years at a time, or whether it should become a permanent part of our legislation. It is a matter upon which at this moment I express no definite opinion: I throw it out as a suggestion worth the consideration of the noble Viscount's Committee. It is of course the fact, as the noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster, has pointed out, that in the course of time these Statutes have in some particulars affected some landlords adversely, but the purpose of the legislation was to protect the tenant. It may very well be that, when one has regard to the fact that the pre-war standard has to be ascertained by reference to a date so far past, the time has come when one should reconsider the basis upon which the standard rent is to be ascertained. I will say no more on that point, except that we shall keep an open mind upon that aspect of the matter.
There is no doubt that a great deal of hardship has been involved in one way and another. The noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster, stated, to my surprise I must confess, that he had had no communications except from landlords. My experience has been a little different. I was for a long period until relatively recently in a position where my responsibilities involved my considering a vast number of cases brought to me by members of the Forces—all three Forces. Quite an appreciable proportion of the time and energy and skill of the organization for which I was responsible was concerned with the protection of the rights and interests of the members of the

669
Forces under the Rent Restrictions Acts. Let it not be thought that I am for a moment suggesting that landlords have no justification for complaint, and experience no difficulties. I only mean that I myself, in the capacity to which I referred, have merely met with the difficulties experienced by tenants. I think that many of the difficulties that have arisen have been due to no ill will or bad faith; they have been due to ignorance—ignorance arising out of the complexities of legislation which is so difficult to understand. I have every reason to believe from my own experience that notice to quit, for instance, is quite often given and accepted through ignorance of rights and obligations. Ignorance is often the reason for overcharge on the part of a landlord, and ignorance is equally the reason for failure to challenge the overcharge on the part of a tenant.
I wonder whether your Lordships fully appreciate the genuine difficulty there is, for instance, in ascertaining standard rent, especially the standard rent for the pre-1919 houses, where you have to apply a formula which needs reference to historical data often of a far distant period, forgotten and unrecorded. My noble friends feel that it is essential that facilities for ascertaining the standard rent should be greatly extended, and that it should be a statutory duty on local authorities to keep a register, open to landlords and to tenants, showing houses and their standard rents. That is thrown out as a suggestion to Lord Ridley's Committee. I see opposite me the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe. He has had great and wide experience with the Citizens' Advice Bureaux, which have rendered an invaluable service to the private citizen. In discharging my responsibilities to the organization to which I have referred I have found that the Citizens' Advice Bureaux throughout the country have experienced just the kind of difficulty with regard to these Statutes of which I have been speaking.
With regard to the 1939 controlled houses I would throw out the suggestion that it may be worth while to consider the creation of something in the nature of fair rent courts, where there should be a procedure, not of too rigid or legalistic a character, but, to use a phrase which I believe has become applicable in some instances nowadays, a procedure
670
with an atmosphere of regulated informality, where the little man, whether landlord or tenant, could have his rights as regards rent adjusted. The fair rent courts might have the responsibility of deciding on the rents of houses which do not come under the 1920 legislation and, in prescribing the rent, should have regard to the rents prevailing in the neighbourhood. Then there is the question of the enforcement of obligations for repair and the like. These are matters that might well be brought within the purview of something in the nature of a fair rent court. There again I throw out the suggestion of a fair rent court for the consideration of Viscount Ridley's Committee.
Another matter to which that Committee will doubtless direct its attention is that of sub-letting. There is also the matter that has become, I shall not say a crying scandal, but has given rise to great anxiety, and that is the rents at which furnished houses and furnished rooms are let. There again I throw out tentatively the suggestion for the consideration of the Committee, that the rent of furnished houses and furnished rooms should be what the controlled rent would be if they were unfurnished, together with a reasonable and fair percentage for the furniture comprised in the furnished letting. We must get away from the idea that one can, so to speak, contract out of the Acts by putting a few sticks of furniture into an unfurnished room and letting it on the footing that it is furnished. I have attempted to indicate a few of the matters that my noble friends think well worth consideration by Viscount Ridley's Committee. My noble friends look forward with interest to the report of that Committee, and will study its conclusions with the greatest care with a view to ensuring that, subject always to maintaining the principle of the Rent Restrictions Acts, legislation is put on the Statute Book which is as simple as may be to understand and as fair as may be as between landlord and tenant.
LORD JESSEL: My Lords, I am sure that your Lordships who have listened to the debate will be grateful to the noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster, and the noble Viscount, Lord Maugham, for their speeches. The greatest credit is due to Lord Buckmaster for having brought this question before the House, and I am sure

671
he will be thanked, not only by the members of the House when legislation is brought in, but by a great many members of the public who are concerned with this matter. The noble Viscount, Lord Maugham, gave us a magnificent review of the situation which I am not going to attempt to follow, but which shows the complexity of these Acts. It shows how extremely difficult these Acts are. I was very much interested, as all who listened must have been, in the suggestion he made that legislation by reference should as far as possible be abolished. It cannot be done away with altogether. I am sure that my old friend who used to sit here beside me—Viscount Bertie of Thame—would have rejoiced to hear Lord Maugham's speech. He was always so keen on that point and always bringing it to the attention—I am afraid without much effect—of those responsible for drawing up our Acts of Parliament.
Let us consider for one moment the two great factors in this debate. On the one hand, there is no doubt a genuine and natural grievance on the part of landlords who possess property that they are not getting a fair deal. We have heard of these instances, and I am perfectly sure that no one who has heard the cases can fail to sympathize with them. On the other hand, as the noble Lord, Lord Nathan, rightly said, there is the case of the tenants, the case of the Service men, and their grievances, which are equally great. The Minister of Health asked the local authorities of this country, in a circular very recently, to go into the question of the Rent Restrictions Acts. Most local authorities have set up committees to inquire into these cases, and what do they find? In very few cases can anything be done. The case of the furnished apartments was admirably put by the noble Lord, Lord Nathan. It is a perfect scandal the way that goes on. A man gets out of the Act, and charges what rent he likes. He snaps his fingers. The local authority is appealed to and they can give no redress whatever. Then there is that other great question of the standard rent. Local authorities have put up posters and published notices asking people with grievances to apply to them. The local authorities—especially the one of which I have the honour to be a member—have investigated the matter and
672
they find that, under certain conditions, they are absolutely powerless because of the complexity of the Acts and also owing to the fact that all sorts of very difficult questions arise which they cannot settle. It has reduced the whole thing to a farce. Many of these tenants have a grievance, and they suffer in silence; they go on bearing these hardships. The same thing applies to the owners of property, especially the small owners, many of whom, like the retired policeman who has been mentioned in this debate, have invested their hard-earned savings in the purchase of small properties.
I am very glad that the Amendment put down by my noble friend Lord Buckmaster has been accepted by my noble friend Lord Maugham. I hope we shall get something done by this Committee. I hope that the Government will consider sympathetically the question of legislation as soon as possible. I see in front of me my noble friend Lord Snell. I had to press him very hard before he could make up his mind about this Committee. No doubt it was a difficult matter in these busy times to get so admirable a Committee together. At all events, I wish more power to the Committee's elbow so that they may produce something tangible on which legislation can be founded. Though this is a small House compared with what we are accustomed to, this is a very important subject, and I hope the Government will realize that a very great number of people are affected by these rent restrictions. It is impossible, as has been stated by all the noble Lords who have spoken, to do away with the Rent Restrictions Acts. I heartily agree. As your Lordships know, some form of control had to be promulgated in the middle of the last war, and there is no doubt there is a necessity for it, but I sincerely hope that speedy measures will be taken to bring about a new state of affairs.
I am not going into the question of rent courts; that is a matter for the legal authorities. It is something that is rather new in this country, and it may be that many members of the legal profession will consider it is going to bring more grist to their mill. Everybody who has spoken, except myself, has been a member of these learned Commissions. The noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack will give us his able advice on the subject

673
of whether this is going to be a good thing for the layman or not. At all events I think a great deal is required to be done, and should be done quickly. I hope his Committee will set to work and bring up a report for Parliament to scrutinize .at as early a date as possible. I also hope the views expressed by the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Maugham, will receive the very earnest attention of the Government. We are all very grateful to Lord Maugham and to Lord Buckmaster for their excellent speeches on this very difficult subject.
EARL MANVERS: My Lords, as another humble layman I often think that the Rent Restrictions Acts must be amongst the most popular pieces of legislation which have ever been put on the Statute Book. Tenants always outnumber landlords and, in a system of democracy like that which is the pride of our country, it is clear that the electorate will always favour any legislation which looks like producing what Mr. Gladstone called "the greatest happiness of the greatest number." Such legislation when it has once been passed has small chance of being reversed. My surprise is that we do not have a new Rent Restriction Act every year, putting under control all the houses of whatever rentals that have been built up to that time and regardless of the insignificant minority to whom the houses may nominally belong. If we do not do so it can only be due to a dim realization of the fact that there is another man, a man whose case is too little considered, a man who perhaps is not yet on the register, but whose interests ought not to be entirely neglected on that account. I mean the homeless man, the man who wants a house and who has not yet got one.
The trouble about the Rent Restrictions Acts is that they act as an absolute deterrent to the building owner from investing his capital in working-class property. The building owner builds a cottage and until that cottage is let it is his absolute property, but once that cottage is let it practically passes into the possession of the tenant. Notice to quit can be ignored, and if the County Court Judge is appealed to he will talk, as he is obliged to talk, about alternative accommodation. Nothing short of an earthquake will shift that tenant so long as he goes on paying his rent. But perhaps it will be said:
674
"Why should we concern ourselves with the building owner? Why not have all houses built by public authority?" Well, my Lords, there are, I suppose, two reasons. In the first place it has been found in practice that public authorities cannot move fast enough. But there is another reason. If a house is built by a public authority that public authority has the invidious task of selecting the tenant, of choosing the fortunate man who shall be entitled to live in an excellent house of which a portion of the rent is paid by his fellow-countrymen. He must not be too poor a man, otherwise he may not be able to afford even the moderate rent that has been fixed; he must not be too rich a man, else people will ask what excuse he has for housing himself at the public expense. He must not have too large a family. The Psalmist has told us:
"As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth.
Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them."
Nevertheless, he cannot have a council house lest by overcrowding it he turn the place into a slum.
These are some of the difficulties which have surrounded the London County Council on which I have had the honour to serve for the last twenty-two years. A steel-framed house costing £400—or rather I should say a pair of steel-framed houses costing £800 have recently been brought to the notice of the council. These may, or may not, be successful. Sudh a £400 house if let at 10s. a week would bring in 6½ per cent. to the building owner who is, of course, responsible for repairs, but I should doubt if even that will tempt private enterprise unless restrictions on dealing in house property are removed by Parliament. Even if new houses were not controlled there is the psychological aspect of the matter to be considered. Once bitten twice shy. What Parliament has done once Parliament may do again. Working-class dwellings are widely regarded as doubtful collateral. Several Committees have sat on this question of rent restriction. There is the Onslow Committee, the Marley Committee, the Ridley Committee, and now I believe there is another Ridley Committee sitting at this time. These Committees have all of them shown a tendency to recommend decontrol by easy stages. The Government of the day have agreed that

675
decontrol should be progressive but the Government of the day have always been reluctant to make a start. It is pleaded in their defence that supply has not yet overtaken demand in the case of working-class houses. I should doubt if supply ever will overtake demand so long as we feel ourselves compelled to treat the building owner in this unfriendly manner.
The Motion and the Amendment on the Paper, I must admit, caused me some confusion, but now that I see that the two noble Lords, Viscount Maugham and Viscount Buckmaster; are in agreement and that they both want consolidation, I find it quite easy to agree with both of them. I offer them my respectful support because 1 believe that the homeless man is uppermost in their minds, as it certainly is in my own.
VISCOUNT COWDRAY: My Lords, I am very glad that the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Maugham, has agreed to the Amendment of my noble friend Lord Buckmaster. Although I most fully agree that the Rent Restrictions Acts need to be consolidated, I feel that it would be a pity if, once they were tackled, they were not also amended at the same time. 1 will not venture to follow Lord Maugham into the technical legal points that he has so ably explained, but as one of those unfortunate laymen who have to comply with these Acts, I would like to confirm the statement that they are quite incomprehensible to anyone not versed in the niceties of the law. Indeed, it is often hard to get a definite opinion upon them from those who are in the legal profession
But it is the way the Acts work out in practice to which I should like to draw your Lordships' attention. I propose to confine myself to rural cottages. If I may say so, my noble friend Lord Buckmaster has covered the ground so very thoroughly in his most eloquent speech that I do not propose to discuss any other angle of the subject. In the first place I must make it clear that I fully realize that control of rents could not be done away with without causing rents to rise to a fantastic height, which cannot be allowed. I think, however, that it needs pointing out that rents are perhaps the only commodity that has not risen since the beginning of the war, whereas the expense to the owners who try to maintain their property has risen fully in pro-
676
portion to the general increase in costs. I am sure that it must be the opinion of all your Lordships that the sooner the supply of houses becomes sufficient to allow the laws of supply and demand to operate equitably the better, but in this interregnum let us be sure that existing legislation does make it possible for landowners to build new cottages and to modernize their existing cottages. Certainly that is not the position at present, particularly in rural areas.
Indeed it is no exaggeration to say that the average country landowner, large or small, who seeks to keep his tenants even reasonably comfortable, would be much better off if he were to give away for nothing all cottages that he does not need for his own employees. That in most cases his sense of responsibility does not allow him to do, nor indeed to sell them for what they would fetch, is in my opinion very fortunate for both the economy and the amenities of the countryside. Certainly the owning of cottage property by responsible people is, on the average, a dead loss. The average maintenance expenditure on rural cottages—I am speaking now primarily of old cottages which from an amenity point of view it would be a great pity to allow to disappear from the countryside—is certainly not less than £8 per annum. I think it is probably more, but I want to be on the safe side. And that makes no allowance for improvements which are so badly needed in most cases. On the other hand the net rent, after deducting Income Tax and rates, if they are let at a rent inclusive of rates as they often are, is probably not more than £5 per annum on the average. If my two figures are correct, there is therefore a net loss of £3 per annum on every cottage. I think I have shown that existing legislation does not encourage any landowner even to maintain the standard of his cottages, let alone to improve them, but it would not be fair if I omitted to mention the Housing (Rural Workers) Act, which, before buildings costs rose to their present height, were a substantial help to those wishing to improve their cottages.
So far I have been speaking of cottages not required for employees, but the case in regard to agricultural labourers' cottages is little better but for another reason not connected with the Rent Restrictions Acts. The rent of a cottage occupied by an agricultural worker and owned or rented by his

677
employer is normally deducted from his wages, and where this is so the amount of rent chargeable to the worker is limited, not 'by the Rent Restrictions Acts but by the agricultural wages authority, to a rent usually of 3s. per week inclusive of rates, although in some of the more enlightened counties this figure of 3s. can be increased to even as much as 6s. per week according to the number of rooms and the modern conveniences available. The difference between the normal rent of 3s. and what otherwise would be the rent of the cottage can therefore only be regarded as a subsidy on the wages of agricultural workers.
Thus to those who say that the value of the minimum agricultural wage is only 65s., I reply that there is a substantial hidden perquisite in the fictitiously low rent the agricultural worker pays for his cottage. And to those who complain that building agricultural cottages is not economic, I reply that the rent they fail to get as a return on their investment must be regarded as an addition to the wages they pay. In this case it is not the Rent Restrictions Acts but the Agricultural Wages Board that they must blame. Your Lordships may think this differentiation a mere quibble, but the point I want to make is that, if these matters are to be finally straightened out, it is not only the Rent Restrictions Acts which require amendment, but the amount which can be deducted from the wage of an agricultural worker in respect of the cottage ho occupies. No one welcomes the greatly increased wages of agricultural workers more than I do, but I do feel most strongly that it is equally important to provide all rural workers with thoroughly modernized cottages and I hope some encouragement will be given to all those who have the welfare of the countryside at heart to do so.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Maugham, when he began his speech said he did not think the wording of the Motion was of very great importance when he put it down. I must say that I and those with whom I am associated were rather worried about the limiting of the question to consolidation. We have learnt by experience that when a Bill is introduced for consolidation it is impossible to move any Amendment. Therefore we welcome the Amendment
678
standing in the name of the noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster, and I am delighted to know that the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Maugham, accepts it. Consolidation is essential, but amendment is a matter of vital urgency. I am not going in detail into the matter, because it is being investigated by Viscount Ridley's Committee, and I am glad to say that the interests with which I am associated are giving evidence before that Committee.
There is, however, one point which I want to urge as being most important. The values and the costs and the general conditions on which the Rent Restrictions Acts were based and on which subsequent amending Acts—I think there are fourteen Acts—were based, have no relation at all to the values and costs and general conditions in existence at his moment. As a result of that we have got a very large number of injustices and anomalies at the present time which do make the question of amendment a really urgent matter. Before I sit down I would like to endorse the contention put forward by the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Maugham, that a real clean-up—these are not his words, they are mine—a complete clean-up of the existing muddle of the Rent Restrictions Acts and of the position generally would assist enormously in encouraging private enterprise to play its essential part in providing the necessary houses after the war. I would just like to say once again—I have said it very frequently in the past—that without private enterprise playing that part which it can play after the war, you will not get the houses that are so vitally necessary.
VISCOUNT BLEDISLOE: My Lords, I had not intended to participate in this debate, particularly as I think that the ground has been very amply covered by those who have already addressed the House, but the fact that the noble Lord opposite, Lord Nathan, referred to the Citizens' Advice Bureaux in this connexion has induced me to say a few words. As Chairman of the Regional Advisory Committee for the Southwestern Counties of the National Council of Social Service, which, after all, brought the Citizens' Advice Bureaux into existence and supervises their conduct, I can tell your Lordships that on no subject amongst the many that are

679
brought to the notice of the Bureaux are the inquiries greater in number or of greater gravity than those relating to these very difficult questions that arise out of the provisions of the Rent Restrictions Acts. I should like, in passing, to say that I do venture most earnestly to hope, in view of the fact that a very large number of Statutes are passed in our British Parliament—many of them legislation by reference and of great verbal complexity—affecting, very intimately, the comfort of, and meeting, or purporting to meet, the necessities of, the poorest classes in this country, that the Citizens' Advice Bureaux, which have been doing such admirable work in this connexion during the last two or three years, will be perpetuated after the war as permanent institutions, and that the voluntary element will be maintained. My noble friend Lord Nathan used the words "regulated informality." It is this element of informality which is of such enormous value when you are dealing with the great number of people not very well educated, certainly not learned in the law, who come to the Citizens' Advice Bureaux asking all sorts of questions affecting their rights—their rights in this democratic country under Statutes passed by the Imperial Parliament which are well nigh unintelligible to them and are only rendered intelligible when they can consult some legal authority. The Citizens' Advice Bureaux have been extraordinarily fortunate in having had the assistance of a considerable number of public-spirited professional lawyers who have been good enough to give their services free, in order to help to elucidate some of this complicated legislation.
For my own part, I most earnestly hope that legislation by reference will be curtailed, if not discontinued altogether, in this country. It may add to the emoluments of lawyers, but it certainly does not add to the simple execution of the Acts of Parliament in which it is to be found in such profusion to-day. Often in days gone by when attending annual meetings of the British Association, upon the Council of which I have served for many years, I protested against the use of scientific jargon in the addresses which were given in the various sections. I think that we have equal
680
cause for protest against legal jargon and the ingenious complexities that are framed by the very shrewd legal staffs of the various Government Departments.
In conclusion, I only wish to say that in my own neighbourhood there has been brought to my notice two quite serious cases of injustice, one to the working population and another to a landlord, arising out of the Rent Restrictions Acts. The first relates to a man who was employed as an estate mason, and who had some trifling accident—a fall off a ladder, I believe. As an estate worker he was given an excellent house. The result of his accident was that shortly after his employment he became incapable of carrying out the work for which he was engaged. He continued to occupy one of the estate cottages which was very badly wanted in connexion with employment on the nearest farm, and, as he became convalescent, he obtained very highly paid employment in one of the war-time Government factories in the district. How that man is to be got out of the cottage goodness only knows. The cottage, as I say, is very badly wanted for an employee on a farm on the estate. The other case is a somewhat curious one. A lady, the widow of an affluent farmer—incidentally I may say that at the sale which took place after his death it was ascertained that this lady had become entitled to assets worth many thousands of pounds—by virtue of the fact that she was born in the neighbourhood in which I live, made a most pathetic appeal for accommodation to the owner of a certain villa, which became vacant, as having been formerly acquainted with the neighbourhood. Now that villa had, for a matter of something like fifteen years, as a matter of charity and philanthropy, been allowed to be the home of the widow of an old and respected estate employee, and it had been let to that person at £16 a year. When this lady, the widow of the farmer, came along, she consented very readily to pay £30 a year for the villa, which I may say is considerably less than the economic value of similar houses in the neighbourhood—and it is a semi-industrial neighbourhood. When, however, she was asked to sign an agreement to carry out her own undertaking she said: "No, I have consulted a local solicitor, and he says that under the Rent Restrictions Acts I need not pay

681
more than £16, which is what the former occupant of this villa paid." The owner replied:" Very well; if you are going to claim your rights in that way, I am going to publish in the local Press the absolute lack of honesty which you have displayed in this transaction." She then signed the agreement. I mention that as an example of the baleful results which occur from the existence of this extraordinary, unfortunate, and ill-timed legislation.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I think that the debate is reaching its conclusion, and I must say a few words on behalf of the Government before it comes to an end. It has become obvious in the course of this important and interesting discussion that what has moved most of your Lordships is the strong feeling that the law on the subject of rent restriction needs amendment, and various instances have been given which are felt to support that view. If, indeed, my noble and learned friend Lord Maugham had persisted in the language of his Motion, and had called for a Consolidation Act to be passed pending a reconsideration of the matter, I should have resisted that proposal altogether, very much for the reasons just mentioned by Lord Chesham.
In the first place, as we have asked my noble friend Lord Ridley and a very well-qualified Committee urgently to examine this very subject and report what should be done, it would, to my mind, be a very odd moment to choose to consolidate; because, although I agree with much of the speech of Lord Nathan, 1 am afraid I do not agree that the rule is to consolidate first and amend afterwards. The rule is exactly the other way about. There are many instances in which an Act of Parliament is passed, admittedly with many cross-references in it, in order to tidy up and make exactly right the law on a subject, and then, immediately afterwards, there is carried a Consolidation Act, already prepared, which will include all these final Amendments. To give an instance, that was done in the case of the Government of India Act, 1935, when a series of Amendments of a very complex and elaborate character was first carried, and that was immediately followed by a Consolidation Act which picked up the whole business and put it in a single Act of Parliament.
682
In fact I do not think that the Statutes now on the Statute Book about rent restriction lend themselves very easily to the process of consolidation. Consolidation is the right process where you have a consistent body of law which you wish to express in a single document, and it has been done in many cases, but these different Acts about rent restriction are of rather a different character, and no doubt that is the reason why they have been found in some respects crabbed and difficult to follow. Legislation on rent restriction is primarily needed to meet special conditions and difficulties caused by or arising out of war, and, of course, those conditions tend to vary from time to time. That is the real history of this legislation.
It is better—though very briefly, at this late hour—to begin at the beginning. The first Act was passed quite early in the last war. It was an Act of 1915, and it was carried because it was found, as some of your Lordships who were then with me in the House of Commons will remember, that under the conditions of war, with no building going on, with a shortage of houses and with a good deal of transfer of population, it was absolutely necessary to do something to secure that the smaller tenants should not improperly suffer. The original Act was in fact limited to houses in London with a rateable value of £35 a year, in Scotland of £30 a year, and elsewhere of £26. That was the Act which prevailed during the last war. Then, as the war was coming to an end, there was appointed a Committee, the Hunter Committee, presided over by Lord Hunter, a Scottish Judge, to examine the operation of this system and to recommend what should be done. In consequence of the Report of that Committee it was decided that the abnormal conditions created by the war were by no means over, and as a matter of fact the Act of 1919 doubled the limit of rateable value which formed the ceiling for the application of these restrictions.
There was yet another Committee, which has not been mentioned in this House to-day, presided over by 'no less a person than the Marquess of Salisbury, the Salisbury Committee of 1919. Governments have always thought, "We shall come to the end of this, and we want impartial advice as to how we can get to the end of it and when." The result of the Report of the Salisbury Committee

683
was further legislation, which again raised the ceiling, to the figures quoted by my noble and learned friend Lord Maugham, of £105 in the case of London and so on. Even so, the hope and belief was that this was a temporary situation which would cure itself, and therefore the Salisbury Committee recommended that the Act should continue for three years and then there should be an endeavour to get free from these restrictions. It was in those circumstances that the Act of 1920 was passed. The result was that in 1923, three years later, although something was done in the direction of reversing the process, it was by no means brought to an end. The Act of 1923 freed houses as they came back into the possession of the landlords. The tendency was going the other way as the difficulties lessened. In 1933 there was another Act, which reduced still further the rateable value to which this restricted law applied, and then came the Acts of 1938 and 1939.
I make these observations not to repeat what was so well put by my noble and learned friend Lord Maugham, but to point out that really the history of these Acts is a history of changes made to suit changing conditions. When those conditions, owing to war, were particularly severe, the provisions of the Acts were more exacting, but efforts were made afterwards to 'reduce their severity, to lower the limits of rateable value to which they applied, and to give further rights to the landlord as the opportunity of getting back to an economic balance presented itself. That is the true history of these Acts. Anyone who is familiar in practice with the business of consolidation will say that not very much can be done by consolidating Acts of that character. It is true that you would put them into one Act of Parliament, but to consolidate them would merely be to write down over again those provisions which differ according to different dates and circumstances. As the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Maugham, knows very well—I apologize to him for mentioning the obvious—"consolidation" has a perfectly definite meaning. A Consolidation Act is, in its nature, an Act which does not amend the law at all, and that is the reason why, in our practice, as soon as we have carried a Consolidation Bill on Second Reading we do not deal with it in
684
Committee of this House but send it to a Joint Committee of both Houses.
I am not surprised, therefore, that my noble and learned friend, always anxious to get to the real point and expound it, accepted the Amendment of Lord Buckmaster; and if I may, in a few sentences, protect the position of the Government, as I ought to do, I propose to accept it too. I think that the question which should be put to the House is:
"To move to resolve, That in view of the great complexity of legislation in relation to-rent restriction it is desirable to pass an amending and consolidating Act without delay when the findings of the Inter-Departmental Committee on Rent Control are known."
Speaking for the Government I am perfectly ready to accept that, it being understood—this is of course obvious enough—that I am not pledging myself or the Government to accept the recommendations of a Committee which has not yet reported. I do not know what it will recommend. It may be it will recommend some system of rent courts, which was mentioned by one of your Lordships just now; it may be that it will propose to abolish this system altogether, it may propose to continue it with alterations—we none of us have the least idea. I naturally do not wish on this occasion myself to offer any opinion on any of these subjects. I only say that we, like the rest of the House, are anxiously awaiting the Report of this Committee, which is now taking evidence. We shall certainly without delay pay the closest attention to what the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, and his colleagues say, and we shall hope, as this Resolution in its amended form suggests, to be able to introduce legislation without undue delay to deal with this subject in a comprehensive fashion.
I think that is all I need say on this particular aspect of rent restrictions, but another topic—as so often happens—and a very interesting one, has been raised, and several of the noble Lords who have taken part in the debate have dwelt upon it. My noble and learned friend began it. He started the chase of that always stout old fox the obscurity of Acts of Parliament, and the undesirability of obscurity, and the great advantage of having them in nice plain English. I sympathize entirely with his view, and both he and I in times past have done our very best to secure that object. But I always feel when Parliament discusses

685
this subject with so much fervour that in a sense are we not denouncing ourselves? Vous I'avez voulu, Georges Dandin! I will not commit the vulgar error of supposing that in that exclamation Molière wrote "tu." After all, Acts of Parliament are passed by Parliament; indeed if we descend to particulars, the Ministers who may be supposed to have a special responsibility for the form of Acts of Parliament are Lord Chancellors and Law Officers; and when I heard about the Act of 1939 as being one which was denounced as hasty and ill-conceived I felt quite anxious for the reputation of the person who held my office at the time when that Act was drawn and when the previous Act was passed.
The truth is that if you have legislation dealing with a complicated subject, it is likely to take a rather complicated form. There are some people who cannot look up a cross-country journey in Bradshaw, but there are means of tracing it through in the book and it is the journey that is complicated. But although I wish to make Acts of Parliament as plain as possible, I think myself that some of this criticism of draftsmen and of lawyers is just a shade overdone. My noble friend Lord Bledisloe, if he will forgive me referring to it—he told us in his speech that he came here never intending to make a speech at all, so he was speaking quite impromptu—referred to this subject. But is it really quite necessary to talk about legislation by reference as commendable in some eyes because it "adds to the emoluments of lawyers"? It is even suggested that Acts of Parliament are drawn, influenced by the "ingenious complexities of lawyers, framed by shrewd staffs in the Departments." Well, the Departments cannot speak for themselves, so I propose to say a few words in their defence.
VISCOUNT BLEDISLOE: What I wanted to say is that at least the Minister who is the head of that Department and who submits those Bills in Parliament may be taken to have endorsed the language of the Bill that he submits to the House, and I would only add further that what I was indicating was that the complexities in Acts of Parliament necessitate the employment of lawyers, whereas simpler language would probably enable the poorer layman to interpret the Acts without the necessity of paying a legal fee.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: At any rate my noble friend—and he is in every sense my noble friend—will appreciate that it really is not the fact that Acts of Parliament presented to a modern House of Lords or House of Commons are ingeniously devised so as to add to the emoluments of lawyers or in order to gratify the ideas of shrewd legal staffs. Those who have been in office and who have taken part in recent legislation will know—I am sure it was so when the noble Viscount was in office—that the object of Ministers is to get the thing stated plainly. I am very willing at any time to accept a concrete criticism of obscurity, but I really think it is a mistake to treat the whole thing as a piece of wilful, elaborate confusion, sometimes described as a muddle, and sometimes described as quite incomprehensible.
There are some other considerations worthy of attention, and this is an important subject in which I take the greatest interest. It is to be remembered that up to the present Parliament has insisted on passing legislation on the principle of verbal inspiration. Every single word that is written down in any clause must pass the scrutiny of Parliament, not as a matter of substance but as a matter of detailed language, and anybody may move in page 6, line 10, after so and so to leave out "and" and to insert "but" without the slightest regard as to whether the change is going to make the matter more obscure. That is one thing that makes this drafting very difficult. Strong admiration is expressed in some quarters for the method obtaining in Canada whereby the Revised Statutes of Canada come up from time to time, but the question is how that is done. At suitable intervals the Parliament of Canada passes a law which authorizes the Governor-General to appoint a Commission of distinguished persons—I am much afraid there are some lawyers among them—who are told to take the Statute Book and, without altering it, to put the whole existing Statute Book in compendious form as the revised Statutes bearing the particular years' date, and they do so in many volumes—I have one in my hand. But how are the contents of that volume made law? They are not made law by passing every one of these sections through the Parliament of Canada. They are made law because the Parliament of Canada

687
itself has legislated, and the Governor-General when he is satisfied that the whole collection represents the existing law, after a suitable interval declares it to be law. Of course, it is all done under the authority of the Parliament of Canada, but that is a very different thing from passing every single section of the Revision through Parliament.
The real question on the subject of the form of Parliamentary legislation is very much more whether our methods of legislation in these respects are suitable to modern conditions than the question as to whether or not some ingenious person behind closed doors has expressed the particular idea with needless complexity. I am prepared to admit, for example, that if one had a system like that of the continental Rapporteurs, so that a small Committee of both Houses at the end of the process of passing an Act of Parliament put in front of it an exposition explaining what Parliament really meant, it is conceivable that that might be of great assistance if it were lawful; but as long as you have to do these things in this very minute way you can see at once how difficult it is to satisfy the natural desire of everybody to get an Act of Parliament so clearly expressed that one need not look up any other Act of Parliament at all.
Therefore, without forming any final view, and repeating that I am myself immensely interested in the effort to get the Statute Book in the most intelligible and simple form, I think the matter has got to be looked at from a rather wider point of view than that of imagining that a number of Statutes have been needlessly complicated by putting in quite unnecessary references to something else. I am quite sure that the Government draftsmen, to whom we are all most deeply indebted, and who work as hard as any set of people in this country, are not engaged in trying
688
to make the Statute Book more cryptic and difficult to understand, but do honestly try to state the thing in proper, clear, accurate terms. That it should be in legal terms means that, if the law has to be applied, it has to be applied as Parliament intended. These are the considerations that appeal to me, and your Lordships will excuse me if I make these observations with all possible good feeling. It would be a pity if, on each occasion, we are led to think it is a mere unnecessary complication in the drafting of Statutes that explains all our troubles.
That is all I wish to say. I am very happy to accept the proposal made by the noble and learned Viscount, which was supported by his interesting speech, and I am glad that he and my noble friend Lord Buckmaster have joined forces. We are most happy to accept the Motion, and the Government will look forward, like the rest of the House, to the Report of the Committee presided over by Lord Ridley in the hope that it will lead to prompt and united action.
VISCOUNT MAUGHAM: My Lords, the Motion having been accepted in the amended form, it does not seem necessary for me to make any observations on what the Lord Chancellor said, except one. It should not be left as if there were no answer to his observation that if there is an obscurity in an Act of Parliament we ourselves are very largely to blame. The whole point of my observation is this. This House does not get a fair chance of considering the meaning of half the Bills that are brought before it. I am so absolutely convinced that that is so that I cannot accept what my noble friend on the Woolsack has said with regard to the matter, and I have a very strong feeling that an amendment will be necessary before very long.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House adjourned.